zombie84 said:
I understand the historical reasons why things developed the way they did, that doesn't mean it has to make sense or justify them though. Especially since most of those reason no longer exist in the contemporary world.
You "understand" the historical reasons, but you fail to understand so many other aspects of the "gun culture". bkev touched on a major part of it, they are so saturated in this country, that it would be impossible to remove them all, and now you have an uneven playing field. Those determined to get guns will get them, but what about the rest? There are so many other statistics and variables involved. My whole point was, you are measuring the United State's cultural and our issues with your culture and your issues or lack thereof.
It is easy to say, hey, we don't have guns and we don't have near as many violent gun problems as you do, when you are you and not us. It is not so cut and dry.
I actually agree with much of what you are saying, but you are coming at this from a totally different angle and from a distance.
It's not because Bieber is just high impact and the United States is. People are annoyed with Justin Bieber because his music isn't very good and people can tell he's just another manufactured pop star.
The quality of his music is not the point. You asked why Canada doesn't have near as many haters as America. Canada is the kid on youtube with maybe a hundred views that nobody has heard of (obviously people have heard of Canada, not a perfect analogy, but the fact remains, low impact. Your presence in the world leaves a very miniscule footprint. Don't get me wrong, I love Canada). Maybe Bieber was a bad example, you have plenty of people who hate Elvis, The Beatles, Micheal Jackson, and yes, even the Red Hot Chili Peppers (especially back in the 90's when they were huge and everywhere). They're well known, though not for everybody. High impact. America is massive, loud, and hard to ignore.
Because guns are not cannabis. If I am in a gang, yes, I would know where to get a gun. But a lot of gun violence is not committed by gang members or people who set out to create gun violence, but because they have guns in the first place that violence occurs. If the shooter in Aurora had to go to an arms dealer, would he have? Would he even know where to go? And would he go that out of his way?
With the mass number of guns in this country, I don't think they will ever be very hard to find. At least not for a very, very, very long time. And if someone is sick and determined enough to murder a bunch of children, why wouldn't they go to great lengths to try to find guns? It is all just meaningless speculation, there is no way to know if he would have grabbed a knife and went Chinese psycho on those kids, if he would have gone for any number of other methods, or simply sought out a gun.
You can't compare a college kid smoking a joint to a guy going to an illegal arms dealer, it's two completely different things.
I wasn't comparing a college student smoking a joint to someone buying guns from an illegal arms dealer, and I think you are intelligent enough to realize I wasn't making that comparison. The point was, people sell contraband, and those who want it find out how to get it.
Of course there is. Just like a country without cars is going to have a crazy low amount of automobile related deaths
I can see you are meaning this sarcastically, but I'm not getting it.
I didn't mean it sarcastically, I was agreeing with you. Introduce anything lethal into a culture, and you'll get deaths from it. The more of it you have, the higher number of deaths you can expect. Cause and effect. So it goes.
The world could do without guns, I'm not disagreeing with you. Too bad it isn't as simple for us as it is in Canada.
This is getting a lot more involved than I have time for. I had a simple point, and I feel like I made it.