Can you imagine if all the casual sociopaths that you knew in school, the sort of lads that you’d generally give a wide berth, could buy guns with the same ease as they buy Mars bars or laptops? Imagine if all the small time psychopathic drug dealers, not the big ones, but the two-bit lads starting out in their ascent of the criminal ladder, had assault rifles in the back of their pimped Honda Civics? Can you imagine how terrifying that Ireland on a Friday night would be?
Now consider that large sections of this imaginary Irish population thought that the best way to combat this gun epidemic was to provide more guns to more people so that we could all be ready for a gunfight at the drop of a Stetson?
After yet another unfathomable gun massacre, after yet another week when one more haunted, disturbed-looking young man stared out of the front page of the papers, after another week when more wailing parents buried their innocents, how is it possible that Americans don’t act to rid their country of guns? How come having a gun in the United States is treated as an issue of a person’s “rights” rather than an issue of other people’s “health and safety”? These questions sum up why many Europeans have difficulty understanding the US.
But it’s not just Europeans, millions of Americans are in despair. What will be done? Writing this week on his blog, David Simon, the creator and the writer of the Wire, made the point that while President Obama called for flags to be at half mast to mark this “extraordinary” event, the killings were not extraordinary but in fact fairly commonplace in the US. For example, in 2008, there were 12,000 gun killings in the US. In Ireland, there were 59 in 2009, which is far too high but it is 1.2 deaths per 100,000 people as opposed to 11 per 100,000 in the USA. This means you are ten times more likely to be shot dead in the States than here.
After all the shock and trauma, America will move on and guns will not be banned, nor will they be much harder to buy. It is a truly shocking realization.
In the US it seems that along with “one man, one vote” democracy and “one man, one dollar” capitalism, we can now add “one man, one gun” as a fundamental, immovable pillar of the American way.
So if America is not going to ban guns for fear of upsetting the gun lobby and the right wing maybe it could deploy economics to reduce the incentive not so much to own a gun but to fire it.
The wonderful black American comic, Chris Rock had a great skit a few years ago about how increasing the price of bullets to $5,000 would reduce drive by killings and the like. He of course was being humorous and, as a black man from Brooklyn, he knows more than most about the prevalence of guns in the ghetto. But this idea of making certain bullets more expensive tallies with the late great Irish American politician Patrick Moynihan who, in the early 1990s, proposed a tax on bullets.
Moynihan suggested a 10,000% tax on certain types of bullets. Of course the initiative went nowhere because the vast proportion of gun-owning Americans fall into that category which tends to go together with God fearing, loyal, patriotic citizens.
And this is where America becomes increasingly complex for Europeans to get a handle on and vice versa.
At the moment, not two months since we thought that President Obama won the ultimate American culture war — the US election- the culture war still rages. This week it is over guns but simmering all the way through this anaemic recovery is the culture war over the economy.
Interestingly, as a general rule, those who believe in the freedom to bear arms fulminate at the huge one trillion dollar deficit that President Obama is presiding over. Meanwhile, mention the name Ben Bernanke to members of the NRA and they are likely to react violently because Bernanke has undertaken to print as much money as necessary to prevent US unemployment from rising.
To many Americans, government spending and the Fed’s aggressive easing of monetary policy through quantitative easing is a much greater threat to a person’s liberty and freedom than a deranged young man having access to an assault rifle.
For many of us Europeans this is a hard circle to square. But maybe the best way to examine it is through the prism of one of the golden rules of macroeconomics — the paradox of aggregation. The paradox of aggregation alludes to the notion that when something is good for the individual it is not necessarily good for the collective.
In the same way, what might make the individual with the gun feel good about himself or even more secure and safer, this contrasts with the situation where we all have guns as it makes us all less safe because the chances of getting shot rise exponentially. And we end up in the situation like in the US where many people buy guns in order to make themselves feel more safe and you end up in a society where you are ten times more likely of getting shot dead than a society like Ireland.
