You SHOULD Read This

B

Bruce in West Oz

New member
It's our old "friends", the Pommy pricks at The Economist in the UK. This time, they are "explaining" your (Americans') social history regarding firearms.

It's w-a-y too long to reproduce here (and has charts), but basically it says America has no history of gun ownership or use or culture, it's only been due to (a) the Civil War, (b) clever advertising, and (c) the NRA that Americans own guns.

I read it, of course, from outside the American experience ... but I still find it outrageous that a country that has disarmed its citizens dare pass judgment on one that hasn't.

I'd like to hear what you -- the people involved -- think of the article.

Read the concluding para carefully:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>On this view, America’s gun culture is the product of different and sometimes conflicting social and economic pressures, rather than a constant, deep-seated national preference for owning guns. The cult of the gun has been shaped by history — and history changes all the time.[/quote]

Unless I failed comprehension, the final sentence is the telling one, that gun ownership/use is the result of an historical anomaly, and its time is past.

http://www.economist.co.uk/editorial/freeforall/19990703/index_sf8740.html

B
 
Gee, thanks... just while I was eating dinner(*).

Are their arses still sore over us telling them to go stuff themselves?

I love Brit humor, but The Economist ain't it. Intentionally, anyway.

(*): Washed down with a Bud. By Anheuser-Busch. Supporters of the shooting sports and RKBA. There's an anomaly for ya.
--------------------
You can't get something for nothing,
You can't have freedom for free.
--Neil Peart

[This message has been edited by Coinneach (edited July 13, 1999).]
 
This sounds like an attempt to "change history"...

"Mr. Peabody, set the Way-back machine for 17..."

------------------
John/az

"They come, they eat, they leave...
"They come, they eat, they leave...NOT!!

Bill Clinton (aka: Hopper) Al Gore (aka: Molt) Janet Reno (aka: Thumper)

Ants UNITE!
 
I find this article rather odd in so many ways.

And, BTW, note this reference to the study's author, Michael Bellesiles (do a 'Find' for his last name - he is apparently known as no friend of the RKBA):
http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/amazing.htm .

In the Economist article the author makes considerable light of the American militias, but I didn't see a corresponding explanation of how the fine English army managed to lose against such a group of misfits. Is that explanation in there somewhere, and I stumbled past? Or were the English simply even more incompetent, and this was a revolution of comedy instead of battle?

The study's author relied upon probate records to a great extent. Now I could certainly be wrong here - I am no expert on the 18th century. But, the more primitive the conditions, the less trustworthy are official documents, in my experience. In other words, does the study's author presume that all or even most personal property passed to heirs through probate? I don't know what percentage of property currently passes through probate in the 20th century, but in my experience, small items such as firearms tend to be handled in more private ways. I distrust the entire basis of his data.

It hardly surprises me that firearms became a more common defensive weapon as the industrial revolution advanced. A few of us have noticed they have certain advantages over knives, swords, clubs and spears. This hardly seems to qualify as 'news'.

Certainly, even today, there is hardly a gun in every home. The author also states early on that 'This association between guns and liberty seems hard-wired into the American consciousness. It has produced a country with more guns than people.' Actually, I've never before heard this 'more guns than people' revelation - I have always heard numbers like 200mm guns in a population of 280mm or so. I don't think anyone can really know.

But, this article is so full of distortions and questionable 'facts'. Perhaps more TFL'ers will find additional holes, or canyons in the logic. Another, typical, anti-self defense / gun tirade.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Thomas (edited July 14, 1999).]
 
Bruce,
Perhaps it would help if you explained the origin of the term "Poms" and "Pommies."


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Bruce Stanton
CDR, USN-Ret.
Sgt., Kings Co. Sheriff - Ret.
 
As for the"more guns than people" question, I did read in a newspaper a year or two back that nobody actually KNOWS how many guns are in the US (praise the lord!!) and while most estimates are in the 200mm area there are also legitimate estimates that run as high as 800mm, so those idjits may not be simply making up their facts. Seems the wide disparity in numbers has to do with the useful lifespan of a gun (has it been tossed) as opposed to how many there have ever been here.
 
Bruels

I'm sorry, mate ... I honestly do it without thinking...

"Pommies" is, of course, our equivalent of your "Limeys" for the English.

The derivation is uncertain, but could be one of the following:

* From Prisoner of Mother England -- said to have been written on early convicts' papers;

* From "pomegranate", referring to English people's supposed ruddy cheeks

* Simple corruption of rhyming slang for "immigrant = pomegranate" (???)

Anyway, generally it is not derogatory or pejorative, though it can be used that way.

B
 
Bruce, you really outa learn how to Americanise your posts Cobber. ;)
Struth.... without sub-titles some of the stuff we could post here would be unintelligable to our Merry Can mates ! :)
The weekends almost upon us, so to all "aveagoodweekend" & "putanothershrimponthebarbie" ok ? :D

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"The Gun from Down Under !"
http://www.para1911fanclub.w3.to/
 
Bruce,
Nuts! I looked up "pommies" in the dictionary and posted my findings on another thread - only to find you beat me to it over here. Nuts. And it's almost word for word. (sigh)
 
Even though I have travelled in England and Scotland and have quite a few English friends, I tell them that they are welcome to come to the U.S., see our sights, and enjoy themselves. And then go to H-ll back to England and not stay around telling us how to improve our country by having a King, a royal family, a Parliament, an oligarchial dictatorship, a ban on guns, press control, etc., etc. (Sound like Bill Clinton's agenda? He was Oxford educated, after all.)

