I will not address suicide or terrorism here and now. So, private, 1 x 1 murders...

It is NOT the case that "really American society thinks that murders ... are OK". It doesn't. The vast majority of Americans just don't have to worry about being murdered, and are not inclined to murder someone themselves.

Of the 5700+ Americans who were murdered in 2013, the majority of the 3005 whites murdered were killed in the South by other white southerners. White male southerner on white male southerner killings, mostly. Proportionate to population, this is not a terribly high rate. 224 million Americans are white, 3000 is a low rate, over all. It's a much higher rate for southern whites, of course.

2,491 blacks were killed by 2,245 black assailants that year. NOTE the population ratio: Blacks make up only 13% of the population. Most blacks are killed in the south or in core urban areas where they are a largely segregated population.

The reason most Americans don't care about the 2500 blacks killed in 2013 is because they assume the dead were involved in criminal activity. That's true sometimes, but even if it is true, murders should still be taken very seriously. If the 3000 whites killed were perceived to be criminals, gang members, or drug users or dealers, then most Americans wouldn't care very much about them getting shot either. This is a critical mistake on the part of "most Americans".

We do have a violent streak in the country, and it is located largely in the south, for both blacks and whites, and where ever blacks have migrated to from the south: LA, Chicago, Detroit, and so on. This isn't recent. For much of the post civil-war era, blacks were subject to more violence at the hands of whites, and they were more violent towards each other, than whites were to each other. (There are numerous explanations for the peculiar cultural poisons of the south.)

If you eliminate killings in the south and in the ghettos, you end up with much much lower rates of murder in the USA.

What single approach would reduce murders in both the south and in the ghetto? Clearly, actual vigorous law enforcement.

The fact is, especially in the ghettoes, the efforts to solve murders by the local police are phlegmatic at best, and more like malignant neglect. Good detectives manage to solve most of their cases in the ghettos. It's very hard work, but it can be done. Most ghetto murders don't get anything like a full-court-press. The police go through the motions of investigation, then let the case go cold. Many of the killings are cold blooded murders of innocent men. The message this neglect sends to violent thugs is, "Hey -- we don't care!" The message it sends to the rest of the community is "Hey, you don't matter!" The message it sends to the outside white community is "Hey, 'they' are a hopeless cause!"

Compare: In Minnesota the Jacob Wetterling kidnapping case has been pursued for 26 years without ceasing. Heaven and earth were moved to solve the Dru Sjodin murder case in Grand Forks, ND. When a killing occurs in North Minneapolis, it gets some attention, then disappears. Nothing like a no-holds-barred investigation is carried out.

This neglect is the result of police and civilian policy -- it isn't that the ghetto murders can't be solved, it's that they are not subjected to intense investigation. This fuels further violence, because shooters are getting away with murder -- literally. Black Lives Matter should focus on the lack of police effort along with gratuitous police violence.

It is NOT the case that "really American society thinks that murders ... are OK". It doesn't.

'It' is represented by the Houses of Congress. And the Houses of Congress have voted against every meaningful attempt to reduce availability of weapons for the last several decades. There are numerous state governments that are po-actively pushing 'open carry' laws, and basically encouraging the citzenry to carry guns whereever they go. After each mass-shooting event, at least one Republican representative will express the view that the shooting could have been prevented had more people had guns.

The number of deaths by gunshot in the USA per head of population is entirely disproportionate compared to comparable OECD countries such as UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, and so on. It is true that Mexico, Honduras, and other countries have worse numbers. But in developed nations, America is disproportionately represented. That is a fact that it is impossible to either deny or rationalise in my opinion.

Saying that the whole issue is one of law-enforcement is also problematical. The police know that the bad guys have guns, and are obviouslly only too willing to shoot first and ask questions later - hence the numerous scandals about police shootings, to add to the pile of coronial enquiries already underway. Imagine how much easier a culture would be to police, if there were fewer guns in circulation. (Vain hope, I know.)

It's also totally disengenous for the Republicans to pin the blame on 'mental health issues', as if they're willing to spend public funds on mental health. Aside from pandering to the gun lobby, the Republicans major pastime is launching vexacious litigation against public health, which they describe as 'communism'.

