I don’t understand why improper use of something requires stricter regulations and not increased education and information. Everything used has unintended uses. Lots of people die, and cause the death of others, using their cars improperly, often under the influence, does that mean every car should be forced to have a breathalyzer installed? No, instead we increase education and police enforcement of existing laws. I don’t understand why the same doesn’t apply for guns. If you think there is a problem with the improper use of guns why not advocate for increased education and increased enforcement of the laws on the books. Many of the gun laws that already exist, if properly enforced, may have prevented these incredibly sad events.
From talking to my friends, all pro-gun control to a person, they don’t seem to really care about proper uses of guns, they just don’t like guns and are frankly scared of them.
Being unfamiliar with guns, they are unaware of their positive uses or for their importance in rural culture. You see that with the President as well. Obama, like many in politics simply doesn’t understand that culture, and dismisses it out of hand.
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”
Obama argues that guns are a reactionary response to economic pressure, dismissing their practical and cultural utility. It’s patronizing, and displays a shallow understanding of rural or conservative America. It’s not that they have different values, that their beliefs are the rational product of their upbringing, it’s that they are crazed - emotional - and wrong.
And Obama wonders why Republicans reflexively oppose his policies? Beyond simple party politics and a desire to one up him, he’s dealing with a opposition party that does not share his values.
Exactly. They all grew up and have lived in large urban areas. Most haven’t seen a gun outside of movies, museums, and on the hips of cops. Even fewer have handled one. When they have been exposed to civilian gun use it is often crime reports.
For most urban dwellers, guns are a murder weapons and have no other use. If you grow up with that sort of background then banning guns makes quite a bit of sense, if you ignore the constitutional issues at least.
Is actually lower than the rate of accidental falling deaths. Maybe we should ban ladders or multi-storey buildings? Or gravity. Yes! We should definitely ban gravity.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/acc-inj.htm
Flowers
2852
Good pull. Accidental poisoning is 2x the homicide rate.
This is what I’ve seen as the biggest divide on the gun debate. I spent a fair bit of time in South Dakota on my grandparents farm and went to school in a small town in Wisconsin, but otherwise I’ve had a very urban background. Even those relatively brief exposures to guns has given me a much more context on the issue than most of my fellow urbanites seem to posses (at least among my group of twenty something East Coast/Midwest urbanites). To them a gun isn’t something you hunt with, it’s something someone robs you with or murders you with. Of course the urban areas they have lived in have some of the strictest gun control laws in the U.S. so they aren’t even exposed to guns as a means of self defense, it is a purely offensive weapon to them.
KevinC
2854
I know what you mean. I grew up (and currently live) in Utah and my father is a gun-totin’, NRA card-carryin’ gun lover. I was brought up with guns (stored securely) in the house, was taught the proper respect for them, and saw them as both a tool and a sport. When I was 19 I moved to Canada and lived in Ottawa for a while, spent a lot of time in Toronto. Needless to say the culture there was vastly different and it lead to a lot of really interesting conversations. I can definitely see things from both angles, there’s just such a huge divide in perspective on the issue that it seems both sides mostly are talking past each other rather than to each other. I don’t know how to fix that. Hell, I don’t even know exactly where I stand on the gun control issue. I don’t own any myself but I can understand why people, especially in rural areas, want them. At the same time I can completely understand the other point of view where they’re a tool for murder and should be controlled.
To me both groups just don’t interact with each other so they fall back to what they do know, stereotypes. When I tell my friends I’m gong to South Dakota (or SoDak) they look at me like I’m heading out to a separate world full of poverty, stupidity, and poor dental hygiene. There is no touchstone for them to relate to, I’m about the most rural guy they know. Same things are true of my relatives back in SoDak. It’s this mutual ignorance that I think fuels the vitriol in the gun control debate and, not to derail anything, most other social issues.
Cars are used for transport. It’s not the same.
