On Nov 3, 2008, at 4:06 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Gun safety, esp. since it's a horrendous problem in the US,
should look to nations with few gun problems and at least
get some concrete plans.
Vaj, with all due respect, the only "plan" that
one could get from other countries with regard
to guns would involve having a time machine that
works. They'd have to go back in time and remove
the backlog of guns that are *currently* owned
by citizens. Most of the saner countries *always*
had restrictions on gun ownership.
And that's a hard thing to undo. All of the friends
I've had who were gun freaks have plans in place
to *hide* their guns should laws be enacted to
cause them to turn them in to the guvmint. The
existing guns are here to stay, sadly. The only
laws that can have any effect will have to do with
the purchase and ownership of new ones.
Good point. However if you made old, unregistered guns illegal, to
avoid becoming criminals a huge number of people would turn theirs
in. There is also money: gun buy outs. And then you just prosecute
the gun nuts as they are exposed. Give lucrative rewards to turn gun
nuts in. And so on. I agree with what you're describing, but if
they're unwilling to disarm, we'll find a way to get them. But not
all of them. Eventually they'll probably be able to scan your house
from space and know just where the guns are and what kinds.
But the larger problem is the "temperament" of the
countries themselves. As pointed out in "Bowling
For Columbine," Canada has about the same percent-
age of gun ownership that America does, but only
a fraction of its gun deaths per year. The problem
is not *necessarily* to be found in the guns but
in the gun *owners*.
Precisely. When you look at the consciousness of a typical gun nut in
terms of the various scales of development, they score quite low when
compared to the center of gravity of collective evolution in the US
(which is moving towards the Green meme, Relativistic-personalistic—
communitarian/egalitarian collective consciousness). Gun hoarding
habits are more Red and Blue meme themes (Egocentric-exploitive power
gods/dominionist collective consciousness and Absolutistic-obedience
mythic order—purposeful/authoritarian collective consciousness).
I find all of this rather sad to read, because of
the *assumption* on the part of FFL posters that
life is a dangerous thing, and that they have to
worry about carrying some weapon to protect them-
selves with as they walk to their cars. I don't.
I haven't had to for six years, in France or here
in Spain.
A friend who lived in Philly for most of his life told me an
interesting story. As he grew older he became more worried about
crime, mugging, etc. So he, at first, began to carry simple weapons,
but eventually began carrying a nice sized knife. As his perspective
on his environment changed, his environment began to mirror back his
inner state in increasingly menacing ways. Fortunately, as he was
getting to the point where he felt he needed a gun to protect himself
(and he did live a high-crime neighborhood) he realized he was
helping to create his own environment based on the vibes he put out.
So he decided to change the way he saw things.
As soon as he did, the environment he lived in changed. Kids coming
up to him to establish dominance, muggings and threats stopped. He
remains weapon free to this day. And all he did was change the way he
chose to see things.
That might not work for everyone, but it did work for him.
The problem is not the guns. The problem is the
people who own them. Guns don't go crazy; people
do. Here are the stats, from the CDC, on how that
craziness breaks down by country. Note the ranking
of Switzerland in the list, where every household
is *required* to own a gun, as part of its militia
preparedness. Compare to the US. The problem is
not the guns; it's their owners.
The United States leads the world's richest nations in gun deaths --
murders, suicides, and accidental deaths due to guns - according to a
study published April 17, 1998 by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The U.S. was first at 14.24 gun deaths per 100,000 people. Two other
countries in the Americas came next. Brazil was second with 12.95,
followed by Mexico with 12.69.
Japan had the lowest rate, at 0.05 gun deaths per 100,000 (1 per 2
million people). The police in Japan actively raid homes of those
suspected of having weapons.
I find the stats on Japan very interesting as you can see a country
where an internal and external connection between and inner sense of
orderliness and an outer sense of orderliness is directly
correlatable. I also remember hearing that Asian immigrants have the
lowest levels of criminal activity here in the US.
