[cpbell0033944]

Do you really think it's different here in the U.S.?  The homicide rate for black males in the U.S. is almost seven times that of white males, and most of those homicides occur in inner cities.  If you just look at the suburbs and rural areas, there's probably almost no difference between the homicide rates in Europe and the U.S., despite the fact that rural and suburban zones in the U.S. are probably some of the most heavily armed areas on the planet.

I never doubted that it was the same – my point (for those who may have misunderstood) was that things are no different here.

[Lingster]

Well, one difference where you are is that criminals have lower risk of being harmed, which is why burglaries, muggings and such are so much more common in the U.K. than in the U.S.  In the U.S. there are relatively few burglars, because the risk-reward calculus is less favorable.

Also, it's very likely that in the U.K. defensive killings occur but are not reported at all, for fear of prison time.  Someone in Tony Martin's shoes today would likely finish off the wounded burglar and then bury the two of them in the garden, rather than subject himself to years in prison.

[Lingster]

James Q. Wilson in the Los Angeles Times:

So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.

This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of "stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.

Leading British, French, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers have blamed the United States for listening to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Assn. Many of their claims are a little strange. At least two papers said we should ban semiautomatic assault weapons (even though the killer did not use one); another said that buying a machine gun is easier than getting a driver's license (even though no one can legally buy a machine gun); a third wrote that gun violence is becoming more common (when in fact the U.S. homicide rate has fallen dramatically over the last dozen years).

The whole essay is excellent, so take a minute to read it.

[cpbell0033944]

It's certainly an interesting article.  I am puzzled as to how the writer can claim that some of the worst mass shootings have been European when neither of the examples given killed as many as the Virginia Tech outrage, especially as, if he wanted to prove this, he could also have mentioned Hungerford, which was equally bad.

Yet again, though, a causal relationship between firearm regulation and an increase in gun crime in the UK is being inferred, when the evidence provided by the writer is no more than circumstantial.  Yet again, the "only one gun a month in Virginia" point is used to suggest that the state takes gun crime seriously, when the fact remains that the killer perpetrated such a gross act of violence and evil as he did using what could have been A MERE TWO MONTHS' RATION.  Yet again, the fact that the UK has a higher rate of violent crime not involving firearms is being used to suggest that the disparity in crime levels between UK and US is less notable than it is, although Mr Wilson does concede that the murder rate without firearm involvement is three times higher than the UK.  This even leads Mr Wilson to admit that the US is culturally more violent than Europe.  This is exactly the point that I tried to make earlier in this thread.  I suggested that it may have to do with the way that the modern US was founded, although I'm of course using schoolboy history to take a slightly educated guess. 

Interestingly, of course, 17th-Century England underwent a civil war that was every bit as bloody and divisive as the US civil war two centuries later.  Brother fought brother in a struggle of loyalties between Crown and Parliament, yet, perhaps because the English Civil War is regarded as a tragic aberration of decency and sense, rather than as either a glorious victory or humiliating defeat, as many seem to view the US Civil War (how else to explain the popularity in the southern states of the Confederate banner rather than the Stars and Stripes?), it does not have the same effect that the US Civil War seems to still be having today.  I also wonder if the aforementioned pioneering spirit, combined with the legacy of both the Alamo and Little Bighorn are players in this.  How else can one explain the suggestion that Americans tend to be more violent than Europeans?  Might this history not have helped reinforce the "Self-reliant, self-defending US househoder" attitude that Lingster mentioned when he said that he felt safer knowing that his neighbours were gun owners?

