The London Bridge Attack
reader alert: I am going to quote and discuss Trump tweets
My immediate reaction was to tweet this this is why we should have a gun debate right now. The fact that 3 terrorists killed 7 victims not 70 shows the benefits of UK gun control. In the USA a single terrorist killed 49 people . My reactions to the horrible news from London included the thought that UK gun control is a very good thing as shown by the fact that the depraved killers were armed only with a truck and knives.
As is often the case, I think we learn something from Trump about the defects in human cognition. When something horrible happens, it is not at all natural to think that it could have been even worse. However, it is often useful.
I worry about writing this post. It seems (even to me) that I am heartless — that if I could grasp the suffering of people who loved the 7 victims — I couldn’t think that things could have been worse. I think that this reaction of distaste for my post (or disgust) which I feel myself is a problem. Reducing the number of deaths due to terrorism requires pragmatic thinking which involves moral arithmetic.
On the other hand, at least Trump is simple. In addition to a refusal to consider how the number of deaths was reduced by gun control, Trump also immediately connected the attack to the policy debate with
This tweet was very widely denounced as an effort to exploit a tragedy for political advantage (which it was) and a sign that, for Trump, it is always all about Trump. Fewer people (including @mattyglesias) noted that the tweet makes no sense. Trump doesn’t know if the terrorists are refugees, immmigrants or travellers from the banned countries. The argument is a Sir Humphrey syllogism: we must do something, the travel ban is something, we must do the travel ban.
Notably, the tweet shows that the travel ban is an expression of islamaphobia. The London terrorists said “Allah”. To Trump that means that the attack is evidence in favor of a ban designed to keep moslems out of the USA. He didn’t think that he is supposed to deny that the ban is about religion not nationality (he also didn’t remember that he isn’t supposed to call the ban a “ban”). The reaction (which I am sure is sincere) is that we have to do more to protect ourselves from them when they are an undifferentiated alien threat including UK born citizens of the UK and “ourselves” include other UK born citizens of the UK.
One immediate fear is that this instinctive reaction is universal and the absense of any filter between Trump’s lizard brain and his twitter feed strengthens him. He certainly didn’t act like a normal politician. In this case, I prefer the normal politicians reaction, but I think I understand why many voters prefer the irrational impulsive Trump response, which was sincere. I think this is how people can know he lies all the time and also say that he is not afraid to speak the truth.
But somehow Trump manages to unite two defects. The emotional reaction in which the horror of 7 deaths prevents one from considering that 70 would have been ten times as horrible (an observation which is, I think, both accurate and appalling) and also the appalling instant effort to use a tragedy to win a debate.
The courts can not give us safety. We have to make it for ourselves and not be swayed into an islamophobia stance and hide behind discrimination of race and religion. This is precisely what terrorists want. And yes, we are not having a gun debate for once.
“[A] single terrorist killed 49 people” in a “gun-free” zone.
Waldmann
your recognition that aspects of your response are appalling is to your credit.
but don’t beat yourself up. it is normal human “psychology” a fact or the way brains work… even Trump’s brain.
The problem is for us to try to get a step beyond “normal” to find the steps that will maybe eventually make us human. I think you are at least starting. Trump is not. But my saying that is perhaps evidence that I am not.
Warren,
It could be that if terrorism continues to be a visible problem, we will all eventually decide that each of us should carry a gun to possibly protect ourselves. “Politics” will eventually follow perceived reality.
But for now I think most of us think we are safer without the gun enthusiasts among us going around carrying guns.. Probably left over from memories of a time when gun totin’ vigilantes were more trouble than they were worth. And, I think, present day statistics that show you are more likely to be killed by friendly fire than by a maniac with a gun.
Many people have already decided to carry a gun. Politics are following, as more and more States permit concealed carry.
@Warren,
By your criteria, most industrialized nations are “gun-free zones,” and most industrialized nations have a per capita gun-related death rate of only a fraction of that of the US. Guns don’t make us safer.
“I think, present day statistics that show you are more likely to be killed by friendly fire than by a maniac with a gun.”
You are more likely to be killed by a stranger wielding a steering wheel than by a stranger wielding a gun. Guns won’t prevent traffic accidents.
Lately, in the West, terrorist acts seem to take one or more of the following forms (in rough order of damage to the best of my recollection right at this moment, starting Sept 11 2011):
1. use of vehicles
2. use of bombs
3. use of firearms
4. use of knives
1 and 4 are the easiest to implement, at least in terms of acquiring the equipment. 2 requires some know-how on the part of someone involved.
4 (use of knives) is a often a substitute when 3 (use of guns) is not available, and as per the post, not nearly as effective. So all else being equal, forcing terrorists from option 3 to option 4 is a good thing.
Now, it can be done, but imperfectly. Gun control is permeable. See Bataclan as a particularly spectacular example. In the US, the massive carnage in a few neighborhoods in Chicago (not terrorism, admittedly) shows that strict gun control laws are often ignored by those who want to kill. There are, no doubt, cases of armed would-be-victims and third parties stopping killings, but those appear to be quite a bit (as in orders of magnitude, perhaps) fewer than the people getting killed by guns
So… gun control laws which restrict firearms capable of killing many people at once are a positive when it comes to reducing terrorism, but they are a sieve with massive holes.
