The US are a democracy
April 16, 2007So, Americans, how many more innocent people have to die before you morons finally figure out that you need to restrict civilian access to guns?
There are two major problems in the United States, and these two problems combined are the cause of the many, many school shootings in the United States.
- Schools in the US are too large and too anonymous. Also, the pressure on students to conform to the cheerleader & high school footballer image is high. Way too high. The US claims to be a country which values individual freedom, but at the same time, the schooling system only rewards mediocrity; students are pressured to conform to the utopian image of the cheerleader and the football player. People who stray from this norm, people who are truly trying to be different, are not rewarded. In fact, they are bullied and excommunicated.
- The second problem, of course, is the easy access untrained civilians have to guns. If you are one of the people who is straying from the norm described above, and you become frustrated as some teens are susceptible to, the threshold to actually get a gun and start shooting is way lower than in countries with more civilised gun laws, such as The Netherlands. If a Dutch teen becomes frustrated– he will have to try very hard to get a gun, simply because there barely are any.
The shooters, and the shooters alone, are to blame for the killings. No doubt about that. If one of them is caught alive, he should receive the harshest punishment he can get. But, the responsibility for the shootings lies not with the shooters alone; it lies in American society and its participants, for allowing untrained civilians to have access to firearms. Apart from that, the US schooling system is failing and inhumane.
The US are a democracy (sort of), meaning you as a civilian have the power to stop these shootings from happening. Your failure to do so means you are partly responsible for the lives lost. That is democracy.
This posting made me sick. It’s so pathetic and heartless that you take tragedy with 30 lives lost and use it to push your political agenda.
The responsiblity for this act belongs to this lunatic alone, NOT the US constitution. I’m sorry your country doesn’t trust thier citizens with the right to bear arms. But America does. Just because some people may violate the law with them, doesn’t mean the government should prohibit every citizen from owning guns. That’s fascism.
And please don’t make sweeping generalizations about the US school system. Those are just stupid stereotypes created by cheesy Hollywood movies.
People like to blame society, rap music, video games, etc. But the fact is that this kid is soley responsible for his actions.
Comment by samuel chase — April 16, 2007 @ 6:19 pm
The criminal world thanks you Thom. After all, safety on the job is important.
Comment by Ronald — April 16, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
It is the constitutional right of every US citizen to arm bears… :-)
Comment by vasper — April 16, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
Thom, it is getting boring. If the US bans guns, then only the criminals are left with them. I am pro-guns in the kind of society we are living. We have the right to protect our families. If the world was nearly-utopian, then I would agree, guns would be irrelevant. But today, they aren’t.
Besides, shootings happen on all countries. But instead of comparing your few millions of people in your country and my country, you must remember that US has well over 300 mil people. Which means that it’s normal to have 20x the violence (and 20x the sports talents too).
Comment by Eugenia — April 16, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
But instead of comparing your few millions of people in your country and my country, you must remember that US has well over 300 mil people. Which means that it’s normal to have 20x the violence (and 20x the sports talents too).
Don’t talk nonsense. Compare the US to Europe. A lot more inhabitants in Europe (US: 300mil, EUR: 710mil), and yet, still, far, far, far less shootings in than in the US. In fact, the murder rate in the US is about three to four times as high as in The Netherlands (US: 5.5/100k, NL: 1.5/100k). And murder rate obviously negates the population size difference. In some American cities, murder rates are as high as 50 per 100000.
Don’t try to twist statistics here, Eugenia. It is FACT that among the developed countries, the United States has the HIGHEST murder rate. Whether you like it or not. The easy access to guns is LARGELY responsible for this– because generally speaking, there is not an awful lot of difference between life in Europe or life in the US. And no, the US does NOT have a more violent history than Europe. In fact, you Americans are a bunch of peaceful beings compared to what Europe has done in the past.
Comment by Administrator — April 16, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
US does have a violence problem (well, not where I live, because where I live many people are rich). But this is not because of the availability of the guns. Get a clue. It is because of low quality life standards.
This is so double sided of you. From one side you say “let drugs to be easy to find because it’s the availability that creates awareness”, and from the other side you say that guns should be banned.
I will say this for the last f*cking time: As you said, USA has a crime problem. If guns are outlawed in USA, only the criminals will carry them. And this does not sit well with normal people. US is not a utopian place where people can get by without having to protect their families at any given moment.
Comment by Eugenia — April 16, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
Eugenia, if guns made America safer, than why is America such an unsafe place?
All the guns in the United states did not stop this moron from killing 32 people. Reality and facts show that your assertion that guns make america safer is simply WRONG.
Comment by Administrator — April 16, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
his is so double sided of you. From one side you say “let drugs to be easy to find because it’s the availability that creates awareness�, and from the other side you say that guns should be banned.
I didn’t know you could kill 32 people by waving 5 grams* of cannabis around.
* Cannabis is the only drug you are allowed to carry 5 grams of. Any amount above that, or of any other drug, are illegal here.
Comment by Administrator — April 16, 2007 @ 8:35 pm
>than why is America such an unsafe place?
