Mrs. Hardy is at it again and this time holy crap the racism! Seriously, UnHerd, is she one of those Guardian writers? I mean she briefly touches on a few important reasons women and minorities are buying guns such as increasing crime and self-defense, but then she goes all in on them being so stupid they were tricked into it by some all-powerful all evil gun lobby. Geez would it kill you to treat them with actual agency? Last time I checked guns weren’t full of nicotine and lung cancer. You know what you are buying. Also, that bit about Latinos was just wow. I don’t even know where to start with that one. If you want a list of some actual reasons women and minorities are buying guns, I would be happy to provide them.
Rising crime. Self-explanatory, but it is a big one. Things are not as bad as the early 90’s right now, but they have become noticeably worse.
Women tend to have less muscle mass and smaller skeletal structure. Firearms help even out the equation in a self-defense situation.
Decreasing trust in government and institutions. With the US government acting more authoritarian and institutions constantly incompetent even a lot of Democrats I know have gone to gun stores out of concern.
Lack of trust in the police. I won’t get into that discussion here, but many minorities do not trust law enforcement to protect them.
Inter-minority violence. It’s a problem not talked about much, but relations between many of the country’s minority groups are the lowest in recent memory.
Economic uncertainty. Despite politicians on TV trotting out statistics on how everything is fine, things are anything but. A lot of people are worried about things falling apart and want the ability to protect themselves and what they have if it does.
Summer of 2020. It was not only just white suburbanites clearing shelves of guns and ammo. (might be just a bit related to point 1)
The firearms industry is now making guns for women with the input of women. This might sound crazy, but for the longest time the industry marketed guns to women without even having a clue what any of them really wanted.
Some people just like guns and shooting sports. No really, that’s it. Believe it or not, it is a pretty popular pastime across America.
Finally, because I don’t think I have stirred up enough controversy. Ronald Regan was the gun control guy. Huey P. Newton was the 2nd Amendment advocate.
Edit: I keep trying to get the list to show properly. I think UnHerd might have a problem with numbered and bulleted lists.
The list mechanics are rubbish, I’ve tried a few times and generally regretted it.
It’s actually a common problem with various applications like this that render some variation of editable HTML, rich text or bulletin board formats. It’s annoying because bulleted lists can simplify larger more complex posts.
I’m fed up with being randomly blocked by ReCaptcha when I try to post a comment. It has returned over the last couple of days. I have to log out and log back in.
I believe ReCaptcha is intended to guard against WebBots.
I subscribe to UnHerd because it offers a number of viewpoints and I read nearly all of them (even when I wildly disagree with the stance of several regulars). This article, however, is sub-par in so many ways, but most particularly the author’s obvious lack of having done any real research.
You are correct, Matt.
I live near Oakland and I occasionally visit an outdoor sporting goods store that’s about 30 minutes from Oakland.
My observation is that the folks in the gun-purchasing line, which is consistently long and snakes through the store, have always been predominantly minorities, intersectional and Democrats from Oakland.
Everyone I spoke with in the line has been friendly with me and other strangers in the line…and they were of one mind. The reason most of them were there was simply because of a break-down of trust in the institutions that governed their large city.
They weren’t scared of crosses being burned on their front yard by folks in white hoods or some professor or journalist’s favorite Intersectionality grid that gave credence to some fancifully esoteric theory. Rather, they recognized that the Democrat-led defund-the-police movement (which some had initially supported) had eviscerated their ability to individually function in their societies without fear.
They couldn’t go to the grocery store without fear. They couldn’t take their kid to a little-league practice without fear. They couldn’t even walk around their own neighborhoods without fear. They mostly live in neighborhoods where the make-up of skin melanin (as if that matters) was the same…but some folks in that society were really bad people who, in the vacuum of lawlessness, used pure power and pain to get what they wanted.
For decades, Democrat Leaders in their city had sold them a utopian dream of a society with equality…what they didn’t realize was that the equality meant they all had an equally higher chance of dying in a random act of violence. This was almost completely due to Democrat Leadership’s effort to break down society’s structure to the point that only raw power remains (i.e. those who have the least amount of empathy and the most strength/weapons wins).
Sadly, this produces a lot of cognitive dissonance for progressives. They’ll point to marketing ads that must be magical and their intersectionality grids that have failed them in this case.
To truly look at the cause would require the rich and powerful progressive elite (many who have less skin melanin than the society they say they champion) to look in the mirror and say to themselves, “I caused this hell when I vocally and financially supported the dreams of a utopia that has destroyed the rule of law and burned entire neighborhoods and their citizens to their core.”
T Bone
1 year ago
This is how you know the Left is running out of arguments. None of these Narratives correspond to reality. They correspond to group of ideologues and social engineers that miscalculated their assumptions about how the “radical transformation” of society would impact crime, education, immigration, public health, etc and are now trying to revise history by deflecting blame onto others. It’s simple gaslighting to change public consciousness.
For example the insinuation that Trump’s virus comments led to a spike in Anti-Asian hate crimes is objectively absurd. Is the claim that Trump’s voters were committing these hate crimes? It takes almost Smollet level dissonance to make this narrative line up.
They had another one for a long time. Supposedly those racist rural white gun nuts would all of the sudden demand gun control when they saw an increase in black gun ownership. This narrative made no sense whatsoever, but I saw it trotted out over and over again.
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Truly truly cringeworthy. It feels like the author strung together a bunch of tropes and questionable studies to back up her preconceived narrative.
“Attacks on people of Asian backgrounds in particular exploded, as political leaders began calling Covid the “kung-flu” and blaming China for unleashing it on the world.”
This statement alone tarnishes the entire essay. And the link associated with it starts out by calling the attack that killed eight spa workers in Atlanta, including six Asian women, a hate crime. This narrative was debunked almost immediately after it happened.
The lack of context was shocking. She says the number of black people killed by police has also increased in recent years, but the link doesn’t even mention police killings. For all we know, more black people are buying guns because of Defund The Police.
The Democrat MSM thought they had a good stick to beat Trump with when they saw a rise in attacks on Asians. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that it was overwhelmingly blacks who were attacking Asians and so they went quiet on it.
“Gun violence”, to use the favored parlance, is primarily gun fights waged against rival gang members in Democrat-run cities that have demonized and defunded their law enforcement mechanisms. I and many of my female friends own guns. Weird how, after a dispute on the tennis court, we don’t just whip out our weapons and fire away at one another.
And the umpteenth samo samo comment: “in Democrat-run cities gun fights rage…”. Well here’s my umpteenth comment: “meanwhile in Florida, they are turning back the clocks to 1791”. No books, no abortion, no sex pretty soon, but a lot of of guns.
How clueless can a writer be? But considering her past, not surprised. Her gem of a comment, …”the powerful gun lobby realised that failure to move with the times would see guns, like cigarettes, becoming a fringe vice that was looked down on by the general public.”
No, no, no, no. The two have absolutely nothing in common. Guns are not a fringe vice and cigarettes are not a Constitutional right, the only thing that separates the U.S. from North Korea and Russia.
Last edited 1 year ago by Warren Trees
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
Gun ownership is increasing because violent and property crime is dramatically increasing. Crime is increasing because in the wake of George Floyd’s drug induced heart attack, leftist “progressive” Democrat politicians in cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Portland reduced, demonised and demoralised their police forces, stopped prosecuting or gave much reduced sentences for serious crimes and instituted bail reforms that saw people who have committed serious offences, arrested and straight back on the streets. In addition, “progressive” cities allowed townships of drug addled homeless people to develop.
The real culprit for the increase in gun ownership is leftist “liberal” “progressives” like the author. After Floyd’s overdose, they cheered on BLM and blacks burning down their own neighbourhoods. They thought it was a wonderful idea to remove policing from high crime, poor black areas, in the the deluded assumption that it was the police that were the problem rather than the violent criminals and drug gangs they had to deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, back in the real world, as anyone with a brain anticipated, the pulling back of the police and prosecutorial leniency resulted in an explosion in crime, particularly black crime in black areas where the victims were predominantly black. Naturally, the people started to arm themselves.
No group has done more to society then the do-gooder white “liberal”. This is especially so when it comes to black people. The welfare reforms of the 60’s and 70’s hollowed out the black family. The victim-oppressor narrative fed to blacks led to a culture of resentment, demoralisation and excuse making for criminality. The culture of resentment and excuse making led to the destruction of black neighbourhoods from rioting, As a denouement, the “liberal” “progressives” stripped out the police and left law abiding black people in black neighbourhoods at the mercy of the thugs and criminals.
The author reels off the tired old discredited nonsense we’ve heard far too many times as explanations. The uncomfortable truth for the author is that it is her and people like her who created this mess.
Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Leach
Daniel P
1 year ago
Just a damn silly piece in response to a truth.
She gets the gist of the number right. Those are clear stats.
Where she is going off track is with her interpretation of motivations.
I’m a gun owner. I have pistols, shotguns for clay shooting and hunting, and I have a pair of rifles, a .22 for practice and another for hunting. I am also a certified instructor in shotgun. Specifically I coach trap and skeet.
What I am seeing and have been seeing for about a decade is something other than what the author intimates.
I started noticing a LOT of Asians, Asian women in particular, showing up at the trap and skeet range about 10 yrs ago. I started seeing them more and more at the range for pistol and rifle about 7 yrs ago or so. I’ve never bothered to ask them why. It seemed rude and racist to ask even if I was curios. I just know that the numbers are way up. No particular idea why.
As for Black women? Well, been seeing a lot more of them too. See them on the trap range but more so at the pistol range. I can only assume that they are buying for self defense. Well, if the stats are right about the number of single black women with children, I can understand why they would want to have a firearm in the house. I suppose, based on what I have seen of the stats, that many of them live in or around areas where criminal violence is common. A single mom is gonna protect her babies. Its her right and she should exorcise it.
I suppose Black men and Latino men shoot for the same reasons that White guys do. Mostly it is just fun to do. But, I also assume that they wish to be able to be able to provide protection for themselves and their families. I also imagine a lot of them hunt, particularly in rural areas.
The thing that I am noticing that kinda caught my attention is the number of LIBERAL people buying guns. They show up at the gun shop looking really uncomfortable, know next to nothing about firearms but seem determined to buy something. Met a couple, pair of teachers from a very liberal area near DC, at the gun shop. I actually had to help them pick a gun and then show them how to load and shoot it on the range. They never said why they wanted it and I did not ask.