So the pursuit of personal security and freedom makes you less secure and ultimately less free.
Now think about the economy. The reason that President Obama and Bernanke are trying to expand the economy is precisely because of the same paradox of aggregation. When a society, like the US or Ireland, is trying to recover from a credit splurge, people try to save money and sell some of the stuff they bought in the boom. If I as an individual save more and try to off load a flat bought in the boom, it makes my position better as long as only I save and only I sell.
But if we all do it at the same time, what happens? If we are all saving, no one is spending and we all suffer and if we are all selling houses, the price of all houses fall and the very act of trying to get out of debt, puts us in more debt relative to the asset we bought because the price of assets is falling while the debt remains the same.
So in the process of trying to be more financially secure, we become more financially insecure.
Similarly the man who buys a gun is only made safe if no one else buys a gun. But is everyone buys a gun in order to make themselves more secure, everyone becomes more insecure and more likely to get shot.
This is why the pursuit of extreme individualism whether it is in the arena of personal security or in the area of financial security and economics can lead to everyone being worse off.
Happy Christmas.
David McWilliams’ new book The Good Room is out now.
The US should look at how Canada runs its gun laws/culture and aspire to that rather than attempting to ban this or the other, which will only raise the ire of the NRA and their supporters. As always, a sensible balance needs to be found between the ‘individual right’ and the ‘common good’.
Virtually everyone in Switzerland has an assault rifle, from military training. Not so many gun deaths there. Not advocating guns, just alluding to the correlation/causality conundrum.
let me guess, we should depend on government to defend us. Jesus, really? the same governments that gave us the banking crisis? thats your solution? God help us all. you could not be more wrong. someone who is going to shoot up a school has already cross the rubicon, they are engaging in or about to engage in illegal behaviour. do you think because you banned guns thats going to stop them? the only person who follows the gun laws is law abiding people. Pistols are as good as banned here, so between you and the thugs– who is unarmed?… Read more »
Look at a list of keywords from the article: Sociopathic, unfathomable, shocking, desparate, shocked, traumatised etc The American way is brutal and violent and the violence is sickening not only in Amerika but in their quest to dominate the world through murderous violence American gun culture is disturbing and even more worrying is the suggestion from the NRA to arm school security guards. I can’t fathom minds like these and sometimes I seriously wonder if they are mentally disturbed ‘Millions of Americans are in despair’. Yes David they are, for many reasons, and I am glad you finally admit it.… Read more »
Thank you for that Falls.
I can tell you that personally I felt much safer unarmed in teeming Southern California than I currently do unarmed in “peaceful” rural Ireland where a Garda is as rare as a politician or a banker in the dole queue.
For the first time in my life I am considering “arming up”. How is that for a paradox David? Got a theory for that socio-economic phenomenon? Looked at the Irish suicide rate lately? Have you noticed that most mass shootings in America are suicides? Is suicide-by-home-invasion the next big thing in Ireland?
It’s interesting that Peter Lanza, the father of the Conneticut gunman was due to testify in the LIBOR scandal. There are articles out there detailing major discrpenencies in the seqeuence of events and what was reported in the main stream media. Stories have been doctored and it is beginning to look like the official version of events stinks. It does not add up The link below is one of many articles by this guy Kirwan who has a lot to say about the state of America. He is a gun proponent and a scary individual but if we are to… Read more »
SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION, that is what it is. We are all 3-patr beings, body, mind and spirit,,,when we refuse to engage the 3rd one we create an incubator for evil and hatred, new gun laws or a total band of owning fire-arms could not and will not prevented this or any other massacre of the innocence. This is not only a problem in the US but is raising its ugly head in most other so called civilized societies including Ireland. Sad but noneless the truth. The following is part of his script read to Congress by the father of a child… Read more »
America has spent the past 40 yrs losing a vastly expensive war on drugs. It all stems from their insane involvement in Vietnam’s genocide 1965- 1975. Once drugs hit main street, the Geenie couldn’t be returned to it’s botle. Dito with guns, the lunatic who shot two fireman yesterday is just psycho Vietnam vet.
