People also seem to get away from their individualistic, self reliant, pioneer type roots when they live in large cities. They become more collective. Maybe this way of thinking also extends to public safety. You would be surprised how much group think happens, which would explain a lot of inane city laws.
Why does urbanization lead to an anti-gun mentality?
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MikeNice
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I think in Midway it is because of the proximity to Winston-Salem, High Point, and Greensboro. There is a high concentration of colleges in the area. You have NC A&T, Guilford, UNCG, Wake Forest, and maybe a few more. Usually you tend to find a more anti-gun culture in such areas, in my experience.
Also Greensboro and High Point aren't exactly nice cities. Gangs, violence, and crime are a bit higher in those areas than in most other parts of North Carolina. Durham and Charlotte being exceptions.
In short you add higher crime, denser populations, (Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem) and a high concentration of "liberal arts" colleges you create an atmosphere ripe for such things. Especially when those areas have been hit hard by rough economic times.
High-Point and Thomasville were considerred the furniture capitals of the world. The High-Point furniture market use to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Many people were employeed in middle income jobs serving the furniture industry. Now with the shift of production to China and Mexico those areas have become economically depressed. This opens up positions of power for people with big promises. A lot of people will go along because it seems harmless to give up shooting in town if the person in power is promising to bring in prosperity.
I don't know the particular reasons in Midway. I do know that in that area of the state it is a lot more complicated than "urbanization." The community that is now named Midway has been there for a long time. It is just now becoming an incorporated town.
Also Greensboro and High Point aren't exactly nice cities. Gangs, violence, and crime are a bit higher in those areas than in most other parts of North Carolina. Durham and Charlotte being exceptions.
In short you add higher crime, denser populations, (Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem) and a high concentration of "liberal arts" colleges you create an atmosphere ripe for such things. Especially when those areas have been hit hard by rough economic times.
High-Point and Thomasville were considerred the furniture capitals of the world. The High-Point furniture market use to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Many people were employeed in middle income jobs serving the furniture industry. Now with the shift of production to China and Mexico those areas have become economically depressed. This opens up positions of power for people with big promises. A lot of people will go along because it seems harmless to give up shooting in town if the person in power is promising to bring in prosperity.
I don't know the particular reasons in Midway. I do know that in that area of the state it is a lot more complicated than "urbanization." The community that is now named Midway has been there for a long time. It is just now becoming an incorporated town.
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KBintheSLC
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Thanks MikeNice... it's good to get a better picture of what is really going on in Midway. The article was not all that thorough.
chaplain tom
Member
Let's not go off on a religious tangent here, but way back when our core values were centered in God we WERE a lot closer in our views on many things...including firearms. Our government has done all it can to separate the people from those values over the past 30 years or so.
Yes, because when our rights no longer come from God they come from the state and are left to their discretion.
If there is high crime then that is all the more reason to let law abiding citizens own, carry and shoot their guns at ranges to promote proficiency and safe handling. That is the practical reaction however. The emotional knee-jerk reaction is to ban all guns. Which as we know simply allows the criminals and cops to have them, with the average joe caught in the middle.
Red Cent
Member
Fellows, I think that the town is not trying to emulate Wyatt Earp. They simply do not want someone discharging a weapon within city limits. Judging from the location of the town in the great scheme of things, outright outlawing firearms would be the contamination of a submarine analogy.
I didn't say the NRA was the "main push behind McDonald v. Chicago", I was responding to an allegation that NRA "is focused on hunters rights and centers around rifles used for hunting and sporting" and "stays out of self-defense and right to carry issues".killchain said:
What I said was that the NRA was "heavily involved" in the cases McDonald and Heller which are both primarily focused on handguns and self-defense. I can see from other posts you have made here that you are certainly well aware of the truth of that statement.
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merlinfire
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Being in an urban environment reduces opportunity and increases costs in shooting for sport or recreation, and hunting.
To a large degree, we absorb what is around us. Not all that complicated.
To a large degree, we absorb what is around us. Not all that complicated.
"hypersexual", "rodent utopia", "complete devastation of humanity"
Yes, these are teaser phrases, but they are from an (in)famous rodent crowding study. Essentially, rats were crowded into confined quarters with unlimited food and water.
