why i never want to visit the USA

[El Rojo]

or at least never alaska. unless to visit sarah palin, she sure is an exceptional politician.


"School fits gun education into curriculum"

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_ca73f7f1-d060-537d-a6cb-e81fcf2eef91.html

[khad]

Gun education in Alaska isn't such a bad idea. Hunting is a way of life there, and it'll do the kids some good to learn gun safety. People who've lived in urban areas all their life really don't have the frame of reference to understand this.

[RED DAVE]

Gun education in Alaska isn't such a bad idea. Hunting is a way of life there, and it'll do the kids some good to learn gun safety. People who've lived in urban areas all their life really don't have the frame of reference to understand this.The problem is, as Michael Moore points out in Bowling for Columbine, that in the USA, gun culture is often connected to an ethic of personal violence and right-wing politics.

Moore points out that Canada has a much higher rate of gun ownership than the United States, but the murder rate there is tiny compared to the US.

RED DAVE

[ed miliband]

If they didn't have gun education people would wring hands over the poor, helpless Alaskan children raised by evil, gun-toting nutters.

You can't win.

[bailey_187]

wish we had gun education at my school

[FreeFocus]

Everyone should know how to operate a firearm, whether it's for hunting or self-defense. Especially people who might be concerned with some type of liberation..

[The Douche]

Come and see a thread where the liberals out themselves yet again.

[ed miliband]

What I don't get is the logic whereby sex education = good because it'll teach young people to practice sex safely (which is obviously true), but (in the mind of a liberal) gun education = bad because... kids will shoot themselves/eachother if they learn how to use guns safely...? Uh.

Same applies to conservatives who are against sex education but for gun education obv.

[Imposter Marxist]

Come and see a thread where the liberals out themselves yet again.

This.

[The Douche]

What I don't get is the logic whereby sex education = good because it'll teach young people to practice sex safely (which is obviously true), but (in the mind of a liberal) gun education = bad because... kids will shoot themselves/eachother if they learn how to use guns safely...? Uh.

Same applies to conservatives who are against sex education but for gun education obv.

Don't you get it? Guns are for dirty, scummy, right wing types! History has shown this to be a fact!




I see no reason in all of history why gun ownership should be encouraged on a mass level.:rolleyes:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?" - Frederich Engels

The First, Second and Third internationals up until Stalin's reign argued for the right to bear arms.

"...the disarming of the workers was the first commandment for the bourgeois, who were at the helm of the state. Hence, after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of the workers." - Engels

"Education of all to bear arms. Militia in the place of the standing army." - Eduard Bernstein

"No standing army or police force, but the armed people." - Lenin

"Every possibility for the proletariat to get weapons into its hands must be exploited to the fullest." - Guidelines on the Organizational Structure of Communist Parties, on the Methods and Content of their Work (Adopted at the 24th Session of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 12 July 1921)

I was lucky enough to learn how to safely handle firearms when I was a kid from my dad and uncles. By the time I took the required hunter's safety course when I was 12 I had already been handling guns for sometime.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The issue is not gun ownership but the society in which a gun owner lives.

the gun is an inanimate object that does not act outside the will of a human being (or some malfunction but thats another case:lol:)

The human is the issue, but the individual human is not to blame. it is the relations of all humans and how they interact that is to blame. If society is as divided as the US is, there will be violence. If media promotes rugged individualism and violence, there will be violence.

if society is rather unified, there wont be much in the way of violence. if homes, jobs, food, healthcare and basic necessities are guaranteed, the only reason someone would resort to violence is if they were a counterrevolutionary or was involved in a very heated or passionate event in which someone unfortunately dies.

[Rafiq]

I agree with what Khad said.

In Alaska, hunting is essential to most people.

Teaching kids how to properly confront these weapons, is actually quite positive.

[Os Cangaceiros]

or at least never alaska. unless to visit sarah palin, she sure is an exceptional politician.


"School fits gun education into curriculum"

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_ca73f7f1-d060-537d-a6cb-e81fcf2eef91.html

Trust me, you never want to visit the 907. It's like the fucking Wild West out there. The blood of commies and liberals flows freely in the streets of Anchorage and Fairbanks. :sleep:

[scourge007]

or at least never alaska. unless to visit sarah palin, she sure is an exceptional politician.


