Inside the global gun culture

[SecularMotion]

In his 20-year career as a journalist, Iain Overton has worked in more than 80 countries. From troubled hotspots such as Iraq, Somalia and Colombia to places such as Brazil and Turkey — this is a man who has seen the world.

So when Overton decided to write his first book, covering the contentious topic of guns, it was perhaps not a surprise that he wanted it to be “international”. Specifically, he didn’t want to cover only one country that tends to dominate the debate on guns: “I didn’t want it to be America, America, America!” he tells Weekend Review. “Because most people — when they talk of gun control and guns — immediately talk of America.”

I met Overton inside a busy café in London. Sitting at a table next to the window, there is a clear view of the street outside. Pedestrians walk by enjoying the cool summer breeze. The barista occasionally comes to collect empty cups and clean the tables as I listen to Overton.

“I have seen guns outside America causing untold harm and yet very little is spoken about it,” he says. “People don’t write about inter-country smuggling between Burundi and Congo. They don’t talk about Liberian guns in the hands of child soldiers. They don’t talk about the proliferation of American guns coming south of the border into Central America and Mexico. And really my book is an attempt to globalise the debate around guns, to place America within that debate.”

http://gulfnews.com/culture/people/inside-the-global-gun-culture-1.1558080

[Fred Sanders]

1. It is not a culture, it is a cult. Of the Gun.

[Starboard Tack]

2. Guns as problem solvers.

From Israeli snipers shooting boys throwing stones, to would-be suicides picking up the closest thing handy, to supposedly normal individuals assuaging their fear of others by carrying a firearm.

Simplistic thinking and failed logic all round.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. "Simplistic thinking and failed logic all round."

IMAX theaters called. They want to borrow your projector.

[gejohnston]

4. Israeli snipers shooting boys throwing stones

I'm sure the same source also blame Israel for Hamas' war crimes and sells Protocol of the Learned Elders of Zion on their website.

[Starboard Tack]

5. I was using the OP as a source

I guess you didn't read the article.

[gejohnston]

6. I just read it

the Blurb in the OP makes the guy sound like an idiot. Inanimate objects don't cause anything. Guns don't cause murder anymore than knives do, never mind the anti knife pearl clutchers in the UK. He seems to think if firearms were magically dis-invented that there would be no violence and death. Five minutes with a history book disproves that, since there was much more violence back then, even in Europe.
He implies that the US is violent where people in Lower Manhattan fear shootouts like the people in the South Bronx. The truth is, most of the US is actually as safe as or safer than Europe. The problems are concentrated in specific areas.
His claim that "there is no monied lobby pushing gun control" is bullshit. In the US the lobby is entirely funded by a couple of billionaires and the media and political elite. I suspect that is true in other countries as well.

[Eleanors38]

7. I'm sure Israeli snipers were using American rifles since Israel makes so few arms.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. ~wink~

Yuri Orlov: I sell to leftists, and rightists. I sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers. Of course, you're not a *true* internationalist until you've supplied weapons to kill your *own* countrymen. I was an equal opportunity merchant of death. I supplied every army but the Salvation Army. I sold Israeli-model Uzis to Muslims. I sold Communist-made bullets to Fascists... I even shipped cargo to Afghanistan when they were fighting my fellow Soviets. I never sold to Osama bin Laden. Not on any moral grounds: back then, he was always bouncing checks.