murder rates

[TwiceHorn 31283]

40 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I'm going to derail a bit, but some of that is a myth promulgated around the period when the big money donors (back in the day they had those too) decided the frontier was sufficiently 'closed' and suddenly got all nostalgic, not unlike the southern remembrances in the 1920s of the glory days of the Confederacy.

The American colonizers and founders that the GOP wants to make sure American students remember in the right way, won history in that regard. I'm proud to be an American, but I like for us to be honest about it. The frontier was technically uncharted (to them) but the indigenous peoples were there and they had nations of their own, and recognized their own areas. They fought battles with each other and certainly against invaders in their territory. So, sure, guns were necessary for food or against predators but mostly because it was a war zone. America viewed the Indians as obstacles to progress--Jefferson viewed them as appropriate for study but also believed that the best way to deal with them was  "total suppression of Savage Insolence and Cruelties." So as George Rogers Clark and others destroyed crops and killed Native families, the myth began to be formed of the disappearing "Indian." That west of the Mississippi the land was there for the taking and rugged individuals were needed to tame it. Obviously the Lakota, the Comanche, and others had something to say about that, and certainly there are folks on here with ancestors going way back who might have a different and perhaps a dimmer view, but I would suggest that perhaps think about it more as the white man said a settler could live there and the settler has a piece of paper that says so, but to another Nation your piece of paper was viewed as toilet paper. If a man settles in territory not his own then maybe the Native first residing there  killing him is usually understood in most languages.

Around the turn of the last century, as I mentioned above, the West was considered closed and urban centers were growing and folks began to get sentimental about it all. Around WWI, similar to the Civil War statues, monuments to the American West and the explorers began to be erected. People began to consider the past history of the Indians as peoples doomed to extinction, vanished, and then ultimately argued that the Native population was never that large to begin with and therefore they had no right to claim land or hold 'title.' I could go on about this, but it's a derail and actually touches more upon the current climate in education than the thread topic so I'll stop.

Also, it's not that what Lewis and Clark did was bad, it was fricking amazing, but once more, as Americans we owe it to each other to recognize our blind spots and build each other up so we're strong in our country and our history together. We have scars but they are what make us unique.

I'm not defending national behavior on the frontier.

But that type of rural living makes guns, if not a necessity, an extremely justifiable possession.  And that didn't vanish once the frontier "was closed" or the Indians put on reservations.

There hasn't been that kind of rural living in most of Europe, for example, for centuries.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Our country was literally founded by a gun manufacturer. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm not defending national behavior on the frontier.

But that type of rural living makes guns, if not a necessity, an extremely justifiable possession.  And that didn't vanish once the frontier "was closed" or the Indians put on reservations.

There hasn't been that kind of rural living in most of Europe, for example, for centuries.

It was mythbusting specifically and not meant as an accusation towards you so I hope you didn't take it that way. I think I remember seeing here on Surly a good discussion of what guns did for the Comanche but it may have been somewhere else. They turned into a major force to be reckoned with.

Predators both animal and human (specifically non-native ones) remain a main advantage to possessing a firearm nowadays and certainly were back then too.

[TwiceHorn 31283]

10 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

It was mythbusting specifically and not meant as an accusation towards you so I hope you didn't take it that way. I think I remember seeing here on Surly a good discussion of what guns did for the Comanche but it may have been somewhere else. They turned into a major force to be reckoned with.

Predators both animal and human (specifically non-native ones) remain a main advantage to possessing a firearm nowadays and certainly were back then too.

No, I didn't.  But I truly do think that era of American life had an outsized effect on many modern things, to include a "culture of violence," gun culture, romanticizing the rural, and so on an so forth.  And it is somewhat uniquely American.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

No, I didn't.  But I truly do think that era of American life had an outsized effect on many modern things, to include a "culture of violence," gun culture, romanticizing the rural, and so on an so forth.  And it is somewhat uniquely American.

 

I believe the Russians have the Cossacks and perhaps consider the dacha to be a way to get back to the rural life, but Americans have the top spot. We also continued to pour it on, not just through the literature of the time, but later with movies and television. It is important, because of the empire building and conquest, but sometimes those two words overshadow the cost to those that were also present in the timeline.

[Cajun 11675]

3 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

People talking politics in a political board is not a “safe space.”
 

People running away from the political board because people are meanies, to talk politics on a non political board while yelling “no politics allowed!” is a “safe space.”

A lot of you fellas sure do love ya some straw men.  "He's afraid of meanies on the political board!"

Couldn't be anything else.  No way.  Not a chance.

Yeah, you're in your safe space, no matter what you tell yourself.

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19151]

2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Yeah, unlike other countries, we had a lot of Indians to shoot. 

The British would disagree.

[Sbbruin 21737]

I think we could use a Purge.  But

[Nice Guy Eddie 13414]

2 hours ago, workswithseed said:

It's a city problem which can have stricter gun laws than the state. You're not wrong that those states have high crime, but if it was a gun problem, then states like Idaho, Montana, and Kentucky should be blood baths with their high percentage of ownership.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/murder-rate-in-us-cities-in-2015/

https://www.guns.com/news/2021/04/01/the-top-10-most-gun-friendly-states

 

You can spin it however you want but the Red states have more intentional murders than blue states. It's not even close.

Based on the 2020 election results and 2019 murders, the blue states have a 4.4 murder rate per 100k people. the red states are at 5.8. 

Why are you bringing up gun ownership? 

 

[Dahobbs 17447]

43 minutes ago, Cajun said:

A lot of you fellas sure do love ya some straw men.  "He's afraid of meanies on the political board!"

Couldn't be anything else.  No way.  Not a chance.

Yeah, you're in your safe space, no matter what you tell yourself.

 

Feel free to write a substantive post and actually contribute. 

[Cajun 11675]

26 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Feel free to write a substantive post and actually contribute. 

Already did, you just chose to ignore.

Keep erecting those straw men.  It’s a gas.

[hpslugga 4044]

24 minutes ago, Cajun said:

Already did, you just chose to ignore.

Keep erecting those straw men.  It’s a gas.

He ignores it in the same way he ignores the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[Dahobbs 17447]

57 minutes ago, Cajun said:

Already did, you just chose to ignore.

Keep erecting those straw men.  It’s a gas.

Ignore what? You've never responded with anything. You haven't cited anything or explained what position you even have. 

[tigol 2383]

3 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Ignore what? You've never responded with anything. You haven't cited anything or explained what position you even have. 

This and explain the straw man thing.  For the benefit of the board, explain it as if you would to 5 year old girls.

[hpslugga 4044]

37 minutes ago, tigol said:

This and explain the straw man thing.  For the benefit of the board, explain it as if you would to 5 year old girls.

Straw man is just another phrase he saw someone else use.

[mchookem 16222]

7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

No, I didn't.  But I truly do think that era of American life had an outsized effect on many modern things, to include a "culture of violence," gun culture, romanticizing the rural, and so on an so forth.  And it is somewhat uniquely American.

quoting myself from some other thread...

we are a young, violent, impulsive nation with a brief history rife with brutality, mendacity, and slaughter. we have been bred since birth to believe we are exceptional, we are better, we are badasses. we have moments of introspection and progress, but they are without fail matched with savage and bloody resistance. we eat manifest destiny for breakfast and have shots of 'Merica!! for a nightcap. 

we lament our love affair with murderous toys, but our society is exactly what it was bred to be. this is our American DNA.