When Both Sides Are In The Right

[billh58]

I read this forum on a regular basis, and participate once in a blue moon. I am a two-tour Vietnam combat veteran, and know a little bit about the fear and power which emanates from both ends of guns, from up close and personal experience. For these, and other reasons, I am not a gun owner but I have no desire to take anyone's guns away from them. I do believe, however, in common sense regulation of ALL enumerated Constitutional Rights for the sake of civility and common good.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to what I believe to be one of the most objective articles about the American gun-proponent/gun-control issue ever published. A few excerpts follow (from the article's conclusion section), with a link at the bottom:

"If scholarship were king, then restrictive gun control or gun prohibition would barely be a topic on the national agenda. Over the last decade, the world of academic criminology has increasingly come to the conclusion that most gun control laws do little to protect public safety, whereas gun ownership by law-abiding citizens contributes significantly to public safety. During the same period, almost every legal scholar to study the issue has concluded that the federal constitution, and most state constitutions, guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms that renders illegal a good many of the gun control/prohibition proposals being advanced today. Yet while the academic case against highly restrictive gun controls or prohibitions has never been stronger, such controls remain a constant topic of American political debate."

"Perhaps one reason that the scholarship has had relatively little impact on the gun debate is that the gun control battle is mainly fought with the heart, rather than the mind. This article has suggested a number of ways in which the gun control issue raises ideological or symbolic issues for partisans on both sides. Widespread gun ownership is seen as an affirmation of individualism and of "taking the law into one's hands," values which may receive approval or condemnation depending on whether one prefers a more organized, European-style social order. Whether or not various gun controls actually make anyone safer, the crusade for and enactment of such controls provide various ideological or symbolic benefits to some of their advocates, including: making a statement in favor of non-violence; reasserting cognitive control in a chaotic, dangerous world; and affirming the superiority one's own lifestyle through the condemnation of gun control opponents or gun users in symbolic crusades and moral panics."

"While this article has not analyzed all the ideological issues surrounding the gun control debate, it does seem clear that guns and gun control press important ideological "hot buttons" for gun control advocates and opponents alike. As a result, achieving some kind of compromise that will provide a final settlement to the American gun control battle may prove impossible."

Much more at link, and I apologize if this has been posted before...

http://guncite.com/journals/dk-ideo.html

Based on the absolute entrenched mindsets and exhibited vitriol and nastiness which appears daily in this forum from both sides of the issue, I totally agree with the underlined sentence quoted above.

[Taverner]

1. The gun control advocate's position is understandable, but wrong

Problem is, its an emotional one - and emotions are our logical (or rather illogical) breakdown

[billh58]

2. I believe that as with

other ideological arguments, we will only make progress when we discard notions of absolute "right" and "wrong." Both are highly subjective concepts when viewed from opposite ends of the discussion.

[Taverner]

3. This is 100% correct

[saras]

4. When both sides are right but still opposed, the people drawing the line are wrong

Unlike the simplistic philosophy beloved of debaters, the real world is rarely, if ever, divided up into exactly two equal, opposing positions. You especially become aware of this if you raise more than one kid at a time.

Given the claims in that article, I'd have to do a LOT of research on my own before deciding to trust it.

For example...
"Two 1985 polls asked whether 'vigilantism,' which was defined as 'taking the law into one's hands,' is justified by circumstances. Seventy-one percent of the population responded 'always' or 'sometimes'

While I'm sure you could write a poll in such a way as to get this result, it's easy to think of lots of examples, from Jared Loughner to "extraordinary rendition", where a large majority would DISAGREE with the poll's finding. So it just makes me wonder what questions they asked leading up to this one. And I wouldn't have thrown 'always' and 'sometimes' into the same category, as 'sometimes' could easily mean 'extremely rarely, in fantastically unusual but not impossible circumstances'.

But it remains my position that the whole issue is a red herring, and the REAL issue is what kind of a culture should we have, and how do we establish such a culture, that won't PRODUCE so many potential criminals - without impinging unreasonably on anyone's personal freedoms or liberties.

I have no desire whatsoever to live in a place where the majority carry guns to defend themselves and lower the crime rate. That's too high a cost to pay for too delicate a freedom. I have a strong desire to build a community in which there aren't enough things to defend oneself against that any significant number of people feel the need for guns. Or to lock their cars and houses, for that matter. I know it's possible, how do we make it practical?

[X_Digger]

7. Unclick your heels three times and say "!emoh ekil ecalp on s'erehT"??

Then maybe you'll end up back over the rainbow..

[Kolesar]

9. snotty...eom

[MyrnaLoy]

5. Do we spend

too much time talking about the "tools" and not enough time talking about the reasons? The forums talk about guns, and recently knives, but they seldom discuss violence. Is an inanimate object violent? It is when it's picked up by a violent individual. Is a gun. or knife violent by themselves? I think the debate should center on keeping guns out of the hands of the violent.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. uh oh, you linked guncite...

brace for impact.

[X_Digger]

8. Damn, if this hadn't been written in 1995, I'd say he'd cribbed notes from here..

I have images that cover so many of his points..