M. Moore: Aurora Happened in America's Culture of Twitchy, Bloodthirsty Killers

Ekios

Ekios

Jedi Master
Found this interesting post here : _http://www.alternet.org/story/156465/michael_moore%3A_aurora_happened_in_america%27s_culture_of_twitchy%2C_bloodthirsty_killers?paging=off
Can be found in French here : _http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2012/08/10/michael-moore-arretons-notre-folie-meurtriere

Michael Moore: Aurora Happened in America's Culture of Twitchy, Bloodthirsty Killers
We should fix our race and poverty problems -- we'd have fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer.
July 24, 2012 |
Since Cain went nuts and whacked Abel, there have always been those humans who, for one reason or another, go temporarily or permanently insane and commit unspeakable acts of violence. There was the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who during the first century A.D. enjoyed throwing victims off a cliff on the Mediterranean island of Capri. Gilles de Rais, a French knight and ally of Joan of Arc during the middle ages, went cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs one day and ended up murdering hundreds of children. Just a few decades later Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, was killing people in Transylvania in numberless horrifying ways.

In modern times, nearly every nation has had a psychopath or two commit a mass murder, regardless of how strict their gun laws are – the crazed white supremacist in Norway one year ago Sunday, the schoolyard butcher in Dunblane, Scotland, the École Polytechnique killer in Montreal, the mass murderer in Erfurt, Germany … the list seems endless.

And now the Aurora shooter last Friday. There have always been insane people, and there always will be.

But here's the difference between the rest of the world and us: We have TWO Auroras that take place every single day of every single year! At least 24 Americans every day (8-9,000 a year) are killed by people with guns – and that doesn't count the ones accidentally killed by guns or who commit suicide with a gun. Count them and you can triple that number to over 25,000.

That means the United States is responsible for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined. Considering that the people of those countries, as human beings, are no better or worse than any of us, well, then, why us?

Both conservatives and liberals in America operate with firmly held beliefs as to "the why" of this problem. And the reason neither can find their way out of the box toward a real solution is because, in fact, they're both half right.

The right believes that the Founding Fathers, through some sort of divine decree, have guaranteed them the absolute right to own as many guns as they desire. And they will ceaselessly remind you that a gun cannot fire itself – that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Of course, they know they're being intellectually dishonest (if I can use that word) when they say that about the Second Amendment because they know the men who wrote the constitution just wanted to make sure a militia could be quickly called up from amongst the farmers and merchants should the Brits decide to return and wreak some havoc.

But they are half right when they say "Guns don't kill people." I would just alter that slogan slightly to speak the real truth: "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people."

Because we're the only ones in the first world who do this en masse. And you'll hear all stripes of Americans come up with a host of reasons so that they don't have to deal with what's really behind all this murder and mayhem.

They'll say it's the violent movies and video games that are responsible. Last time I checked, the movies and video games in Japan are more violent than ours – and yet usually fewer than 20 people a year are killed there with guns – and in 2006 the number was two!

Others will say it's the number of broken homes that lead to all this killing. I hate to break this to you, but there are almost as many single-parent homes in the U.K. as there are here – and yet, in Great Britain, there are usually fewer than 40 gun murders a year.

People like me will say this is all the result of the U.S. having a history and a culture of men with guns, "cowboys and Indians," "shoot first and ask questions later." And while it is true that the mass genocide of the Native Americans set a pretty ugly model to found a country on, I think it's safe to say we're not the only ones with a violent past or a penchant for genocide. Hello, Germany! That's right I'm talking about you and your history, from the Huns to the Nazis, just loving a good slaughter (as did the Japanese, and the British who ruled the world for hundreds of years – and they didn't achieve that through planting daisies). And yet in Germany, a nation of 80 million people, there are only around 200 gun murders a year.

So those countries (and many others) are just like us – except for the fact that more people here believe in God and go to church than any other Western nation.