And yes, of course lethal weapons are something to be scared of! If you don’t properly respect them…
IL - That is indeed what most guns are in the hands of civilians. It’s not like we’re only talking about bolt-action hunting rifles!
That’s an assumption that isn’t true where I live, and the world I grew up in.
Cars are used for transport. It’s not the same.
And guns can be a way to feed yourself, to protect yourself from the wild. They can be a form of sport.
…Bolt-action rifles, yes.
Maybe shotguns.
Automatic weapons? Heavy weapons? Explosives?
What percentage of the approximately 200-300 million guns in the US are actually used with regularity for either hunting, non-human self-defense, or sport? I suspect the percentage is substantially lower than the utiliatarian use of cars. “Can be” isn’t a very useful analysis.
Both are important hunting tools, and both are popular on the sporting gun circuit.
Automatic weapons? Heavy weapons?
Automatic weapons (machine guns) are governed by the Firearm Act of 1934 and a number of subsequent acts. For all effective purposes they’re forbidden.
Explosives?
You can’t buy C4 on a shelf, nor should you. Homemade bombs are problematic, you can’t prevent someone from building a fertilizer bomb for example. The ingredients are readily available and so is the know-how. That said, fertilizer bombs actually have some use. Farmers use them to remove stumps and clear fields.
In my world, that’s all we use them for.
I suspect the percentage is substantially lower than the utiliatarian use of cars. “Can be” isn’t a very useful analysis.
Only a small percentage of firearms are used in crimes every year.
Let’s explore that.
There are approximately 270 million guns in the civilian market. In 2011 for example there were 467,321 incidents of gun crime. That is, where a gun was used to commit or aid in a crime. Let’s assume that a new gun was used in every incident (an improbable assumption). That would mean .17% of guns are used in crimes. If you assume that individual guns are being used multiple times, then that number drops precipitously. If they’re used on average in two crimes, the figure is .07%. If it’s three crimes the figure drops to .05%. This is a gross simplification but I think the point stands, more than 99.83% of guns were used legally in 2011.
My parents-in-law live in South Dakota, and I’ve been there plenty of times. It’s a perfectly ordinary place in a lot of ways, except one - South Dakota is extremely repressive on the abortion issue. While they haven’t outright banned it, it’s very difficult to get one, particularly if you’re poor. There’s just one (1) clinic in the entire state, and it’s manned by doctors from out of state, because the resident doctors don’t feel safe working there. Since it’s in Sioux Falls near the eastern border, it’s a long, long trip from anywhere else like Rapid City. And now it’s worse, because you have to visit the clinic, and then wait 3 business days after the initial contact before you can have the abortion. Which is brutal if you’re not local and below the poverty line.
There’s some stupidity all right, and it’s in the SD legislature and the Governor’s mansion.
Change comes slowly in these sorts of places, you have to be patient. Confronting them or trying to impose your views won’t help. They’ll just dig in further.
Right, which is why the Civil Rights movement was such a waste of time. Nothing accomplished! The South still has segregation and “whites only” drinking fountains.
I don’t believe SD is stupid at all. I was more pointing out my friends own prejudice. I can understand SD’s stand on abortion even if I don’t agree with them. Luckily it is extremely easy to immigrate out of the sate if you don’t agree with it. But it seems like we are getting off the topic of gun control here.
Wouldn’t you say everything is scary if you don’t properly respect or have knowledge of it? Cars are used for transportation and guns are used for hunting and self defense. Both can be used to murder and maim when used outside of their intended purposes. The point I’m trying to make is that all sorts of things that are common place can, and are, used improperly with negative repercussions to the user and others. Guns happen to be singled out in the constitution for protection from government intrusion. Yet it is only guns that require the sort of government involvement advocated by those in support of gun control.
If you’re not poor. The “vote with your feet” thinking assumes that you have the money to leave, and can find a job easily in another state. It’s hard to have perspective on that if you’re not struggling by with a minimum wage job.
