A peek at the truth: Violence in the UK vs violence in the US.

[Dogstile]

The UK is violent, I can account for that.

My childhood involved getting my head kicked in by 4 guys on a monday then getting my friends together and all 4 of us kicking the heads in of the 4 guys who did it to me, one by one for the rest of the week. Rinse, repeat.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

You really thought about this didn't you? Haha.


I raised an eyebrow at your suggestion at 'culling' people from the system. Unfortunately this is lawfully impossible - the right to life is generally considered on of the basic human rights. Yes, I know the death penalty is still around in some places but I have a hard time imagining you could convince Australia to do it.

Also , forgive me if I'm wrong, but you also seem to be relying on the civil law institutions for a number of things (general criminal activity, child porn, etc). Now, I don't know about you but in Aus Civil Law is not meant to be able to deal with Criminal Activity. Civil Law deals with civilian disputes and grievances, and Criminal Law is for Crimes and is run by the State. The law is not a thing to be taken into the hands of the layman, and not every person can afford to enter court or even knows how.

Civil action (copyright etc) can't mitigate the distribution of child pornography because it's an illegal trade. Who's going to take the illegal distributor to court under copyright laws? The person who made it? Besides, if you left it to the Civil courts then there would be no definition of child pornography set down in law, just a thousand precedents that can be interpreted in a thousand different ways. And seeing as its law enforcement (ie, the police) that find child pornographers and distributors, It's impossible for them to ignore it and let it become a Civil issue.

That's enough from me....

Oh and here's something to keep you thinking: What if a person has been gang raped by multiple individuals (say, seven)? Under your proposition, do they all get life?
IMO: Yes.

LOL its cool all ideas need to be questioned so they can be made better. I don;t always smoke my own poo gas. LOL

I muse and smoldering on trains of thought and try as I can to run them to eventual conclusions but I can only think so much until it needs to be reorginized.

Sorry thats humanities current greatest weakness as I see it the worst of humanity habitchable murders and raspiests get regurgitated in the system far to much and frankly we can't even have hard labor camps with them without some wankly lil person saying we are treating criminals to harshly. Yes we should have human rights,ect but there is a point and time you lose them because you have hurt to many innocent people, actions have consequences and not culling them means we create more of them and more burdens on society because soemone has to take care of them and its not going to be cheap. Society has to support everything it dose in some fashion you can not make money from nothing the financial industries learned that the hard way then again they got bailed out by the US gov whos learning money dose not grow on trees.
=========

I dunno for child porn there can be cases of a free sites distributing it for free which under my train of thought is not illegal, the production and sell of it is, leaving reasonable IMO gaps in the hum and flow of the system in which the civil law industry with the aid of copy right(a person has a right to their likeness and all) can be used to back up requests of having pictures removed.

It will most likely be handled by large groups backed by morally upstanding people and groups the only thing the person has to do is ask for it, of course they have ruined politics as well as anyone else with a soap box and half an idea so its highly unlikely but I can still can complain about it in my own inane way .

==========
Under my train of thought only the production and sell of it is illegal, production wise a kid taking a picture of itself and or parents taking pictures of them is not production, unless proved in court under the criminal production guidelines(don't make me run that train of thought out ).

Also its good to know henti is against the law these days.... don't forget in the 90s the child protection act of Billy G Cliton made it so that anything depicting fictional minors or otherwise is illegal and slowly that prescient is being set. Sooner or later all fiction will come under the the venue of a censor board with a politically correct name support by the government in order to protect the masses, yes for now they can;t do that but they rarely follow the rules established they change them as much as they can and half the time its for the worse.
=====

Gang rape now there's one I didn't think of, how about we do it like this its rape X 6 counts per person since its a combination of kidnapping and torture and rape, 3 counts X 2= 6, so 2+ would be 12...wow thats alot of years having surprise butt secs! LOL

I know my brain is fevered and dose not always work bad enough.
Still regardless in what I muse on I do it to the fullest for good or ill.
You should see my thoughts on copy right
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/more-thoughts-on-copyright/

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I think America has an unacceptable amount of crime in general, for all the bragging that gets done.

Still, I think that's true the world over at the moment.

UK: How do you explain this?

Middleaged UK black man raped by an 18 year old white man. Video and story source. [http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhQ5OHu23E14bXlsn4]

I don't think guns would have done anyone a favor in this event.

Over all people are fucking cracked and honestly we should all just start being the shit out of one another.

