Why aren’t flags flown at half-staff every day?
April 19th, 2007 by grumpypilgrimPresident Bush has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of the 33 people killed this week at Virginia Tech. So, here’s my question: why hasn’t he ordered flags to be flown at half-staff every day, in honor of the U.S. (and coalition) soldiers who die every day in Iraq?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
We need to fly flags at half mast for the 33 killed in a single random act of handgun violence one day this week to take our minds off of the
30 Iraqi non-combatant civilians and
3 U.S. soldiers
killed for each and every day of our occupation since the war ended with “Mission Accomplished” on 1/1/2003 (1569 days ago).
One Site With Details
April 19th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Thisr is actually a very good question. I’ve been on another website where there was a black bow in rememberance for all the victims of the VT killings, but I have yet to see a black bow for the Iraqi victims or any American soldier who died there.
April 20th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Bush would actually have to give a rat’s patootie for the soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq. Besides he hides the casualties from Iraq, at VT he can pretend to care.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Not that I’m unsympathetic to the plight of the troops in Iraq, but the reason half-staff flag flying is not done for them is because it is technically their job to stand in harm’s way. Presumably since this is a volunteer military, they accepted the possibility of death when they signed on. Lamentable, certainly, and for their “sacrifice” there are other rituals and symbols provided. Half-staff flags are for those who did not in any way choose to stand in harm’s way or whose loss is substantially more significant than ordinary murders. As it is symbolic, the potency of the symbolism is preserved by its use in specific instances of national impact outside the bounds of expected loss. One may argue the point if one wishes, but there are reasons for it to be the way it is.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
A solemn question for you, or anyone else who cares to chime in…
Assuming you support the ban on assault weapons, do you consider a Glock an assault weapon?
http://glockmeister.com/faq.shtml
I do. A handgun is too lethal to let kids (adults?) walk around with, as demonstrated earlier this weak. A ban on handguns sounds peachy.
April 20th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Why is it that every time some suicidal maniac murders a few people with a handgun, suddenly some people think that banning guns is a great idea, as if that will solve everything? This is the exact same thinking that led George Bush to invade Iraq after the 9/11 attack: the notion that if someone kills a few Americans, then by god we must DO SOMETHING, even if it is stupid and pointless.
Let me give just one example of the chaos that would happen if guns were banned as Ben suggests: the population of white tailed deer in Wisconsin would skyrocket, because hunters would not have guns with which to kill them, and dozens more motorists would be killed every year by car-deer collisions.
Assault weapons pose difficult legislative challenges. Obviously, there needs to be some line drawn between the types of weapons available to civilians and those available to military and law enforcement. Civilians probably shouldn’t have things like grenade launchers, howitzers, shoulder-launched surface-to-air rockets, or intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example. However, civilians can own some weapons, so the question is where to draw the line. Somewhere between a hunting rifle and an automatic machine gun — the region that includes assault rifles — the choice is mostly arbitrary. Ben wants to put assault rifles on the side of the line with prohibited weapons. That works for me, but I don’t have a strong feeling either way. We already ban automatic weapons, but semi-automatic weapons have been around for a long time, and so have large-caliber guns for hunting big game. Would a ban on assault rifles make much difference? The slaughter at Virginia Tech was done with two tiny-caliber pistols — one a .22 caliber and one a .19 caliber — sizes that are typically used to hunt squirrels. Now, I’m sure a guy like Ben would say, “See, therefore we must ban all guns!” But I disagree. If the students and professors on the Virginia Tech campus had *all* been packing heat, you can bet that shooter would not have killed nearly so many people.
April 20th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Jason makes a good point, and one that I considered when I wrote this post. Yes, the potency of any symbol increases when its use is decreased (the reason why major movie and music stars make few public appearances). However, a daily *visible* reminder of the carnage in Iraq might make Americans more conscious of the loss, and less likely in the future to send honorable men and women into harm’s way for no good reason.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
“and dozens more motorists would be killed every year by car-deer collisions.”
Using that logic, the buffalo would once again roam free across the heartland? Please, please tell me you don’t advocate sport hunting, lie if you have to.
I know that by “banning guns” that would not instantly zap every gun off the face of the earth. Don’t get so defensive, (pardon the pun), the concept of a gun “ban” is only as harsh as you make it. The idea needs to see the light of day, just like our prized atheism. It’s only what we agree to make it, the ban so far has included “assault” weapons and weapons of “war”. Extend the “ban” to include longer wait times, stricter laws, heavier taxes, penalties, tests, mental evaluations, microchip tracking. This is a “ban”, similar to how driving under the influence of alcohol is “banned”. That is what the ATF is (should be) for, to find illegal guns, tobacco, and alcohol (pot?).