BTW, don't fall for three English myths. these are:

1. The UK is a democracy. Not quite; the voter gets to pick a candidate named by his party. Often there is only one candidate. Once a party has control of Parliament, the party determines what laws are passed. The people have NO voice once the party sets its agenda. There is no written constitution and any act of Parliament is, by definition, constitutional.

2. British "bobbies" are kind and gentle and polite. There is a special group of police assigned to tourist areas, where they wear the old helmet and salute tourists. The "real" British cops are as nasty and vicious as any in the western world if you don't count the Serbs.

3. There is no crime in the UK. Baloney! I knew an American who was beaten to death because he happened to be wearing the wrong color jacket after a football game. The press never reported it, so it was no crime. Gun crime and crime in general is probably less than in the U.S., but murders, beatings, robberies, and burglaries are common. The police and the Home Office "cook the books" to keep up the image of a "kind and gentle" Britain.

Jim
 
The author of the article in question obviously ignored the fact that the American War of Independence was (a) triggered by a British attempt to disarm the population, and (b) fought and _won_ by civilians armed well enough to overthrow rule by the reigning superpower of the time.

The US has had a "gun culture" from _conception_ (the first settlers were armed, as there was no police force present), and since guns take a long time to wear out there has never been a point where the US was largely gun-free.

I'd love to have a chat with the author. I'm very curious as to the profound depth of his ignorance and lies.
 
Shuffling thru the article.

He observes that at the low points, about 10% of the population had guns...then contends that gun ownership was rare. 10% is "rare"? Today, with the country "awash in guns", only some 20% of the population owns guns (~50M owners, ~250M population). One does not get from "rare" to "prolific" with a mere doubling.

Chart #3 dramatically shows the percentage increase in use of guns in murders. It fails to note that in the low percentage periods, guns were profoundly more expensive than the other murder tools used, thus far less likely to be availble for use. What is more significant - and not recorded by the author - is the murder _rate_.

He observes that "At the start of the war of 1812, the state had more spears than firearms in its arsenal" then fails to note that at the time, knives/swords/spears were more commonly used as weapons as they are today.

While he criticizes the lack of arms in the early militias and calls it evidence of a non-gun culture, he fails to note that the culture was keenly aware of the need for weapons, sought after them (despite the high expense), and it still took 2-4 centuries to accumulate enough of these durable goods that there is two for every three civilians.

He observes the interesting details provided by some 1000 probate records. He claims low gun ownership in rural areas, places where such probate records are far less likely to be made and kept.

As much as he tries to downplay any early interest in arms, he fails to note that there were still enough weapons (guns included) to drive out a military superpower keenly bent on keeping control.

He blames "the first big crime wave" on the suddenly expanded ownership of guns following the Civil War. What he does not note is that the devesatating war left a large portion of the population homeless, jobless, hungry and desparate. If knives were the only thing available, those would have been used instead of guns. A gun is a _tool_; if the crime rate is high it's because a high number of people are choosing a life of crime, not because of the mere availability of tools.

He claims promotion of guns as part of a larger purpose was something new in the late 19th century...making it seem something new, without linking to his earlier observation that the federal government itself had offered free guns to citizens for a larger purpose a century earlier.

He observes that gun ownership was low early on...when guns were expensive and hard to manufacture. Then he is surprised when a culture, conceived in self reliance, born of weapons weilded against a tyrranical oppressor, encouraging ownership and use in early and fundamental law, and restrained only by low production and high expense, predictably takes advantage of manufacturing processes that finally provide guns at low enough cost and high enough volume.

He is surprised when the seeds of "the cult of the gun" (an intentionally insulting phrase), sown more than two centuries ago by the government and civilians alike, finally bear fruit by providing all citizens with the tools to protect life from muggers and tyrants alike.

Let me reiterate a key point that destroys his arguments: he writes "until 1840, at any rate, no more than 11% of the population owned guns" but does not observe that the current gun ownership rate is about 20%. After two centuries of law encouraging gun ownership (oppressive laws are recent), and an industrial revolution making guns available to anyone for a few day's wages, and considering that guns are highly durable goods and thus accumulate, the gun ownership rate in this country has merely doubled.

The author is a bigot, starting with a prejudicial premise and selecting & arranging facts to fit that premise.
 
Ctdonath, absolutely. I would go further, and say that the gun culture started out very strong but has been dying recently:

Modern cost of a basic rifle: 3 days "average" labor
Percentage of population choosing to be armed: 20%
Average amount of labor a modern-day American devotes to becoming at least minimally armed: 1 hour, 12 minutes

Cost of a basic rifle at the beginning of the 19th century: 1 year "average" labor
Percentage of population choosing to be armed: 10%
Average amount of labor an American devoted to becoming at least minimally armed in the early 19th century: 200 hours
 
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