My liberal compatriots will tell you if we just had less guns, there would be less gun deaths. And, mathematically, that would be true. If you have less arsenic in the water supply, it will kill less people. Less of anything bad – calories, smoking, reality TV – will kill far fewer people. And if we had strong gun laws that prohibited automatic and semi-automatic weapons and banned the sale of large magazines that can hold a gazillion bullets, well, then shooters like the man in Aurora would not be able to shoot so many people in just a few minutes.

But this, too, has a problem. There are plenty of guns in Canada (mostly hunting rifles) – and yet the annual gun murder count in Canada is around 200 deaths. In fact, because of its proximity, Canada's culture is very similar to ours – the kids play the same violent video games, watch the same movies and TV shows, and yet they don't grow up wanting to kill each other. Switzerland has the third-highest number of guns per capita on earth, but still a low murder rate.

So – why us?

I posed this question a decade ago in my film 'Bowling for Columbine,' and this week, I have had little to say because I feel I said what I had to say ten years ago – and it doesn't seem to have done a whole lot of good other than to now look like it was actually a crystal ball posing as a movie.

This is what I said then, and it is what I will say again today:

1. We Americans are incredibly good killers. We believe in killing as a way of accomplishing our goals. Three-quarters of our states execute criminals, even though the states with the lower murder rates are generally the states with no death penalty.

Our killing is not just historical (the slaughter of Indians and slaves and each other in a "civil" war). It is our current way of resolving whatever it is we're afraid of. It's invasion as foreign policy. Sure there's Iraq and Afghanistan – but we've been invaders since we "conquered the wild west" and now we're hooked so bad we don't even know where to invade (bin Laden wasn't hiding in Afghanistan, he was in Pakistan) or what to invade for (Saddam had zero weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9/11). We send our lower classes off to do the killing, and the rest of us who don't have a loved one over there don't spend a single minute of any given day thinking about the carnage. And now we send in remote pilotless planes to kill, planes that are being controlled by faceless men in a lush, air conditioned studio in suburban Las Vegas. It is madness.

2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, #1 in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other (here's a good example of what I mean).

Those are my thoughts about Aurora and the violent country I am a citizen of. Like I said, I spelled it all out here if you'd like to watch it or share it for free with others. All we're lacking here, my friends, is the courage and the resolve. I'm in if you are.
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It is kind of strange to hear from Michael Moore again on the topic of violence in the USA, after so many years have passed since his documentary Bowling for Columbine first hit the shelves. Almost everything he wrote here was a rehash of much of the main points of the movie, recycled like the plot points of the new Spider man release. As much as I agree with him in principle on the issue of violence, I still think he is a token straw-opposition for how he covered 9/11,as well as for how he offers zero solutions to the problems he attempts to present. Sure, he showed up for a couple of Occupy Wall Street protests, but so what? He has the ears of so many, yet he just turns around and feeds of the spectacle of massacre just like any other news outlet. Not even a suggestion for us to take a step back and have a deep breath.
 
whitecoast said:
He has the ears of so many, yet he just turns around and feeds of the spectacle of massacre just like any other news outlet. Not even a suggestion for us to take a step back and have a deep breath.
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In my opinion MM isn't the hope for salvation that some want him to be, because all he does is point out the obvious about the current state of affairs in the US. And he often is sensationalist in his approach.
But I think he gets his message better across because he doesn't pretend to have any solutions.
The paranoia he describes is easy to see from the outside, and as he points out, it isn't all because of the availability of guns either - many countries including my own has a similar amount of guns in the populace.
Part of the reason why USA have so many weapon killings might be because of the ingrained "no trespassing or I'll shoot" culture that has been prevalent in USA for centuries, combined with fear and suspicion of everyone that isn't familiar .
 
