Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's a bizarre story. A pair of Jewish legislators from Maryland who are sponsoring a gun control bill have been attacked by an allegedly Jewish pro-gun group using nasty anti-Semitic slurs.
A Maryland senator and delegate are the targets of a flier that attacks them as "bagel brain Jews" for their support of pending firearms legislation in the General Assembly and accuses them of pursuing "racist policies to destroy your gun rights."Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat, said the flier - with the headline "Bagel Brain Jews Want Your Bullets and Your Guns" - was mailed to his home and to those of others in his precinct.
The fliers are produced by a group called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and the leader of this group seems like quite the head case.
The flier was produced by group called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, whose executive director is Aaron Zelman of Hartford, Wis.Zelman said his group produced the handbill and makes it available on its Web site but denied distributing it. "That's what the Internet is for. Let someone else go do it."...
Zelman, who said he is Jewish, said the group has about 6,500 members around the country. The group's Web site includes reproductions of handbills attacking Jewish and black politicians who support various measures opposed by gun rights advocates.
They include a flier aimed at Maryland state Sen. Michael G. Lennett, a Montgomery Democrat, under the headline "A Jew Should Not Support Racism" and a portrayal of four Jewish U.S. senators in Nazi uniforms.
Zelman said the organization will "go after" any official who supports gun control but acknowledged that the group pays extra attention to Jews who take that position. "I think it's important for Jews to wake up, to learn from history and stop being dangerously stupid."
The phrase "you first" comes to mind.
Politics
Comments
Bagel brain? Never heard that one before. Although I've never met a Jew who didn't love a good bagel.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 9:14 AM
Not that I'm in favor of this, but I think it is something of a stretch to claim that "bagel brain" is a classic sign of anti-semitism. More like a sign of still being in third grade.
Sharon
Posted by: Sharon Astyk | March 18, 2010 9:27 AM
So apparently gun control is now a race issue.
Right. [/sarcasm]
Posted by: Mobius | March 18, 2010 9:42 AM
Oy vey iz mir. First of all, this is my county in Maryland. Second of all, these are (in some cases I'm sorry to say) my people.
WTH does "bagel brain Jews" even mean? And okay, you think it's important that every nutcase should be able to keep a full arsenal in his home, fine, but how is supporting gun control "racism"?
Posted by: Mara | March 18, 2010 9:51 AM
I would like to second the comment made by Mobius, and add an "Er...what?"
Posted by: Captain Mike | March 18, 2010 10:01 AM
There probably ought to be a pun about "gun lox" somewhere around here....
Posted by: abb3w | March 18, 2010 10:02 AM
Bagel brain? Sounds like a SCHMEAR campaign to me.
Posted by: secularsquare | March 18, 2010 10:05 AM
Mr. Zelman is no relation to 'Oily Tits' I presume? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 18, 2010 10:50 AM
You don't have to be Jewish to love ... bagels. Yum!
Posted by: Bob Carroll | March 18, 2010 11:08 AM
Bagels are boiled...
The whole thing leads back to the question is it racist to use race specific insults usually considered offensive when used interracially in an intraracial context (see the proliferation of "ni...." in the hip-hop culture)?
Posted by: Mu | March 18, 2010 11:10 AM
Folks, you're interpreting this all wrong. Don't you know, when you cross a Beagle with a Basset Hound, the result is known as a Bagel Hound? And that these animals are not known for their intelligence? (I should know, I own two.)
To complicate the analogy further, Bagel Hounds have been known to go to great lengths to obtain actual bagels.
So obviously Mr. Zelman is not really insulting his fellow Jews, just comparing them to adorable but unintelligent and food-obsessed dogs. See? All better now.
/eye roll
Posted by: KristinMH | March 18, 2010 11:22 AM
I sincerely hope you're not implying that somewhere out there is a dog who likes people food.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 11:27 AM
Posted by: Mandrake | March 18, 2010 11:40 AM
Jews really like bagels. This is not a stereotype. They all like bagels.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 11:49 AM
Why is it that so often I see someone on the "my side" of an issue going about the "debate" all wrong? I mean ALL WRONG. Showing pictures of legislators in Nazi uniforms will lose the debate almost every time. Dumbasses.