David it seems to me that if we really want to get to the root of the matter, there are another ingredients in the mix other than guns! Are we ever going to know, what type of prescribed legal drugs if any, were the murderers consuming when they carry on a gun massacre, and for how long? Is overmedicated America, Ireland, and the rest of the Western World, really interested in doing a thorough investigation regarding this issues? Or it isn’t so convenient, because it can affect very powerful economic interests, from big companies and professionals, and even the educational… Read more »
Merry Christmas
We have our own cultural battles too. I went for my once a year visit to mass the other day. The priest who is obviously still influential to a certain gereration got emotive on the abortion issue and spoke strongly on the right to life. In regard to the economy he said it is tough but that there are no quick fixes. He did not get emotional just passed around the collection plates twice. Condemned abortion no condemnation of austerity. Intereseting that the RC church are so interested in the right to life but have so little to say on… Read more »
Think the Americans are one great paradox, inclined to greatness in world leadership, sports and business achievement but at the same time, harbouring some notions that completely puzzle the rest of the world. It strikes me that the US is struggling to redefine itself in a new world order where their previous overwhelming might is under question, where their previous betes noires (communism, Russia..)have changed. Take the military, business, entertainment and sporting worlds for instance, they are not the sole “shapers” they once were. I think this self-doubt reflects in the extreme divisions in American society. Ronald Reagen was the… Read more »
With around 600 Irish suicides between 2011 and 2012, up 7% from before 2008, one sees guns are not needed – some way can always be found. A gun never fired itself. http://laroucheirishbrigade.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/obamas-drones-have-killed-at-least-176-children-in-pakistan-alone/>Obama’s Drones Have Killed at Least 176 Children in Pakistan Alone while weeping for the Newport dead in the latest episode. Every Tuesday morning Obama does the kill list now exposed. Monbiot’s Guardian article “For Whom Do We Cry?” : “If the victims of Obama strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms that suggest that they are less than human…. Or they… Read more »
With around 600 Irish suicides between 2011 and 2012, up 7% from before 2008, one sees guns are not needed — some way can always be found. A gun never fired itself. Obama’s Drones Have Killed at Least 176 Children in Pakistan Alone while weeping for the Newport dead in the latest episode. Every Tuesday morning Obama does the kill list now exposed. Monbiot’s Guardian article “For Whom Do We Cry?” : “If the victims of Obama strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms that suggest that they are less than human…. Or they… Read more »
Some fine writing on how television media is making people stupid …
How the Newtown massacre became a Mind-Control television event
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/category/the-press/
——————-
The Sandy Hook School Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-sandy-hook-school-massacre-unanswered-questions-and-missing-information/5316776
Your segue from the second ammendment rights of the American constitution into the quantitive easing policies of the US Government via the private entity which is the Federal Reserve is tenuous at best. The right to bear arms is in situ so that an individual can defend his ir herself in the face of attack. This is in place to protect the individual. Extending your specious reasoning to assume that because guns are legal, everyone will go out and shoot people is an insult to logic. If heroin was legal would you expect more people to go out and OD… Read more »
David, Stick with what you know !!You have gone down 100% in my ratings by the first few sentences,like that you can buy guns as easy as Mars bars in America!!! Thats a typical European and a myth spouted by the totally IGNORANT!! and You obviously know Sweet Fanny Adams about the US gun laws and Constitution!! Next time you are in America,Maybe go and try to buy a gun and see how supposedly easy it is.You might actually learn somthing,as I would suggest to any of the opinionated Irish people who spout some of the most ignorant drivel n… Read more »
David, maybe if you came home from work one day to find your kids and wife murdered or raped or both and all your stuff robbed you would have a different view of gun laws. The truth is many people in America are very safe because those gangbangers and thugs you mentioned don’t know who is armed. It makes bad guys think twice about who they rob. If you took the guns out of people’s houses then robberies would increase in numbers.