Hithere said:
whitecoast said:
He has the ears of so many, yet he just turns around and feeds of the spectacle of massacre just like any other news outlet. Not even a suggestion for us to take a step back and have a deep breath.
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In my opinion MM isn't the hope for salvation that some want him to be, because all he does is point out the obvious about the current state of affairs in the US. And he often is sensationalist in his approach.
But I think he gets his message better across because he doesn't pretend to have any solutions.
The paranoia he describes is easy to see from the outside, and as he points out, it isn't all because of the availability of guns either - many countries including my own has a similar amount of guns in the populace.
Part of the reason why USA have so many weapon killings might be because of the ingrained "no trespassing or I'll shoot" culture that has been prevalent in USA for centuries, combined with fear and suspicion of everyone that isn't familiar .
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Yeah. It reminds me of this related thread http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28742.0.html which covers a minor encounter between a US policeman on vacation in Calgary with some random Canadians. Two random people "aggressively" asked two questions and the man instinctively reached for his (absent) gun and lamented the strict gun laws in Canada, even writing into the paper about it. It speaks volumes about the culture of paranoia in the US, but maybe it was just the perspective of one of those police officers increasingly subjected to militarized hardware and operant conditioning.
 
Moore makes some good points, starting with the observation that the US has an appallingly high level of gun violence far above that seen other developed countries. He also touches on the history of the US that led to the Second Amendment right of common people "to keep and bear arms" in this country, but he overlooks the real reason it was established. It was not, as he jokingly claims, just to make sure that local militias survived in case the British returned for a rematch after the US Revolutionary War. (In fact, the British did return in the War of 1812 and burned Washington, DC to the ground before suddenly losing interest after a humiliating defeat at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814.) There was that reason, to be sure, but more importantly the Second Amendment serves as a guarantee that authority rests with the people, and that the legitimacy of government rests on the consent of the governed. The Second Amendment exists to give the population the means to protect the rights of the people set forth in the other nine Amendments in the original Bill of Rights.

Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorites, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.

Overall though, the annual number of deaths due to gun violence within the US is comparable to the annual death toll in accidents on the nation's highways. That's also too high, of course, but it serves as a useful statistical comparison to guage the scale of both problems and lend some perspective to the fact that the US population doesn't seem too concerned about fixing either of them any time soon.

I live in the US, and I wouldn't want to live in any society where I wasn't allowed to be armed for self defense. I'm in a fairly laid-back city that doesn't have a lot of crime, but one reason for that is that enough people are armed in their own homes, and some carrying concealed weapons, that there's not much future in criminal violence. The same cannot be said in the few US cities that have banned gun ownership. We live in this violent world, unfortunately, and no matter how much I might wish it were different, and that the US reform away from its imperial stupidity and resolve its dysfunctional domestic political and economic inequalities, I prefer to keep my guns loaded and handy until such time as those enlightened developments might come to pass.
 
griffin said:
Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorites, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.
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I do not share your view here - to my eyes the "War on Drugs" seems to have worsened the problem.

griffin said:
Overall though, the annual number of deaths due to gun violence within the US is comparable to the annual death toll in accidents on the nation's highways. That's also too high, of course, but it serves as a useful statistical comparison to guage the scale of both problems and lend some perspective to the fact that the US population doesn't seem too concerned about fixing either of them any time soon.
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To my foreign eyes it seems as a matter of different perspective. Citizens of the USA seems to percieve their society as so threatening that it is normal to fear for one's life to the degree that having a gun around at all times seems rational.

griffin said:
I live in the US, and I wouldn't want to live in any society where I wasn't allowed to be armed for self defense. I'm in a fairly laid-back city that doesn't have a lot of crime, but one reason for that is that enough people are armed in their own homes, and some carrying concealed weapons, that there's not much future in criminal violence. The same cannot be said in the few US cities that have banned gun ownership. We live in this violent world, unfortunately, and no matter how much I might wish it were different, and that the US reform away from its imperial stupidity and resolve its dysfunctional domestic political and economic inequalities, I prefer to keep my guns loaded and handy until such time as those enlightened developments might come to pass.
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It may have progressed beyond the point of no return a long time ago, so now everybody needs to have guns to protect their loved ones. But killing others is not easy to combine with spiritual growth in general, no matter how harsh the circumstances. I wish you luck and sympathize with your need for self defence, but to me it seems to be this kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place.
 
griffin said:
Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorites, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.
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What I currently think Moore misses is that often both guns and drugs have been provided to groups of people by the government in an effort to incite violence among the masses. The consequence being the overall devolution of society (both within select groups and the masses in general). In others words, the problems we are seeing today and throughout history in general are not coincidental but occur as a result of a directed campaign to keep individuals and society afraid of and fighting each other. A very effective method of distraction from the real issue - psychopaths in power.