Well the PC preconception is guns=violence more guns= more violence if that were the case the US would be utterly destabilized and Switzerland a hole in the ground, the real issue as I see it is a governmental control one, most governments even this one want less weapons in the populace...

 

[AfterAscon]

I still maintain that these figures are not comparable. I, again, point you to the sources you use to compile the comparison between the UK and US violent crime rates (available in my first post in this thread). A key component and largest influence of the violent crime in the US was 'aggravated assault' at 291.1 of 469.2 and in UK it was 'Violence against the person' which accounts for 1,059,913 of the 1,220,198 violent crimes committed in 2006.

The FBI gives us a very clear and specific definition of aggravated assault:

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines aggravated assault as an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. The Program further specifies that this type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Attempted aggravated assault that involves the display of-or threat to use-a gun, knife, or other weapon is included in this crime category because serious personal injury would likely result if the assault were completed. When aggravated assault and larceny-theft occur together, the offense falls under the category of robbery.

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html

Where as in the UK we have a nice 67 page document with brief explainations on various crimes which can fall under the heading 'Violence against the person' and as you will see it addresses considerably more issues than the US definition.
Linky:http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/countviolence07.pdf - it has links at the beginning of the document for easy navigation to the various category areas.

I don't doubt that the UK is a more violent place than the US. I just don't believe the difference is as significant as your original post indicates.


I should stop writing these at 2am

 

[Dys]

Isn't talking about violence and discounting murder a bit like talking about sexual assault and ignoring penetration? I don't disbelieve anything said, but I don't really see how the exclusion of the most typical violent crime, in a point made by comparing violent crime has any relevance to any argument about...anything. It's a pretty subjective comparison at best, I wonder how many of those violent crimes would've have been murders had an instant and relatively withdrawn method of murder been immediately available (all it takes is a split second of insanity to lethally shoot someone, most other methods require somewhat more effort).

Also, while I don't have much of an opinion on gun ownership (though I hate people who completely neglect common sense and leave loaded firearms lying around...It's not fascist gun control, it's just common sense) I feel the whole "if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns" argument is a touch flawed. I live in Melbourne, Australia and, outside of police, nearly all gun owners are criminals. Strangely enough, the only people who ever seem to be hurt by guns are also criminals (it's scary how easy they are to acquire), I'm far more worried about someone attacking me with a legal knife or broken bottle than I am about getting shot....

All arguments are flawed and rape without penetration is still torture, but when a society makes laws to limit guns, creates zones(parks,forests,ect) to limit guns in you create better ways for criminals to take advantage of it. I think on gun ownership we have chosen zero tolerance over looking at the case things from a case by case perspective.

Sexual assault without penetration is still pretty horrible, my point was that it's pretty redundant to look at a statistic after removing a huge portion of it, and claim it has any relevance. As for the actual gun laws, I'm not so phased. We don't exactly have zero tolerance in Australia, though they are a lot more restricted than they are in America. It seems to work, well enough for us but our culture and attitude as a society are completely different.

I don;t think we need a law to tell people how to put up guns I think we need a law to fine people when guns are misused even if its the death of their own child, tho I guess when the wablance is called people will want such laws repealed because tis somehow more harsh than life itself.

Punishing those who have already been hurt is a tad pointless. People who have lost a child to firearm negligence will have likely learned their lesson, what should happen is people should be made more aware of how dangerous it is before hand. I have no idea what the current requirements are to own a gun in the US, but at the very least you should have to complete a short (a half hour would probably suffice) emphasizing what can go wrong. I imagine that speaking to people who have already lost a loved one would be effective (we do similar things with anti-speeding campaigns in Australia, and while there's no real evidence to prove it, I'm pretty confident those campaigns are successful)

I see guns like I see vehicle ownership people do not know how to drive well and half of them should not even be on the road but we as a society don't really care about that and msot people want to be allowed to drive no matter how bad they are.

I was briefly in the US in January and from what I saw, you have absolutely no right to complain about bad drivers. Sure, we only really drove in and around Denver and the Rockies, but the driving standard[footnote]On a normal day in Melbourne, I'll see at least one person dive across a multi lane road, from the fast lane, without indicating to make a turn. People, in general, don't give way or brake safely, don't indicate when they are turning or changing lanes, don't even remotely obey the speed limit (going 20 below is now safer than going 20 above), fail to keep within their lanes etc[/footnote] was worlds above of what we have in Australia. I honestly don't give a fuck about what people want, if I (or anyone with any sense) had their way, it would be a lot more difficult to get a Victorian drivers license. It's actually a rather similar situation to gun control in the US, rather than do anything serious about it all the clueless gits in power pick a scapegoat (young people or firearms), tack on some stupid, pointless restrictions and go on to blame them for all failings.

