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For those who love to blame America's gun culture for these senseless violent acts [we've already forgotten about the lunatic who recently pushed a man to his death on the NYC subway; no gun required to murder]-
For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, one of the most shocking aspects of the last three decades was the rise of mass public shootings: people who went into public places and murdered complete strangers. Such crimes were rare which meant that they were shocking.
Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency.
Why did these crimes go from extraordinarily rare to commonplace?
For a while, it was fashionable to blame gun availability for this dramatic increase. But guns did not become more available before or during this change. Instead, federal law and many state laws became more restrictive on purchase and possession of firearms, sometimes in response to such crimes.
If gun availability does not explain the increase of mass public murders, what else might?
At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness.
In the 1960s, the United States embarked on an innovative approach to caring for its mentally ill: deinstitutionalization. The intentions were quite humane: move patients from long-term commitment in state mental hospitals into community-based mental health treatment.
[...] These problems were not specific to the United States and its "gun culture" as some contend. Other nations which started down the same road toward deinstitutionalization a few years after the United States have suffered many similar mass murders.
Studies in Denmark and Sweden similarly show that psychotics are disproportionately violent offenders.
The news media's reluctance to acknowledge the role that deinstitutionalization played in this human tragedy meant that the public safety connection was generally invisible to the general public.
I completely agree with this. I think deinstitutionalization plays a MAJOR role in these types of crimes. I've said for a long, long time that the cutting of programs and funding of mental health services is hurting many people - the mentally ill and those of us who are affected by their instabilities.
That isn't hard. The problem of criminals will not go away if guns are banned, but it makes their career harder. In most of Europe and Asia, guns are effectively banned. Sometimes one is smuggled in, but generally it shortly gets reported and seized. It is hard for criminals to get guns if they are not in circulation.
Of course, crimes still happen, but so many of the problems caused by guns just go away, and even crimes are less violent.
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Originally Posted by ditchlights
I see it from the flipside. Once guns are banned or heavily restricted, criminals will know that the law abiding citizens are vastly unarmed, and this will fuel their efforts.
Both of you have interesting points worth pursuing. Are mass shootings common in Europe? The answer to that could provide us answers and hold up a mirror to ourselves. In Europe, do criminals take advantage of an unarmed population? Again, an important question to be answered.
Things don't work that way. The typical criminal is far more ruthless about using a gun than the typical home gun owner, and probably far more knowledgeable. Having a gun, then, is basically an invitation to get yourself shot, rather then just robbed. Pulling a gun on one of these *******s only makes them furious.
Also, most criminals are "immediate gratifiers," meaning that they see things very short-term, and rarely consider consequences. The kind of calculation you may make, as a sensible person (although the reality is that you make this argument to rationalize guns), is not how they are thinking. Criminals see themselves as invulnerable, and guns don't scare them. The best deterrence is making your home hard to break into. They are lazy and will find something easier.
Finally, let me bring up the moral aspect of using a gun to fend off a criminal. What are you going to do if he persists? Don't ever threaten what you are not capable of doing. Many people, quite rightly, have a moral commitment to the sanctity of life, including the life of a criminal, and will not shoot. Those who have no such moral commitment are perhaps self-condemned anyway, unless they can be brought around. Even the criminal is only a criminal right then. We are all reborn from moment to moment, and clearly are not the same person we were even a year ago. Kill the criminal and you also kill what chance he had of being redeemed.
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Originally Posted by ditchlights
While your post is well written, it ignores one of the most basic concepts for the purpose of owning a weapon which is the threat of force. Whether or not the law abiding gun owner is willing to use the weapon is a moot point. The fact is that the criminal usually doesn't know who is armed and who's not much less what the persons mindframe and capabilities are at that particular moment. And I disagree that a gun does not scare a criminal. One of the most intimidating sounds a criminal can hear is that of a shotgun being loaded.
As far as the last part of your quote I put in bold is concerned, the last thing that most people have in mind at the time they are about to be victimized is whether or not the would be assailant can be rehabilitated.
I tend to side with ditchlights here. If a criminal breaks into my home, I have no idea what he/she wants or what he is intending. I have my two children with me. Am I to worry about the criminal's future over my children's or my own? Am I to just hope and pray that all the criminal does is put some of my belongings in his satchel and leave? I'm sorry, but I think that is too big of a risk to take. IMO, getting shot at is part of the risk in the criminal's career that he/she is choosing to take. You cannot violate a home and compromise the safety of it's inhabitants without being expected to be taken down, in one way or another.
I tend to side with ditchlights here. If a criminal breaks into my home, I have no idea what he/she wants or what he is intending. I have my two children with me. Am I to worry about the criminal's future over my children's or my own? Am I to just hope and pray that all the criminal does is put some of my belongings in his satchel and leave? I'm sorry, but I think that is too big of a risk to take. IMO, getting shot at is part of the risk in the criminal's career that he/she is choosing to take. You cannot violate a home and compromise the safety of it's inhabitants without being expected to be taken down, in one way or another.
What a fearful place you live in; I think its some of why I left the States.
Thinking about this rationally, which is hard to do when one is considering the welfare of one's children, one has to weigh whether one's children are safer when there is a gun in the house or when there is not. With the intruder, I have to come down on the side of saying that if the intruder finds the gun, then you're children are clearly worse off. The same applies if the intruder manages to take it away from you (and these guys know how to do that sort of thing).
There is also the fact that the presence of the gun itself creates a different set of threats to your children -- and far more children die in gun accidents than in home assaults.