Guns are not just for rednecks, criminals and rich people anymore. Race, religion, political affiliation, income bracket, rural, urban, everybody is buying a gun.
If I had to guess, the people from DC and Baltimore that I have been meeting, I think they are buying because of the huge rise in violent crime.
And, as much as the governor of NM, and anti gun activists, do not want to believe it, criminals are not gonna stop using firearms because you pass a law. They are not gonna deescalate to clubs and knives because you take guns from everyday, law abiding people. This country is producing a lot of strung out, emotionally disturbed, violent people. In a lot of places we are not locking them up or if we do, not long enough. They stab someone on Monday and they are back out on Wednesday. Carjackings are out of control all over the place. Lot of these places are liberal bastians, like DC, like Baltimore. But they are places that are getting to be lawless and violent. We hear a lot of reporting about gun violence, what we almost never hear is that in a lot of those cases the guns were illegally obtained not used by legit buyers.
What worries me? That so many of these new buyers have no idea what they are doing with a gun. Also, I worry about how and where those guns might get used if Trump wins next year or if he loses and it looks like there is any suspicion that games were played with votes. That worries me a lot.
“Met a couple, pair of teachers from a very liberal area near DC, at the gun shop. I actually had to help them pick a gun and then show them how to load and shoot it on the range. ”
Are you people dumb enough to believe this garbage?
Certified firearms instructor here. Most of my incoming calls are from people who have bought their first firearm and are looking for trainjng to become proficient in its use. A gun store can show you how it works. That’s not the same as being proficient.
It worries me as well. I wish Trump would go away as I think a more conventional personality with similar populist policies would be a better bet for both a Republican victory and our ability to just put this insanity behind us. I blame the elites and the media they control. They painted Trump as a dangerous extremist to the point that a 2024 victory, however unlikely, is likely to stir up at least as much crazy violent protest as what we saw on Jan 6th, maybe more.
Agreed. You cannot go out and repeatedly tell people that someone is a fascist, a criminal, a racist, and an existential threat to democracy and expect that their reaction to his winning will not be as if he is an existential threat to them and to democracy.
How does one respond to an existential threat to themselves and their form of government?
Cho Jinn
1 year ago
“The most likely result of being armed, Sugarmann says, is that they will use their guns “against themselves, their friends or their family — and never to kill a criminal or stop a crime”.
I made it to this point, and deserve a ribbon or cupcake, really.
Best comment of a lot of really good comments. This is without a doubt the _worst_ article I’ve ever read on Unherd. And by that I don’t mean because I disagree with it. Its so bad I’m at a loss as to go about picking it apart, like its some giant snarl of lies, half-truths, non sequiturs, and ommissions.
“the increase in violence against people from non-white backgrounds during the pandemic has helped spark a national arms race.”
should have been pointed out that this wasnt, as could be implied, perpetrated by the usual evil white, pale, stale, male; it was done by black men.
Lot of Asians in places like NYC were being attacked by black men.
Not sure I get the animosity but it is clearly there to see.
Goes back a long way too. I remember in the 90’s when a lot of Korean’s that bought or opened corner stores in black, urban, neighborhoods would get attacked or protested. For whatever reason, there seems to be a long standing and growing animosity between those two groups.
N Satori
1 year ago
A little reality on the subject of self-defence:
In the UK, especially the big city centres, we have a knife crime problem. Imagine you are attacked/threatened by a knife wielding thug. As a law-abiding citizen you, like most of the British population, would not carry a weapon. The thug, on the other hand, views law enforcement as a very minor risk he barely needs to consider.
Even if you were able to dial 999 immediately how exactly do you imagine the police would be able to save you in that situation? Would they come zooming around in a matter of seconds, sirens blaring, determined to put the villain under lock and key ASAP?
While we are on that subject – just remember it is only fairly recently that the UK’s political class deemed it acceptable for a home owner to use violence to defend his home, his family and himself against a criminal intruder. Prior to that change people were being prosecuted for using too much violence in self-defence. British readers will remember the Tony Martin case.
That’s because in the UK the law is clear that you’re able to use force to defend yourself, that doesn’t give you the right to carry on using it if the danger has passed. Tony Martin got in trouble because he shot the gyppo in the back as he was running away, which the police understandably classed as excessive as at that point there was no longer any danger to himself. Don’t get me wrong I’ve got no sympathy for the boy killed, but it wasn’t a simple case of being punished for standing his ground.
As to your point regarding having a knife pulled on you, isn’t that preferable to being robbed by somebody with a gun? How do you think you’d be able to protect yourself even if you were armed? How do you remove your gun, take the safety off and aim it at the crook before they’ve managed to pull a trigger?
So, the police can’t save you and you can’t save yourself.
Solutions please – just as long as they don’t involve that socialist trope: Getting tough on the causes of crime.
You can save yourself, self defence is a something under UK law that allows you to use force to prevent harm to yourself or others, however that response has to be justified. Killing a burglar during a struggle is entirely justified, whereas shooting him in the back as he’s running away could justifiably be seen as being excessive or retaliation, and thus leave you open to punishment.
I did ask for solutions – what you’ve given me is a repeat of your (frankly, not very insightful) re-evaluation of the Tony Martin case. Your description of the legal technicalities of self defence brings to mind a football bore explaining the the offside rule.
Solutions to what? As I clearly pointed out the law does give you the right to use force to protect yourself so I fail to see what it is you’re asking?
This is getting tedious. Better go through it step by step:
I began by explaining that Police protection is largely an illusion. Even if the cops were a super efficient crime fighting force they can’t be there in an instant to protect you from the villains. You should be allowed to defend yourself.
I mentioned the Tony Martin case because, if I remember correctly, that was one of the cases which triggered a discussion on the right to defend one’s home against intruders – a discussion which led to a change in the law.
Unfortunately, at that point BillyBob felt compelled to trot out details on the legally permitted use of force to defend oneself [The law is clear etc etc etc].
As most of us do not possess guns the question of attackers being shot is a bit of a red-herring. The law may give you the right to protect yourself under quite restrictive conditions but how does that help if the law prevents you from carrying weapons to defend yourself and the use of defensive violence needs to be debated by lawyers after the act?
Still, this BillyBob tells us that he would rather be stabbed than shot so I guess his solution is to take whatever the villains throw at him and hope that the local A&E isn’t closed due to industrial action.
I still don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. You state “you should be allowed to defend yourself” and I’ve clearly stated the law does allow you defend yourself, as Self Defence is a perfectly valid defence in a court of law. Just because the amount of force used has to be appropriate to the situation doesn’t mean you can’t use it. If a kid has jumped your back fence to get his ball back and you shoot him through the window then you’ll rightly be charged with using excessive force, but people have killed others and walked free due to it being in self defence after all.
If you are reading this the ReCaptcha has permitted me to post a reply at last.
The point I was trying to make (from my first comment onward) is that Britain’s city streets are becoming increasingly dangerous. The police cannot provide instant defence. There are many situations where some form of self-defence (should you be capable of such) is the only option yet that is fraught with risks and anyway the law prevents the carrying of defensive weapons.
When self-defence becomes a necessity it means the criminal justice system is failing to keep crime under control.
So far so good – or so I thought!
Unfortunately my comment seemed to trigger some sort of reflex in you and off you went into a lengthy lecture on the rights and wrongs of self defence, whether it is better to be stabbed or shot. Did you think I was advocting general gun ownership? Now this strange little idea about the risk of the neighbours’ kid being shot as he goes to retrieve a ball. Unlikely as gun ownership in the UK is so limited. Odd!
As I said previously: If the police can’t save you and you can’t save yourself what’s the solution? Let the villains have their way and hope that you survive?
I’ve clearly stated the law does allow you to use force to defend yourself, which renders your point about not being allowed to use force to defend yourself rather moot. You don’t seem to have anything else to add so I’ll leave you to it
If you are not advocating general gun ownership, just what are you advocating? You complain that the law does not allow you to carry defensive weapons. Which weapons? Carried by whom?
My take is fairly simple: No matter what you do, the bad guys are going to be better armed than the random civilians,, more aggressive, quicker to hurt or kill. Whatever the civilians get, the bad guys will have more, and you will be pretty powerless against them.That is scary, but the best we can do is play it by numbers. More guns just mean more people getting shot – and it will not be the helpless civilians who get the drop on the muggers. Keeping the number of weapons low will keep the overall damage level lower as well, and avoid the problems where anyone who gets too mad can kill you in a second, and where everyone (including the police) knows they had better shoot first before the other guy shoots them.
That is for Europe, at least. I have no opinion on the US. They are an alien society awash with guns, and I do not know about those.
Knee-jerk response to a serious point, made in the context of a wider argument. Perhaps that’s why we don’t need guns in the UK – people overreacting with deadly consequences.
Personally yes I would rather be stabbed than shot, you have a much higher chance of survival usually, and almost any doctor will tell you stab wound is easier to repair than a gunshot. I’d also think I’d stand more chance of defending myself against a knife than a gun.
I notice you didn’t answer my question though, so I’ll ask again. If society is armed we’ll assume the crooks will arm themselves too, and if somebody is mugging you they’ll already have that weapon pointed at you. Now do you think you can grab your gun, take the safety off and aim it in the direction of the robber faster than he’s able to simply pull the trigger on his? If not then your gun doesn’t offer you any real protection in my eyes
Sure, you’d prefer it if you had a gun and nobody else did. Unfortunately that choice is not available. If guns are available, everybody gets them. And the bad guys get them first, draw first, and shoot first. At best you can hope that the two of you are equally well armed. So, do you prefer knife against knife, or gun against gun?
An SAS sergeant asked the question ” What is more dangerous, pair of scissors or a sub- machine gun? That is the wrong question, the correct one is “Who is more dangerous, the person holding the scissors or the sub-machine gun?”
All things considered, provided one is more than two paces away from the other people, a firearm is more dangerous than a knife. Hence basic self defence is is always keep at least two paces away from a threat and do not walk around oblivious to one’s surroundings.
W E Fairbairn developed the fighting knife for killing people less than two paces distant. Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife – YouTube
When it comes to training in close quarter combat most of those who achieve a high standard are those who are fit, aggressive, and have fast reflexes from years of sports such as rugby and /or boxing, ideally both.
In WW2 Commando training was only 9 weeks but these men had largely boxed and played rugby at school and all had undergone standard military training.
