OFF: Re: Once again music gets the blame

[Jon Jarrett]

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, M Holmes wrote:

> Cpt Blue Skin writes:
>
> > I dont think people should be carrying firearms to go outdoors to town etc -
> > but having said that -  I have known woman (in america) who have avoided
> > being mugged or raped because they were able to pull a gun and scare the
> > attackers off long enough to get to safety.
>
> Well yeah, there aren't so many muggings indoors, though sadly it's far
> from unknown.
>
> One caveat for the UK though: folks who carry to the pub definitely
> ought to hand them in at the bar before being served, and pick up the
> next day.
>
> I'm sure the muggers would get the drift though, but the risks of
> drunkards probably outweigh the risks to drunkards in that case.
>
> How do they handle that issue in redneck towns in the US?

        Well, right, there's this Lynyrd Skynyrd song called `Saturday
Night Special' which answers that question very nicely... (Roughly, `they
don't'. Though times may have changed.)

> > I certainly do believe that a homeowner should have the right to have a
> > registered weapon for self defense and should have the right to use that
> > weapon if someone breaks into their home.  Not like here in Australia where
> > if someone breaks into your home (even if they are armed) and you
> > practically have to hand them a questionaire to determine whether or not
> > they are actually breaking in with intent to harm you or just to rob you
> > before you are able to defend yourself - AND EVEN THEN you still might end
> > up being charged.
>
> That's pretty much the state of affairs here in the UK after the
> Dunblane Safety At Work Act. Hell, if a home invader trips on a child's
> toy left carelessly on the floor you can be sued.
>
> My blood reaches fahrenheit 451 every time a politician asks "How can we
> stop crime?".

        Well, I don't want to get into this as it's usually argued, for
and agains gun control, especially given that disarmament just isn't an
issue for which this generation of politicians is going to be remembered,
but I think that guns are a means of committing crime, not a cause of
crime itself. Violent crime is a broader phenomenon than gun crime and one
which includes it. I've seen all the statistics Mike quoted earlier in
this thread argued with at various points, the states whose crime rates
fell after legalisation in the USA are said to have done so as violent
crime dropped country-wide anyway, and not to have exceeded that trend,
and fundamentally, I didn't do the surveys and there are too many interest
groups out there to trust anyone else's statistics. I think there's a
wider way to look at it, which is cultural. In Britain guns are still seen
as taboo by the moral majority (if you believe that such phrases aren't
oxymoronic). In the USA, anything but. This informs different attitudes.
Gun crime gets more serious consideration from the police and there's a
cost-benefit analysis anyone planning on using one has to make before
doing so, like the risks involved in killing a policeman. In the USA,
because guns are legitimate and Constitutional gosh-durn-it, no such
stigma. This is a factor which will influence behaviour and any debate
about legalisation has to take that into account.

        Meanwhile, in each country, violent crime rises and falls
according to other factors. Availability of guns only adds a method to the
mix; it might make instant spontaneous assault (whether in defence or
no) with lethal force easier, but someone plotting to perpetrate violent
crime will do this with what they can get away with. Where guns are rare,
they won't need a gun because the victim won't be carrying one, and so
on. In that sense it seems clear to me that guns breed guns, and the NRA
rhetoric takes this to its most insane logical extent. What is the real
factor that needs to be addressed is not how people can protect themselves
against muggers, but, why the hell are there so many damn muggers
anyway? And this is not a question that has an answer in the form,
`because there aren't enough guns', because guns don't bring better
rehabilitation programmes or investment in inner city education and
leisure facilities, to pick a few choice possible factors, to say nothing
of empowerment in policy-making which is the lack that's currently making
me contemplate violence against the Establishment.

        But addressing these problems, you know, they might take tax
money, and priorities and perspectives that last for longer than five
years. Two cheers for democracy, or its poor relative which we currently
enjoy. Yours,
              Jon

ObCD: Gong - _Zero To Infinity_
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)