Gun ownership is like that but we have managed to place more odder more arbitrary rules on it and frankly zero tolerance BS is not helping things.

Zero tolerance only works if it's enforced. Saying something is zero tolerance, and then not deterring people from doing it outside the law is never going to be effective to get anything done.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Snip

Mmmm generally I'd look at total population and percapita numbers, this generally makes things comparable.

Your not here all the time so you won;t really see if Germany has a much better system to keep bad drivers off the road and infarctions tend to lead to temporary or permanent bans on being able to dive. People tend to drive to fast making the smallest mistake delay or harmfull hell thats why we are forced to buy protection form the insurance racket....

Zero tolerance dose not work period.

ZT IMO is when the most inane and subtly things are made a crime and given a mandatory minim, like making a toy gun look real, or owning a GUN thats looks like another but dose not function as it, taking a pocket knife or metal nail file onto a plane or into a court room or school.

Its much less about you shoot/hurt soemone you die or be put away for life regardless of the facts involved(that would be another instance of zero tolerance) and more about the appearance of doing something to protect or defend a shallow line of thought that was made into law.

 

[mocruz1200]

Now, seeing as everyone is talking about gun ownership instead of crime in general, let me just say this: I have yet to hear of a single case where a gun helped someone protect themselves against a criminal. I'm sure that there are some cases, but far too few to actually matter in the argument.

your avatar does NOT help your argument ;P

 

[manaman]

I still maintain that these figures are not comparable. I, again, point you to the sources you use to compile the comparison between the UK and US violent crime rates (available in my first post in this thread). A key component and largest influence of the violent crime in the US was 'aggravated assault' at 291.1 of 469.2 and in UK it was 'Violence against the person' which accounts for 1,059,913 of the 1,220,198 violent crimes committed in 2006.

The FBI gives us a very clear and specific definition of aggravated assault:

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines aggravated assault as an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. The Program further specifies that this type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Attempted aggravated assault that involves the display of-or threat to use-a gun, knife, or other weapon is included in this crime category because serious personal injury would likely result if the assault were completed. When aggravated assault and larceny-theft occur together, the offense falls under the category of robbery.

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html

Where as in the UK we have a nice 67 page document with brief explainations on various crimes which can fall under the heading 'Violence against the person' and as you will see it addresses considerably more issues than the US definition.
Linky:http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/countviolence07.pdf - it has links at the beginning of the document for easy navigation to the various category areas.

I don't doubt that the UK is a more violent place than the US. I just don't believe the difference is as significant as your original post indicates.


I should stop writing these at 2am

By the UK provided statistics roughly 53% of violent crimes in caused more then minor harm to the person. Most of the remaining 47% of violent crimes in the UK involved an altercation, with minor or no harm to participants.

Aggravated assault takes intent into the picture as well. It is a very broad category, a fight can be aggravated assault even if nobody was seriously harmed, or harmed at all if police intervened before fighting broke out.

You will also note that simply brandishing a weapon during an altercation can be proof enough of intent to harm to be considered aggravated assault even if no fighting broke out after that. You are willing to break down what is violence against the person, but unwilling to consider the same can be done for aggravated assault?

 

[Red Right Hand]

tl;d- kidding!
this is really interesting. proof that UK isnt just full of Beatles posh londoners and george stephenson. although i am a posh londoner. and i live about 15 minutes away from george stephensons house.

about the rape charges:
Labour understood that the conviction rate for england is the lowest in the world, so were conducting an review into the handling rape charges. cameron comes in, and the tories burn anything relating to the previous leadership - including this investigation. the excuse is to save money.

money saved: £441,000
camerons salary: £142,500
His wifes salary: £400,000 (she runs some place in london called smythson)

I dunno man, I don't think anyone needed any further proof that places like Glasgow and Dundee are dangerous places to live. (Certain parts at least, don't wander into a place like Easterhouse or Parkhead. I think a survey evaluating the worst places to live in Scotland named 16 of the 20 areas to be in Glasgow.) Then again, go around the tourist friendly places and it's really nice.

 

[Eekaida]

what about the difference in US pop and UK pop, idk what UK's pop is but what are the crime rates if they are both at an equal population based on the number you have displayed?

