So Much Violence in the US: Why?

[DeathBug]

[QUOTE=James]
If your son shoots up his school, [i]don't blame Doom[/i]. [/QUOTE]

You really have no idea how much this comment made me smile; I once said almost the same thing in a school debate a bit back.

See, I'm skeptical to some of this talk regarding the causes of violence for a simple reason: when I was younger, I fit the exact personality profile of a potentially violent student. Heck, I played Doom behind my parents' backs as young as eight.

Yet never once did the thought of hurting anyone enter my mind. There has to be something else there that creates that.

[Epitome]

[QUOTE=DeathBug]You really have no idea how much this comment made me smile; I once said almost the same thing in a school debate a bit back.

See, I'm skeptical to some of this talk regarding the causes of violence for a simple reason: when I was younger, I fit the exact personality profile of a potentially violent student. Heck, I played Doom behind my parents' backs as young as eight.

Yet never once did the thought of hurting anyone enter my mind. There has to be something else there that creates that.[/QUOTE]
[size=1][color=SeaGreen]Thats the same with me. My parents actually have made me stop playing Counter-Strike (some of you have already heard about this...) because of the fact that they thought I was obesessed with guns...

And thats really what I have been trying to say, but I was putting it the wrong way. I still believe that James is right... The reason we are so violent is because of the amount we see and how it is portrayed. We hear and see things about wars all the time, and it does seem like a strong cause of violence...

[quote name='James']If your son shoots up his school, don't blame Doom.[/quote]

P.S. That was pretty hilarious... lol.[/size][/color]

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1][quote=Zeta]Anyways. This is my theory. In this small town in Georgia near where I live, everyone is require to have a gun. They had their first major crime just last year, a murder I believe. I think everyone should have a gun. :-) Many are going to say "omg...with more guns there will just be more killings." But look at it this way. If you are planning on robbing a guy who you know has a gun required by law, are you really going to want to do it?
[/quote]

Ahah. But, if you wanted to rob somebody, you'd already have a gun to do it with. Its not like Australia where you have to have licensed weapons. If you want a gun here illegally, you'd have to find it. Much harder than having to have one.

And in regards to multi-culturality being a leading cause: thats crap. Take a look at Australia; it's a veritable melange of cultures. We don't have much of a problem.[/size]

[Corey]

[size=1][quote name='DeathBug']Are they?[/quote]
They are.

[quote name='DeathBug']Except what you're talking about isn't common sense; it's values. If a person doesn't think a human life has any value, but a DVD player does, then common sense sees no problem in them killing for it.[/quote]
Values [i]are[/i] common sence to me. Unfortunately not to everyone.[/size]

[Drix D'Zanth]

The united states has a population of about.. say 300 or so million. South Africa has a poplulation of about 41 million. The gun-related homocides in South Africa are nearly nine times that of the United States per year. Most gun-related information is unable to provide accurate detail relating gun-homocides and comparing them to the United States. Japan, usually the one of the lowest countries on the list of gun homocides per capita, has one of the highest rates of sexual assault of any developed nation. Russia is in such a state of information disrepair that they data they would provide, if they do, would be absolutely unreliable. Look at the african nations... Indonesia... Mexico.. etc. The crime rates all over europe when relating to theft are astronomical.

The U.S. isn't perfect, but it's not on the bottom of the barn. More kids die from accidental drowning in un-lidded water buckets than gun-related incidents. Do we have "lidless water bucket" laws now? In some situations guns actually reduce the number of crime, sexual assault and robbery seem directly proportional to the strictness of gun laws.

Sure, guns are dangerous, but anything can be dangerous if you have a mind willing to murder. There's violence everywhere... not just the United States.. I just hope we don't blindly accept regulation as the means to a solution.

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1]You don't need to blindly accept it. But surely, the removal of these weapons, the restriction of their distribution will lessen the amount available to potential murderers? Obviously, more than that needs to be done, but those steps in the beginning will help, won't they?[/size]

[James]

[quote name='Baron Samedi][size=1']You don't need to blindly accept it. But surely, the removal of these weapons, the restriction of their distribution will lessen the amount available to potential murderers? Obviously, more than that needs to be done, but those steps in the beginning will help, won't they?[/size][/quote]

[color=#707875]Yes, of course. Gun crime in Australia dropped off significantly after most kinds of weapons were restricted via the gun buy back program.

