You wait for hours on an idea to come along and then two come together. This morning I find myself thinking about guns and accommodation.
Guns first. I watched a clip from the Democratic candidates’ TV debate, which Hillary Clinton won conclusively, it seems. One of the things she mentioned was guns. “There are ninety gun deaths in this country every day” she said. I know the US is a vast state but that pulled me up. That’s the equivalent of two, maybe three airliners crashing with no survivors every week. Are the Americans mad that they can’t see this? What is with this obsession about their right to bear arms? I remember staying with an Irish-American in Arizona once. I asked him if he had a gun in his house. “Three” he told me.
In our own dear state, there were in 2012 something over 153,000 legally held weapons. One man owned 159 weapons. The youngest gun-holder was 17 and the oldest 103. Traditionally, the large majority of legally-held weapons are held by Protestants. They are necessary, we’re told, for shooting crows and vermin.
The accommodation idea came to mind in the reporting of that horrific fire which claimed ten traveller lives in the south, some of them children. There’s been an outpouring of grief similar to that which followed the pictures of the little refugee boy lying face-down and dead on a beach. Then Irish people rang talk-shows offering a place in their own homes to a refugee family. The sympathy was enormous and generous. The death of the ten travellers has been similarly greeted. There have been candle-light vigils, condolences, a statement from the Irish president, a statement from An Taoiseach and other public figures. But this time nobody offered their home as a welcoming place for a distressed traveller family. In fact, when the local council allocated a temporary place for the bereaved travellers, local people blockaded the spot and refused entrance to diggers.
So here are a few questions we maybe should have answers to:
- Does a place the size of our dear state, which is struggling to emerge from decades of deadly conflict, really need all those guns? Can there be that many crows in need of shooting?
- Is it in fact true that the large majority of legal gun-holders are Protestant? If that is so, why do they really need these weapons?
- Why are some Irish people good at showing charity to those in need when they are hundreds, thousands of miles away, and stony-hearted when confronted with real loss on their own doorstep?
- Isn’t it time that the authorities north and south made a concerted effort to address the many ills that beset travellers – poor living conditions, poor educational attainment, shockingly early mortality rates? Or do we think that concern with ordinary people is one thing, but sure there’s nothing you can do with these travellers, they’re a breed and a law unto themselves?
Well said Jude the racism Travellers face day and daily is a terrible reflection on all of us and more needs to be done to address all the issues you mentioned around traveller health education housing etc The problem with tackling traveller issues is that it frequently involves settled people designing “solutions” travellers themselves need to be supported to reach a point they can advocate on behalf of their own community in the meantime legislation should become much more robust around racism
Gun clubs north of the border, homelessness south of the border, and the land of the free is awash with guns and high school massacres. In the midst of the doom, gloom and despondency, it was interesting to hear a commentator on RTÉ Radio discuss the moral authority of An Garda Síochána on the day Garda Anthony Golden will be laid to rest.
The Guardians of the Peace throughout the worst of the troubles remained an unarmed police service. They had the ability to police communities without military support and there was no need to operate out of bomb proof bunkers. An Garda Síochána had and retains the support of the vast majority of citizens throughout the country and that remains the basis of its moral authority.
The pantomime continues, north of the border. The most recent incursion by Mr Blair’s spin doctor was doomed to failure even before loyalist proposals were publicly announced given the televised public and vociferous criticism from residents of the Shankill Road. Mr Powell was not pleased. It was time for a different cycle path and a contingency plan, why not legalise the non-existent IRA? Mr Powell must have been reading The Third Policeman as the dear old spin doctor’s bicycle light is not even glowing in the darkness of memory lapses about the role of the NAMA in the north of Ireland, ‘victims’ and ‘innocent victims’ of the troubles, many are sticking to their guns in various gun clubs and the proconsul has taken to wearing her comfort blanket of national security.
“Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first.
‘If you follow them’, said the Sergeant, ‘you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road.”