David,I know you have lived in both the states and here but I can tell you that it is a far safer place than you make out. I would feel much safer in San Francisco or New York at 3 am on the street than I would in Limerick or Tipperary or Dublin I can assure you. Guns arent the problem, its the fact that the father left the mother to look after this sick fuck when he was only 14 and she wasnt able to do it on her own. She was stupid enough to allow him access to… Read more »
Bonbon: “600 suicides in Ireland” . I ask myself the same question that regarding the gun masacres in the USA 1. Are we ever going to know, what type of prescribed legal drugs if any this unfortunate people were taking? 2. Are we really interested in doing a thorough investigation regarding these issues? Or it isn’t so convenient, because it can affect very powerful economic interests, from big companies and professionals, and even the educational system? 3. Can any of the antidepressant drugs, (or alcohol or illegal drugs for the matter) widely available really help you to get you over… Read more »
Unless you are really nuts, who in its right mind would like to see a Society in which guns are readily available to everybody, like in the USA? If you are not a hunter, or a soldier of the Swiss army; which is the justifiable reason and purpose, of having a gun? Isn’t it awful to see adults from the NRA bringing their children to Gun Shows, as I’ve seen recently in the news, so they’ll develop a liking for it? Isn’t it awful that some people within the NRA, want that Schools will be provided with weapons, so they… Read more »
Just a small point that’s often overlooked: The Second Amendment passed by Congress states that “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The formation of the National Guard, a standing Army, and other armed forces long ago took away the need for individual citizens to maintain arms at home as part of a militia. Two other points: 1. Gun crime seems to be determined by the social environment e.g. Canada v USA in the same way as alcohol fuels crime… Read more »
Please type ‘Jackie Mason gun control’ into Youtube and watch all the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9cX5BaqYc
Once you start to develop a cult for something, “that something” will define your way of thinking and acting. If you develop a cult for weapons, in most probabilities you’ll end up by using them, and find the easy excuse of self-defence. We are better off by putting our energies in creating a fair and just societies, with cultural values of human kindness, than by the widespread use of weapons, that have only one and only purpose, the one of killing. . In Civilized Societies the people shouldn’t have to carry guns. Unfortunately we keep treating the symptoms and not… Read more »
David is correct to note that “the killings were not extraordinary but in fact fairly commonplace in the US.” They are equally commonplace in the countries invaded and occupied by the USA. No mention is ever made of the hundreds, and thousands, and more, killed by the Americans in foreign lands. The brown skinned Pashtun children and the non-white children of Pakistan, and the non-Christian children in the Yemen, the children without names. The US and its impotent puppet leader wring their hands in wretched grief ant the death of a few, when the death of thousands is never noticed.… Read more »
DB4545 Civilized People don’t have to imitate the cruel aspects of nature, because as superior beings in the scale of evolution, we shouldn’t be prisoners of our basic instincts. If not everyone will be having children as rabbits do, without taking responsibility for them or its consequences, as some people still do. And every man in the Country, will behave towards the daughters of the next door neighbours, as the man in the X case, or as Larry Murphy did. I’m very happy for Mr. Nally, and I never condemned him for what he did, but I know of similar… Read more »
Oh,by the way, with a year on year DECLINE in homicide by guns, yes year on year DECLINE over the past 4 years, the 10 times more likely to be Killed with a gun figure is also very misleading. Also you used a 2008 statistic and not a more recent 2011 that showed less than 9000 homicides. Here are some more recent FBI statistics on this I have included for your enlightened readers HERE IS A SNIP OF LAST YEARS FBI REPORT And the murder figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 550 murders per year. In 2011… Read more »
As you can see 3.2 per 100,000 is a a hell of a lot different than the 11 per 100,000 used in the article.
Even that was skewed because the stats were pulled from 2 different years one for Ireland, 2009 and one for the US, 2008
Maybe your researcher is a bit overwhelmed from the Holiday excitement, For that I excuse them.