Posted by: Juice | March 18, 2010 11:53 AM
If Bagel Hounds actually exist, I must have one. If they don't exist, we should make some.
Posted by: catgirl | March 18, 2010 11:58 AM
And Ed, you are also degrading the quality of debate when you call someone a "gun nut."
Maybe you're against gun possession and using firearms for self-defense, but that doesn't mean you have to call those who disagree "gun nuts."
Posted by: Juice | March 18, 2010 11:59 AM
There are many people who own and use guns for legitimate reasons, and they agree that some control measures are necessary and useful. Then there are those who object to any type of gun control measures, falsely jumping to the conclusion that any type of gun control is the same as outright banning of guns. Some in that group go even farther to make racist slurs and thinly-veiled threats against senators. Those people are in fact "gun nuts". Nowhere did Ed make the claim that all gun owners or supporters of gun rights are "gun nuts". Perhaps you should look up "straw man fallacy" in a dictionary, but that would likely be too much for your little troll brain to handle. I'm sure that dividing large groups into smaller subgroups is a very difficult concept for you to grasp.
Posted by: catgirl | March 18, 2010 12:10 PM
"It must be a SCHMEAR campaign..." -J.G. (co-worker)
Posted by: Troy | March 18, 2010 12:10 PM
Two Words: Never Again
Posted by: alabamayid | March 18, 2010 12:16 PM
catgirl,
Some people would consider all gun control measures unreasonable. Is it ok for them to call you a "gun grabber?" Are you cool with that term? Should the debate be "paranoid gun nuts versus paranoid gun grabbers"?
Posted by: Juice | March 18, 2010 12:18 PM
You ever try to eat lox on a board of matzoh?
Posted by: Mandrake | March 18, 2010 12:20 PM
I think there's nothing wrong with calling somebody who is for an absolute ban on firearms a "gun grabber." Likewise, somebody who wants Wal-Mart to sell machine guns to 10-year-olds is a "gun nut." If you read this organization's views, it's not unreasonable to call them gun nuts.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 12:21 PM
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
A Jewish guy in Hartford?
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 18, 2010 12:22 PM
Could it be that perhaps, "your side" of the issue, is wrong?
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 18, 2010 12:27 PM
Catgirl: they are mist definitely real. Here's a picture:
http://scintillator.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/img_0664.jpg
They aren't generally bred on purpose, but they turn up at rescues and shelters every now and then. I've only met one other beagle/basset in Toronto.
Posted by: KristinMH | March 18, 2010 12:31 PM
Stranger and stranger...one of the JPFO members is a Holocaust revisionist:
http://www.thejudeosphere.com/?p=1101
Posted by: Judeosphere | March 18, 2010 12:39 PM
Jews really like bagels. This is not a stereotype. They all like bagels.
But so do most of us goyim, so that's not a distinguishing characteristic ;-).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | March 18, 2010 12:42 PM
Posted by: catgirl | March 18, 2010 12:50 PM
Maryland already has some pretty tight gun control. People who support gun owners rights are not really keen to have more restrictions heaped onto them.
See Here (in modern terms, excessive gun control harms those least able to escape from poverty and violence and least able to navigate byzantine laws and regulations, i.e. minorities). As it applies to Jews, see WWII.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 1:27 PM
Eamon is right. Almost everyone who has had the chance to eat real bagels likes them, regardless of ethnicity. (The eater's or the baker's--I used to get fine pumpernickel bagels from a place run by first-generation Thai immigrants.)
Some people have only had the pallid imitations sold by Lenders or Dunkin Donuts (there is nothing wrong with donuts, but they are not bagels), and think they don't like bagels. (The fine points of New York versus East London versus Montreal bagels are beyond the scope of this digression.)
Posted by: Vicki | March 18, 2010 1:34 PM
My friends and I used to import bagels from New York. Expensive but totally worth it.
Posted by: Brandon | March 18, 2010 1:37 PM
No.
This is a subjective political debate. There is no right or wrong answer. There is a right and wrong way to go about winning the debate. Maybe I should say a that there are effective and ineffective ways to present the debate.
Where does it say that they want vending machines selling guns to 10 year olds?
These people want fewer restrictions than you do. That's all.
