XPost: talk.politics.guns, uk.politics.guns, aus.politics.guns   
   From: murff@warlock.org   
      
   On Thu, 15 May 2014 14:25:33 +1000, Dechucka wrote:   
      
   >   
   > Why don't we arrest the criminals   
      
   Good idea. Back to "catching them".   
      
   > with guns   
      
   I'm not clear why there should be a special case for criminals with guns.   
   Unarmed criminals who do things like defraud old people out of their   
   savings, or rape children, are well worthy of arrest, too.   
      
   One of the arguments against the introduction of any new law making   
   specific actions even more illegal than they already were, is that those   
   actions *were* already illegal. And if the old laws weren't enforced, why   
   expect the new ones to be ?   
      
   > and keep 'legal' guns out of   
   > the hands of the other mad and bad by background checks   
      
   That is a cultural question as much as anything else. And US *culture* is   
   against it. To have a go at Americans because of their attitudes to guns   
   is a bit rude - much as it is rude to have a go at Brits claiming that   
   laws here are an infringement of liberty.   
      
   Specifically, the UK - England and the central belt of Scotland in   
   particular is relatively highly urbanised. It dates back to the   
   Industrial Revolution starting maybe 250 years ago. That sort of thing   
   has reinforced the culture that guns are used by sportsmen, and by   
   soldiers. The culture itself comes from "social" security (i.e.   
   outsourced to police and courts) being considered more optimal in that   
   kind of environment, than an "individualised" form.   
      
   "Crowd sourced" or "collective" security arising from a generally-armed   
   populace - something which is implied by the "armed society is a polite   
   society" has never applied in the UK. I doubt it has really ever been   
   applied in the US either, other than in the context of small-scale   
   communities. Arguably it is done in some parts of, say, Israel but I   
   don't have the details.   
      
   The US has a different history. At the time the Second Amendment was   
   written memory was fresh of repelling a "foreign" standing army (the last   
   time Britain was successfully invaded was over 1000 years ago). The   
   United States is a very large place and "social" security - police and so   
   on - less effective because of that. Hence "when seconds count, the   
   police are minutes away". Even many US cities are diffuse with low   
   population density.   
      
   Note that none of this - either side of the Atlantic - has anything   
   whatever to do with the defence of liberty or holding government in   
   check. In both, what holds government in check is the rule of law and   
   ultimately the will of the people, armed or not.   
      
   So the "background checks" that are part of the British licencing process   
   work (mostly) here and are generally accepted as a reasonable thing in   
   principle. "Unsuitability" is mostly a matter of common sense (and is in   
   many ways common with the US - nutters and felons needn't apply). But   
   they don't fit so well with American culture.   
      
   How this fits with an increasingly urbanised USA - coupled with  decline   
   in gun ownership - I don't know and I don't think anybody does. Bans are   
   unjust and cause unnecessary political turmoil. OTOH it is reasonable for   
   the (majority) of non-gun-owning Americans to wonder with considerable   
   distress just What Is Going Wrong when events like Newtown and Aurora   
   happen. They don't know what to do about it either.   
      
   --   
   Murff...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)