When it came to reasonable defence for the period of the late 1960s to early 2000s it was interpreted such that if one was attacked and knocked the aggressor to the ground one could not hit him when down but had to wait until he stood up again. This based upon the supposition that someone on the ground was not threat. The large numbers of left wing middle class types in the Law, Politics, Civil Service, Academia and The Media who had no experience of a fight, let alone a street fight perverted the law of self defence. Working class men in The Labour Party who came from cities, especially Glasgow and Liverpool, understood the practical aspects of self defence.
The way the Law has been perverted by The Left wing middle class I do not know how a strong man can arrest a criminal without being prosecuted for assault. If one places the criminal in some sort of arm lock, who then resists they are likely to receive a dislocated shoulder and/or broken bones. Personally all those Left wing types in Politics, Civil Service, Academia, The Media, The Law should be offered the opportunity of trying to arrest a 12.5 st 6ft ( Light Heavy Weight ) manual labourer, who can throw and take a punch and see how difficult it is to control a strong man who can fight.
The Left are not interested in reducing crime but reducing an individual’s ability to be free of the state. The Left use crime to persuade people to give up freedom for security which entails increasing taxes to employ more people and gain votes of friends and families of criminals. In some parts of certain cities there is a large demi-monde, that half world between the honest person and the criminal, who have the vote.
As Thoms Jefferson said ” Those who give up liberty for security deserve enither “.
So the UK allows you the right to defend yourself but denies you the means. So in reality, the strong continue to prey on the weak.
God save the Queen.
Once an attacker is under the influence of drugs one cannot reason with them. Drugs is main reason why one should avoid those behaving in an odd manner and they should be banned. Once a person mixes drugs they can be completely beyond reason.
This sounds like a typical ‘uncivilized Americans with their guns’ article for a European audience to me, complete with (as pointed out by others) the usual factual errors and unjustified broad generalizations. Crime is a factor, but so is the sense that we cannot trust our government or a significant percentage of our fellow Americans. In short, we’re all preparing for worst case scenarios. When I was young, the thought of civil war, economic collapse, or a complete collapse of society or civilization was not something that anyone save for the paranoid fringe regularly contemplated. We had the fear of nuclear war, but by the 80’s even that was considered distant and improbable. Now we have climate change doomers, insurrections, mass migration, inflation, oh and let’s not forget our government’s woefully poor response to a new but relatively mild respiratory virus. In short, everybody is becoming a doomsday prepper because our fear-peddling media has given us a steady diet of scary ‘existential’ crises. Politicians and elites aid and abet this behavior, concluding that, out of fear, people will surrender their freedom and turn to government and the powerful for protection. They ignore the opposite possibility, that in keeping with the traditional American spirit, fear will inspire people to arm themselves and prepare to defend themselves and their possessions from both the powerful and each other all the more rabidly. The elites that think they run the world would be wise to heed the counsel of Yamamoto, and not disturb the sleeping giant. A modern America roused to revolution would be terrible to behold indeed. The gun lobby has very little to do with any of it. They are just profiting from the times. Every shop owner puts the umbrellas out front when rain is expected or when it’s actually raining, because that’s when people buy umbrellas. They expect they might need them. People buy guns for the same reason, they think they might need to use them, for reasons that are these days as easy to contemplate as rain.
“heed the counsel of Yamamoto, and not disturb the sleeping giant”
I don’t think Yamamoto was referring to a bunch of redneck clowns running round the woods thinking they are the airborne.
No, Yamamoto feared what came to pass – the mobilization of the US as a vastly resourced modern industrial fighting state. Completely the opposite of the nonsense that you are spouting about the traditional American spirit, obviously.
Didn’t you read the article? The redneck clowns you mention have always had plenty of guns. It’s minorities and women who are buying guns now. Maybe they fear Trump’s return to power and are preparing for that eventuality. Maybe they’re defending themselves from all those white supremacists I hear so much about. Maybe the women are fearful of rapists and rampant misogyny as described by our MSM. The media is busily telling people that white supremacists, rapists, and other unsavory characters are everywhere and that institutional racism, sexism, and other isms are massive problems. If I can’t trust the government or my neighbors, buying a gun seems a pretty reasonable thing to do, no? I am, in point of fact, saluting them for doing so and pointing out they are following the traditions laid down by other Americans, immigrants all, of generations past by choosing self-reliance rather than accepting tyranny whether that tyranny come from the right or the left. I’m actually a libertarian, so I think it’s great that minorities are arming themselves. If the minorities buying guns and the redneck clowns buying guns ever figure out that they have the same enemy, an aristocrat class of international elites and the corporations and institutions that allow them to exert power, that’s where the sleeping giant analogy comes in, friend. You can thumb your nose all you like at ‘redneck clowns’ or at whatever the urban equivalent is, but I would bet everything I own the Pentagon is not doing the same, and that their scenarios for putting down an actual insurrection are bloody and expensive at best and a trigger for global war and chaos at worst. The irony is that while I defend gun ownership, I actually don’t own one myself. Never saw the need, because there is little crime here, and I actually trust my local government and my local community would come together and do their best for each other in any crisis. I can’t say the same of my national government or many other places.
Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jolly
Christina Dalcher
1 year ago
The lead photo tells us all we need to know about this article and the writer’s stance.
Never have I seen anyone at a range without hearing protection and long sleeves/pants. Firearms are loud. And a rogue cartridge from a misfiring pistol burns like the dickens.
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
There’s not a single informative or revealing fact in this tired rehash of old, moldy platitudes. Women buy guns to protect themselves. Nothing new about that.
Similar to the movie Platoon. Throw a bunch of crap at the wall to see what sticks.
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
I have never understood why women dislike guns as they are an obvious equalizer against greater male strength and aggression. They are also effective at avoiding violence as their mere presence – or possible presence – dissuades violent people. One of my favourite videos during the summer of BLM was a parade of Antifa quietly walking down a street in the suburbs of a U.S. city. Normally they would be smashing car windows and house windows and intimidating and beating passersby. But not here. When the camera pans to the side of the street there is a man quietly standing in literally every doorway with a rifle watching them.
” When the camera pans to the side of the street there is a man quietly standing in literally every doorway with a rifle watching them.”
Utter fantasy.
They are called National Guardsmen, FBI or local SWAT teams. You have no clue what you are saying.
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Word to the wise, Elle Hardy. Don’t use poll-tested lefty code words like “gun violence.” It tips off us racist-sexist-homophobes that you have nothing to say that is not regime narrative.
I imagine that your Beyond Belief is quite an experience. My take is that enthusiastic Christianity is a useful and beneficial means for lower class people to pull themselves up into the middle class and avoid misdirection from the educated class elite.
The trouble is that doesn’t mean the size of the lower class shrinks. Or the size of the middle class increases. I think other factors control that.
Daniel Lee
1 year ago
Lol. That’s it. That’s the comment.
Rick Frazier
1 year ago
The largest survey of American gun owners suggests they use firearms in self defence about 1.7 million times per year.
2021 National Firearms Survey: Updated Analysis Including Types of Firearms OwnedGeorgetown McDonough School of Business Research Paper No. 4109494
As in previous research, the vast majority of such incidents (82 percent) did not involve firing a gun, let alone injuring or killing an attacker. In more than four-fifths of the cases, respondents reported that brandishing or mentioning a firearm was enough to eliminate the threat.
Stephen Neil
1 year ago
White Americans are much more likely to be the victims of black violence than vice versa as Heather MacDonald’s research makes clear.
R Wright
1 year ago
There is not gigantic upsurge in white Klan menbers running around shooting minorities. It is usually mentally ill crackhead black men that are attacking Asians (who they famously detest) and other blacks. The author is living in a Guardian fantasy world.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
For crime statistics to be worthwhile; the location, number of crimes per unit area( say per kilometre ) per year, time, ethnicity of victim, ethnicity, of criminal, whether male or female, weapon used, education and skills of victim and criminal, age of victim and criminal. The final statistics would be x murders per square kilometre per year, y murders per square kilometre with knife or firearm. Data could be further sub-divided into 2 hour periods.
One may find that in a country the vast majority of murders are in a few quare kilometres within a city between say between 20:00 Hrs and 02:00Hrs undertaken by men using a firearm of a certain linguistic, religious or ethnic background. Resources would then be concentrated on dissuading criminals from committing murder and protecting victims, especially those of domestic violence.
Half a truth is a whole lie and knowledge dispels fear.
Kirk Susong
1 year ago
“Whereas in 2000, the majority of gun owners cited hunting as their primary reason for possessing a firearm, six years later, two-thirds said it was self-defence. By 2021, the proportion of people who said they purchased a gun for self-defence had risen to 88%.”
I always wonder… did these surveys give respondents the opportunity to provide *my* answer. I own guns neither for self-defense nor for hunting… but because an armed citizenry is “necessary for the security of a free state.”
Americans are free because they’re armed, not armed because they’re free. The existence of armed citizenry provides a crucial (even if subconscious) check on the willingness of the govt to subvert the popular will.
Given how the demographics of England are changing you won’t have to wait long till it is.
nigel roberts
1 year ago
Jeepers. What a lot of tendentious, poorly researched political talking points masquerading as journalism. The intellectual laziness of the article is shocking.
Is there a new editor at UnHerd? I can’t imagine this sort of high-school agitprop being published in UnHerd’s earlier editions.
People are arming themselves because they don’t want to live in a society where the strong prey on the weak with impunity.
Last edited 1 year ago by nigel roberts
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
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Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Leach
Billy Bob
1 year ago
I say let them get on with it. If the yanks want to spend their lives living in fear, and running the real risk of every minor dispute ending in a hail of bullets that’s up to them, I’ll personally stick to sane countries where I know I’m not going to be shot by a family member or somebody whose drink I knock in the pub.
Also I found this line unintentionally hilarious
“9/11 saw Americans of all stripes feel the need to be armed for self-protection.”
I’m not sure how those poor souls in the towers would have fared any better if they’d all had guns, but that just about sums up the quality of the whole debate. If that’s what they want then that’s up to them, but the rest of the world thinks it’s beyond stupid
I don’t know how the poor souls in the towers would feel, but I’m sure the poor souls on the planes would feel a lot better if they’d all been armed. For one thing, they’d probably still be alive.
