Time is tight these days – something to do with working Croydon/Southwark while turning attention to our move to Bradford in a few months time. But, I was going to write something this evening to pick up on comments about last couple of blog posts and now it seems a bit less urgent. I got home from seeing a long-time friend and opera singer Jonathan Veira (great venue, great live jazz, great food and great company) only to find
- Roy Hodgson has left Liverpool by mutual consent, allowing Kenny Dalglish to take up the reins for the rest of the season;
- A young US Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, has been shot (along with others) at an event in Arizona – prompting Sarah Palin‘s people to (a) pull down her website appeal for action against opponents like Giffords and (b) delete her ‘Don’t retreat, reload’ tweets from Twitter.
The departure of yet another football manager isn’t too much of a surprise, but Roy Hodgson is a decent, honest and generous man and he goes with credit for this. I think his position was untenable in terms of confidence and I am (for the first time this season) excited about the passion King Kenny might be able to bring to the Liverpool squad. But Hodgson will get another position soon and even his opponents in Liverpool will wish him well.
But, this is trivial stuff in the face of yet another shooting in the USA. People who live by the gun will probably die by the gun. It is just hard to see from this side of the Atlantic why some people on the other side of the Atlantic can’t see any connection between an obsession with gun ownership and the number of gun crimes on their land. And if the American Right are so convinced of their rightness in this respect, why take down embarrassing websites or tweets? Words are powerful and violence starts not with a finger on a trigger, but with an idea in the mind, given shape by words.
Later I’ll write what I was going to write. In the meantime, the mad world continues to spin.
January 8, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Let me preface my remarks by noting that I am a liberal, Episcopalian and a citizen of the United States. I am a supporter of the second amendment. I am not a lawman nor do I have a military background. (However I do have a martial art background and have several friends who are military/law enforcement) Safe use and practice with a firearm does not necessary make one a danger to society. The congresswoman could just as well been stabbed with a kitchen knife from aisle seven of the grocery store. This does not mean I want no regulations on firearms. Just like owning a car, I feel one should be licensed to own and use a firearm. Please do not tar all firearm owners with the small brush that nutcase Sarah Palin should be tarred with.
January 9, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Roy
You are right of course, but don’t forget that this man killed several people. That is so much easier with an automatic rifle or pistol than with a knife.
KK
January 9, 2011 at 9:49 pm
The murders are dreadful. The problem with our own perspective is that ours is a very different culture – and in this respect, long may it be so.
I do however have some sympathy with those who say that the gun genie is already out of the bottle, with two guns for every person. The mad and the bad will always have access to weaponry. In a country where it will take a Contitutional change with a 66% majority it is impractical to think in terms of the law abiding voting to unilaterally disarm.
January 10, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I have been giving further thought to the problem of gun control in the USA and remembered a very respected study was undertaken by two academics at Chicago University. Lott and Mustard( you can google their report) looked at data over approx 20 years on a county level and discovered that the number of murders / rapes/ armed robberies was significantly reduced ( variable but around 8-10%) in those counties where citizens were permitted to carry concealed firearms.
Unattractive as it may seem to us the evidence does suggest that in the US context, concealed weapon laws actually save lives.
This study, which is academically regarded as respectable, does make the argument of the anti gun campaigners particularly difficult.
January 10, 2011 at 6:01 pm
It’s not just an issue of gun control–although in this case if this disturbed person did not have such easy access to firearms he might not have managed to kill six people.
What is also so disturbing about this shooting is that it arises from an incredibly overheated political climate in which certain people and political parties are using a divisive, untruthful and inflammatory rhetoric to encourage knee jerk negative reactions to political opponents. There seems to be little room for thinking and reasoning in the current political climate in America. Certain commentators on Fox News along with the political movements which are relying on this inflammatory language have a lot to answer for.
January 11, 2011 at 7:44 am
Vicky was it not Barack Obama who said ‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun’?
November 16, 2012 at 8:54 pm
[...] could dare to believe that God is present even while the Romans remain.” 3B Nick Baines Mad World -”-Words are powerful and violence starts not with a finger on a trigger, but with an idea in [...]