"School fits gun education into curriculum"

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_ca73f7f1-d060-537d-a6cb-e81fcf2eef91.html
Considering Alaska has a lot of untamed wilderness , what's so wrong about teaching kids to use guns to defend themselves from wild animals ?

[Robocommie]

Don't you get it? Guns are for dirty, scummy, right wing types! History has shown this to be a fact!


I guess a lot of folks who have come to far left politics from left-liberal politics are used to guns being a flagship issue for petit bourgeois Constitutionalists who are hardcore into castle doctrine, my property my right kind of attitudes. They get to reflexively be against the private ownership of guns without considering why revolutionaries might want guns to be in the hands of the people.

Or, that guns can actually be used as practical tools in rural settings.

[TC]

Guns mean different things in different cultural contexts, but it is unrealistic to think that anywhere in the U.S. post-1970s they represent developing a discipline to be employed in some sort of revolutionary people's insurrection.

Gun ownership instead more typically comes from a sort of alienated, individualist paranoia towards society - the fear of "home invasion" - or a macho desire to just have and hold the power to destroy people in your hands.

Lots of people don't feel very powerful in their every day lives, they feel like they lack control over their circumstances. If they can have a gun though, boy does that make them feel powerful! Now does that sound like a genuine experience of power or a way they're being sedated by the rightwing gun lobby to take comfort in their firearms rather than improve their real conditions?

Gun fetishism is much more strongly associated with the right than the left - the right wants guns not to overthrow capitalism but so if a socialist (or UN) government 'usurps the constitution' they can fight back in some Red Dawn scenario. This of course isn't necessarily the case, it is a culturally contingent phenomenon, but it is the case in the current social context in America.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Definitely, so we should all throw our support behind the capitalist state in its drive to rid the world of violence through the regulation of firearms. :thumbup1:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TC:


Gun fetishism is much more strongly associated with the right than the left - the right wants guns not to overthrow capitalism but so if a socialist (or UN) government 'usurps the constitution' they can fight back in some Red Dawn scenario. This of course isn't necessarily the case, it is a culturally contingent phenomenon, but it is the case in the current social context in America.

Indeed. Apparently gun ownership in the USA has risen by 50% since Obama was elected.

[#FF0000]

I like guns. I think this is a good thing.

"gun culture" is another thing entirely. hoo boy.

[Aurorus Ruber]

Well, one must also consider that gun rights form an integral part of American conservatism while contradicting the core principles of whatever remains of the American left. I don't entirely blame people for feeling uneasy about embracing what most consider a right wing issue.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Guns mean different things in different cultural contexts, but it is unrealistic to think that anywhere in the U.S. post-1970s they represent developing a discipline to be employed in some sort of revolutionary people's insurrection.

Gun ownership instead more typically comes from a sort of alienated, individualist paranoia towards society - the fear of "home invasion" - or a macho desire to just have and hold the power to destroy people in your hands.

Lots of people don't feel very powerful in their every day lives, they feel like they lack control over their circumstances. If they can have a gun though, boy does that make them feel powerful! Now does that sound like a genuine experience of power or a way they're being sedated by the rightwing gun lobby to take comfort in their firearms rather than improve their real conditions?

Gun fetishism is much more strongly associated with the right than the left - the right wants guns not to overthrow capitalism but so if a socialist (or UN) government 'usurps the constitution' they can fight back in some Red Dawn scenario. This of course isn't necessarily the case, it is a culturally contingent phenomenon, but it is the case in the current social context in America.

This kind of pop psychology doesn't explain why the vast majority of people where I come from owned firearms.

Where are you from, incidentally? I'm guessing some kind of urban setting.

[ed miliband]

Gun ownership instead more typically comes from a sort of alienated, individualist paranoia towards society - the fear of "home invasion" - or a macho desire to just have and hold the power to destroy people in your hands.

By the same token fear of gun ownership typically takes on a very Burkean form; the typical gun owner is said to be stupid, fickle, irrational, uncivilized and dangerous, or at least that's the presentation I consistently see coming from those who advocate very strict gun control.

