Makes me feel like I'm in grade school again and it's supposed to. Sitting there, hand in the air knowing the expected answer and hoping to be the first to yell out "GUNS!"
Like so many of these Facebook posts, it's meant for the converted and not to convince anyone outside the tribe -- and it doesn't. To the convinced, it will slip by the normal reaction of skeptical analysis and will immediately toggle the "boy, those gun nuts are just plain stupid" program. and the "if he argues he must be one of them" subroutine. Guns! Just guns and only guns! is the Pavlovian response, There's only one cause, only one solution in this simplest of all possible worlds.
People are simple and want only simple answers. That's why we support demagogues. That's why we make conclusions from inconclusive data. We have about twice the automobile fatality rate of the UK and Australia, can we assume the same causes? Do we dare to add other countries to the same guns question or have we Gerrymandered the short list? Are we selecting the data points to fit on the theoretical curve? Where do we fit on a universal danger list?
To those outside that bubble the first reaction might be "Those countries have a different health care system and they don't dump the mentally ill on the streets." It might also be true that there are fewer members of a large impoverished, addicted. angry and hopeless class trapped inextricably by circumstances, prejudices and a lack of social services, housing, education, opportunity for improvement, medical care and adequate diet: so much fodder for the many hate merchants we have. And of course no one is defining mental illness here. Even the less perceptive from outside the circle might suspect the band is playing another false equivalence Foxtrot.
Does restricting the view to massacres only, that tiny proportion of the firearms assault spectrum give a biased view? Is the apparent trend real, is it a short aberration on a line with a different long term trend? Is it the same kind of sophistry as letting the deeds of one man be the paradigm, the "typical." It comes right out of the manipulator's playbook.
Of course those countries have had massacres. We're just inclined to think they don't because the teacher is always right. The UK has had a great many of them: Bloody shootings in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin bombings in London. Spain, France and other countries in Europe have had massacres in train stations and public areas for years. Algerians, Basque Separatists, Baader-Meinhoff in Germany and the Red Brigade of Italy; ISIS, al Qaeda, etc. Mentally ill pilots crash planes, crazy people use truck bombs and poison gas and set fires,shoot up newspaper offices, theaters, night clubs and hotels. It doesn't register with us as being the same thing even though the innocent victims are the same type and degree of being dead.
Worst ever! worst ever! is what you hear and you're not supposed to factor in the fact that the previous worst ever and comparable school shooting was 90 years ago and the century's experience seems more sporadic and episodic than progressive. Everything is getting worse, say people like Trump and the Tea Party con men and manipulators of all kinds and the respective bases have never been more energized. No one will bother to notice that murders and armed assaults have steadily declined for decades despite the stated erosion of gun laws.
If it comes from our crowd we don't question, we just glad hand, high five and fist bump just the way the Trump Chumps do every time some silly giggling camp follower excuses his latest gaffe. After all, part of being a cult is to alienate the outsider and prevent him from being heard. It works.
So what if you have constructive ideas, will it ever be heard through the untruths and distortions; red herrings and outright lies? Over the grins and back slapping? I think not. Semi-automatic will always mean machine gun and they always spray super high velocity big-bore bullets that actually aren't. The number of murders will always be off by a factor of two. The decline in the number of guns per household will always be explained as bad or irrelevant and the lack of correlation between regulations and effects will always be shouted down. It's always getting worse, it's a disaster, a trainwreck and only Donald or Bernie or Hillary of Ted can save us. Hey teacher - pick me!
And then there's the unsupported assumption that only guns are suitable in a world where most massacres are done with bombs, from Haymarket Square to the Anarchist bombs of the early 20th, to Oklahoma City to New York and Washington DC to Boston. The single cause fallacy supporting the single solution fallacy.
I'm tempted to ask whether gun control advocates are just Onanists or are they really interested in winning over an opposition who doesn't trust any of their reassurances because of all the lies, distortions, half truths, unsupported assertions and hyperbole?
Just Island universes are we, or non-intersecting circles in some vast Venn diagram. No one to tell us what we don't want to hear that we can't dismiss with a snark and a bark and some fudged figures as the world ends, not with a bang but a giggle. Call on me teacher!
I can’t say I am fully recovered from the last nursery rhyme about clips and caps and things that go “bang” in the night. But if you want to talk about guns again with REAL EVIDENCE, let’s start from the time the NRA lobbied lawmakers to defund CDC research on gun violence. The purpose of CDC research was to study the problem. To gather REAL EVIDENCE; but the NRA would have nothing of this. Why?
ReplyDeleteIn addition to buying Congress critters, the NRA is trying to change American culture. Yes, our culture and our fundamental values. Gun rights that take precedence over all other rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Guns uber alles!
The NRA funds the writing of nursery books for children. Little gun-toting cartoon characters and adorable little gun stories about how mamma bear protects little baby bears by shooting Goldilocks, lock stock and schlock. How cute! Imagine, a new generation of children for whom guns become second nature.
Where’s my empirical evidence? Isn’t it strange how mental illness hardly massacres anyone in Canada, Australia, etc! It’s because mentally ill people derive their delusions from their surrounding culture. And ours is both a gun culture and a violent culture. This amorphous thing called “culture” accounts for high rates of gun violence among deranged persons. In fact, they are our best barometer.
These signs and symptoms are called “cultural artifacts.” I tried to make this argument years ago in this post:
Guns and Culture, Madness and Mass Murder
http://swashzone.blogspot.com/2014/04/guns-and-culture-madness-and-mass-murder.html
The post was grossly misunderstood at the time, and I doubt conditions have changed.
BTW, I have a supply of pirate earrings I can sell — cheap! About a buck an ear.