As to the idea that the possibility the homeowner may possess a gun serving as some sort of deterrent, I had hoped I already dealt with that idea, but let me put it in other words -- criminals are not like most of us. They are far more gratification oriented (hence all the emphasis on "respect" that you get from them). Such things no doubt deter ordinary people, who are deterred from committing crimes anyway, but criminals manage to convince themselves they won't get caught. I guess it's a certain stupid blindness, but, as has been noticed, the most common place to get your pocket picked in Medieval England was to be in the crowd watching the hanging of a pickpocket.
What a fearful place you live in; I think its some of why I left the States.
Thinking about this rationally, which is hard to do when one is considering the welfare of one's children, one has to weigh whether one's children are safer when there is a gun in the house or when there is not. With the intruder, I have to come down on the side of saying that if the intruder finds the gun, then you're children are clearly worse off. The same applies if the intruder manages to take it away from you (and these guys know how to do that sort of thing).
There is also the fact that the presence of the gun itself creates a different set of threats to your children -- and far more children die in gun accidents than in home assaults.
As to the idea that the possibility the homeowner may possess a gun serving as some sort of deterrent, I had hoped I already dealt with that idea, but let me put it in other words -- criminals are not like most of us. They are far more gratification oriented (hence all the emphasis on "respect" that you get from them). Such things no doubt deter ordinary people, who are deterred from committing crimes anyway, but criminals manage to convince themselves they won't get caught. I guess it's a certain stupid blindness, but, as has been noticed, the most common place to get your pocket picked in Medieval England was to be in the crowd watching the hanging of a pickpocket.
I don't live in a fearful place. I live in a very natural place of wanting to protect myself and my children. I don't own a gun and I probably never will. Having said that, how would I defend myself if God forbid someone broke into my home?
I don't believe the possibility of a gun in a home deters criminal behavior and I don't think I've insinuated as such. But I do believe that the presence of a gun could help in certain circumstances.
I don't live in a fearful place. I live in a very natural place of wanting to protect myself and my children. I don't own a gun and I probably never will. Having said that, how would I defend myself if God forbid someone broke into my home?
Self-defense and defense of one's family are two separate issues. I don't think we have the right to defend ourselves beyond warding off blows and retreating. The admonition to turn the other cheek is real to me, although I am not a Christian, in this case I think Christ said it best. We do not "defend" ourselves. We bend over backward to avoid doing any injury to others.
However, the complication is the danger to family or others. In this case of course the rights of the criminal are way below the rights of innocents. This is why I believe law enforcement has the moral right to act vigorously in the defense of the public. If a gun were present, I would use it, of course to injure rather than kill. That is a circumstance one prays one will never be faced with, and which one proactively works to avoid by making one's home as intruder-proof as possible.
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I don't believe the possibility of a gun in a home deters criminal behavior and I don't think I've insinuated as such. But I do believe that the presence of a gun could help in certain circumstances.
Yes -- in this case I was responding to a point another person had made earlier. I guess it was in my head.I do think the presence of a gun is far more likely to make the situation worse than to help.
Just curious Frank, when I lived in Saigon there were violent gangs of "cowboys" that preyed on those not armed and those alone. Are they still around or did that problem go away under the new kinder, gentler management?
PS: please have a 33 for me.
Just curious Frank, when I lived in Saigon there were violent gangs of "cowboys" that preyed on those not armed and those alone. Are they still around or did that problem go away under the new kinder, gentler management?
PS: please have a 33 for me.
I'm dealing with a seriously damaged liver (hepatitis B that I got, ironically, in the States), so no "ba-ba" for me.
The society now is dominated by motorbikes. Not many cars to get in the way and car drivers know motorbikes are around much better than they do in the States, so less dangerous to drive them. Still, that is how one gets killed in Vietnam.
No "cowboys" either. Crime tends to be petty and more of a corruption nature than actual stealing, although, as with anywhere, one should not flaunt wealth and carry only a little cash and not venture onto dark streets alone.
The police here are powerful, and respected if not feared. The courts rarely interfere if they think someone should be in jail a few months. If you end up in prison, the efforts at rehabilitation are genuine and intense, involving both considerable indoctrination and training for some kind of work. There are far worse places to end up in jail than in Vietnam.
The one form of social protest (if it really is that -- I'm not sure what the motives are) that I have noticed, and that all the "Saigoners" (as opposed to the "Ho-Chi-Minh-ers"), seem to get a quiet glee from, consists of a few hundred, or more, young people on motorbikes touring the city in a mass, making a deep, reverberating rumble. Now we know that demonstrations are not allowed, and if they had a political purpose, I don't doubt the army would appear, but the authorities seem to allow it, I think because they are smart enough to understand.
Self-defense and defense of one's family are two separate issues. I don't think we have the right to defend ourselves beyond warding off blows and retreating. The admonition to turn the other cheek is real to me, although I am not a Christian, in this case I think Christ said it best. We do not "defend" ourselves. We bend over backward to avoid doing any injury to others.
However, the complication is the danger to family or others. In this case of course the rights of the criminal are way below the rights of innocents. This is why I believe law enforcement has the moral right to act vigorously in the defense of the public. If a gun were present, I would use it, of course to injure rather than kill. That is a circumstance one prays one will never be faced with, and which one proactively works to avoid by making one's home as intruder-proof as possible.
Yes -- in this case I was responding to a point another person had made earlier. I guess it was in my head.I do think the presence of a gun is far more likely to make the situation worse than to help.
How would I, as a small framed woman with no ability to really fight, ward off blows? How would I be able to successfully get to my children and get them out of the house without being further attacked by an intruder? I am genuinely curious.
Both of you have interesting points worth pursuing. Are mass shootings common in Europe? The answer to that could provide us answers and hold up a mirror to ourselves. In Europe, do criminals take advantage of an unarmed population? Again, an important question to be answered.
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