bogie
Member
I've been including a link to www.a-human-right.com in my sig lines on a couple of boards... Got this today...
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Well, I clicked on the other image, there is NO amonut of information, 'evidence', or anything that will ever convince me that gun owndership is a good thing. You are talking to a western european here. In some of the EU countries not even the police are armed! Consequently violent crime in the EU is just a fraction of what happens in the US and I want to keep it that way. Make guns available, and the criminals will have easier access, and as they do, more people will need them in order ot defend themselves, it is a viscious circle.
The US is totally different in mentality to the EU. Your country was built on pioneers who had to defend themselves from other pioneers and from the native americans who were trying to stop their land from being stolen from them. So there is a history of people needing to defend themselves and many americans feel that it is their inalienable right to do so. As a European, I simply don't see that, or feel it in any way shape or form. It is not appropriate to our culture and perhaps the US will one day see that it is inappropriate for theirs too. On the whole, you live in a far more violent society and the way you treat and deal with criminals is violent too, prisons being seeing as places for punishment rather than rehabilitation, the death penalty etc,etc, all things that are totally alien to the Europe of today, most memeber states having abolished the death penalty in the 1960's, and one or two later in the 19670's.
If the US had a more caring social structure, most of these problems could be solved. Crime is born of environment, lack of education, poverty and hopelessness. As homelessness is virtually unheard of in the EU, we don't have the social problems to go with it. But I don't think most US citizens would be happy to pay the 19% sales tax we pay, and almost 40% income tax in order to ensure that the less fortunate are taken care of. Most 'project' housing in the EU has been designed with ample trees, water features (ponds, canals etc) so that the 'depressed' areas are not so depressing, and all that has to be paid for.
We simply have a different way of doing things and the results speak for themselves.
You have a country I have visited many times, at least 16 times, and have lived there once for 6 months, and I like it a lot. But when push comes to shove, I am a European through and through and find some things about US culture quite alien and quite distasteful. There is a lot of talk in the US about individuals rights, about freedom and democracy, but from my perspective as a European, it is a travesty and simply not true when the richest nation on the planet cannot look after its own people, does not afford all of its citizens equality (gays in the military for example, immigration of gay partners, lack of sufficient medical care for the poor etc,etc....the list goes on) and where everything seems to be driven by profit and financial considerations. All of these rights are considered normal in the EU, and yet they are still hotly discussed and disputed within the very country that claims to be the home and defender of democracy. Interesting paradox methinks.
My two penneth worth,
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Well, I clicked on the other image, there is NO amonut of information, 'evidence', or anything that will ever convince me that gun owndership is a good thing. You are talking to a western european here. In some of the EU countries not even the police are armed! Consequently violent crime in the EU is just a fraction of what happens in the US and I want to keep it that way. Make guns available, and the criminals will have easier access, and as they do, more people will need them in order ot defend themselves, it is a viscious circle.
The US is totally different in mentality to the EU. Your country was built on pioneers who had to defend themselves from other pioneers and from the native americans who were trying to stop their land from being stolen from them. So there is a history of people needing to defend themselves and many americans feel that it is their inalienable right to do so. As a European, I simply don't see that, or feel it in any way shape or form. It is not appropriate to our culture and perhaps the US will one day see that it is inappropriate for theirs too. On the whole, you live in a far more violent society and the way you treat and deal with criminals is violent too, prisons being seeing as places for punishment rather than rehabilitation, the death penalty etc,etc, all things that are totally alien to the Europe of today, most memeber states having abolished the death penalty in the 1960's, and one or two later in the 19670's.
If the US had a more caring social structure, most of these problems could be solved. Crime is born of environment, lack of education, poverty and hopelessness. As homelessness is virtually unheard of in the EU, we don't have the social problems to go with it. But I don't think most US citizens would be happy to pay the 19% sales tax we pay, and almost 40% income tax in order to ensure that the less fortunate are taken care of. Most 'project' housing in the EU has been designed with ample trees, water features (ponds, canals etc) so that the 'depressed' areas are not so depressing, and all that has to be paid for.
We simply have a different way of doing things and the results speak for themselves.
You have a country I have visited many times, at least 16 times, and have lived there once for 6 months, and I like it a lot. But when push comes to shove, I am a European through and through and find some things about US culture quite alien and quite distasteful. There is a lot of talk in the US about individuals rights, about freedom and democracy, but from my perspective as a European, it is a travesty and simply not true when the richest nation on the planet cannot look after its own people, does not afford all of its citizens equality (gays in the military for example, immigration of gay partners, lack of sufficient medical care for the poor etc,etc....the list goes on) and where everything seems to be driven by profit and financial considerations. All of these rights are considered normal in the EU, and yet they are still hotly discussed and disputed within the very country that claims to be the home and defender of democracy. Interesting paradox methinks.
My two penneth worth,
I can find the exact numbers or you can look them up somewhere. It is not surprising since no one has any guns