arms

Forthcoming in September, 2015:

ARMS

The culture and credo of the gun

What if the only thing more dangerous than a gun is an idea?

It’s not such a far-fetched claim, being embodied in the old saw that the pen is mightier than the sword. Guns kill, but guns kill most when they are powered by bad ideas. Perhaps, if guns don’t kill people, then neither do people kill people. Perhaps bad ideas kill people.

What is it about America that makes its people go armed? Why do Americans, uniquely, own almost one gun for each man, woman, and child in the country? Why does America alone among Western democracies license its people to carry handguns concealed about their persons? Wherein lies the romance of the gun, and why is it creeping into Canada?

  1. January 21, 2016 at 11:28 am

    It really is the people not the guns, because for example the murder rate of non-Hispanic whites (year 2000) was 1.86 per 100,000; in England the rate was 1.7 per 100,000.
    The non-Hispanic black murder rate was 20.8 per 100,000; Hispanics were 12.2. Whites 70.4% of the population committed 23% of murders; blacks 12.6% committed 46% of murders; Hispanics 12.5% committed 27% of murders. That pretty much obliterates any idea that it’s the “availability of guns” that’s the problem in the U.S.. It’s pretty close to 100% the people, and virtually 0% bad gun juju. I’m no expert but these stats seem reasonably accurate, and not some skewing or twisting of facts to me. Of course there’s the whole left and right mindset, war of ideas, but the left’s toast on this one. Truth is more Important than any ideology or ingrained prejudice.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/07/hispanics_in_the_us_are_more_violent_than_nonhispanic_whites.html

  2. January 21, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Truth is indeed more important than prejudice. Ironic you should raise that point in a post that assumes crime rates are related to race. I would suggest that in fact crime rates are always higher in poor communities, and suggest the trend you observe in fact reflects white privilege more than it reflects an inherent propensity of any ethnic group towards violence.

    This is borne out when we look at crime rates within ethnic groups: crime and violence are higher among lower income communities of any given ethnic group, and lower in higher income brackets.

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