There's simply no reason to have dangerous weaponry in people's homes. I mean, you could easily that more people die of one thing rather than something else. But that's just a deflection in my eyes -- it's like saying "don't worry about this when there is something worse out there". But that kind of thinking will take you around in a circle and you'll begin where you started.

I am the [i]last[/i] person to blindly do [i]anything[/i] -- particularly when it comes to Government regulation. I wouldn't support it if there were not valid and logical reasons for doing so.

However, I think that guns are only part of the problem. I still feel that there are broader social issues that are fundamentally broken, which need fixing.[/color]

[Drix D'Zanth]

[quote name='Baron Samedi][size=1']You don't need to blindly accept it. But surely, the removal of these weapons, the restriction of their distribution will lessen the amount available to potential murderers? Obviously, more than that needs to be done, but those steps in the beginning will help, won't they?[/size][/quote]

I doubt it. The repeated murders, gang crime, et cetera, usually aren?t legally purchased guns. Basically, while truly dangerous people maintain weapons, stripping away people?s legally owned firearms may be a pretty BAD thing. Think about it, if you were a criminal, would you attack the home you knew would not have a gun, or the home you knew very well MAY have a gun?

Guns require a responsibility and common sense that?s all but died in our nation (obesity is the leading cause of preventable death). Just because our civil liberties are abused doesn?t mean we should lose those liberties. I?m not a very avid gun user, myself. I don?t hunt; I?ve only shot a few times with a family friend. I probably won?t own a gun? I recognize the importance of regulating a gun, at the same time I?m pretty un-decided. I?ll agree with James that there are bigger issues. I don?t mean to deflect the issue, but sometimes anti-American propaganda like Michael Moore?s is just so antipodean of reality that I?ve got to say something.

Heck, even Australia has its problems: [u][URL=http://www.vangcomp.com/confiles.html]What's your take?[/URL] [/u[

[James]

[color=#707875]I think that the gun issue is very important and believe me, I'm the last person to defend Michael Moore. There's no question that he has an (extreme) axe to grind. A lot of gun crime occurs with people in the same family (ie: someone shooting someone else, particularly in domestic violence situations). So, I can't say I really buy that argument completely. I agree with it in a sense, but I also think that it ignores many other issues. Like I said before, life just isn't that simple. It reminds me of the marijuana debate. You could say that true marijuana users are only going to get the drug illegally anyway, so why not legalize it? Obviously the two are quite different, but the principle of the discussion is very similar.

By the same token, the United States has a noteably different attitude toward ownership of guns than most other countries. I think it's one of the things that I dislike most about the USA, although I should really qualify that by saying that I am [i]usually[/i] defending the United States -- most of all, I tend to defend it to its own citizens, many of which don't seem to understand how their own political system works or what their own president's policies are.

Of course, Australia has its problems. But...if you wanted to compare these things per capita, it would be laughably unbalanced. I mean, that's just not a comparison that you want to make, really.

But to get back to the topic itself, I would say that violence itself is a problem, but what is possibly more concerning is the [i]reaction[/i] to violence that many in the media have. I mentioned earlier the way that news media handled the Columbine issue, particularly with regard to medication versus Doom. The fact that one item was so heavily mentioned, while others were not, is an indication to me that something is wrong.

Moreover, in all the coverage I saw about that, I saw very little actual investigative journalism going on. It seemed to me that the answer was there, before the question had even been asked. And that is something that I disagree with, philosophically, in every single area of my life (media coverage or otherwise). But it's particularly noteable in this situation, I think.

We are still having people complaining about GTA and games of that nature, even when the ratings are appropriate. And then we hear the uproar about Janet Jackon's breast on TV. It's not that these things can't or shouldn't be debated, it's that everyone focuses on them, to the detriment of [i]real[/i] issues.[/color]

[Zeta]

[QUOTE]Ahah. But, if you wanted to rob somebody, you'd already have a gun to do it with. Its not like Australia where you have to have licensed weapons. If you want a gun here illegally, you'd have to find it. Much harder than having to have one.[/QUOTE]

Like Drix said in his above post. Just because you all ready have a gun to do it with, doesn't mean you will. Would you rather rob someone without a gun and come out alive? Or rob someone who also has a gun, and will use it to protect himself/herself and come out injured or dead? A robber would prefer the former, but if everyone had a gun, you wouldn't want to mess with anyone, lol.

