Why are firearms feared?

[The Heretic]

I don't believe this is all that new.

People have always been the same - more or less. Human nature hasn't changed that much, and the environment, even with all the tech, hasn't changed human nature that much, but the understanding of that human nature and the knowledge/skill in how to manipulate people by their nature, has increased - but then so has the recognition that we are being manipulated, to a degree (maybe not as fast as those who would manipulate us).

Those who manipulate the masses have always recognized that fear, hate, envy and greed and the way to manipulate people. Easier and much much more powerful than appealing to wisdom, rationality, enlightened self-interest and altruism.

 

[Ura-Ki]

Dead on! Things have always been like this. The human race has always been very good at creating ever more effective ways to kill each other and our selves. The amount of "bad" news we see hasn't really changed all that much, its the ability to communicate it that has! The People that cannot under stand or cannot ever fathom why they are made the victim of things beyond there control has not changed in thousands of years. It's simple human nature to fear what you don't under stand. The difference now is we can communicate instantly, and that changes things for us. We can choose to not go with out a fight, we can choose to arm our selves and resist, we can choose to stand and fight instead of being just the sheeple and lying down and taking what ever comes! Even this has not changed, but we can share and learn and grow together and for the first time in human history, we CAN empower our selves!

 

[Artpro]

Amen. The Germans gave up guns when their leader Hitler said they should. In doing so, they also gave up their liberty and civil rights.

 

[mjbskwim]

Joe13 most do use ignorant as a demeaning word. Like saying people are idiots cause they fear guns.
Why are they idiots cause they fear something they were given misinformation about?
Now if they spread that misinformation, then yes,they are ignorant or idiots for doing so.
Calling folks who either don't like or don't know anything about guns names makes the person doing so look like the very names being called. Just what we need is a bunch of name calling and making the pro gun lobby look like school kids
Just my 2 cents

 

[Ura-Ki]

A few years ago I saw a news feed video from England about a young couple who had dug up some old ammunition (handgun and rifle) from WWII or thereabouts. The police came in with a bomb disposal team and was excavating the entire yard while the "man" and his wife sat by in abject terror. Seriously. These people were absolutely in terror of this old ammunition, and the police, with their complete overreaction / overkill, did nothing but reinforce the false beliefs these people already had about ANYTHING relating to firearms or ammunition. These people had been conditioned (or educated) to believe that firearms and anything remotely related to same is something to be feared and avoided. The same thing is happening here in the good ol' USA. That has to be turned around. Period.

In defense of this couple, the Poor Britt's have a real fear of live munitions in there own back yards. The Nazi's dropped tones of stuff on them and they are still finding these nasty surprises all the time. The Disposal folks have to respond to every "find" as if it may be a big one, and not knowing what was found or if there might be more around, abundance of caution is the norm!

 

[Joe13]

Joe13 most do use ignorant as a demeaning word. Like saying people are idiots cause they fear guns.
Why are they idiots cause they fear something they were given misinformation about?
Now if they spread that misinformation, then yes,they are ignorant or idiots for doing so.
Calling folks who either don't like or don't know anything about guns names makes the person doing so look like the very names being called. Just what we need is a bunch of name calling and making the pro gun lobby look like school kids
Just my 2 cents

Edit: The people useing the word ignorant as a derogitory term are ignorant


Good points.

Maybe I will work on useing the term "uninformed" vs "ignorant" if I can remember too.

Idiot just used to be the term for someone with below average IQ's (or maybe that's moron - have fun and look it up) but both started out as being clinical terms that pop culture have turned into insults.

 

[dwaineshort]

It is an object or tool.

People don't talk about gasoline like it will all of a sudden catch fire and blow thier car up.

No ones afraid of kitchen knives, axes, garden tools, machetes etc but they are all equally if not more lethal if not handled properly.

I can understand religious or personal beliefs against violence and guns, maybe even someone who was victimized by someone with a gun, but people that are "afraid" of guns seems extremely unreal to me.

Next person that tells me that they are afraid of guns in person, I will politely offer to get into a boxing ring with them in one corner, a rifle in another and me in a third corner with a wooden baseball bat and ask them which they are actually afraid of more...

Could have something to do with the fact around 100,000 people get shot in the US per year. Sure be safe to say most of us on here don't live in an area where drive bys are a daily thing.

 

[Ura-Ki]

HAHA! Drive bys here where I live involve Hay bails and too much beer and a beat up pickup! During the summer months it sounds like down town Bagdad during the Shock and Awe faze of the gulf war, only it's all the Varmint hunters knocking off the pesky little critters that cause all the lame cattle in our area!

 

[The Heretic]

Could have something to do with the fact around 100,000 people get shot in the US per year. Sure be safe to say most of us on here don't live in an area where drive bys are a daily thing.