April 21st, 2007 at 4:01 am
“Let me give just one example of the chaos that would happen if guns were banned as Ben suggests: the population of white tailed deer in Wisconsin would skyrocket, because hunters would not have guns with which to kill them, and dozens more motorists would be killed every year by car-deer collisions.”
Where I live people need to get a license and pass an exam as far as I know to be allowed to hunt. Also, we have hunters who will reduce the number of animals. I don’t think the demand for a ban of guns is due to seeing hunters use weapons.
“sizes that are typically used to hunt squirrels”
People hunt squirrels??? With pistols???
“If the students and professors on the Virginia Tech campus had *all* been packing heat, you can bet that shooter would not have killed nearly so many people.”
Does “packing heat” mean “carrying weapons”? I think instead of having one big killing, you would constantly have smaller ones -a professor who really really hated you here, a student looked at you funny there. People get pissed off for not getting the grade they think they deserve, for not being as popular as someone else, for not getting the girl/guy they want, for not having the success they strive for. These are not people I would like to see owning weapons. Carrying a gun gives people a false sense of security and power, and it’s the latter that most can’t handle. Give people power and they will abuse it (especially those who never had it before).
“Extend the “ban” to include longer wait times, stricter laws, heavier taxes, penalties, tests, mental evaluations, microchip tracking.”
Good suggestions!
April 21st, 2007 at 4:15 am
A correction to Grumpy’s post, above. The weapons used were a .22 caliber pistol and a 9mm pistol. A 9mm bullet is about the same diameter as “.38-special” bullet (.355″ vs .357″, respectively — neither is exactly the diameter that its caliber would indicate).
April 21st, 2007 at 4:32 am
As for banning guns as a cure for gun violence, I think that this is naive. It does not address the underlying cause. As I mentioned in another DI thread, cure the social ills that cause a need or desire for guns, and the demand for guns will follow.
Want to end alcoholism, and all of the ill effects of alcohol consumption? Ban alcohol. And see an entire counterculture grow out of it, along with a whole slew of associated problems. The American era of Prohibition proved this.
Want to end drug abuse? Ban drugs. And see an entire counterculture grow out of it, along with a whole slew of associated problems. The current American War on Drugs proves what a pointless exercise this is. The US today has the highest per capita prison population in the Western world, and most of the inmates are there on drug convictions. Has that solved the problem?
Want to end teenage pregnancy? Ban sex education in the schools. There’s another thread on DI about this folly, too.
Want to end home-production of methamphetamines? Restrict sales of products containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. So those of us who suffer from seasonal allergies find it more difficult to obtain the safe, legal relief that we need. But I wonder if it has had any effect upon illegal methamphetamine production.
The better way is to address the underlying problems. Cure the causes; don’t ban the effects.
April 21st, 2007 at 6:23 am
Without guns, deer would proliferate? How’d we ever kill off all those species back before we had guns? I don’t think anyone ever killed aurochs or mastodons with guns.
Julius Caesar was adequately assassinated without a gun.
Of course, Davy Crockett’s legendary infantile encounter with a bear might have come out differently had he not been armed. But these days, kids with guns are surrounded by other kids, not bears.
April 21st, 2007 at 7:33 am
“Hey, I’m taking the day off to go squirrel hunting. Just me, my dog, and my boom cannon.”
Thanks for the support, Leiterin and Dan K (and Vicki, I assume). Do you mind if I come to Germany? These guys are scaring me, even the “rational” ones.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:52 am
So many comments, so little time…I’ll have to pick my battles. Too bad none of it relates to my original post….
To Ben’s comment: the buffalo were not killed by sport hunters, they were systematically slaughtered by the U.S. government as a way of wiping out the main food supply for Native Americans and, thus, starving them into submission. As regards today’s sport hunters, the ones I know are strong advocates of better conservation and environmental policies, because they want to protect game and other wild species. They also pay far more in licensing fees (to say nothing of their equipment and transportation costs) than they recoup from the meat they take. Do you eat meat, Ben? Perhaps you advocate clearcutting more Amazon rainforests, to create grazing fields for more cattle?
For the sport hunters I know, hunting is more about making and renewing friendships than about killing animals. Likewise, sport fishermen routinely practice “catch and release,” because they enjoy the friendship, relaxation and challenge of fishing. Our planet’s fauna is being exterminated by commercial operations, Ben, not by sport hunters and fishermen.
As regards gun control in the form of longer wait times, stricter laws, heavier penalties, etc., is there any evidence that any of these practices would reduce gun crime? In what way would longer wait times, stricter laws, heavier taxes, penalties, tests or microchip tracking deter a mass murderer who intends to kill himself after his slaughter? Do you think he cares about stricter laws, heavier taxes or microchip tracking? And just how useful would mental evaluations be, given that nobody has yet invented one that can accurately predict future behavior?
