Why so many murders?
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Monday, April 13, 2026 04:37
VIEWED: 4147
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"Unfortunately any suggestion of certification or licensing is rejected by the gun lobby, so the more ideal situation -- that people know and respect the weapon falls by the wayside."
I don't think Gov't regulation is the way to go with this, but certification I would like to see, it would benefit the firearm manufacturers and gun shops by limiting their liability and be a positive social force overall, so best case would be the shops and manufacturers hammering out some kind of agreement on a minimum training standard without which they'll not sell to you, and possibly an additional price knockoff for better training as you are further reducing your liability to them as a potential lawsuit and they should reward you for it.
That's really NOT a hard thing to do, if they wanted to - what I do not wanna see, is them sit on that ball till the Gov sticks it's hands in it and does the same job for fifty times the money, one tenth as effectively, combined with favoritism and abuse typical of any Gov't action.
I won't deal directly with the "Gun Lobby" cause while individuals may or may not be - as a whole they come off to me like a bunch of extreme right racist haters who think anyone who doesn't believe exactly as they do should be dragged behind a pickup truck, even THR has had substantial problems with trying to overturn or defy that image, cause there really ARE a lot of people like that in the collective.
When you use someones physical location, political stance, or ethnicity as a slur, you've gone beyond the point of reason and into hate, which presents a very bad image to me personally, as the concept of a rigid-thinking intolerant hater with a firearm bothers me, you know ?
Anyhows, the industry COULD self-regulate, they're fully capable of it.
Ponder this potential conversation.
At the gun shop
Customer: Um, I wanna buy a gun.
Owner: Sure, have a certificate of training ?
Customer: Uhh, no ?
Owner: Why not ?
Customer: Why should I need one ?
Owner: A gun is a pretty expensive investment there fella, not to mention like any tool, it can be a hazard if you don't know what you're doing.
Owner: Wouldn't it be smart to know best how to operate and maintain it properly ? I mean, you wouldn't buy a power drill without knowing how to chuck a bit, would you ?
Customer: Oh.. can you reccommend someone ?
Owner: Sure, here's a list, the guys marked with a star can take care of you for less than the price of a decent sized box of ammo, just the basics, and the guys at the top do some basic defense training as well.
Customer: Would I need that ?
Owner: Up to you, but it would hurt to have a little, and if you bring me a cert from one of those guys I'll kick 10% off the top for ya.
Customer: Sweet, hey, can I put a deposit on a piece and come back later with the cert ?
Owner: You mean to reserve it ? sure, it's not refundable though, if you change your mind, and you have to come back within 30 days or you'll lose the deposit.
Customer: Yeah, I gotcha, lemme see that Sig-Sauer there...
Etc,etc...
It's a logical, fully workable concept, and after Katrina and the door-to-door jackbootery, the LAST thing I think is a good idea is the Gov having a list of who has what, you know ?
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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The argument that private ownership of firearms prevents violent crimes is one I think makes sense, and John Lott has done a lot research to demonstrate that this can be the case. In certain parts of the US gun ownership is probably a deterrent against crime. But I think it’s more complicated than some want to make it. For instance, it’s not the actual proliferation of firearms that acts as a deterrent to violent crimes as it is the impression within the community that the “unjust” use of firearms will be met with a responsible defense of lethal force or retribution by lethal force. That’s a bit more complicated than I think many pro-gun arguments allow, because the deterrent is derived from the cultural conception that certain common social norms can be defended with lethal force then it is simply that guns are available. So in order for a gun-owning society to be a deterrent to violent crime it must be a “moral” society, in that it is responsible and has a common sense of social justice, which is the case in certain parts of the US, particularly in conservative rural areas. But, small arms are heavily proliferated about the Middle East, and one would be hard pressed to argue that in this case, the existence of so many guns necessarily constitutes a determent to violent crime. And the reason is because many Middle Eastern societies have elements within them that are so “rotten” or unsympathetic to the common social sense of justice, that many would rather die than not kill someone, and there’s no way to pull a deterrent out of that. So it’s not as simple as pushing guns onto the society for defense if that society has no common sense of justice.
The point being that the only way to make gun ownership a viable universal deterrent against crime is for people to be trained in their responsible use, something that requires us to first enforce the laws we have on the books and then to impose certification on gun owners.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Here's another weirdness- not only do we have the highest incarceration rate, we have the highest percent of "religious followers" along with the highest murder rate. Clearly, neither religion nor law enforcement are the answer to our problems!
