Guns: War on each other or Macht mech Recht
"In the conflicts between man and man, between group and group, between nation and nation, the loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable. The radical tension between good and evil, as man sees it and feels it, does not have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence. There is a spirit in man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and lays waste. Always he must know that the contradictions of life are not final or ultimate; he must distinguish between failure and a many-sided awareness so that he will not mistake conformity for harmony, uniformity for synthesis. He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which diversity finds its richness and significance." — Howard Thurman
In some nations there is universal health care [5,6,1], free education [4], an almost universal high standard of living [2,3], very little crime [1], and almost no violent crime [2,6].
Then there are the other countries. One in particular (the one with the largest military force in history), has the highest rate of child poverty of all industrialised nations [7]. It has the lowest literacy rate, and the highest rate of poverty of industrialised countries [ibid]. And it has a rate of violence within its own boarders higher than the combined violence of every other industrialised country on the planet [8,9]. It is also the only country in the world which legally allows essentially anyone to carry gun, with only token control or limit. But perhaps most astonishing is that in this violent nation, the citizenry has come to believe that legal entitlement to carry lethal force at all times somehow makes them safer [10,11,12].
But instead, this country has the highest rate of homicide in the industrialised world [7,11,13]. And as you might expect, also by far the highest rate of gun homicide of all the industrialised countries. In fact it has a gun homicide rate more than twenty times higher than all of the other twenty-three major industrialised nations [14]. There are 30,000 fatal shootings in that country per annum [15], with over 100,000 shootings total [ibid]. Over 1,000,000 (one million) of its citizens have been killed by guns on the streets of their own country since 1970 [16]. No other industrialised nation even comes close [6,5].
There are roughly 200,000,000 privately held guns in that country [17]. In the two weeks prior to Christmas this year, another 1,800,000 were purchased [53]. So it is sadly, natural that children will find ways to obtain these weapons. Despite child access prevention laws [18]. Hence shootings of children by children in schools has become if not commonplace in that country, then at least sufficiently frequent to stir little more than momentary shock. The current average is 15 school shootings per year in that country [19,17]. And climbing. As is the use of guns in domestic disputes. And employment disputes. And in the gangs populating every city in that country - there are more than 32,000 gangs, more than 1,000,000 members, in roughly 5,00 cities and towns in the country [20]. The people there are actively wounding or killing each other and themselves (suicide by gun is also the highest of any industrialized country [21]). All very, very sad.
As well as normal guns, there are in that country a plethora of so-called ’non-lethal’ small arms weapons. These include stun guns, which are also readily available to the masses. Despite their name, many people have been killed by these weapons, particularly when they multiply deployed on an individual. Or upon the aged, infirm, those with heart problems, children, or those in less than optimal physical condition [40,41,42,43]. Despite these and a host of other scientific research confirming the lethal nature of stun guns, their killing ability is continually ignored. As a result they receive even less regulation than traditional guns [44]. And so it comes as no surprise that number of persons killed by stun guns has been steadily rising [45], as have the number of non-lethal injuries such as induced stroke, brain damage, internal hemorrhage, and the like. Further, the perceived non-lethal nature of the weapons makes them far more likely to be used [45,46], and to be used multiple times upon a single individual [40,42, 47].
The national gun association in that country has over four million members [22]. It has a budget of roughly $310,000,000 [22, 21]. And an extremely powerful political lobbying system to ensure that gun laws will never limit gun ownership. So powerful that that country’s federal court recently reinterpreted their constitution in a manner which would have shocked the country’s founders [23]. They interpreted it as enshrining the right of everyone to carry at least one gun. Why? In a staggering show of logical inversion and ignorance of studies to the contrary, the court argued that as violence goes up one of the best ways to protect oneself is by having more and more guns [24]. Yet the facts show something else entirely. One major study for example, has shown that in only 0.2% of gun crimes where weapons used defensively [25,26,7,11].
Additionally the pro-gun lobby in that country has argued that their right to bear arms comes not merely from the law or constitution, but from God Herself. The head of one large gun lobby group has made the claim publicly that the rights of gun carrying “...come from God. They are God-given rights.” [28]. The person in question considers himself to be a devout Christian. As to the many regular church going Christian folk who agree with him.
And as part of these ’God-given rights’ some jurisdictions in that violent country allow most gun holders to carry their weapon completely concealed (eg. in a purse, pocket, or backpack) without a permit of any kind [16], allow them to carry their guns into bars [38], allow them to take their guns to their place of employment [ibid], and even allow them to bring their gun(s) to school [39]. Additionally the U.S. states of Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Nebraska, as well as several other states wish to permit firearms to be carried on college campuses[50,51,52]. This will make it so much easier for students to protect themselves from professors who mark their work too harshly. Note that the term ’guns’ here includes semi-automatic weapons with multiple rounds. In fact in most areas of that nation of peace, love, and basic human decency there is no regulation restricting the use of large-capacity ammunition magazines.
Finally, there is the phenomenon of so-called stochastic shooting [29]. Here targets are drawn on a map identifying people whom other people do not like [30]. Or talk show hosts repeat the mantra that it is time to take the law into ones own hands and stop people whom they do not like [31,32,33]. From a statistical point of view, in a population already purposefully
induced to fear there will always be at least one poor deranged soul who will not realise he is being manipulated. And off he will go to shoot someone. The use of the term ’stochastic’ here is meant by the propagandists to indicate that while the selection of targets is predictable, the shooter is not. In a country where guns are so readily available - even given out free of charge when opening a bank account [34] - this sort of horrific tragedy of manipulation is not only possible, but probable.
Surveys have shown that most citizens of that country believe that guns deter violence [35]. This despite numerous scientific studies showing that those who carry guns are orders of magnitude more likely to use them for violent ends [36,37]. A tragedy of mammoth proportions.
Finally, it should be noted that many people who have grown up in different cultures, see the violence of that society and the psychological need to carry a gun for ’protection’ as symptoms of a much broader illness.
Several studies have indicated that in terms of mental health this particular gun-totin’ society ranks not merely at the bottom of all industrialized countries [48], but near the bottom of all of the world’s countries, rich and poor [49]. Why? Well it is the society in which family groups have been almost competely destroyed for the majority; and it is a society in which there is no social safety net. The result of this is it is almost unique in the world in providing virtually no family care and very low levels of social care to those in need. Since it is also the society in which less than 0.2% of the population hold more than 98% of the wealth, there are many people in need.
The results are obvious to anyone outside that country - violence, illness, unparalleled greed, and wonton destruction have sadly, become normative.