[black magick hustla]

yea i know a bunch of gun owners and not all of em are like that. anyway one of my friends is an extreme libertarian and his family stocks up food and silver slabs and has a good collection of guns fuck yea i like more these people preparing for 2012/demon hoardes/reptoids than liberals and their gun control

[black magick hustla]

also anybody who talks the rap about "revolutionaries know how to use guns" is silly because ok good luck tryin to take on tanks and planes

[TC]

Definitely, so we should all throw our support behind the capitalist state in its drive to rid the world of violence through the regulation of firearms. :thumbup1:

Uh did I say that? No. Not my fault if you draw the wrong implications. I certainly don't think the state should have exclusive possession of all the guns.

No we should however resist right wing gun culture and it seems reasonably likely that this gun education program is a way of drawing children into it.

[Robocommie]

Right wing gun culture is spooky as shit, it's often jingoistic, ultra-nationalistic, prone to paranoid conspiracy theories and racist as shit.

What would be nice is to try and foster a left-wing gun culture which would encourage attitudes of communal cooperation, international solidarity, self-defense and a respect for both human life and the gun as both tool and danger.

[scarletghoul]

What would be nice is to try and foster a left-wing gun culture which would encourage attitudes of communal cooperation, international solidarity, self-defense and a respect for both human life and the gun as both tool and danger.
Right on, brother
http://sugarforyoursoul.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/huey-newton-bobby-black-panthers.jpg

[Amphictyonis]

The problem is, as Michael Moore points out in Bowling for Columbine, that in the USA, gun culture is often connected to an ethic of personal violence and right-wing politics.

Moore points out that Canada has a much higher rate of gun ownership than the United States, but the murder rate there is tiny compared to the US.

RED DAVE

I live in Oakland and Before that the Filmore district in San Fransisco. The murder rate in both cities is deplorable. Around 300 a year in Oakland. I think the gun culture/murder rates largely center around scarcity forced on the black community via racism. Their pride as a peoples has been damaged and the only way many young black men can fix it is through ego and "respect". I saw that interview with Micheal Moore and thought it a tad disingenuous. I think the more one lives in scarcity the more likely one is to commit violent crimes. Right wing violence is a problem but I think, from experience, addressing racism and giving people of color equal access to the means of production would do a lot to fix the problem.

[Aurora]

I disagree with the OP for the reasons stated by NHIA and others.


"...the disarming of the workers was the first commandment for the bourgeois, who were at the helm of the state. Hence, after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of the workers." - Engels

What do you guys think is the main reason why the US and Canada compared to Europe has such a lax attitude towards firearms?

I was thinking while it may have been necessary for the capitalists to allow workers to have firearms to control slaves and kill native americans that largely isn't the case now so it's surprising that the US and Canada still have such an armed population. Perhaps it has to do with the US being near constantly at war with other countries?

[FreeFocus]

I disagree with the OP for the reasons stated by NHIA and others.

What do you guys think is the main reason why the US and Canada compared to Europe has such a lax attitude towards firearms?

I was thinking while it may have been necessary for the capitalists to allow workers to have firearms to control slaves and kill native americans that largely isn't the case now so it's surprising that the US and Canada still have such an armed population. Perhaps it has to do with the US being near constantly at war with other countries?

The bold is a good part of the reason. I think that as a foundational aspect of the American experience, it's part of the national psychology. I certainly don't have a problem with guns, as I noted earlier in this thread, but the original logic behind individual gun rights (and what drives much of it today) was to enable and entrench racism and imperialism. I would certainly argue that leftists weary of gun rights hold a reactionary position, though.

[Political_Chucky]

I'm not taking sides or forming an opinion just yet, because I really don't know too much to make a decision on gun control, but would it be different if a school in south central LA was to have a gun education class oppossed to a city in Alaska? Does it make a difference whether the city is rural or urban to say, guns are OK used responsibly??

[Robocommie]

I think the more one lives in scarcity the more likely one is to commit violent crimes.

Generally to me, the real dividing line between liberals and leftists is an understanding of the economic origin of a lot of social problems. Liberals are always blaming social problems on non-structural causes. In the 1920s progressives were all about bungalows, then they tried to ban alcohol through Prohibition, nowadays they want to get rid of guns in the hope that it will drop the crime rate.

But a leftist understands that substance abuse, violence, poverty itself, is a problem that stems from flaws endemic to the structure of capitalist society itself.

