A few weeks ago, I was cast in a short film which is a parodical look at action movies and lesbian relationships. My part is as the lovable Asian male sidekick to the evil female lead villainess.
Obviously, this film would use a lot of gunplay, so I spent time rounding up realistic gun replicas (airsoft and the like) from friends. I eventually ended up with almost a dozen pistols and submachineguns, making my home office into a sort of armory. And like any boy with a toy would do, I did indeed spend time looking in the mirror while brandishing a pitsol or two, trying vainly to look like the Hong Kong gangster movie characters I'd been cast to portray. Or James Bond. Or John Wayne.
Then the Virginia Tech shootings happened... And I haven't touched them since. In fact, I was pretty releived to deliver the box full of gun replicas to my producer and have HIM be disgusted by the sight of an Asian guy pointing weapons at people, for a while. I imagine that when this thing has passed, I'll be able to pick up one of those replicas and spent a few shooting days pointing them at hot lesbians in cheerleader outfits. As it stands, I can barely look into the mirror without seeing the face of that coward looking back at me with a gun in hand.
I believe in gun control. I also believe in gradual cultural change that will allow gun control NOT to be roadblocked by enthusiasts, extremists, or people who just like guns. I do not consider myself educated in either side of the gun control debate, but I do firmly beleive that what I'm feeling right now, and my belief in gun control, is not just a natural or kneejerk reaction to tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings. So instead, to close out my post and open it to everyone's opinions on this alledgedly hot-button topic, I post something from a West Wing episode I watched on TV a few months ago that really spoke to me:
"But for a brilliant surgical team and two centimeters of a miracle, this guy's dead right now. From bullets fired from a gun bought legally. They bought guns, they loaded 'em, they drove from Wheeling to Rosslyn, and until they pulled the trigger they had yet to commit a crime. I am so off the charts tired of the gun lobby tossing around words like personal freedom and nobody calling 'em on it. It's not about personal freedom. And it certainly has nothing to do with public safety. It's just that some people like guns."
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Millions of people legally own guns in the US. How many of them are involved in violent crimes? My only regret was that no one was allowed a gun on campus to stop this madman sooner.
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First, Sorkin's quote, while well written, is unfortunately nonsense. Some people liking guns IS personal freedom. What does the think the phrase means?
Second, the constitution of the United States forbids gun control. Some courts have said it doesn't. They need to actually read the damn second amendment. There is NO reading of it, consistent with the rules of English grammar, that doesn't make it perfectly clear that people have a right to own firearms.
Third, the Constitution should be changed to allow gun control (along with a number of other updates). Obviously there is no possible need for a private individual to own an automatic rifle. Background checks should be necessary before buying a weapon. Safety training should be mandatory. Some of these things may already be laws. Some may be laws and not be enforced. I don't know, but that's a bare minimum of sane safety.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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1. The way I've interpreted it is that he was talking about the freedom to buy and own guns, and how this can subsequently lead to gun crime. Anyone can like guns. NOT anyone should be able to buy or own them.
2. Agreed, as archaic as it is.
3. Agreed, as impossible as some seem to make it out.
To be fair, Canada's gun registration act has also met with intense resistance (especially out here in the west) and is now basically dead. It is true that only a fraction of existing guns are used in crimes. But proportional or not, surely the abscence of easily obtainable guns will reduce what crimes there are. Can a psychopath walk into a building and kill thirty people with a sword he bought at the House of Knives and sharpened himself? Would he?
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Second, the constitution of the United States forbids gun control. Some courts have said it doesn't. They need to actually read the damn second amendment. There is NO reading of it, consistent with the rules of English grammar, that doesn't make it perfectly clear that people have a right to own firearms.
Third, the Constitution should be changed to allow gun control (along with a number of other updates). Obviously there is no possible need for a private individual to own an automatic rifle. Background checks should be necessary before buying a weapon. Safety training should be mandatory. Some of these things may already be laws. Some may be laws and not be enforced. I don't know, but that's a bare minimum of sane safety.
Agreed on both counts. The key to the Second Amendment is the fact that it specifies "a well-regulated militia."