Prior to the 1970's, people of all races and cultures but minorities specifically were beginning to work together in an effort to alleviate societal problems. African Americans (AA), in particular, had been trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps for decades if not at least a century. Although many were still dealing with the consequences of slavery, they were determined as a people to stick together and do their best to fit in. I'd even say that contrary to what is reported in the mainstream media, there are many African Americans and minorities in general today who still want nothing more than to work, raise their families and stay under the radar.

When AA's saw problems arise in their communities, having been programmed to distrust their own government via their personal and collective experiences, they sought to tackle issues such as hunger and child welfare on their own - to take care of themselves. Many also became involved in political movements in an effort to become more knowledgeable about the world around them and to become active participants in their communities. Some of these programs provided breakfast and lunch for inner city kids or even after school activities. While this occurred at a time when funding was still available for such things, many took from their own personal resources.

I think it's quite telling that around the same time, there seemed to be an increase of drug usage among the same populations. It would not surprise me to find out that gun availability increased as well.

The overall issue isn't racism or illegal drugs, I think. It's the fact that there are psychopaths in charge who destroy everything they touch. If people weren't made to feel constantly afraid of others, they wouldn't feel the need to arm themselves. If guns weren't made constantly available to people, there would be no weapons.

griffin said:
I live in the US, and I wouldn't want to live in any society where I wasn't allowed to be armed for self defense. I'm in a fairly laid-back city that doesn't have a lot of crime, but one reason for that is that enough people are armed in their own homes, and some carrying concealed weapons, that there's not much future in criminal violence. The same cannot be said in the few US cities that have banned gun ownership. We live in this violent world, unfortunately, and no matter how much I might wish it were different, and that the US reform away from its imperial stupidity and resolve its dysfunctional domestic political and economic inequalities, I prefer to keep my guns loaded and handy until such time as those enlightened developments might come to pass.
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That's quite a fearful stance to take, I think. To wait for the enlightenment of others also places the burden of responsibility onto others. The onus is on each individual to do this themselves as one cannot change others.

I was born and raised in an area that is considered by many to be violent yet I have never really considered that I needed to arm myself in such a manner. If I have to be armed, I'd much prefer to do it with knowledge and awareness. This alone has provided me with adequate protection on several occasions. To live in constant fear of 'what if' is really not an option. In fact, it's not really a life. For what it's worth.

If you haven't done so already, you may be interested in reading the suggested books on psychopathy. Political Ponerology provides a great perspective on just how psychopaths in power infect society.
 
I agree with Moore's main points:

1.) We Americans are incredibly good killers.

Killing and violence are endemic parts of our culture. Our nation was founded such and we even give homage to our violence when we consider our victories in WWII, The Civil and Revolutionary Wars. We're also the world's largest manufacturer of weapons, we kill more people annually via our foreign policy and conjure twisted justifications; it should be apparent no sane voice has a hand in its formation.

This goes to TS's point:
truth seeker said:
The overall issue isn't racism or illegal drugs, I think. It's the fact that there are psychopaths in charge who destroy everything they touch. If people weren't made to feel constantly afraid of others, they wouldn't feel the need to arm themselves. If guns weren't made constantly available to people, there would be no weapons.
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2.) We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear.

Most Americans, especially those who are armed, somehow equate their weapon with the ability to 'defend'. Imho you cannot defend with a gun, its an inherently offensive weapon. I would hate to have to use one on another person. I'm close to saying I wouldn't, but there is the law of three to consider.

The most potent defensive weapon one has is knowledge and awareness, and I'm a firm believer in the concept of 'weaponized knowledge' as the ultimate 'light sided' weapon, if you will. I also feel, intuitively, that if properly prepared I'll never have need of a gun.

