Bowling for Columbine!

I've cross-posted this topic to Film.

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dlowan wrote:

And just how would you explain that, Wilso?

US folk be just born bad? Something in the water? God's curse?

Unless you take the ridiculous position that Americans are just naturally killers, there has to be an explanation for the cultural differences.

Hmmm - we do incarcerate at a lesser rate Craven - so far - we are actually increasing the rates - except for the state WA - which went mad a few years ago with imprisoning young people....and they are reversing it.

Used to what? Being governed? Er, yes.....
But - our governments have tended to be "bigger" - that is, tending more towards the socialist end, by US standards.

Oughta engender lots of hate....

I've been thinking about this. No, I don't believe that Americans are just born naturally as killers, but I do believe that they are raised in such a culture of violence, that by the time they reach adulthood, there are more of them are likely to be more blase about the taking of a life.

I saw a documentary last week about young offenders in the US, whether they should be tried as adults etc. They were talking to one young man who was going to be tried as an adult (for a violent crime), and was facing a large proportion of his life in prison. When asked if he would do the same again his answer was something along the lines of "If someone were to disrespect my woman, or my mother then yes, I would do the same again". His one and only reaction to any problem, was violence, up to and including the taking of a life. The society he was raised in, has to have had some influence on the way he thinks.

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dlowan wrote:

So it does here, Craven - we were founded by convicts and political exiles and such! But we do not have the same level of fear as Americans.

Australia didn't gain it's independence through violent revolution and then have to live with it's former mother nation as a neighbor. After our revolution the Brits remained in heavily fortified camps across the border in Canada.

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dlowan wrote:

I think Monger is right - that Moore's conclusions are overly simplistic -(and his factual errors are well documented) - but I did find it fascinating that Canadians own lots of guns (which I had always simply thought was the basic explanation for the USA's high homicide rate - easy availability of lethal weapons) and yet do not kill each other at nearly the same rate.

I think this is attributable to population density more than anything else. If you compare murders in the Toronto metro area of 4.5 million people hovering right around 60/year for the last few years, to those of the Boston Metro area of 4.3 million people hovering right around 40/year for the last 3 years, the numbers aren't all that different. The ratio of deaths from firearms compared to other weapons is also very close (just over half in both cases).

The US just has more high density areas than Canada does. The US's population is at 23.1 people/sq. km. Canada has 3.1 people/sq km. If you look at deaths related to firearms outside of the heavily populated areas the numbers start to match up pretty well between the two countries. Murders in the rural areas of both countries remain rare.

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Well, well, that is interesting,Fishin'. I need to have a look at Sydney's - which is not dissimilar in terms of density.

I can tell you right now that london and Tokyo - just as a starter - are gonna be way lower. And I bet Sydney is, too.

So - we gonna disarm Canadians and USA folk in cities? (Sorry, Fishin' - couldn't resist it...)

Wilso - young thugs are young thugs - I doubt an Oz violent young man would sound way different. Not sure he'd be giving a stuff about his mum, or his girlfriend, though. Hmmm - maybe not be so blase about actually killing, though.

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dlowan wrote:

Well, well, that is interesting,Fishin'. I need to have a look at Sydney's - which is not dissimilar in terms of density.

I can tell you right now that london and Tokyo - just as a starter - are gonna be way lower. And I bet Sydney is, too.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that they were lower at all. Most of the European nations have much higher population densities than either the US or Canada yet they manage to survive without killing each other.

From my own experience in Europe though they tend to maintain a more consistant density across teh landmass than we do here in North America. They certianly have large urban cities but they don't have "the sticks" as we do (and you do in Aussie-land!)

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Fishin', what about Shanghai or Calcutta?
(Can't speak much of Mexico City, 'cause we have a crime rate similar to New York's, although much fewer random mass killers than in the US).

As for the documentary, I find it is, indeed, like a machine gun: shooting hypothesis to see what fits your mind.
The one that fits my mind is the Fear Factor. I see no relationship between actual security for the average American and his/her level of paranoia. That HAS to be induced.

BTW, my position about gun ownership is similar to that of a pro-choice Catholic about abortion. I'd rather see a gun-less world, but the true alternative is whether we have regulated gun-owners or unregulated, and illegal gun-owners. The latter condition is much more dangerous.

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fbaezer wrote:

Fishin', what about Shanghai or Calcutta?
(Can't speak much of Mexico City, 'cause we have a crime rate similar to New York's, although much fewer random mass killers than in the US).

I'm not famaliar with crime rates or the firearms control policies in either place so I can't really comment on either.

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The one that fits my mind is the Fear Factor. I see no relationship between actual security for the average American and his/her level of paranoia. That HAS to be induced.

Perhaps. But I think the paranoia is induced on all sides of the equation.

But day in and day out I doubt the average American thinks much of anything about firearms or personal protection issues at all. I do carry one (because of my former profession) most days and most of the people I know don't ever know I'm carrying one. Many of them are adamently anti-gun and on more than a few occassions they were distrurbed to be in certian parts of the city late at night and were quite happy to find out that I was armed. The general impression I get with most of them is that they fear "those people" having guns, but not people they actually know.

The problem of course, with regulating firearms based on "those people" is no one can tell you who "those people" are.

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BTW, my position about gun ownership is similar to that of a pro-choice Catholic about abortion. I'd rather see a gun-less world, but the true alternative is whether we have regulated gun-owners or unregulated, and illegal gun-owners. The latter condition is much more dangerous.

I think there is a general misconception around the world in regards to firearms that somewhow they are unregulated in the US and that is far from true. We have THOUSANDS of laws that regulate firearms sales ownership and use - probably more than most countries.

