it's weird how the left is always citing abuse of power by law enforcement and the threat of the police state, yet they think only the police should be allowed to have arms
It's weird how the right is always deflecting the blame for gun deaths to things like video games and movies, yet they find it easy to ignore the fact that in places where guns are not prevalent, there could be fewer than 100 bullets fired by police officers in an entire country in an entire year. BTW, in such places, incidences of gun deaths are so dramatically lower than they are here, it almost rises to the level of comparing apples to submarines.
What's strange is how they see the left's desire to curtail police abuses as a hatred of the police in general.
Well this isn't getting us anywhere. Mexico has strict gun laws and gun violence is off the chain. El Paso has huge gun ownership but very little violence. Of course I can find examples citing the opposite as well....
I outright reject the notion that video game/movie violence leads to these shootings. Canada gets the same games and movies we do and they don't have this problem. Japan has severely more graphic violence in their games and movies and they don't have this problem.
There are also fewer guns in those countries. Crime requires motive, opportunity, and will. Opportunity comes from the easy availability of weapons. Motive can be a variety of things from anger to depression to a specific incident. Will is where video/movie violence *could* play a role - desensitization to violence or glorification of villians could make it a lesser hurdle to convince yourself to do something stupid, especially when there is mental illness or weakness involved. I don't think anyone claims video games cause violence - just that they can contribute to the conditions that make it more likely.
I think this misses the point big time. Murders by gun (so taking out accidents and suicides) have been falling consistently since 1993. Violence in movies and games have not. I am a conservative by nature but I can acknowledge the merit of gun control debates and how access to guns equals an increase in violence. I can't acknowledge a correlation between violent games and movies and violence. Just like the anti-p*rn people who argue it leads to more rapes. I don't buy it. Japan has waaaay more p*rn, including violent p*rn, rape p*rn, etc. and our rape rate per 1000 people is about 27 times higher. I think there are arguments about desensitizing with both violence and p*rn that lead to issues (relationship problems, sex problems, behavioral problems, etc.) but there just isn't anything to show it leads to an increase in violence. I believe our gun problem really stems from the fact that we are one of the only 1st world countries who has a subculture of serious poverty, drug use and an institutionalized rejection of state police forces. Chicago for example. Their gun deaths are largely drug/gang related in poverty stricken areas of black populations that at the same time have an institutionalized rejection of the idea of helping the police. We have stars in our country who speak out against snitching.
I'd like to see how many of the murders by gun in this country are committed by middle class people. I have a theory. Democracies don't go to war with democracies and middle class people don't shoot each other.
On a sort of side-note, I've heard that this stat is related to the fact that medical advances have made the death rate from crime lower - ie, what would have been a murder 30 years ago is an assault today because we're able to save the victim. Not sure if people claim that it accounts for all of the decrease or only a part of it. This is certainly a problem here.
To me conservatives need to pick a solution. Either get behind gun control or get behind helping the poverty problem. Keeping guns and reducing access to government assistance is a recipe for an increase in violence.
I think the other challenge here is that there are multiple factors going on at the same time, so it makes it hard to identify specific correlations. For example, we have many more cops on the streets than 1993. You have the Freakanomics abortion effect. You have the NYC Rudy G policing methods. And on and on - so you could have correlations that get lost because other factors are driving murder rates down in other ways - especially when looking at something like level of violence in movies or video games, which is hard to measure in the first place.
Agreed - in the grand scheme of things, I think tackling poverty would be far, far more effective than any type of gun control because it tackles a root cause of motive/will instead of the opportunity aspect.
Or perhaps the left believes that civil liberties are better protected through rule of law and the political process rather than shooting it out with authorities.