By the way I need a job, so if you need a researcher I work cheap!
Operation Fast and Furious, a major gun-walking scandal around Obama’s Administration, has been breaking out all year. Almost nothing in the Irish press (afaik).
Mexican drug cartels ( laundered by HSBC !!) were provided assault weapons by the FBI. Talk about guns! These guns were used in many school massacres in Mexico recently.
That makes 3 reasons for impeachment – Drones, Al Qaeda Fact Sheet, Gun-walking.
The “paradox of the american way” is only difficult for Tigers refusing to see what is going on.
What kids see on TV – the murder of Osama and Obama playing basketball on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson where the body was dumped in the sea.
The murder of Ghadafi while captive in a war Congress never sanctioned.
Lawlessness from the top down, voted up. The Constitution trashed. Wall Street rewarded for contempt. And now the Syrian “opposition”, Al Qaeda, supported by Obama.
The Hypocrisy Behind the Gun Lobby’s Focus on Mental Illness
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bader-dmh/guns-mental-health_b_2367324.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
I find the tone of the lead slightly British, shall we say, using extreme violence to soften up susceptible readers for Bernanke hyperinflation. Tavistock methods. This is what Obama is actually doing with Drones, basketball on the USS Carl Vinson, Libya, Syria. This is what 9/11 was all about and 9/11-2 Benghazi. Both of these are British-Saudi operations, and it turns out Obama is right in the middle of it. Having to resort to such measures shows firstly the way empire operates, secondly what it is committed to preventing, thirdly how far it is prepared to go. Bernanke is insane.… Read more »
Col. David Grossman is the author of Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill: A Call To Action Against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence, which he co-authored with Gloria DeGaetano, and On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. The following is his speech to the founding meeting of the Commission Against the New Violence, on May 20, 2000. Violent Video Games Are Mass-Murder Simulators Extract : — guns are part of the issue, but the two killers here in my hometown, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, at the age of 11 and 13, used an acetylene… Read more »
The less Americans the better
Is any Irish press outlet reporting this?
In 2012 there have been at least 38 Obama-selected “clandestine” air-strikes in Yemen alone, more than any year since 2009, when Obama ordered his first drone air-strike there. A report by law schools at Stanford and New York University suggest that Obama’s drones have killed between 297 and 569 civilians throughout the world, although others report the deaths are many times higher.
For those adults really concerned about School Safety this is a must see.
LT. COL. DAVE GROSSMAN, U.S. Army (Ret.) Director, Warrior Science Group; Member, American Board for Certification in Homeland Security; Member, American College of Forensic Examiners Institute. Author of numerous books and publications, speaker.
The apparent flailing failure to understand and deal with this phenomenon is typically Tiger, but curable.
“THE SPIRIT OF FERDINAND PECORA. It’s time for the Street to be scared — very scared.” In a Christmas Day article, Newsweek/Daily Beast commentator Michael Thomas champions deploying a new Pecora against Wall Street. “More than the fiscal cliff or a bump in the base rate, or any other of the thousand man-made shocks that flesh is heir to, the Street fears being awakened on Christmas Eve by a visiting spirit hung all about with law books and handcuffs, who with a baleful, fixed glare pronounces the dread words, `I am the spirit of Ferdinand Pecora — and this time… Read more »
America as a Nation is Walking “the green mile”..so many problems on so many different levels , hard to know were to even begin…….
But it is a downward spiral that will lead the U.S to a Nation of gated communities with private police and privileged residents.
Land of the free..home of the Brave..? We witnessed the collapse of the U.S.S.R.now we are witnessing the collapse of America……..but , beware , for she will not go quietly….
Announcement
Today is a ‘ FULL MOON ‘ .