Americans live with fear, uncertainty and doubt on an every -day basis, and we KNOW that should we fail in any way there is absolutely no safety net for us. All I need to do is drive to the center of any mid-sized American city to see the schizophrenics, drug-addled, brain-damaged, disabled, and just plain unlucky existing like less than animals in the detritus of success. Jails are OUR mental-health, drug rehab, and occupational therapy systems. How fucked-up is THAT???
Not only do we live with FUD every goddamn day of our lives, we also live with self-hate because we are taught from day one that since success is there for the taking, every failure is a personal failure. (Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5had an extended quote from a German General on American POWs about that. If I can find it again I'll post it. It's just so bang-on).
Not only do we have we created a hostile society (Every man for himself and God against all. Hows' THAT for an oxymoron?) we have little support from family or friends- less than other developed nations. According to surveys, the poorer you are the fewer people you will cite as close friends.
And then you add an extremely violent media. It's like a friend at works say: "Kiss a breast you get an X-rating. Cut off a breast you get an R."
This all comes to a boil in American black society, then add a couple of giant ladles of prejudice (heaped on the from outside and absorbed), poor education, general availability of liquor store and fast-food outlets- but no grocery stores or doctor's offices- adn what you get is what you see.
Here's an interesting fact that I just learned from a recent workshop - on pollution, of all things: The HIGHER the segregation rate, the HIGHER the pollution levels FOR EVERYBODY. Yes, whites experience less pollution than non-whites, but they experience MORE pollution than if they lived in less-segregated cities. The same statistic apply across the board to all negative environmental factors.
And take a step back, then, from why things are the way they are. WHO BENEFITS?
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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Actually I think both law enforcement and religious belief can reduce crime. Much like gun ownership, the issue comes down to how it’s defined. Law enforcement that focuses on arresting criminals after they have committed a crime will never be as effective in reducing crime as law enforcement that also focuses on preventing behavior that leads to crime. Policing and fighting crime are two different parts of law enforcements, but unfortunately in many American societies, the policing aspect has been de-emphasized, which often results in social degradation leading to increased crime.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Frem,
I think that certification and training in the use of firearms makes perfect sense. We certify people to drive, after all.
The problem is that lawmakers are NOT trying to take away people's rights to drive. They aren't going to manufacture a driver's license system that is difficult or impossible to achieve. Their goal is safe driving, not no driving.
On the other hand, a significant portion of lawmakers ARE trying to take away people's rights to own firearms. The system of certification that they might create or manipulate may have very different goals than the certification system for automobile use.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Anthony: I think that's the NRA's fear. I think they see this as a thin edge of the wedge deal and that once they allow any kind of regulation it can be expanded into a ban.
One of the things I found interesting after 9/11 and the Patriot act was the governments insistance that background check records for firearms purchases should JUST be used for that and not correlated with any other data. So you live in a society where a secret court order can be issued to see what you take out from your local library but guys buying weapons are not being run through any additional screening.
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Quote:I do too. As soon as we require gun certification, the usual suspects will begin immediately demanding to expand that into a ban. It’s a bit of pickle. The net result is that gun ownership may decrease crime under certain circumstance, but it may be impossible to implement that on a national scale the way Switzerland has, given the current political environment.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Anthony: I think that's the NRA's fear. I think they see this as a thin edge of the wedge deal and that once they allow any kind of regulation it can be expanded into a ban.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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To reiterate: compared to the EU and Commonwealth nations the USA has not only the THE HIGHEST rate of incarceration and THE HIGHEST RATE of people who believe in God, we also have THE HIGHEST murder rate.
I have a general theory that also applies to the "police state" thread: People turn to authoritarianism times of fear and uncertainty. That's why the Japanese were rounded up during WWII- not b4 or after. It may seem an obvious point but is often forgotten.
What is authoritarianism? Reliance on strict enforcement of the current rules through punishment.
It think our religiosity and incarceration rate is neither the cause of nor the cure for, but a product of our economic and social instability. But if you want to reduce the instability you have to go to the root causes for the answer.
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Always look upstream.
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That is why I believe it vitally important that the industry SELF regulate, that the shops and manufacturers do so, rather than the government.
It's not at all a perfect solution, but the two primary alternatives suck ass.
-F
Edit: "Hostile Society", ayep, one I refer to wholeheartedly with every derogatory word imagineable, if you've not noticed before, I despise the entirety of it, it's sick, twisted, insane and destroys the humanity that is the very foundation civilisation is based upon by crushing it out of our young before it has a chance to grow.
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Quote:post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Originally posted by SignyM:
To reiterate: compared to the EU and Commonwealth nations the USA has not only the THE HIGHEST rate of incarceration and THE HIGHEST RATE of people who believe in God, we also have THE HIGHEST murder rate.
Amish communities are deeply religious, with social norms and laws centered on the church, but almost no crime, violent or otherwise.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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