US Town: Owning a Gun is Mandatory
(Lithograph of the June 27 Union charge on Confederates at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Published in 1888 by Louis Kurz and Alexander Allison.)
I find the American obsession with guns intriguing/fascinating. Whenever there is a major killing the pro and anti gun control groups clash and an emotional, almost violent, debate sweeps the US landscape/mindscape.
Yet another interesting Reuters story on this issue:
“The Virginia Tech killings have set off calls for tighter U.S. gun laws but anyone wanting to know why those demands likely will make little headway should visit Kennesaw, a town where owning a gun is both popular and mandatory.
“The town north of Atlanta had little prominence until it passed a gun ordinance in 1982 that required all heads of a household to own a firearm and ammunition.
“Kennesaw’s law was a response to Morton Grove, Illinois, which had passed a gun ban earlier that year as a step to reduce crime…”
In one of my posts earlier, one commentator gave me a friendly advice which amounted to something like this…”OK you fella! You live so far away from the US in a different world and have no clue about our ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’. So why do you waste your breath/energy writing about us?”
Point well made…and taken!!!
I made the following comment on the subject earlier in The TMV…
“Violence cannot be stopped by just banning guns. A majority of Americans seem to lean on arms owing to a fear psychosis that can be perhaps traced to the memories of being the settlers in an alien land not very long ago in history.
There are those who have, consciously or unconsciously, developed a macho trait to overcome this fear. These traits become more visible whenever the nation responds to a major crisis, such as the present shocking killings in the American campus, or when muscle power is used outside the USA.
There is no easy solution when fear and violence take possession of one’s mind and thought. Banning this, or having more and more strict legislation, alone would not help much.
9/11 has further complicated things for an average American. The past four years have clearly displayed that violent response to violent acts creates more fear.
Now add to all this the growing confusion in the minds of the people when things don’t work out in the ‘desired’ fashion despite having all the muscle power.
And we have the heady cocktail of fear, macho trait and confusion. A deadly combination that can sap the strength of the mightiest person/nation.
Violence (or fear or greed or whatever) is in the mind…and it is from there it has to be healed or removed. Otherwise a person/nation continues to suffer, and makes others suffer.”
“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Knowledge without Character, Commerce without Morality, Science without Humanity, Worship without Sacrifice, Politics without Principles.� — Mahatma Gandhi
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12 Responses to “US Town: Owning a Gun is Mandatory”
A majority of Americans seem to lean on arms owing to a fear psychosis that can be perhaps traced to the memories of being the settlers in an alien land not very long ago in history.
This could be true if many could traced their ancestry to the settlers. Very few people are in this catagory, this is more a part of the US folklore. What about the Europeans, they lived through two World Wars, I would say this leave larger pshycological scars than the “John Wayne folklore”.
Well there is also the Penis Extension argument.
One becomes more confident, brave and virile with the power of life and death easily assessable through the technology of a modern fire arm. With a well tuned weapon in hand, the ego takes a larger bite of self image and the mind thinks women want him more.
Depending on the new self made man image’s sexual propensity, the victim will either get killed, or screwed. Since Americans are lazier these days, killed is more likely since screwing takes effort and one runs the risk of a shocking self image failure.
Be careful Swaraaj, we have a LOT of guns! Messing around here could make you submissive in ways you may not expect.
FEWER UMBRELLAS, LESS RAIN
That makes more sense than “Fewer Guns = Less Crime.” (which is DEMONSTRABLY false!)
Why?
Because for some strange reason, those countries who have outlawed guns (like G.Briton and Australia) have seen an INCREASE in violent crime!
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/guncontrol_20010302.html
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/nov97e.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html
The first thing Leftists do when there is a statistically insignificant (that so few happen, not that little damage is done) violent crime is to scream that guns should be taken away from law-abiding people. That is FOOLISH! Given that madmen who want guns WILL get them (or some other means of destruction), and that American violent crime rates have gone down DESPITE increased gun ownership while foreign violent crime rates where owning a gun is illegal have gone up, it is either ignorance or malice to insist that depriving Americans of a means of self defense will decrease crime.
This is not a matter of “who are you to tell me what to do if you don’t live here.” Rather, it’s a matter of “who are you to tell me what to do if you don’t know what you are talking about.”
I’ll say one thing for the gun lobby, they have snappy slogans and enough sham facts to paper over the globe.
There are more factors involved in countries with increased crime rates than just gun laws. In the US, for example, there is more aggressive and more plentiful gun smuggling from Mexico.