Edit: UK: 61,414,062
US: 307,006,550

Forgive me if i missed the point of the thread, i just woke up a bit ago and i am still kinda sleepy, but the UK has rougly 1/5 the pop of US, if the population was mad equal (or find a ratio of the crime rates) which country would have more crime?

Ratios and statistics are used to compare a set of figures when other values do not equal. In this case the population is unequal, so the crime figures are expressed as a ratio of x number of crimes to either 1,000 or 100,000 people. So saying the violent crime rate is 2000 that means there where 2000 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people living in the country. You will often find crimes like theft in ratios to 1,000 as you might have as many as 100 thefts to every 1,000 people.

The OP is well written, but I feel that comparing the UK (statistcaly at least) with America is a bad idea from the start, purely because of its size. Amarica spans an entire continent coast to coast, whereas England is an island which I'm fairly sure could fit comfortably in most states. It doesn't seem right to compare statistics per 1000 people when america hs countless billions more people.

Another country concidered safer than America would be Australia, which is also a continent - it would probably look better for America if it could say it had a lower level of crime than Australia. Canada is another example, but while China and Russia are the also in the listof the worlds biggest countries, Russia is too sparsely populated, and Chinese figures could be distorted by their government.

The point of showing all numbers in statistics rather then pure figures is to that you can compare the rates in the countries.

As for land area. That hardly matters as 83.9% of the US population lives in Urban areas, while 90% of the UK population lives in Urban areas, and the majority of the population outside major urban areas tends to cluster around population centers within an hours travel to those major Urban areas. Now a small country with a population of 5 million or less may skew the results significantly when compared to a country the size of the US (310 million by the way) but there are enough large population centers with varying cultures between them in the UK that it can be accurate to compare the two. The UK has a population of 61 million. Sizable enough to average out most of the differences in reporting and culture between the two.

As for comparisons to Australia, the US actually has as more land then Australia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area], it might span an entire continent, but it isn't a large one. As for comparing crime rates. Those are impossible. Australia is a gold standard, the rates in Australia are the kinds of rates other countries can only hope for, comparing them to the US makes the US look as bad as the UK looks compared to the US. Australia has a rate of 73 violent crime per 100,000 people, the lowest in the world of the major westernized countries.

Canada another country commonly seen as peaceful, and mentioned by you, has twice the violent crime rate as the US.

China cannot be considered a westernized developed country, and Russia while sparsely populated when their entire land area is taken into consideration has large population centers in the predominately habitable areas of their country, a comparison cannot be reached with that country however because of massive social turmoil in parts of the country. I could have easily picked Canada as a comparison because the US is in ways less violent then even Canada, but for a better contrast I choose the UK, the point being to highlight that the US is undeserving of the reputation for violence it has.

It's difficult to argue with your points when you express them so eloquently. Call my cynical, but if there's one thing 2 years being forced to learn 'Statistics' taught me, its that statistics can be sqewed (sp?) to show whatever you damn well please.

 

[manaman]

It's difficult to argue with your points when you express them so eloquently. Call my cynical, but if there's one thing 2 years being forced to learn 'Statistics' taught me, its that statistics can be sqewed (sp?) to show whatever you damn well please.

You are right to be cynical, if there is one thing I hope people to take away from however many of these mini articles I complete it's just that. There is probably more to the story then you will first hear about.

I tried my damnedest to represent the statistics without major distortion, and while I doubt it is a 100% accurate comparison, I do believe it is by far close enough to come to the conclusion. I never even set out to imply that the UK was dangerously violent. It's a bit violent compared to the standards of a westernized developed country, but nowhere near the levels found in some undeveloped countries. It wouldn't even come close to comparing to some of the most violent places in the world, provided you could even find accurate statistics of violence from those countries.

 

[Eekaida]

It's difficult to argue with your points when you express them so eloquently. Call my cynical, but if there's one thing 2 years being forced to learn 'Statistics' taught me, its that statistics can be sqewed (sp?) to show whatever you damn well please.

You are right to be cynical, if there is one thing I hope people to take away from however many of these mini articles I complete it's just that. There is probably more to the story then you will first hear about.

I tried my damnedest to represent the statistics without major distortion, and while I doubt it is a 100% accurate comparison, I do believe it is by far close enough to come to the conclusion. I never even set out to imply that the UK was dangerously violent. It's a bit violent compared to the standards of a westernized developed country, but nowhere near the levels found in some undeveloped countries. It wouldn't even come close to comparing to some of the most violent places in the world, provided you could even find accurate statistics of violence from those countries.

