You did not define a conflict or the unintended consequence here
Do any of you have any insights into ways individuals can ensure they at least leave the culture less violent than they found it?
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence...
They also have vastly stricter gun regulation laws, and while ownership rates are high in some, the US is an extreme outlier and no other country comes even close.
Because nobody in any European country thinks they have a "right" to own a gun, most of them could if they wanted to, but they simply don't want to deal with the hassle that owning a properly regulated firearm entails.
As it should be, owning a deadly weapon is a lot of responsibility that not everybody is up for/actually wants. The importance of that responsibility gets completely lost when firearms are treated like cool toys that everybody should have and exist in abundance.
That's why headlines like "toddler shoots mother" or "dog shoots owner" don't exist in Europe, but are a sad somewhat regular thing out of the US. These toddlers and dogs didn't do that because they watched too much violent media, they did that because the actual owners of the guns where irresponsible individuals and never should have owned one in the first place.
This is fueled by movies and culture - have the gun in your possession and you’ll automatically win the fight - that was easy!
I’ve read countless comments from Americans that they have a gun to shoot intruders. Statistics telling you there’s a bigger chance someone else will get hurt be damned.
These ideas are have to be fueled by big money is my guess.
Also we humans really like our toys, so I can get that aspect of it. Wanna take my toy? Forget about it.
And the reason for that is simple - marketing.
Here in Switzerland I basically see no guns unless I go to the shooting club. There's none sold in the shops, there's none advertised in newspapers, tv or on the radio. And there is definitely no gun offered when opening a bank account.
Basically if you want a gun for whatever reason - usually for recreational shooting at the shooting club, then you have to go out and look for it.
In the US I have the feeling that they're marketed as a penis extension, and you're not a proper man unless you shoot things, with the view that you'd be quite happy to project a slug of lead into somebody else at high velocity to prove you're more of a man than they are.
To solve the problem in the US I think you need to ban the advertising - like cigarettes.
Caution: This weapon inflicts pain suffering and death to others. User may be incarcerated for murder if ever used. If in a situation of conflict, gun only increases likelihood of extreme violence - leave at home.
I think they have. I've also seen more gun stores opening, with provocative names.
I've no problem with firearms used responsibly for hunting or recreation, but in the very few cases I've seen someone open carrying a handgun (once at a very crowded national park, and once at a residential picnic area, both just this year) it was clear they didn't have a gun to defend themselves (if that were the case you don't need to show it off), but to threaten others. And for defending yourself against wild animals, bear spray is far more effective.
I figured that the US just seemed to get crazy around 2012 because I switched to primarily external news coverage of the U.S. when I moved abroad.
Actually, now that I think about it, I think I have seen TV ads for both Remington and Beneli shotguns in duck hunting and fishing shows in the U.S. But, I'm pretty sure I've never seen TV ads for pistols in the U.S., or long guns outside of hunting/fishing shows.
No. I've open carried. We do not do it to threaten people. There are many reasons to one chooses to open or conceal carry.
There have to be money involved.
It's an issue that won't be solved by banning weapons. Educating people (e.g. mandatory background checks, operation and safety training, and safe storage) and solving the underlying problems will work. I mean a lot cite defense from home invasions as the reason to own a gun. Why do people invade homes? If they had a reasonable income and comfortable life they wouldn't have a reason to.
This is only effective with a gun registry which gun owners will not accept.
> operation and safety training
Are you required to take civics to vote?
> safe storage
If you simply mean prosecution for being negligent, that's fine. If you mean it has to be in a safe unloaded, that defeats their use for self-defense in the home. It would likely be held unconstitutional.
Nobody believes the statistics are relevant to them. Statistics are about all those dumb other people; but I'm always the smart, responsible exception.
I think your claim about there being a higher chance of accidental injury vs. self defense is probably wrong. The issue is a little muddy, but there are only ~800 firearms accidental deaths per year (0.00024% of pop.) and about 50,000 self-defense uses per year (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf)
I'm also not convinced about movies. I bet other places have very similar mixes of actual watching and the same selection given the internet.