There is always chatter about firearms in the US but seldom is mention made of them in other countries unless it is a comparison to the US. Is the general world-wide public aware that Germans buy firearms at the same rate we in the US do? That France has more firearms than the UK, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Poland combined? That Finland has the highest rate of gun ownership in Europe yet it maintains a low rate of firearms related crime? (btw, all of these are based on the findings of the Small Arms Survey conducted by the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland for the UN.)

How can Germans be buying firearms at the same rate as those of us in the US yet their murder rate isn't skyrocketing? Maybe there is more to it than the firearms themselves?

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That is what we have been pondering on this thread, Fishin'! What is the more?

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fishin' wrote:

I think there is a general misconception around the world in regards to firearms that somewhow they are unregulated in the US and that is far from true. We have THOUSANDS of laws that regulate firearms sales ownership and use - probably more than most countries.

Yeah, but then we go and do something stupid and allow a loophole to just about all those laws: gunshows.

I'd like to see your corroborating data on Germany's gun ratios. The data I have are nowhere near the US ratio.

I'd put the US at 1:1 and Germany at 1:3

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I don't really know about US regulations, but certainly it seems that the big legal difference with other countries is about the caliber of the weapons available to civil citizens.

fishin' wrote:

I think the paranoia is induced on all sides of the equation.

Would you please abound?
Are you somewhat saying, with other words, that inmortal phrase: "I may be paranoid OK, but they ARE after me"?

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Yeah, but then we go and do something stupid and allow a loophole to just about all those laws: gunshows.

Nonsense. The "gun show loophole" creates some problems but it hardly invalidates "just about all those laws". The solution to the loophole problem is readily available but no one is willing to compromise and implament it because neither side would gain in their larger goals.

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I'd like to see your corroborating data on Germany's gun ratios. The data I have are nowhere near the US ratio

I'd put the US at 1:1 and Germany at 1:3

It's in their yearbook. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org

Keep in mind that what I stated is "rate of purchase" not "ratio of ownership". According to the same study there are more illegal firearms in Europe than there are legally owned firearms as well.

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Civilian arms in the US are limited to 50 caliber. Now, 12 and 10 gauge shotguns excede this by some margin, and the 12 gauge at least has cartridges loaded with solid slugs. There are also limitations on magazine capacity at this time, but with a grandfather clause. This is at the federal level. Individul states vary widely.

So far as gun shows are concerned, a federally licensed dealer must follow federal regulations, regardless of where the sale is made. Individual collectors do not have the same restrictions, again, regardless of where the sale is made.

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fbaezer wrote:

I don't really know about US regulations, but certainly it seems that the big legal difference with other countries is about the caliber of the weapons available to civil citizens.

I have never seen anything that demonstrates this to be true or false. The 8mm Mauser round is pretty popular in Europe and that's roughly a .32 caliber rifle. That's larger than most rifles sold here in the US. The Europeans have always had a penchant for large caliber rifles for their hunting safaris in Africa. The largest selling firearm caliber in the US for the last 50 years or so has been the .22 caliber.

There has been quoite a bit of press in recent years about the 50 Caliber which the anti-gun groups want banned here in the US. What they haven't mentioned is that the .50 Cal is highly regulated. To buy one you have to get a special permit issued by the Federal government on top of any other permits you may need from your state. The Federal government perfoms a background check on you before issing that permit and they only issue about 100/year.

A part of the farce of this proposed ban is that no .50 cal has ever been used in a murder in the US except for a few rare cases where one military member has mudered another. There have been a few other cases (less than 5) over the last 20 years where people were found to be in possesion of 50 cal firearms and even attempted to use a few of them in crimes however all of those were homemade and already illegal. The proposed ban would have zero effect on those types of cases.

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fishin' wrote:

I think the paranoia is induced on all sides of the equation.

Would you please abound?
Are you somewhat saying, with other words, that inmortal phrase: "I may be paranoid OK, but they ARE after me"?

Hmmm.. I don't think that's what I was saying. :p

There are multiple types of fear and multiple things people have fear of. There are some who fear for their safety. Others fear government regulation. There are some that fear inanimate objects that make loud noises.

The problem, as is the problem in any society, is the balance of who's fear gets the priority/action? Why should one person, or one group of people, be able to use the force of government to quell their fears by proving the fears of another person/group to be founded and have the effect of increasing their fears?

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Aha, your site says that in rate of ownership Germany is at less than half the US level.

Still high since that's many times the world average.

I personally think the gun show loophole IS an invalidation of just about all gun laws. What's the point of having regulated sales if you create an open black market. It's as if they are hoping that criminals will be dumb enough to try to buy regulated ones.

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The gun shows didn't create the hole. The hole existed whether gun shows exist or not. The problem is with private sales - not with gun shows.

In states such as mine (MA) there is no gunshow loophole at all because all private sales are required to be reported to the state just as sales by licensed dealers are and every gun owner is required to both have a permit to own a firearm and register all firearms they come to posses.

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Fear is the most efficient way to sell things,
and Americans are more inundated with media than anyone in the world.

You can't sell something to a person who is happy and content,
so commercials are designed by teams of experts
to make you unhappy and afraid.
The cure to the fear is to buy the product.

Fear will always grow in America
because there's no money in leaving people alone.

More guns on the street? Excellent! A highly charged emotional state makes a person much easier to suggest and manipulate.

In a commercial society, no one should ever feel happy, safe, and content . . . or somebody isn't doing their job well.

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Aha, ok the 'private sales whose most evident manifestation are large gunshows loophole'. It sucks.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Aha, ok the 'private sales whose most evident manifestation are large gunshows loophole'. It sucks.

So much for reasoned discussion. Rolling Eyes

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Do you think it unreasonable to dislike the gunshows? It's an open market and while I like guns I can't imagine being against simply having to get the guns in a regulated manner.

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Bowling for Columbine!

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