78% of Germans want to BAN private gun ownership.

[© tweed]

Not really, he just says the real problem is not Manson but the corporations behind him (Even though Manson was making music before he signed or tied to any corporation.) Besides, the entire thing is still a rather inane prudish rant.

his point is that major corporations will market whatever they want with no regard for anything else if they think it can make them money.  which is generally true.  from the Dead Kennedys:

When the thugs form bands, look who gets record deals
From New York metal labels looking to scam
Who sign the most racist queerbashing bands they can find
To make a buck revving kids up for war


where I disagree with Nader is on the issue of what to do about it, or even if anything should be done about it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In this case nothing should be done about it, especially as the major corporations are making good entertainment in some of the listed examples, not Manson, but The Basketball Diaries and Doom come to mind. And actually, neither one of those is really a product of major corporations either, Doom was made by a small software development studio that had a total of four employees at the time of its creation, and The Basketball Diaries is an independent film, not a major Hollywood one. Similarily Howard Stern started out as a small time DJ, etc. So even Nader's moralistic nonsensical anger is misplaced.

[© tweed]

the right to distribute The Basketball Diaries was purchased by Time Warner

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah, but they didn't produce it.

For another example, Nader would no doubt include Todd Solondz's work in that little rant if it was more well-known, yet none of that is hardly corporate. I think that Solondz and a friend took out a loan and completely funded Welcome to the Dollhouse themselves. Yet Nader woudl no doubt lump it in with more evil corporate propaganda.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I find it funny to listen to the scapegoating crowd. According to them, violence didn't exist before guns and TVs were invented.

Why does the US which has far more easily available guns, far more such cases?

Contrary to what you might think based on media reports, school shootings aren't an everyday occurrence. If they were, we'd hear about them less.

Going by Wikipedia's count, we've had 39 school shootings in the US in the last twenty years, compared to 11 in Europe. Certainly more in our country than in the whole of Europe, but it's not an absurdly large difference - again, it's still a very rare thing to happen. However, I will note that looking at the death tolls we see that Europe's incidents have a higher death count on average, so more of the US ones are likely to be altercations between a few students or accidents due to guns being brought in and fooled around with rather than mass shootings of random people. I'd say gun access probably contributes more to the former types of shootings than the latter, though there are likely other factors in play.

Uhhh... Population Comparsions. Population Comparsions.

A better question though would be where did all these school shootings come from? While I'm hardly nostalgia for things which happened before I was born, what were the would be Dylan Klebold's and Seung-Hui Cho's doing back in, say, the 60s and 70s. Where did this violence come from is the real sociological question here.

[minionofmidas]

AFAIK Gun control is a Nazi policy only insofar as they extended German law to Austria.

May I ask, how common is private gun ownership ins Deutschland anyway?

Depends who you ask, and what you count.

And where in the country.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

AFAIK Gun control is a Nazi policy only insofar as they extended German law to Austria.

May I ask, how common is private gun ownership ins Deutschland anyway?

Depends who you ask, and what you count.

And where in the country.

1) I'm asking you.
2) All forms of equipment that are known in the English language as "guns", I will also add that these are non-metaphorical "guns" at that.
3) "ins Deutschland"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's always amusing when people fail to realise that public attitudes towards guns and gun control are almost entirely cultural.

[Bono]

It's always amusing when people fail to realise that public attitudes towards guns and gun control are almost entirely cultural.

We realize that just fine. Public attitudes towards slavery also vary much from culture to culture, yet I bet that doesn't stop you from considering slavery wrong.

Likewise, we think owning a gun is a basic human right regardless of the gun culture a place might or might not have. That's the thing about basic human rights, they shouldn't be contingent on culture.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It's always amusing when people fail to realise that public attitudes towards guns and gun control are almost entirely cultural.

FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME!!!!1111

It's always amusing when people fail to realise that public attitudes towards guns and gun control are almost entirely cultural.

We realize that just fine. Public attitudes towards slavery also vary much from culture to culture, yet I bet that doesn't stop you from considering slavery wrong.

Likewise, we think owning a gun is a basic human right regardless of the gun culture a place might or might not have. That's the thing about basic human rights, they shouldn't be contingent on culture.

Yes, Slavery and Gun Control. What. A. Completely. Reasonable. Analogy.

