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What should a society do about the mentally unstable?

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Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Tue December 25th, 2012, 3:23 am

[quote=""Divia""]It is interesting to see another countries perspective on things. Gun control is very interesting. On another forum I am on people can't wrap their minds around the crazy Americans and their gun laws. I remembered when I heard that in England cops don't care guns I was like...WHAT? :eek: How is that possible?

There was another shooting today by an ex con. he set fire to his house and killed two firemen. He waited for them to ambush them. This is near me about an hour 1'/2 away. Thing is gun control laws would have done nothing to save these guys cause he shouldn't have had a gun anyway. He was an ex con. Such a sad story.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... _trap.html[/quote]


I think they're trying to ban knives in England now? Banning weapons won't help as long as there are evil people in this world.

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EC2
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Post by EC2 » Tue December 25th, 2012, 1:09 pm

[quote=""Divia""]It is interesting to see another countries perspective on things. Gun control is very interesting. On another forum I am on people can't wrap their minds around the crazy Americans and their gun laws. I remembered when I heard that in England cops don't care guns I was like...WHAT? :eek: How is that possible?

[/quote]
It is definitely a case of cultural mindset, upbringing and national attitudes. In the UK there has been debate about police carrying guns and we do have an armed response team for certain situations, but the guys on the beat don't carry them. As a nation we'd see it as the thin end of the wedge. In 2009 our deaths from shooting incidents totalled 138 to the USA's 11,500. So you can kind of see where we might think stricter gun control is a no brainer. But having said that, if one is an outsider, one can't legislate for another person's culture or ever fully understand it. At best one is still a tourist. It's for the nation's people to work out how to deal with it to best address the situation taking into account their own cultural worldview.
And now to get changed before the family arrive - which is what I headed upstairs to do, but then stopped by to check e-mails.
Happy holidays all!
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Tue December 25th, 2012, 3:47 pm

Culture is definitely one of the issues, Elizabeth. When you work with animals in groups, (or teach children in classes) you quickly find that there is what I call a 'herd temperament' which in comprised of the sum of all the individuals within it, and the dynamics of the situation. For instance, adding one typically frightened individual to a previously calm herd can change them from an easily-handled group to one quick to stampede and very hard to handle.

Personality is genetic as well as environmental. I know that, given the bell-curve and all that, it isn't popular to characterize people by national type -- except in jokes told by the nationality on themselves. But as a student of history and culture, I can't help but apply my observations to my own nationality.

The fact is, Americans don't have a genetic personality base to make generalizations from, since we are the most genetically mixed country that the world has ever known. But the one common denominator is that, with a few exceptions, Americans are the offspring of people who weren't content with wherever they originated and were willing to take a huge risk in leaving everything that was known, not to mention their extended family and social group.

So we are the sort of people that like to determine things for ourselves. Which means that the unstable among us tend to be really off the wall, and the rest of us have to respond to that -- and are more likely to want to take things into our own hands.

Maybe our diverse and feisty genetic population base breeds a higher percentage of nut cases, too. As to environment, given the sewer of popular culture that is an unfortunate side effect of our aversion to censorship or restriction in any form, there will definitely be some fallout from that. And like people getting their hands on weapons, some of it might be prevented if access to negative influences could be restricted.

But then you have the other, and possibly worse, evil: who gets to decide? Whose standards? And how to enforce them?

Obviously, given the culture and background, making laws against guns didn't do a thing for Mexican society except disarm the innocent.
Last edited by MLE (Emily Cotton) on Tue December 25th, 2012, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Ash » Tue December 25th, 2012, 4:00 pm

Excellent post, MLE. I know I don't often say this, but I agree completely with this analysis! Thats not to say that our 'herd mentality' won't find a way to be less destructive, hopefully, but that all makes lots of sense.

I don't quite get tho your last line, and it might be because I don't know the history. What are Mexico's gun laws like? I assumed they were like ours.
Last edited by Ash on Tue December 25th, 2012, 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Tue December 25th, 2012, 6:29 pm

[quote=""Ash""]Excellent post, MLE. I know I don't often say this, but I agree completely with this analysis! Thats not to say that our 'herd mentality' won't find a way to be less destructive, hopefully, but that all makes lots of sense.

I don't quite get tho your last line, and it might be because I don't know the history. What are Mexico's gun laws like? I assumed they were like ours.[/quote]

I know very little about Mexico's gun laws, but I agree with MLE.

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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Tue December 25th, 2012, 6:32 pm

[quote=""Ash""]Excellent post, MLE. I know I don't often say this, but I agree completely with this analysis! Thats not to say that our 'herd mentality' won't find a way to be less destructive, hopefully, but that all makes lots of sense.

I don't quite get tho your last line, and it might be because I don't know the history. What are Mexico's gun laws like? I assumed they were like ours.[/quote]

Thanks, Ash. As a teacher, I bet you've seen some pretty wild differences from class to class only because of the addition/subtraction of one or two students.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control in the world. And among the highest gun-related homicide rates (I think that Columbia and South Africa might be worse, but that's just an educated guess).

That's always the problem with trying to control behavior by passing laws: laws are only as effective as the willingness to obey them. If there isn't sufficient consensus, it's rather like putting a gate across a road where all the fences are down. It only guarantees that people will ignore the designated path, and then you not only don't contain the traffic, but you make the road irrelevant.
Last edited by MLE (Emily Cotton) on Tue December 25th, 2012, 6:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Tue December 25th, 2012, 7:51 pm

Columbia and Venezuela are worse I know that for a fact

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Post by Ash » Tue December 25th, 2012, 8:30 pm

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control in the world. And among the highest gun-related homicide rates
I know about the violence of course, living where I do, and its just getting worse. But I didn't know it had such strict gun laws. Wow, no wonder there's so much gun running from here (The Fast and Furious gun running scandle was responsible for some of those guns used in a horrible massacre a few years later

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10 ... d-furious/

So much of their violence is tied in with the drug wars. Doesn't help that there is a huge market over here, but when that amount of money is involved, guns aren't far behind legal or not.

Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Wed December 26th, 2012, 6:10 pm

[quote=""Ash""]I know about the violence of course, living where I do, and its just getting worse. But I didn't know it had such strict gun laws. Wow, no wonder there's so much gun running from here (The Fast and Furious gun running scandle was responsible for some of those guns used in a horrible massacre a few years later

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10 ... d-furious/

So much of their violence is tied in with the drug wars. Doesn't help that there is a huge market over here, but when that amount of money is involved, guns aren't far behind legal or not.[/quote]

Do you think Mexico will try to annex the Southwest?

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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Wed December 26th, 2012, 7:03 pm

[quote=""Helen_Davis""]Do you think Mexico will try to annex the Southwest?[/quote]
You're kidding, right? The US stole that at gunpoint (well, we stole Texas after trouncing the Mexican army when they objected, and then we paid a dinky little pittance for California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico). The Mexicans didn't like it, but seeing as the US had a great deal more firepower, there wasn't much they could do except grit their teeth and agree.

It isn't as though that has changed.

Not that I'm advocating any kind of reparations. Money given to the Mexican government goes into somebody's private bank account.
And I suppose it could be justified by the argument that the US has definitely provided better government to those areas than Mexico does for any of their citizens.

Besides, the law-abiding ranchers who own property along Southwestern border definitely need to hang on to their guns.
Last edited by MLE (Emily Cotton) on Wed December 26th, 2012, 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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