Here's an interesting fact for you: England is the only place in the world where 'glass' is an adverb. As in, 'to glass someone.' I'll leave the implictions of that to your imagination. The worst thing that happens where I live is cow tipping (which is exatly what it sounds like)

 

[manaman]

It's difficult to argue with your points when you express them so eloquently. Call my cynical, but if there's one thing 2 years being forced to learn 'Statistics' taught me, its that statistics can be sqewed (sp?) to show whatever you damn well please.

You are right to be cynical, if there is one thing I hope people to take away from however many of these mini articles I complete it's just that. There is probably more to the story then you will first hear about.

I tried my damnedest to represent the statistics without major distortion, and while I doubt it is a 100% accurate comparison, I do believe it is by far close enough to come to the conclusion. I never even set out to imply that the UK was dangerously violent. It's a bit violent compared to the standards of a westernized developed country, but nowhere near the levels found in some undeveloped countries. It wouldn't even come close to comparing to some of the most violent places in the world, provided you could even find accurate statistics of violence from those countries.

Here's an interesting fact for you: England is the only place in the world where 'glass' is an adverb. As in, 'to glass someone.' I'll leave the implictions of that to your imagination. The worst thing that happens where I live is cow tipping (which is exatly what it sounds like)

I wrote a paper in high school about the ties between society and it's values based on the words you find in common use in their language. The basic premise was that you can tell a lot about the society by not only what concepts they have words for but how frequent those words appear. It started with a faulty premise, that there was a vast amount of words for snow in the Inuit languages. It turns out the Inuit languages are highly polysynthetic languages. The words are made of concepts and new words can be formed from multiple concepts. Thus wet snow, might be one word, but it is formed from two discrete concepts, and might not have a use as a common word.

However this concept did pan out, and I went from having the general idea to forming a fairly coherent argument. Greatly helping me was the fact that this topic had been studied extensively before, not helping was the fact that I went to high school some time ago, and the internet was not exactly what it is today. I didn't have the benefit of research at my fingertips in seconds.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

And I'll refer to Heinlein on this issue. "An armed society is a polite society."

Hence the world famous civility of Somalia.

Vastly different philosophy behind their society.

 

[Axolotl]

And I'll refer to Heinlein on this issue. "An armed society is a polite society."

Hence the world famous civility of Somalia.

Vastly different philosophy behind their society.

But the quote merely said an armed society. If you want to change it to "An armed society is a polite society (providing it's populated by middle class white people with good old fashioned values rather than those barbarous Africans)." Or even to "An armed society (that's tightly controlled bvy it's government) is a polite society." Then I'll withdraw my critisism.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

And I'll refer to Heinlein on this issue. "An armed society is a polite society."

Hence the world famous civility of Somalia.

Vastly different philosophy behind their society.

But the quote merely said an armed society. If you want to change it to "An armed society is a polite society (providing it's populated by middle class white people with good old fashioned values rather than those barbarous Africans)." Or even to "An armed society (that's tightly controlled bvy it's government) is a polite society." Then I'll withdraw my critisism.

If I changed what he said, it's libel, and I'm not so petty to commit libel just to satisfy you. But, since you're being very picky anal about it, in my opinion, the government shouldn't necessarily be involved. It is an issue of the nature of the people, brought on by their philosophy. Oh, and skin color has nothing to do with it, but that's just a red herring.

The issue is that the level of corruption within the African Neo-Colonialism philosophy prevalent within the African governments forces a warlord type situation, where as Western Civilization is built upon Judeo-Christian principles of how to be good, decent people. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the religion, you probably can agree that the principles found within treatment of others in Western Civilization is superior to the brutal nature of the African Neo-Colonialist, where the dictator kills anyone who doesn't bow to him.

 

[Axolotl]

If I changed what he said, it's libel, and I'm not so petty to commit libel just to satisfy you.

I wasn't suggesting you attribute it to Heinlein. Merely that don't wave around an axiom that's so obviously wrong.

But, since you're being very picky anal about it,

Pointing out that something is incorrect is being anal?

in my opinion, the government shouldn't necessarily be involved.

Give me one example of an armed yet polite society where the government does not heavily monitor it's poeple.

It is an issue of the nature of the people, brought on by their philosophy. Oh, and skin color has nothing to do with it, but that's just a red herring.

