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Some food for thought:
German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.
Meanwhile, here in a America, we fire that many bullets at single suspects.
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Yes, but how many crazed, kidnapping, raping, gun brandishing, arsonists, who promises to murder his rape victim then the kids who gave her refuge before ramming two state police cars and stealing a garbage truck 70 miles away in Germany? And in a very American way he updated his Facebook profile before the cops put him down.
‘Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace,’ read the message that the suspect Eric Ramsey, 30, posted to his Facebook page from his cell phone moments before he was shot to death by a sheriff’s deputy.
Now, I bet the 14-yr old will be getting access to a firearm before he next babysits his siblings.
@JKB:
Arm the fourteen year old babysitters. That’s the ticket.
That’s a hell of a story, and kid is the man, but you can’t be serious.
@Rafer Janders:
So no guns for police?
@CB:
But if it saves one child’s life, shouldn’t we give the kids a chance?
Also, not that NY has limited all guns to 7 bullets, even NYPD, this shouldn’t be a problem in the future.
The Germans have this thing called a “national health care system” , which attempts to identify people with mental illness and provide them with treatment and support. That way they don’t steal garbage trucks or shoot women in the head or massacre school-children.
One would think the right would advocate such a system as a method of safe-guarding their ability to posses weapons.
There’s certainly several cultural issues at play. For one thing, in the US the police are constantly taught that their first responsibility is to come home alive at the end of the shift. Which is a great message to send to soldiers, but not so great a message to police, who are actually not operating on a battlefield but among their fellow citizens. It encourages an attitude of “better him than you”; if the civilian had to get shot so the cop could come home, well then, that’s OK. And this attitude isn’t just to be found in the police, but among many Americans.
In Germany, by contrast, the police are taught that their first responsibility is to protect their fellow citizens. If’s not cops against civilians, rather, the police are there specifically to risk their lives for civilians. If you’re a policeman who shot someone, you better have a damn, damn good reason.
And beyond that, in Germany nationwide, restraint, caution and prudence are all considered big virtues. Whereas in the US, not, uh, quite so much. There’s even a certain respect for, ah, how shall I put it, panicky flailing over-reaction. Why talk a gun out of the criminal’s hand when you can just pump 30 bullets into him instead?
@Hal 10000: I take the point, but 30 v 85 per 100,000 is a substantial difference as a percentage. That is only 35% of the US total.
The German homicide rate per 100,000 is .8. Ours is 4.8 (X6).. Clearly, there’s not a linear relationship between gun ownership and homicide rate. Are guns a factor? Sure. Not the only factor.
Some of the differences have been noted above: different treatment of mental health, some cultural differences. To those I would add social pressure towards conformity and obedience to authority and greater social cohesion.
We’re more comparable to Europe than we are to Germany. Even by that standard our homicide rate is higher.
@Dave Schuler: I wasn’t suggesting that there was a linear relationship. I was noting that the 30 per 100,000 is quite a bit lower than 85 per 100,000.
I made no claims beyond noting the math.
@anjin-san: How many kid’s lives are ended by guns? Where is their chance?
This is a danger that can be mitigated by universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten.
If you simply seek to keep guns away from children without teaching them about guns then they are unprepared to safely handle situations where they come upon an unattended firearm, e.g., left by law enforcement in a bathroom stall, discarded by criminals, etc. Their lack of training in gun safety and the glorification of gun violence in TV shows, movies, rap music and video games creates situations where children can be injured.
@JKB:
This is a danger that can be mitigated by universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten.
I am curious:
1) Do you have children?
2) Do you have any experience with education (from the teaching side)?
@gVOR08:
Their standard of marksmanship seems a good deal better than US cops, too.
Great point. Again, my Amadou Diallo example, where it took four cops 49 bullets to put down one unarmed man standing still in a doorway, or the Empire State Building shooting last year where two cops not only shot the criminal suspect, but also nine (NINE!) completely innocent bystanders behind him.
So no guns for police?
I am in favor of racheting back the militarization of our police. No guns is excessive, especially since we are extremely unlikely to ever get to “no guns” for civilians (as opposed to slightly more restrictive regulation). In a perfect world… well, in a perfect world we’d resolve conflict without violence. In a better world, then, I’d like to see a society that basically had no guns for cops and non-cops alike. But that’s not going to happen. It’s a fantasy. So, guns for cops (even in a really rosy scenario, you’d have to have some cops with guns, even if your average beat cop didn’t have a gun). But I’d like to pull back on their other toys (tanks and such), for sure.
This is a danger that can be mitigated by universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten.
Oh, wonderful. How about no. Hell no.
