FEATURED » MY FAMILY
Why can’t we stop the deadly use of weapons in USA?
January 19, 2013 · 0 Comments
Yes, we know! We have more weapons available to us in the USA, and that’s the reason for the tremendous amount of killings – each year over 30 thousand. Let’s compare the USA to a country like Germany, which inhabits ca. one fourth the amount of population, so one can understand the extend of the tragedies taking place on our soil – in Germany there were ca. 600 people killed due to fire arms usage last year. Multiply this number by four to compensate for smaller population and we would get ca. 2400 killed people – more than ten times less!
We have more weapons, but that’s not the only reason …
Clearly, the gun laws in Germany are much stricter. Not only fire arms, but even relatively small fighting knifes are prohibited to be sold to the public, (BTW., so are spy cameras and other surveillance equipment to protect the privacy). Still, over 7 million fire arms are legally owned by Germans and every one who has a good reason to request a weapon permit can attain one. It can be a jeweler who owns a business, or it can be a hunter. Compared to the over 300 million weapons available to the Americans there is no doubt that the number of weapons is a major factor.
Education is important!
However, no one can purchase a gun in Germany without going through proper education. The prospective gun owner has to learn how to handle the fire arm, how to store it correctly, how to transport it. One has to learn the legal implications of fire arm usage, and one has to pass the criminal records test. Needless to say though, that assault weapons, silencers or optical sniper equipment is strictly prohibited to be sold to regular citizens under any circumstances.
Possibly this aspect can be improved in the US as well.
How about shooting games?
There is no question, that there is a better way to spend it’s precious childhood time than sitting in front of a monitor and to play shooting games, or actually most of all other video games available today. This topic is for it self worthwhile to be discussed. But aren’t children world wide bound to monitors playing “questionable” games – sure they are! Still the shootings are mostly here. Therefore, the ease of access to guns may be a major factor yet again.
What else?
How about socialization? A closer look may reveal, that in many cases the shooters were put down on an occasion prior to the deadly incident, be it in class room, on work, at home, or in a contact with law enforcement.
In our childhood and later in live hardships do occur – we know it.
There is a particularity though: How often is it the case, that one had a healthy social environment since day one, and later in their lives they became transformed to a mad going shooter? Probably non to zero!
We humans are social beings and therefore the more strong close relationships we have, and more importantly from our youth on, the better are we prepared to overcome problems in our lives.
It’s starts with the most important factor, the immediate family, and goes on to kindergarten, and then even more significant to school.
Social bindings in school among class comrades are usually very strong and last for the whole life, but only if they have the chance to mature!
In reality though, it seams that this precious locus of human socialization was sacrificed for the presumably better functioning of the bigger system.
In order to make our children later in their lives more mobile, so they can easier go to a far distant college, or to change easier their jobs – means, to be better available for the economy, for the educational industry, for national defense, etc. – their immediate social environment was altered in a way, which too often does not allow for long term relationships to occur.
Thinking about the ways older generations grew up, one can envision how most of children were embedded in several long lasting groups, be it in school where several years were spent with mostly same children and same teacher, sport teams, religious communities, functioning neighborhoods, etc., and last but not least functioning big families with parents, grandparents, siblings and distant relatives having engaged each other on regular base.
Nowadays many of these “Social Incubators” do not function any more. Families are more than often in divorce, or separated by thousands of miles in search for better jobs, better homes, better opportunities etc.
After the first year in school classes are being taken apart and rearranged, it seems almost intentionally, to prevent the appearance of stronger friendships among the children in order to prepare the needed mobility.
Emphasis on academic differentiation in early childhood is one reason more to tear apart the classes prematurely as well.
Teachers are being laid off or moving away.
It is known, that the US society is very mobile, always on the wheels.
Actually quite simple …
This necessity to be always on the move is a consequence of the modern society in general and bears surely negative consequences to the socialization of the population.
In some countries the living conditions are set in a way, which protects the social structures of it’s citizens and their families better. It may be more security at work, more security in renting a home long term, less need to move far away from home town for an education for an ordinary profession, better accessibility to health system.
This leads almost automatically to a more stable social environment, and therefore more happiness, satisfaction with their lives, mental stability and the ability to overcome hardships live may present.
No one can seriously reject the notion, that a sufficient amount of sound and stable social relationships is the most important factor which contributes to happiness in our lives.
Surely, our wealth depends on us being mobile. But it seems that the happiness, which is based mostly on socialization, needs quite the opposite.
Mad killers commit actually a suicide – and they don’t care about the others to die with them – they want to pay back to a cold society …
One very distinct attribute of many killers is, that they kill them self or assume to be killed. That means they are actually committing suicide, are unhappy with their lives, and very often due to a lack of sufficient socialization do not have sound social contacts to whom they would be committed to in one or another way.
The ability to deal with the killings of innocent citizens on our soil depends less on technicalities like how many arms are out there. Think about countries like Israel, Switzerland where weapons are even more available than in US.
The proper balance of the needs of the economy in large on the one side, and the need to keep a very cool society human enough, so we can enjoy both, the wealth as well as our human lives seems to be a bigger issue.
Till this balance is reached, and for this the constellation of our governments must be more balanced to reflect the nations interests better, and not that of big corporations, we may have to try to restrict the accessibility to weapons still, though it would not cure the real cause of the problem.
By Mr.Reason
By myfuamerica
Sorry, comments are closed on this post.