They appear to regard gun registration lists as as a means to disarm people and so they opoose federal gun registration lists specifically. Registration lists have been used to round up guns and gun owners in the past in other countries so they have a point here. And they also have a legitimate beef with the ATF (BATFE), which has always been a really sleazy agency, especially since they have ramped up asset forfeiture. Members of the ATF joke that the acronym stands for "Always Think Forfeiture," reminding agents what their real job is.
JPFO does not, to my knowledge, want the scenario, as alluded to above, that there should be 9mm's passed out on elementary school playgrounds.
IMO, their arguments are actually pretty tame, but their attention-getting methods are counterproductive.
Posted by: Juice | March 18, 2010 1:40 PM
And in CA in 1999.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 2:00 PM
Juice @ 33:
I think your overall argument is tenable with the exception of this perspective. I've got a brother who is an avid gun rights advocate which has forced me to learn a ton about gun laws, the policy arguments, and the culture of that movement, which varies greater than people's stereotypes. Even he would concede, and I think his peers would as well, that registration is a reasonable regulation without our having a history to fear it or present threats that justify new-found concern. His perspective is that the ones that are anti-registration also hold other common conspiracy notions, like the FEEMA concentration camps, black helicopters, and Obama is a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 18, 2010 2:52 PM
Actually, given that no one has established defined parameters of the debate, it isn't a subjective political debate *yet*. Also, the reality is that while some who agree with you regarding responsible gun ownership are just average folks who own guns, others are "gun nuts" who believe that selling automatic combat shotguns designed for military use is "responsible gun ownership." Or that armor piercing rounds, incendiary rounds, fully automatic assault rifles, anti-tank weapons, hell even artillery are all rights protected by the second amendment.
If you willingly associate with people like these and are willing to accept their support, then your subjective debate argument goes right out the window, just like someone who favors reasonable gun regulation and limitations but accepts the support of anti-gun nuts loses the validity of their argument.
In the case of JPFO, they are gun nuts, and conspiracy nuts. "Racist roots of gun control?" A "UN assault on the Bill of Rights?" Blaming 70 million deaths in the 20th century on gun control? Add in an argument that Obama was born in Kenya and these guys would fit right in at most aluminum foil hat conventions.
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 18, 2010 3:04 PM
As a CPL holder, the state already knows I own guns, which is, IMHO, about all the state needs to know (i.e. that I own a firearm; the types, serial numbers, and count are not relevant to a governmental need).
If the state is interested in knowing more than, "I own a firearm", then I want a Constitutional Amendment that prevents the state from confiscating any legally owned firearm of mine prior to securing a conviction for a violent felony.
When CA passed their AWB in 1999, CA used their detailed registry and a lot of people had legally owned property confiscated and destroyed without compensation.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 3:19 PM
As a CPL holder, the state already knows I own guns, which is, IMHO, about all the state needs to know (i.e. that I own a firearm; the types, serial numbers, and count are not relevant to a governmental need).
If the state is interested in knowing more than, "I own a firearm", then I want a Constitutional Amendment that prevents the state from confiscating any legally owned firearm of mine prior to securing a conviction for a violent felony.
When CA passed their AWB in 1999, CA used their detailed registry and a lot of people had legally owned property confiscated and destroyed without compensation.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 3:22 PM
I am totally bagel-brained. There are days when my brain feels like it has been boiled in alkalized water.
(Unfortunately I live in a very goyische neighborhood with no good bagels, so I've had to resort to making my own. Nothing like a freshly boiled-and-baked bagel!)
Posted by: Moopheus | March 18, 2010 3:59 PM
Why doesn't the government need to know any of this?
Why does it need to know similar information about my car? Why do I have to register my car, every car? Why do I have to have it specially licensed, have that registration renewed every year, for each and every car? Don't I have a 5th amendment property right and 9th amendment penumbral rights? Why can't I just have a driver's license and then own as many cars as I want and do whatever I wish with them at any time?
I'm sorry madscientist, that's a rather silly argument and I'm quite neutral towards gun control.
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 18, 2010 4:14 PM
dogmeatib - Fine, we can treat gun ownership as we do car ownership, but then shall everyone 16 and up who can pass a state test and obtain insurance be free and even socially encouraged to bear arms in public?
