Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
John W. posted:

Yes in historical terms the USA has taken its own course, influenced by the waves of European migration and deciding on self-determination. I am not a sociologist, but you can make a valid argument the USA has ended up with just a stratified social structure, not with kings and queens, as Western Europe.

It is that the argument and viewpoint on weapons possession as being a means of popular, public 'self defense' against elite government is from "across the water" difficult to accept. There are limits to 'self defense' and having weapons, those limits appear strange and do not fulfil defence rather increase the chances of harm. If the American public are willing to have that, then incidents like Newtown will happen.
(Emphasis added.)

Of course, because different cultures and societies find different ways to accomplish certain goals. Which is why your statement "What I do find perplexing about American attitudes is that some additional weapons control is clearly needed, ..." doesn't carry the same connotation as it would coming from a U.S. citizen. You aren't an American, and viewing the situation from a different country, with limited information on the foreign country, and a perspective shaped by your own culture and society, you assume that the answer is obvious - more gun control. It isn't the obvious answer to most Americans.

The same statement made by an American politician (or activist) is an attempt to rhetorically seize the moral high ground in order to foreclose any debate.

To many Americans, the proposals for gun control are nothing more than an attempt to capitalize on national grief in order to implement some first steps on the road to an outright ban. And we have all the "progressive" nations previously cited as examples of how that process works, as well as examples from our own states and municipalities.

To give just one example of why none of us believes that would work, ask yourself how we can prevent gun smuggling if we can't prevent drug smuggling, especially considering the considerable overlap in the customer base. When we talk about "only criminals will have guns," we are stating the eminently foreseeable consequence of the gun ban - and instead of hearing a reasoned, fact based response, we get snickers and sarcasm.

On top of which, no one on the gun control side has ever addressed the real elephant in the room: the perpetrators, and victims, of the overwhelming majority of gun violence come from minority communities. If you look at gun violence by race, and just at "white" gun violence, the numbers are actually better than almost all of Europe. But this aspect is not only completely ignored, any effort to bring it into the discussion is almost immediately branded and racist and shut down. (Someone needs to explain why I'm a racist for wanting Americans of African decent to be able to purchase the means to defend themselves, but that's definitely off topic.)

Bottom line, I have yet to hear or read any honest, open case for increased regulation on firearms.