You do realize it’s nigh impossible to bring down a commercial airliner armed with only a handgun. It’s unlikely even with an assault rifle. When the military wants to shoot down a plane, they use a missile, because guns tend to just shoot holes in the plane without affecting it’s function, whether fired from outside or inside. If it was that easy to shoot down planes with guns, the military wouldn’t be using missiles almost exclusively in air to air combat. The last confirmed kill with guns only by a US pilot was in 1967, and the guns mounted on combat aircraft are much bigger than anything a person could wield. I assume then that you must be referring to the cabin depressurizing. That is certainly a risk, but it would take more than one hole to do it, probably quite a few, as the systems are designed to handle various kinds of leaks and mechanical failures, and that’s assuming the bullet actually made it to the outside, as there’s a lot of stuff in the plane walls to hit, like wiring, support beams, etc. that could block it. Also, even if the cabin depressurized, which can and has happened, that’s what the oxygen masks that drop down are for. It’s unpleasant, but not fatal, and if the pilot notices cabin pressure declining rapidly, he’s going to first drop to a lower altitude and probably land at the nearest available airport. The greatest actual risk is probably hitting a fuel tank and starting a fire, but that’s only possible on certain models of plane that store fuel in the fuselage, and there’s no guarantee it would start a fire. Fire requires oxygen and with only a small bullet hole, it’s unlikely to blow up the plane, though a fire is hazardous enough on its own. It’s plausible that a gunfight might kill many people because, you know, getting shot is generally fatal, but it would require a tremendously improbable chain of events for it to result in the deaths of anyone other than whoever was shot, but I suppose if Rambo is your model, firing a ridiculous number of bullets while dual wielding automatic assault rifles might actually stand some chance of bringing down an aircraft, but the odds of an actual gunfight being anything like gunfights in movies are approximately zero.
I’d rather not be on plane at 30,000 feet with everybody armed. We’ve all seen disagreements on planes, the thought of one of them ending up in a drunken gun fight would worry me more than the plane being hijacked
This is the real reason to not allow guns on planes. The airlines, being a commercial business, are liable for any injuries that occur on their planes. Two idiots having a shootout and killing innocent bystanders would be a huge financial loss.
Switzerland has a licence system whereby background checks are required before you’re given a licence to purchase a gun. There are checks and limits on the amount of ammunition you can buy and hold, and guns have to be locked away in gun cabinets when not in use, they’re not allowed to be carried randomly around the streets. It’s a mile away from the American system.
Wrong. We also require a license to buy a guns in the states. The problem is that gang bangers and criminals don’t adhere to the law. That’s the definition of a law breaker.
I would suggest self control, emotional maturity and sense of responsibility may have something to do with it.
The British Government put Sergeant Stan Scott through extensive training in how to kill and then gave him relevant experience in WW2. Sergeant Scott managed to refrain from killing anyone in civilian life, as have the vast majority of military personnel.
Is the major problem facing the West the decline in the proportion of people with self control, emotional maturity and responsibility ? It is the decline in those who can but chose not to which can be applied to unacceptable behaviour to and in front of woman by men. The issue is not intelligence, as three Nobel Prize Winners supported Hitler in the 1920s, and Sartre supported Mao in the late 1960s.
They don’t allow unfettered immigration and don’t have a welfare state to attract them in the first place. They also require assimilation into the culture.
Mature, harmonious society and plenty of enforced regulation.
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Gorgons with guns! Whatever next?
Bret Larson
1 year ago
She isn’t trying to ban guns. She’s trying to ban the laws that allow crisis politicians to act unilaterally.
Or so she says.
Roddy Campbell
1 year ago
This article is a perfect illustration of Coulter’s Law.
Last edited 1 year ago by Roddy Campbell
Micah Dembo
1 year ago
Maybe you might give a thought as to why a young black man in the prime of life would want to shoot himSelf, his family and neighbors or teachers for no apparent gain or motive. This self destructive behavior is an act of dispare, and is obviously a cry for help. It happens in young white boys at about the same frequency. It is a symptom of a deep spiritual and psychological pathology in our young people. For time immemorial, Young men with no money and jobs prospects and no women to marry, are prone to drugs and booze, aggression and violence. Black or white this situation cannot be cured by banning guns. The youthful testosterone serges of young warriors needs to be tempered by training and discipline. This requires older men, especially fathers to be involved in their education and early childhood. These boys who are problematic usually have no fathers or stable family life at all and they are frequently taking very hard drugs.
So why bring up race or gun ownership rights. Maybe the cause lies in the liberal woke anti-god and anti male agenda. Maybe this leaves kids with no community no self worth, no skills or even literacy, no prospects of marriage or family or decide secure job. White or black the kid thinks he has no future. And girls are just as confused and miserable.
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Does the damage caused by large scale unregulated gun ownership outweigh the benefits? Most first world countries say it does, Americans for some reason think it doesn’t, simple as that. Until that day they’ll keep picking their children up from school in body bags
G Orwell pointed out that pre 1917 one could buy guns from hardware shops and there was no licensing. Those people who had served as officers all had pistols and those who had worked as planters, engineers, etc over seas had rifles for protection from dangerous animals. Britain had a very low murder rate pre 1914.
Licensing of guns was only introduced due to fear of the IRA and Communist Revolution. Orwell said in WW2 said the rifle hanging above the working mans fireplace was a superb protector of liberty. Orwll said here weapons were affordable by the average person liberty was greater thanwhere it was not. The owning of bow, arrows, spear, helmet, dagger and sword ( Assizes of Arms 1182) by the freemen of England ensured a degree of freedom not seen by a similar class in Europe and there was a very murder rate compared top Continental Europe.
The citizen soldier is a foundation of the freedom of Switzerland and Israel.
What is being ignored in this discussion is how men perceive whether a comment is an insult to their honour and whether an insult to their honour can only be avenged with the taking of blood. Therefore one needs to determine the nature of honour and pride within that society. One man may laugh off a comment. Another may challenge a another to a fight and honour being satisfied with knocking the other man to the ground. In other groups, a man may readly perceive a comment to be an insult to his honour which can can only be avenged by the act of killing. It is where insults are easily perceived and honour only be satified by killing are where the murder rates are high. In Sicily the murder rate is high because of the Cosa Nostra. One man had 35 members of his family murdered – read Cosas Nostra by John Dickie .
Correction: the *governments* of those countries say it does. When polled the *people* of those countries would prefer to have the ability to defend themselves effectively against a lethal threat.
D Glover
1 year ago
Is it time for UnHerd to have separate UK and US editions? This article is important for the American readership but what is a Brit supposed to do with it?
We don’t vote in the US and we can’t buy guns so there’s not much point reading this.
As a person-of-America, I think it is useful to hear what other countries, and cultures think of U.S. issues. Maybe my point doesn’t apply to this topic, or maybe it applies most to this topic. Who knows? My point is I get more epiphanic (epiphany) points of view, even when they are echo-chamber-adjacent, then hearing from my local pundits. That said…
This article regurgitated the same local disinformation I hear frequently. Maybe Ellen Hardy can start the U.S. division of UnHerd, having perfectly hit the U.S. totalitarian’s echo-chamber-bull’s-eye? Nice aim, Ms. Hardy!
As an American, I do enjoy hearing the British stories for the sake of diversity of opinion and experience. I honestly thought this article was a typical European “Brutish Americans with their guns” lamentation, a trope nearly as old as the US itself. In terms of crime though, the UK and US are apples and oranges. It’s fair to question whether this article is a good choice for Unherd given its transatlantic readership. Also, it’s not a particularly good article. It’s about what I’d expect an AI to generate if fed nothing but NYT editorials to learn from.
Not going to read this slanted bullshit written by a c**t.
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago
Americans will keep buying guns because of the myths they are sold and that they lap up like enthusiastic sheep.
As a direct result of this the gun fueled carnage will continue. Maybe one day they will get tired of taking their kids home from school in body bags or having to have armed guards at churches – but I doubt it. One of the main reasons for avoiding travel to the United States wherever possible.
Which is why I’m not in favour of constitutions personally. Having laws written over 200 years ago that are incredibly difficult to change to my eyes simply causes problems. I much prefer the UKs system of laws being enacted and repealed via a simple majority as lives, circumstances and public opinions change over time
Just because some of the laws are good ones doesn’t alter my opinion. Any government that wanted to place limits on what opinions you could say would never get voted in anyway
I’m not sure about that at all. Not even close. People were quite supportive of the Covid mandates and restrictions. The first amendment is supposed to protect the minority from the majority.
Really? What about the instances of UK citizens being warned or even arrested by police for expressing views contrary to trans ideology? US First Amendment protects us from that though the wokerati are doing more and more to undermine it.
Comments criticising Islam, Feminists, Homosexuals,Immigration, Ethnic Minorities and Transgender issues have largely been banned and resulted in people being sacked or prosecuted for hate crime, so in reality, censorship exists. Does Britain have greater free speech in 2023 than in WW2? How quickly could the various grooming gangs by men largely of Pakistani /Islamic heritage have been caught if full and frank discussions of the problems been undertaken? Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal – Wikipedia
I would suggest that speech should only be prevented where people urge acts of physical violence against others. Where lies are spread people can sue for libel or slander.
Your comment is spot-on, Ms. Socialist–and stylishly-worded, if I may say so. I am just so tired of taking our kids home from school in body bags! Our eldest surviving is fast approaching that tender stage in a young all-American girl’s life when she ought to be experiencing her first fatal gunshot wound at school. But I just can’t persuade the Mrs. to help out with the carrying! After a long day at the office, I’m just so tired! And she won’t hear of me ordering an Uber or using a rolling luggage carrier instead of a body bag–“what would the neighbors say?” But I know for a fact all the other men in our community are also tired of the never-ending chore of taking our (very spoiled!) kids home in body bags. It’s enough to make a man think of getting a vasectomy!
And I know what you mean about having to have armed guards in all the churches–you are so perceptive (most people don’t see them)! I am tired of them because our pastor always takes my wife’s side about taking home the kids in body bags from school (including Sunday school). I’d gladly settle it in a good old-fashioned American shootout–but Pastor has all those armed guards to protect him.
I agree that you must avoid travel to our barbaric land, but I do wish you would consider giving Zoom lectures! A lot of the single old ladies around here who are always talking, to anyone who will listen, about moving to a more civilized land, such as Europe, would love to hear what you have to say, and being quite lonely, they would certainly enjoy your company! I think you would be a big hit on Facebook!
Main Edition
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Mrs. Hardy is at it again and this time holy crap the racism! Seriously, UnHerd, is she one of those Guardian writers? I mean she briefly touches on a few important reasons women and minorities are buying guns such as increasing crime and self-defense, but then she goes all in on them being so stupid they were tricked into it by some all-powerful all evil gun lobby. Geez would it kill you to treat them with actual agency? Last time I checked guns weren’t full of nicotine and lung cancer. You know what you are buying. Also, that bit about Latinos was just wow. I don’t even know where to start with that one. If you want a list of some actual reasons women and minorities are buying guns, I would be happy to provide them.