It's simply not true that if you're a responsible, moderate, etc. gun owner, nobody is calling you a "gun nut." Extreme supporters of gun confiscation regularly demonize gun owners as a group. It doesn't do any good to turn around and claim you were only referring to the tinfoil-hat crowd if previously you were speaking as if America's ca. 80-90 million gun owners (or all those who want to keep owning their guns, anyway) were all tinfoil-hat wearers. That represents a large fraction of the population that does not deserve name-calling.
People who are on the receiving end of such dehumanizing rhetoric, by the way, are likely to object more strongly to being disarmed, because their environment seems more threatening. I'm not a big fan of Zelman, and Jews are certainly not an oppressed group in modern America, but the guy does have a point in saying that if there are people out there who want to kill you, just for being you, it might someday be very handy to have an equalizer.
Posted by: dewey | March 18, 2010 4:57 PM
Actually, if you do not operate your car on the public roads, then the state does not really care. Unless the majority of states have changed the laws recently, automobile titles are merely proof of ownership, and you are not required register your car unless you plan on driving it on the public roads. Registration data and fees are primarily for tax purposes to support those public roads.
I'm ok with telling the state what guns I may carry concealed in public (I only have a few), but guns that I keep at home are none of their business.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | March 18, 2010 7:01 PM
There is a long and contentious debate concerning gun ownership, use, and carrying in the USA. It's true that the extreme antigun faction would like to remove all gun ownership from US citizens. Also true is the converse, that some extremists think that no justification exists for any limitations on gun possession.
As a long-time NRA member and more recent member of the ACLU, I believe that gun ownership is essential to our nation. The founders of our nation thought it to be second only to the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. I would like to see that gun safety courses be readily available, and promoted in such a way that all or most of us have a reasonable competence in their use. I would also like to see that use of a gun in a crime be treated with the utmost severity.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | March 18, 2010 9:11 PM
#30"...(in modern terms, excessive gun control harms those least able to escape from poverty and violence and least able to navigate byzantine laws and regulations, i.e. minorities)."
You know that the "gun control=racism" argument is a bad one when the implications laid out in the reasons for supporting it (that minorities are less able than non-minorities "to escape from poverty and violence", that minorities are less able than non-minorities to be able to "navigate byzantine laws and regulations") are borderline racist themselves. Face it, a law that applies to EVERYONE ("majorities" as well as "minorities") cannot be racist.
"As it applies to Jews during WWII."
Wow, a real classy thing to write in the context of defending the "gun control=racism" argument used against two JEWISH legislators.
Posted by: daniel rotter | March 18, 2010 9:28 PM
Bob Carroll @ 43:
Welcome to the ACLU. While I'm not a member of the NRA, most of my family is and I'm sympathetic on many gun rights issues. The primary reason I don't consider joining the NRA is because I believe one's arguments should be empirical when at all possible and at a minimum be based on peer-reviewed work. Their publications are not, at least when it comes to analyzing how the inventory of guns correlates with crime and casualties. Therefore I don't buy their policy arguments while remaining empathetic on some of their constitutional fights such as Heller.
Bob Carroll @ 43:
Not sure if you are new around here or not, but most of this forum considers it good form to link to an empirically valid citation when making provocative assertions. As an ardent student of the founding, I'd certainly like to review the basis of the assertion I quote from you here.
Bob Carroll @ 43:
My dad was a hunter safety instructor. I probably took the class when I was around 10 - 12. I still remember it vividly in spite of my being 50 now. I probably retained those lessons better than any single class I've ever taken.
My primary concern about increasing gun awareness and promoting increased usage in our society is my suspicion that increased pervasiveness would lead to a huge increase in irresponsibility per capita. This is merely a hunch on my part but it is a concern.
From my limited perspective it seems to me most gun owners I've known came to be owners through their parents. I find people coming to it of their own volition without being raised in the culture similar to the disproportionate number of college-age binge drinkers who come from tee-totaler homes. I do admit this is merely my opinion and its humbly held.
