2009/2/3 Stefano Mori <[email protected]>: > > On 2009-Feb-03, at 14:29, Chuck Bennett wrote: > >> In effect, the guy on the left benefits from the doubt that that >> causes in the criminals mind. We call it the "umbrella effect". > > > Yes I have to say as someone living in the UK, guns abhor me. > > But when I was living in South Africa, and particularly now, when > basically guns alone are not enough so you have to hire militias with > many guns to protect farms, I find emotionally his arguments are > compelling and, assuming the data and stats are correctly done, I'd > have to go with it and agree. South Africa is known as the rape > capital of the world; women need all the protection they can get. > > I think the guns are a symptom, not the problem. Guns exist like jails > exist. The jails don't cause criminals, as such, but a country that > has many many jails obviously has a problem. America seems to need > guns like the world seems to need armies and nukes. The nukes are not > the cause but the symptom of a world that is still too fractured. > > In an Integral/Ken Wilber/AQAL diagram, the big picture is always that > the material world is one half, and the psychological world is the > other. So with any problem you approach it both materially and > psychologically. You could say that guns are the material side, and > people's moral character is the psychological side. Your point Chuck > is in essence that changing the material side does little if nothing > to change the psychological side, ie. you can ban guns, but does that > improve the moral character of people? Does banning the "bad" guns > make bad people good? And as we live in a democracy and abhor > draconian control, how would you even effect a complete ban anyway? > The bad guys will still get the guns, and the only people left > observing the law, and defenseless, are the good guys. > > Now there is always some relationship between the material and the > psychological sides, and the question with crimes and guns is, what is > the nature of that relationship? If Lott's research is correct, then > that relationship in America appears to be that the psychology of the > criminals is such that having an armed citizenry will tend to reduce > violent crimes. So that's a good thing. Unless there is anything else > anyone can add, then I agree with you, and frankly, if I moved to > America, to one of those gun states, then I'd be sure to get some > training and get armed. Speaking as someone who lives in the UK, > that's an abhorrent thought, but from what I remember of South Africa, > I know that when you live somewhere different, your feelings can > change pretty quickly. > > The interesting question is whether it would be a good thing for the > UK to have an armed citizenry. Again, using the AQAL diagram, we'd > have to start by noticing that America's psychological makeup is > different to Britain's in many respects. We have much more Green in > Europe, and our cultural psychology is different. We don't have a long > standing tradition of gun ownership, so I wonder that even if, > tomorrow the Government did a massive turn around and recommended > everyone get armed, most people simply wouldn't. You might call this > our "sheep" mentality. For all we know, it might simply encourage all > the Red parts of UK society to arm themselves, whiles all the good > people (Blue, Orange, Green) never do. Then precisely all the people > who you don't want armed are armed, and all the people who you do want > armed aren't. It could be a complete nightmare. But that is just a > guess at a possibility.
That, right there... that's a blog post. -Stuart -- http://stut.net/ _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