At least the Americans' attitude to capital punishment is getting more progressive:

'It' [American society] is represented by the Houses of Congress. — Wayfarer

This is your problematic assumption right here.

American society is not represented by the Houses of Congress. A very small, elite portion of American society is represented by the Houses of Congress. So it follows that a very small, elite portion of American society thinks that murder is okay, not because of 'freedom' but for the sake of the almighty dollar.

The number of deaths by gunshot in the USA per head of population is entirely disproportionate compared to comparable OECD countries such as UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, and so on. ... That is a fact that it is impossible to either deny or rationalise in my opinion. — Wayfarer

And I am not trying to deny or rationalize the rate of murder per 100,000, which as you correctly note is the highest (by far) in the OECD countries. What I have been trying to point out is that gun deaths are by no means uniformly distributed, but are geographically and demographically concentrated (which, obviously, is no sort of excuse).

Passing "Concealed carry" and "open carry" laws is, IMHO, a sign of certifiable and serious mental illness, which like gun deaths, seems to be concentrated in certain geographic and demographic categories. Lunatic legislators who pass such laws should be confined in long-term treatment facilities until they can be cured of their anti-social tendencies.

I understand Sweden has offered to set up large treatment centers for demented American legislators who have demonstrated a reckless and callous disregard for normal human society. Even the oppressed buddhists in Tibet have offered the use of several remote and largely inaccessible monasteries that have been under-utilized of late. American legislators would be accepted there for long-term contemplation of their profound and ineradicable wickedness.

Aside from pandering to the gun lobby... — Wayfarer

Pandering, indeed.

To pander: gratify or indulge an immoral or distasteful desire, need, or habit or a person with such a desire) ... a pimp.

a person who assists the baser urges or evil designs of others: the lowest panders of a venal gun lobby.

Etymological credit for the term PANDER goes to Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare.

Great satire.

So I have come to the conclusion that really American society thinks that murder and suicide are OK. — Wayfarer

Hyperbole, indeed.

hy·per·bo·le

/hīˈpərbəlē/

noun
noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, embroidery, embellishment, excess, overkill, rhetoric;

No, Americans don't like murder. Even if increased societal gun ownership could be linked to increased murder rates, a refusal to control gun ownership would not logically suggest that the society must like murder. What it would mean (assuming the issue were being democratically determined) is that the society believes that the positive consequences of gun ownership outweigh the negative.

The prevailing view, though, is not that the issue is one of democratic concern, but it is that gun ownership is an inherent right, constitutionally protected. This is not to say that there is not widespread support for gun ownership in the US, but it is to say that even if there weren't, there would be limitations on the regulations that the government could impose on gun ownership.

Aside from pandering to the gun lobby, the Republicans major pastime is launching vexacious litigation against public health, which they describe as 'communism'. — Wayfarer

It's possible that the gun lobby has disproportionate power due to political maneuvering, but I suspect its power really arises from the general sentiment among Republicans that the gun ownership is an inherent right. That is, Republican legislators are not voting in support of gun ownership just to appease the powerful gun lobby, but they are voting that way because that's actually what their constituency is demanding.

If a statement in the New York Times regarding Republican legislators and the sale of guns to those on the terrorist watch list, together with a statement in it that gun manufacturers have immunity from civil suit, suffices to convince you that American society accepts murder and suicide as okay, you're either very easily persuaded or have an exceedingly narrow conception of American Society.

"I've seen the future and it looks like murder."

Actually Pneumenon's post suggests the heart of the matter: conservatives and their knownothing party, the GOP, are in the grip of gun culture and really don't care if their gun "rights" require that several dozen schoolchildren get massacred every couple years or so, along with thousands of other people. They are fetishistic and beyond rational discourse.

But that's not America. Most Americans don't have strong feelings about guns one way or another. There are more pressing issues for them. The reason gun fetishism isn't a more important topic has a lot of causes, the dominance of the rightwing noise machine and its ability to distract people is one. But for whatever reason, normal Americans don't usually vote based on gun issues - the gun nuts do, and that's why they are able to dominate legislatures, especially in benighted areas of the country like the South.