The country is also barraged by 24/7 high-pitch ‘news’ designed to keep every one angry and scared.
There are scores of changes going on, and picking out gun laws as the only relevant one is unsound enough to be silly.
This kind of analogy would be laughed out of town in any serious analysis, but it’s mother’s milk to the gullible.
There is no way to know, at this point, what the explanation is. But when you don’t know, it’s best to say so.
BAN PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OR GUNS NOW
The life you save may be your own.
yonason please be more honest when you supply links to back up your scarecrow.
From the first link:
This study is over 11 years old. I could dig up something from Prohibition to make the opposite claim.
From the second link:
All the crime cited in the text above is for property crime, the US has 3X the murder rate of Canada. Canada actually has a higher rate of property crime.
The chance of your car being broken into is higher in Canada, UK and Australia. The chance of your being shot is SIGNICANTLY high in the US.
I’d rather lose a CD player than be shot, what about you?
domajot- All this neocon crap is beginning to crumble. Although the damage it has caused is galactic in scope, people are waking up to it’s myriad of false messages.
Some attempt has been made by propagandists to disguise intent, but they are not very good at it. IMO we have seen the begining of the end to the dimestore cowboy, ugly American, bigoted, excused greed, gun tote’n, ultra nationalistic, war mongering, unregulated capitalist, embarrassing jackasses.
A new better America is on the rise.
I hope y’all realize that the Gandhi quote is most true in the USA in the “underclass” culture typically found in old central cities in metro areas but found elsewhere, too, even in rural America.
Domajot said:
> There is no way to know,
> at this point, what the
> explanation is. But when
> you don’t know, it’s best
> to say so.
There is no “obscession” [sic] with guns except among a tiny fraction who worships them (the stereotypical guy with several guns who likes to wear a black ninja suit while carrying them on his person, who is almost non-existent in this country) and among so very many of their opponents, who often are so pathological they demonize the things.
We have a gun culture for historical reasons (which drives the legal reasons, not vice versa).
We are not the only nation with a gun culture (nor with the violence that accompanies it).
Most people who shoot do so because they enjoy it, because it is challenging, and they enjoy it for the same reason that other forms of marksmanship are enjoyed, to be able to reach something that exceeds the grasp of your arm. (That is the key psychological element that has been identified for decades.) Any of you who have shot a rubber band at anything (or anybody) have demonstrated this.
Other things can be speculated as well (the few with ego problems who identify themselves with a gun, among those who truly are obscessed with the guns they own, those who do feel tough or feel the gun is a shield for behavior they’d dare not engage in otherwise, the appeal of noise of firearms when they are fired (a visible muzzle blast is even more fun), etc.)
I shoot at formal and informal (dead, not live) targets, and I particularly like the idea of shooting tracer ammo at exploding targets, which is fully animated entertainment, albeit more costly than shooting at paper or tin cans. There is no obscession, merely appeal; anyone who finds that abhorrent is mentally ill.
> dimestore cowboy,
> ugly American, bigoted,
> excused greed,
> gun tote’n,
> ultra nationalistic,
> war mongering,
> unregulated capitalist,
> embarrassing jackasses
My heroes! Evil fundamentalist dunces, too!
RUDI says
Rudi, get your head out of your _________. That first link was from 2001, and is NOT 11 years old, as you allege. I don’t know where you learned your math, but I suggest you get a refund if you had to pay for that “education.”
The quote you give is from the second link. And, just as it was true then, and in 2001, so it is true today as well.
From the first link (6 years ago, but long after England and Australia instituted their gun bans):
In the second link (only 5 years old):
And there are a lot more links with accurate statistics as opposed to feel-good fantasies, IF you want to actually bother to find them.
And I don’t know where you learned to read or think critically, but you are due a refund there as well.
As much as you SouthPaws blather about “honesty” you might actually give it a try sometime.
[...] In the wake of the Va. Tech massacre, the long-standing debate on gun control and America’s perceived “gun culture” renews itself, and will most likely end in Congress “doing something” about the issue such as passing more useless laws to prevent criminals from breaking other laws. Why anyone expects to stop criminals from breaking new laws after they’ve shown complete indifference to one’s already in existence is beyond me. Of course, it’s not really much of a debate. Instead, it is a demonization of anyone who does not fall in line with our moral betters, who are content to smugly gaze down their noses at those hicks and gun nuts who are the real cause of murderous mayhem, while preaching the virtues of victimization and passivity in the face of treachery. (Read the comments to the links to get the full flavor). Arrogant eye-rolling abounds. [...]