*shrug* I am not saying that this is going to happen anytime soon. But from a certain point of view, it does make sense. People who use guns against others are usually attacking those who are weak and without a way to protect themselves. Now you put that same robber in a neighborhood where everyone has a gun, I highly doubt he will rob anyone.

[Brasil]

[QUOTE=Zeta]Like Drix said in his above post. Just because you all ready have a gun to do it with, doesn't mean you will. Would you rather rob someone without a gun and come out alive? Or rob someone who also has a gun, and will use it to protect himself/herself and come out injured or dead? A robber would prefer the former, but if everyone had a gun, you wouldn't want to mess with anyone, lol.

*shrug* I am not saying that this is going to happen anytime soon. But from a certain point of view, it does make sense. People who use guns against others are usually attacking those who are weak and without a way to protect themselves. Now you put that same robber in a neighborhood where everyone has a gun, I highly doubt he will rob anyone.[/QUOTE]
This may be off-topic, but Zeta, are you aware what you're essentially suggesting here? You're essentially saying that everyone should have a gun in their house. You're saying that residental neighborhoods should have one gun per household, and then because of this "one gun, one house" maxim, everyone is then safer, because burglars wouldn't be so brash in robbing houses.

I'd think that Daddy Billy and Mommy Sally would have something to say in response to that after Little Bobby got hold of the family gun.

Putting a gun in every household is just about the last thing we need to do right now. It's not going to magically make everyone safer...not at all. If anything, it'll be increasing the risk of gun-related deaths. Only this time, it won't be by any burglar; it'll be by a family member.

If someone is going to be attacking someone because the target is weaker than the attacker, the attacker having a gun isn't going to have any dramatic impact on the fact that the weaker person is going to be attacked by the stronger person. If someone is stronger than you, they're going to push you around, bully you, etc, whether or not they have a firearm. Putting a firearm in your hands to defend yourself isn't going to deter the violence. Putting guns in the hands of those being attacked isn't going to deter the violence, either.

MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) is a relic from the Cold War, when America and the Soviets were going toe-to-toe with each other, and should a conflict arise, it would mean the end of the world.

I seriously doubt MAD is relevant at all to a discussion about guns and deterrent, because MAD is all about nuclear warfare.

[MissWem]

[quote name='Drix D'Zanth']Sure, guns are dangerous, but anything can be dangerous if you have a mind willing to murder. There's violence everywhere... not just the United States.. I just hope we don't blindly accept regulation as the means to a solution.[/quote]
[COLOR=DarkRed]True, but regulations are a necessary precaution. Of course with regulations education is also a neccessity. Sure we can tell people that guns can be bad and so is shooting people, and by taking into consideration that 'people in general' are actually quite stupid, we'd have to explain to them why guns can be bad and so is shooting people.

As this is a sociological issue there we can't come up with a simple answer to this as has been mentioned, there are a number of factors contributing to the amount of disproportionate violence in places like America. Someone mentioned that South Africa has an even greater amount of gun violence however that would relate to the fact that it's more or less a third world country and as a whole, a much poorer country with less education and well, basically less of everything else.

Since I'm nowhere near America I'm not farmiliar with people such as Michael Moore however just from my personal observations I've noted that Americans would appear to be a much more high-strung society. There's the vicious cycle that people get guns to protect themselves but they wouldn't need to do that if people stopped being violent towards each other. Vicious I say, vicious.

Perhaps it's because they're such a patriotical society? Hasn't war been glorified? To die for your country, for your beliefs, for you family and honourable thing to do? I suppose it's true when they say it's the land of the free but so many people are so bent on expressing their opinions they become angrier and angrier. I recently read an article on psychology which said that actually venting your aggression can actually foster greater amounts of aggression.

And before I go off on an unpredictable tangent I have one more thought to add. Hasn't anyone noticed how the society quickly latches onto a "frightening" new social problem and starts becoming incredibly paranoid and thus over-compensate by use of extreme control? eg, stopping teenagers that are displaying healthy behaviour from playing video games because some ninny blamed a shooting on some silly game. tch. James is right, it lies in the family but also how the family is told by society to behave, and when one family beomes 'corrupt' then the others see this as a potential threat as they themselves may have a similar family setup/type and overreact to prevent the tragedy from re-occuring.