Anyway I find the libertarian attitude towards gun control rather strange, in that the assumption is that the praise of gun ownership and guns somehow is equated with the rational ownership of guns, which I find doubtful or let me make a proposition: Any society which 'fetishizes' guns for their own purposes and not for any other than it is right, is going to be a violent society - I think the evidence backs me up on this; the United States is the most violent society of the "comfortable western societies", it is one where gun ownership for its own sake is most praised, debated and so on - of course Bono will invoke something like "Hume laughs at you" for my invoking of a completely unempirical causation - my retort to that is that libertarians have no clue how to stop crimes other than "WITH GUNS OMG!!!11 SELF DEFENSE!!!!111 IRRATIONAL INDIVIDUALISM!!11" and various other fantasties of people who like to pretend that society does not exist or has no impact on their actions. While I'm not invoking a welfare state per se here I think the question must be asked "Wouldn't we be better off if we didn't guns?". Go back to my earlier point - alot of violence is cultural as well

(P.S: I'm not for gun control, though not I'm against either. I would agree that basic human rights are not contingent upon culture; just question whether ownership to a gun is one)

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

BTW... what is it with European newspapers and their need to splash their pages with pictures of half naked women?  I notice this in Russian, German, Italian and French papers.  You are flipping through, reading a story, and then, all of a sudden, oh... a naked/half naked woman... for no reason at all.  Don't you guys have magazines specifically devoted to that kinda thing, over there?

I missed something or what the hell does that comes to do here??

So, on this:

Not that I'm interested in, but, please tell me in which French paper you find that photos. I know there are in countries you cited but I have never seen it in France. We have some magazines with it, but that are not news magazines, unlike some other countries, not only in Europe, I've seen it in Mexico for example.

Anyway, keep cool, be sure we have some magazines fully dedicated to it, we even have...videos!! (and, we've our own production but, IIRC, 90% of worldwide porn production is from US, San Fernando Valley, Ca, IIRC).

[Bono]

It's always amusing when people fail to realise that public attitudes towards guns and gun control are almost entirely cultural.

We realize that just fine. Public attitudes towards slavery also vary much from culture to culture, yet I bet that doesn't stop you from considering slavery wrong.

Likewise, we think owning a gun is a basic human right regardless of the gun culture a place might or might not have. That's the thing about basic human rights, they shouldn't be contingent on culture.

Yes, Slavery and Gun Control. What. A. Completely. Reasonable. Analogy.

Anyway I find the libertarian attitude towards gun control rather strange, in that the assumption is that the praise of gun ownership and guns somehow is equated with the rational ownership of guns, which I find doubtful or let me make a proposition: Any society which 'fetishizes' guns for their own purposes and not for any other than it is right, is going to be a violent society - I think the evidence backs me up on this; the United States is the most violent society of the "comfortable western societies", it is one where gun ownership for its own sake is most praised, debated and so on - of course Bono will invoke something like "Hume laughs at you" for my invoking of a completely unempirical causation - my retort to that is that libertarians have no clue how to stop crimes other than "WITH GUNS OMG!!!11 SELF DEFENSE!!!!111 IRRATIONAL INDIVIDUALISM!!11" and various other fantasties of people who like to pretend that society does not exist or has no impact on their actions. While I'm not invoking a welfare state per se here I think the question must be asked "Wouldn't we be better off if we didn't guns?". Go back to my earlier point - alot of violence is cultural as well

(P.S: I'm not for gun control, though not I'm against either. I would agree that basic human rights are not contingent upon culture; just question whether ownership to a gun is one)

I think it is a very reasonable analogy, given how oppressive governments resort to gun control as a preliminary step to enslave their people.

Let me ask you something. How do you propose to have what you call "the rational ownership of guns" when people cannot own guns at all, or if they can they have to jump through so many hoops that only a privileged few are able to?

How do you define if a society "fetishizes" guns? I think if is natural that a society with less gun control will have more guns than one without. People naturally don't like being helpless and want to defend themselves. Even in the UK, which people like to claim around here never had a gun culture and only associates guns with criminals, the right to keep and bear arms was considered important enough for regular people that it was inserted in the English Bill of Rights. Moreover, in January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back – and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down. Clearly these people were not criminals, in fact were helping the police against two true criminals. Charlotte Brontë describes her father regularly carrying a pistol.  Did these people also "fetishized" guns?

Also, I don't see how for all your individualism you can possibly think it's a good idea to let the state have a monopoly on guns. I someone said that you should never give any power to your friends you wouldn't want to give your enemies. This is especially true of government. Just because today it is run by who you think may be the good guys, this is, as mutual fund prospects say, no guarantee of future performance.

Moreover, I think your idea that the presence of a welfare state will eliminate crime has been thoroughly refuted by the French muslim riots in 2005, and by US inner cities too, by the way. Or rather, if not disproved--I wouldn't want Hume to laugh at me (I can't believe you remember that)--at shown to not be a categorical solution.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I know sorry I'm often very vague on terms... alot of my opinions are intuitive and thus I try to grasp the air and search for the precise solid meanings which try to come out and don't always succeed.