But if the OP means that anybody who votes for a conservative is complicit in the death culture of America's advanced capitalist danse macabre, I'll agree to that.

But if the OP means that anybody who votes for a conservative is complicit in the death culture of America's advanced capitalist danse macabre, I'll agree to that.

Ah well. That's a far more responsible conclusion.

Ah well. That's a far more responsible conclusion. — Ciceronianus the White

I knew you'd agree with me.

But if the OP means that anybody who votes for a conservative is complicit in the death culture of America's advanced capitalist danse macabre, I'll agree to that. — Landru Guide Us

What good does making statements like that do except preach to the choir?

For that matter, what good does it do to state that Americans like murder when there are other possibilities, such as Americans think the 2nd Amendment is important and understand it a certain way? There's lots of things in modern life we accept as necessary despite the negative consequences, such as driving cars. That's because we think cars outweigh the disadvantage of pollution and deaths or injury from accidents. Similarly, enough Americans, or at least those who care about the issue, think that the right to own guns outweighs the terrible tragedies when certain individuals get their hands on guns and shoot up the place.

You might disagree with valuing a right Americans have considered fundamental since our founding, perhaps because your country does not, and that's fine, but to say that we like murder is a complete mischaracterization. At any rate, you're only rallying your own troops, who already agree with you. It has negative impact on the opposition. Not a single gun owner will be persuaded otherwise by being told they like murder.

What good does making statements like that do except preach to the choir? — Marchesk

Excoriating evil in words is good for the soul and the first step in defeating it in practice. How issues are framed determines how they get argued. The gun issue should be framed as the freaks and fetishists against rational normal Americans who want to go about their business without worrying a gun nut will shoot them.

Are you trying to say that people who disagree with your position are evil?

Instead of focusing on the rhetoric, focus on the issue. Everything else is a distraction.

Speaking of evil, Landru, people have been excoriating evil (sin, blaspheme, bad behavior, picking one's nose in public, etc.) for a very long time -- what, 3, 4, 5 thousand years now? My guess is that evil has been a steady constant, more or less, regardless of how excoriating the excoriations were.

Gun nuts reject the argument that they believe their guns are worth any number of mass murders. I reject it too. Their guns, after all, were not the guns used in the mass murder. (Unless they were, then they should be arrested, immediately.)

Almost certainly, they are not weighing their guns and mass murder on the sale scale. That's appropriate. Just because one has a dick doesn't make one a rapist (some radical feminists to the contrary). The rightness of owning guns is one issue, the wrongness of mass murder (or one murder) is a another issue. Almost everyone will agree that mass murder (or one murder) is a bad thing.

If you, Landru, owned 100 rifles, shotguns, vintage revolvers, and modern Glocks, that in itself wouldn't make you a threat to anyone--especially if you had your guns locked up. The locus of the problem wouldn't be YOU -- the individual, law abiding gun owner -- even the law abiding gun amasser. The problem is elsewhere.

What we have here is a "supply side" problem. Gun manufacturers (and ammunition makers) are making far more guns and ammunition than are needed for the 33% of the population (or 40%, to be generous) who wish to own guns, and they are making way too many inexpensive models which are (I presume) of very little interest to gun nut gun collectors.

As long as gun manufacturers (or small-drone makers, or bow and arrow makers, or manufacturers of laster pointers or just about anything else) can sell what they make, it isn't of that much interest to them what happens to the product. Pilots have reported incidents of being temporarily blinded by small laser devices directed at them, and close calls with drones have been reported. Having one of the larger small drones sucked into a jet engine could be a disaster. Do the drone manufacturers care? Probably not all that much.

Apparently assholes who point lasers into cockpits or direct picture taking drones into the flight paths of big jets don't care all that much either. But the assholes are the FIRST guilty parties.

What gun manufacturers are guilty of is flooding the market with cheap products, and so are people who use cheap guns to kill themselves and each other at a disturbingly high rate. Police who don't investigate and prosecute murderers aggressively are guilty. Terrorists are guilty, of course. Officials who wittingly aid and abet terrorists are guilty.

