Stefano, while this is an interesting treatise, it fails because it uses Lott's arguments that guns and crime(prevention) are connected in the US. They are not. Crime is merely one of many useful statistics to justify gun ownership. What you and most Europeans and just about everyone outside the US fail to understand is how deeply embedded the necessity of the Gun is in US culture. It is deeply tied to our founding and our independence. There is a saying over here: A well-armed citizenry keeps the government honest.
Guns allowed us to conquer this continent and dispossess its original inhabitants. Guns allowed us to drive the tyrant, King George III, and his representatives and adherents from this nation. The Gun is deeply tied to American identity. The Gun was/is so important that at the end of the War between the States (or American Civil War), the victor permitted the vanquished to retain possession of its arms. Unlike the English, we have no feudal history, so nothing has really changed in the UK re arms except that those who always had access are losing it. Also unlike England, our frontier was pacified only within the last 100 years, there are people here still alive who remember those days. Dave On 03 Feb 2009, at 12:39, Stefano Mori wrote: > > On 2009-Feb-03, at 14:29, Chuck Bennett wrote: > >> In effect, the guy on the left benefits from the doubt that that >> causes in the criminals mind. We call it the "umbrella effect". > > > Yes I have to say as someone living in the UK, guns abhor me. > > But when I was living in South Africa, and particularly now, when > basically guns alone are not enough so you have to hire militias with > many guns to protect farms, I find emotionally his arguments are > compelling and, assuming the data and stats are correctly done, I'd > have to go with it and agree. South Africa is known as the rape > capital of the world; women need all the protection they can get. > > I think the guns are a symptom, not the problem. Guns exist like jails > exist. The jails don't cause criminals, as such, but a country that > has many many jails obviously has a problem. America seems to need > guns like the world seems to need armies and nukes. The nukes are not > the cause but the symptom of a world that is still too fractured. > > In an Integral/Ken Wilber/AQAL diagram, the big picture is always that > the material world is one half, and the psychological world is the > other. So with any problem you approach it both materially and > psychologically. You could say that guns are the material side, and > people's moral character is the psychological side. Your point Chuck > is in essence that changing the material side does little if nothing > to change the psychological side, ie. you can ban guns, but does that > improve the moral character of people? Does banning the "bad" guns > make bad people good? And as we live in a democracy and abhor > draconian control, how would you even effect a complete ban anyway? > The bad guys will still get the guns, and the only people left > observing the law, and defenseless, are the good guys. > > Now there is always some relationship between the material and the > psychological sides, and the question with crimes and guns is, what is > the nature of that relationship? If Lott's research is correct, then > that relationship in America appears to be that the psychology of the > criminals is such that having an armed citizenry will tend to reduce > violent crimes. So that's a good thing. Unless there is anything else > anyone can add, then I agree with you, and frankly, if I moved to > America, to one of those gun states, then I'd be sure to get some > training and get armed. Speaking as someone who lives in the UK, > that's an abhorrent thought, but from what I remember of South Africa, > I know that when you live somewhere different, your feelings can > change pretty quickly. > > The interesting question is whether it would be a good thing for the > UK to have an armed citizenry. Again, using the AQAL diagram, we'd > have to start by noticing that America's psychological makeup is > different to Britain's in many respects. We have much more Green in > Europe, and our cultural psychology is different. We don't have a long > standing tradition of gun ownership, so I wonder that even if, > tomorrow the Government did a massive turn around and recommended > everyone get armed, most people simply wouldn't. You might call this > our "sheep" mentality. For all we know, it might simply encourage all > the Red parts of UK society to arm themselves, whiles all the good > people (Blue, Orange, Green) never do. Then precisely all the people > who you don't want armed are armed, and all the people who you do want > armed aren't. It could be a complete nightmare. But that is just a > guess at a possibility. > > Stefano > > > > _______________________________________________ > OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] > http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters > List hosted at http://cat5.org/ -- "Beautiful bodies and beautiful personalities rarely go together." -- Carl Jung _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