[khad]

Guns mean different things in different cultural contexts, but it is unrealistic to think that anywhere in the U.S. post-1970s they represent developing a discipline to be employed in some sort of revolutionary people's insurrection.

Gun ownership instead more typically comes from a sort of alienated, individualist paranoia towards society - the fear of "home invasion" - or a macho desire to just have and hold the power to destroy people in your hands.
And what kind of context exists in a predominantly rural setting like Alaska, a place where hunting and fishing equipment may be purchased with food stamps? Thousands of Alaskans depend on subsistence hunting and fishing for food, and for many more knowing how to use a firearm constitutes a useful survival skill.

Why don't you provide some context to validate your argument by taking down a moose or bear with your bare hands?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

also anybody who talks the rap about "revolutionaries know how to use guns" is silly because ok good luck tryin to take on tanks and planes

The people making the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan so difficult are mainly using small arms.

Firearms were/are usually present in miners strikes in the coal fields (West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania) from the early days up until the 70's, 80's and even 90's. Ever see the documentary Harlan County U.S.A.? I have stories, friends and family with experiences, etc. that would surprise a lot of people, "leftist revolutionaries" included.


What do you guys think is the main reason why the US and Canada compared to Europe has such a lax attitude towards firearms?Canada doesn't actually. There are all sorts of restrictions on ownership, the kind of firearms that can be owned, licensing, transport and display, etc., there.

And that's how the firearms rights that existed in England were rolled back: piece by piece.


I was thinking while it may have been necessary for the capitalists to allow workers to have firearms to control slaves and kill native americans that largely isn't the case now so it's surprising that the US and Canada still have such an armed population. Perhaps it has to do with the US being near constantly at war with other countries? I think that it would be much more difficult to disarm the masses in countries like the US and Canada, where so many own and use firearms on a regular basis (for hunting, especially .. there are tens of millions of hunters in both countries) at least all at once.

A huge portion of the original immigrants to North America were farmers. They used firearms to kill pests and hunt animals for additional food or revenue. Then there were the trappers, who were the first Europeans to explore and map out huge parts of the continent, who also had guns for food and protection. Firearms were used to eliminate Native Americans who wouldn't surrender to the dominance of the new rulers, by runaway slave hunter, etc. When the revolution rolled around large numbers of people were already armed. Then the civil war, etc.

At every point since there have been drives by sections of the ruling classes and their hangers on to limit and even eliminate firearms rights. In Canada it's progressing faster than it is here (though some of our leftists are doing their best to help speed it up).

When you call for limiting gun ownership, for whatever reason you, you are arguing for the capitalist state to regulate our lives further, since that's the only force capable of requiring

The bourgeois armed the proletariat when it needed it, and tried to reverse that when it didn't. Some countries went through mass revolutions involving huge swaths of the population. Others did not.

It should be mentioned that Switzerland has wide firearm ownership, and makes firearms training available to any boy or girl who wants it. All Swiss men enter boot camp around age 20 and remain a part of the militia until they reach 30. All those people keep their firearms (mostly Sig 550s) at home. After their militia term ends they're allowed to keep their firearms after having the autofire function removed. You need a permit to carry firearms.

There are some 3,000,000 firearms in homes across Switzerland. There are 7,600,000 people. There were 34 instances of gun violence in the entire country 2006. There were nearly twice as many instances of knife violence.

[jediknight36]

The gun culture in this country is not a great teacher when it comes to why and how to handle a firearm. In fact, in many aspects it is seen as a representation of a phallus and the bigger the firearm, the bigger the member.

But, on the other hand, if parents would teach their children how to properly use and respect firearms, then many accidents and unfortunate incidents can be avoided. A leftist "NRA" is needed and quickly.

Right wing gun culture is every bit as paranoid as others here have said. Think OKC bombing, Waco, tea parties, etc. It may be reactionary for liberals to think that way, but with weapons in the hands of lunatics who are fed by the same hate-filled corporate media who promotes them, can you blame the average public school educated liberal?

In solidarity and peace

[Salyut]

At every point since there have been drives by sections of the ruling classes and their hangers on to limit and even eliminate firearms rights. In Canada it's progressing faster than it is here (though some of our leftists are doing their best to help speed it up).


