Another Gun Control Study

[Fisherking]

Xiahou already identified the problem, and we can't very well ship them back to Africa at this point.

That is a bad guess.

Oh that's great, now that you're past racism in the USA I guess that's also okay to say.

Hold your horses!

It is the breakdown of the family unit and the rise of a gangster culture if we are tossing out theories. A lack of positive male role models.

This may be more prevalent among modern black males but it is not exclusive to them.

Subcultures that celebrate lawlessness and whacking ones enemies while going out in a blaze of glory.

Instilling such ideals and reinforced by peer pressure is not going to make for a peaceful crime free social network. A society were the heroes shun education, by dropping out of school to get rich selling drugs and killing off the competition (literally) is not going to reduce the crime rate.

It is more a culture of an angry tragic warrior society. Disassembling that is what is needed. It doesn’t matter what weapons are available. Take away one type and you only change their tactics, not their motivation.

How do you foster a sense of community and brotherhood between disparate groups of people who must either live together or resort to barbarism? What creates the bond, or can it be created? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours.

Me too!

[Husar]

Hold your horses!

It is the breakdown of the family unit and the rise of a gangster culture if we are tossing out theories. A lack of positive male role models.

This may be more prevalent among modern black males but it is not exclusive to them.

Subcultures that celebrate lawlessness and whacking ones enemies while going out in a blaze of glory.

Instilling such ideals and reinforced by peer pressure is not going to make for a peaceful crime free social network. A society were the heroes shun education, by dropping out of school to get rich selling drugs and killing off the competition (literally) is not going to reduce the crime rate.

It is more a culture of an angry tragic warrior society. Disassembling that is what is needed. It doesn’t matter what weapons are available. Take away one type and you only change their tactics, not their motivation.

That's a good post, pretty much what I said from the beginning.


The problem with PJ's post is that he seems to blame it all on the blacks and apparently insinuates the only way to solve it is to remove black people from the country. Sending the economoically downtrodden to other countries is what half the third world is trying but it doesn't seem to solve their issues so far. Unless you think the problem is coming from the colour of their skin or their racial heritage, in which case it's pretty much a racist argument.

[Fisherking]

No, it most certainly is not a product of skin color.

The weather gage of a violent society in the past was the number of unmarried young males there were.

With a society that now seems to shun marriage, it has not done much to correct its own ills.

[The Wizard]

The only thing that the article in the OP shows decisively is that the murder rate has to do with much more than the legality of firearms. It emphatically does not show that making guns freely available is A-OK, or that widespread gun ownership has nothing to do with the murder rate.

Very interesting in this regard is an interview Steven Pinker (whom you may know as the guy who published a very successful book which, IMHO, errs on the side of excessive liberal optimism) took of one of my former professors, Pieter Spierenburg. The latter's a historical crimonologist and sociologist who studies the long-term decline of violent crime since the late Middle Ages. It's interesting to note that there's been a slight increase in the rate of violent crime in Western societies since the 1960s, the first rise since the 1400s. A condition of postmodernity?

EDIT: Important, but forgot to mention that there's a long statement on the USA, at 15:00 in the interview recording.

[HopAlongBunny]

Just out of curiosity, how are the finding correlated to lead (Pb) levels?

http://http://www.motherjones.com/en...-link-gasoline

[Husar]

Just out of curiosity, how are the finding correlated to lead (Pb) levels?

http://http://www.motherjones.com/en...-link-gasoline

I brought that up in one of the last gun threads already, I have figured since then that high lead levels are just a result of the American psyche, which is, as most of us seem to agree, the major underlying problem. How to change the American Psyche in regards to lead levels, environmental protection and non-violent problem solving is the real question here. So far sending all black people back to Africa has been proposed and opposed.

[Montmorency]

I oppose reduction to 'national character'.