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Yes, the American government by bringing in gun laws is one of the next steps in introducting slavery...

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"Rational ownership" is when people wants guns to protect themselves or to get involved in a hobby or skill like hunting. I would contrast this in admittely a somewhat unsatisifactory dualism with "irrational ownership" where the purchase is made because the idea of owning a gun is seductive, or because of some kind of will-to-violence or violence fetishism on the part of person buying the gun. There is no way any bureaucratic system can root out successfully the reasoning of individuals in purchasing a gun, therefore gun control will at best can only be semi successful in its aims. On the other hand I would hold that what I have termed "violence fetishism" or "will-to-violence" or some power trip or some kind of egotism which associated masculinity or some sort nonsense with gun ownership are of the most part purely sociocultural edifices; which even if they do feel very 'real' to the people having these emotions; can be removed. I don't believe that cultural transformation can make people happier or more secure; rather I hold that a society or culture (reified terms, I know) has certain ways of structuring or symbolically representing - I'm more of the latter myself - feelings of unhappiness, insecurity, depression, etc towards certain items or things. I would hold that in America gun ownership and thus the violence that results from it is one of these things. Humans sadly are always a bit dazed and confused, but can't admit it. Teenagers especially; again why has there been such an upsure of school shootings since the 70s, I don't think access to guns has anyway to do with it really.

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See below. I don't think there is anything wrong with gun ownership itself, it is the attitude behind owning the gun which counts. But also I think that if people were a bit less insecure and there was alot less crime then there wouldn't be a need for owning guns for self-defense; many societies after all have historically left their doors unlocked at night. If we are so frightened that gun ownership is a necessity for security then the battle is already been lost - the battle against a dark force we don't quite comprehend, which we hate for reasons we can't quite understand. This is again to repeat not a statement against gun ownership for private use, but against the idea that we need guns for self-defense; I don't think it is human nature to be that scared, it is a product of various sociocultural causes, most of which are impossible or at least very difficult to kill, especially if we don't "think outside the box".

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I don't want the state to have a monopoly on guns; again you misunderstand me, as I said I'm not for or against gun control. Rather I think libertarianism (in particular American libertarianism and Americans in general) has a rather perverted culture of gun worship, which I think is a major cause of crime. It is nothing something I believe that the state, by itself, can change. Attitudes have to change; but nothing is harder to do.

I don't believe government is run by the good guys... I believe "good government" is an oxymoron; what I'm getting is that our problems are caused by our particular intellectual and cultural assumptions and thus most of our 'solutions' are wrong. I don't think it matters if say every one in America had a gun but never used it.. or if no-one in America had a gun, but didn't care because there was no crime worth worrying about (I'm obviously using extreme unreal examples) but I think it does matter a great deal if it is implied that people should own guns not only to protect themselves but because gun ownership in itself is good and that violent individualistic vigiliante acts are good. Any idea that guns in themselves are good and necessary and even in some cases worshipped is an idea which is a blight upon the world; and as I said before I think it is attitudes which matter not 'things in-themselves' (like guns, government, banks, capitalism, sex or anything else which is under political dispute - Is Kant laughing at me too?). This is why I would hold that in America there is far more gun crime than in anywhere in Western Europe; okay there are also of course large sociological factors like poverty, discrimination and so on, but these can't excluded for ideas and social discourse either. I also think that saying that a crime happens because the individual is 'sick' or 'twisted' or something like that shows a very shallow misanthropy is helps reinforce the idea that criminals, the perverted, the sick, etc are somehow different from us and thus needs to be socially excluded and have their actions explained by some inane essentialist personality. To me no attitude could be more authoritian - which isn't to say that criminals aren't responisible for their actions either.

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Hume laughing at me.... well I remember arbitrary things, but you have misread me, I DON'T BELIEVE THAT THE WELFARE STATE WILL STOP CRIME, AT LEAST NOT BY ITS VERY EXISTENCE (clear?). Btw, you still haven't explained how precisely we can stop crime, except by libertarian quasi-vigiliantism. (Do we really want to associate gun ownership with power? That seems very un-libertarian to me.)

[minionofmidas]

AFAIK Gun control is a Nazi policy only insofar as they extended German law to Austria.

May I ask, how common is private gun ownership ins Deutschland anyway?

Depends who you ask, and what you count.

And where in the country.

1) I'm asking you.
2) All forms of equipment that are known in the English language as "guns", I will also add that these are non-metaphorical "guns" at that.
3) "ins Deutschland"

Hunting rifles? (Including these would dramatically increase regional variation - it's a northwestern thing)  Then there is/was the weird German cult of the Gaspistole... because they're easily available (still, though it's illegal to *carry* them loaded/unlocked without a license now...)