So you admit that an armed society is only nessasarily polite if said society already has a civilised philosophy?

The issue is that the level of corruption within the African Neo-Colonialism philosophy prevalent within the African governments forces a warlord type situation, where as Western Civilization is built upon Judeo-Christian principles of how to be good, decent people. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the religion, you probably can agree that the principles found within treatment of others in Western Civilization is superior to the brutal nature of the African Neo-Colonialist, where the dictator kills anyone who doesn't bow to him.

I'm not disputing that. What I'm disputing is the idea that guns encourage civility.

 

[Lyx]

I would also argue that guns, in and of themselves, are no more harmful than a knife or any of a number of other equally lethal items that are widely available. It requires either staggering amounts of stupidity or intent to do real damage with any of them.

This argument is brought up often, but i think that it doesn't really address the main concern about guns:

There is a generic feeling, that guns do make one feel powerful. They have psychological effects. And i know of no large and well done study that analyzes this. Precisly this uncertainity is what is fueling suspections that guns would increase attacks. I'm neither saying that they do, nor that they do not. I'm just stating that your argument doesn't matter, because humans do not think as rational as you portrait it. Heck, all the talk about how guns make one trigger happy, could even result in some kind of social placebo-effect.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

*SNIP

Yes, you are being anal. I punted the answer to Heinlein, and you then proposed I defend his argument, instead of doing your own homework to understand his opinion. I quoted him, and you told me to change it. Changing a quote, and referencing the quoter, is an extreme discourtesy to whoever is quoted.

I wasn't saying that there was any culture which did not regulate firearms, I was merely conjecturing the opinion that government wasn't necessary, which is different. You're asking for real world example, I'm proposing a political and social philosophy. There's a difference. If you took time to read that without turning the argument into a dick measuring competition, you might have understood that I made no reference to any country at that point. Governmental control of guns is a side effect, but does not actually have anything to do with the argument of guns and peace.

But since you ask, Dodge City was very peaceful, unlike what the vast majority of glamorized history and movies has taught us. It only had a few outbreaks of violence, which were very violent indeed, and was one of the so called lawless towns of the west. It was too far away from the central government to be regulated, and for the majority of its existence had very little crime or violence.

As for your last point, yes it does. But I never said that it didn't. Guns in a civil environment will remain civil, and guns in an uncivilized world will be very uncivilized. A gun is a tool, and a tool can be dangerous in dangerous hands. A tool can be beneficial in beneficial hands. It's all about the people. I would also add that there is a difference between social civility and politeness.

But you've taken a lighthearted quote I merely referenced, and caused this conversation to be drawn out too far, so I am done with it.

 

[Eekaida]

[

Here's an interesting fact for you: England is the only place in the world where 'glass' is an adverb. As in, 'to glass someone.' I'll leave the implictions of that to your imagination. The worst thing that happens where I live is cow tipping (which is exatly what it sounds like)

I wrote a paper in high school about the ties between society and it's values based on the words you find in common use in their language. The basic premise was that you can tell a lot about the society by not only what concepts they have words for but how frequent those words appear. It started with a faulty premise, that there was a vast amount of words for snow in the Inuit languages. It turns out the Inuit languages are highly polysynthetic languages. The words are made of concepts and new words can be formed from multiple concepts. Thus wet snow, might be one word, but it is formed from two discrete concepts, and might not have a use as a common word.

However this concept did pan out, and I went from having the general idea to forming a fairly coherent argument. Greatly helping me was the fact that this topic had been studied extensively before, not helping was the fact that I went to high school some time ago, and the internet was not exactly what it is today. I didn't have the benefit of research at my fingertips in seconds.

You didn't really miss anything, I assure you. Other than a few academic databases (that you need to be signed onto via your university/college), the internet is a surprisingly limited resource - although this is mainly becuase the information found on it is unreliable and isn't an acceptable source to gather research (most of the time. It certainly is in my uni, where is its not in a book or academic database, they don't want to hear it).

Your essay sounds really interesting - I personally like examining how words came to be (rather than just attributing them all to latin), especially 'americanisms' like 'sidewalk' vs their english counterparts, in this case 'pavement.' Last year for my course I wrote an essay on Satoshi Kons (R.I.P) use of psychological disorders and distortions of the mental reality in his films. It started as a concept around 'Perfect Blue', but a little research and critical thinking turned it into something much deeper (And the vast majority of that research was done from books).