Because of poverty and culture, not because of guns.
Comment by Eugenia — April 16, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
Up here, in Montréal, there was a similar event last year at Dawson college. And Canada has pretty tough gun control laws.
Comment by Ronald — April 16, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Dear Thom, get a clue, guns were banned on the campus, that’s why “all the guns in the United states did not stop this moron from killing 32 people.” Anyway, if someone had a gun he would also have to win in the gun fight
Also, the pressure on students to conform to the cheerleader & high school footballer image is high.
Maybe in high school, but not college. Sorry, you’re just wrong.
The second problem, of course, is the easy access untrained civilians have to guns.
So what the point of that statement ? Accidental shootings ??? Did the gunman or the people trying to stop him miss their target ? ?? If they are untrained they wouldn’t know how to shoot, or be able to aim well, so what’s your point ?
Some of the major problems in this country is race relations and men hiding their feelings. We are not healed from the Civil Rights Movement.
Also, our guns ultimate purpose it to fight the government.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…
Comment by mikesum32 — April 17, 2007 @ 12:53 am
“Also, our guns ultimate purpose it to fight the government”
This is the real reason for the american gun fetish, self defence is just a justification, it never works as it did not worked today. The only problem we’re not in the 18th century anymore. What happens to those guys who pick up arms and fight the gov is well known, so stop fooling yourself
Comment by Stefan — April 17, 2007 @ 2:35 am
Bear in mind that people in the US (even the poor ones who are out shooting each other) enjoy a higher standard of living than virtually anyone else on the planet. Also, the hotspots of most gun violence center around severely impoverished areas. Most of those folks would find some way to kill one another, guns or not.
Thom, it’s easy for you to play armchair politician without a thorough understanding of why Americans have the right to bear arms. It must be the same for us when we conjecture up a bunch of druggies hanging out in Holland; we don’t get it because we weren’t raised on those kinds of principles.
Right or wrong, it’s every American’s right to bear arms. It’s a law that isn’t going anywhere…it’s not even up for debate, which is why rants like this really piss me off. The laws are getting tougher, and if people are that averse to firearms, they can head over the border to Canada. I personally despise guns, but if it’s a right then who am I to judge an entire society based on that?
Comment by jayson knight — April 17, 2007 @ 8:42 am
Not too long ago, racism and slavery was a part of everyday american (and European as well) life. Does that mean we are not supposed to judge that either?
Whether something is part of culture or not means fcuk all for how you should judge that something. A few years ago, homosexuals did not have the same rights as heterosexuals, meaning The Netherlands was an apartheid society. This inequality has long since been a part of Dutch (and other countries’) society, but that does not mean I did not condemn it back then.
The analogy is interesting, because who would have believed, say, 20 years ago, that homosexuals could marry in 2000+? Hopefully, not too long from now, American society looks back upon today, thinking, what idiocy that untrained civilians were allowed to carry firearms!
Comment by Administrator — April 17, 2007 @ 8:58 am
If people need to protect themselves in the US they should buy guns that are for that. Not semi-automatic weapons, hand guns that can stop a truck and shotguns for hunting elephants!!!
Jason, as for living standards in the US, you must be kidding… Unless you live in some obscure suburb like the one in Desperate Housewives which is close to our living standards… Also, it is not a matter of “it is that way”… it is plain WRONG. The constitution of the United States is archaic in this part and certainly those who drafted it didn’t have todays world in mind when they gave the right to bear arms to citizens. I know you have a whole industry living out of this thing, but it is ridiculous.
Comment by Vassilis 'vasper' Perantzakis — April 17, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
From NYT:
“Britain’s 46 homicides involving firearms was the lowest total since the late 1980s. New York City, with 8 million people compared to 53 million in England and Wales, recorded at least 579 homicides last year.”
NO COMMENT
Comment by Stefan — April 17, 2007 @ 6:29 pm
>If people need to protect themselves in the US they should buy guns that are for that.
Look who’s talking. Vassilis from Crete, a place where everyone walks down the high street with a 10 inch knife and a hidden hand gun. :P
Comment by Eugenia — April 17, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
The first comment that was made regarding american students. Is FALSE! I live in Europe and have for a year. I am a AMERICAN! I have two children that attend school here in Europe. Your schools are no different here then in the US. They have the “clicks” here and everyone has to have thier designer or they are teased. They are still encouraged here to play sports. So don’t come up with this second hand information that you read off the internet! The school that my children attended here is 1500. The school they attend in the US was 600. So the schools here are very impersonal and cold! That I have experienced first hand!
The second comment about the guns in the US. “Yes’ there is a issue of the young getting their hands on the guns. “But” the guns that they get are getting called “Hot guns”. They are shipped from over seas. So it is the responsibility of customs to check the shipments. Then they are sold from cars in gang areas. There are not a lot of guns being made in the US. They are being sold in the US and we are getting them from overseas. We do have gun control. People have the right to protect themselves. So the problem would be solved if other countries would stop shipping the GUNS to the US!!!
Comment by Cher — December 6, 2007 @ 7:44 pm