Why? The answer is too obvious and it's both to portray anyone seeking data as gun-grabbers and to profit by the ensuing rush to buy more guns. As I saw it, it was a prohibition against advocating for gun control, thus effectively portraying gun control as political and the CDC is not allowed to be political even without that useless bit of legislation. But does that really pertain to the observation that as part of our nature we accept some arguments and data and reject other arguments summarily because of our cultural and social and political affiliations? We all do. All of us. The evil of the other side grants us no superiority, but only a responsibility to be more honest than they are and that's the backbone of my argument.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's not easy to compare those three cultures and that's what I'm talking about: simplistic arguments designed to distort because ourt ends justify anything done for the cause.
Those other ex-British colonies didn't suffer through a civil war and the devastation it brought or the cultural divisions that have persisted, festered and which have not been resolved. We have more than one culture and one of those is the culture of humiliation and defeat and the attendant resentment for "yankee" values, dominance and power. That many of us see firearms and religion as the only remaining tokens of national and individual power and independence and indeed -- dignity has to be looked at with this in mind. The South before the war was the result of the need to protect a peculiar institution from outside threats. It still sees the need to protect what's uniquely southern from what's uniquely not Southern. Without guns there is no hope that the South will rise again.
I have to point out that the culture I call "southern" has long since overflowed it's boundaries and just like the spoken idiom, it's everywhere.
"the Southern identity has been linked from the first to a siege mentality" Writes the historian Sheldon Hackney in Southern Violence (1969.) Being Southern involves a feeling of persecution, a sense of being a passive, insignificant object of external forces" the descendants of which are Trade Unionism, Feminism, Humanism, atheism, Civil rights and above all the Federal government.
ReplyDeleteThat's not Canada, that's not Europe nor Australia or Canada and if we ever want to heal this society it's going to require the ability to see other people's attitudes in the context of the fear behind it. Are we doing anything to clarify or justify the fear on the other side? Hell, no and by calling them stupid and evil and crazy, it's all going to remain so.
"Much of the South still hurts because a great part of the South is still poor; and the air of defeat that I sensed keenly at gun shows was like a reminder of the Civil War -- the losses, the deaths, the gratuitous burnings, the surrender" Writes Paul Theroux in Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads.
As I have, he feels a deep sense of belonging at gun shows, of politeness and respect and a passion for history and alienation from the modern world. Every one I've gone too has a large contingent of Civil War historians and "living history" reenactors.
Where is the attempt at reconciliation? Can anyone notice an attempt to reassure us that sporting arms can still be legally owned? How can there be a snese of common interest when so much of the gun control rhetoric is either clueless or hate-filled or entirely false?
We are not listening to each other when we keep invoking the same devils and bogeymen. The NRA does't matter because we cannot convince them, but we can convince our neighbors and friends and respect their concerns. We can stop blathering about weapons of war if we want anyone who knows a damned sight more about weapons of war than most of us do.
No matter how much we think the need for more safety trumps all, half the country sees the 2nd amendment as being of paramount importance and insulting them, misrepresenting them and associating them with demons will only entrench them deeper.
Is it really just us pushing for another civil war? Would another one be as costly? These differences are not irreconcilable unless of course, we keep doing what we're doing.
Social problems are complex and so must any solution be. We need to change the rhetoric. The NRA is no more responsible for what I'll call the "Southern" attitude toward guns than the KKK is responsible for racism. Attitudes do change and I'm certainly old enough to have seen it, but changing them requires us to recognize that we are two cultures, with two histories, two flags, two dialects and two attitudes toward God, Guns and Guts.
ReplyDeleteI would have to disagree with this last statement, I think the NRA, KKK and other organizations like them are partly responsible for increased violence. Their dogma and indoctrination style is the rhetoric that feeds and breeds the kind of mental instability that leads to these violent acts. I was just in a conversation on FB (stupid me) about immigration and first comment out of some guy was prefaced with a vile and vulgar name before he began to tell me how wrong I was. I told him I would not engage in any conversation that was reduced to name calling and ignorance and that I was done. He actually ignored his bad behavior and tried to engage me! Didn't read a word I wrote, he was in such a rush to spew his vile hatred. THAT is the society we live in now. We have many cultures now that need to be recognized and acknowledged. We are no longer the black and white America of our youth. We are the black, white, Asian, latino, Middle Eastern, etc, etc cultures who all have their own American Tale. No one group "owns" the right to define America. America is defining itself. Those that can;t embrace change and get along with it gravitate toward the machines that channel their hatred and fear, like the NRA, KKK and countless other churches, groups and organizations. We do need to change the rhetoric and people's attitudes and we need to speak up against any uncivil behavior immediately. Tolerating bad behavior for the sake of an argument stops now for me. If everyone refuses to engage in discussions prefaced with some vulgar, hateful diatribe those who perpetuate this will find out they are talking only to themselves. I am tired of trying to accommodate those I find repugnant, ignorant and lazy. We have always had visitors here at the Zone with differing opinions and views and those that respectfully state their case should be treated with the same respect when we respond. But those that can come up with nothing more original than swear words and derogatory remarks need to be sent to the time out room and blocked from participating in adult conversation.
ReplyDeleteIncreased violence perhaps -- and likely, but is the Klan talking otherwise open minded people into being racists, or does it supply them with a warm, supportive place for their hate and fear? As you say, you could float a boat in the sea of hate that floods America.
ReplyDeleteBut the prejudice, the anger, frustration, feeling of helplessness and fear of losing one's significance in the world are behind it all. Organizations just urge it into channels they can use.
These hateful outbursts are what people use who simply aren't able to support their feelings and sadly that sort of thing is effective. All Trump has to do is seem to mirror the public anger and he gets support even though everything he says is wrong and stupid and dangerous.
Can't argue with that.
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