I haven't read the newspaper articles that Mr Wilson mentions.  However, I agree that to call the for banning of mchine guns, IF THIS WAS INDEED THE MEANING OF THE ARTICLE IN QUESTION, is idiotic given that such weapons are already illegal.  Might I suggest that the call may have intended to be for the banning of semi-automatic weapons, and that language barriers or sloppy writing maybe to blame for the misunderstanding?  I also would not claim that US gun crime overall is increasing, even though, at the time, I did not know that it had actually decreased: I did not know the facts, therefore I did not make such a statement.  I do, however, find it extraordinary that Mr Wilson, as a rational, analytical academic, criticises the call to ban semi-automatic weaponry because the Virginia Tech killer did not use one.  It's like saying that a dictatorships shouldn't be called-upon to abolish execution by hanging, drawing and quartering after an entirely innocent citizen is hanged by long-drop method for a crime they demonstrably did not commit; just because hanging, drawing and quartering wasn't used in this hypothetical example does not mean that it is any less barbaric, nor that calls for it's abolition in this fictitious country are any less valid.

[Lingster]

First off, three points to address in your historical account:

1. After the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, many of the belligerents wound up here.  Virginia Tech's nickname is the "Hokies", but further north on highway 81, the University of Virginia's nickname is the "Cavaliers".  Virginia was substantially settled by cavaliers.  Up north, New England was largely settled by puritans, aka "roundheads".  So cultural divisions dating from the English Civil War were a substantial part of the hostility between north and south from 17th century colonization all the way up to the 19th century U.S. Civil War.
2. The Confederate battle flag or naval jack (derived from Cross of St. Andrew) is not flown as a challenge to the U.S. flag (Old Glory) or government.  It's usually flown for one of three purposes: ancestor tribute, regional pride or white pride/racism.  A rough analog would be Britons who fly the English flag (Cross of St. George).
3. The Alamo is pretty much only relevant to Texans.  Texas came into the Union as an independent country requesting annexation.  The Alamo was a battle in Texas' war of independence from Mexico, which occurred earlier.

The reason Americans place a higher regard on self-reliance than Britons is that Enlightment-era ideas played a stronger and more enduring role in North America than in Britain.  And they survive here with more force than in Britain.

Wilson charges that the European press' policy recommednations are irrelevant to the situation at hand.  That irrelevance makes them seem exploitative and thus distasteful to many Americans.

[cpbell0033944]

Thanks for the links, Lingster.  I may not find time to check them out properly for a couple of days, but I'll try and get around to doing so – I'm always interested in broadening my knowlege if I can.  To save time, space, and to keep to your bullet-point theme, here are my thoughts so far.

1. I'm sure you're already aware of this, but the cross of St George is the official flag of England, although when the England football team play Germany, and in areas where the BNP (British National Party, or Nazis in disguise) are popular, it definetly dooes have racist overtones. :'(  Is the Confederate flag similarly the official emblem of the southern states?  The other thing that puzzles me is how it derives its form from the cross of St Andrew (I believe that I have Scottish ancestry, with my surname being, if it hails from Scotland and not just from an ancestor having made, or lived near to bells, a sept name of Clan McMillan.  Thus, the link intrigues me.
2. I was dimly aware of New England being quite puritanical historically, but I didn't link Puritans vs. Roundheads with North vs. South, although I'd always wondered when it started, as I did know that it had to have been pre-US Civil War.  As far as the legacy of the Alamo, I knew that it had most meaning for Texans, but wondered if it had resonance in the rest of the country.  Also, if you wouldn't mind elaborating for a curious mind, what Enlightenment ideas do you feel are important when discussing the idea of prizing self-reliance and the culture of firearm ownership for self-defence?

[Lingster]

Well, the original thirteen colonies that became the U.S. were settled in a patchwork fashion.  This is my (admittedly limited and faulty) summary of how that happened:

1. New England was mostly puritans who left Britain in waves starting in 1620, and initially settled Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and eastern Long Island.
2. New York and most of New Jersey were originally New Netherland, but wound up firmly in British hands after the Glorious Revolution (though history books usually cite the date of the original English conquest of New Amsterdam, rule was actually pretty shaky until William ascended to the throne).  There were also numerous Palatine Germans who settled in the Hudson River Valley.
3. Parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware were originally New Sweden, but the Dutch seized those settlements in the 1640s, I recall.
4. Pennsylvania became an English colony of Quakers and other non-conformists, including sects of German Anabaptists, many of whom still keep enclaves in Pennsylvania.
5. Maryland was a colony of Catholics, mostly English.
6. Virginia was successfully settled earliest (starting in 1607) and often attracted wealthy second sons of English nobles.  Like the Hudson River Valley under the Dutch, a form of feudalism was tried early on.  At the time of the Revolution and until the state was decimated during the Civil War, Virginia was the richest and most influential colony.  It never recovered its role after the Civil War.  The first African slaves were imported into British North America in 1619, and thereafter became a major population source.
7. The Carolinas and western Georgia were settled mostly by pioneering families of Virginian extraction, as well as what we call Scots-Irish (Scottish protestants with connections to Ulster) settlers and of course Africans.
8. Eastern Georgia was a debtor colony.  Its importance is exaggerated, though.  It was never tremendously successful and was mostly intended to occupy land to defend against Spanish claims to the area.  It is still surprisingly sparsely populated, probably because of its swampy, humid climate.

 

Overall, the largest ethnic group in the colonies were English people from Sussex and other southern counties.  A decent-sized chunk of the women who came over early on were criminals, prostitutes or debtors who'd gotten into trouble in England, which may partly explain why Americans are somewhat more violent than Brits.

I am aware of the several meanings of the Cross of St. George, which is why I likened it to the Confederate jack.  Numerous southern states still incorporate Confederate iconography in their state flags, though it's usually pretty subtle, at this point.  The legend is that the Confederate flag was intended to be based on the Cross of St. George, but was changed to a St. Andrew design to avoid provoking Jews in the southern states, many of whom were resentful of English anti-semitism.  Jews were extremely important to the Confederate cause, though that's been largely sanitized from textbooks.  Of the three most important political figures in the Confederacy, one (Judah P. Benjamin) was Jewish.

A big part of the importance of Enlightenment-era ideas to the U.S. is that they were codified into the U.S. Constitution (and state constitutions) and thus locked into our culture.  (The Confederate Constitution is extremely similar to the U.S. Constitution – many paragraphs are verbatim or nearly so.)  The focus on limitations to government in that document are extraordinary.  Generations of Continental fascist, socialist and communist propaganda have been blunted by the armor of the Constitution, and so the political culture of the U.S. polity has been constrained from totalitarian recidivism in a way that Britain's has not.  (Britain is geographically closer to the source of the problem, and lacks a written constitution, so you're more susceptible to regrettable fads like socialism.)  In many ways Americans are truer to 18th century "Englishness" than today's English, because despite waves of immigration from all over the world, our political culture has drifted less than yours.

[Lingster]

I should also mention the importance of indigenous assimilation to successful colonization.  Among the larger tribes (i.e. the Cherokee), it was not unusual to see upwards of 50% assimilation to European cultural and technological traditions by the early 1800s, and intermarriage.  Because families often concealed their indigenous origins and because of modern-day political correctness, this is often understated or ignored.  In the south, tribes such as the Cherokee and the Creeks intermarried with African populations to such an extent that it's been suggested that most African-Americans are substantially Native American in descent.

There's also an enduring legacy of "tri-racial isolate" populations such as the Lumbee, the Melungeons and the Jackson-Whites.  They're basically rural populations with European, African and North American ancestry who formed kinship communities, and they still survive as definable groups.

[Lingster]

Profile of the shooter in the NY Times.

[AlexG]

The Carolinas and western Georgia were settled mostly by pioneering families of Virginian extraction, as well as what we call Scots-Irish (Scottish protestants with connections to Ulster) settlers

And pardon me for intruding – but its no accident that from the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746 to the out break of the American Revoltion in 1775 that the displaced and defeated Scots that immigrated to the New World that that waited and raised another generation to fight the British (the illegitimate dynasty of German George) and finally won . . . well, the rest is merely history.

Or as Ben Franklin, that great philopher on liberty once said, I will make your Master a "little" king for this . . .  ;D

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

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