And Guy, Switzerland has some of the highest gun ownership in the world.

I’m sure you’re a smart person and all, but you’re attacking the messenger with the statistics that were cited and not addressing the information conveyed. All sources have bias.

34,000 is a small number in comparison to other causes of death. I’m not debating that. I’m not even pushing an anti-gun agenda. You are attacking a line of inquiry pretty vociferously. : ) Are you saying that murders and suicides would remain at the same number if firearms were eliminated altogether?

To answer your question, violence does not get worse if a gun is used. However, the question I’m asking is: Would Americans still murder each other at such a high rate if guns were removed from the equation? Keeping in mind that 2/3 of our murders happen via firearms.

As for guns being a societal problem, I think that this might play out differently across the spectrum of society. This is getting back to Kopel’s question/comments that I cited above.

I don’t need to site any sources to say conclusively that countries without the private ownership of firearms still have violent crime. You can do a quick internet search and prove it to yourself if need be.

I repeat my question. Does violence somehow get worse because a gun is used? Isn’t murder murder? Are you going to honestly say that if gang members don’t have easy access to firearms they are going to stop hurting each other? I suspect they’ll just use machetes and bats to murder their rivals.

Also, it may be true that Japan and Switzerland have strict gun control and are safest countries. But they also have other commonalities. Could it be that they don’t kill each other for other reasons? Such as, extremely low rates of poverty and racial homologous populations?

Lastly, that 34,000 deaths in 1996, is exactly the inflated figures I mentioned previously.

You remove the suicides and gang related murders from that twisted statistic and you are reduced to a number that is actually benign, which is why suicides and violent career criminals must be included. You got to push that previously mentioned agenda somehow.

I’ll be convinced guns are a huge societal problem when thousands and thousands of non-criminal and happy people die from guns each year.

I just think that, in general, guns play little to no role in the socialization of individuals who live in our midst.

The first nation, with few guns, is Japan. The other nation, is Switzerland.

He goes on to say that, “What I think Switzerland and Japan collectively suggest is that the issue is, not how many guns are there in the society but, how guns are viewed in the society and how they fit into the overall system of socializing individuals in the society.”

If we are to follow his line of thinking, we must answer that question for the U.S. How ARE guns viewed here and how do they fit into the system of socializing individuals in the society? The former is harder to answer, but the latter is much easier—guns serve little to no purpose in the overall system of socializing individuals in our society. Perhaps things would be different in the U.S. if we had firearms because of mandatory military service and this tradition (I guess that’s the word) had an effect on how our society organized itself. Men would have to serve in the military, they would have their ‘conscript buddies’ and maintaining weapons at home would truly be in the mold of national defense and not what we find here in the U.S. Until we have a similar situation to the Swiss, I’m not so sure how much good it does to compare the U.S. with Switzerland.

Here’s the link to his comments: http://www.davekopel.com/2a/LawRev/lrnylstk.htm

He has a particularly interesting comment at the end:

“American homicides, unlike homicides in other nations, are generally perpetrated with guns; about two-thirds of our homicides are with firearms. Rapes in the United States are rarely perpetrated with guns; only about seven percent of rapes involve guns. If you compare how disproportionately more murders we have than other countries do and also look at how much disproportionately more rapes we do than other countries, you find that they’re both about the same. In other words, Americans are more criminal across the board, not just for the kind of crimes which easy availability of guns might lead to, such as homicide, but for all kinds of violent confrontational crimes.”

If this is true, would it really be a bad idea to make firearms a more restricted avenue for criminal Americans to commit their crimes?

Chris, speaking on the firearms issue…what about Switzerland?

Gsim, can you post any references that back up your speculative statements? I’m not saying that countries with strict gun control are utopias. I’m saying that the availability of firearms leads to deaths because of firearms at rates in the US that far exceed those in other countries. In fact, according to this report (by the CDC) some countries in their report had zero deaths due to firearms. So, for me, it begs the question as to what role the availability of firearms plays in the US statistics. It seems pretty logical that the more guns and gun possessors there are, the more likely that guns will be used—intentionally or unintentionally—to end life. As I said, I’m not against firearms. I just think that a lot of weaponry out there is superfluous to anything the 2nd amendment ever dreamed of. Here’s the report I referred above, “Editorial Note: The findings in this report document a high rate of death among U.S. children associated with violence and unintentional firearm-related injuries, particularly in comparison with other industrialized countries” http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00046149.htm

Tiffany, I agree with what you’ve said. Props indeed and definitely better than a lot of what Anty has to offer. : )

T, it’s hard to respond to an article the length of Sean’s and not use so many words. Sorry for the scroller.

Of course, conservatism is big idea, and difficult to tackle in one go, much less in one page. So props for the effort - it was certainly more intellectual than, say, Nick Antovich.

Lots of gang members killing gang members for sure and you can toss in some suicides to inflate the statistics, but it isn’t exactly the huge issue that it is made out to be.

And those countries you mentioned with strict gun laws aren’t exactly utopias , they have tons of violent crime of their own. How much does it matter if guns are involved?