Gun violence is down.



http://alibertarianfuture.com/liber...m_source=JES&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=JESFB

The problem is that the media makes a big deal out of any gun violence there is, making it seem that there is more than there is.

 

[nammac]

Joe13 most do use ignorant as a demeaning word. Like saying people are idiots cause they fear guns.
Why are they idiots cause they fear something they were given misinformation about?
Now if they spread that misinformation, then yes,they are ignorant or idiots for doing so.
Calling folks who either don't like or don't know anything about guns names makes the person doing so look like the very names being called. Just what we need is a bunch of name calling and making the pro gun lobby look like school kids
Just my 2 cents

Actually ignorance is simply the lack of factual knowledge... So when half truths are spouted about or a fear of the unknown, it's sad but true, it's ignorance... And the person demonstrating such behavior is ignorant...

Don't blame me, blame Webster...

 

[dwaineshort]

Gun violence is down.

View attachment 289599

http://alibertarianfuture.com/liber...m_source=JES&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=JESFB

The problem is that the media makes a big deal out of any gun violence there is, making it seem that there is more than there is.

I understand that. But with your Graff you just posted shows that over 570 thousand people still get shot every year. CDC say less then 100 thousand. True overall violent crime is dropping but not always in every major city. Right now Chicago gun homicides rate is double then last year. True if we fixed the drug war over 80% of this would go away.

 

[tac]

Amen. The Germans gave up guns when their leader Hitler said they should. In doing so, they also gave up their liberty and civil rights.

This wasn't quite the 'conversational suggestion' between a 'leader' and his beloved people. The private ownership of firearms was prohibited by law, with penalties ranging from ten years jail to death.

Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung had the same idea - take away guns form the masses, and you have achieved control.

tac

 

[The Heretic]

I understand that. But with your Graff you just posted shows that over 570 thousand people still get shot every year. CDC say less then 100 thousand. True overall violent crime is dropping but not always in every major city. Right now Chicago gun homicides rate is double then last year. True if we fixed the drug war over 80% of this would go away.

None of those graphs says how many people get shot every year.

One says how many firearm homicides there are.

Another says how many crimes there are where firearms are involved - that doesn't mean every one of those crimes results in someone getting shot. I am sure there are a lot more gun crimes where someone simply points a gun at someone else and never shoots them, than there are where they actually shoot someone.

The point is that crimes involving firearms are going down, and have been for two decades - yet everybody *thinks* gun crime is at an epidemic level because of the media reporting it that way. This is no small factor in why a lot of people fear firearms; they are being manipulated to fear them. Does anybody wonder why?

 

[Joe13]

A divided populace will rarely question the government...

 

[dwaineshort]

None of those graphs says how many people get shot every year.

One says how many firearm homicides there are.

Another says how many crimes there are where firearms are involved - that doesn't mean every one of those crimes results in someone getting shot. I am sure there are a lot more gun crimes where someone simply points a gun at someone else and never shoots them, than there are where they actually shoot someone.

The point is that crimes involving firearms are going down, and have been for two decades - yet everybody *thinks* gun crime is at an epidemic level because of the media reporting it that way. This is no small factor in why a lot of people fear firearms; they are being manipulated to fear them. Does anybody wonder why?

you do understand the graph you posted is based on per 100 thousand? The non death gun is 181 per 100,000. You do understand there are more then 100 thousand that live in the united states? It's around 315 million. It's simple math.

 

[The Heretic]

you do understand the graph you posted is based on per 100 thousand? The non death gun is 181 per 100,000. You do understand there are more then 100 thousand that live in the united states? It's around 315 million. It's simple math.

Yes, I understand that, but did you read the title of the graph (the second in the series)?

It does NOT say people were shot.

It says "Non-fatal violent firearm crime" - that includes just pointing a firearm at someone. People actually being shot would be some subset of that number and no graph in that series shows that actual number.

The only graph that shows anything about someone actually getting shot, is the first one, as to suffer a firearm homicide, by definition you would need to get shot with a firearm (this by definition would be a subset of the people who were actually shot with a firearm in a violent crime).

At the rate in the first graph, assuming 315 million people, 3.6 per 100K being killed by gun homicide, would equate to 11+K per year, which is about right (about 30+K people in the USA die by firearms each year, about a third by accident, about a third by homicide (I think it includes justifiable, but I would have to lookup the numbers) and about a third by suicide IIRC).

 

[etrain16]

Reading through the comments, what struck my thoughts was that yes, there are ignorant, uninformed, misinformed and poorly parented people - many of whom fear guns for one or more of those reasons. But I think there is something more to it, and I don't think it's just a fear of guns.

I think that perhaps the fear of guns is just a symptom of a bigger issue. That issue would be that many people no longer believe that their personal safety, the safety of their family, is their responsibility. We are constantly conditioned, from so many sources, to trust in the government or the government's agents, to keep us safe. And far too many people believe that, one, the government actually cares about their individual safety, and two, that the government is actually capable of keeping them safe.

