To those outside the United States it is simply common sense that US handgun laws facilitate handgun crime (handguns including semi-automatics!). It is so obvious to everyone else that the logic behind the opposite view is regarded with amazed fascination. Why, if handgun ownership is such a good thing are shootings elsewhere in the world, aside from political trouble-spots – Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan etc – a miniscule proportion of crime statistics?
Leave aside the much-quoted Constitution. It is quite irrelevant. Other bits of it have been changed and added to in the past. Sensible people change their constitutional arrangements to suit their times; they don’t alter their times to suit an 18th century constitution. In any case, the meaning of the wording in this case is debatable and will continue to be debated, regardless of the NRA.
So can anyone explain how it is common sense to advocate what a Virginia gun group is advocating – that everyone on a campus should carry a gun in case there is a deranged nutter around? This is simply crazy.
I know what I am talking about. When I was in the army, a soldier close to me, while cleaning his weapon, pulled the trigger of his rifle with six rounds still in the magazine. The first bullet whistled past my head and lodged itself by my head in the door frame. I was a trained subaltern. I had done hours of weapon training and target practice. But I was utterly stunned. Had I been inclined to fire at the (simply incompetent) squaddie, I was shaking so badly I would certainly have missed, even though he was a yard away. Had he been deliberate and malign, he would certainly have finished me off. The incident was resolved when the sergeant major ran into the room and arrested the soldier concerned. The latter had 6 months in military jail. Meanwhile, I was quite shaken and useless. Hollywood would have you believe that real men would have coolly and calmly shot back. Are you joking? Don’t believe too many movies! Let’s cut out the macho swaggering , can we?
Most other countries hunt, but they don’t hunt with handguns or semi-automatics. I believe the current culture of guns owes its success to clever marketing by the armaments industry, abetted of course by the NRA. A cry in the wilderness, of course, but why cannot hunters console themselves with hunting guns? No one is trying to deprive them of those.
The cry goes up, “But we have to defend ourselves against an over-mighty government.” Well, you have one, you members of illegal militias, and what have you recently done to resist it? Where are your armed protests against false arrest, secret trials, water-boarding, the abandonment of habeas corpus, and spying on innocent Americans? This business of resisting over-powerful government is, of course, baloney. Is that how you spell it?
That’s what it is.
Sure enough the crowd of Cheap Macho Swagger chimed in on two right-wing sites. Posters chastised the survivors for diving under their desks instead of jumping the gunman. I won’t link to the sites but the smug comments are posted at the National Review Online and Human Events.
As you say, those of us who do not live in the USA cannot understand your gun laws. I live the other side of the pond but am an enthusastic visitor to your shores. I understand that in a rural (?) economy of 300 years ago when you were endeavouring to survive amid wolves and bears, you had a right to ‘bear arms’. (My information about this comes from the cowboy films I have seen which tell the story of the early settlers!!)
Farmers here are allowed to own guns under very strict laws. But as Robert says it is time to move on with the times.
HOWEVER, isn’t it all due to the very powerful gun lobby who keep various presidents in power????
Yes, and the money spent by the gun manufacturers, who contribute to the lobbying effort. Nothing will be done about all this. The lives of the 3000 (YES – THREE THOUSAND) children killed accidentally each year by gunfire at home, and the lives of the victims of deranged manaiacs are of little account next to the political and financial needs of the hard men who control the arms industry. The no doubt well-meaning people who want less regulation of all aspects of American life regrettably don’t understand that they are siding with some very disagreeeable people. But there is little use in debating – – no one is going to listen. It is a non-issue, believe it or not! The lastest lame excuse for doing nothing is that there are just too many guns out there now. Think about that.