To projektleiterin’s question: yes, some people do hunt squirrels with pistols, but if you read my comment more carefully you will notice I was referring to the *caliber* size.
Edgar’s correction is appreciated — the reference I checked said a Glock 19 was a .19 caliber, when in fact it is a 9mm.
Edgar’s second comment is, pardon the expression, dead on: cure the causes, don’t waste time trying to ban the effects.
To Dan’s comment: yes, the deer population in Wisconsin would skyrocket if hunting were stopped, or at least so says the state’s Dept. of Natural Resources: “In March, DNR scientists warned that if more does aren’t killed, the deer population could explode, leading to more crop damage, more car-deer crashes and more changes in forests’ ecosystems.” (See http://www.startribune.com/531/story/550744.html/.)
In closing, let me refer you all to a story I’d like you gun control fans to respond to: an 82-year-old woman who, while balanced on her walker, shot out the tires of an intruder’s get-away car:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070421/ap_on_re_us/brave_beauty_queen
April 21st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
I guess it’s safe to assume you never saw Bambi. Or Michael Moore’s finest documentary “Bowling for Columbine”…
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/
Oh, and I am aware of the rainforest thing (I still eat meat though, ya nailed me).
http://whyfiles.org/238earthday/images/brazil_combined.jpg
I agree that hunting a few deer is nothing compared to Burger King, and McDonalds, and Smithfield, and Purdue, Sysco. I take issue with the *needless* suffering, the barbaric act of imposing will on the innocent animal, destroying it’s family bonds too. You say “because they enjoy the friendship”, but I say, why not play paintball, or basketball instead of slaughtering fellow mammals for *sport*.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:06 am
Ben asks, “…I say, why not play paintball, or basketball instead of slaughtering fellow mammals for *sport*.”
I’m not unsympathetic with that opinion, however, let’s consider what would happen to deer in Wisconsin (my state) if they were not hunted. The deer population would skyrocket, leading to more car-deer collisions and more death and suffering for the people and families involved in those accidents. Winter food supplies for deer would be insufficient to sustain the huge herd, leading to mass starvation. Do you think starving to death in the winter is a better way to die than being shot by a hunter, Ben? And not just a few deer would starve, but most all of them, because few would have enough to eat if the limited supplies were divided among a much larger herd. There’s a reason why deer hunting occurs in the fall: it’s to thin the herd before winter, so that winter food supplies will sustain a larger percentage of the remaining population. Believe it or not, hunting for “sport” is arguably more humane treatment for the deer than not hunting them.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:54 am
“an 82-year-old woman who, while balanced on her walker, shot out the tires of an intruder’s get-away car”
Okay great job granny!
Six years later as she slips in and out of dementia of old age the kind old woman fails to lock the gun box. One afternoon, her grandchildren visit her, open the box while playing, and one of the children lies in a pool of blood, the odor of gunpowder wafting out of muzzle of granny’s gun.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
“One afternoon, her grandchildren visit her, open the box while playing, and one of the children lies in a pool of blood, the odor of gunpowder wafting out of muzzle of granny’s gun.”
Sounds like a parenting problem to me, Ben: where were they when their kids were playing with granny’s gun case?
BTW, dementia is not a normal part of aging. Although a third of people over age 85 do suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, most remain lucid. Many cases of “dementia” are actually cases of hearing loss, vision loss, neuromotor loss (Parkinson’s disease), etc., not mental loss.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
“Six years later as she slips in and out of dementia … her grandchildren visit her …”
Give me a break.
By your logic, the CERTAINTY of allowing the perpetrators to continue to terrorize the public is a better choice than the FANTASY of a firearm accident that “might” happen.
By the way, the ten most common causes of accidental death in the USA are:
1. Motor vehicle crashes
Deaths per year: 43,200
2. Falls
Deaths per year: 14,900
3. Poisoning by solids and liquids
Deaths per year: 8,600
4. Drowning
Deaths per year: 4,000
5. Fires and burns
Deaths per year: 3,700
6. Suffocation
Deaths per year: 3,300
7. Firearms
Deaths per year: 1,500
8. Poisoning by gases
Deaths per year: 700
9. Medical & Surgical Complications and Misadventures
Deaths per year: 500
10. Machinery
Deaths per year: 350
Furthermore, accidents account for only 4.4% of ALL deaths in the USA.
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/accidents/accidents.html
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:42 am
“By your logic, the CERTAINTY of allowing the perpetrators to continue to terrorize the public is a better choice than the FANTASY of a firearm accident that “might” happen.”
Where I live weapons are not allowed and I absolutely do not have the feeling of being terrorized by anybody and I assume the rest of the population doesn’t either, because as far as now there have been no calls to introduce the permission to carry weapons.