Additionally, quite frankly, the problem isn’t guns. Places like Switzerland have guns all over, and minimal terrorism problems. Israelis are heavily armed, but the most recent heavy reduction in terrorism came from the construction of a wall, not from limiting gun availability.
The problem with guns (and vehicles and equipment that can be made into bombs and knives), quite frankly, is not their existence but whether they are in the hands of people whose goal is to kill people without any self-defense motives.
Well Mike:
This:
is quite true; but, you leave out some facts.
Have you read how the Swiss regulate what you can own for a weapon, how you can store it and its ammunition, and what it takes to carry one? I suggest you do as comparing the weapons sieve alias the USA to Switzerland is not a comparison other than extremes. Strict weapons laws do work when “everyone” has to follow them and no one can cross a state line, buy one, and bring it back. In Switzerland, weapons laws do work.
The “good guy stops the bad guy” nonsense rarely happens and in one FBI study it was only 3% of the time. “3 percent of the incidents the shooter was confronted by armed civilians, of whom four were on-duty security guards and one person was just your average “good guy” who happened to be carrying a gun.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-weisser/fbi-report-active-shooters_b_5900748.html
I guess you are going to have to really try in order to kill an armed bad guy. The police usually get them In most cases an unarmed person has been known to escape them by running.
well, so far i am still more afraid of my gun totin neighbors than i am of the terrists. and of people who drive like terrists.
i’m trying to remember if the first terrorists in America were the Quantrell gang.
“Places like Switzerland have guns all over, and minimal terrorism problems.”
Bullshit. I’ve been to Switzerland several times. They don’t have “guns all over.” Swiss men between 20 and 30 serve in the militia (you know, the well-regulated militia the 2nd Amendment actually refers to). To carry firearms in public or outdoors (and for an individual who is a member of the militia carrying a firearm other than his Army-issue personal weapons off-duty), a person must have a permit, which in most cases is issued only to private citizens working in occupations such as security.
“Israelis are heavily armed, but the most recent heavy reduction in terrorism came from the construction of a wall, not from limiting gun availability. ”
Israel actually has quite strong gun restrictions and very low gun ownership rates, some of the lowest in the developed world.
Maybe if you actually learned about the topic instead of parroting NRA propaganda, you wouldn’t make such obvious mistakes.
Joel,
I dunno. It just so happens my first cousin is Israeli. I remember when they were visiting California a few decades. My uncle had to give my cousin’s husband a quick primer on American laws as he was about to drive off with his brand new AR-15 sitting fully loaded in the passenger seat.
A few years before that, my dad came back from a couple of conferences in Israel. He mentioned how he had picked up soldiers who were hitch-hiking to their units. These guys were armed.
Whether gun ownership is high or low, I do not know that a civilian walking the streets is a lot (call it two to three orders of magnitude) more likely to run into several people toting automatic rifles throughout the day in Israel than here. I can count on three fingers the number of times I’ve seen people with automatic rifles outside gun ranges in the US, and I’d have one finger left over.
“[Most] industrialized nations have a per capita gun-related death rate of only a fraction of that of the US.”
Why limit it to gun-related deaths? Is a gun-related death the only thing that matters? Does death by knife not matter? Does rape not matter? Do home invasions not matter?
The UK has twice the rate of rape. Twice the assault rate. Twice the robbery rate. 18% more murder victims per capita (according to the World Health Organization). 25% more total crime victims per capita.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime
Oh my, this turned into a gun control debate. Well, the real problem of deaths by guns in the US is suicide, twice as many dead as by homicide. And for suicide there is no doubt of a massively strong correlation between per capita gun ownership and suicide rates, both by guns alone and overall suicide rates. So, of the five states with the highest gun ownership rates, four of them also are among the top five for suicide rates, and of the bottom five in gun ownership rates, four of them are also among the bottom five in suicide rates.
The US has way to many guns in production and thus guns being stolen. That creates the “illegal gun epidemic” that is worse than the prescription drug “epidemic”.
This is result of 60 years of military industrial complex. The same forces finance “Islamic” radicalism and create “bad guys” to “fight” against. The first was the monied elite’s financing of “communist” groups. Once that ran out of gas, they switched to Nazi invented “werewolve” groups and created the Bin Laden group which was a CIA cover operation.
Warren – “Why limit it to gun-related deaths.” I guess if we don’t limit the discussion, then we will all just agree. Without limits, the death rate is 100%. We all eventually die.
The Rage,
Terrorism isn’t caused by us financing unsavory characters. We’ve financed lots of unsavory people over the years. I lived in South America during the Operation Condor years. But when there’s a terrorist attack, you don’t have the spectacle of someone going on tv to say “these terrorists pervert what it means to be Chilean” or “the real danger is the spread of anti-Argentine sentiment.”
run,
I missed your response earlier. Sorry. Note that I am saying and implying nothing about good guys killing bad guys. I did say there are places with a lot of guns floating around and which nevertheless don’t have a high murder rate. This doesn’t mean that gun control is a bad idea, but it does mean that something beyond gun control is necessary to deter murders.