I came to this conclusion debating a family member who strongly advocates for carry law expansions on public universities, especially after the VTU slaughter a few years back. I reminded him that while a higher carrying rate may have limited the number of deaths in that one incident, what would be the marginal increase in impulse shootings if you had a campus and a culture where people are packing? I'm particularly mindful of their age and the fact the part of the brain that controls these compulsions doesn't fully mature until they're about 25.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 18, 2010 9:36 PM
Michael, I have just read your comments on 3/19 concerning hunting, especially hunting for food. As a gun owner, I definitely came to it from my father, whose Ithaca shotgun I possessed until I realized that others would have a better use for it. I passed it on to the next gen, so currently I'm gunless. I belong to the NRA primarily because I like the technical & hunting articles in their publications, American Hunter/Rifleman. Every year, when it comes time to renew membership I debate myself, as "Do I want to keep supporting these troglodites" So far my conflict has resulted in a continued membership.
I comment on to friends as follows, more or less: "Yeah, I'm a card-carrying ACLU member. Wanna see my card?" (I think that Barbara Forrest used that line, not long ago...) I also tell 'em that my NRA card snuggles up to the aforementioned in my wallet, just to piss each other off.
I didn't realize my comment above @43 was provocative, but it had a good result, your reply. Consider it merely a weak assertion, concerning the order of the Amendments. Quoting Tom Paxton, no doubt inappropriately, "If it isn't number one, it's number two."
You and Ed and the Hanleys make this the first blog I check every day. Please accept my sincere appreciation, and wishes for more of the same.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | March 19, 2010 11:23 AM
Michael Heath: "the part of the brain that controls these compulsions doesn't fully mature until they're about 25"
I have wondered whether that isn't due to our culture's extreme prolongation of childhood, and whether if we responded by infantilizing people up to the age of 25, we might not then discover that the parts of the brain responsible for mature, self-disciplined behavior actually don't mature until the age of 32. (Certain helicopter parents of college students may be testing this hypothesis for me right now.) AFAIK there are no good studies of brain maturation in non-Western cultures where children have significant responsibilities from a young age. It's possible that the argument you refer to is comparable to saying that people should not begin to lift weights until they have developed large muscles.
Posted by: dewey | March 19, 2010 11:23 AM
daniel rotter @ 44
Such is the reasoning used to promote many public assistance programs targeted at minorities by their very advocates. What is good for the goose and all. Now, given that in places like NY, or CA, (or other Shall-issue states), if you want a gun for personal protection, you have to jump through a lot of hoops, hoops that the rich, powerful, and famous can either bypass completely, or easily afford to navigate. Such laws are not racist per se, but are certainly classist/elitist. They certainly do not, therefore, apply equally to all.
Also, the link I posted above details the racist roots of US Gun Control (southern laws to keep black people from defending themselves, The Sullivan Act to keep minorities in NY from arming themselves, etc). Such laws exist even today in the world to keep ill-favored minorities from fighting back against abuse and genocide (see Africa).
My reference to the Jews in WWII is valid as it applies to racism. The Nazis practiced racist genocide against the Jews, and they started by disarming them. If one group of Jews wants to level charges of racism against another because they feel that they've forgotten recent history, I'm not gonna get in the middle of that. As a matter of fact, except for the Jewish readers here, none of us really have a dog in that part of the fight.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | March 19, 2010 2:55 PM
I agree, young adults don't learn how to be thoughtful & responsible until older adults begin to expect them to be so. It's one of the reasons veterans are sought after in the civilian workplace, because even though they may be young, they are generally thoughtful and very responsible, because the military demands that of them. I wonder if the study that Michael Heath is thinking of differentiated between youth who've been through the military, and who haven't.
Still, Michael does have a point in that a great deal of our youth today are irresponsible, which is why we have a drinking age of 21, and why it is, in almost every state, illegal for a person under 21 to purchase or own a handgun (the VT shooter was 23, and badly off his rocker). I do think that anyone who seeks a concealed carry permit should be required to attend some kind of training covering legal issues and shooting skills.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | March 19, 2010 3:05 PM
That seems fair. Of course, the comparison to cars made earlier could also raise the point that students in most places are given driver's education in high school for free, so that they need not pay for private schooling in order to pass their driving tests. Perhaps training in the safe handling of firearms should also be part of the curriculum, as a health-and-safety measure. (My guns don't do nearly as much damage to the environment as my neighbors' SUVs, so I don't see why schools should ignore or discourage gun ownership yet actively promote driving.)