Ultimately, though--America as a society doesn't have a gun problem so much as it does a people problem. There's a disturbing level of apathy toward others that in my opinion is a primary cause of not only tragedies like the ones at Columbine and VA Tech, but also a lot of more chronic societal ills.
-------------------- "Don't fight forces; use them." --R. Buckminster Fuller
"There is NO reading of it, consistent with the rules of English grammar, that doesn't make it perfectly clear that people have a right to own firearms."
And nuclear bombs. After all, they're "arms".
"The key to the Second Amendment is the fact that it specifies 'a well-regulated militia.'"
Actually, it specifies "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state". Which it isn't. We have a standing army now.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I think it was Toby Ziegler in a later West Wing episode that pointed out that the second part is predicated on the "well regulated militia" bit. (Sorkin does, indeed, rock.)
Thanks for sharing your story, Mark. I'd been building a bunch of gun-props for the show, and took no small pride in feeling them, trying them out, pointing them at things. Yeah, haven't touched the things at all this week.
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Being so far removed (i.e. across the Atlantic) I find it difficult to properly relate to the stories that I see on the news. Guns are completly foreign to me outside of the occasional activites my scout group used to do with the army cadets.
In the UK, the murder rate is under 2 per hundred thousand people, and the number of these commited by firearms is about 7%. There were soething like 750 murders last year in the country (60 million ish people in total), so, although the figures are low, there is still a gun problem here. With some of the most strict gun laws in the world.
If we travel go across the channel to Europe you meet France, another nation with strict gun laws (although the underground gun culture is becoming a real problem). If you keep going left and then down a bit, you find Switzerland (who despite liking the work of Orson Welles, I find myself obliged to point out did not invent the cuckoo clock). Last time I checked, you can buy an assult rifle (like a Kalashnikov, beloved of terrorists everywhere) quite legaly.
Men between 18 and 30 (depending on rank upto their mid 50's) are conscripts - they serve at least 2 weeks a year in the militia. As a result every fit man has an assult rifle, or if you are an officer or in the medical corps a pistol. They are given ammuntition and this is inspected regualy, to make sure it's not been used unless they have been told to.
Ammuntion is subsidised if it fits in an army issue gun, and shooting clubs can be found in any small town. Most of the shootings in Switzerland (around 300 per annum from a population of 7 1/2 million) is either a suicide or a murder of a family member.
Currently anybody over 18 can buy a gun - a semiautomatic no less - without a permit. Nor does paper work get in the way of buying a sporting rifle or a historic repeating gun. Here there are more guns than people.
So what we find is a nation with a strong historic claim to a right to bear arms, infact a requirement to bear arms. The difference is the fact that as members of the militia they are kept under tight control and supervision.
Next year Switzerland becomes a bit more European - they join the Schenge treaty, or something or other, and as such they will have to make it a crime to possess an unlawful firearm, and have to put numbers on guns. They will also be restricting the private sale of second hand weapons, requiring official documentation.
On the other hand, you can't blast your horn at somebody if they cut you up on the road. Just like not turning off your engine at traffic lights or a junction, it's against the law. Instead, you note the cars number plate and look it up when you get home in a readily available directory so you can phone them up and abuse them at your leisure.
Switzerland, it seems, is bit of an odity, a blot on the map that outsiders can't quite get their heads around, so I don't think that their way can be anybody else's, but it does strike me as an interesting parellel to the gun politics we see in America, sitting across the pond from our cousins.
-------------------- I have plenty of experience in biology. I bought a Tamagotchi in 1998... And... it's still alive.
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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posted
That's because Switzerland is not a nation. It's a bank run as a nation, & as such, is predicated on a banker's code of conduct. Also, that makes me think of a quote from Red Square:
Peter: "You know what they say about crime in Munich?" Arkady: "No. What do they say?" Peter: "It's against the law."
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Switzerland is also the size of my parking lot. Hardly a microcozm of the United States in general- they also lack the culture wherein sodiers brought live firearms home from two back-to-back world wars followed by two smaller wars. Thus were tens of thousands of firearms first introduced to mainstream America....and the criminal element here as well.
quote:Third, the Constitution should be changed to allow gun control (along with a number of other updates). Obviously there is no possible need for a private individual to own an automatic rifle. Background checks should be necessary before buying a weapon. Safety training should be mandatory. Some of these things may already be laws. Some may be laws and not be enforced. I don't know, but that's a bare minimum of sane safety.
