[Phoenix_III]

A friend of mine is teaching English in France and is doing political issues in the class. Gun control came up and she would like to have some concise and factual things to present with regards to the United States and firearm ownership in light of the high murder rates/gun crime, etc. Some stats on self defense, generally well written articles on disarming the good guy vs. leaving criminals armed, etc, would be appreciated. Equating gun ownership with Freedom/etc is also good. =)

I will be doing searches in the mean time, please feel free to link to threads or articles (or threads containing articles) or write your own summation.

Thank you all,

p3

[boofus]

In many societies only the aristocracy were allowed to be armed. Mere commoners could not carry swords. Only knights of noble blood in France and England could carry arms. In Japan only samurai could carry 2 swords. In India certain castes are less than worthless and can not carry daggers. Slaves of all cultures are not allowed to possess weapons.

The US was founded on the idea that all men are created equal with unalienable rights, so the 2A applies to everyone, not just a certain class of society. One can argue that this isn't true because of slavery, but just remember 300,000 Americans died to affirm the former slaves' unalienable rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

"The great object is that every man be armed. ... Everyone who is able may have a gun." Patrick Henry during Virginia's ratification convention for the US Constitution (1788)

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." Samuel Adams during Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention (1788)

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." – The Federalist, No. 46 – James Madison, America's fourth president, known as the father and author of the U.S. Constitution.

excerpted from:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43475

[M67]

I'm not an expert on France, but I know there is more shooting and hunting there than most Americans think. Presumably less in the big cities, I don't know where your friend is teaching.

What I'm getting at is that the differences may not be quite as big as either they or you think. That may be a place to start.

Many European countries have a gun culture, each differing a bit from the next, just lilke the gun culture of rural Texas is different from urban Massachusetts. Generally there seems to be less "noise" in the political debate here, we don't have anti gun and pro gun politicians the same way you do. Note: I said "the same way", I'm not saying we don't have polliticians or others who don't like guns. Sometimes the discussion about these things does flare up. IIRC, that was the case in France maybe 10 or so years ago. I think it was more about hunting than gun ownership as such, but anyway, a new political party was founded, the "hunting party" (I don't speak French, can't remember the proper name). The "left" or "liberals" as you would call them, didn't take it seriously until this party won several seats in parliament in their first election. Your friend can ask her students about it.

What do I mean by all this? I just think your teacher friend should mention something about political differences as well as the gun culture thing. If she does just the "gun fight in OK corral" speach, as in "we all need guns to kill criminals, or we would all be massacred in our beds", I think that would be somewhat inaccurate, just as the "we need to confiscate all guns or our streets will run with blood" of the American anti gun movement is hogwash.

I think that too much talk about crime and the streets running with blood, whether it be because civilians are allowed to own guns or because they are denied it, would give the wrong impression. I have been to the US a few times, I have not seen as much as a single street covered in blood. :)

The general American impression that Europeans can't own guns is far from accurate, just as the impression many Europeans (supported by US media) has of Americans shooting each other all the time is a bit exaggerated. A lot of the difference in gun culture is, imo, in the language used to describe it, not so much in the number of guns or gun owners. There are a lot more guns in Europe than most American gun owners think.

The idea that only aristocracy in Europe could own arms, is to some degree an American myth. There are of course a lot of differences between different areas and different countries in Europe, and a huge difference between Western and Eastern Europe. There are also hugre differences between historical periods. When talking about knights, we are talking about more than a thousand years of history. "Ancient history" by American standards is the late 18th century. I do believe French commoners owned arms, including firearms, in the period before the revolution in 1789. They had guns before the revolution and they had guns after the revolution. In the American revolution, the Crown tried to disarm the rebels, I think that specific political act caused the 2nd amendment of your constitution more than anything else.

Anyway, you do know that the entire American Revolution, Constitution, the works, was based on French ideas? Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau...
(Sorry about that, just rattling your cage a bit. Sometimes I just can't help myself. :D )

[Control Group]

Anyway, you do know that the entire American Revolution, Constitution, the works, was based on French ideas? Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau...
Yep. Only real difference is, unlike the French, we got it right. :D

(sorry...I know what you mean about not being able to help yourself ;))

[BlackCat]

remember 300,000 Americans died to affirm the former slaves' unalienable rights

I don't remember hearing about this. When did that happen?

[boofus]

They figure the toll from the American Civil War could be as high as 700,000. I figure 300,000-350,000 Union dead was a reasonable estimate.