Finally, because I don’t think I have stirred up enough controversy. Ronald Regan was the gun control guy. Huey P. Newton was the 2nd Amendment advocate.
Edit: I keep trying to get the list to show properly. I think UnHerd might have a problem with numbered and bulleted lists.
The list mechanics are rubbish, I’ve tried a few times and generally regretted it.
It’s actually a common problem with various applications like this that render some variation of editable HTML, rich text or bulletin board formats. It’s annoying because bulleted lists can simplify larger more complex posts.
I’m fed up with being randomly blocked by ReCaptcha when I try to post a comment. It has returned over the last couple of days. I have to log out and log back in.
I believe ReCaptcha is intended to guard against WebBots.
Yes Matt.
Editor – this writer tarnishes your brand.
If I want illogical and uninformed anti-white racism I can read the Guardian.
Translation: Please don’t print anything that doesn’t match my predetermined opinion
I subscribe to UnHerd because it offers a number of viewpoints and I read nearly all of them (even when I wildly disagree with the stance of several regulars). This article, however, is sub-par in so many ways, but most particularly the author’s obvious lack of having done any real research.
You are correct, Matt.
I live near Oakland and I occasionally visit an outdoor sporting goods store that’s about 30 minutes from Oakland.
My observation is that the folks in the gun-purchasing line, which is consistently long and snakes through the store, have always been predominantly minorities, intersectional and Democrats from Oakland.
Everyone I spoke with in the line has been friendly with me and other strangers in the line…and they were of one mind. The reason most of them were there was simply because of a break-down of trust in the institutions that governed their large city.
They weren’t scared of crosses being burned on their front yard by folks in white hoods or some professor or journalist’s favorite Intersectionality grid that gave credence to some fancifully esoteric theory. Rather, they recognized that the Democrat-led defund-the-police movement (which some had initially supported) had eviscerated their ability to individually function in their societies without fear.
They couldn’t go to the grocery store without fear. They couldn’t take their kid to a little-league practice without fear. They couldn’t even walk around their own neighborhoods without fear. They mostly live in neighborhoods where the make-up of skin melanin (as if that matters) was the same…but some folks in that society were really bad people who, in the vacuum of lawlessness, used pure power and pain to get what they wanted.
For decades, Democrat Leaders in their city had sold them a utopian dream of a society with equality…what they didn’t realize was that the equality meant they all had an equally higher chance of dying in a random act of violence. This was almost completely due to Democrat Leadership’s effort to break down society’s structure to the point that only raw power remains (i.e. those who have the least amount of empathy and the most strength/weapons wins).
Sadly, this produces a lot of cognitive dissonance for progressives. They’ll point to marketing ads that must be magical and their intersectionality grids that have failed them in this case.
To truly look at the cause would require the rich and powerful progressive elite (many who have less skin melanin than the society they say they champion) to look in the mirror and say to themselves, “I caused this hell when I vocally and financially supported the dreams of a utopia that has destroyed the rule of law and burned entire neighborhoods and their citizens to their core.”
This is how you know the Left is running out of arguments. None of these Narratives correspond to reality. They correspond to group of ideologues and social engineers that miscalculated their assumptions about how the “radical transformation” of society would impact crime, education, immigration, public health, etc and are now trying to revise history by deflecting blame onto others. It’s simple gaslighting to change public consciousness.
For example the insinuation that Trump’s virus comments led to a spike in Anti-Asian hate crimes is objectively absurd. Is the claim that Trump’s voters were committing these hate crimes? It takes almost Smollet level dissonance to make this narrative line up.
They had another one for a long time. Supposedly those racist rural white gun nuts would all of the sudden demand gun control when they saw an increase in black gun ownership. This narrative made no sense whatsoever, but I saw it trotted out over and over again.
Truly truly cringeworthy. It feels like the author strung together a bunch of tropes and questionable studies to back up her preconceived narrative.
“Attacks on people of Asian backgrounds in particular exploded, as political leaders began calling Covid the “kung-flu” and blaming China for unleashing it on the world.”
This statement alone tarnishes the entire essay. And the link associated with it starts out by calling the attack that killed eight spa workers in Atlanta, including six Asian women, a hate crime. This narrative was debunked almost immediately after it happened.
The lack of context was shocking. She says the number of black people killed by police has also increased in recent years, but the link doesn’t even mention police killings. For all we know, more black people are buying guns because of Defund The Police.
Very unprofessional writing.
The Democrat MSM thought they had a good stick to beat Trump with when they saw a rise in attacks on Asians. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that it was overwhelmingly blacks who were attacking Asians and so they went quiet on it.
Except for this Miss Hardy, who clearly did no research on the subject.
“Gun violence”, to use the favored parlance, is primarily gun fights waged against rival gang members in Democrat-run cities that have demonized and defunded their law enforcement mechanisms. I and many of my female friends own guns. Weird how, after a dispute on the tennis court, we don’t just whip out our weapons and fire away at one another.
Sounds like you two need a protection racquet.
Very good!
And the umpteenth samo samo comment: “in Democrat-run cities gun fights rage…”. Well here’s my umpteenth comment: “meanwhile in Florida, they are turning back the clocks to 1791”. No books, no abortion, no sex pretty soon, but a lot of of guns.
No books? How about no pornography for children?
You mean the kind you see in art books, like a sculpture of a naked David??? Horrors….
Last I checked, David wasn’t shown buggering anyone.
How old are you? if you’re over 12 you should be embarrassed to have presented that straw man “argument”.
How clueless can a writer be? But considering her past, not surprised. Her gem of a comment, …”the powerful gun lobby realised that failure to move with the times would see guns, like cigarettes, becoming a fringe vice that was looked down on by the general public.”
No, no, no, no. The two have absolutely nothing in common. Guns are not a fringe vice and cigarettes are not a Constitutional right, the only thing that separates the U.S. from North Korea and Russia.
Gun ownership is increasing because violent and property crime is dramatically increasing. Crime is increasing because in the wake of George Floyd’s drug induced heart attack, leftist “progressive” Democrat politicians in cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Portland reduced, demonised and demoralised their police forces, stopped prosecuting or gave much reduced sentences for serious crimes and instituted bail reforms that saw people who have committed serious offences, arrested and straight back on the streets. In addition, “progressive” cities allowed townships of drug addled homeless people to develop.
The real culprit for the increase in gun ownership is leftist “liberal” “progressives” like the author. After Floyd’s overdose, they cheered on BLM and blacks burning down their own neighbourhoods. They thought it was a wonderful idea to remove policing from high crime, poor black areas, in the the deluded assumption that it was the police that were the problem rather than the violent criminals and drug gangs they had to deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, back in the real world, as anyone with a brain anticipated, the pulling back of the police and prosecutorial leniency resulted in an explosion in crime, particularly black crime in black areas where the victims were predominantly black. Naturally, the people started to arm themselves.
No group has done more to society then the do-gooder white “liberal”. This is especially so when it comes to black people. The welfare reforms of the 60’s and 70’s hollowed out the black family. The victim-oppressor narrative fed to blacks led to a culture of resentment, demoralisation and excuse making for criminality. The culture of resentment and excuse making led to the destruction of black neighbourhoods from rioting, As a denouement, the “liberal” “progressives” stripped out the police and left law abiding black people in black neighbourhoods at the mercy of the thugs and criminals.
The author reels off the tired old discredited nonsense we’ve heard far too many times as explanations. The uncomfortable truth for the author is that it is her and people like her who created this mess.
Just a damn silly piece in response to a truth.
She gets the gist of the number right. Those are clear stats.
Where she is going off track is with her interpretation of motivations.
I’m a gun owner. I have pistols, shotguns for clay shooting and hunting, and I have a pair of rifles, a .22 for practice and another for hunting. I am also a certified instructor in shotgun. Specifically I coach trap and skeet.
What I am seeing and have been seeing for about a decade is something other than what the author intimates.
I started noticing a LOT of Asians, Asian women in particular, showing up at the trap and skeet range about 10 yrs ago. I started seeing them more and more at the range for pistol and rifle about 7 yrs ago or so. I’ve never bothered to ask them why. It seemed rude and racist to ask even if I was curios. I just know that the numbers are way up. No particular idea why.
As for Black women? Well, been seeing a lot more of them too. See them on the trap range but more so at the pistol range. I can only assume that they are buying for self defense. Well, if the stats are right about the number of single black women with children, I can understand why they would want to have a firearm in the house. I suppose, based on what I have seen of the stats, that many of them live in or around areas where criminal violence is common. A single mom is gonna protect her babies. Its her right and she should exorcise it.
I suppose Black men and Latino men shoot for the same reasons that White guys do. Mostly it is just fun to do. But, I also assume that they wish to be able to be able to provide protection for themselves and their families. I also imagine a lot of them hunt, particularly in rural areas.
The thing that I am noticing that kinda caught my attention is the number of LIBERAL people buying guns. They show up at the gun shop looking really uncomfortable, know next to nothing about firearms but seem determined to buy something. Met a couple, pair of teachers from a very liberal area near DC, at the gun shop. I actually had to help them pick a gun and then show them how to load and shoot it on the range. They never said why they wanted it and I did not ask.
Guns are not just for rednecks, criminals and rich people anymore. Race, religion, political affiliation, income bracket, rural, urban, everybody is buying a gun.
If I had to guess, the people from DC and Baltimore that I have been meeting, I think they are buying because of the huge rise in violent crime.
And, as much as the governor of NM, and anti gun activists, do not want to believe it, criminals are not gonna stop using firearms because you pass a law. They are not gonna deescalate to clubs and knives because you take guns from everyday, law abiding people. This country is producing a lot of strung out, emotionally disturbed, violent people. In a lot of places we are not locking them up or if we do, not long enough. They stab someone on Monday and they are back out on Wednesday. Carjackings are out of control all over the place. Lot of these places are liberal bastians, like DC, like Baltimore. But they are places that are getting to be lawless and violent. We hear a lot of reporting about gun violence, what we almost never hear is that in a lot of those cases the guns were illegally obtained not used by legit buyers.
What worries me? That so many of these new buyers have no idea what they are doing with a gun. Also, I worry about how and where those guns might get used if Trump wins next year or if he loses and it looks like there is any suspicion that games were played with votes. That worries me a lot.
