Guns take pride of place in US family values

[babylonsister]

A view from overseas...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330953479-119093,00.html

Guns take pride of place in US family values

Despite the spiralling rise in the daily number of shootings in the US, its arms culture has a firmer grip than ever, reports Paul Harris in New York
Paul Harris
Sunday October 14, 2007

Observer
Shirley Katz is not afraid to fight for her rights. Last week the schoolteacher, 44, went to court in her home town of Medford, Oregon, to protest at her working conditions. Specifically she is outraged she cannot carry a handgun into class. 'I know it is my right to carry that gun,' she said.

Katz was in court in the week that someone else took a gun to school in America. This time it was a pupil in Cleveland, Ohio. Asa Coon, 14, walked the corridors of his school, a gun in each hand, shooting two teachers and two students. Then he killed himself. Coon's attempted massacre made headlines. But a more bloody rampage, the murder of six young partygoers by Tyler Peterson, a policeman in Crandon, Wisconsin, got less attention, even in the New York Times - America's newspaper of record - which buried it deep inside the paper.

Guns, and the violence their possessors inflict, have never been more prevalent in America. Gun crime has risen steeply over the past three years. Despite the fact groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) consistently claim they are being victimised, there have probably never been so many guns or gun-owners in America - although no one can be sure, as no one keeps a reliable account. One federal study estimated there were 215 million guns, with about half of all US households owning one. Such a staggering number makes America's gun culture thoroughly mainstream.

An average of almost eight people aged under 19 are shot dead in America every day. In 2005 there were more than 14,000 gun murders in the US - with 400 of the victims children. There are 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents in an average year. Since the killing of John F Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.

more...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330953479-119093,00.html

[glowing]

1. I personally don't want to errode anymore of the constitution...

If you own a weapon, learn how to use it, and respect that it was designed to kill. And if someone was suicidal, they'd find another way to do it... (my family's personal favorite is a good old fashioned hanging themselves in the garage)

[Sukie1941]

3. Hanging is much tidier

My great grandfather used a shotgun, as did one of my best friends.

Nothing is worse to remove from a wall and furniture than sticky brain matter.

[glowing]

4. Yes, it is. But it stretches the neck and bulges the eyes... Suicide is

never pretty. Though everyone who ever hung themselves was hauntingly beautiful... That soulful, lost eye look.

[Sukie1941]

2. Medford, OR is my home town

I am really saddened by this teacher getting to carry her gun to school. I would take my kid out of her class ASAP.

Schools are dangerous now, but having teachers carrying guns is ridiculous. Why not pepperspray?

I have several cannisters of pepperspray in my car and home. It is not a little keychain size (who would have time to dig it out of one's purse?).

I just hope that whoever decides to use a gun kills their own family member and not mine.

[sailor65]

5. In all honesty,

Pepperspray has too limited a range to be effective againts a gun-wielding assailant, and commercially available pepperspray is insufficient to stop a determined attacker anyway. If you feel you are seriously at risk, you should consider equipment and training that is more effective than spray.

Whatever you feel about the issue of an armed teacher, pepperspray is definitely not the answer.

[mvccd1000]

6. I read that whole article. Some good points, some bad points, but...

... I did not like the way the author just glossed over the, "Some surveys estimate there are more than two million 'defensive' uses of firearms each year. But others say that this argument is a shield..."

Huh? As many as two million crimes prevented or deterred each year, and that's "just a shield?"

This one didn't do much for me, either: "Hence the fact that gun ownership is still a constitutional right, in case America is ever invaded and needs to form a popular militia (as hard as that event might be to imagine)."

"Still a constitutional right," as if it is past time to change that? I disagree.

"In case America is ever invaded?" I don't think that had anything to do with the reason the 2nd Amendment was added to the constitution; not from anything I've read by the authors, anyway.

Anyway, anyone reading the UK papers these days sees what is happening to their rate of "crimes against persons" since they removed the ability of the individual to defend him (or her)self. I think they need to pay a bit more attention at home before they focus on us; things aren't going well on the crime front over there....

[benEzra]

7. Except our suicide rate is LOWER than the UK's...

apparently gun access lowers the overall suicide rate, if you subscribe to the post hoc, ergo prompter hoc fallacy that this reporter apparently does.

And, UK gun crime has risen quite a bit since the late '90s, IIRC, whereas the U.S. gun crime rate has been trending down overall since the early '90s, with a smaller uptick in the past couple of years. The U.S. violence rate is still higher than the UK rate, but if current trends continue, that may change in a few years.