Comments | danthered: On gun control and cultural shift

danthered

On gun control and cultural shift

Dec 28, 2012 14:54

Updated 2017

Most gun control discussions get as far as acknowledging that gun worship is deeply entrenched in US culture, then fizzle out with a shoulder-shrug of defeat and inevitability. This essay's author does one of the better jobs I've seen of framing the issue as a matter of public health. His main point is that cultural entrenchment is ( Read more... )

Comments 4

jwg December 29 2012, 00:30:49 UTC

Many people think that they want to have guns for self defense.

I'd like to see some analysis about gun incidents where they were used for self defense. What fraction of gun deaths (and wounds) is are caused by that form of usage (as opposed to gang killings) and how many instances are there where there is an accidental death either in the act of self defense when it was thought to be needed (e.g. a relative enters the house and is thought to be an intruder, or a gun that is lying around is fired accidentally. (A friend of mine killed himself by accident because he thought his gun wasn't loaded and he was fooling around with some of his friends).

If the data is the way I think it is, then revealing and publicizing it would help in the cultural change. I think that images and data about auto accidents was definitely a very important factor in convincing people to wear seat belts.

danthered December 29 2012, 02:53:56 UTC

I think there probably is substantial robust data regarding the public-health effect of proliferative guns, which-as with the knowledge of tobacco's effect on public health-is highly inconvenient to the gun industry and its apologists, so it is loudly dismissed preëmptively on generally fatuous grounds; it is difficult, as Upton Sinclair observed, to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Nothing new there ( ... )

goldibehr December 29 2012, 20:45:44 UTC

I'd like to see some analysis about gun incidents where they were used for self defense.

It's my understanding that, thanks for the NRA and their Republican servants, the US government does not even collect such statistics. Attempts to study this by the "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives" and by the "National Institute for Health" have been explicitly de-funded by Republican action for many, many years.

The NRA is obviously fearful that the resulting data would be very, very bad for their lobbying efforts.

danthered December 30 2012, 20:28:57 UTC

Even before I go looking for sources on this-and I will, got any?-my immediate reaction is inverse-surprise: I'll be very surprised if this what you describe is not the case. Very successful PR ownership by the NRA and their apologists, as it seems; check out this steaming pile. Gee, I wasn't aware CBS are a fringe media outlet, nor that The Village Voice is local to San Antonio, and I'm sure everyone at KUSA (Denver's TV news market leader last time I looked) will be shocked and awed to learn they've been teleported to Texas. Yishk ( ... )