By the way, I once read that the police in Los Angeles does not only have to fear the bullets of criminals, but they nearly as often hurt themselves accidently with their own guns or get hurt by their colleagues.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Edgar, strawman, we were talking about total deaths by firearms, not just grandma. USA had 8,259 murders with handguns in a 2 year period.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms
If you wanna talk total assaults, injuries, and robberies using guns, the numbers are even more staggering…
“The murder rate in the United States was five to seven times higher than most industrial nations.
During January-November 2002, New York City reported 489 murder cases; Chicago registered 485 homicide cases, in which 515 people were killed; and Detroit reported 346 murders.
During the same period Los Angeles reported 595 murder cases with 614 people killed…”
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zfbps/t36550.htm
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“Where I live weapons are not allowed and I absolutely do not have the feeling of being terrorized by anybody …”
As I stated in another thread, I would like for that to be the case here, too. But that would require societal changes that I do not know how to bring about.
I’ll give an example: As far as I know, it would be perfectly legal for me to own a trebuchet. Do you know why I don’t own a trebuchet? Because I don’t have any need for one — there aren’t any castle walls in my neighborhood that need to be breached. So the inconvenience of storing and maintaining a trebuchet outweighs the “coolness” of being the only person on the block who has one. In the same way, if people feel safe enough that owning firearms seems superfluous, then firearm ownership will dwindle until only people with specific uses for them, such as collectors and sporting enthusiasts, will actually own them. (Having said that, I’ll mention that I suspect that there are more people in the USA who own firearms out of a fascination with mechanical things than there are who own firearms strictly for self-defense. It is very much like the America love affair with automobiles.)
As for the LAPD story, it sounds like propaganda to me. If you can cite a credible reference, I’ll acknowledge it.
April 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
“Edgar, strawman, we were talking about total deaths by firearms, not just grandma.”
No, the example given was specifically about a firearm accident involving a child and demented grandma’s improperly stored handgun.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Edgar writes “As for banning guns as a cure for gun violence, I think that this is naive.”
Edgar, by listing only gun *accidents* you are creating a strawman argument. I agree that people need to be careful when crossing the street, and they should use deer horns if they drive in Wisconsin. Where I live, kids are killing kids on the street corner in drive by shootings. I have never seen a real deer.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Wisconsin deer are a problem because firearms extinguished the wolf and cougar populations (among others) that kept deer in check. I’m not against controlling the deer population; venison is delicious. But it is not a good argument for widely available handguns nor for automatic weapons, no matter how you slice it.
That accidental firearms death number doesn’t include the significantly larger number of murders that would otherwise have just been assaults with any other weapon.
But I am one of those who are fascinated by precision machinery, and would delight in studying an example of each model of projectile weapon, had I the time and opportunity. But I doubt that I would buy one unless I had a likely need to kill something.
I’ve only fired a couple of semi-auto handguns at a gun range, and merely found it interesting. Taking it apart and seeing how it works is what does it for me.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
“Want to end teenage pregnancy? Ban sex education in the schools. There’s another thread on DI about this folly, too.”
Okay, slow down, now you are comparing useful education to dangerous weapons? I would love to hear more about THIS analogy you propose.
I think more accurate would be: “Want to end teenage pregnancy? Ban *abstinence only* education in the schools.” There’s another thread about irrational creationists’ thinking on DI about this folly, too.”
http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1230
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Dan, I understand your curiousity. I fancy myself quite a marksman, among other things (juggling 4 objects, for example). I don’t intend on ever using a real gun though. I have dominated paintball games (with old-fogies, albeit), I played Laser-Tag on a tournament team for about 5 years. I played “Socom2 Navy Seals” for days on end, perfecting my skill with the video game control. Dan is correct, if you want to practice marksmanship, there are many ways besides going hunting with Dick Cheney and the NRA.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:17 pm
“Edgar, by listing only gun *accidents* you are creating a strawman argument.”
No. I responded to a specific example that was presented TO me, not BY me.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
“Okay, slow down, now you are comparing useful education to dangerous weapons? I would love to hear more about THIS analogy you propose.”
The analogy is purposely absurd. My intent is to show that legislation that does not address the root cause of a problem is doomed to failure.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Edgar, I appreciate your time and effort with the issue here. Maybe my analogy was too weak…
Four years later as she slips into the bleakness of alzheimer’s, the gentle old woman forgets to lock her back door. One afternoon, while she is away at the market, her home is robbed. The thief does not find much more than jewelry boxes, a small safe, silverware, and some electronics. The thief is only able to sell his “hot” items for 200 dollars. He has not yet been able to open the mini-safe, but he knows thats where the real prize is, and finds a crowbar. Later that evening, the gleaming muzzle of granny’s shiny gun catches the eye of the convenience store clerk. The clerk is already bleeding from a gutshot, the odor of gunpowder wafting out of muzzle of granny’s gun. His death makes the local news. Granny’s gun goes on to assist 3 different gangs, and eventually is traded in for cash in a guns-for-cash program. Unfortunately granny’s gun was the enabler in 11 total shootings and 3 murders. People don’t kill people, guns kill people.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Ben writes, “Unfortunately granny’s gun was the enabler in 11 total shootings and 3 murders.”