Unfortunately Moore isn't in The Work and so he's much more susceptible to narcissism and ego tickling, especially considering his success. He seems to see certain things and ignore others, especially the impact of psychopathy on the macrosocial scale. This seems to be the problem most people have when I bring up psychopathy - they cannot see it's implications globally. I'm conjuring that it has to do with basic denial that they can be manipulated and a projection, en masse, derived from there.

That said, simply because he doesn't 'have it all' is no reason to dismiss what he has to say. It's like a primer, it'll allow some people to catch glimpses of the truth since they're not ready to see it's full implication yet. In retrospect, that was how I had to come to it, in bits and pieces, because that's the only way my brain could handle the incredible high strangeness that engulfs our culture and daily interactions.

Dreaming your on Earth and realizing one is actually inhabiting Hell is a stark realization few can handle.
 
Hithere said:
griffin said:
Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorites, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.
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I do not share your view here - to my eyes the "War on Drugs" seems to have worsened the problem.
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Unless I'm missing something, it appears to me that you and griffin are already on the same page here. Legalization of illegal drugs would effectively end the 'war on drugs' as it is known today.
 
Jason (ocean59) said:
Hithere said:
griffin said:
Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorites, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.
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I do not share your view here - to my eyes the "War on Drugs" seems to have worsened the problem.
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Unless I'm missing something, it appears to me that you and griffin are already on the same page here. Legalization of illegal drugs would effectively end the 'war on drugs' as it is known today.
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You are absolutely right Jason - I apologize griffin for the misunderstanding, it was probably caused by a tendency I sometimes have to think that I know what a sentence means before I read it through properly, and then skip the latter part. I try to avoid doing this but it still happens - hopefully with a diminishing frequency.
 
Hithere said:
griffin said:
Yes, the level of gun violence in the US is too high, but another thing Moore conveniently overlooks is that most of it is committed by paramilitarized US police forces, often against members of racial minorities. And, as Moore does allude to, most civilian gun violence is committed by members of those same racial minorities, primarily black and latino gang members fighting over illegal drugs. If the US can solve the illegal drugs problem through legalization, a lot of the latter will just vanish.
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I do not share your view here - to my eyes the "War on Drugs" seems to have worsened the problem.
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I don't know why you think you're opposing my view here. Did you overlook or not understand the word "legalization" in my post?

I agree that the so-called War on Drugs has been and remains a cynical farce - look up Gary Webb and his book "Whiteout". Corrupt elites have been trafficking drugs since at least the British Opium Wars in China during the 19th century, and the Vietnam War was as much a cover for CIA drug smuggling from Southeast Asia as it was about US imperial opposition to Vietnamese independence under the anticommunist domino theory. Iran-Contra under Reagan involved CIA drug smuggling from South and Central America and that continued under Bush I and Clinton, who ran the US end in Mena, AK as governor there. It has continued in Mexico with its simmering drug war, and continues in Afghanistan, where the CIA and US military are up to their eyeballs in protecting and profiting from a huge heroin trade that's demoralizing the West.

Hithere said:
To my foreign eyes it seems as a matter of different perspective. Citizens of the USA seems to percieve their society as so threatening that it is normal to fear for one's life to the degree that having a gun around at all times seems rational.
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Depending on the locale, probably anywhere from 10% to 90% of households in the US have a gun in the house. Normally it's a revolver or auto pistol in a desk, nightstand or dresser drawer, or a rifle or shotgun in a bedroom closet. If there are any children in the house, such weapons are usually locked away. There are rather few home invasion robberies in the US, you'll notice.

