Escalation

[garran]

"An armed society is a polite society."

I'm not sure what one does about this. Although I tend to like gun control laws, in concept, of course passing a law against something isn't really a very effective way to keep it from happening. What's needed is a general culture of not-guns - and although I'd have some idea how to go about it in a community of about the size and good will of Windsor House, on this sort of scale I really don't know how to get that back, once it starts to go.

This isn't what I expect from Vancouver.

Comments

[masamage.livejournal.com]

I think I disagree. Far better than a culture of not-guns would be a culture of not-misusing-guns.

[garran.livejournal.com]

I don't think that that is a better thing, although I'm forced to agree that it might be, from this point, the only thing possible.

Here's the thing: the more it is true that people in Vancouver have guns, and might shoot one another, the more other people - especially if they're the sort to get into fights - start to think, "I'd better have a gun, if I am to protect myself". The more it is true that gun ownership has snowballed in this way, the more likely it is, in any given conflict, that someone is going to get shot - because it is possible for it to escalate to that point. If you have a culture of guns-but-responsibility, then all it takes for a situation to spiral out of control is one guy crazy or angry enough not to subscribe to the 'responsibility' half of the culture.

"But Andy," you might say, "If there's a culture of not-guns, then all it takes to shoot someone there is someone crazy enough not to subscribe to the culture."

That's true; but if a city has a culture of not-guns, the crazy person is much less likely to own a gun! It just doesn't occur to people.

My real-life friends and I, or at least all of us that I'm aware of, subscribe to a culture of not-guns; we don't own them, and we don't really seriously consider the possibility of owning them. For some of us, that might change, now, and if it does it will be because the culture of the city has become less safe; even if we vow not to misuse them, we will clearly have been driven to accept the possibility that we might need to shoot someone.

(Which is separate from accepting the possibility of needing to protect ourselves. I never used to believe that I might need to protect myself from someone with a gun.)

So, although I'd appreciate a culture of not-misusing-guns better than a state of nature culture of just-plain-guns, the possibility that that's necessary makes me sad; I think that what we lost is something better than we can gain.


-Andy H.

P.S. It's worth noting that the police officers in my city have always carried guns - I'm pretty sure that their holsters are the only places I've ever seen one in person - and that this has never bothered me, nor is the prospect that the transit police will also have them what bothers me about the second news story. I guess what bothers me is the emphasis that all the press is placing on that aspect, especially in the context of the other story. It seems a little too, "We have guns, too!"; like a threat, rather than an acknowledged last resort. I've never heard of anyone being shot on the skytrain, and I hope that this doesn't serve to create an environment in which it becomes necessary.

P.P.S. This probably isn't actually going to affect me as much as I may have implied; I don't actually intend, at the moment, to change any of my habits. ^^;

[masamage.livejournal.com]

Wow. That all makes a lot of sense; but it's interesting that I hadn't thought about what very different angles we're coming at this from.

You live in a city that (according to Wikipedia) has a population of more than two million people. I live a few miles outside a town of less than nine thousand. This is a significant difference! There was a cougar in our front yard not long ago!

So when I talk about guns, I'm really not thinking of burglars or muggers or terrorists. Mostly I'm thinking about the members of my family who sincerely enjoy the makeshift shooting-range down on our land. Target practice is at least as valid a pastime as any other game. (There's also, again, the subject of dangerous animals, which admittedly is less of a problem to me than to people in other areas.)

My uncle carries a small handgun under his arm almost everywhere he goes--specifically so that he can protect the people he cares about. I find that, although the idea of hurting someone in self-defense makes me quite as uncomfortable as it does you, I feel very peaceful about his decision in this regard. He was in the military, after all. I'll probably never know all the reasons for that gun. But I do enjoy his company and feel safe around him.

Anyway. Like I said, when I hear that someone wants to buy a gun, my first instinct is almost never to assume that it's for people-shooting. So again, I feel the misuse of guns is much more important a problem than their existance or ownership.

Although it is not a problem I know how to approach.

[meta4mix.livejournal.com]

I agree with Rachel in that there are different cultures and uses for guns, but a universal need for responsibility. Also because once something potentially unpleasant is introduced into a certain environment, the best that you can do is learn to live well with (or despite?) that something, rather than trying to pretend that it doesn't exist. If you'll forgive Humanity grows by understanding, not ignorance. Are we mature enough, as individuals, or as a collective, to keep from destroying ourselves? I sure hope so, because we're only going to learn more and more as time goes on. Variations on nanotech and/or genetic manipulation are only so far away.

(Unfortunately, the question of scale is relevant. Most of the applicable world has learned to be relatively responsible with their nuclear weapons, out of a simple and very practical fear. I am not so hopeful for handguns).

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

CAUTION THIS MESSAGE IS HOOKED UP TO A 500-MEGATON POLARIS II MISSILE.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE.

DECLASSIFIED

[masamage.livejournal.com]

> reply message

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

Darn it! You compromised Canada's emergency response capability.

Also, Toronto.

[meta4mix.livejournal.com]

CAUTION THIS MESSAGE IS HOOKED UP TO A 9mm HANDGU----AW, CRAP

[codepoetica.livejournal.com]

> wai

[garran.livejournal.com]

I have known that guns exist, and the basic manner of their use, for as long as I can remember, so 'ignorance' is not something that I've ever had and isn't what I'm advocating. Rather, I'd like a change in culture, which is something different. It's not that the knowledge of an option is kept from the populace, or even that it's legally forbidden, though it might be* - it's that it's generally considered Not Something That's Done.

Crucially and conversely, something's being legally forbidden doesn't mean that it will necessarily be culturally frowned upon, cf. pot smoking in Vancouver. Which is what I was talking about in my original post here; passing a law isn't actually the useful way to combat a cultural shift, or at least it can't be the only part of your strategy. You actually need to find a way to change minds, to successfully exhort the populace in general to agree that something should or shouldn't be done, which is considerably more delicate, difficult and interesting. Laws will follow.

(Windsor House consciously shifted its culture on several occasions when I was there; it's pretty easy to do in a community of, as I say, that small size and that great good will. If something was bothering us enough we could shut down the school and hold a big meeting that everyone went to and talk about it until we had consensus on the direction to take. We did that once about people who had marijuana on school grounds, which was becoming almost endemic, and before we went into the meetings there was a cultural feeling among significant portions of the school populace that this was an okay thing to do so long as you weren't caught, and when we left the meetings that culture was gone - it had voluntarily dissolved.)

On the subject of nuclear weapons, though - if there was some safe and foolproof way to dispose of all the world's supply of these at once, wouldn't you want that to happen? It seems to me as though the major lesson of 'The Bomb' is that there are some things that we as a species are capable of that we should never, ever do; this is responsibility, too.


-Garran

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

There are shooting ranges in Vancouver, I think, and hunting guns. There isn't much to hunt in city limits, but there's lots of country in the distance. There are also guns for protection from burglars and things. But the stories are, like, people carrying around handguns! On main thoroughfares! For no reason except possibly that their friends might shoot them or that the police might suddenly bust in, dive behind the bar counter, sweep off all the loose glass and pepper everyone with cold lead! Yarr!

So I think that carrying one around nearly *is* misuse, in this case, and for these people. They should carry throwing knives if they HAVE to be dangerous SOMEHOW, because at least they can't blow up the side of people's heads with those. They will have to be content with a cut.

[garran.livejournal.com]

Cola spoke for me pretty well; I was assuming a fairly narrow universe of discourse - something like, "folks living urban lives, especially youths and criminals, who might carry guns on their persons" - and counting on the context of the articles to make it apparent.


-Garran