Very well put, Iolar. Although I assume your mention of the garda having the support of citizens throughout ‘the country’ is a typo for ‘state’?? Although I suppose we in the other state would support them too…
My sentiments are with Colmán on this. According to a ‘spokesperson’, Mr Powell is looking for a good second hand bike. Disillusionment has set in. In spite of Tony Blair’s £1m ‘charity’ donation for ‘some’ loyalists, other loyalists are far from impressed. Perhaps the four men apprehended by the PSNI for questioning about the supply of cocaine, cannabis and ammunition last night in Newtonards were not briefed about the Tony Blair Foundation. Mind you, I could think of better places to spend £1 million, starting in Calais.
guardians of the peace lol..you must never have met the heavy squad,
Not so, In spite of his broadcasting ban on RTÉ, the Cruiser was not met with open ‘arms’ and he and his heavies did not get the anticipated céad míle fáilte on that rare occasion when he made an incursion into the north of the island.
When you said ‘our dear state’ I thought you were talking about the Dublin government. For some of us the country is united already it is just up to the politicians and the rest of the country to catch up with the notion.
You are right Colman …borders and division are only products of the magination.
I heard Kenny’s comments about the need for dialogue in relocating travellers into communities, I thought, what if he had used the word blacks or Jews in that same sentence instead of travellers.
The answer is of course there would have been an up roar. So clearly, there does exist an acceptable form of racism toward travellers.
I then thought about the car park outside my home and how I would feel if a traveller camp happened to be there one morning after I opened my curtains…I wouldn’t be a happy bunny.
How many people in Ireland would welcome a traveller camp on their doorstep ?
It surely isa curious thing, Jude that through the entire span of the “Troubles” all legally held guns were not put under some kind of ban. As you say …how often is a gun needed to shoot the odd crow?…and weren’t there enough guns washing about in the hands of policemen and army already without the citizenry being armed to the teeth as well? Far from being like the UK , “ordinary” beat policemen were armed here for as long as i can rememember. in fact there was a kind of macho undercurrent to all that bullshit too.
That rifle which illustrates today’s think piece, Esteemed Blogmeister, reminded one vividly of an emblematic movie from the Fabulous Fifties: Winchester 73,.
A movie which featured the sublime Dan Duryea, who probably possessed the meanest and most coyote-looking mug of any hombre in a horse opera. Ever.
In Winchester 73 he filled the role of Waco Johnny Dean and when greeted as ‘the fastest gun in Texas’ by a good-time gal called Lola Manners, he replied: ‘Texas? Why limit me, lady?’.
Though another equally exquisite quote from the same tumbleweed fillum would be perhaps more relevant. This quote came from a character called High-Spade Frankie Wilson who, when asked by a bartender who might he be, replied:’High-Spade….with a hyphen. That’s what I sit upon when I get tired’.
Certainly this quote would be more relevant to the Free Southern Stateen for there has been a deal of hyphen-sitting among the manipulative media down here when it comes to the 153,000 noncommissioned guns in Norneverland.
More Winchester Cathedral, one might say, than Winchester 73 down here in the morally superior South of the Black Sow’s Dyke. Where the morsupial media are happy to go hopalong with any project which consolidates the civilising of the stateeen. One that would make it a land fit for Lizzie the Lizard to laze in.
Call it the policy of Guns ‘n Roses.
Time was, of course, when Norneverland was as synonymous with pruning as with crooning (Sam McGredy and Danny B, respectively) but that all ended in 1974 when Sam IV moved the family business lock, stock and petal down to the Land of the Kiwi to concentrate on his Floribundas. On account of the Troubles which had really begun to bubble over. Call that fateful year, Winchester 74, if one likes.
While the Guns are now, almost in their entirety, safely in the correct hands, the Roses franchise has been gleefully taken over by the Free Southern Stateen, which makes it its only claim to be classified as, erm, green-fingered. Certainly if one is to go by the low-intensity operation to Re-anglicise the 26 Counties on a daily, weekly, monthly, year on year basis.
So remorseless indeed has this operation been waged that the most jaw-rearranging of cultural clangers can be dropped without managing to arch as much as one proverbial eyebrow.
There’s a race on at the moment, seemingly. between different cities in the FSS for the title of European Culture City 20/20. Despite the cognomen there would not appear to be much store placed by the back story of say, Dublin City, which is one of the contenders.
Certainly, if one is to go by a casual assertion which went unchallenged on the normally combative, Yawning Ireland, RTE Radio’s Flagship Programme. One is which the Director of Dubin’s, Bid, one Ray Yates (definitely no descendant) asserted:
-Dublin is a city of division, a Viking City, an English City, a Capital City.
Eh?
So, where,pray, did the ‘Dublin’ come from, then?
