My Aussie wife's view on school violence
While I consider myself a very strong gun-rights advocate, it's hard not to see some real point in what my wife, Kristen, who didn't grow up in the USA, concludes from the all-too-frequent incidents of school violence in our country. Here are her thoughts on the subject:
I would not call myself an expert on these matters, but I am the mother of an American child and from what I can see the United States has an obsession with Guns that needs some serious therapy.
How many of America’s sons and daughters need to be slaughtered before something is done?
At the very least, tougher laws on ownership and access to ammunition should be introduced.
I am not holding my breath though. I will attack the issue from the other end and send my daughter to school in a bullet proof vest and body armour (do they make them in kinder-sizes?)
It is obvious after this latest tragedy that the playground and the campus are now minefields, breeding gounds for disgruntled, weapon-wielding sociopaths.
No wonder home-schooling has gained so much popularity!
I used to think is was some kind of isolationist, intellectual arrogance that prompted people to home school (those already living close to schools that is) but now I understand…it is safer!
Perhaps now we can revolutionize youth fashion from the low-rise to the security-wise.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Rossputin on 04/20/07 at 03:39:33 am . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. |
Yours truly
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04/20/07 @ 08:40:12 am
Hi Kristen.
As you know I was also raised abroad.
I homeschool my kids, but not for security reasons. I homeschool my kids because schools (not just in the US, but everywhere) fail to teach and focus on political indoctrination.
I sympathize with your concern, but respectfully disagree with your conclusions for a couple of reasons.
First, there is no clear causal link between gun availability and gun murder rate. I know you are Australian. Approximately 2% of all Australian households own handguns, compared to 29% in the US. In spite of this, the murder rate in Australia is about 4.5 per 100,000 of population conpared to 8 per 100,000 in the US -- a small difference.
It is true that the gun murder rate in Australia is dramatically lower (.07 versus 5 per 100,000) but apparently Aussies are clever enough to figure out other ways to murder.
In fact, Australians are much more prone to murder than the significantly better armed Swiss (Switzerland has a 2.3 compared to Australia's 4.5 per 100,000 murder rate; Swiss handgun ownership is about 15% of households). I guess the Swiss are just less violent than Australians.
Absent a causal link, or in the presence of a tenuous one, what is the cost in terms of liberty that we should be willing to pay to save lives?
Second, gun control is only one hypothetically effective means of reducing murder. Truly repressive societies can be very safe. If the police are given the power to arrest pre-emptively, infiltrate, have a lower standard for due process, the overall populace can be protected. Why stop at guns?
I submit that the possibility of violent death is one of the costs of freedom. Every day that my children wake up (whether I am in the UK as I am now, or in Italy, or in the US) they have a chance of being murdered.
I would prefer they be murdered free, than kept alive in captivity (even the benevolence captivity most Europeans endure).
Fortunately, in the US, there are still laboratories of democracy and people have choice what level of security and liberty trade-off they want to make.
I look forward to moving back to Virginia, where freedom still has some meaning.
04/21/07 @ 05:50:53 am
Kristen, I know what you mean, but taking the guns out of the hands of the people probably won't make a difference. The crazy and the crooks are still going to be able to get guns when they want them. It is terrible to see this kind of violence happening in the schools but if you look around it is everywhere.
Everytime the media "glamorizes" the shooters, there will be "copy-cats" who want their 15 minutes of fame. NBC and the other networks fell right into the hands of the Virginia Tech shooter when they aired his pictures, writings and ramblings. I blame the networks as much as I do the crazy young man that went on his rampage.
The school systems are getting worse by the day and I don't blame parents for home schooling their children. Hope you and Lili are doing well. (You too Ross!)