“Met a couple, pair of teachers from a very liberal area near DC, at the gun shop. I actually had to help them pick a gun and then show them how to load and shoot it on the range. ”
Are you people dumb enough to believe this garbage?
Hey, I’ve seen it happen. Guns in real life are a bit different than videogames.
Certified firearms instructor here. Most of my incoming calls are from people who have bought their first firearm and are looking for trainjng to become proficient in its use. A gun store can show you how it works. That’s not the same as being proficient.
It worries me as well. I wish Trump would go away as I think a more conventional personality with similar populist policies would be a better bet for both a Republican victory and our ability to just put this insanity behind us. I blame the elites and the media they control. They painted Trump as a dangerous extremist to the point that a 2024 victory, however unlikely, is likely to stir up at least as much crazy violent protest as what we saw on Jan 6th, maybe more.
Agreed. You cannot go out and repeatedly tell people that someone is a fascist, a criminal, a racist, and an existential threat to democracy and expect that their reaction to his winning will not be as if he is an existential threat to them and to democracy.
How does one respond to an existential threat to themselves and their form of government?
“The most likely result of being armed, Sugarmann says, is that they will use their guns “against themselves, their friends or their family — and never to kill a criminal or stop a crime”.
I made it to this point, and deserve a ribbon or cupcake, really.
I feel your pain. I want a gold star on my report card. I made it all the way to the end.
Me too. Fridge magnet for me…..
Best comment of a lot of really good comments. This is without a doubt the _worst_ article I’ve ever read on Unherd. And by that I don’t mean because I disagree with it. Its so bad I’m at a loss as to go about picking it apart, like its some giant snarl of lies, half-truths, non sequiturs, and ommissions.
Yeah, kinda wanted to puke at that line.
“the increase in violence against people from non-white backgrounds during the pandemic has helped spark a national arms race.”
should have been pointed out that this wasnt, as could be implied, perpetrated by the usual evil white, pale, stale, male; it was done by black men.
Ah, you too spotted the elephant on the table.
I noticed that too.
Lot of Asians in places like NYC were being attacked by black men.
Not sure I get the animosity but it is clearly there to see.
Goes back a long way too. I remember in the 90’s when a lot of Korean’s that bought or opened corner stores in black, urban, neighborhoods would get attacked or protested. For whatever reason, there seems to be a long standing and growing animosity between those two groups.
A little reality on the subject of self-defence:
In the UK, especially the big city centres, we have a knife crime problem. Imagine you are attacked/threatened by a knife wielding thug. As a law-abiding citizen you, like most of the British population, would not carry a weapon. The thug, on the other hand, views law enforcement as a very minor risk he barely needs to consider.
Even if you were able to dial 999 immediately how exactly do you imagine the police would be able to save you in that situation? Would they come zooming around in a matter of seconds, sirens blaring, determined to put the villain under lock and key ASAP?
While we are on that subject – just remember it is only fairly recently that the UK’s political class deemed it acceptable for a home owner to use violence to defend his home, his family and himself against a criminal intruder. Prior to that change people were being prosecuted for using too much violence in self-defence. British readers will remember the Tony Martin case.
That’s because in the UK the law is clear that you’re able to use force to defend yourself, that doesn’t give you the right to carry on using it if the danger has passed. Tony Martin got in trouble because he shot the gyppo in the back as he was running away, which the police understandably classed as excessive as at that point there was no longer any danger to himself. Don’t get me wrong I’ve got no sympathy for the boy killed, but it wasn’t a simple case of being punished for standing his ground.
As to your point regarding having a knife pulled on you, isn’t that preferable to being robbed by somebody with a gun? How do you think you’d be able to protect yourself even if you were armed? How do you remove your gun, take the safety off and aim it at the crook before they’ve managed to pull a trigger?
So, the police can’t save you and you can’t save yourself.
Solutions please – just as long as they don’t involve that socialist trope: Getting tough on the causes of crime.
You can save yourself, self defence is a something under UK law that allows you to use force to prevent harm to yourself or others, however that response has to be justified. Killing a burglar during a struggle is entirely justified, whereas shooting him in the back as he’s running away could justifiably be seen as being excessive or retaliation, and thus leave you open to punishment.
I did ask for solutions – what you’ve given me is a repeat of your (frankly, not very insightful) re-evaluation of the Tony Martin case. Your description of the legal technicalities of self defence brings to mind a football bore explaining the the offside rule.
Solutions to what? As I clearly pointed out the law does give you the right to use force to protect yourself so I fail to see what it is you’re asking?
This is getting tedious. Better go through it step by step:
I began by explaining that Police protection is largely an illusion. Even if the cops were a super efficient crime fighting force they can’t be there in an instant to protect you from the villains. You should be allowed to defend yourself.
I mentioned the Tony Martin case because, if I remember correctly, that was one of the cases which triggered a discussion on the right to defend one’s home against intruders – a discussion which led to a change in the law.
Unfortunately, at that point BillyBob felt compelled to trot out details on the legally permitted use of force to defend oneself [The law is clear etc etc etc].
As most of us do not possess guns the question of attackers being shot is a bit of a red-herring. The law may give you the right to protect yourself under quite restrictive conditions but how does that help if the law prevents you from carrying weapons to defend yourself and the use of defensive violence needs to be debated by lawyers after the act?
Still, this BillyBob tells us that he would rather be stabbed than shot so I guess his solution is to take whatever the villains throw at him and hope that the local A&E isn’t closed due to industrial action.
I still don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. You state “you should be allowed to defend yourself” and I’ve clearly stated the law does allow you defend yourself, as Self Defence is a perfectly valid defence in a court of law. Just because the amount of force used has to be appropriate to the situation doesn’t mean you can’t use it. If a kid has jumped your back fence to get his ball back and you shoot him through the window then you’ll rightly be charged with using excessive force, but people have killed others and walked free due to it being in self defence after all.
If you are reading this the ReCaptcha has permitted me to post a reply at last.
The point I was trying to make (from my first comment onward) is that Britain’s city streets are becoming increasingly dangerous. The police cannot provide instant defence. There are many situations where some form of self-defence (should you be capable of such) is the only option yet that is fraught with risks and anyway the law prevents the carrying of defensive weapons.
When self-defence becomes a necessity it means the criminal justice system is failing to keep crime under control.
So far so good – or so I thought!
Unfortunately my comment seemed to trigger some sort of reflex in you and off you went into a lengthy lecture on the rights and wrongs of self defence, whether it is better to be stabbed or shot. Did you think I was advocting general gun ownership? Now this strange little idea about the risk of the neighbours’ kid being shot as he goes to retrieve a ball. Unlikely as gun ownership in the UK is so limited. Odd!
As I said previously: If the police can’t save you and you can’t save yourself what’s the solution? Let the villains have their way and hope that you survive?
I’ve clearly stated the law does allow you to use force to defend yourself, which renders your point about not being allowed to use force to defend yourself rather moot. You don’t seem to have anything else to add so I’ll leave you to it
If I can butt in:
If you are not advocating general gun ownership, just what are you advocating? You complain that the law does not allow you to carry defensive weapons. Which weapons? Carried by whom?
My take is fairly simple: No matter what you do, the bad guys are going to be better armed than the random civilians,, more aggressive, quicker to hurt or kill. Whatever the civilians get, the bad guys will have more, and you will be pretty powerless against them.That is scary, but the best we can do is play it by numbers. More guns just mean more people getting shot – and it will not be the helpless civilians who get the drop on the muggers. Keeping the number of weapons low will keep the overall damage level lower as well, and avoid the problems where anyone who gets too mad can kill you in a second, and where everyone (including the police) knows they had better shoot first before the other guy shoots them.
That is for Europe, at least. I have no opinion on the US. They are an alien society awash with guns, and I do not know about those.
Billy Bob, we can explain it for you but we can’t understand it for you.
Are you STONED out of your mind?
Would I prefer to be robbed at knife point instead of gun point?
Do I prefer to bleed out from a stab wound to my neck or chest or maybe a nicked artery in my leg OR be shot and die the same way?
Seriously? You think that is a frigging choice?
Are you for real?
What I prefer is to shoot the knife wielder in the chest and watch him bleed out.
Knee-jerk response to a serious point, made in the context of a wider argument. Perhaps that’s why we don’t need guns in the UK – people overreacting with deadly consequences.
Personally yes I would rather be stabbed than shot, you have a much higher chance of survival usually, and almost any doctor will tell you stab wound is easier to repair than a gunshot. I’d also think I’d stand more chance of defending myself against a knife than a gun.
I notice you didn’t answer my question though, so I’ll ask again. If society is armed we’ll assume the crooks will arm themselves too, and if somebody is mugging you they’ll already have that weapon pointed at you. Now do you think you can grab your gun, take the safety off and aim it in the direction of the robber faster than he’s able to simply pull the trigger on his? If not then your gun doesn’t offer you any real protection in my eyes
Another fantasist.
Sure, you’d prefer it if you had a gun and nobody else did. Unfortunately that choice is not available. If guns are available, everybody gets them. And the bad guys get them first, draw first, and shoot first. At best you can hope that the two of you are equally well armed. So, do you prefer knife against knife, or gun against gun?
An SAS sergeant asked the question ” What is more dangerous, pair of scissors or a sub- machine gun? That is the wrong question, the correct one is “Who is more dangerous, the person holding the scissors or the sub-machine gun?”
All things considered, provided one is more than two paces away from the other people, a firearm is more dangerous than a knife. Hence basic self defence is is always keep at least two paces away from a threat and do not walk around oblivious to one’s surroundings.
W E Fairbairn developed the fighting knife for killing people less than two paces distant.
Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife – YouTube
When it comes to training in close quarter combat most of those who achieve a high standard are those who are fit, aggressive, and have fast reflexes from years of sports such as rugby and /or boxing, ideally both.
In WW2 Commando training was only 9 weeks but these men had largely boxed and played rugby at school and all had undergone standard military training.
When it came to reasonable defence for the period of the late 1960s to early 2000s it was interpreted such that if one was attacked and knocked the aggressor to the ground one could not hit him when down but had to wait until he stood up again. This based upon the supposition that someone on the ground was not threat. The large numbers of left wing middle class types in the Law, Politics, Civil Service, Academia and The Media who had no experience of a fight, let alone a street fight perverted the law of self defence. Working class men in The Labour Party who came from cities, especially Glasgow and Liverpool, understood the practical aspects of self defence.