But people who own guns (and don't kill people with them) are not guilty.

Look - I'm as anti-gun as one can get, but it seems obviously to me that there is a difference between owning a gun for self defense, owning guns because one has a gun fetish and is a gun nut, AND owning a gun with the intent to use it on other people. I am totally against even law abiding people carrying guns, concealed or otherwise, because in the open, urban market place, the kind of incident where one might use a gun if one had one, and that may lead to a killing (or an injury) are very frequent.

Most of the people using guns to kill each other, or themselves, are not gun fetishists. Why would a gun nut want to kill himself and leave behind the guns he loves? He wouldn't. People who are prepared to commit murder, are probably not very attached to the gun they use. It suddenly becomes a liability and needs to be gotten rid of--by giving it to somebody else, if nothing else. One can always get another gun for the next murder (thanks to a saturated market).

It would be nice if rounding up all the gun nuts, gun fetishists, and crypto-fascists and putting them on a remote island would end the slaughter of what... 30 to 35 thousand people a year? But it wouldn't. Restricting the supply of guns would help guys in the ghetto live longer and if the supply were restricted enough, a lot of people wouldn't kill themselves. Killing someone else, or one's self, is quite often a rash decision. Absent a gun, the decision can't be made so easily.

So I think the debate needs to acknowledge the fact that, as far as Americans are concerned, high rates of murder and other kinds of death by gunshot, is simply a consequence of 'lviing in a free society'. 'Being free' means having plentiful access to the means to kill, and any attempt to curtail access to those means constitutes an 'infringement on freedom'. So face up to it. Freedom means, many people will continue to die - mothers, fathers, brothers, someone's dad, someone's son. Maybe they should all be given special recognition as having laid down their life for the rights of Americans to bear arms - because I think they are far more likely to get that, than any real protection from the possibiility of being shot. — Wayfarer

No, this is not freedom, and it's not even condoned by the constitution. The absolutely astounding interpretation of the second amendment by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled for the first time that individuals possess the right to bear arms in self-defense, is an egregious and laughably absurd decision.

The second amendment guarantees the right to bear arms only in the context of a well regulated militia. It does NOT guarantee the right for any individual to bear any arms they want. This means that five out of four judges on the Supreme Court possess zero reading comprehension and are likely shills for the corporate gun lobby. So before you start damning American culture as if you speak for it and all Americans, you must know that the American constitution and very many Americans do not agree with current gun policy in this country.

The second amendment guarantees the right to bear arms only in the context of a well regulated militia. — Thorongil

Does it? How has the Supreme Court and constitutional scholars traditionally understood the issue? You make it sound like it was well understood to just be in the context of maintaining a well regulated militia, until the most recent court. But individuals have retained the right to own guns long after the US had an official military.

But individuals have retained the right to own guns long after the US had an official military. — Marchesk

Yes, and wrongly. Read the second amendment and see if you can interpret it in any other way without twisting the meaning of the words beyond recognition. If the framers wanted to bestow the right to bear arms to individual Americans, then I don't see the necessity of including the clause about a well regulated militia at the beginning. Its inclusion is therefore significant. Keep in mind also that the militia spoken about effectively became the National Guard. Those belonging to it most definitely have the right to bear arms, as does the military. But the aforementioned decision is the first time the Supreme Court has ever said that individual Americans have the right to bear arms. That means that prior to it, it has never explicitly confirmed or denied whether the second amendment implies this, despite the fact that individual Americans have owned guns (again, wrongly, I would say).

Excoriating evil in words is good for the soul and the first step in defeating it in practice. — Landru Guide Us

And it's also good for making the opposition look bad. If we're on the side of righteousness and those evil, selfish, greedy bastards are out to drink our children's blood, well then, we don't need to bother with their side of the matter. We can just dismiss it.

How issues are framed determines how they get argued. — Landru Guide Us

Yes, indeed it does. As is so often the case with controversial issues. So let's frame it as good guys vs bad guys.

The gun issue should be framed as the freaks and fetishists against rational normal Americans who want to go about their business without worrying a gun nut will shoot them. — Landru Guide Us

Not, it should be framed as people have a different understanding of the second amendment, which has to be balanced with what to do about the problem of gun violence.

