New Yorker - "The Horrific, Predictable Result of a Widely Armed Citizenry"

[TomCADem]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-horrific-predictable-result-of-a-widely-armed-citizenry/ar-BBu6Dpl

The killings in Dallas are one more reminder that guns are central, not accessory, to the American plague of violence. They were central fifty-plus years ago, when a troubled ex-Marine had only to send a coupon to a mail-order gun house in Chicago to get a military rifle with which to kill John F. Kennedy—that assassin-sniper also fired from a Dallas building onto a Dallas street. They are central now, when the increased fetishism of guns and carrying guns has made such horrors as last night’s not merely predictable but unsurprising. The one thing we can be sure of, after we have mourned the last massacre, is that there will be another. You wake up at three in the morning, check the news, and there it is.

We don’t yet know exactly by whom and for what deranged “reason” or mutant “cause” five police officers were murdered last night, but, as the President rightly suggested, we do know how—and the how is a huge part of what happened. By having a widely armed citizenry, we create a situation in which gun violence becomes a common occurrence, not the rarity it ought to be and is everywhere else in the civilized world. That this happened amid a general decline in violence throughout the Western world only serves to make the crisis more acute; America’s gun-violence problem remains the great and terrible outlier.

Weapons empower extremes. Allowing members of any fringe of any movement to get their hands on military weapons guarantees that any normal dispute—political or, for that matter, domestic—can quickly lead to a massacre. Our guns have outraced our restrictions, but not our imaginations. Sometime in the not-too-distant past, annihilation replaced street theatre and demonstrations as the central possibility of the enraged American imagination. Guns allow the fringe to occupy the center.

* * *

Once again, it needs stating because it can’t be stated too often: despite the desperate efforts of the National Rifle Association to prevent research on gun violence, the research has gone on, and shows conclusively what common sense already suggests. Guns are not merely the instrument; guns are the issue. The more guns there are, the more gun violence happens. In light of last night’s assassinations, it is also essential to remember that the more guns there are, the greater the danger to police officers themselves. It requires no apology for unjustified police violence to point out that, in a heavily armed country, the police officer who thinks that a suspect is armed is likelier to panic than when he can be fairly confident that the suspect is not. We have come to accept it as natural that ordinary police officers should be armed and ready to use lethal force at all times. They should not be. A black man with a concealed weapon should be no more liable to be killed than a white man with one. But having a nation of men carrying concealed lethal weapons pretty much guarantees that there will be lethal results, an outcome only made worse by our toxic racial history. Last night’s tragedy was also the grotesque reductio ad absurdum of the claim that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless as the rest of us.

[Albertoo]

1. Pieces that examine only one side of an issue are not very convincing

There are + points to a citizenry being entrusted/entrusting itself with the right to bear arms.

They should be mentioned and evaluated against the pitfalls.

+: self defense of the people, including, potentially, vs terrorists and dictators

-: risk of mass shootings by unbalanced people

The problem in the evaluation is that the - is immediatly apparent while the + side is latent

[babylonsister]

2. I do not want an armed citizenry.

Entrust? Seriously?? Look at trump supporters, I rest my case. For starters.

[radical noodle]

4. Too late... :(

I agree, but I seriously don't know if there's a way back.

[Albertoo]

20. Not entrusting the citizens is inviting Big Brother

To avoid a Trump, you get a Brave New World Ford.

[Skittles]

3. LOL

latent?

[morningfog]

6. This is a factual analysis of the problem. There is no side here.

You can make your points, but they really are not relevant to the OP.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. factual, except for the part about oswald killing JFK. sorry,

but what the heck, you said factual

[Albertoo]

21. I beg to differ. Even the title is anti gun.

The analysis is only looking at indicting evidence, not at the exonerating one.

Hardly a fair trial.

[longship]

8. I don't need a gun to protect me from terrorists or dictators.

That is the government's job, and our Constitution's.

And as for personal protection, I would be a helluva lot safer if fewer people went around armed with guns.

I live in a national forest area. Many people here hunt so many people have guns. I don't worry about them at all because they tend to keep them put away until hunting season, or target practice. They don't go around brandishing them.

But concealed carry and assault type rifles have to go. I would outlaw them and make it a felony to possess one, so if you are caught with one you lose your right to own any gun.

[Nevernose]

5. Common denominator:

Orlando
Newtown
Santa Barbara
Dallas
Aurora
Columbine
Literally ten thousand others I either can't remember or don't have a special name.

It's guns, for those not getting the subtlety. Different assholes with wildly differing motives. The only common denominator? Guns.

[cadaverdog]

9. Amen, brother

[mindfulNJ]

19. Can I steal your last line?

Brilliant.

[malaise]

22. That fugging simple

[uppityperson]

10. "There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless..

There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless as the rest of us.

[Surya Gayatri]

11. Wish I could K & R this 1,000 times.

But having a nation of men carrying concealed lethal weapons pretty much guarantees that there will be lethal results, an outcome only made worse by our toxic racial history.

IS THIS NOT BASIC COMMON SENSE?

As I said in the header of an OP yesterday:

"Curse red America's lethal fascination with firearms, curse racist, roided-up cops, curse a cruel and inequitable system of justice. Curse them all to hell."

[octoberlib]

12. K&R

[Hekate]

13. KnR

[scarletwoman]

14. K&R

[KG]

15. k and fucking r

[Night Watchman]

16. What You Said

[aikoaiko]

17. The problem your bolded section is that police assume everyone is armed.

And have for a long time.

And they assume black men are dangerous.

Cops don't have to kill people unnecessarily. We let them. We even encourage it.

The New Yorker tries to turn the NRA slogan against itself but in the end it was people (cops) with guns who stopped the shooter by boxing him in and killing him with a bomb.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. Excellent summary of the issue

It used to be "humorously" depicted that domestic disputes might be settled with the threat of a frying pan.



But with the increased proliferation of guns in a household, the impetus has been to grab that and use it (not that a cast iron frying pan to the noggin couldn't be equally lethal but the gun is designed to cause injury (in defense or offense) and the frying pan was designed to cook food).