Buddhism & Guns?

[gad rgyangs]

FINE weapons of war augur evil.
Even things seem to hate them.
Therefore, a man of Tao does not set his heart
upon them.
In ordinary life, a gentleman regards the left side
as the place of honour:
In war, the right side is the place of honour.
As weapons are instruments of evil,
They are not properly a gentleman's instruments;
Only on necessity will he resort to them.
For peace and quiet are dearest to his heart,
And to him even a victory is no cause for rejoicing.
To rejoice over a victory is to rejoice over the slaughter
of men!
Hence a man who rejoices over the slaughter of men
cannot expect to thrive in the world of men.
On happy occasions the left side is preferred:
On sad occasions the right side.
In the army, the Lieutenant Commander stands on
the left,
While the Commander-in-Chief stands on the right.
This means that war is treated on a par with a funeral
service.
Because many people have been killed, it is only right
that survivors should mourn for them.
Hence, even a victory is a funeral.

-Dao De Jing, Ch 31

[Nemo]

I still think having weapons in the house is bad luck. Some often used weapons have a real feel of murderousness about them. Be they antique jade axe heads or the assault rifles reissued from dead soldiers(ya, they do that.). Some have given me nightmares. Call me superstitious but if I had to have a weapon I would want an unblooded one.

So what you guys are saying is, "Guns don't kill people, Americans are insane."
I respectfully agree.

[Nighthawk]

Blaming guns for murders is like blaming your pencil for spelling mistakes.

[daelm]

come on, how many here have actually been in a situation where they wish they had a gun? (and i dont mean the last time someone cut you off on the road and you wish you had a RPG to take them and their car out (not that i have any experience with a situation like that ))

i generalized your question to "where a gun might be used". in that case, i have. forced conscript in the army for two years, to start with and thrown into lots of lousy situations as a direct result. later caught in a street battle between bank robbers and local police. and in early 2000's was caught up in cross fire when the lobby of the insurance company i worked for was robbed, and two guards were killed. one of them actually died - literally - in my arms. (a colleague and i were trying to resuscitate them. - the other died that afternoon). then, for a time i lived "street-level", and a lot of the people i knew carried, and used, guns. overall, though, the only time it might ever have been useful was when i intervened in a domestic violence scene and took the lady to hospital. the guy was out of his mind and pointing a gun at him might have resolved that situation quicker, and therefore been better for her.

other than that, i think they're totally useless. i honestly think they merely escalate any situation they're in. from the point of view of the actual physical object, they're value-neutral - neither good nor bad, intrinsically - but that's a trivial statement. i think if you're a practitioner, by definition you should re-shaping your life in such a way as to make the need for, use of and contact with weaponry irrelevant.

further, culturally, they're so deeply and inextricably enmeshed with violence, aggression, machismo and that sort of thing that you're inevitably maintaining (or even strengthening) traces of those afflictions every time your consciousness registers "my gun" and every time you think of your weapon along with all the associated constructs. so that totally works against your practice too.

those people who want to argue that it's just a tool, should carry a hammer instead and see what the difference is in how they feel about the thing and about themselves. a hammer is "just a tool". a gun is specific.

anyway.


d


(edited for typos)

[Spiny Norman]

Though I am a gun owner, I do not support the wide proliferation of firearms either. Guns are not for everyone.

But how does one choose who is responsible enough to own weapons? It's rather like the nuclear superpowers pontificating about "rogue" states developing their own nuclear weapons.

Spiny

[Spiny Norman]

Blaming guns for murders is like blaming your pencil for spelling mistakes.

Yes, it would be like blaming ICBMs for a nuclear war.

Spiny

[gregkavarnos]

...This is simply a fact.

Yup! And Department of Justice statistics verify this fact. But certainly there are other factors involved. For example, did you know though that "During the offense that brought them to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun." So basically "only" 17% of convicted crimes were carried out using a firearm anyway?

"On average, State inmates possessing a firearm received sentences of 18 years, while those without a weapon had an average sentence of 12 years. Among prisoners carrying a firearm during their crime, 40% of State inmates and 56% of Federal inmates received a sentence enhancement because of the firearm." Maybe this is another reason that violent crimes involving firearms have dropped?

