While I'm not on board with the shots at the second amendment in this article - I find the explanation of the issues BEHIND our nation's love affair with violence to be spot on.

http://billmoyers.com/story/gun-culture ... -violence/

when i see that many adjectives, i know the appeal is not to facts or logic, but to emotion.

Could not get beyond the sub headline and the photo of the dufus (es). Squinting mouth breathing dude with no trigger finger discipline and maybe about to shoot off his own toe. And his buds who appear to have a slightly higher IQ. Yep, that's the media!

I made it all the way to "Concealed carry turns places into the Wild West" before I closed the window in disgust. The author seems to have chewed up every anti-gun cliche and regurgitated it out onto his page without an ounce of examination.

I got to the regurgitated and false "mass shooting" number before I gave up.

I will say, the US does have a violence problem. But it's the economic violence of the very rich keeping the rest of us in bondage.

KnightsFan wrote:But it's the economic violence of the very rich keeping the rest of us in bondage.

That's Moyers' position as well. The gun article was of suck for many reasons, mostly because, as noted above. it's a catch-all of gun dreck.

It's easy for us to say, like I do, "more education will prevent accidents." This quickly gets molested into, "the solution is more guns? You're deranged!"

Zut, alors.

When we live in a country whose history is rife with US militarism in pursuit of "our oil under their sand" and so on, our CIA coups, our buying of South American governments and our crushing of the ones who wouldn't sell--all this history exposes a "might is right" philosophy.

I think "might is right" is but one of many tools in the bag of a mature nation. Let us move America in the direction of maturity with respect to international relations. That way we will slowly extinct our inherent violent culture. Then we can all have nice things.

CDFingers

"Bridge for sale--accept only unicorn currency, Unicoin."

i have several problems with the article, but i think it touches on some truth.

first, the easy part. gireaux is canadian. not that there's anything wrong with that, i like canada and have met some very nice canadians, but i'm not sure they see the whole picture. maybe they're right and we can't see the forest for the trees, but he's got a lot of nerve preaching at us.

we do live in a violent culture. but that violence long predates the "gun culture", and gun violence is just one of many expressions of that societal violence.

the united states has always been based on a peculiarly assertive (aggressive, if you prefer) principle of self-determination. people, often impoverished, came here mainly from europe (heck, the indians came here 10, 20, 40,000 years ago for free land) seeking the opportunity to live as they pleased. and they found that here, but at a cost. land, the basis of wealth, power and security were here for the taking, as long as you could take it from the people who were already here and were often already at war with each other.

fundamental differences in the understanding of the meaning of property and the organization of power fed underlying tensions, and violence was often the simple solution. indian removal in the 1830s and the mexican war in the 1840s were obvious signs (even to many americans participating in the process) that violence was not just the domain of a few unscrupulous individuals, but national policy supported by a large part of the populace.

so our country was conceived, gestated, born and raised in violence, and guns are just one of many tools. it's not like we're the only ones. the empires of europe and asian history were built on imposing the will of one group of people on another, and we're no different, except that our founding fathers recognized the importance of violence and institutionalized it in their founding documents. we are very nearly unique in that respect.

it's not just an american, or even a european thing, it's a human thing. islam swept across north africa, south asia and much of europe, by the sword.

but where we once were a backwater, sneered at by the rest of the world, now we're a major world power, like britain and rome were before us. we have a lot of power, but are easily led, especially by appeals to emotion. so anyone (or groups of anyones) with enough influence simply has to persuade us that it's in our own interests to support them with our votes, (that at least is something new, lots of places have never bothered to even ask the people) our taxes, our very lives, and those powerful individuals and groups benefit, often at the expense of the rest of us.

and that's the real problem. we allow ourselves to be persuaded that violence is an acceptable, even preferred response to any perceived slight, whether it be wearing the wrong color jacket or refusal to grant access to oil or warm-water ports. guns are not the problem. violence is the problem.

Well said, Lurker. For me, to embrace violence as part of our nature is to recognize that which is part of what makes us who we are, and to acknowledge where we have come from; That is different from celebrating it's expression upon one another. To remove the tools by which it finds expression is folly. Violence is the thing, not the tool.

And then there is economic disparity, an extreme of which will always contribute to the hostility equation. That must also be addressed.

Does anyone know what the current Bitcoin/Unicoin exchange rate is?

Bacchus wrote: And then there is economic disparity, an extreme of which will always contribute to the hostility equation. That must also be addressed.

i'm interested in how much economic disparity contributes to violence. it's surely a cause, but not the cause. i think some people use it as a wedge to divide and manipulate.

The Pew report, brought in in an other thread, is interesting to read along side this

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -edges-up/

We build a fire in a powder magazine, then double the fire department to put it out. We inflame wild beasts with the smell of blood, and then innocently wonder at the wave of brutal appetite that sweeps the land as a consequence.
-Mark Twain from a speech 1907

lurker wrote:

Bacchus wrote: And then there is economic disparity, an extreme of which will always contribute to the hostility equation. That must also be addressed.

i'm interested in how much economic disparity contributes to violence. it's surely a cause, but not the cause. i think some people use it as a wedge to divide and manipulate.

Very true.