Posted by: dewey | March 19, 2010 5:07 PM
"Such is the reasoning used to promote many public assistance programs targeted at minorities by their very advocates."
Really? Who are these unnamed "advocates" and when/where have they engaged in this condescending and racist "(un)reasoning?" Examples please.
As for "southern laws" and "The Sullivan Act," did those laws apply to minorities only? If they did, then that would indeed be racist, but irrelevant in the context of defending the "racist" argument made by Zelman against Frosh and Rosenberger, since their law applies to EVERYBODY.
"The Nazis practiced racist genocide agains the Jews,..."
Uh, no they didn't (well, not the "racist" part, anyway), since Jews aren't a "race," they are a religious group. If Congress decided to outlaw Judaism, it would be against the First Amendment's Freedom of RELIGION guarantee. It would not be the equivalent of outlawing being Caucasian outlawing being African-American, etc.
Posted by: daniel rotter | March 19, 2010 9:22 PM
Gun control. Heh.
I live in the UK. I've never seen a handgun in this country - they were made completely illegal when I was in my teens - although I have, of course, seen them in other places (notably, the Philippines and, of course, the USA). Here, the number of gun murders each year is low. Really, really, really low - sometimes fewer than one a week, in a population of over 60,000,000.
In 2005, England and Wales (53,000,000 people) experienced 50, count 'em fifty, gun homicides.
The USA has a population of a little over 300,000,000. In 2005, 10,100 people died in gun murders.
If the USA had had the rate that England and Wales had, then the USA as a whole would have experienced 250 murders by gun in 2005.
People say that the difference is cultural. British people are just more civil. Britain doesn't have so many ethnic minorities. Britain has an oppressive, Orwellian state with millions of CCTV cameras.
In reality, British people are just as dickish as anyone else. The UK does have a very large population of ethnic minorities, and because the island we live on is so small, you will always been near to a large town with a large non-white population (something not true of, say, residents of Wyoming). And the so-called Orwellian CCTV camera thing - well, needless to say, those CCTV cameras are privately owned, and while the police can use their tapes as evidence, they're not there to spy on you.
But the problem is cultural. For whatever reason, some Americans are unwilling to give up the privilege of owning an implement designed solely to end human life. A rifle - yes, fantastic. Keep it. But don't extend the same right to own a peaceable weapon (oxymoron?) like that to handguns owned for "personal protection" or, even, that crazy libertarian argument about needing to defend liberty from the government. Using handguns.
Against a military with $700 billion behind it.
From the perspective of the vast majority of people on this island, even debating the issue is crazy. Feel free to continue debating it, of course. I love action movies, and the lack of handguns is one of the many reasons why action movies set in the UK are rare. Hard to have a Lethal Weapon without Martin Riggs' hand cannon.
Posted by: Al West | March 20, 2010 4:46 PM
Al West, the difference is more than just what you described. The U.K. is still a more equal country than the U.S. has ever been. Minorities and the poor in the U.K. aren't living nearly as badly as they do in the U.S., plus the society is still somewhat less stratified than in America. This sounds irrelevant, but there's evidence that social stratification and lack of safety nets is a major cause in creating violent subcultures. It's not (just) a question of unavailability of guns; the non-firearm homicide rate is higher in the U.S. than in the U.K, too: 1.98 per 100 000 in the U.S. vs. 1.3 in the U.K.. Now if you consider that at least some gun-murders wouldn't be wholly prevented simply by there being no guns, you can see that indeed the U.S. has significantly more people murdering each other, guns or no.
Plus, considering how many guns are already out there, and how many of them circulate among "private sellers and buyers", it would be nigh impossible to make all guns disappear from the U.S.
Posted by: Jadehawk | March 20, 2010 5:08 PM
The practical issue is the real killer, isn't it? I can't say that proposing UK-style gun control measures in the US would be a solution to the 10,000+ gun homicides a year - it wouldn't work, certainly not right off the bat. Especially with, well, paranoid gun nuts continuing to exist. Getting rid of all handguns in the USA is probably impossible, and with the Mexican border already leaking illegal produce...
As for equality, I would concede that it is probably the most important structural factor. It doesn't sound irrelevant at all.