Wasn't the whole reason the south left the union was because Lincoln was elected? And Republicans had the support of the abolitionist movement. So indirectly ~300,000 died to free the slaves. :o

[Bear Gulch]

Tell them to look to the west, there lies Normandy Beachto the Northeast is the Somme. In these places thousands of boys raised in a gun culture bled and died so that they could be free today. The elan of the citizen soldier is with us today.

Our shooting, collecting, hunting, etc is part of us celebrating our ability to participate in the largest (and most sucessful) experiment in self governance. We own guns because we are free to choose to. We refuse to cede our rights to government functionaires in exchange of the illusion of security.

[Don Gwinn]

M67, I don't know that the "entire" revolution was based on French thinkers, because I remember people like Locke and Blackstone. But your point is well-taken. There was a time when we thought the French were our avenging angels--and a time when their military got US out of some tight pinches.

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

"Ancient history" by American standards is the late 18th century.

A European myth.

I was born in an American city founded nearly 400 years ago, and thus founded 300 years before your Norway was even an independent nation.

[Bear Gulch]

Or maybe it is just our notion of fair play that folks other than criminal should be able to have guns too! :neener:

[Mulliga]

One thing to emphasize is just how little firearms crime there is here in America.

Perhaps 10,000-15,000 people are murdered with guns every year. This sounds horrific at first, until you consider that there are perhaps 300 million guns and 60-90 million gun owners in the U.S. Note: 60 million gun owners = population of France.

Another thing to tell them is how available firearms are. Walk into a Wally World, plunk down a few hundred bucks, and 20 minutes later you can be walking out with an 870 and ammo. While this is flat-out impossible in many industrial nations, the fact that you can do it and that we don't have psycho shootings every other day means that it isn't that big of a deal. A shooting like in Red Lake or Atlanta makes national news - it just doesn't happen that often.

Easy availability + millions of gun owners = not that much crime. See if they can accept that, and then move from there.

Bonne chance.

[model 649]

The reason they (and we) are not speaking German is american guns. Their and the rest of European policy and leadership is what led directly to Hitler's successful overruning of their countries. If it weren't for us this class wouldn't be there to teach.
$.02
Josh

[BlackCat]

So indirectly ~300,000 died to free the slaves

The slaves were freed indirectly from the civil war.

My ancestors fought to preserve The Union, not free slaves.

[squadfounder]

Most factors leading to the Civil War were economic, as the North was highly industrialized and the south was based on agrarian economy, which led to a rift developing. Slavery was largely an extension of those economic tensions, although many people made the abolition of slavery a personal matter, and it is their story, which is much more gripping than stodgy economic concerns, that gets told.

[beerslurpy]

Outside of the poor inner-city areas, violent crime in the US isnt much higher than Western Europe. I would put the blame for US crime rates squarely on the shoulders of the drug war, not on gun ownership rates.

Ironically, the places in the states with the lowest gun ownership rates are also those with the highest crime. The locales in the US with gun ownership closer to Israel or Switzerland are actually pretty peaceful.

My anscestors fought over who should own South Africa (they lost). Their descendents came here and got to listen to people blame them for racism in america.

[Bear Gulch]

I think that it is sad that these kids have been lulled into the socialist mindset of personal right are bad. Not that our children are getting much better in our Europhile schools. It takes a lot of work to get folks to even accept freedom, much less want to pay its price.

[Art Eatman]

Including illegals, the US population is approximately 300 million.

There are about 50,000 homicides per year. Of these, just over 20% involve firearms; some 11,000 per year.

Prof. Gary Kleck's data indicates that there are at least 800,000 events per year, minimum, where some sort of use of a firearm stopped a crime. The use could be as simple as a lie of "I have a gun!" when no gun was actually possessed. He also stated the number could be as high as 2.4 million. Kleck's numbers compare to a known criminal use of roughly 600,000 events per year.

A study was done by the statisticians Wright, Rossi & Daly and published in 1985 by the University of Florida Press as "Under The Gun". A primary conclusion was that no gun control law ever passed by the Florida legislature had ever had any effect on violent crime rates involving firearms.

Many state and federal court decisions have held that the police have no obligation to protect individual citizens in the absence of visible threat. Thus, the onus is upon the individual for his own self defense.

Art

[Guy B. Meredith]

Purely recreational. We have IPSC, et al, they have soccer. We don't have drunken brawls and riots at shooting matches. As for soccer matches...