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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (14043)	12/4/1997 2:17:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I think I see where our big sticking points are. >And I think the easy availability of guns is a big CAUSAL factor in the social pathology.< To simplify (overmuch, but for argument's sake): you say Guns =Violence. That's what I don't buy. Now I don't pretend to dismiss gun availability as a part of the violence issue. How big a part is arguable. To me however the lack of categories in the blanket term "guns" is deceptive (and I submit part of the Great Society agenda still visible in the editorial ranks of our media). I draw a pretty hard distinction between legally owned and held guns - and guns improperly posssessed and used. Yes, I concede, unlawfully-possessed guns are a real social problem. We agree that there is a lot of crime and violence in our society. I sure don't mean to imply that I'm trivializing that. > While you are arguing, I believe, that most of this social pathology is because of latch key kids and poor urban kids with no future killing each other,< A failure on emphasis on my part. I'm not pinning the brunt of the burden on any one social class. But if we're doing statistics, NPR this morning (reflecting on Paducah) put some perspective on the violence-in-schools statistic by saying that's 9 deaths per 10 million schoolchildren. On the one hand, that's nine to many. On the other hand, the chances of being kinlled by bad peanut butter are higher. I wonder if what we're grappling with is how best to address violence as a social ill. We're discussing what the fulcrum on which the violence issue rests. What I'm saying is: It's not about gun rights, or shouldn't be! That's it in a nutshell. That's not saying: It's not guns. I distinguish between guns righteously owned and kept, and guns wrongfully owned and kept. I bristle when the media lump all guns into one deadly category when agonizing over a Paducah, or that place in Scotland (I forget the town. Two years ago?) where a fellow with difficult-to-meet needs murdered schoolchildren (admittedly with a gun registered to him. But heck, he wasn't entitled to shoot people with it!) So, to reduce my argument to its essentials, I'm saying: It's unfair to treat "guns" as an undifferentiated category. I don't think that thw 100 million duly-owned guns in this country are a problem on the streets. And it's this vast reserve of legitimate sporting and defense arms - including autoloading rifles and pistols - I want to see excused. As for violence - that's another kettle of fish. I'm floating the proposal that if we are as tough on crime as we were 50 years ago (minus the unsavory racial/ethnic inconsistencies) a great deal of opportunistic violennce would be deterred. There will always be violence in our midst. Gassers in Japan. Gunmen in Sweden. Muggings in Monte Carlo. I don't think we can ever eliminate it all. But you and I have different ideas and beliefs on where to most effectively apply the lever. I advocate leaving our current laws in place and beefing up the machinery to enforce those laws. You prefer an approach which identifies and prosecutes material risks to society's well-being (my spin). Okay, let me ask it this way (I hear you saying that removing guns meaningfully reduces the major violent outlet). If we instituted sharp gun controls in the US (how extensive, if it were your call? What would still be ok?) how much of a decline in violent crime would we see - overnight, in one year, in two years? Sorry to be so verbose. I do suspect that we are having trouble with unspoken (or hard-to-express) basic premises out of alignment. So I get the sensation of us moving in circles around something important but defying easy description.