Hithere said:
It may have progressed beyond the point of no return a long time ago, so now everybody needs to have guns to protect their loved ones. But killing others is not easy to combine with spiritual growth in general, no matter how harsh the circumstances. I wish you luck and sympathize with your need for self defence, but to me it seems to be this kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place.
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The US has always been a nation of immigrants, pioneers and their descendants - aside from the native population that was unfortunately and deplorably overrun by European settlers and decimated by diseases. It was a frontier country during its westward expansion until about 100 years ago, and the culture still reflects that to some extent. My father still had his grandfather's cap and ball post-Civil War Navy Colt revolver until he finally sold it as an antique and bought a camera with the money. But he also had a little Savage .32 auto pistol that stayed in a drawer by his bedside, along with a little .32 S&W revolver that I believe was my mother's and I doubt she ever fired. Americans, especially here in the West, have always owned weapons to protect their crops, livestock and personal safety. That is changing as the country becomes more urban and suburban, but only slowly, and most people in America don't think that guns are a big problem.
 
griffin said:
I don't know why you think you're opposing my view here. Did you overlook or not understand the word "legalization" in my post?
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I am sorry about that - see my post above.
I agree that the so-called War on Drugs has been and remains a cynical farce - look up Gary Webb and his book "Whiteout". Corrupt elites have been trafficking drugs since at least the British Opium Wars in China during the 19th century, and the Vietnam War was as much a cover for CIA drug smuggling from Southeast Asia as it was about US imperial opposition to Vietnamese independence under the anticommunist domino theory. Iran-Contra under Reagan involved CIA drug smuggling from South and Central America and that continued under Bush I and Clinton, who ran the US end in Mena, AK as governor there. It has continued in Mexico with its simmering drug war, and continues in Afghanistan, where the CIA and US military are up to their eyeballs in protecting and profiting from a huge heroin trade that's demoralizing the West.
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Agreed.

Depending on the locale, probably anywhere from 10% to 90% of households in the US have a gun in the house. Normally it's a revolver or auto pistol in a desk, nightstand or dresser drawer, or a rifle or shotgun in a bedroom closet. If there are any children in the house, such weapons are usually locked away. There are rather few home invasion robberies in the US, you'll notice.
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There are about the same amount of guns per person in my country and many others, but the USA have a lot more killings as MM states. I have always found it hard to understand why the NRA has such a high standing in the US, and why killers from Jesse James to Bonnie and Clyde seems to be idolized.

The US has always been a nation of immigrants, pioneers and their descendants - aside from the native population that was unfortunately and deplorably overrun by European settlers and decimated by diseases. It was a frontier country during its westward expansion until about 100 years ago, and the culture still reflects that to some extent. My father still had his grandfather's cap and ball post-Civil War Navy Colt revolver until he finally sold it as an antique and bought a camera with the money. But he also had a little Savage .32 auto pistol that stayed in a drawer by his bedside, along with a little .32 S&W revolver that I believe was my mother's and I doubt she ever fired. Americans, especially here in the West, have always owned weapons to protect their crops, livestock and personal safety. That is changing as the country becomes more urban and suburban, but only slowly, and most people in America don't think that guns are a big problem.
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This seems like the most probable explanation for the continued usage of guns as a way to solve problems in the USA. It is fascinating to me that the average citizen still regards guns as something every home should have - a sort of loyal companion and "peacemaker" if need be. This is a marked difference from where I live, where guns have a function in hunting, but handheld guns are rare and there is no culture for collecting and comparing handguns except among criminals.
 
The US has among the highest rates of firearms homicides in the developed world. As well, the states with capital punishment seem to have the highest of the lot. Clearly, an armed population that has a large component of paranoid halfwits who can't control their impulses might want to reconsider their gun policies. Deterrence obviously doesn't work, no matter if the deterrant is death by lethal injection or a civilian firing squad.

As well 10 states have more fatalities resulting from firearms than traffic accidents (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington).

Interestingly enough, violent crimes have been declining in the US for a few years yet the population continues to think it is rising at an alarming rate, thereby necessitating citizens tomprotect themselves.

While the right to bear arms was designed to keep the government in check, it is promoted instead as a means to defend citizens from each other. It could be argued that the right to bear arms is not the same as the right to own arms, since bearing means to carry or take up. However, I won't be traveling to the US to try to convince them of the merits of this argument anytime soon.

Gonzo
 
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