Notions prejudiced by experience.
There is a relationship between weapons" and liberty". That is because arms" and liberation" are also linked. The matter fuels debates that reflect semantics hidden agendas as well as pre-conceptions. Not often enough are the facts discussed. In the writers case the bias is clear. It comes from running in Budapest bearing a pistol with six shots in the magazine with a Soviet T34 tank in pursuit. If one looks carefully the legal access to weapons is not singularly an American controversy. However the debate is defined and skewed by conditions said to be uniquely American.
The apparent concentration on America comes from a distortion that reflects a habit to focus on the US. Globally active American media that do not resist sensationalism enhance this tendency. US newsmakers exploit catastrophes. If a plane goes down when a train is derailed or a shooting occurs then the reporters congregate there. The coverage is extensive even if there is nothing new to tell and the reporter does not know much about what he explains. Therefore once a tragedy occurs your correspondent switches from Seeanen" to other providers. Unfortunately by catering to the publics taste if not to the voice of reason these too began to concentrate on cataclysms.
The foregoing tells why murders get ample coverage - especially when they occur close to hordes of reporters that is in the US. Here we should not overlook that the exposure does more than a respond to mayhem. It also serves as a motive that spreads imitable tragedies. Copycats repeat the occurrence for our entertainment. Spectacular deeds guarantee coverage. That attention calls on the scene the imitators whose reason to act is the earlier publicity that promises fame". The attention given to bizarre cases mutates into new actions. Heightened publicity is assured if ideological pre-conceptions find events that fit expectations. Related to these are favored extrapolations that can confirm dogmatic positions.
Most spectacular massacres occur in the US as the countrys size and the attention she gets guarantee a titillating supply. America represented as a crazed trigger-happy center of wildly firing right-wingers that swing crosses is conceptually fitting. If someone in let us say Norway stages a massacre then it is not the Norwegians who are found guilty of being blood thirsty but the right wingers" there. That type we are quickly told you find mainly in the red" states of the USA.
Could the relationship between cause and effect be interrupted? Such as by insolently suggesting that the more effective defense pleas of madness become the more insane murderers we get. And has anyone noticed that the more a person tends to plea for the general access to legalized drugs the more likely that he will demand the proscription of weapons? Project this in jest upon another matter. Let us assume that we agree that adultery is bad". Having done so we find that it is generally committed on living room couches. Does it follow that preventively all sofas need to be destroyed? (This is not a plea against efforts to keep guns out of the hand of criminals or the deranged).
Interestingly especially for the many American readers of Duly Noted is that taking away their guns" is not a singularly American project. True most of Western Europes normal citizens are already disarmed. However one of the most Western countries if we consider practiced democracy long-term independence economic development and the rule law is an exception. More than that the country is and has been literally armed to the teeth. Now you wonder about which place we are talking. Valid information about Switzerland is as rare as it tends to be distorted.
The Yanks and the Brits can be thankful because in WW2 they did not have to liberate Switzerland. She is in part because of her crisis-resistance an object of ignorance or worse of disinformation. To rectify that is not the purpose of this writing. The point that pertains to our topic is that for generations the country had an odd system of principled neutrality backed up by a strong military.
Several features of the latter are unusual. Before smiling dismissively you should consider what follows. The Swiss Army is based on a militia. The national principle - it is strongly resented by the Left - is universal service. After basic training the citizen is obligated to serve yearly for about two weeks to update his skills. He is also to maintain his marksmanship in his villages gun club. (That makes target shooting a national sport. As an alien the writer used to be glad to participate in a local club.)
The force created by mobilization is not only a conventional army but also prior to that also an ever-ready militia. The upshot is a well-equipped army and not a rag-tag band of over 600 000 out of a population of 7 million. Off duty its members take their weapons home. Thereby SIG assault rifles became a household tool. Through inheritances the author benefited from the concept of an armed and therefore secure society.
This briefly sketched system is now under attack. Reflecting the change of values that regulate society there have been cases in which ordnance was misused to commit crimes. The Lefts solution is not to prevent abuse by emphasizing the kind of moral principles that regulate behavior in the private sphere without needing to resort to the state and formal statutes. Much rather they are for abolishing the military has it not been unneeded for decades? Implicitly the effort expresses the longed for exemption of spoiled kids from service and obedience. Proposing new laws to register and confiscate citizens the firearms rounds out the measure.
Earlier this essay referred to the American reader. With the last paragraph he will have grasped something regarding the debate that surrounds him. Due to the Second Amendment the controversy has a special American coloring. However as shown the issue does not stop at the waters edge and has relevance beyond borders.
Confiscating the arms of those that will dutifully surrender them will obviously reduce the amount of weapons to which civilians have access. One needs to believe in the Easter Bunnys ability to lay eggs to conclude that such a measure will significantly reduce crime. The alternative to confiscation is to apply existing sanctions against violent crime. However this socially insensitive" idea will hardly be supported by the arms-banishers. Crime they tell us is the result of inequality. To combat that taxes must be raised. Since support will always lag behind rising demands the discrepancy will be exploited to prove continued deprivation". That will take the blame from the criminals that will remain armed and place the guilt on society."