Guns kill people

[carmen_lj]

On another topic: America, it's the guns. You have all those mass shootings because you are in a special class of your own when it comes to private gun ownership. No, you are not comparable to Finland or Switzerland. They, yes, do have very high private gun ownership compared to the rest of the world but not compared to you. You are unique, pejoratively.

This is, of course, self-evident to anyone who is not a complete fuckwit, and much to my horror those included here in the 'not a fuckwit' category are Piers Morgan. Basically, if you're saying it's not the guns, you are worse than Piers Morgan. Ye gods.

I bring this up because I'm not *entirely* thrilled with the mental illness and violent video game rhetoric I'm seeing where those two things are being touted as causes of gun violence. Both because of common sense and because, heh, I'm a mentally ill person who's been playing violent video games since I was three years old. Weirdly, I have no desire to shoot anyone. And even if I did, I couldn't. Why? Because we don't have fucking ridiculous amounts of guns in private ownership in the UK. (We have, actually, about one fiftieth of the gun violence you do, and, yes, that is taking into account our population difference.)

It's the guns that are killing people. Yes, guns kill people. There is, bizarrely, a reason gunpowder supplanted pointy metal sticks on the battlefield: guns kill more people, faster. America has more guns in private ownership than anywhere else in the world. Therefore more people will die of guns.

You want to decide, as a society, that owning your absurd amounts and varieties of guns is more important than your kids not dying of guns? Fine. Actually, it's not fine, it's disgusting. But it's your fucked-up choice. Stop lying about it though. Guns kill people. Not video games, not mental illness, not bad parenting, not any of the other desperate excuses I've been reading: it's the guns.

Comments

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

Gun ownership in the US is actually declining, but the most ardent chunk of those owners own more guns. Like, ridiculous numbers of guns (http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/31/politics/gun-ownership-declining/index.html). The NRA and other paranoia-mongers make their money telling this relatively small chunk of people that their guns are going to be taken away from them by the government, that some unspecified catastrophe is coming, that the only solution is to stock up on more guns. Then they throw out more smoke and mirrors to pretend they represent some majority of the population in order to use that "leverage" on politicians, which...push comes to shove, there's a fair chance that leverage isn't quite so powerful.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I don't think they represent the majority of Americans, but I can't see anything to suggest their leverage isn't awfully powerful. Bans on assault weapons are allowed to expire, the only amendment to the US Constituion that seems sacrosanct is the second, all the others up for debate, because their laxness is the *real* cause of gun violence, and the shootings go on.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

I think they haven't been tested in a long time, not really.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I hope they are, I do so hope they are.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

What kind of kills me is that it takes mass shootings - usually involving mostly white people - for this kind of conversation to even happen, when in, say, Philadelphia, an amazing town, black people have been killing each other with guns for years and the local government couldn't do anything to control handguns because those powers are allocated to the state government, which is full of representatives who think that handguns are somehow really vital to the hunters in the middle of the state. They can't even pass a "one handgun per month" rule because of these asshats.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

And even after the mass shootings of white people it can be pretty much assured that a big whiny deal will be made out of regulation and we won't get anywhere. Which, of course, won't even matter 'cause it's usually black people dying! Ugh.