Are you trying to say that people who disagree with your position are evil? — Marchesk

Conservatism is evil, so to the extent conservatives disagree with me on their odious exploitative politics, they are evil.

Why do you find that hard to accept? Are you arguing that the exploitative, boorish, knownothing positions of conservatism aren't evil, or are you arguing we're not allowed to call it that?

Not, it should be framed as people have a different understanding of the second amendment, which has to be balanced with what to do about the problem of gun violence. — Marchesk

Yeah, that'll work. It's worked so far. Politics isn't about reason; it's about framing issues. The right knows that, which is why we don't have gun control in a nation where the overwhelming majority want it. They just don't vote on it. Why? Because the way you frame the issue fails.

And it's also good for making the opposition look bad. If we're on the side of righteousness and those evil, selfish, greedy bastards are out to drink our children's blood, well then, we don't need to bother with their side of the matter. We can just dismiss it. — Marchesk

That's exactly how you win political arguments - by delegimizing the other side. Ever hear of Gingrich's GOPAC memo? Of course you haven't. You want to bring a knife to a gun fight, to use an appropriate metaphor. Progressive need to do to the Right, what the Right did to progressives via the GOPAC memo.

Does it? How has the Supreme Court and constitutional scholars traditionally understood the issue? You make it sound like it was well understood to just be in the context of maintaining a well regulated militia, until the most recent court. But individuals have retained the right to own guns long after the US had an official military. — Marchesk

This is knownothingism. The best scholarship shows that the South wanted the 2nd Amendment (it's based on the Virginia Constitution written by George Mason - the largest slave owner in the country at the time) to prevent the North from limiting white death squads (militias) used to hunt down and kill fleeing slaves, and put down slave rebellions.

The South -- and Mason in particular - was paranoid about slave rebellions.

The sanitized NRA version of a militias being citizen soldiers is pure historical dreck. The 2nd Amendment was about one thing - southern slave owners killing and exploiting blacks. Your narrative is nonsense.

Gun nuts reject the argument that they believe their guns are worth any number of mass murders. I reject it too. Their guns, after all, were not the guns used in the mass murder. (Unless they were, then they should be arrested, immediately.) — Bitter Crank

I thought I made it clear: we shouldn't try to convince the gun nuts. They're hopeless. The point is to convince the majority of Americans who in fact want gun control but don't vote on that issue.

The way to nudge them to vote on the issue is to use the meme that the other side is totally illegitimate and freakish. It happens to be true, but that doesn't matter. Political memes don't work because they're factual, they work because the frame the issue in terms that people resonate with. They tell a story.

The narrative here is that the US is in the thrall of NRA paranoid gun nuts who hate democratic values, not to mention minorities, women, workers, etc. It happens to be true, but that's besides the point. The point is to never mention guns without this frame.

The sanitized NRA version of a militias being citizen soldiers is pure historical dreck. The 2nd Amendment was about one thing - southern slave owners killing and exploiting blacks. Your narrative is nonsense. — Landru Guide Us

Ah, so a controversial issue and it's entire history can be boiled down to just one thing.

The best scholarship shows that — Landru Guide Us

By best, you mean the scholarship that boils it down to one thing.

Are you arguing that the exploitative, boorish, knownothing positions of conservatism aren't evil, or are you arguing we're not allowed to call it that? — Landru Guide Us

No, I'm arguing that you call them that for the same reason conservatives call you evil.

The narrative here is that the US is in the thrall of NRA paranoid gun nuts who hate democratic values, not to mention minorities, women, workers, etc. It happens to be true, but that's besides the point. The point is to never mention guns without this frame. — Landru Guide Us

Jesus man, this is not promoting a healthy democracy. I get it that the other side decided to play mean and dirty in their interest of power, but this kind of framing doesn't help. It divides people. It polarizes. The problem with your average conservative is that they hear too much of that crap on their radio and TVs. Then they end up thinking liberals are their enemies, and an evil amongst them that needs to be dealt with somehow. That goes nowhere good.