{"id":2906,"date":"2015-10-02T13:58:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T19:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2906"},"modified":"2015-10-02T14:14:11","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T20:14:11","slug":"why-the-2nd-amendment-the-frontier-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/10\/why-the-2nd-amendment-the-frontier-etc.html","title":{"rendered":"Why? (The 2nd amendment, the frontier, etc.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Shooting. \u00a0Bad. \u00a0Again.<\/p>\n

Yes, someone\u2019ll work out a graphic that says that mass shootings aren\u2019t increasing in frequency; it only feels that way. \u00a0And someone else\u2019ll say that this never would\u2019ve happened if it weren\u2019t for Gun Free Zones. \u00a0And yet another person will say that there are more deaths in Chicago on a day to day basis, just not as dramatic. \u00a0There\u2019ll be arguments about what, if anything, could be done to stop it, and, most likely, a discovery that there is no quick fix of a law that would have prevented this that would have found a reasonable consensus, that is, something other than gun confiscation or a some kind of extensive testing for mental illness beforehand.<\/p>\n

And as I write this, twitter is a-twittering with supposed connections between the shooter and radical leftist groups, and saying he targeted Christians. \u00a0Will this prove to be the case? \u00a0Is this just wishful thinking by folks who want to be certain they can disassociate any of their pet causes from the shooting?<\/p>\n

And yes \u2014 this past weekend was also a particularly violent one in Chicago, with 14 people shot in a 15-hour time span this past Monday<\/a>, and 52 over the weekend. \u00a0True, murder\u00a0rates have dropped considerably<\/a> since their highs in the 70s \u2013 90s, but the absolute numbers are still pretty shocking.<\/p>\n

Now there are reports that the shooter specifically talked about, on a chat board, mass shootings making people famous. \u00a0Wish they\u2019d caught him alive, to be an example for everyone else, that mass shootings also mean you spend the rest of your life in jail or at least a very unpleasant interim time, until your execution. \u00a0For that matter, wish they\u2019d parade around the Charleston shooter and show him being miserable in jail.<\/p>\n

Friday:<\/p>\n

here\u2019s the blog post I\u2019ve been thinking about for a while:<\/p>\n

As horrifying as these events are, I still pretty much take it as a given that guns are a part of life, that a confiscation program like Australia\u2019s<\/a> is impossible. \u00a0And my husband thinks completely differently; he\u2019d be perfectly fine with living somewhere were guns are very tightly controlled and you simply cannot have a handgun, much less more powerful guns, in your home for self-defense. \u00a0Oh, and did I mention he grew up in Germany? \u00a0(where, ironically, the \u201cKrimi\u201d is a favorite TV show genre; sometimes they feature a gun being stolen from a shooting club, other times they don\u2019t account for how the killer got the gun.)<\/p>\n

Why this difference? \u00a0It\u2019s a matter of history, really.<\/p>\n

In Europe, the frontier was closed before the advent of guns; not so in America.<\/p>\n

Which means: \u00a0path dependency.<\/p>\n

By the time guns came about, certainly as the mass manufactured item we know today, not only was Western Europe pretty completely settled, but the forests belong to the king or the local lord; there was no such thing as going deer-hunting to put some meat on the table. \u00a0That was poaching. \u00a0And there as no such thing as living on the frontier, or in an otherwise isolated area, and needing a weapon for self-defense. \u00a0Even the geography here is different, with farmers living in small hamlets but not simply (in general) purely on their own.<\/p>\n

Not so, of course, in the US, where the frontier is a part of our (comparatively) recent history.<\/p>\n

But what about Australia? \u00a0That country was settled \u201crecently,\u201d too. \u00a0And they\u2019re not living under a totalitarian regime, but a democracy, yet they consented to, from all reports, very strict limits on gun ownership. \u00a0The popular report is that they basically eliminated private gun ownership, although\u00a0Vox says<\/a> they only got rid of 20% of privately owned guns.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, actually. \u00a0Certainly the nature of how Australia was settled was different, but I don\u2019t know much about their culture. \u00a0Anyone want to chime in?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shooting. \u00a0Bad. \u00a0Again. Yes, someone\u2019ll work out a graphic that says that mass shootings aren\u2019t increasing in frequency; it only feels that way. \u00a0And someone else\u2019ll say that this never would\u2019ve happened if it weren\u2019t for Gun Free Zones. \u00a0And yet another person will say that there are more deaths in Chicago on a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy? (The 2nd amendment, the frontier, etc.)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shooting. \u00a0Bad. \u00a0Again. 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