But that's just my little theory ^_^[/COLOR]

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1][quote name='Drix']I doubt it. The repeated murders, gang crime, et cetera, usually aren?t legally purchased guns. Basically, while truly dangerous people maintain weapons, stripping away people?s legally owned firearms may be a pretty BAD thing. Think about it, if you were a criminal, would you attack the home you knew would not have a gun, or the home you knew very well MAY have a gun? [/quote]

[quote name='Zeta']Like Drix said in his above post. Just because you all ready have a gun to do it with, doesn't mean you will. Would you rather rob someone without a gun and come out alive? Or rob someone who also has a gun, and will use it to protect himself/herself and come out injured or dead? A robber would prefer the former, but if everyone had a gun, you wouldn't want to mess with anyone, lol.[/quote]

Mmk. So, you're saying that if a person has a gun, they will carry it around with them permanently? I highly doubt that merely [i]having[/i] a gun will lower the crime rate. I come into your house, in the middle of the night. I catch you sleeping. I have my gun, you don't. I come into your house in the afternoon, realise there's someone home. I have my gun [i]you don't[/i].

If you're going to have a gun in the house, it should be in a locked gun cabinet, without any ammunition inside it. Otherwise, the odds that Billy is going to shoot the cat, or worse, himself are...enormous. If they are locked away, then the chance that you'll be prepared and the burglar won't are low. A burglar has an element of bravery to him, but also, he has the element of surprise, which is perhaps more valuable. So, really, the issue of crime would not be sorely affected. Indeed, killing and shooting may even go up, as desperate burglar shoot the man they're stealing from, or as Joe Bloe shoots a burglar. Also;

[quote name='James']A lot of gun crime occurs with people in the same family (ie: someone shooting someone else, particularly in domestic violence situations). [/quote]

Gun control is not the only issue though... I urge you once again to look at Australia. Very low home robberies, particularly violent home robberies. Again, we don't have guns. American's modus operandi just seems a lot different.[/size]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Interesting, most interesting.

I'm going to side with James and Siren on this issue here, personally I think that it's the liberal attitude to guns in America that makes it such a dangerous country. I wouldn't be the first person to take a swing at Michael Moore, neither would I be the first person to throw a rock at him, some of his points I agree with, some I don't. When people base their ideals off people like Moore I think the important thing to remember is that he is very, very biased in his opinions, yes he does mix comedy into to try and make you forget this but it's still biased.

One of the things I noticed about gun use and ownership in America through watching different documentaries and reading newspaper articles, is the sheer level it's promoted at. I mean it would seem that in America the gun is the ultimate "must have" item without which you will get robbed and/or shot. If I remember correctly a statistic brought up was that gun owners in the U.S. are 72% more likely to shoot a family member than anyone else. This echoes Alex's point about having a gun but keeping it unloaded and locked away lest a child God-forbid get at it and accidentally shoot someone.

I can understand that people may want to have a gun to go hunting, I have gone hunting before with my father and a few of my cousins but there is no need for someone to own a fully automatic rifle. Where is the need to own an M-16, or a sub machine gun, you're not going to use them for hunting, at least most people wouldn't unless you're Uncle Jimbo from South Park. I personally don't see the need for a person to own a handgun, you are more likely to shoot a family member, if you think that someone is breaking into your house, you will panic. If you decide to use a gun while panicking you may actually fire at someone without meaning to, the result you may kill a family member who was just coming in.

I know that's a little extreme but with almost 12,000 gun deaths in America and quite a few due to accidents I think it's a fair point. Here in Ireland people do hunt, I have gone hunting with my father and cousins from time to time, but here gun control is far more strict than in the States. A person has the right to purchase a gun once they're eighteen, before this they have to apply for a gun license issued by the Gardaí (the police), they then have to wait two weeks after paying for the gun to get it while the gun retailer gets a background check and after that they have to reapply for a gun license every year. As well as this in Ireland you can only purchase hunting rifles and shotguns, no pistols, no sub-machine guns, no fully automatics and we have only like 20-25 gun deaths per year and most of that is due to organised criminals with the above that are illegal in Ireland.

Guns don't make a society safe, it they did America would be the safest country in the world.[/SIZE]