But what can be done about it? I mean, here, we have the welfare state, the NHS, unemployment benefit... I expect those things help.
I'm not, by the way, trumpeting the UK. I really don't like it - it's an ugly, boring place. I'm not a patriot (patriotism isn't big here in any case). But it does get some things right, and gun control is one of them.
Posted by: Al West | March 20, 2010 5:33 PM
Sure, Jews practice Judaism as a faith. However, the Nazis went after Jews as a faith & a race (they went after Gypsys and other non-Aryans as well). It was racial Genocide, against anyone non-Aryan.
Initially yes, back in the 1800's. When the civil rights movement gained steam, and desegregation began, the laws were changed to apply to all, but were only enforced against the minorities.
So you trade a low murder rate for a high violent crime rate? Well, if you are happy with that. By the way, the US gun homicide statistics include all firearm homicides, including shootings by police, and shootings that occur in the course of legally justified self defense. Unfortunately, there are no good numbers on how many are justifiable since police departments are not required to report justifiable homicide as such (they just report a homicide to the CDC). Personally, I find that unfortunate, since it would help the rest of us know how trigger happy the police are, and a better perspective on the prevalence of violent crime in this country.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | March 21, 2010 12:02 AM
"It was racial Genocide against anyone non-Aryan."
Not really, since in the Nazi worldview, "non-Aryan" did not automatically mean "non-Caucasian," the implication in your above sentence to the contrary. My dictionary definition of "Aryan:" "(in Nazi doctrine): a non-Jewish Caucasian." So the Nazis THEMSELVES believed that a Jew can be white, making the "Nazis targeting Jews"="Nazis treating Jews as a race" claim nonsensical.
Posted by: daniel rotter | March 21, 2010 4:16 AM
Err, yes. Of course I'd be willing to trade a ludicrously high gun homicide rate for a higher overall violent crime rate. When someone is murdered, they die. When someone is assaulted, they probably won't. I would much rather be punched in the face than shot in it. And that's the problem with these statistics: "violent crime" includes both of those things, and simply counting incidents (reported incidents - the likelihood of reporting an incident to the police is also a factor) is going to make things look much worse than they are.
As for the US 2005 stats: let's say that only half of the 10,000 are genuine homicides, and not self-defense or police shootings. That's still 5,000 in one year, which is 100 times the rate of England and Wales in a country only 5 times as big. And that's being generous.
That's a serious problem.
As Jadehawk pointed out above, the US has a higher murder rate than the UK - how is it possible to believe that a country with a higher overall murder rate and a far, far, far higher gun murder rate is in a better position than a country which has a higher "violent crime rate"?
I prefer it when, you know, people don't die.
I also note that you linked to the Daily Mail. That's a bit like linking to FOX. If you read further through the article, there is a token attempt at balance, though.
Posted by: Al West | March 21, 2010 5:20 AM
hese words became known to European scholars in the 18th century. The shifting of meaning that eventually led to the present-day sense started in the 1830s, when Friedrich Schlegel, a German scholar who was an important early Indo-Europeanist, came up with a theory that linked the Indo-Iranian words with the German word Ehre, "honor," and older Germanic names containing the element ario-, such as the Swiss warrior Ariovistus who was written about by Julius Caesar. Schlegel theorized that far from being just a designation of the Indo-Iranians, the word *arya- had in fact been what the Indo-Europeans called themselves, meaning something like "the honorable people." (This theory has since been called into question.) Thus "Aryan" came to be synonymous with "Indo-European," and in this sense entered the general scholarly consciousness of the day. Not much later, it was proposed that the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans had been in northern Europe. From this theory, it was but a small leap to think of the Aryans as having had a northern European physiotype. While these theories were playing themselves out, certain anti-Semitic scholars in Germany took to viewing the Jews in Germany as the main non-Aryan people because of their Semitic roots; a distinction thus arose in their minds between Jews and the "true Aryan" Germans, a distinction that later furnished unfortunate fodder for the racial theories of the Nazis.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | March 21, 2010 7:39 PM
I'll take the higher homicide rate for a lower overall violent crime rate in exchange for not having to worry so much that if I ever did have to injure or kill someone in self-defense, I'd be prosecuted and hauled off to jail.
