[Spliff]

Living Next Door to a Gun Culture

Opinion piece by SF author, Crawford Kilian.

Here's the opening:

Since the official end of hostilities in Iraq on May 1, one or two coalition soldiers (mostly American) have died each day as a result of sniper fire, rocket-propelled grenades, or other weapons. Defenders of the war point out that at this rate, Iraq will eventually cost as many American lives as Vietnam did—58,000—but not until 2074.

Even so, these daily deaths are having a political impact in the US. Apparently Americans don't agree with the Roman poet Virgil that it is sweet and proper for soldiers to die for their country. But they do seem to think that it's okay for civilians to die in their country, for no particular reason.

Enough American civilians have died by firearms injuries in the last 40 years to equal at least 20 Vietnams. By midnight today in the US, about 85 Americans will die of gunshot wounds—and at least one of them will be a child under the age of 15. Yet except for occasional workplace mass killings, or school murders like Columbine, these deaths go ignored.

I thought that was an interesting observation. Why does the public tolerate thousands of civilian deaths by gun, but not large numbers of military deaths? Is it because they perceive that military deaths can be prevented by not going to war or ending a war, whereas, nothing can be done about random, domestic murders?

[Buck_Naked]

His observation seems flawed to assume people tolerate gun killings, they are investigated and prosecuted.

On the other hand, many more people than that die in auto accidents.

The number of people killed in sport utility rollover crashes rose 14 percent last year as total
highway deaths hit a 12-year high at nearly 43,000, the US government says.

[Millennium]

The guy's message is a bit off.

Gun murders are not tolerated in the US. They get tried and prosecuted as any other murder. They are not given a special label, seen as somehow "worse" just because a gun is involved. This seems to happen in many other cultures, and most Americans -myself included- do not understand why.

Gun accidents, while not tolerated per se, are seen as exactly that: accidents. It is seen, of course, as a great shame that they happen. But they are seen as no one's fault, or at worst no one's fault but the person mishandling the gun in cases where a gun was in fact mishandled. Such cases are seen as sad, but the price of being allowed to own such a weapon is that an accident may happen with it, just as with any other tool.

The problem with the author's view is that he sees deaths where a gun is involved as worse than any other kind of death. Most Americans -even those who favor gun control- don't draw such an artificial distinction.

I will say, I find it interesting. Many places outside the US claim that the US has a "gun culture". I'm not so sure the case. I posit that the US does not have a gun culture, that is, they do not set guns apart and give them a special place. I propose that it is the inordinate fear many other cultures have of guns which is the real "gun culture", and that the US is set apart by lacking it, rather than by having it.

[Beewee]

Mostly I think its the media. You have a group of people who are incredibly biased and will only report something if it "sells".

People die every day and right now most peoples' focus is in the middle east where their sons or daughters, brothers...etc are/could be at. So that is what the media gives people.

People naturally are self-interested and don't care much about the tragic events that happen all over the world unless it directly affects themselves. If a guy is stabbed in California a person living in New York wouldn't care unless he knew the victim. Now take the victim and move him to New York and have him die a few blocks from where the other guy who was grocery shopping and he'll care...sorta.

He'll think, "That could have been me."

We only care about what has a direct impact in our lives.

[MacGorilla]

Well, Michael Moore asked in "Bowling For Columbine" what makes us so gun happy and so obsessed with guns. He didn't have an answer and I don't suspect there is one.