Read on, if you dare.
http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2008/07_25_2008/story1.htm
“The one thing they did not have was space...He allowed the population to grow to 80 in the first instance.”
Calhoun found that “rodent utopia” rapidly became “hell.”
He described the onset of several pathologies: violence and aggression, with rats in the crowded pen “going berserk, attacking females, juveniles and less-active males.” There was also “sexual deviance.” Rats became hypersexual, pursuing females relentlessly even when not in heat.
The mortality rate among females was extremely high. A large proportion of the population became bisexual, then increasingly homosexual, and finally asexual. There was a breakdown in maternal behavior. Mothers stopped caring for their young, stopped building a nest for them and even began to attack them, resulting in a 96 percent mortality rate in the two crowded pens. Calhoun coined a term—“behavioral sink”—to describe the decay.
As the population grew past capacity, Calhoun observed a developing social hierarchy with toxic pathologies.
“He clearly saw these rats and mice as models for man,” Ramsden explained. “Life in an unnatural urban environment of ever-increasing density could result in the complete devastation of humanity.”
It seems, however that the results may not correlate to human populations. You be the judge.
gd
Yes, these are teaser phrases, but they are from an (in)famous rodent crowding study. Essentially, rats were crowded into confined quarters with unlimited food and water.
Read on, if you dare.
http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2008/07_25_2008/story1.htm
“The one thing they did not have was space...He allowed the population to grow to 80 in the first instance.”
Calhoun found that “rodent utopia” rapidly became “hell.”
He described the onset of several pathologies: violence and aggression, with rats in the crowded pen “going berserk, attacking females, juveniles and less-active males.” There was also “sexual deviance.” Rats became hypersexual, pursuing females relentlessly even when not in heat.
The mortality rate among females was extremely high. A large proportion of the population became bisexual, then increasingly homosexual, and finally asexual. There was a breakdown in maternal behavior. Mothers stopped caring for their young, stopped building a nest for them and even began to attack them, resulting in a 96 percent mortality rate in the two crowded pens. Calhoun coined a term—“behavioral sink”—to describe the decay.
As the population grew past capacity, Calhoun observed a developing social hierarchy with toxic pathologies.
“He clearly saw these rats and mice as models for man,” Ramsden explained. “Life in an unnatural urban environment of ever-increasing density could result in the complete devastation of humanity.”
It seems, however that the results may not correlate to human populations. You be the judge.
gd
When growing up we knew everyone in a 20? square mile area. Stud Horse or a bull might get out and go to a neighbors place for a little "hanky panky" so the neighbor would call or come by and report your animals transgression and would usually help in the capture or bring the animal back.
People in urban areas are so busy getting back and forth to work in traffic and raising kids coupled with tending to their activities that the dependence on their neighbors has been basically cut out. They put up with bosses and co=workers all day, do the yard on the weekend and maybe go to church on Sunday. Every Monday it starts over.
We carried guns when we hunted but otherwise went unarmed for we did not fear our neighbors or anything else.
The rat study quoted earlier has much merritt as does all crowded animal studies....just different body parts missing; These sudies may not always be applicable to certain human populations or maybe they (people) haven't reached their critical mass? Let the lights go out or food run out and it might be different. Hope I never see that.
People in urban areas are so busy getting back and forth to work in traffic and raising kids coupled with tending to their activities that the dependence on their neighbors has been basically cut out. They put up with bosses and co=workers all day, do the yard on the weekend and maybe go to church on Sunday. Every Monday it starts over.
We carried guns when we hunted but otherwise went unarmed for we did not fear our neighbors or anything else.
The rat study quoted earlier has much merritt as does all crowded animal studies....just different body parts missing; These sudies may not always be applicable to certain human populations or maybe they (people) haven't reached their critical mass? Let the lights go out or food run out and it might be different. Hope I never see that.
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Gato Montés
Member
What? Are you saying that our life experiences help define who we are as a person?
HA! You are soooo dumb merlinfire!
JWF III
Member
IMO, That is a big part of it.
Gov't dependence is another large part of it.
Off topic here...
Slavery was on its way out. Another 20-30 years and it would've been mostly gone on it's own. The War of Northern Agression (Civil war to northerners) was all about the federal government asserting it's will on the states. In many regards, the Civil War ended the Tenth Amendment. And thus started a long downward road to where we are now... A overly large, out of control, federal government, that doesn't care one bit what the people, and the states, think or want.
