Quote:
Originally Posted by u crank
I hope you are joking. Yes?
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Yeah, don't worry, I was.
I know the 1960s weren't all peace and love, and it's hard to get an unbiased view of it from those who lived through it because of the rose spectacles affect. But I really don't think that mainstream culture in general was as violent as it is now...perhaps that is because of the change of the pace of life, how things have become a lot faster now as we compete against machines, thing has to be done right now, I want to have it right now. Instant gratification, whilst we are constantly reminded by the mass media that another terrorist incident could happen 'any time now'.
Perhaps as a society we have become so depressed after 9/11 that life carries less of the meaning that it once did?
That's one for the philosophers really, it's hard to prove any mood or emotion to a society because of its nebulous existance. You can only state what you think that society is based upon your own experience of it, and there's more society on this planet than one human can take in in their lifespan. So, one has to make generalisations a bit, or build Deep Thought.
This, of course, brings us back to the problem of solving culture and society. I mean, government can barely control its own budget, how on Earth would it go about controlling or changing culture, without just driving it underground, I mean we all know the
Streisand effect and how attempting to supress something can just lead to it going 'underground'. The Prohibition is another case that comes to mind.
So clearly, banning firearms is not going to work, I can say that hand on heart that it is my firm belief that banning things will not work. Not once have I proposed banning firearms in America because I know how absolutely impossible such a thing would be.
I can understand why this impassé has come about, I can see how both sides have just gotten more and more entrenched every single time this subject comes up to the point where some sides treat gun owners as a mass murderer waiting to happen, and the other side sees guns as being up there with Jesus, as Torplexed pointed out.
Does this mean that America should just give up on the problem? Stop trying to find a way to make all gun owners as safe and as responsible as the majority claim they are? To make sure that people who contemplate taking a gun into school and opening fire are detected and given the necessary mental health treatment before they can inflict harm on others? To make it harder for people to undertake these acts so that they either do not bother or are forced to use a more difficult weapon to kill others, be it a knife (using which they will be forced to approach their victims at close range, opening themselves up to potential disarmament) or a bomb (gathering and researching the materials for such gives a more than reasonable chance that you'll be noticed by someone).
Of course, you won't stop the really determined ones, those who would be cool and collected enough to fool anyone for years until they snap. You can't get them all, no matter how hard you try, but that doesn't mean that you should not try for the risk of failure.
Time will tell...sadly I think we'll be back here kicking this can around a few more times before this year is out.