An Armed Society is a Polite Society (?)

[Redlac]

More Polite : England or America?

Depends where you go I suppose. I imagine New York and London would come out similar. I say imagine because I've not been to either city.

Just like stupid people, rude people get everywhere.

 

[BishopOfBattle]

I'd say the Eskimos are probably the politest of them all, and there's no guns there.

Wait... what?

I think I must be misunderstanding the slang being used here. :X

My assumption would be that by "Eskimos" you mean those in the furthest north of the continent, which, as far as America is concerned, means Alaska. If you do in fact mean Alaska then you are mistaken, sir. Alaskan's are indeed allowed to have firearms, they are even legally allowed to carry handguns concealed without any permit, which is contrary to most states.

Unless I have misinterpreted your meaning?

 

[ZakuII]

You can't make people polite by pointing a gun at them.

A gun being an effective deterent is another matter. From personal experience, knives are terrifying under the best of circumstances. If a gun's at least as bad as a knife, then i certainly wouldn't want to pick a fight with the wielder.

I'm against people having any form of weaponry being avaliable without some serious ethics attatched. A gun or knife is impartially lethal. The weapon itself has no concept of who it harms or why. Before you give someone anything like that, you need to be sure they understand when to use it as well as the value of life. Ovbiously that's something you can't be sure of, so again, i'm against weaponry being something you can easily get hold of.

 

[Shivari]

Well pro-gun people like to point to gun conventions and say "Well since there are so many guns around no one would dare shoot anyone." But the real reason no one is doing that is because they have no reason to. There aren't any shootings at PTA bake sales or comic conventions either but it's not because people are afraid of being bombarded by various pastries or costumed-up nerds. And even assuming we did all own guns, one shot can cause everyone to pull out their guns. In the chaos it could well turn into a massacre.

More guns =/= safer citizens.

 

[BishopOfBattle]

True, but the reason one would choose to carry a firearm for defense is not against the rational, non-violent, baking or anime convention go-ers. But just because those people don't have a reason to hurt you doesn't meant that there aren't individuals out there who do.

Even given the possibility outlined about the chaos that could ensue from everyone brandishing a firearm in a convention (a story I can't say I've ever heard of happening before) there are countless scenarios and real life stories of individuals who have been at the right place and the right time who happened to be carrying a firearm for self defense that have saved lives.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'd say the Eskimos are probably the politest of them all, and there's no guns there.

Wait... what?

I think I must be misunderstanding the slang being used here. :X

My assumption would be that by "Eskimos" you mean those in the furthest north of the continent, which, as far as America is concerned, means Alaska. If you do in fact mean Alaska then you are mistaken, sir. Alaskan's are indeed allowed to have firearms, they are even legally allowed to carry handguns concealed without any permit, which is contrary to most states.

Unless I have misinterpreted your meaning?

I would say so...Inuits live above America...

 

[Amnestic]

In one study, boys aged 9-15 were strongly warned not to touch guns. However, when left alone with a gun, about a quarter touched and played with it. Almost all then denied doing so when they were asked. None of the boys touched any other forbidden item after being warned against doing so. "The results of the current study indicate that guns hold a unique allure and cast further doubt on the ability of gun admonitions to keep children safe around guns" (Hardy 2003, 352).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/05/26/DI2006052601427.html

Each year you kill more ppl by "accident" than in self defense

"Hey, whatever you do, don't touch that button."
"Why, what does it do?"
"I'm not telling you. Just don't touch it. Now i'm going to go leave you alone for five minutes. Remember, don't touch the button!"

Humans are naturally curious, especially of things which are against the rules. I'm actually quite surprised more of the kids didn't pick up the gun. The whole "unique allure" of a gun may be due to how many guns we see on TV/movies these days. I was always more interested with stick fighting as a kid, but then I'm not entirely normal ;D

And even assuming we did all own guns, one shot can cause everyone to pull out their guns. In the chaos it could well turn into a massacre.

I'm reminded somewhat of the Simpsons "Tom Sawyer" parody in which Bart and Nelson(?) fall into a steam boat's bar, something gets said or done and the entire hall full of people pull out guns of various calibers and sizes.

In either scenario, the victim is never going to have the advantage. That's a real world scenario. The victim NEVER has the advantage at the beginning. If the victim always had the advantage, crime wouldn't really be an issue. ^_~

True enough, I still prefer it being more difficult for criminals to acquire weapons, but that may be partly due to my cultural upbringing. I'd actually prefer a mugger have a knife to a gun, I can run (quite fast) from a knife. I'm not so sure I can outrun a bullet.

 

[BishopOfBattle]

So, would you say the Americans are more or less polite than the English? I'd say the Eskimos are probably the politest of them all...

