[lit-ideas] Re: Nigerian gun control as an example for us

Lawrence,

We both want a society that is as safe and secure as possible within a social 
framework that permits as much individual liberty as possible so that we can 
pursue "happiness" (or the fullness of our potential) as we perceive it.  There 
is and will always be a tension between the two since one man's pursuit of 
happiness can be at the cost of another's.  And because we are a multicultural 
nation and have no Yahweh to tell us the way, we on our own.  We have to work 
it out among ourselves.  We're constantly bargaining personal liberties for 
safety and security as we deem necessary for the greater good and vice versa.  
That you believe guns enhance our security doesn't surprise me, I'm a son of 
the South, born and bred in the gun culture, a pistol was my pacifier.  What 
does surprise me is that you persist in arguing that guns make us safer in the 
face of so much evidence to the contrary.  For instance this: 

"The US gun death rates are far higher than any other industrialized countries, 
and among the highest recorded in the world.  2005 statitics indicate that the 
US had 10,100 gun homicides compared to 222 in Canada.  While the US and Canada 
have comparable rates of homicides without guns (1.79 vs. 1.35 per 100,000), 
the US firearms homicide rate is 5 times Canada's (2.03 vs. 0.38 per 100,000).  
The US also has 5.8 times the rate per 100,000 of robberies committed with 
firearms even though the rates of robberies without firearms are comparable.

"While some American states have regulations comparable to other industrialized 
countries, guns flow freely across state borders.  The USA's 220 million guns 
account for almost 1/3 of all the guns in the world.  American guns don't just 
kill Americans -- they fuel the illegal gun trade and gun violence across the 
world.  At least half the illegal handguns recovered in Canada and 80% of crime 
guns in Mexico originate in the United States."
http://www.guncontrol.ca/English/Home/Releases/0407GlobalGunEpidemic.pdf

America's failure to pass uniform gun control laws and to vigorously enforce 
those laws, will eventually bring about the draconian measures I recommend.  If 
there were any intelligence within the NRA, they would recognize this and take 
stalwart action to limit the damage of gun possession, but no, they want all 
regulation abolished.  Fine.  Their days are numbered.

Mike Geary
Memphis

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