What evidence do you have, Ben, that banning guns would have prevented all the murders that have ever been committed with guns?
Another question, Ben: since drunk drivers kill more than 10,000 people every year with their cars, should we ban cars as a way of preventing drunk driving deaths? That’s the exact same reasoning you apply in your argument for banning guns.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Tired Scholar writes: “USA had 8,259 murders with handguns in a 2 year period.”
USA has twice that number killed every year by drunk drivers — should we ban cars, too, to stop drunk drivers from using them to kill people?
Tired Scholar continues: “If you wanna talk total assaults, injuries, and robberies using guns, the numbers are even more staggering.”
Show us your data, Tired Scholar. According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, most firearm deaths (nearly 60%) are suicides. Also, the number of gun suicides has remained relatively stable, while the number of gun homocides has plummeted. See http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/frmdth.htm/. See also http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm/.
Tired Scholar continues: ““The murder rate in the United States was five to seven times higher than most industrial nations….”
Correlation is not causation, Tired Scholar. Where is your data demonstrating a *causal link* between gun ownership and America’s high murder rate? Where is your data to show that the murder rate in the U.S. would significantly drop if guns were banned? Maybe the high murder rate in the U.S. is a result of violence on television, or the gulf between rich and poor, or racial inequality, or any of a dozen other things. Maybe America’s version of capitalism, which is far more severe than elsewhere in the world, inherently breeds more violence than elsewhere in the world.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Ban drunk driving. Alcohol blowers for all vehicles.
Okay, fine, I will join the NRA tomorrow.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Check your links Grumpy.
Mine work fine…
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000
#1 District of Columbia: 31.2
#2 Alaska: 20
#3 Louisiana: 19.5
#4 Wyoming: 18.8
#5 Arizona: 18
#6 Mississippi: 17.3
#7 Nevada: 17.3
#8 New Mexico: 16.6
#9 Arkansas: 16.3
#10 Alabama: 16.2
#11 Tennessee: 15.4
#12 West Virginia: 14.7
#13 Montana: 14.5
#14 South Carolina: 13.8
#15 North Carolina: 13.6
#16 Georgia: 13.4
#17 Kentucky: 13.1
#18 Oklahoma: 13.1
#19 Idaho: 12.3
#20 Missouri: 12.3
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_hom_vic_by_wea_gun-crime-homicide-victims-weapon-gun
#1 Delaware: 80 %
#2 Louisiana: 77.5 %
#3 Vermont: 76.9 %
#4 Arizona: 76 %
#5 Arkansas: 75.2 %
#6 Illinois: 74.2 %
#7 New Hampshire: 72.7 %
#8 California: 72.6 %
#9 Pennsylvania: 72.5 %
#10 Georgia: 72 %
#11 Wisconsin: 72 %
#12 Michigan: 69.4 %
#13 Missouri: 69.3 %
#14 Virginia: 69.3 %
#15 West Virginia: 68.4 %
#16 North Carolina: 68.3 %
#17 South Carolina: 68.3 %
#18 Maryland: 67.6 %
#19 Tennessee: 66.7 %
#20 Alabama: 65.2 %
#21 Kentucky: 64.7 %
#22 Indiana: 64.2 %
#23 Mississippi: 63.6 %
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:29 pm
The number of non-fatal injuries is considerable–over 200,000 per year in the U.S. Many of these injuries require hospitalization and trauma care. A 1994 study revealed the cost per injury requiring admission to a trauma center was over $14,000. The cumulative lifetime cost in 1985 for gunshot wounds was estimated to be $911 million, with $13.4 billion in lost productivity. (Mock et al, 1994) The cost of the improper use of firearms in Canada was estimated at $6.6 billion per year. (Chapdelaine and Maurice, 1996)
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNSTAT.html
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 am
“Ban drunk driving. Alcohol blowers for all vehicles.”
Ben, apologies for digressing a bit here, but at least this will show that I still have a sense of humor about this. When you said, “Alcohol blowers for all vehicles,” the image that came to mind was of every automobile engine equipped with a supercharger (”blower”); every vehicle fueled by alcohol.
“Okay, fine, I will join the NRA tomorrow.”