There’s no polite way of saying it, but you can have the following scenario occur.
1. Country A has very few guns per capita and Country B has many guns per capita
2. If you increase the number of guns in Country A, the murder rate in Country A will increase
3. If you increase the number of guns in Country B, the murder rate in Country B will increase
4. The murder rate in Country A (with few guns) is well above the murder rate of Country B (with many guns)
I think we can all name examples of Country A and B where we can tell this story. We can also do the same with jurisdictions in the US. What differs is the population, and the culture of that population.
Trump is responding to the fact that whenever a terrorist attack involves guns, instead of focusing on the terrorists, there is an immediate call for more gun control. Here there are no guns. What’s left to focus on?
i dunno
bombs?
box cutters?
That is a weak retort. There are more ways to create “terrorist” attacks other than guns. The point is less firepower in weaponry=less deaths.
Both these attacks were nurtured by radical elements in Labour(which Corbyn is part of) and their long time allies in the Sunni community due to the May/Conservative government pretty much being forced by the Scotts/Protestant Irish to have a special election.
White Nationalists also are making a error in judgement the last several months/years by aligning themselves with the neocons/zionist/Putin aka ZOG. Corbyn’s Labour would give them exactly what they want just for the protection of a small sector of Sunni muslims who are their traditional allies. The big immigration surge from Islam has not been from the Sunnis, it has been the Shia, brought in by conservatives. Under Corbyn, this would reverse. Not only would he deport Shia, but the number of zionist jews would be reduced as well and probably some mysterious deaths of jews as well.
Then would come the firming relations within the UK and within the EU, driving the EU more into the framework Adolph Hitler saw in 1940.
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coberly,
Jihadists.
Sammy
i have no idea what you are trying to say.
i was trying to say that i don’t think guns have been the weapon of choice for terrorists. it has been the weapon of choice for insane Americans. So it seems to me that Trump either doesn’t know that, or was just throwing out some meaningless words to confuse the confusable.
“Well, the real problem of deaths by guns in the US is suicide, twice as many dead as by homicide.”
So the prevalence of guns are responsible for BOTH suicides and murders?
Insider
i guess any retort that doesn’t agree with your world view would seem weak to you.
But thanks for reminding us if Irish terrorism.
I could make a list.
Warren – “So the prevalence of guns are responsible for BOTH suicides and murders?”
No one is saying guns are “responsible”. Gun are facilitators in both cases. Guns make it easier to kill yourself and others. Clearly, removing guns from the equation reduces both suicides and murders because it makes it harder to accomplish either one.
Removing guns from the equation makes it easier for the strong to kill the weak. “God created Man and Woman. Colonel Colt made them equal.”
(Might explain why women are twice as likely to be raped in Canada and the UK as they are in the US.)
Warren, you might double check your stats. According to: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-rate the US rape rate is 27.3 per 100,000 while Canada is 1.7. This source did not list the U.K., but the EU Average is 10.19.
Someone noted that there several different ways for terrorists to kill people and some are more effective than others. Bombs are probably the best, whether suicide or otherwise and certainly were the most traditional means of spreading terror. Does anyone question that there have not been more terrorist bombings in recent years in the U.S. because of the difficulty is securing explosives in this country? I mean you can accumulate black powder, but dynamite, plastique, even nitrogen based fertlizer are pretty strictly regulated. I would guess there would be less terrorist attacks employing guns if access to them were more strictly regulated too, but I think the real issue posed by the original post is how we ended up with the embarrassment in the White House and how much longlasting damage will he do to our country.
Jerry, you might want to read the fine print. Those do NOT include crimes not reported to the police. Look at “rape victims” — “Twice as much as United States”.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Canada/United-States/Crime
For the country list:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-victims
Your reference to twice as much is for “Age of Criminal Responsibility”.
Jerry, go the the bottom of the page. There is a drop-down menu with a default of 15. Change it to ALL.
OK. We are looking at two different numbers, one is rate (people per 100,000 citizens) and the other is victims (% female population). I’m not sure why there is such a difference relative to other countries.
Joel,
Run for your life.
The “rate” is only those reported to police. Rape is widely regarded as one of the least reported crimes. (One number given for Canada is, “1 – 2% of “date rape” sexual assaults are reported to the police.” http://www.sexassault.ca/statistics.htm) The World Health Organization has done crime surveys, which are more consistent between countries with different legal definitions and reporting rates. Canada, for instance, does not separate rape from other sexual assaults, but lumps them all together and prosecutes on the severity of the attack.
Warren,
I think
“Removing guns from the equation makes it easier for the strong to kill the weak. “God created Man and Woman. Colonel Colt made them equal.”
Is probably the most stupid comment I have ever seen and I read the internet a lot. Tell me exactly how often do people get killed with bare hands, compared to how often they killed get weapons. The key point is that weapons make killing easier, and the likelihood is a function mainly of aggression and ruthlessness.