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PeonForHer -> RE: America’s Gun Madness, as Seen From Europe (10/10/2015 1:39:22 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jlf196
You are grasping at straws arent you?
No, JLF, I'm using the figures that you have given, yourself. You did ask me to get my facts straight, didn't you?
Just to be clear, then, where I said, on the basis of the facts that you yourself presented ...
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... 874,848 people were killed in both world wars, combined. Going on your average, it would have taken roughly 109 years for gun-related homicides to surpass the numbers of people killed in WW1 and WW2. Hmmm. Not too bad ... maybe.
... That was wrong, was it?
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Yes, but your statement was "Americans killed by Americans with their own guns"
Sorry, you mean 'Yes, that was wrong' or 'Yes, that was right'? Which is it, JLF? My statement was not in fact "Americans killed by Americans with their own guns", it was "Americans killed Americans with their guns". There was no 'own' in my statement. Actually, I don't care about the issue of ownership and related issues of people having legally purchased their gun, or not. I only care about whether someone has a gun and is using it. That's what I meant when I used the phrase 'their guns'.
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Your implication was that the numbers were far higher than they are.
No, it wasn't. That was your inference. I don't need to exaggerate the numbers of people killed by guns in the USA. To the average European the numbers of people shot and killed in the USA are shocking enough. No European would *need* to manipulate the figures to make them look worse. For one thing, they really, *really* are shocking enough on their own to us - entirely un-spun. For another, what the hell would we have to gain from exaggerating the figures? Europeans don't vote in your elections. We don't live in the USA. None of us is likely to get killed by some American lunatic toting a gun. What possible motive would we have to exaggerate claims about your gun deaths over there?
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Also, it was implied that these were legal owners who were doing all the killing, again a false assumption.
No such implication was there, JLF. You just got all vigorous in inventing your straw man. I don't care - and I suspect most Europeans don't care - about the issue of legal versus illegal ownership of guns in the USA. The most striking thing we see is how people seem to get shot and killed a lot in the USA. That is all.
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In fact, the whole of you non American know it alls seem to think that it is the legal guns in the US that are the problem, which it is not.
"Know it alls". Right.
Even with the best will in the world it gets kind of irritating when you lump all non Americans together, in rude, childish terms, JLF. You're not a teenager any more and I think you could be above that. I'm pretty certain that I don't know major things about American culture. I would appreciate it if you could accept the same about your knowledge of Europeans and their various cultures.
One little thing you might want to take on board is that WW1 pretty much destroyed our sensibilities, here, regarding guns, death, and a few other things. It was after this, in 1920, that GB enacted its strongest anti-gun laws. Most of our young men came back from WW1- obviously, the ones who'd not been killed by it - traumatised by that war. We'd seen enough people destroyed by guns. WW1 *industrialised* killing by guns - machine guns were used in the first, big way; there were tanks, there were huge, powerful cannons. It was a slaughter, on a scale out of all proportion to anything than the world had seen before.
People did not like guns here, after WW1. They were seen as ugly, nasty things. They had destroyed large proportions of young men across Europe.
Do you see? This is *not* about the puerile, inane, pig-ignorant bollocks that certain gunsters in America like to retail amongst themselves of 'freedom-loving, root'n, toot'n, American pioneers' versus 'Europeans who are acquiescent about state control (and, quite possibly, a bit effete and lily-livered, though let's avoid saying that in case we upset them)'.
I think that as a rough guide: in Europe, we simply don't like guns. They are ugly things. They destroy societies - they don't 'uphold' them in some way.
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