Nothing touched the trigger but The Devil's right hand

by: Eric B.

Sun Oct 07, 2012 at 09:53:56 AM EDT

MLive's in-house sedetionist and conservative affirmative action hire has an explanation for why suburban and rural youth use guns to kill deer while urban youth only use them to kill other urban youth. It's a cultural thing.

There's nothing to connect our preparations for deer hunting and a probable Chicago killing, except of course how one plans to use (or misuse) a firearm. Generally, it seems that there is a stark difference between the way firearms are used in urban centers compared to how they're used in rural and suburban settings. Why?

In a word: Culture.

...snip...

The cause of such wanton destruction of human life on a mass scale in Chicago and Detroit is not the presence of firearms but rather the lack of a cultural norm promoting firearm use for hunting, target practice and self-defense - instead of killing one's neighbor for a perceived slight or (in the case of gang members and wannabes) a drug dispute.

The easy solution obviously is to set loose an entire flock of the NRA's Eddie the Eagle's into our inner-cities to let city kids know that you don't point the barrel at others, unless you can process them down into chili meat and steaks. I'd like to nominate MLive's in-house sedetionist and conservative affirmative action hire Matt Davis to lead the charge. When he returns, he can write us all out an authoritative report on how it went.

By the way, what evidence does he use to support this? A sociological survey of urban values vs. those of the suburbs and rural areas? A study of attendance to churches and/or other programs where people are introduced to cultural values including proper firearms use? Studies of the family unit? Popular urban music and movies versus those enjoyed by kids elsewhere? Drug use statistics?

Nope. In fact, he never says why he believes it, only that he believes it with great certainty. We have a phrase to describe this sort of phenomenon: Low-grade bullshit. And, actually, if you were to extrapolate his ideas, it's that he doesn't think that urban parents instill in their children the need to make good decisions.

Also, apparently, related somehow is that guns bore his children.

By the way, and I mention this only because it's related, but the rate of violent death in Western Civilization has for the last 200 years been declining. Most sociologists can't fully explain it, although they have a few working ideas that involve the general spread of economic prosperity, the rise of values that preach solving problems through non-violent means, and the strengthening of law enforcement agencies to send a message that violence will be punished and that removes sociopaths from our midst. You'll notice that none of that has anything to do with gun ownership or lessons in gun safety. But, that's just a fact and those are just theories people who study this stuff for a living are pursuing because that's where the data has led them.