The I would say my confusion stemmed from the first bit, as it started with a question about Americans then switched to a statement about Canadians. I read the statement as your answer to the question posed, which (if you had been talking about America) did not include Canada as a viable answer.

Edit to reply to additional post:

I still prefer it being more difficult for criminals to acquire weapons.

I would also prefer it be difficult for criminals to acquire weapons, just as I would rather be confronted by a criminal brandishing a knife rather than a gun. That said, I can neither rely on those facts to be true, nor should restrictions on criminals cause restrictions on me.

Its not a terribly different topic than the DRm issues that have been raging lately. Why did DRM have copy protection? To stop criminals from getting it illegally. Did it stop them from getting it (and from what I understand, getting it before the game was even released)? No. Has it caused hassles or have the potential to cause major headaches for perfectly legitimate, legal customers? Yes.

Its backwards logic to implement restrictions that mostly affect the legal owner without doing much to impact the criminals.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ah, well I think we've already had enough Anglo-American wars here for the time being.

The real measure of politeness, imho, is either a society that wants for nothing, or a society that has nothing. Either wealth or poverty makes manners the de rigeur, because neither has anything to hold over the others.

If you mix the two though...

 

[werepossum]

Well pro-gun people like to point to gun conventions and say "Well since there are so many guns around no one would dare shoot anyone." But the real reason no one is doing that is because they have no reason to. There aren't any shootings at PTA bake sales or comic conventions either but it's not because people are afraid of being bombarded by various pastries or costumed-up nerds. And even assuming we did all own guns, one shot can cause everyone to pull out their guns. In the chaos it could well turn into a massacre.

More guns =/= safer citizens.

Depends on who has the extra guns. More guns in the hands of concealed carry permit holders equals safer citizens; more guns in the hands of criminals equals less safe citizens. Guess which group are affected the most by gun laws?

 

[John Galt]

It seems to work in Vermont, no one there is required to have a license, register, permit to carry, etc. Lowest police force, surprisingly low crime rate. S***, the bus driver at the summer camp I worked at had a gun on him most of the time.

I think that might have more to do with the fact that hardly anyone lives there and that those lucky enough to establish a foothold have been pacified with skiing and maple syrup than any gun laws.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well people who understand guns and safety tend to be a brighter people, note I said safety thats soemthign people donot comprehend.

Another thing people do not understand you can not ban something because of a few crazy people because it will just lead to the ban on other things.

Also criminals will always have weapons so banning it to make innocent people less safe is also silly.

No but they probably should've had stricter laws in the first place. It is shown that the countries with strict gun laws have far fewer gun crimes per million population.

In fact a lot of the countries with stricter gun laws have lower murder rates overall, (eg, the US has 3 times the number of people murdered per million than the UK and australia). otherwise there just becomes an arms race like the US has at the moment (crim has gun so civilian buys gun. Crims then buy better guns so civilians and police have to buy better guns, the whole thing just turns into a vicious cycle).

Depends on well the country is off for a first world nation that is not in the slumps job wise guns do not matter, even if you take guns away you'd have years if not decades of guns on the streets. SO in the US of even the UK for that matter hard restrictions and bans is almost pointless because are setting up a new thing to ban.

 

[PurpleRain]

It's funny, in Australia, our gun laws are very very strict and I've barely heard of a shooting in my time.

I'd say less guns = safer citizens.

 

[Vortigar]

Even given the possibility outlined about the chaos that could ensue from everyone brandishing a firearm in a convention (a story I can't say I've ever heard of happening before) there are countless scenarios and real life stories of individuals who have been at the right place and the right time who happened to be carrying a firearm for self defense that have saved lives.

In the end only one thing matters: Per head of the population, America has a way higher death toll than any other Western country out there due to violent crimes. We're talking figures in the vein of 50 to 1 in comparison with Australia. And I don't know who said it but: "Have you ever heard of a drive-by stabbing?"


But we're not here to talk about that, we're talking about whether it would create a polite society. And I think it probably would, but it would create politeness out of mutual fear, and that is not something I'd like to base my societal norms on.

From my experience Americans do tend to be more polite than most Europeans.

 

[Vortigar]

Exactly, its about control. Thier lack of control telling you what to do, especially when you are armed. It is difficult to explain it here, though because you can't be sure who is american and who doesn't understand around here.

So you feel you need a gun to feel assured of yourself? Not that entirely, but that's what it boils down to. I can believe there's an empowering feeling there yes. But you shouldn't need a gun to feel free from some kind of external control, no matter on what level.

You are just as indoctrinated into your way of feeling about it because you grew up with guns as we are about it the other way around because we grew up without them.