[Sailor Steve]

Continued from the 'Terrorist Attack In South Carolina' Thread:

Originally Posted by Oberon

I think this is where between America and the rest of the world there is the vital disconnect. There's not many other countries out there that have such a fear of government, bordering in some cases on paranoia.

We've already side-stepped from another tragedy to another gun control argument. I'd like to side-step a little further, into other reasons why the United States and other countries don't always understand each other. We are currently commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First World War, and a new thread has been started observing the 75th anniversary of the Battle Of Britain. One of the things I've encountered from various Europeans of my acquaintance over the years is a mild animosity towards the United States over our reluctance to get involved in either of those wars until rather late in the game. In one case it was more than mild, tending towards outright condemnation. I had to explain and remind that our Revolution was against British actions, yet we always faced the reminder that we were still British ourselves. This meant maintaining a hostility toward our closest relatives while holding court with our traditional enemies. The fact that the closest of those enemies (France) was also our greatest help during our break with Britain might have made a difference, but then we had to face a new France that had killed the royalty and nobility who had helped us and set up a new, supposedly democratic but in actuality truly tyrannical government, which was itself soon replaced by an outright dictatorship.

Where all of this led was to our first president, after having allied himself with the British against the French, which cause trouble for the next two administrations, finished his second term with an admonishment that "... nothing is more essential than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular Nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that in place of them just & amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated."
-George Washington, Farewell Address, 1797

In fact after breaking the ties with France formed in 1778 the United States did not enter into another formal military alliance until the creation of NATO in 1949. Many of us consider the alliances that led to World War 1 to be the perfect justification for our reluctance to do the same.

This is often classified by Americans as blind obedience to governments, whereas others would classify it as a form of trust.

The basic concept in America is that the government has no rights. Any power granted to the government is done so by the people. If you trust the government so much that you give up your freedoms to them, what do you do in the case where the government does indeed turn tyrannical and decides to take the rest? No trust should ever be placed in the government. It should serve the people, and never the other way around.

I would ponder though, since 1787, how many times the US government has legitimately earned that distrust? Not just in a way that would upset those of a particular political leaning, but an active lurch into an area that the populace did not want it to go.

A good question. The answer would seem to be none, which could be said to imply that our distrust is wrong. On the other hand it could be said to imply that

A) The people in charge of the government are themselves distrustful, and are careful to keep it that way, or

B) The government is careful not to earn that distrust because they've see what happens when we don't like the way the government treats us.

Many times people in the US will state that gun control is the first step into a tyrannical, dictatorial government...

Possibly, possibly not, but without an armed citizenry what is to keep that from happening? As people have also stated in the US, the Second Amendment is what makes the First Amendment possible. Like the other, that is a trite homily, but there is also some truth behind it. If your leaders stated tomorrow that no books could be published without direct permission from Parliament, what could anyone do about it?

completely ignoring the relaxation of gun control in Nazi Germany.

I read that article, and it is more than a little biased. The author mentions the disarming of the Jews, but justifies it with the point that very few of them were armed anyway, and their handful of guns was of no help in Warsaw and they may have even made it worse. My objection to that is that the author implies that they shouldn't have tried at all. The gun-rights advocate would point out that if they had all been armed it might have been a different story. I will only point out that while it is true that the Nazis did relax gun control, they only did so for the "right" people. The also disarmed the populace of the countries they conquered and occupied.

Of course the author of the article is a gun-control advocate. The problem there is that every article arguing the other side is also a highly biased gun advocate site. There seems to be no one willing to look at both sides of the question and seek honest answers.

...and this is logical, but one could argue that there are plenty of other ways to curb a peoples freedom than removing firearms, and in that respects there are some nations that it could be argued have greater freedoms in areas than the US has but who practice firearm regulation in a stricter manner than the US.

It could also be argued that those greater freedoms are granted by the government, and are in place only so long as the government continues to grant them.

It's something that's going to come to a head there at some point in the future, and it could, legitimately, lead to civil strife.

One can only hope that some equitable solution is found before that happens.

And now I've stayed up way past my bedtime, and I have to go crash.