I am absolutely in favor of gun safety training for anyone who owns a gun or lives in a household with guns. That should be a basic responsibility of gun ownership. That’s different than universal kindergarden+ gun training. F*cking A.
@JKB:
This is a danger that can be mitigated by universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten.
Great. Another unfunded federal mandate. When will conservatives learn that the solution to every problem isn’t to get Big Government involved….?
@Dave Schuler: We’re more comparable to Europe than we are to Germany. Even by that standard our homicide rate is higher.
Now, don’t hide from reality. What’s the numbers if you factor out homicide rates of African Americans both as victims and offenders? How diverse if the German population compared the US population? We’d need to compare drug prohibition levels and enforcement as well.
I wasn’t accusing you, Steven, just trying to broaden the discussion beyond gun ownership. I’m sorry if I gave that impression.
I do not have children
I am not at professional teacher
But you seem to be indicating that children are stupid and cannot learn. I’m curious how you teach them to stay out of the road, not touch hot stoves, etc?
I’m curious how you explain that kids historically live with and had access to firearms and at elementary school ages used such firearms for hunting? Are kids today somehow inferior to say kids of 1913? How about 1813?
No, kids aren’t stupid, parents are. I did not advocate giving kindergartners firearms. I did advocate teaching them proper firearm safety to empower them to handle situations where they might encounter an unattended firearm. Or do you prefer you children’s knowledge of firearms come from Hollywood and video game developers? And that they see real firearms in the same manner as toy guns and video game controllers?
@Dave Schuler: Gotcha. I think I have been involved in too many internet back-and-forths this weekend. 😉
@JKB: No, I am not suggesting that children can’t learn. Really, I wasn’t really suggesting anything, but was sincerely curious.
I do think that having children or being involved in their teaching might mitigate against the notion that universal gun training from age 5 is probably not the best of ideas, but so it goes.
@JKB: Because, of course, African-Americans aren’t the same as people with less melanin, right?
Interesting. Check out the third chart in this post. Compares European countries that ban handguns with adjacent countries that don’t.
Germany has a low murder rate but neighbor Luxembourg, which bans guns is almost 10 times higher.
Trend holds in the examples. High murder rate in countries that ban handguns compared to their adjoining neighbors.
@Steven L. Taylor: Because, of course, African-Americans aren’t the same as people with less melanin, right?
Sadly the homicide rate for blacks as both offender and victim is significantly higher than for the white population.
In addition, I’m under the impression that blacks in Germany are a significantly smaller portion of the overall population than in the US.
Now, the reason for the higher homicide rates, may have far more to do with environment than melanin, but it reveals itself via the race variable. Of course, that environment is often the result of the concerted attack on black family formation by the US social policies as well as the damage done by the prohibition induced black market in controlled substances. So, given these social policies are now impacting more and more of the rest of the US population, we may see the homicide rates converge. Sadly, probably at the higher rate.
@JKB:
Are kids today somehow inferior to say kids of 1913? How about 1813?
In 1913, while farmers may have had rifles and shotguns on the farm, it would have been extremely uncommon for anyone to keep a pistol. And if you lived in an urban area or streetcar suburb, very, very few people had a gun at home.
As to 1813, it’s actually pretty hard to shoot yourself accidentally with your dad’s flintlock musket, what with having to pour in the powder, ram the shot home, somehow contrive to have your four foot tall body aim a five foot long weapon at yourself….
@Steven L. Taylor: universal gun training from age 5 is probably not the best of ideas, but so it goes.
Well, the idea of keeping all guns at all times away from children, while laudable, is unworkable. It requires 100% success, 24/7/365. It also provides no capacity to handle failures. No one in serious about a system designs it where any lack of perfection results in a high potential catastrophic failure.
Now, a child would not ever need training in shooting but putting a real, but inert, gun in their hands along with a toy gun so they can learn the differences. And teaching them “The Rules”, there are only 4 but 2 must be violated for tragedy to occur. To me that seems to be the way to empower children to survive an unattended encounter with a real firearm, i.e, a failure of the “no guns” system.
Would you care to expound on how my pointing out factual differences between the German and US populations as well as the documented differences in homicide (offender and victim) as shown in a DOJ report is racism?
Or was it because I speculated that the failed social policies that promoted the destruction of poor black families might be a factor?
But, I will admit, having observed these differences, we should also compare German social policies for helping the poor with American policies in a formal manner to see if the differences might be attributable to such policies.
This is a danger that can be mitigated by universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten.
Sounds like JKB intentionally wants to put our kids in danger.
Clearly, we can’t wait until kindergarten for our kids to learn about self defense.
We need to give gun training to our children starting at 6 months, once they have developed the ability to grasp objects. Additionally, once they understand the concept of object permaneance, they can fully appreciate our 2nd amendment rights.