Now, if the US government ever grows a brain and starts to decriminalize drugs, I'm betting the overall homicide rate here will plummet.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | March 21, 2010 7:53 PM
MadRocketScientist,
I agree with you about the drugs, although I wouldn't expect the murder rate to plummet - just dip. I'd say that the more relaxed approach to drug abuse here is probably one factor in the lower murder rate, though. But I don't think the rest of what you say is in any way rational. It seems much more like emotional attachment to weaponry than a logical view on arming oneself. Who gives a fuck about self-defense anyway? When do you ever come across the need to employ self-defense measures? Very seldom. And it's only a real problem when guns are involved.
If someone comes up and punches you in the face in the UK, then you can punch them back or otherwise disable them, but you can't go any further, legally. That's fair. If they have a gun or a knife and you fight back, then if you kill them, you're still on the right side of the law, although you will get a criminal record. That's a reasonable self-defense law, and not something to be worried about. If you stab someone or shoot them after being punched in the face, then you deserve to be locked up, frankly, unless you have reason to believe that they are also armed.
Possession of a handgun is not a right. It's not even a privilege. It makes people less safe without giving any advantages, and all this talk of "rights" is just bluster to cover up that fact.
Posted by: Al West | March 22, 2010 6:26 AM
Al West - "you're still on the right side of the law, although you will get a criminal record" - huh? Does "criminal record" mean something different than it does in the U.S., where it means that you've been convicted of, or at the very least charged with, a crime?
I happened to notice a story recently from the U.K. in which a well-known female television personality, alone at home near midnight, observed two young men skulking around her back yard. She waved a kitchen knife to warn them off - through the window, inside her own house! - and when she called the police, they gave HER a warning for this "illegal weapon use." Given that the UK has dealt with its ongoing high violent crime rate by basically outlawing possession of pointy things, but that people still have to purchase, take home, and keep knives if they are to cook food, I imagine the legal technicalities get messy, if not selectively enforced.
The UK policy also reminds me of a case I once saw in a South African newspaper, where a couple who woke up in the middle of the night to find an intruder raping the wife scuffled with him and stabbed him to death, and were then both arrested for murder. Never heard how it came out, but it was clear that the message being sent to the potential victim class was "Lie still and beg for mercy." Maybe it is my backwards American-ism that makes me viscerally repulsed by that idea.
Posted by: dewey | March 22, 2010 1:52 PM
dewey,
If you kill someone in a fight, then you will be charged with a crime. But that is all that will happen - it won't look good, but you won't go to prison. The law is rather restrictive, but that's a good thing. It concerns human life. It is not something to be blase about. Nobody wants anyone to die, at least ideally, and a more restrictive law makes it harder to get away with killing another human. You can bluster about how it penalises the victim, and yes, we'd all like to play the hero. It feels good to think that we can end bad people. But self-defense is not a common issue, nor one that should be used as an arena in which to demonstrate bravado.
The crime rate in the UK has been on a steady downward trend for some time, regardless of what the Daily Mail might report. Also note that knife crime isn't actually that common - it's still a media sensation. You know, for a while last year, there was a small epidemic of murders in London involving knives. Almost all of the victims were young men, most often Afro-Caribbean but also white. Almost every case was reported on the national news, and they were each spaced about a week or two weeks apart. If you think Britain has a high violent crime rate, think about the chances of reporting every gun murder in LA alone on the national news.
As for knives themselves: actually, there are plenty of programmes designed to limit knife crime aside from making carrying knives about your person illegal. Leaflets, billboards, television campaigns. They may not be the best thing in the world, but you should not be free to carry a knife in public, concealed or otherwise. Why would you be carrying a knife in the first place? Only someone paranoid or out for the kill would do that, so unless there is some other reason that can be registered with the authorities, knives should be illegal to carry around. The same applies to handguns - there is no reason to carry one apart from the possible intention to end human life.
The high violent crime rate in the UK is down almost entirely to drunks getting into scuffles. A little scuffle in the street involving no loss of blood is reported as "violent crime" just as much as a stabbing is. In reality, the UK is a very safe place.
It's also very boring. That may or may not have anything to do with it.
Posted by: Al West | March 22, 2010 8:05 PM