Text 11142, 71 rader
Skriven 2008-02-16 11:28:20 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 11094 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Shootings in USA
========================
Hello Bob,

On Friday February 15 2008 07:59, you wrote to me:

 MV>> When people believe their country is better of if everyone has the
 MV>> right to bear arms, it affects us. Not because those guns reach
 MV>> across the border but because the ideology behind it: that every
 MV>> conflict can be solved with volence, affects us.

 RB> You read much too much into simple facts, Michiel.

I don't think so. Just look at any run of the mill US crime series. Four out of
five involve violence. Look at how the US responds to what they percieve as
threats. They send the military to bomb or invade. That is the reality.

 RB> I've owned and used many guns in my lifetime: everything except
 RB> assault rifles and machine guns. When I was young, I used to go
 RB> "hunting" with them occasionally on my parent's 160 acre farm in
 RB> Texas. "Hunting" in this case meant shooting at snakes and the like.
 RB> Never hit one that I know of. Otherwise I, like most others, just shot
 RB> at targets or bottles and enjoyed the noise and breaking bottles.

I know that you were raised in an armed society. You are not unbiassed.

 RB> You do essentially the same when you shoot off fireworks

I don't.

 RB>  - which, incidently, were also originally weapons of war. Ever hear
 RB> of "Congreve rockets"?

That may be so, but todays fireworks, the ones one can buy in the store at the
end of the year, are pretty useless as weapons.

 RB> Not a bit of ideology in that, but a lot of youthful fun making noise
 RB> and breaking bottles.

You consider it fun because that was how it was where you were born and raised.
Peole who grew up in cultures without weapons see it different.

 RB> But aside from that, one thing you and others living in Europe never
 RB> seem to realize is the fact that gun possession is part of the US
 RB> Constitution,

So what? Did that come from God?

No, it didn't. It was the people that wrote the constitution, they can change
it if they want. Obviously they do not want that. ... because the majority
still believes violence is the ultimate solution to every problem.

 RB>  and was put there for a good reason if you consider the history of
 RB> the US. Try imagining unarmed settlers going west in the 1800s...

That was two hundred years ago. We live in the third millennium now.

 RB> Now, times have changed since then, but there are still places in the
 RB> States that are pretty wild and wooly. I've heard that you _must_
 RB> carry a rifle in some places in Europe (northern parts of Scandanavia)

I think you heard wrong.

 RB> So does that mean that people in northern Scandanavia also believe
 RB> that all conflicts can be solved by violence?

Wrong presumption --> wrong conclusion.


Cheers, Michiel

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