Think like a Tortoise and Go Slow …..and better again
STOP.
i could not let this summary pass by.a brilliant speech calling for prudence in finance and exposing the fallacy of endless printing as in QE to infinity.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-26/canadian-summarizes-americas-collapse-everyone-takes-nobody-makes-money-free-and-mon
Listen to the video
Napoleon
It is my thinking that the prudent mindset of the Canadians owes its success to Napoleon.More precisely ‘Code Napoleon’ ie Code Civil or as Bon Bon Bonaparte ( above ) says the readings of Joseph Maistre .
We are recreating Ireland as another America. With the suburban sprawl, and the couch potato. Ireland has a gun problem also. Not that long ago, it was the preferred way of settling an argument down the road in an corner of the island. Increasingly it is the preferred way of settling arguments in Limerick, and West Dublin. The gardai are not dealing with the situation effectively. The Irish gun laws are broken consistently. There is a problem in the inner selfish sense of righteousness and confidence of many Americans. It demands that one does not accept the humility of one’s… Read more »
Hey Deco In 1994 I refused entry to my pub to a “Family” who wished to use it as a base to sell drugs. For this…my Car was wrecked and a guy walked in one evening produced a handgun,placed it against my forehead and pulled the trigger…..it was empty..obviously ! I still didn’t let them in…! [not brave,just very stupid] During my career I dealt with a lot of violence and people from the underworld , not what one expects when just trying to earn a living. Gardai then were excellent overall in supporting operators like me trying to run… Read more »
British Parliament Wants Glass-Steagall and Not the Government Ringfencing (EIRNS) The pro-Glass-Steagall faction in Britain keeps fighting. An Ipsos Mori poll seen by the {Financial Times} shows that over six in ten MPs, across all parties, “would support a full-scale separation in British banking,modelled on the Glass-Steagall reforms implemented in the 1930s in the U.S.” The pro-Glass Steagall faction is even stronger in the Conservative Party, with 66% of the Tories polled saying they agreed, than in the Labour Party, with 60% in favor. The {Financial Times} notes that the poll’s finding “piles pressure on the Chancellor [of the Exchequer,… Read more »
Meanwhile back at the Ranch of the Crooked E
Germany Preparing Most Brutal Austerity in Postwar History
Interesting discussion on gun control and valid points from both sides. The one thing that caught my eye in this article was how David tries to insinuate that anyone who supports the right to bear arms automatically is anti Bernanke and the fact the fact that he “has undertaken to print as much money as necessary to prevent US unemployment from rising.” This statement interests me because it implies a couple of things. Firstly it implies that the reason Bernanke is spending $85 billion every month on toxic mortgage backed garbage has something to do with unemployment. It doesn’t. The… Read more »
[ Can you imagine if all the casual sociopaths that you knew in school, the sort of lads that you’d generally give a wide berth, could buy guns with the same ease as they buy Mars bars or laptops? Imagine if all the small time psychopathic drug dealers, not the big ones, but the two-bit lads starting out in their ascent of the criminal ladder, had assault rifles in the back of their pimped Honda Civics? Can you imagine how terrifying that Ireland on a Friday night would be? Now consider that large sections of this imaginary Irish population thought… Read more »
I have lived in the Bay Area of California for about a year now . Nice people but you can keep it . Get me back to Australia . America has really desperate poverty , high crime and a large number of mentally ill people wondering the streets . A couple of weeks ago I was totally anti gun until a guy arrived on my porch being chased by people with guns . He banged on the door and asked me to call the cops . I left him outside and called 911 and the operator told me to barricade… Read more »
http://youtu.be/TpvxG7S0rbs Just sayin……
“10 good reasons to go.. 1000 small ones to stay”
The Bright Future of Gold: The Final Solution of the 2008 Monetary Crisis December 28, 2012, at 7:48 pm by Jim Sinclair in the category General Editorial | Print This Post | Email This Post Posted at http://www.jsmineset.com This analysis says that there is no solution to the monetary crisis as exercised by the US and QE to infinity. As I have repeatedly reported the possession of the world’s wealth is moving to the orient. It is suggested here that also the gold is moving back to the orient. The worlds financial problems will relax when the price of gold… Read more »