*So far, a pretty bitter take on your part despite the upbeat language*

In the next graf, you equate taxes to subjugation at the hands of the government and say that it’s against the ideals of freedom in America. I’ll give you your poke at the government for its irresponsible spending, but you seem to be saying that in America, no one should invest in society or be asked to pay some money into the society that made them successful and wealthy (or at least well-off).

I’m all for equating conservatism with the individual being more important than the state, but it seems pretty libertarian to me. It also seems to be a slippery slope to a government and society that trusts businesses and individuals to go out of their way to take care of where they live. Will businesses really regulate themselves, or will we end up in a situation where businesses do a cost-benefit analysis and then make enough profit despite any damages to people and place? I understand cynicism when it comes to the government being benevolent and all, but I’m also cynical when it comes to people…maybe moreso. Government can temper the sort of crap that happens when people are allowed to run amok.

I like the bit about the War on Drugs…but it’s a bad analogy if you ask me considering that this war has been fought with conservatives and liberals in power…small and larger governments…over quite a long time. I might even argue that conservative governments have beefed up such things more than their counterparts. That is ahistorical on my part though in that I can only reference off the top of my head that which I have experienced in my time here.

I disagree that government cannot help people become better and more responsible as well. In fact, conservatives might point to things like faith-based initiatives as something that can help people become better off and more responsible. As for not enforcing one’s beliefs on the nation, isn’t shrinking government and, as Norquist put it, drowning it in one’s bathtub…a belief? If Paul’s vision was put in place and there was a social anarchy with little governmental control and the reliance of individuals on no one but themselves to act responsibly…a belief that would then be placed onto everyone in the state?

I don’t know.

Your take on gun control is strange to me. You seem to be saying that all gun control will do is leave the psychotic people who go on rampages left with other weapons as options. Thus, this antiquated Constitutional right to bear arms being limited means that we only get stabbing sprees, or gassing sprees or something else. I love shooting guns, and I am pro gun ownership, but saying that you need a gun to defend yourself against a murderer is kind of strange. I mean, I wonder what the odds are that any one gun owner will ever find his or herself in a situation where their gun saves their life from an evildoer. Statistics show how many deaths happen in this country because of guns, and they also show how these numbers are drastically lower in countries where guns are heavily restricted. My point, I guess, is that most of the arguments that are pro-gun are pretty lame nowadays and harking back to the Constitution when the obvious intent of the amendment had little to nothing to do with our current situation here in America. I’m not saying it should be struck, but it should be interpreted in a rational way.

I’m not so sure that society would turn out so hot if the government disappeared. There has been some organizational factor for humans since time immemorial. I’m not for government stomping all over my existence, but again, I’m for a rational application of governmental powers. There are some things that the government has no role in, but there are others that the government needs to be a part of. Drawing it down altogether is asking for the worst…I think anyway.

You close by accusing the “welfare state” of having no insight and only short-sighted goals. Surprising given that you seem to be arguing for an abandonment of any government sight or goals. Government and conservatism are not mutually exclusive, and I think that where you go wrong, Packer gets it a bit more right. Conservatism can be saved by new, unique takes on what it means. What you argued is old, tired and a dramatic swing in the opposite direction. Kind of like Ron Paul in general I suppose…but hardly what I think conservatism needs.

Lastly, Paul’s quote on liberty and security has far less to do with what you’re saying and far more to do with the way that the Bush Administration has watered down or smashed a lot of the ways that individuals in America have been traditionally protected from the state’s prying eyes. If we take your conflation to its logical conclusion, you seem to be saying that liberals want a welfare state that takes away all of your freedoms and monitors your every action. I’d say that we’ve gotten closer to the latter with this latest batch of conservatism and I’d also say that the welfare state is another throwback to Reagan that was mostly bullshit and the visceral issue of the day.

Anyway, I’d say that most people fall in between these lines that are being drawn. Why someone cannot embrace that and step forward to reach across lines and truly serve the interests of the majority in a way that is not over-governmental or too idealistic/romantic about the days of old on the frontier….is beyond me.

We’re smarter than this.

This Packer guy clearly stole my ideas on revamping conservatism.

On one hand, if McCain wins, the ensuing snafu that we’re faced with will remain in Republican hands. I kind of like that because I want this breed of Republican to be politically neutered. On the other hand, McCain could surprise everyone and do some good things. Granted, I think it would be more of the same with a little twist and the stagnation you mentioned.

The fragmentation in the conservative world is pretty crazy it seems. At least, from this independent’s point of view anyway. What could all of the factions come together on? Emotional issues are just plain dumb and not, I would think, desirable as organizational principles. I think a mix of someone in between Ron Paul and Jim Webb could do some good, but that’s mainly because they both speak their minds and are not idiots. The tendency for a lot of the Republicans in power to pander to the most ignorant of points of view, etc. is also stammering to me. How can any movement really right its ship when the people at the helm are chicken-hawk war mongers who are seemingly mentally deficient but are more likely just plain dumb?