The way the Law has been perverted by The Left wing middle class I do not know how a strong man can arrest a criminal without being prosecuted for assault. If one places the criminal in some sort of arm lock, who then resists they are likely to receive a dislocated shoulder and/or broken bones. Personally all those Left wing types in Politics, Civil Service, Academia, The Media, The Law should be offered the opportunity of trying to arrest a 12.5 st 6ft ( Light Heavy Weight ) manual labourer, who can throw and take a punch and see how difficult it is to control a strong man who can fight.
The Left are not interested in reducing crime but reducing an individual’s ability to be free of the state. The Left use crime to persuade people to give up freedom for security which entails increasing taxes to employ more people and gain votes of friends and families of criminals. In some parts of certain cities there is a large demi-monde, that half world between the honest person and the criminal, who have the vote.
As Thoms Jefferson said ” Those who give up liberty for security deserve enither “.
So the UK allows you the right to defend yourself but denies you the means. So in reality, the strong continue to prey on the weak.
God save the Queen.
I’ve been mugged at knifepint baba gang of black kids off theor heads and can’t see how it could have been any worse.
Once an attacker is under the influence of drugs one cannot reason with them. Drugs is main reason why one should avoid those behaving in an odd manner and they should be banned. Once a person mixes drugs they can be completely beyond reason.
“God made men, Samuel Colt made them equal.”
Black or white, gay or straight, male or female. Doesn’t matter if you’re the one holding the gun.
“Good…bad…I’m the guy with the gun.”
This sounds like a typical ‘uncivilized Americans with their guns’ article for a European audience to me, complete with (as pointed out by others) the usual factual errors and unjustified broad generalizations. Crime is a factor, but so is the sense that we cannot trust our government or a significant percentage of our fellow Americans. In short, we’re all preparing for worst case scenarios. When I was young, the thought of civil war, economic collapse, or a complete collapse of society or civilization was not something that anyone save for the paranoid fringe regularly contemplated. We had the fear of nuclear war, but by the 80’s even that was considered distant and improbable. Now we have climate change doomers, insurrections, mass migration, inflation, oh and let’s not forget our government’s woefully poor response to a new but relatively mild respiratory virus. In short, everybody is becoming a doomsday prepper because our fear-peddling media has given us a steady diet of scary ‘existential’ crises. Politicians and elites aid and abet this behavior, concluding that, out of fear, people will surrender their freedom and turn to government and the powerful for protection. They ignore the opposite possibility, that in keeping with the traditional American spirit, fear will inspire people to arm themselves and prepare to defend themselves and their possessions from both the powerful and each other all the more rabidly. The elites that think they run the world would be wise to heed the counsel of Yamamoto, and not disturb the sleeping giant. A modern America roused to revolution would be terrible to behold indeed. The gun lobby has very little to do with any of it. They are just profiting from the times. Every shop owner puts the umbrellas out front when rain is expected or when it’s actually raining, because that’s when people buy umbrellas. They expect they might need them. People buy guns for the same reason, they think they might need to use them, for reasons that are these days as easy to contemplate as rain.
“heed the counsel of Yamamoto, and not disturb the sleeping giant”
I don’t think Yamamoto was referring to a bunch of redneck clowns running round the woods thinking they are the airborne.
No, Yamamoto feared what came to pass – the mobilization of the US as a vastly resourced modern industrial fighting state. Completely the opposite of the nonsense that you are spouting about the traditional American spirit, obviously.
Didn’t you read the article? The redneck clowns you mention have always had plenty of guns. It’s minorities and women who are buying guns now. Maybe they fear Trump’s return to power and are preparing for that eventuality. Maybe they’re defending themselves from all those white supremacists I hear so much about. Maybe the women are fearful of rapists and rampant misogyny as described by our MSM. The media is busily telling people that white supremacists, rapists, and other unsavory characters are everywhere and that institutional racism, sexism, and other isms are massive problems. If I can’t trust the government or my neighbors, buying a gun seems a pretty reasonable thing to do, no? I am, in point of fact, saluting them for doing so and pointing out they are following the traditions laid down by other Americans, immigrants all, of generations past by choosing self-reliance rather than accepting tyranny whether that tyranny come from the right or the left. I’m actually a libertarian, so I think it’s great that minorities are arming themselves. If the minorities buying guns and the redneck clowns buying guns ever figure out that they have the same enemy, an aristocrat class of international elites and the corporations and institutions that allow them to exert power, that’s where the sleeping giant analogy comes in, friend. You can thumb your nose all you like at ‘redneck clowns’ or at whatever the urban equivalent is, but I would bet everything I own the Pentagon is not doing the same, and that their scenarios for putting down an actual insurrection are bloody and expensive at best and a trigger for global war and chaos at worst. The irony is that while I defend gun ownership, I actually don’t own one myself. Never saw the need, because there is little crime here, and I actually trust my local government and my local community would come together and do their best for each other in any crisis. I can’t say the same of my national government or many other places.
The lead photo tells us all we need to know about this article and the writer’s stance.
Never have I seen anyone at a range without hearing protection and long sleeves/pants. Firearms are loud. And a rogue cartridge from a misfiring pistol burns like the dickens.
There’s not a single informative or revealing fact in this tired rehash of old, moldy platitudes. Women buy guns to protect themselves. Nothing new about that.
You forgot to specify: in the US.
Ah, how refreshing. White lady gonna expose how minorities always being brainwashed, this time by the gun lobby. “Why do they keep voting against what we decide are their best interests?!?”
https://www.cato.org/commentary/history-lgbt-gun-rights-litigation
Similar to the movie Platoon. Throw a bunch of crap at the wall to see what sticks.
I have never understood why women dislike guns as they are an obvious equalizer against greater male strength and aggression. They are also effective at avoiding violence as their mere presence – or possible presence – dissuades violent people. One of my favourite videos during the summer of BLM was a parade of Antifa quietly walking down a street in the suburbs of a U.S. city. Normally they would be smashing car windows and house windows and intimidating and beating passersby. But not here. When the camera pans to the side of the street there is a man quietly standing in literally every doorway with a rifle watching them.
” When the camera pans to the side of the street there is a man quietly standing in literally every doorway with a rifle watching them.”
Utter fantasy.
They are called National Guardsmen, FBI or local SWAT teams. You have no clue what you are saying.
Word to the wise, Elle Hardy. Don’t use poll-tested lefty code words like “gun violence.” It tips off us racist-sexist-homophobes that you have nothing to say that is not regime narrative.
I imagine that your Beyond Belief is quite an experience. My take is that enthusiastic Christianity is a useful and beneficial means for lower class people to pull themselves up into the middle class and avoid misdirection from the educated class elite.
The trouble is that doesn’t mean the size of the lower class shrinks. Or the size of the middle class increases. I think other factors control that.
Lol. That’s it. That’s the comment.
The largest survey of American gun owners suggests they use firearms in self defence about 1.7 million times per year.
2021 National Firearms Survey: Updated Analysis Including Types of Firearms OwnedGeorgetown McDonough School of Business Research Paper No. 4109494
As in previous research, the vast majority of such incidents (82 percent) did not involve firing a gun, let alone injuring or killing an attacker. In more than four-fifths of the cases, respondents reported that brandishing or mentioning a firearm was enough to eliminate the threat.
White Americans are much more likely to be the victims of black violence than vice versa as Heather MacDonald’s research makes clear.
There is not gigantic upsurge in white Klan menbers running around shooting minorities. It is usually mentally ill crackhead black men that are attacking Asians (who they famously detest) and other blacks. The author is living in a Guardian fantasy world.
For crime statistics to be worthwhile; the location, number of crimes per unit area( say per kilometre ) per year, time, ethnicity of victim, ethnicity, of criminal, whether male or female, weapon used, education and skills of victim and criminal, age of victim and criminal. The final statistics would be x murders per square kilometre per year, y murders per square kilometre with knife or firearm. Data could be further sub-divided into 2 hour periods.
One may find that in a country the vast majority of murders are in a few quare kilometres within a city between say between 20:00 Hrs and 02:00Hrs undertaken by men using a firearm of a certain linguistic, religious or ethnic background. Resources would then be concentrated on dissuading criminals from committing murder and protecting victims, especially those of domestic violence.
Half a truth is a whole lie and knowledge dispels fear.
“Whereas in 2000, the majority of gun owners cited hunting as their primary reason for possessing a firearm, six years later, two-thirds said it was self-defence. By 2021, the proportion of people who said they purchased a gun for self-defence had risen to 88%.”
I always wonder… did these surveys give respondents the opportunity to provide *my* answer. I own guns neither for self-defense nor for hunting… but because an armed citizenry is “necessary for the security of a free state.”
Americans are free because they’re armed, not armed because they’re free. The existence of armed citizenry provides a crucial (even if subconscious) check on the willingness of the govt to subvert the popular will.
Fortunately not so much of an issue in UK
Given how the demographics of England are changing you won’t have to wait long till it is.
Jeepers. What a lot of tendentious, poorly researched political talking points masquerading as journalism. The intellectual laziness of the article is shocking.
Is there a new editor at UnHerd? I can’t imagine this sort of high-school agitprop being published in UnHerd’s earlier editions.
People are arming themselves because they don’t want to live in a society where the strong prey on the weak with impunity.
–
I say let them get on with it. If the yanks want to spend their lives living in fear, and running the real risk of every minor dispute ending in a hail of bullets that’s up to them, I’ll personally stick to sane countries where I know I’m not going to be shot by a family member or somebody whose drink I knock in the pub.
Also I found this line unintentionally hilarious
“9/11 saw Americans of all stripes feel the need to be armed for self-protection.”
I’m not sure how those poor souls in the towers would have fared any better if they’d all had guns, but that just about sums up the quality of the whole debate. If that’s what they want then that’s up to them, but the rest of the world thinks it’s beyond stupid
I don’t know how the poor souls in the towers would feel, but I’m sure the poor souls on the planes would feel a lot better if they’d all been armed. For one thing, they’d probably still be alive.
Why don’t you explain to us how everyone survives a shoot out at 35000 feet?
Standard Rambo fantasy with zero relation to reality.