I still believe many people see guns as a solution to a problem and on top of that vastly overrate their own abilities in a pressure situation.
If you’ve not trained many many hours in a setting resembling this pressure to a high degree you really have no idea how you’ll react.
It seems really easy in movies!
Can’t speak for the source but first hit on google:
http://features.hollywoodreporter.com/the-gun-industrys-lucr...
No. It's not automatic. But my wife has a much better chance against a 250lb 6ft man with one than without one.
I’d love to see stats on these scenarios... are they common?
I totally agree about the responsibility thing.
Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should ignore that sort of thing. Those sorts of incidents are super rare. They hit headlines /because/ they're rare and therefore interesting.
Which is exactly why the regulation in the US does not work; Anybody who disagrees with their states particular laws can just cross into another state to get their fix there.
That why any proper regulation needs to happen on a federal level so individual states won't act as a loophole.
> Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should ignore that sort of thing. Those sorts of incidents are super rare. They hit headlines /because/ they're rare and therefore interesting.
It's something that should be non-existent, I haven't seen it anywhere else in the world. But only a couple of days ago there was yet another example out of the US [0].
These are the kind of absurd situations that simply do not happen in any other place as other places lack the "firearm saturation" that enables this in the US. So something that should be improbable, still ends up being a regular thing.
[0] https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dog-accidentally-shoots-ow...
If you mean purchase something you cannot buy in your state, that's not true. Interstate handgun purchases are completely banned and long guns can only be sold if the sale complies with both state laws.
Here in Sweden we’ve seen a horrible development regarding gun violence - easy to chalk up to “immigration” and “soft laws” but in my mind it’s a lot deeper - interesting enough this is at the same time we have a record amount of dollar millionaires in the country.
We used to work as a collective but our economic policies are turning more and more neoliberal and thus individual. This exacerbates the issue of creating a new “class” of citizens already left partly out of the loop of riches.
If we take care of each other in a better way as a collective there’s a chance to turn things around. It’s all about increasing the chance of a good outcome per individual. This is the secret to a lot of the success in northern Europe - if you’re born here chances are great that you’ll get an education and that you live a long and healthy life.
Regarding crime and violence specifically I’ve read a lot about the “group violence intervention” program and a lot of it is about cooperation and taking care of people in a humane way.
Here’s David Kennedy speaking in Sweden where this has been worked successfully:
In short - don’t be to afraid of taxes, and vote in a manner where money can be spent more wisely. Funneling tax money to havens by way of “entrepreneurs” seems less well spent... problem is that when such a system is set it will want to be conserved - looking at the US and it’s kinda dark over here as well.
All I can do is try to mold my children into caring human beings hoping to influence culture that way.
Stastistics about suspects are most commonly used in studies like these because the police, due to the seperation of powers, usually has no or at least less statistics of the actual results of charges.
That low resolution rate alone introduces a margin of error that is larger than the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant suspects. It is therefore possible that the much higher immigrant suspect rate is entirely a result of biases.
I’m not suggesting however that because they are immigrants they commit more crime. Note most violence is committed by 2nd generation immigrants - so they’ve been born here. How’s that for a failure of society...
They are simply people on the outside living surrounded by people leading lives they cannot relate to.
We’ve made it terribly difficult to attain this norm life as well making it even more unrelatable.
As the (still very low) income inequality is rising in Sweden(https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the...), it isn't surprising violence rises, too.
This has been 30-40 years in the making.
Yes - it is related, just as it is in the US.
If your goal is to prevent untimely, unwanted deaths there are oh so many other ways to apply your resources that will yield orders of magnitude more improvement per dollar / per minute.
People like to pay attention to it anyway for a few reasons. One is that we evolved to think specifically about interpersonal violence (~5-15% of prehistoric deaths, but way more than that for non-old people), which makes us good at luridly imagining interpersonal violence, and so comparatively we're bad at thinking about an early death due to diabetes and therefore bad at caring about it. Another reason is it's a hot-button red team/blue team political issue, so it's not so much about the issue per se but rather whether $OTHER_SIDE gets what it wants or not.