Very much so. The CPC follows the line set by the Liberals/NDP on the issue, I was pretty pissed off to see that (the RCP* are very pro-gun and I have no idea about the M-L's/trots). Seriously proposing a national handgun ban would never have flown in the US but in Canada...yeah. I expect to have my SKS seized eventually.

I'm pretty sure the Soviets taught firearms safety (and a whole host of cool stuff) with DOSAAF but Khad would know more about that then me.

*Not associated with the American RCP. They seem to be a group of Maoists in Quebec/Ontario.

[synthesis]

Here's my main problem with the argument that promotes gun ownership/training "for the revolution," at least in the United States. If right-wingers stock up on guns and start some shit, they might see one or two Ruby Ridges for every Oklahoma City bombing they perpetrate. If the same stuff was done by conscious working class people it would be martial law; the entire force of the American state would come crashing down on them and anyone who ever said a positive word about them.

It just doesn't seem to even out, from a "tactical" perspective.

[Dimentio]

Gun education in Alaska isn't such a bad idea. Hunting is a way of life there, and it'll do the kids some good to learn gun safety. People who've lived in urban areas all their life really don't have the frame of reference to understand this.

Amen. Northern Sweden is similar.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Here's my main problem with the argument that promotes gun ownership/training "for the revolution," at least in the United States. If right-wingers stock up on guns and start some shit, they might see one or two Ruby Ridges for every Oklahoma City bombing they perpetrate. If the same stuff was done by conscious working class people it would be martial law; the entire force of the American state would come crashing down on them and anyone who ever said a positive word about them.

It just doesn't seem to even out, from a "tactical" perspective.

As I've said, firearms appear/ed at most/many miners strikes.

Then you have historical episodes in class war like:

The Battle of Blair Mountain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
The Homestead Strike (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Strike)
Colorado Labor Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars)
West Virginia Coal Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_Coal_Wars)
Harlan County War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War)
The Coal Creek War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Creek_War)
Hartford Arkansas Mine Riot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford,_Arkansas_miners_riot)

The problem I see here most is that people draw crude lines based on current political positions. They're arguing against firearm ownership for millions based on who they voted for, which talking head they listen to on the radio, etc. They ignore the class question (tens of millions of workers, many whom may hold right wing political positions on any number of questions, do own firearms), and the underlying fact that the only force capable of restricting firearm ownership is the capitalist state.

[Pierre.Laporte]

I actually live in the town this news story takes place in.

I've grown up here most of my life, and hunting is a large part of our culture. Juneau, you have to realize, is generally the progressive anomaly of Alaska. As such we don't cling to guns for the sake of clinging to guns. We embrace firearms, but generally only for hunting. The outdoor activities here are abundant. Urban entertainment is... few and far between. Hunting is also a large part of Juneau's culture.

Bears are something you have to learn to live with. I've had them screwing around in my garage, hanging out on the porch, pooping in my lawn (way worse than dogs, trust me). Generally they're very easy to live with when enjoying the outdoors hiking, fishing, kayaking, etc. You keep your eyes out, keep your distance, and don't make any sudden movements if you do bump into one (and common sense with food). However it is generally a good idea to take a gun with you if the worst happens. Bear mace? Sorry, but that stuff just angers them, if not season you with a faint taste of salsa. Not only this, but we also have to be concerned over the wolves and moose, too. Which are actually much more aggressive. When I take a flight out of Alaska, the expanses of wilderness are quite astonishing. You literally get swallowed up in endless expanses of green forest, which translates to lots and lots of wildlife. Elsewhere in the United States you can almost never escape the human touch on the Earth. Alaska is one of the few places you can just about do that here.

tl;dr We rely on firearms for our protection from rogue wildlife, and for hunting. We're not as gun crazy as the rest of the US in terms of hoping to use them for vigilante justice. It's very important to teach our youth proper gun safety because unfortunately, some parents don't.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It's not only Alaska that relies on hunting though. Pennsylvania (historically one of the most industrialized states) has 1,300,000 licensed hunters. Many of those people rely on what they kill to help get them through the winter.

And even if there was no hunting at all, it still wouldn't be a reason to get behind the ruling class state's attempts to regulate firearms.