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| re: NJC Virginia Tech Shootings | |
Posted by:  |
tealcyfre 01:33 am UTC 04/18/07 |
| In reply to: | NJC Virginia Tech Shootings - wenners 05:31 am UTC 04/17/07 |
| This is a complex question, and I don’t pretend to have any ‘answers’ -- indeed, I doubt there are ‘answers’. Japanese and Swiss society both have very low gun-mortality rates, yet Japan has virtually no guns in private hands, and Switzerland has wide, carefully controlled, placement of assault weapons in the hands of the citizenry. The fact that the US has a very high death rate from weapons in private hands is reflective of social and historical values, particularly a distrust of communal power placed in government and a reliance, indeed an enshrined mythos centered on the individual, often in conflict with or defiance of the community, particularly as represented by formal authority. This has contributed to giving the world some glorious things: rock-and-roll rebels and pinup-cheerleaders amongst them. It has also, unfortunately, on the other hand, resulted in a childish, simple-minded enshrinement of the empowered individual and his ‘right’ to exact vengeance which may be interesting in fiction, but is rather less compelling when the floor is sweet-sticky with blood, death, and despair. Americans believe not only in their own cultural superiority, but believe it is obvious, and, essentially, effortless -- rather like wielding a pistol against unarmed people. There is a tendency to believe that rhetoric alone, or the proper stance, will accomplish an end -- hence, in part, the naive, destructive, self-destructive American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Shock, awe, and wonder-weapons, of course, are not always the answer -- erhaps never. It seems to me unrealistic to thing that gun control legislation in the US would in and of itself accomplish the desired end or reduced deaths from casual, impulsive, or mad-random acts of violence. On the other hand, if the US were able to reach the point in its understanding where it was capable of passing and enforcing such legislation, that might well prove part of an evolutionary social dynamic which would, in fact, reduce such casual catastrophes. I think the chances of such a development are, unfortunately, very low. We may, then, in future, expect to weep again for the slaughter of the innocent with comparable frequency. | |
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