When a child is in danger, they can’t walk away if they can’t walk at all. Pulling the trigger like our founding fathers and Jesus intended is the only solution. Why do you libs want to endanger our babies? I weep for America.
You demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of American history. If urban and suburban citizens didn’t own guns, why pray tell did NYC pass the Sullivan Act in 1911 requiring permits for concealable guns in the city?
Yes, because the musket and flintlock pistols weren’t kept loaded and ready for use against any number of threats.
@JKB:
Well, the idea of keeping all guns at all times away from children, while laudable, is unworkable. It requires 100% success, 24/7/365. It also provides no capacity to handle failures. No one in serious about a system designs it where any lack of perfection results in a high potential catastrophic failure.
My father stopped hunting and sold his hunting rifles once he had a family. He did this because he did not think it a good idea to have guns in the house while trying to raise children. Also, in a germane note: my father was a police officer in a big city for 30 years and was quite familiar with gun use and gun safety procedures.
@JKB:
Define black or African-American.
How much “negro” blood do you have to have before being considered “black”?
How dark does your skin have to be?
How many “black” ancestors disqualify you as “white” ?
Is there any difference between say an American with Somali heritage and Ghanian hertiage or are they both the same ?
Go back to VDARE
I wonder how many illegal immigrants cross into Germany each year with the tacit endorsement of Andrea Merkel? And how many gangbangers, drug runners, slavers, Muslim extremists, etc. are among them?
And how did that whole gun confiscation thingie work out for Germany after the 1920s?
Comparing Germany to the US is somewhat like comparing Michael Moore to a documentary maker.
@anjin-san: Yessirree, those 30 million dead after the last round of German gun confiscation just 80 short years ago — good times.
@Jay Ganz: If you’re talking about the Nazis, please be aware that the Nazis deregulated gun ownership and loosened the tight regulations that had been placed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis lowered the age you could own a gun, loosened permit restrictions,and eliminated the need for permits for certain types of guns.
Now, there *was* an actual, broad-based confiscation of arms that were held by private German citizens. But that was done by the American military occupation under Eisenhower, not the Nazis.
@JKB:
Those statistics are sad but true. However, a funny thing happens when you compare homicide rates among urban and rural African Americans. The homicide rate for rural African Americans is about the same as for whites.
@Jay Ganz:
Comparing Germany to the US is somewhat like comparing Michael Moore to a documentary maker.
Speaking of ‘documentary’ makers …
Comparing Dinesh D’Souza to a documentary maker is somewhat like comparing Orly Taitz to a sane person.
Restrictions imposed by the treaty of Versailles
In 1919 and 1920, to stabilize the country and in part to comply with the Treaty of Versailles, the German Weimar government passed very strict gun ownership restrictions. Article 169 of the Treaty of Versailles stated, “Within two months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, German arms, munitions, and war material, including anti-aircraft material, existing in Germany in excess of the quantities allowed, must be surrendered to the Governments of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers to be destroyed or rendered useless.”[1]
In 1919, the German government passed the Regulations on Weapons Ownership, which declared that “all firearms, as well as all kinds of firearms ammunition, are to be surrendered immediately.”[2] Under the regulations, anyone found in possession of a firearm or ammunition was subject to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 marks.
On August 7, 1920, the German government enacted a second gun-regulation law called the Law on the Disarmament of the People. It put into effect the provisions of the Versailles Treaty in regard to the limit on military-type weapons.
In 1928, the German government enacted the Law on Firearms and Ammunition. This law relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm licensing scheme. Under this scheme, Germans could possess firearms, but they were required to have separate permits to do the following: own or sell firearms, carry firearms (including handguns), manufacture firearms, and professionally deal in firearms and ammunition. This law explicitly revoked the 1919 Regulations on Weapons Ownership, which had banned all firearms possession.
The 1938 German Weapons Act
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.”
Oh, and guess which groups of people were forbidden from owning firearms?
Jay, I like how you cut it off right before it described all the ways that the 1938 law liberalized gun ownership:
*Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition.
* The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.* Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.
* The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded.
* Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted
Yes, the 1938 law did forbid Jews from owning firearms. Nobody’s saying that the Nazis were good guys here. But the idea that Hitler confiscated guns from the public at large is a myth. Overall, the 1938 law expanded gun ownership regulations compared to the 1928 law.
@Dave Schuler: The homicide rate for rural African Americans is about the same as for whites.
Further evidence that we should look deeper into the social policies and programs imposed more overwhelmingly in urban areas and not jump to conclusions simply because the disparity reveals itself when homicide rates are broken down by race. Given the disparity between urban and rural African-Americans, the controlling factor is probably not race.
