Guns

[empip]

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/generationwhy/do_something/campaigns/controlarms/index.htm

There are around 639 million small arms and light weapons in the world today. Eight million more are produced every year.

Guns have never been so easy to obtain. Without strict control these weapons will continue to fuel violent conflict, state repression, crime, and domestic abuse.

The global arms trade that brings these weapons into the hands of killers is big business. Per year, the value of global authorised arms exports is $21 billion.

From the inner cities of Britain to the pastoralist communities of Kenya, gun culture is on the increase.

I guess business takes precedence.

...In the Central African Republic, fighters have been known to throw away weapons because they cannot buy the right bullets for them. Due to recent fighting in Somalia, the price of a single bullet has reached a record $1.50.
Ammunition production is a global business. At least 76 states are known to industrially manufacture small arms ammunition, and the number is growing as more states acquire production equipment. Kenya and Turkey have both become producers in the last ten years. The annual global output of small arms military ammunition is now estimated at between 10 and 14 billion rounds - 33 million rounds a day.

In addition, vast stockpiles of ammunition are known to exist, particularly in Eastern Europe. Hundreds of millions of rounds have been supplied from these stockpiles to conflict zones, facilitated by a global network of arms traffickers and brokers. UN figures show that Ukraine and Belarus alone may have stocks of up to three million tonnes of surplus ammunition. While states have a right to acquire ammunition for legitimate self-defence and law enforcement according to international standards, irresponsible transfers of ammunition can have a massive impact on people and their communities...

It's a funny old game - life and death.

 

[Odd Job]

Very good film on the subject, "Lord of War" its an eye opener.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/

 

[WoodYouLike]

My 2p on the OneDayBlogSilence action:
http://woodyoulike.typepad.com/stopstart/2007/04/loud_silence_st.html

 

[gcol]

If it werent guns....it would be something else.

This is my thinking too. It's not the gun that kills but the loony behind it. If there were no guns, the guy would be building a bomb. If there were no materials with which to build bombs, he'd be poisoning people. Removing the gun only removes one possible method of killing - not the "need" to kill.

My understanding of this case is that the man in question was "disturbed" and that his teacher had recommended treatment/counselling. Why wasn't this followed up?

 

[JohnD]

I don't think that's true.

Animals (including humans) are genetically programmed not to kill their own kind, except in aggressive fights. That's why we are appalled at the killing of babies and children, or the slaughter of civilians by soldiers; and why soldiers have to be densensitised and trained to stick bayonets in people. It becomes easier if there is less connection (it is easier to kill a cabbage than a slug than a rat than a monkey than an eskimo/african/european (whatever you aren't) than a foreigner than a fellow-countryman than a stranger than a local than a friend than a relation than your own child).

The further removed you are from the killing, the easier it is. We find it more difficult to throttle someone with our bare hands than to press a button sending a missile or firing artillery at an enemy miles away.

Quite apart from the brain wiring, it is physically harder work, slower and more tiring to kill 30 people with your bare hands or a chair-leg, especially if they will be running away or trying to defend themselves.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Its sad but when alls said and done guns will never EVER be banned in America and it WILL happen again.

 

[gcol]

Animals (including humans) are genetically programmed not to kill their own kind, except in aggressive fights.

That's not true - there's plenty of animals that eat their own kind and for more reasons than aggressive fighting.

I take your point about the distance issue with shooting someone being easier than stabbing someone. But let's not loose sight of the fact that this person didn't need "conditioning" by the army to kill, he conditioned himself to kill. You think that a man angry enough to kill over 30 people and then himself wouldn't have killed in some other way if guns weren't available? Puulease.

 

[JohnD]

1) I refer you to "On Aggression" by Konrad Lorenz
(I chose not to get into the genetic advantages of killing/not killing based on consanguinity and potential survival of offspring)

2) I doubt he would have been able to kill 30 people with a club without them running away or fighting back.

 

[gcol]

1) I refer you to "On Aggression" by Konrad Lorenz.

You can refer me to where you like but it won't change the fact that what you said was incorrect.

2) I doubt he would have been able to kill 30 people with a club without them running away or fighting back.

I quite agree, but I didn't say that so why are you trying to make it sound as though I did? Maybe if he didn't have a gun, he'd have made a bomb and killed more.

 

[tim west]

This guy was jealous about others having more than he did, is this the root of the problem?

Have we turned into an "everyone for themselves" culture which breeds contempt in others not so well off and the pressure eventually makes something boil over into what happened here?

We gather the gunman was a loner, was he rejected by his peers because of race or something else?

Did those he took revenge on treat him badly in the past?

Suppose we'll never learn the whole truth.

 

[NickStone]

This guy was jealous about others having more than he did, is this the root of the problem?

Did those he took revenge on treat him badly in the past?

Back in the mists of time, I did a degree in psychology and I would guess that the people he shot were more scapegoats for his own self-hatred. I'd be interested to know more about his childhood and how he was raised. His creative writing was highly disturbed - violent and obscene. Seems to me he projected the conflicts within himself onto others, trying to rationalise his feelings by giving them a legitimate 'reason'. I gather he didn't like rich kids. It was 'their fault'. That's his reason to himself but it's probably not the real reason. Sometime, somewhere, he learned his self-hatred and others were punished for it. In the end, he did kill himself.

 

[Softus]

Ban all guns.

Hmm. This feels like an echo of a previous discussion...

 

[Nige F]

"Winners"+"Loosers" in US society..........maybe "Befriend a Loner" instead

 

[BoxBasher]

That's not true - there's plenty of animals that eat their own kind and for more reasons than aggressive fighting.

Male lions for instance, will kill the young cubs of another male to encourage lionesses to come back into season in order to propogate his line...

Wolf cubs regularly get killed when trying to get into a carcass out of line in the pack hierarchy...

I kept gerbils/mice as a kid and every now and then one would turn rogue and kill the others...

 

[WoodYouLike]

Ban all guns.

Hmm. This feels like an echo of a previous discussion...

Not sure about that, softus. I state my 'wish' (and since I'm too little to do anything else I can only 'echo' the motto of the international peace-movement = logo/batch of broken rifle)

Why do they, in the USA, sell guns 10 yards away from where baby cloths are sold? Too easy access to guns = gun crime atrocities bound to happen = ban all guns NOW to prevent gun crime atrocities.