You do realize it’s nigh impossible to bring down a commercial airliner armed with only a handgun. It’s unlikely even with an assault rifle. When the military wants to shoot down a plane, they use a missile, because guns tend to just shoot holes in the plane without affecting it’s function, whether fired from outside or inside. If it was that easy to shoot down planes with guns, the military wouldn’t be using missiles almost exclusively in air to air combat. The last confirmed kill with guns only by a US pilot was in 1967, and the guns mounted on combat aircraft are much bigger than anything a person could wield. I assume then that you must be referring to the cabin depressurizing. That is certainly a risk, but it would take more than one hole to do it, probably quite a few, as the systems are designed to handle various kinds of leaks and mechanical failures, and that’s assuming the bullet actually made it to the outside, as there’s a lot of stuff in the plane walls to hit, like wiring, support beams, etc. that could block it. Also, even if the cabin depressurized, which can and has happened, that’s what the oxygen masks that drop down are for. It’s unpleasant, but not fatal, and if the pilot notices cabin pressure declining rapidly, he’s going to first drop to a lower altitude and probably land at the nearest available airport. The greatest actual risk is probably hitting a fuel tank and starting a fire, but that’s only possible on certain models of plane that store fuel in the fuselage, and there’s no guarantee it would start a fire. Fire requires oxygen and with only a small bullet hole, it’s unlikely to blow up the plane, though a fire is hazardous enough on its own. It’s plausible that a gunfight might kill many people because, you know, getting shot is generally fatal, but it would require a tremendously improbable chain of events for it to result in the deaths of anyone other than whoever was shot, but I suppose if Rambo is your model, firing a ridiculous number of bullets while dual wielding automatic assault rifles might actually stand some chance of bringing down an aircraft, but the odds of an actual gunfight being anything like gunfights in movies are approximately zero.
I’d rather not be on plane at 30,000 feet with everybody armed. We’ve all seen disagreements on planes, the thought of one of them ending up in a drunken gun fight would worry me more than the plane being hijacked
This is the real reason to not allow guns on planes. The airlines, being a commercial business, are liable for any injuries that occur on their planes. Two idiots having a shootout and killing innocent bystanders would be a huge financial loss.
The question which is not asked is why does Switzerland have such a low murder rate yet a very high level of gun ownserhip and those in the armed forces keep military rifle in their homes?
Firearms regulation in Switzerland – Wikipedia
switzerland gun ownership – Bing images
Switzerland has a licence system whereby background checks are required before you’re given a licence to purchase a gun. There are checks and limits on the amount of ammunition you can buy and hold, and guns have to be locked away in gun cabinets when not in use, they’re not allowed to be carried randomly around the streets. It’s a mile away from the American system.
Wrong. We also require a license to buy a guns in the states. The problem is that gang bangers and criminals don’t adhere to the law. That’s the definition of a law breaker.
I would suggest self control, emotional maturity and sense of responsibility may have something to do with it.
The British Government put Sergeant Stan Scott through extensive training in how to kill and then gave him relevant experience in WW2. Sergeant Scott managed to refrain from killing anyone in civilian life, as have the vast majority of military personnel.
Is the major problem facing the West the decline in the proportion of people with self control, emotional maturity and responsibility ? It is the decline in those who can but chose not to which can be applied to unacceptable behaviour to and in front of woman by men. The issue is not intelligence, as three Nobel Prize Winners supported Hitler in the 1920s, and Sartre supported Mao in the late 1960s.
They don’t allow unfettered immigration and don’t have a welfare state to attract them in the first place. They also require assimilation into the culture.
Mature, harmonious society and plenty of enforced regulation.
Gorgons with guns! Whatever next?
She isn’t trying to ban guns. She’s trying to ban the laws that allow crisis politicians to act unilaterally.
Or so she says.
This article is a perfect illustration of Coulter’s Law.
Maybe you might give a thought as to why a young black man in the prime of life would want to shoot himSelf, his family and neighbors or teachers for no apparent gain or motive. This self destructive behavior is an act of dispare, and is obviously a cry for help. It happens in young white boys at about the same frequency. It is a symptom of a deep spiritual and psychological pathology in our young people. For time immemorial, Young men with no money and jobs prospects and no women to marry, are prone to drugs and booze, aggression and violence. Black or white this situation cannot be cured by banning guns. The youthful testosterone serges of young warriors needs to be tempered by training and discipline. This requires older men, especially fathers to be involved in their education and early childhood. These boys who are problematic usually have no fathers or stable family life at all and they are frequently taking very hard drugs.
So why bring up race or gun ownership rights. Maybe the cause lies in the liberal woke anti-god and anti male agenda. Maybe this leaves kids with no community no self worth, no skills or even literacy, no prospects of marriage or family or decide secure job. White or black the kid thinks he has no future. And girls are just as confused and miserable.
Does the damage caused by large scale unregulated gun ownership outweigh the benefits? Most first world countries say it does, Americans for some reason think it doesn’t, simple as that. Until that day they’ll keep picking their children up from school in body bags
So true – poor sods. The triumph of ideology over reality
G Orwell pointed out that pre 1917 one could buy guns from hardware shops and there was no licensing. Those people who had served as officers all had pistols and those who had worked as planters, engineers, etc over seas had rifles for protection from dangerous animals. Britain had a very low murder rate pre 1914.
Licensing of guns was only introduced due to fear of the IRA and Communist Revolution. Orwell said in WW2 said the rifle hanging above the working mans fireplace was a superb protector of liberty. Orwll said here weapons were affordable by the average person liberty was greater thanwhere it was not. The owning of bow, arrows, spear, helmet, dagger and sword ( Assizes of Arms 1182) by the freemen of England ensured a degree of freedom not seen by a similar class in Europe and there was a very murder rate compared top Continental Europe.
The citizen soldier is a foundation of the freedom of Switzerland and Israel.
What is being ignored in this discussion is how men perceive whether a comment is an insult to their honour and whether an insult to their honour can only be avenged with the taking of blood. Therefore one needs to determine the nature of honour and pride within that society. One man may laugh off a comment. Another may challenge a another to a fight and honour being satisfied with knocking the other man to the ground. In other groups, a man may readly perceive a comment to be an insult to his honour which can can only be avenged by the act of killing. It is where insults are easily perceived and honour only be satified by killing are where the murder rates are high. In Sicily the murder rate is high because of the Cosa Nostra. One man had 35 members of his family murdered – read Cosas Nostra by John Dickie .
Correction: the *governments* of those countries say it does. When polled the *people* of those countries would prefer to have the ability to defend themselves effectively against a lethal threat.
Is it time for UnHerd to have separate UK and US editions? This article is important for the American readership but what is a Brit supposed to do with it?
We don’t vote in the US and we can’t buy guns so there’s not much point reading this.
As a person-of-America, I think it is useful to hear what other countries, and cultures think of U.S. issues. Maybe my point doesn’t apply to this topic, or maybe it applies most to this topic. Who knows? My point is I get more epiphanic (epiphany) points of view, even when they are echo-chamber-adjacent, then hearing from my local pundits. That said…
This article regurgitated the same local disinformation I hear frequently. Maybe Ellen Hardy can start the U.S. division of UnHerd, having perfectly hit the U.S. totalitarian’s echo-chamber-bull’s-eye? Nice aim, Ms. Hardy!
As an American, I do enjoy hearing the British stories for the sake of diversity of opinion and experience. I honestly thought this article was a typical European “Brutish Americans with their guns” lamentation, a trope nearly as old as the US itself. In terms of crime though, the UK and US are apples and oranges. It’s fair to question whether this article is a good choice for Unherd given its transatlantic readership. Also, it’s not a particularly good article. It’s about what I’d expect an AI to generate if fed nothing but NYT editorials to learn from.
Nah, I think an AI would do a better job.
Not going to read this slanted bullshit written by a c**t.
Americans will keep buying guns because of the myths they are sold and that they lap up like enthusiastic sheep.
As a direct result of this the gun fueled carnage will continue. Maybe one day they will get tired of taking their kids home from school in body bags or having to have armed guards at churches – but I doubt it. One of the main reasons for avoiding travel to the United States wherever possible.
Wrong again. It’s because we have a right to own a firearm, which is embedded in our Constitution. Troll.
Which is why I’m not in favour of constitutions personally. Having laws written over 200 years ago that are incredibly difficult to change to my eyes simply causes problems. I much prefer the UKs system of laws being enacted and repealed via a simple majority as lives, circumstances and public opinions change over time
The first amendment is kind of a big deal.
Just because some of the laws are good ones doesn’t alter my opinion. Any government that wanted to place limits on what opinions you could say would never get voted in anyway
I’m not sure about that at all. Not even close. People were quite supportive of the Covid mandates and restrictions. The first amendment is supposed to protect the minority from the majority.
Really? What about the instances of UK citizens being warned or even arrested by police for expressing views contrary to trans ideology? US First Amendment protects us from that though the wokerati are doing more and more to undermine it.
Comments criticising Islam, Feminists, Homosexuals,Immigration, Ethnic Minorities and Transgender issues have largely been banned and resulted in people being sacked or prosecuted for hate crime, so in reality, censorship exists. Does Britain have greater free speech in 2023 than in WW2? How quickly could the various grooming gangs by men largely of Pakistani /Islamic heritage have been caught if full and frank discussions of the problems been undertaken?
Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal – Wikipedia
I would suggest that speech should only be prevented where people urge acts of physical violence against others. Where lies are spread people can sue for libel or slander.
Perhaps there’s something wrong with your constitution then? The problem with written constitutions – they need updating occasionally.
We have that in our Constitution. They’re known as amendments.
Your comment is spot-on, Ms. Socialist–and stylishly-worded, if I may say so. I am just so tired of taking our kids home from school in body bags! Our eldest surviving is fast approaching that tender stage in a young all-American girl’s life when she ought to be experiencing her first fatal gunshot wound at school. But I just can’t persuade the Mrs. to help out with the carrying! After a long day at the office, I’m just so tired! And she won’t hear of me ordering an Uber or using a rolling luggage carrier instead of a body bag–“what would the neighbors say?” But I know for a fact all the other men in our community are also tired of the never-ending chore of taking our (very spoiled!) kids home in body bags. It’s enough to make a man think of getting a vasectomy!
And I know what you mean about having to have armed guards in all the churches–you are so perceptive (most people don’t see them)! I am tired of them because our pastor always takes my wife’s side about taking home the kids in body bags from school (including Sunday school). I’d gladly settle it in a good old-fashioned American shootout–but Pastor has all those armed guards to protect him.
I agree that you must avoid travel to our barbaric land, but I do wish you would consider giving Zoom lectures! A lot of the single old ladies around here who are always talking, to anyone who will listen, about moving to a more civilized land, such as Europe, would love to hear what you have to say, and being quite lonely, they would certainly enjoy your company! I think you would be a big hit on Facebook!
“Your comment is spot-on”
Yes, I know.