Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Then why isn't the murder rate higher in Switzerland? If gun availability causes gun murders, that should be apparent in every country that has high gun availability.
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If you take 1000 people and placed them into a room with a loaded gun and came back in an hour you'd find them all alive and healthy if they are decent people. In fact, if any of them had firearms experience chances are you'd come back to find the gun unloaded to prevent any accidents.
The problem is we live in a culture of violence. This has nothing to do with gun-ownership, or hunting, or the war in Iraq. It has to do with surrounding people, day-in day-out with glorified images of violence and victimization. Watching a violent movie, tv show or sport and listening to violent music doesn't make someone into a criminal. I enjoy hardcore industrial and death metal myself, though I also enjoy classical. It is when this is the only life, the only world people know that they begin to act accordingly. If you want to brainwash someone you subject them to a topic repeatedly until their brain simply reprograms itself, this is no different. This doesn't alleviate responsibility on the part of the criminal but does contribute.
When you live in a world of violence and false victimization (there is real victimization don't get me wrong) and learn that the only way to advance in life or earn respect from your peers or make a name for yourself is to behave in similar fashion what do we expect? Why is it that today we are fearful of a teenager having his hands on a baseball bat yet millions of school students over this past century, right up to the 1990's in many parts of the country carried rifles and shotguns to school during hunting seasons. Strangely those kids, and kids that are in competitive shooting seem to get by without trying to kill fellow children.
Unfortunately with all the many great concepts and accomplishments of the U.S. this seems to be one of the major contributions we are making to the world. Slowly but surely many other nations are following suit. At some point we replaced the Melting Pot with the Cult of Violence and Victimization. Before anyone makes an assumption then I am focusing on one group I am not at all, if anything the poor are most susceptable but it happens to every group and demographic in the nation.
My solution would be to end bullshit Wars on victimless crimes, bring back personal responsibility and end our focus on criminals as victims, hold the criminals, media and politicians responsible for their actions. You'd be better off getting rid of fluffy PC sensitivity training for children at school and just handing them a booklet entitled, "Here is the World, Life is Hard, Deal with It." Being respectful of others and not discriminating for whatever reason is fundamental, but that isn't what we are teaching them. We are teaching them what about themselves makes them a victim, how to take any situation or event and twist details around to show that you are being victimized and finally how best to exploit that.
Why is it guns are used 4 times as often to defend oneself or family then is used in crimes and yet over the past decade the amount of times any of those stories have been told by any of the mainstream news programs could be counted on your fingers, literally. As I said in a previous post they claim to not want to promote vigilantism. If the images and stories focused on by the media would result in emulation by the populace what does that say about the current programs? It directly feeds into my viewpoint of our culture. You tell me which is worse? Promoting safe and responsible gun ownership and showcasing the actions of those owners -OR- promoting illegal activities by criminals while using those acts as a means of self-promotion and self-gratification?
-MJ