Look at schools today. When I grew up, if you had a fight in school, you were sent to the principal to get a lecture on behavior, then you were sent back to class. Maybe your parents would tan your backside, but that would be the end of it. Today, you get in a fight and you may get arrested, get assigned to counseling for your violent behavior, and probably expelled. I mean, hell, we have people getting booted out of school for stepping in to a fight to stop it! What the mutha f'ing sh!t is wrong with this country? When and how did we come to believe that standing up and fighting for what is right, is wrong!?

I learned by watching my father and others that standing up and fighting for what is right, is sometimes necessary. And that means being prepared to fight, if necessary. I also learned that avoiding the fight in the first place, not starting the fight, and seeking peaceful solutions where available, was always to be the priority.

No, I think the fear of guns is just a symptom of the loss of the will, the ability, to fight, to personally accept responsibility for yourself and others, and to turn over your safety to someone else. It's a sad state of affairs, and one I'm not sure we can come back from.

 

[tac]

In defense of this couple, the Poor Britt's have a real fear of live munitions in there own back yards. The Nazi's dropped tones of stuff on them and they are still finding these nasty surprises all the time. The Disposal folks have to respond to every "find" as if it may be a big one, and not knowing what was found or if there might be more around, abundance of caution is the norm!

The Blitz in UK -

The Blitz (shortened from German Blitzkrieg, "lightning war") was the period of strategic bombing of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Between 7 September 1940 and 21 May 1941, 16 British cities suffered aerial raids with at least 100 long tons of high explosives on each occasion. Over a period of 267 days, London was attacked 71 times, Birmingham, Liverpool and Plymouth eight times, Bristol six, Glasgow five, Southampton four, Portsmouth and Hull three and a minimum of one large raid on eight other cities. This was a result of a rapid escalation starting on 24 August 1940, when night bombers aiming for RAF airfields drifted off course and accidentally destroyed several London homes, killing civilians, combined with the UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill's retaliatory bombing of Berlin on the following night.[clarification needed]

From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights.[7] More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London.[4] Ports and industrial centres outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, causing nearly 4,000 deaths within the Merseyside area during the war.[8][9] The North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to 86 raids in the Hull Blitz[10] during the war, with a conservative estimate of 1,200 civilians killed and 95 percent of its housing stock destroyed or damaged.[11][12] Other ports including Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also bombed, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield. Birmingham and Coventry were chosen because of the Spitfire and tank factories in Birmingham and the many munitions factories in Coventry. The city centre of Coventry was almost destroyed, as was Coventry Cathedral.

Casualties - ~40,000[4]–43,000 civilians dead,[5] ~46,000 injured figures for wounded possibly as high as 139,000[5]

And then, in 1944, the V1 and V2 bombardment -

V-1 2,754 killed, 6,523 wounded
V-2 5,475 killed, 16,309 wounded
8,229 total killed in England, 22,832 wounded

And you wonder why the Brits are still concerned about WW2 air-dropped munitions?

No sh*t, Sherlock.

tac, whose mom was bombed out twice.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Teaching at a high school and at one time having a daughter going to the same school made for some interesting conversations and interactions.
I had to wear two hats as it were.
My daughter was taught not to take any grief. She was taught to stand up for herself.
If that meant throwing a punch or what not as a last resort to getting someone to stop their bad behavior , then so be it.
She was also taught that , she would have to take responsibility for her actions.
Unfortunately that put me at odds with Administration a time or two.

I understand that if we lived by the "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" oulook , then the whole world would be blind and toothless.
But fearing to stand up for yourself or for what's right is not a good way to live.

I can't really say why some folks fear guns or fear standing up for themselves or for what's right.
I'm just glad my family and I aren't counted among those that are.
Andy

 

[Ura-Ki]

Etrain16 I think you just nailed a big chunk of this! Lack of personal responsibility for ones own actions. Fear of defending ones self would be up there near the top, we have had our rights to defend ourselves taken away (specially in OryGun with Measure 11) When my two boys were still in school, if/when one of them got into a fight it had damn sure better be the other guy who started it or there would be serious consequences here at home! Twice I was called in to school to answer for one of my son's, twice I almost punched the principle in the head! I made it VERY, VERY clear to him that my boys DO have a right to defend them selves, and they have been given the ability, and that as long as it was the other guy who stared it, they had every right to finish it! I think our parenting is as much to blame as our schools, We had our rights as parents taken away when some one decided we could no longer spank our kids or other means to deal with bad behavior. With that, I think a lot of parents simply gave up on there kids! I also see the disconnect of parents not taking an active role in there kids upbringing. The schools further cause issues as they try and "BLEND" in other kids whose parents don't think there kid should have to conform to American standards!!!