Gun Control: It's the Culture, Stupid.
Last year, one of my fellow Trent students was shot and killed outside a bar in Montreal. His family is advocating for tougher gun control legislation, and understandable so. The vicitms' families of the Montreal shooting are demanding tougher gun legislation.
But we can't make legislation based soley on emotions. Emotions cloud issues and people can have irrational judgement making decision based on emotion.
Here's an appropriate example. Here's a CTV web poll taken AFTER the Dawson College tragedy.
Aside from the fact that web polls are completely inaccurate, this shows 70% of these people taking a very strong stance on an issue based soley on emotion. I wonder what this poll would have looked liked one day prior to the tragedy.
Tougher gun control is not the solution. And people don't get this. It's cultural. Although Bowling for Columbine proved to be a sloppy cut and paste mockumentary, the main point was that comparing Canada and the US with the use of guns and murders, it was the culture, not the number of guns or amount of laws in place.
The guns used in the Dawson College shootings were registered. I was completey disgusted with Jean Charest to use this tragic event for political debate with Harper about the gun registry. Charest used only his emotions and ZERO logic and failed to realize that these regisitred guns did not prevent Gill from going on this killing rampage.
A commentator at Dust my Broom provides an excellent example on why it's cultural:
Switzerland is a very safe and peaceful nation, where every male citizen is required BY LAW to have an automatic rifle and at least 200 rounds of ammunition at home at all times (unless he is at the range or training with his military unit).
I don’t recall ever hearing about rampaging Swiss men running through schools or public places firing at other people, but I also have seen the statistics that suggest Switzerland is one of the safest places to live on Earth.
Wide availability of firearms and ammunition (far more powerful than can generally be purchased in Canada or the United States) in the hands of European White Males is not a recipe for disaster, but the factors which allow the Swiss to maintain their freedom and dignity has little to do with weapons and everything to do with a culture which stresses duty, responsibility and accountability for their own actions.
It's easy to blame this tragedy on gun legislation or border control. But, that is how a child reasons: Man A killed Man B with gun. What killed Man B? The gun.
There was a lot of child-like reasoning in the papers surrounding this tragedy. But we need to reason like adults and look at other nations and cultures and see that more gun laws will not prevent tragedies like this but rather a cultural change that stresses responsibility, caution, and respect for guns, needs to take place.
It's become cliche, but it's true. Guns don't kill people, People kill people.
But we can't make legislation based soley on emotions. Emotions cloud issues and people can have irrational judgement making decision based on emotion.
Here's an appropriate example. Here's a CTV web poll taken AFTER the Dawson College tragedy.
Aside from the fact that web polls are completely inaccurate, this shows 70% of these people taking a very strong stance on an issue based soley on emotion. I wonder what this poll would have looked liked one day prior to the tragedy.
Tougher gun control is not the solution. And people don't get this. It's cultural. Although Bowling for Columbine proved to be a sloppy cut and paste mockumentary, the main point was that comparing Canada and the US with the use of guns and murders, it was the culture, not the number of guns or amount of laws in place.
The guns used in the Dawson College shootings were registered. I was completey disgusted with Jean Charest to use this tragic event for political debate with Harper about the gun registry. Charest used only his emotions and ZERO logic and failed to realize that these regisitred guns did not prevent Gill from going on this killing rampage.
A commentator at Dust my Broom provides an excellent example on why it's cultural:
Switzerland is a very safe and peaceful nation, where every male citizen is required BY LAW to have an automatic rifle and at least 200 rounds of ammunition at home at all times (unless he is at the range or training with his military unit).
I don’t recall ever hearing about rampaging Swiss men running through schools or public places firing at other people, but I also have seen the statistics that suggest Switzerland is one of the safest places to live on Earth.
Wide availability of firearms and ammunition (far more powerful than can generally be purchased in Canada or the United States) in the hands of European White Males is not a recipe for disaster, but the factors which allow the Swiss to maintain their freedom and dignity has little to do with weapons and everything to do with a culture which stresses duty, responsibility and accountability for their own actions.
It's easy to blame this tragedy on gun legislation or border control. But, that is how a child reasons: Man A killed Man B with gun. What killed Man B? The gun.
There was a lot of child-like reasoning in the papers surrounding this tragedy. But we need to reason like adults and look at other nations and cultures and see that more gun laws will not prevent tragedies like this but rather a cultural change that stresses responsibility, caution, and respect for guns, needs to take place.
It's become cliche, but it's true. Guns don't kill people, People kill people.
posted by Spitfire at 11:38 AM
3 Comments:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/27/switzerland.shooting/index.html
Just a thought...
~a
It's one thing to say that guns are the cause, ergo guns should be banned. It's quite another to make it happen. Sort of like saying, we can prove that drugs are bad, so let's ban 'em. And we've seen how well that worked out.
The problem is the presumption that access to weapons can be controlled. The fact that the killer acquired his arms legally essentially drives that call to all-out prohibition. And as those opponents to the war on drugs like to point out, prohibition doesn't work for a reason.
That's why gun crime rose in Britain when they made possession of firearms practically illegal. The fact that anyone with half a brain of mechanical inclination can make his own guns and ammo at home from stuff freely available on the internet doesn't help matters.
I believe your Switzerland theory is pushing it.
Have you ever been to the U.S.?
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