Wyman
A couple of meanings are possible, but you get the general picture.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/asexual
1. Having no evident sex or sex organs; sexless.
2. Relating to, produced by, or involving reproduction that occurs without the union of male and female gametes, as in binary fission or budding.
3. Lacking interest in or desire for sex.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/asexual
1. Having no evident sex or sex organs; sexless.
2. Relating to, produced by, or involving reproduction that occurs without the union of male and female gametes, as in binary fission or budding.
3. Lacking interest in or desire for sex.
merlinfire
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Wow. Maybe, it was always inevitable?
rainbowbob
Member
JWF III: Rather than hijack the thread (and probably cause it to get locked), I would like to discuss this idea with you via PM (PM sent).
Corporal K
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We carried guns when we hunted but otherwise went unarmed for we did not fear our neighbors or anything else.
Who is "we"?
Who is "we"?
We be "my dad" and my neighbors. Hardly anyone carried a fire arm unless you were hunting or going to put an animal down.
We kids went around carrying our BB, shot guns. or 22s much more than the grown ups.
When visiting relatives in west Texas (Jacksboro) I tended to see the gun rack in the vehicle much more frequently than where I grew up kinda between Dallas and Ft. Worth. It just seemed the only people who carried a side arm were police.
A side note; First 5.5 pound Bass I caught when I was a kid is now the extended over run of one of the runways at DFW.
We kids went around carrying our BB, shot guns. or 22s much more than the grown ups.
When visiting relatives in west Texas (Jacksboro) I tended to see the gun rack in the vehicle much more frequently than where I grew up kinda between Dallas and Ft. Worth. It just seemed the only people who carried a side arm were police.
A side note; First 5.5 pound Bass I caught when I was a kid is now the extended over run of one of the runways at DFW.
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bushmaster1313
Member
Urbanization makes people afraid.
People living in fear need to feel safe.
Blaming the danger on guns allows the scared urban dwellers to ignore the cause of their fear (urbanization) and it allows unscrupulous politicians to say that by passing anti-gun legislation they are doing something that goes to removing the root of the problem.
People living in fear need to feel safe.
Blaming the danger on guns allows the scared urban dwellers to ignore the cause of their fear (urbanization) and it allows unscrupulous politicians to say that by passing anti-gun legislation they are doing something that goes to removing the root of the problem.
I often wondered about this. It seems like politically the anti-gun sentiments come from more urban based areas where they preach to the converted in their areas. I am wondering why the anti-gun mentality extends to wanting to control everyone's access to firearms on a national level.
I understand that firearms are used much more for sporting and recreation away from cities, but find that this cannot explain the lack of faith some people have for the safe ownership of firearms in their fellow citizen's hands.
Maybe it is just lack of exposure to safe and fun shooting as opposed to media hype.
I understand that firearms are used much more for sporting and recreation away from cities, but find that this cannot explain the lack of faith some people have for the safe ownership of firearms in their fellow citizen's hands.
Maybe it is just lack of exposure to safe and fun shooting as opposed to media hype.
Think there has been and will always be those who think they know best and will use every means possible to convert you to their way of thinking. Whether religion, Jim Jones in Ghana or some other group demanding something be done or thought of in their way.
In the larger scheme of things Individualism is not tolerated as much as it once was. Maybe in our/your minds, but I don't think so.
In the larger scheme of things Individualism is not tolerated as much as it once was. Maybe in our/your minds, but I don't think so.
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Sky said:
I think "Negative Ghostrider" came from that old Hasselhoff t.v. series from the eighties. I didn't mean to psych you out like that.
To more intelligently respond to your statement that people used to not carry guns on a regular basis I'd like to say that it is different depending on what area of the country you are from and the culture contained therein. In my neck of the woods I've been told that for many years it is normal for most people to have a gun in their car and a lot of people to have at least some sort of small gun on their person. On the farm or the range it would have been especially odd not to have a pistol or revolver of some kind on you. That said the advent of CC laws have greatly increased the amount of handguns carried on a daily basis, probably more so than ever. Yet crime continues to decrease. Go figure.
I'm going to go with yes and no on this one. Political individualism is hardly tolerated. Offensive "artistic" individualism is encouraged.
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