Actually, that might not be a bad idea. You’ll find that it is an organization made up of good, hard-working people who want to do the right thing. Unfortunately, like so many large, powerful organizations, it has (in my opinion) been taken over by a bunch of fanatics. I actually terminated my membership in the NRA several years ago because of their blind, unwavering support for George W. Bush, based solely upon his position on gun control.
Let me add one more thing. Believe it or not, I actually want guns to go away! I am serious. I want there to be an end to all of the gun-related social problems, which you and others have enumerated in this thread and which I acknowledge to be accurate, just the same as I want there to be an end to all of the alcohol and drug-related social problems, poverty-related social problems, race-related social problems, etc. But the “ban all guns” solution is not sophisticated enough to make that happen, just the same as banning all alcohol didn’t make it go away, and banning all drugs hasn’t made them go away, etc. The reason, in my opinion, is that guns are not the cause of the problem, they are the effect. As long as people feel insecure and afraid, as long as they feel either that the government is powerless to help them or that the government is actually against them, as long as other problems, such as alcohol and drugs and poverty, lead to violent behavior among non-law-abiding people, law-abiding people will feel the need to protect themselves by whatever means they can find. As I indicated in an earlier post, I believe that solving those other root problems will make gun ownership superfluous for all but collectors and sports enthusiasts. And collectors and sports enthusiasts, I imagine, are probably willing to abide by whatever laws are necessary to ensure that they can continue to be collectors and sports enthusiasts.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:52 am
Guns vs. Cars: Cars are designed to transport people and goods. In practice, this is what they almost always do. Rarely (on a per car basis) do they cause a death.
Guns are for killing. Many are only used for training and show (shooting ranges, etc). But their design purpose is to make killing quick and easy. Often (on a per gun basis) they do cause death. Granted, mostly other animals. Also, a majority of the humans deaths-by-gun are sanctioned (police, wars, etc).
I don’t have the stats, but I’m confident that the average human civilian deaths-per-gun is several orders of magnitude greater then deaths-per-car.
Banning guns would never work (prohibition, abstinence only, just say “no”, etc). Proper licensing and taxing might help. Let the organization determined to put a gun in everyones hand, the NRA, be put in charge of certifying owners and users with annual, biennial, or semi-decade licenses. Let them collect a tax on guns and gunpowder sales to pay for the bureaucracy.
Then when someone slips through the cracks, the NRA can defend its practices in civil and criminal courts. They will cover the judgment costs with the license fees and taxes on weapons and propellants.
Take the regulation of personal weapons out of the hands of the government, just like the NRA desires. But make them responsible for the results.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
“I don’t have the stats, but I’m confident that the average human civilian deaths-per-gun is several orders of magnitude greater then deaths-per-car.”
Well, let’s see. I did a little research last night, and found that there are an estimated 62 million cars in the US, and approximately 250 million guns.
There were 43,200 accidental auto deaths, and some unknown number of auto murders. (I searched for a long time to find vehicular homicide and manslaughter numbers, but failed.)
There were 1500 accidental gun deaths, and approximately 4130 murders (8,259 murders with handguns in a 2 year period, according to an earlier post by Tired Scholar).
The deaths-per-car and deaths-per-gun computations are left as an exercise for the reader.
Look; using raw statistics as an attempt to justify banning guns isn’t going to work, because the statistics work against you. Example after example has shown that banning guns increases crime, regions with the strictest gun laws have the highest crime rates, and regions with the most liberal gun laws have the lowest crime rates.
Once again, elimination of guns must come as a result of social improvements in other areas rendering gun ownership unnecessary (or, at least, perceived to be unnecessary).
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:59 am
Ben, not one of the references you cited addresses the question I asked: “What evidence do you have, Ben, that banning guns would have prevented all the murders that have ever been committed with guns?”
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Edgar writes: “Example after example has shown that banning guns increases crime, regions with the strictest gun laws have the highest crime rates, and regions with the most liberal gun laws have the lowest crime rates.”
Careful there, Edgar — correlation does not demonstrate causation. Indeed, rather than strict gun laws causing high crime rates (which is what your comment implies), strict gun laws were more likely created *after* high crime rates were noticed, as politicians tried to apply Band-Aid solutions by passing gun control laws (laws that were then ineffective, for reasons you previously described…indeed, to the extent that strict gun laws have failed to reduce gun crime ‘post facto’, Ben’s argument in favor of gun control would be directly contradicted).
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:45 am
“Careful there, Edgar — correlation does not demonstrate causation.”
Touché. I concede your point.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 am
Grumpy, think of it like taking matches away from a 6 year old. You reduce the risk of fire, whether accidental or playful or purposeful. Of course, the child may still injure himself, when he falls and skins his knee, or swings too high on the swingset. The WHOLE POINT is removing objects which are too dangerous to control when misused or used by an angry, vengeful, or insane person.