However, if you are doing comparisons across national borders, you do need to account for the homogeneity of the society. Perhaps Germany has a proportional African-origin population who were steered into ghettos by 1930s (or post-war) housing polices like African-Americans were, and were subsequently subjected to social policies that led to a decline in their academic achievement, reduced economic success, and the rise in fatherless households. I don’t know. I would guess not.
BTW, I used black as not all individuals in the US whose race is of central or southern African-origin are African-Americans. Many are immigrants both legal and illegal from a diversity of countries. When discussing crime, immigrant criminal gangs would need to be separated out from all races to arrive any reasonable conclusions.
@JKB:
“BTW, I used black as not all individuals in the US whose race is of central or southern African-origin are African-Americans. Many are immigrants both legal and illegal from a diversity of countries”
Race is an artificial construct.
Go back to Sailerland.
@JKB:
Yes, because the musket and flintlock pistols weren’t kept loaded and ready for use against any number of threats.
No, they weren’t. You can’t keep a flintlock loaded indefinitely, because the gunpowder absorbs moisture from the air; this produces sulfuric acid when it reacts with sulfur and acts to erode the mechanism and barrel.
@Jay Ganz:
I wonder how many illegal immigrants cross into Germany each year with the tacit endorsement of Andrea Merkel? And how many gangbangers, drug runners, slavers, Muslim extremists, etc. are among them?
Um, lots of them? Germany has an open border.
@JKB:
You demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of American history. If urban and suburban citizens didn’t own guns, why pray tell did NYC pass the Sullivan Act in 1911 requiring permits for concealable guns in the city?
I’m sorry, I failed to account for your inability to read. That must be why you read my comment that gun ownership was “uncommon” and turned it into the absolute statement that “urban and surburban citizens didn’t own guns”. It is, in fact, quite possible to legislate against things that are uncommon but still deadly.
@TheColourfield: Race is an artificial construct.
Precisely. And becoming more and more untenable through intermarriage.
Yet so many Progressives fight aggressively to maintain affirmative action and other programs that are based up on race.
Programs where the privileged children of wealthy African-Americans are given racial preference while the poor child whose ancestry derives from India is not. Where the claiming that high cheekbones signal native American status for job selection preferences and listing as such in university directories of faculty diversity.
universal gun safety training for all children in the US starting in kindergarten
Great idea. Mandatory weapons training for children. What if their parents don’t want them to have the training? Just plant the jackboot of big government on their backs? And how do we pay for this? After all, conservatives don’t want to pony up to teach kids nonsense like science and critical thinking…
Sadly the homicide rate for blacks as both offender and victim is significantly higher than for the white population.
In addition, I’m under the impression that blacks in Germany are a significantly smaller portion of the overall population than in the US.
True, but Germany has a large Turkish population.
@anjin-san: What if their parents don’t want them to have the training?
What parent would want to leave their child ignorant and at risk of gun accidents?
After all, conservatives don’t want to pony up to teach kids nonsense like science and critical thinking…
Where do you get these crazy ideas?
@TheColourfield: Then why use it on gun violence as you did above?
The Department of Justice reported the homicide rates by race, not me.
If they reported homicide rates by public benefits received, quality of secondary education, presence of father during childhood, etc. it might be more informative but they don’t.
@JKB:
Further evidence that we should look deeper into the social policies and programs imposed more overwhelmingly in urban areas and not jump to conclusions simply because the disparity reveals itself when homicide rates are broken down by race. Given the disparity between urban and rural African-Americans, the controlling factor is probably not race.
And yet you bring up race time and time again as the determining factor in US violent crime rates. I wonder why you do that….
@JKB
What parent would want to leave their child ignorant and at risk of gun accidents?
I think I’m done with you. “Dumber than dirt” does not really cover your act, and you cowardly refusal to walk back the NRA lies you peddled about security for Obama’s kids displays an utter lack of character.
I think there needs to be some kind of rule put in place here in the comments, whereby if someone asserts something to be fact that is subsequently demonstrated to be false, the offender is prohibited or prevented from further comment on the topic until he or she publicly retracts the false assertion or fact in question and promises not to use it further.
A common tactic by the know-nothings like JKB, superdestroyer, Jan, etc. is to try to change the subject or the direction of their argument without ever acknowledging their errors, and to continue on despite any refutation as if what they asserted is simply fact anyway. It’s like they have some sort of genetic inability to weigh evidence or construct a logical argument. Seriously. I notice this in almost every comment thread here and even my own arguments with Tighty Righties; they simply go on and on like they’re the only ones in the room.
Maybe if we cut them off in their tracks and force them to justify every questionable assertion, we can prevent them from derailing actual serious discussion by others here who want to be serious.