Or maybe an increase in police force (and law enforcement personnel) numbers and more effective policing strategies? There was a 10% increase in police officer numbers just in the period 1996-1998. In 2011 the US had a ratio of 661 private security and 292 police officers per 100,000 citizens whereas the global median was 298 and 311 per 100,000 respectively.

Maybe the increase in private gun sales nationally also has to do with the number of guns Texan gun shops are selling to Mexican Cartel members? A CBS news article reports: "Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve. And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011." And those are just the legal mass sales.

Another factor may also be that underprivileged adolescent males (ie those most likely to commit violent crimes) have been shipped off (with fantastic economic incentives) to kill and die in foreign lands (Iraq and Afghanistan) instead of in their own country since the mid-nineties?

Just throwing around some ideas...

[Malcolm]

...This is simply a fact.

Yup! And Department of Justice statistics verify this fact. But certainly there are other factors involved. For example, did you know though that "During the offense that brought them to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun." So basically "only" 17% of convicted crimes were carried out using a firearm anyway?

Which puts to rest the notion that the US is a society filled with gun violence. It isn't.

Another factor may also be that underprivileged adolescent males (ie those most likely to commit violent crimes) have been shipped off (with fantastic economic incentives) to kill and die in foreign lands (Iraq and Afghanistan) instead of in their own country since the mid-nineties?

No, only since 2003. The number of military personnel in the US was cut by a third under Clinton.

N

[catmoon]

The strange thing? In my fifteen years on the island there has not been a single reported instance of somebody shooting somebody dead using assault rifles. Not one. Actually, shooting deaths on the island are normally by shotgun and very rare. On the island of Crete, where they have a handgun culture that rivals even the US, people get shot and killed all the time. In Athens, again, mainly handguns and normally during robberies.

Though I am not a gun owner, and do not support the wide proliferation of firearms, however there is a very interesting fact about America: since the early 1990's, the number of guns of all kinds have proliferated enormously in the US, but the incidence of all crimes, including violent crimes of with guns, has steadily declined.

This is simply a fact.

N

yup. and the arguments begin when someone says it's simply due to the aging of the American population.

[Tara]

Please stay on topic "Buddhism & Guns?" This topic is not about gun ownership/crime in America.

[daelm]

Please stay on topic "Buddhism & Guns?" This topic is not about gun owenership/crime in America.

thanks

[daelm]

if this ...

I am peaceful, try to "do no harm", etc. But neither do I want to be a peaceful idiot who gets raped or killed because I refused to get a gun. I'm just not sure what to do.

and this....

There's no talking the police to patrol my area, no way. This is a small town where everyone knows everyone. I bought this cottage in what I would later find out is "no mans' land". The police don't come on this road, they don't want to ruin their cars on the rough terrain, and the people out here practically have their own laws.

...then you should move.


d

[gregkavarnos]

Which puts to rest the notion that the US is a society filled with gun violence. It isn't.

I don't remember saying it was, but it is number 1 in the world . Anyway, it doesn't put it to rest if we don't compare it to international statistics, right?

Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):
Homicide Suicide Other (inc Accident)

USA (2001) 3.98 5.92 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81 1.10 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50 5.8 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.40 2.0 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35 4.45 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 3.4 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15 0.2 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 0.2 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 0.04 0.0

Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.

These are first world rates of course. On a global level the USA (15.22 homicides in 1998) is fourth, behind 1. South Africa (74.57 in 2000) 2. Colombia and 3. Guatemala. The USA is followed by 5. Brazil (14.15 in 2000) 6. Estonia and 7. Mexico (12.07 in 1998, I imagine they've moved up the list recently).

You can add to this that the USA has the largest number of privately owned weapons in the world and the largest per capita rate of gun ownership - 88.8 guns per 100 residents!!!

No, only since 2003. The number of military personnel in the US was cut by a third under Clinton.

I was unaware of this, like I said, just throwing around some ideas. Do military figures take into account private military personnel?

PS Sorry Tara, just saw your post as I submited this post. It is kind of relevant to discuss the gun situation in the USA because here in Europe (except Switzerland of course) it is take for granted that handguns should not be and are not easily and legally available to all citizens (Buddhist or not).

[Tara]

As the OP has not logged in since 6th September 2011 and it appears this topic is no longer about Buddhism and Guns the topic is now locked. If anyone feels they have something more to contribute (noting there have been 432 replies already) please PM me and consideration will be given to unlocking this topic.

Regards,