In a fit of rage, a person with access to a gun is able to kill. Fit of rage normally last about 15 minutes. Without access to a gun, this person would be reduced to screaming or fisticuffs, a good thing, in my opinion.
Take the Robert Blake example, he was in a fit of rage, if all he had in his car was a baseball bat, he wouldve walked back into the bar, and beaten his wife with the bat. After a few swings, good samaritans at the bar wouldve controlled the situation. Unfortunately, his weapon of choice was not a baseball bat, and by the time his fit of rage had ended, he came to the horrible realization what he had done. Temporary insanity, if you want, but the gun is to blame for the severity here.
Grumpy, I don’t understand how you think that 60% of gun deaths being attributed to suicide helps your case. If anything, it shows that guns are too powerful for humans to play with. Humans get depressed, even have breakdowns, mania, schizophrenia. The gun is especially lethal in these situations, because, attempted suicide does not come into the picture. Once you pull that trigger, it’s over. There is no changing your mind, once your mind is stuck to the carpet. Other forms of suicide, pills, hanging, cutting, jumping off a bridge— people actually live through these. So, once again, GUNS are EXTREMELY CULPABLE in SUICIDE (as Grumpy has kindly pointed out.)
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
“I’m confident that the average human civilian deaths-per-gun is several orders of magnitude greater then deaths-per-car.”
I like the direction you are headed, but keep in mind that people drive their car twice a day. They only use their guns when they get angry or are attacked by another angry person who *does not own* a gun. Ironically if the attacker has a gun, you won’t even have time to use your gun, because you are likely dead already. The purpose of Guns, as Dan wisely points out, is killing made clean and easy.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:42 am
projektleiterin writes, “I think instead of having one big killing, you would constantly have smaller ones -a professor who really really hated you here, a student looked at you funny there…Carrying a gun gives people a false sense of security and power, and it’s the latter that most can’t handle.”
The point of my comment was not that everyone should be required to carry guns, merely that the VT shooter probably would not have slaughtered as many people if others on the campus had been armed.
Also, I doubt very much that allowing handguns on college campuses would lead to widespread killings for bad grades or funny looks. Guns can enable a lunatic to slaughter many people, but where is the evidence that carrying a gun will turn an ordinary person into an indiscriminate murderer? The people I know who carry a gun are, if anything, much *more* careful when they carry, because they recognize the risk.
Out of curiosity, I checked gun crime statistics at the website for the U.S. Bureau of Justice: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm/. According to their data, “During the offense that brought them to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun.” These data suggest that banning firearms, especially military-style assault rifles, would cause relatively little decrease in violent crime. More likely, criminals would simply use other weapons, as most already do.
The data also show that during the 1993-2001 period (the Clinton years, when the economy boomed), gun crime dropped 40%.
As regards public schools (presumably, excluding colleges), the data show that 70% of murders involve a firearm and 50% involve a handgun. Since children are prohibited from owning guns, these data demonstrate not that guns are dangerous, but that adults who own guns do an inadequate job of keeping them away from children.
According to this document: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/wuvc01.pdf
firearm violence is highly correlated with both race and household income: “Blacks at every income level were more vulnerable than whites to be victims of firearm violence. Whites and blacks with household incomes below $7,500 were more vulnerable to armed violence than their counterparts with higher incomes.”
Age is also a factor, with people 12-24 years old disproportionately involved. Since this age is highly correlated with both gang activity and illegal drug use, I suspect (but do not have data to verify) that many gun homocides are targeted killings — an activity that would seem likely to continue without firearms.
In any case, I will conclude by returning to Edgar’s comment: cure the causes, don’t ban the effects.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
“As I stated in another thread, I would like for that to be the case here, too. But that would require societal changes that I do not know how to bring about.”
You talk as if you’re living in a warzone…
I saw you wrote about fighting the causes that lead to people wanting to possess arms instead of introducing a ban. I totally agree with that, banning weapons without making people get rid of the Wild-West-Lonesome-Cowboy-mentality would not work out. Nevertheless, it is necessary to establish a ban to support this mental change and to give a clear signal about the safety issues concerning weapons. If you want people to stop having the need to have weapons at home, you will have to reduce the crime rates, and I’m really sure, making it more difficult to get weapons would support this objective. I think it’s a vicious circle that you can only efficiently stop by tackling these two issues at the same time.
The article about the high accident rate among cops can be found here: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,432187,00.html It’s in German though. That’s a news magazine like “Time” or “Newsweek”.
Between 1985 and 2005 161 cops had been shot, 68 of them mistakenly by coworkers or happened to have an accident with their own weapon.
