Ah Cornflower, I was just waiting for you to bring up the Swiss
example. The American gun lobby do it all the time. So I'll tell
you how it works.

In Switzerland, all young men have to do what is called
Rekrutenschule. For 4.5 months you join the army. You learn to
handle a weapon, strip a weapon, clean a weapon, learn about
weapon's safety and are generally indoctrinated about that weapon
in every way. You also learn to respect that weapon and its ability
to cause damage. If you give them a hard time during that RS,
you do another 4.5 months, until you learn to shut your mouth.

Following that, every year you return for WK, for the first 8 years
for a month, then three weeks, then 10 days, until you are about
40. So the Swiss have a trained army force of half a million men
which they can activate at any time.

The 50 bullets issued are in a sealed can, if anyone opened a can,
it would be instant jail.

Swiss houses, under them, have a "Keller", which is thick concrete,
designed to protect citizens from nuclear attack. So weapons can
be stored fairly safely in these nuclear bunkers.

People with mental issues generally show up in military training,
they don't get to take guns home.

Now if all Australian youths went through that kind of training,
your example might be valid. That is however not the case.

Thanks for that, Yabby.
It does make a difference when you get the whole story....I think you mentioned once that your origins are Swiss?

Rawmusturd

Err, we are all 'writers' here on OLO, including you.

Let's see what you did say shall we? Cutnpasted direct from your post.

"I can just see them reach for their IPhone and press the stop raping my daughter button as some thug checks for her prostate gland with his third leg. I wonder if you can download an app for that?"

Here is the offending line:

"as some thug checks for her prostate gland with his third leg."

Let's break it down a little further, for your benefit:

"her prostate gland"

And now your response:

"I never said a sheila has a prostate, but anyway!"

English IS a tricky language, for sure.

Now for your claims to have been personally attacked:

"As to my experience with violence, I have no need to explain anything to a dip that can't read!"

No, you have no 'requirement' to explain, but since you wrote this, it might have been expected, since you alone raised it, that we would more readily understand your point if we could empathise with you having understood how you were assaulted:

"It's funny how people who have never experienced a violent attack on themselves would dictate to others how they might defend themselves."

Again, broken down for your easy comprehension:

"a violent attack on themselves"

Now, I could be quite wrong, but it sounds from your response, that, in fact, you have not "experienced a violent attack" but actually are living vicariously through your son's experience, for 'effect' on OLO.

So be it. continued....

...continued But I CAN understand being very upset if one of my children were to suffer a violent assault of any kind.

As I am when I hear of anyone being attacked, or gunned down by some dangerous boofhead with a gun, or stabbed, or glassed, or whatever.

There is no doubt that there are gun owners, in Australia, who are responsible people.

I happen to know one, with an official gun collection-guns deactivated, including a Luger and all sorts of small handguns, as well as a collection of 303s and target rifles, shotguns and every imaginable sort of gun used for war activities.

But this fellow would never be heard promoting the use of guns for killing others as some form of mindless self defence, at least, not outside of a war situation.

Personally, I question the wisdom of having these guns at the house,even secured in their official cupboards, inside an old bank safe, inside a secure shed, but it's his hobby not mine.

I even owned guns myself, as a child, but would not dream of owning any now, now I have grown up.

Neither would I allow my children to own any, or any knives beyond a Swiss army knife or Leatherman type of tool, if they had a use for one.

Cornflower,
Mexico's high rate of gun trauma is not linked to domestic gun ownership - which, as you point out, is strict. It is linked to organised crime and corruption and is part of the two-way illegal trade between the U.S. and Mexico of drugs and firearms.

http://mexidata.info/id869.html

More commentary from the USA on the gross denial from the right wing and gun-toters everywhere.

.........................

There are several "frames" that the mass media uses to explain away high-profile political shootings. The Cognitive Policy Works warns of these cookie-cutter approaches the media has and will use in explaining away the Tucson assault on democracy:

* The "Lone Shooter" Frame
Emphasis will be on individual actions, ignoring cultural patterns that influenced the event like the militant imagery of Tea Party leaders and Fox News personalities.

* The "Crazy Gunman" Frame
Effort will be made to reduce this complex event to the explanation that the shooter was insane, disregarding the anti-government sentiments that fueled him to action.

* The "Both Sides Equal" Frame
Media coverage will presume violent rhetoric is equal on the left and right, ignoring how leftist individuals target individual people (e.g. Bush hater), while right-wing individuals target groups (e.g. liberals, Jews). Also the scale of violent imagery is disproportionately on the right side.

* The "We're All Sorry" Frame
Spokespeople on the right who have fueled violent rhetoric (e.g. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh) will publicly condemn violent actions while continuing to promote negative views of entire classes of people. This behavior will not be present among liberals.

Haven't we had enough political violence in America egged on by the right wing to recognize what happened in Tucson on Saturday, regardless of the mental health diagnostic category of the shooter? Espousing the government as the enemy has been the key theme of all things Republican for many years now.

...................

Now, that sounds like the OLO posters who are in denial because they LURV guns and violence clearly forms a central element in how they deal with the world around them.

Will these goons get a posse together to lynch 'Mother Nature' for flooding Qld, before they offer her body as a sacrifice to 'Father God', I wonder?

See how the rhetoric of, frankly, stoneage ignorance, forms a part of our everyday language and shapes our thoughts and deeds?