I completely agree- however, the NRA (heavy RNC contributors who somehow weild more influence than a congressman) will never allow a bill requiring mandatory training- why, that would take away your right to own afirearm with no fucking clue what it can do to a person- hell, they've tried everything they can to undrmine the Brady Bill as it is- a 30 day "cooling off" period?!? But I want a killing machine now! They strongly feel that every American has the right to defend themselves- with as many firearms as they like- in thousands of cases, this means owning dozens of firearms- assualt rifles, sniper rifles capable of killing from a mile away, guns made to penetrate kevlar vests- whatever that person wants. bragging rights to the Boys and all that, ya know After all, they're his toys...er...guns, and he has a constutional right to bear them. They call these psychos "gun enthuisasts" or "gun collectors" (as though they were as harmless as comic books or baseball cards).
A gun is a tool with no other purpose than to end another's life. How can that be good? Hundreds of kids still die each year from gun-related accidents, thousands of guns go missing each year and only a fraction are reported to police. yet, the NRA lobby has defeated bills requiring mandatory, childproof electronic safetys and is against holding a gun owner criminally responsible for an unreported lost gun
I'm not saying "outlaw guns", as it's really too late for that, but any attempt to even limit the availability of new firearms (to everyone) is met generally and in WAshington with disdain and hostility.
We've all been taught how cool guns are and how fun it is to make something blow up from a distance- is it any wonder that the mentally ill take it further? After all, if they rave attention, what better way to gain it than to become notorious? Sure working for this Cho fucktard.
Having ten guns seems to make some folks feel more protected somehow- one for each of their ten hands, I guess.
As to the old "they'd find another way of kiling if they really wanted to" line of thought- yeah, this nut would have kiled 31 people with a club or a machette? Riiight.
I personally think that the only solution is both in prevention (catching potential nuts early and preventing them from buying firearms/weapons) and limiting the number of guns produced/sold each year.
Each year thousands of firearms are destroyed by police but they never see a reduction of guns on the street- this might at least curb the ease of buying an illegal gun...and give the police a chance to balance the scales a little.
But where dos the NRA get so much money to lobby Washington and to support politicians that will block gun reform laws? Surely it's not from their dues-paying membership alone, is it? Surely it'd be outrageous to learn that the people blocking gun control laws are the gun manufacturers that sell the guns that kill people? Surely the gun manufacturers dont contribute millions to the NRA for such loving support and protection? The following information is based on NRA's audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004. The numbers have risen since then, but you get the point.
Source of Funds Members' dues 80,014,193 Contributions 71,459,995 Program fees 34,189,413 Royalties and other 11,176,815 Investment income 8,251,673 Unrealized gain on derivative instrument 310,402
Total Income $205,402,491
That buys a lot of influence down on Capitol Hill, boyos....what's a few dead people compared with that kind of scratch?
But hey, it's our right to bear arms- the founding fathers being all kowing and inhumanly perfect wrote the constution that way, knowing full well that guns would become capable of killing dozens in minutes (or seconds!) waay back when it took a seriously fast, well-trained soldier over a minute to reload a weapon.
Habeas Corpus is dead but this horse-shit is alive and killing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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PLus the call to arm teachers- completely overlooking the tecahers arrested this year for both violence towards students and predatory behavior.
quote:Originally posted by Jeff Raven: Wow, I never knew the NRA was so effective. Perhaps I should send them more money this year.
Why? It's the claim to membership numbers that make them seem legit- not so much the money itself. They less people examine their finances, the better off they are.
The membership makes their slogan "guns dont kill people, crazy people with guns kill people" nonsense sound somehow like the majority of americans are behind them
Okay, everyone in Utah and North Dakota are behind them, but that hardly counts.
...and they have Charlton Heston to speak for them publicly: every christian conservative politiician's noctournal emission.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I don't really know what to say since I don't think I'm as knowledgeable on gun safety. But it is a real threat . I live in NYC, a place known to have a serious gun problem. My mother told me last night she heard gun shots. I would like for people like Heston to stay at my house in the Bronx without his precious gun and see if he would still be pro-gun.
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