One story was about this guy who shot his girlfriend in the leg when he tried to remove a bullet from his gun to give it to her as a souvenir of their date (I’m sure she will remember this date!). The story about the cop who was paralyzed, because he was shot when his three year old son was playing with his gun was less funny.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
“Banning guns would never work”
Because you have a whole society been brainwashed by the myth that people have to be independent and taking care of themselves at all cost. That personal freedom is such a high value, which it is, but I sometimes feel it has been corrupted and has created individuals that are not living in a society and community, but are in a constant competition with and in fear of each other.
It’s absolutely possible to live without weapons, if it’s not happening in the States, it’s because people don’t want to, but it’s not a must to survive.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Edgar’s numbers are interesting, but suspect:
“Estimated 62 million cars in the U.S” = 1 car per 5 people. This seems low.
I found
That doesn’t include the cars up on blocks or such, equivalent to the guns in storage.
43,200 auto deaths per year? This number is close to what I’ve found. Scary. At 243 mega-cars, that’s .00018 deaths per car per year.
250 million guns in the U.S. means about one gun for everyone in the U.S. over 3 years old. Given the hundreds of normal, gunless people I personally know, I suspect that number includes military issue and no-longer-functioning weapons.
The scary part is that no one knows how many guns there are. There is no tracking of guns, no records kept of ammo purchases, and no records kept of guns produced and imported compared to guns destroyed and lost. The Brady Bill merely makes it a little harder for people to acquire guns legally at that moment when they are homicidal.
For Edgar’s gun numbers: 0.00002 deaths per gun per year. Only one gun in 44,000 is used to do that for which it was designed.
Edgar’s discovery is that ubiquitous cars that almost every American encounters on a daily basis are 9 times as deadly per unit as are rarely seen or displayed guns.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
“During the offense that brought them to (Federal) prison… only 15% used guns”
Seems a bit unfair to list *total* federal inmate numbers instead of *violent crime*. Correct me if I’m wrong, but violence is not the culprit in crimes like tax evasion, credit card fraud, insider trading, or any other white collar crime. Another problem is the frequency which guns are used in violent crimes, assaults, robberies, which go *unreported* and *unconvicted*.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Oh yeah, and your precious “60% of gun deaths are suicides” figure also invalidates your federal inmate numbers. The reason? Suicide victims don’t get a day in court. Suicide victims don’t get sent to federal prison.
“60 percent of gun deaths are suicides”, this speaks volumes for NOT owning a gun. Whether it’s cause or effect I’m not sure, but I sure as HELL ain’t joining Uncle Sam or the NRA.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I wonder if consulting the U.S. Justice Department for tips on reducing violence is akin to going to ExxonMobil.com for the latest research on anthropogenic global warming? Pocketbooks are involved there, the Right relies on the gun lobby.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:13 pm
. . . and back to the original topic of this post . . . here’s a U.S. army sgt who is questioning why flags were lowered for the VT students, but not for the deaths of U.S. soldiers. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/23/wilt-troops/
April 24th, 2007 at 4:55 am
“Between 1985 and 2005 161 cops had been shot, 68 of them mistakenly by coworkers or happened to have an accident with their own weapon.”
Once again, quoting statistics is a mistake, because they work against you. This spans 21 years, with 9500 police officers covering a city of 3.5 million people, some parts of which have among the highest violent crime rates in the USA. These officers have my deepest respect, and under the circumstances I’d say that this record is remarkable.
However, I did say that I would acknowledge your statement, “… the police in Los Angeles does not only have to fear the bullets of criminals, but they nearly as often hurt themselves accidently with their own guns or get hurt by their colleagues.” Assuming that the article cited is truthful, I acknowledge that your statement is accurate.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Conclusion: Rational thinkers such as the the ones posting here (I will go ahead and include myself) have come to the agreement that atheism is more rational than Christianity. However, the same rational thinkers, do not see eye to eye on all issues. Each issue (gun control for example) seems to require special attention, and some of us end up on different sides of the spectrum on certain issues. I propose that an issue like whether to (ban) put strict controls on guns may actually be a *regional* debate. I think that certain cities and/or states will begin to crack down on guns, while others are comfortable with the status quo. In the county where I live, immigration, overpopulation, crime, shootings, and general unrest lead me to believe that gun control is indeed necessary. I now realize that some states (like Wisconsin?), are not yet overcrowded, crime, gang, drug, gun, payday lending, and alcohol infested, yet. The need for stricter gun laws may be less evident or even non-existent in these locales.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Good thinking, Ben! One of the main issues in the debate on gun control has to do with the question of whether free floating guns do actually contribute to crime. But region and culture definitely determine much of the answer to that question. In such a case, a person can say that guns increase danger, another can assert their relative innocuousness, and both can have it right.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
A wise man once said…
“Accordingly, the question remains: if Iraq can be “preempted” from acquiring and using WMDs, why shouldn’t Americans be “preempted” from acquiring and using them?”
http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=911