Guns
An article in The Economist - The gun control that works: no guns (h/t Lee). It cites differences between the UK and US on gun laws, numbers of gun-related deaths, and attitudes towards bearing firearms.
Sadly, in the US, with the common beliefs in a Revolutionary war won by guerrillas (not), in an old west made safe with unrestricted gun toting (not), in guns as the great equalizers (God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal), it's hard to get most people to even *want* to discuss gun control.
Sadly, in the US, with the common beliefs in a Revolutionary war won by guerrillas (not), in an old west made safe with unrestricted gun toting (not), in guns as the great equalizers (God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal), it's hard to get most people to even *want* to discuss gun control.
posted by crystal | 8:59 PM
4 Comments:
Britain is a somewhat medium sized island and thus does not have leaky borders as the US does. We couldn't keep out 15 million illegal Mexican aliens but somehow we'll keep out pistols coming from Taurus guns in Brazil. Cocaine is illegal here in the US and is available in every population center because we are not a small island checking each ship that enters. Taurus pistols in Brazil with thrive if the US outlaws guns. Outlaw guns in the US and continue to neglect young men who are troubled as to mental health and those men will get the guns anyway just as millions get illegal
cocaine each day of the year...via the Latin American
pipeline. You'll notice the talking heads on tv today are not mentioning Timothy McVeigh who killed 168 people with a bomb made from fertilizer etc. The school shootings have guns as one element amongst perhaps ten elements yet tv will pretend for a week that guns are the entire story. Psychiatric care in the US is expensive and you cannot force a young male to attend therapy...unless he does something bad first. Start there because if you make all guns vanish tomorrow, such men will imitate McVeigh and make a bomb because they will still be suicidal. All school shooters are suicidal....the murders are made easy for them in their mind because they know they are leaving this life anyway...by their gun or by swat teams. The US unlike Europe has an ex slave population which Europe in part caused but escaped the aftereffects ( one part of our murder rate). The US has multiple ethnic groups... another part of our murder rate ( Europe avoids this somewhat....hence Sitzerland has guns in almost every
home but low murder rates). The US attracts aggressive, competitive families from all over the world...Europe and Canada attract less aggressive people....another part of the problem....the mom in the Newtown case was a gun enthusiast. Therefore....make guns vanish and you still have all these pieces of the puzzle still in place just as they were last week.
I think you're right that gun control is just a part of the equation. Maybe it's the easier part to address and that's why people want to start there? When I look at all the factors, the problem seems too complex to solve.
No one will say it but each entrance should have steel doors with a bullet proof small window...locked. But then...will such young men simply wait til school is dismissed? Or will they vent at McDonald's instead or Chucky Cheeze during a birthday?
We'd be better off insisting that all alienated young males be attending a school counselor weekly. Period.
I guess that's the thing - trying to both preserve everyone's freedom and still catch problem situations before they explode is hard.
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