Excellent opinion piece on US gun control from the SMH

[joeychen]

A great opinion piece from the SMH. I completely agree.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/perverse-logic-where-gun-madness-is-untouchable/2006/10/04/1159641392483.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

I'm not saying Australia is perfect, we're far from it, but at least we have better gun control laws and don't hold onto century old outdated ideas about them.

Comments

[emily-hahn.livejournal.com]

maybe that's related to the whole Commonwealth thing

That's probably a good explanation about the difference in social attitudes. But the main difference really is in lobbying and the gun industry here - they wield an enormous amount of power and influence over federal legislation and attitudes. They can claim that it has to do with the 2nd Ammendment and the Revolution, but at this point in history, it's all about money and power. Same priorities as Big Tobacco (also a holdover from colonial days??).

It has caused me to rethink some of my objections to Bowling for Columbine about how the stats used in it are kind of subjective - you can look at the rate of gun violence in the US versus other countries and there's no arguing it's only a problem here. But what bothered me about that argument was how it didn't take into account other types of violence, specifically rape and domestic violence. Compared to almost all the countries I've been to (except for the UK and Cuba), the US has a much lower rate of violence against women and more progressive social values in regards to gender relations. But after two incidents of girls being targeted in this way?! I don't know what to think anymore - maybe it's just not as overt here as it is in Latin America.