The leprechaun ‘Dubh Linn’.? Well, no, actually. But rather from the original ‘Black Pool’ which was later retro-leprechauned by fanatical linguistic revisionists, ar ndoigh / of course.
Which made one listener at least speculate whether Dublin’s Bid might be in any way descended from the legendary, erm, Biddy Mulligan who once claimed in no uncertain tems that ‘black was the white of me eye’. The prima facie evidence would suggest there was at least a modicum of consanguinity between Bid and Biddy.
Curiously enough, there was an eerily similar opinion expressed in a somewhat different context later this morning over on a different DOBlin station, Newstalk FM. Oh ! Diversity of media outlets !
This was expressed by the Salmon of Knowledge himself, Salman Rushdie who, in his measured, mulligatawny tones, opined to the fawning interviewer that he would always, but always, refer to ‘Mumbai’ as ‘Bombay’, the way it was always done during the British Raj.
Odd to report but the last chap one heard pronounce such a preference for this pronunciation was Field Marshal K.Myers of the Leicester Jesters, no less.
Did the interviewer, Pat Kenny (for it was he !) challenge the Writer Wallah on this rajestic choice ? Go figure, as they like to say in the Sindo, another DOBlin outlet, strangely enough..
But as PK, who dwells in Sandycove, where the Martello Tower of Jim Joyce the linguistic imperialist is located, has to negotiate the dreadfully difficult to pronounce Dun Laoghaire on a daily basis, who can say for definite the same port will not in the fullness of time revert to his original, easy- to- spell- for- slow- learners, Kingstown?
An united island of Guns and Roses? Or, GAR, for short.
As the guns in q. tend more to be low-profile of necessity it is possible that Nornverland might play the part of, erm, GAR Private; while the more demonstrative rose-in-the-buttonhole cohort in the FSS might well be handed the role of GAR Public.
Hey Jude…way to lob a couple of topics into your public forum! Geesh! Having lived in your country (although not your “state”) for only a little over a month I can not presume to address the issues of accommodation you raise on anything but the obvious humanitarian grounds. However, as a proud American (and, to be clear, that does NOT mean I am proud of the actions of my government), and an equally proud owner of firearms (locked up safely in the USA), I can address the other issue you raise. In the time I have been here in Ireland, it has come up before and, frankly, and with great respect, you are all subject to a great deal of misinformation. That is not to say, as may be the eventual case here, that when more is known that you will automatically agree with me. However, it is my hope to expose the real reason for the disagreement as opposed to the hyperbole and emotion that so often can cloud sound public policy. (That isn’t to say emotion should be excluded…but reason must be the foundation of a republic not hysterics).
I beg your indulgence while a briefly address the issue along two lines: 1. What the gun murder rate in the USA really reflects and 2. The ideological basis for the right to bear arms. I will begin with the 2nd line first.
“SUBJECT or CITIZEN”
Before I go along, I must ask the reader to suspend, as best they can, reaction to the word “republic” and “republican” with the baggage that comes with it colloquial usage nowadays given the past many decades of its usage in the Irish lexicon which has nuances, some severe ones, that deviate from its original meaning. Furthermore, and perhaps more important, in no way, shape, or form, should my usage be at all linked to one of the main, and fully special-interest owned, political parties of the USA.
It is this original meaning that I am referring.
Let’s remember first, and I know you know this, that Wolfe Tone, Thomas Addis Emmet, Napper Tandy, Henry Joy McCracken, Robert Emmet, John Mitchel, Thomas Davis, and countless other great men of Irish history were members of a republican movement that was not at all centered in Ireland. It was a revolutionary political ideology that was moving through Western Civilization and beyond. One major facet of this ideology was the rejection of the moral and legal authority of any monarchist system of government and, additionally, it held the rights of the citizen above the rights of the state. In one of the brilliant and bold steps of republican government, the founders of the USA, crafted a constitution that did not attempt to enumerate the rights of a citizen but outlined how the government could interact with the citizenry. The important premise being that it is impossible to enumerate the rights of the citizen given the primacy of liberty and the countless ways this can and should be manifest. On the contrary, government and the desires of the men and women who take part are nothing if not entirely predictable. This has not changed.
The 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution reflected this belief in the rights of the citizenship to defend themselves from tyranny. The founders thoughts on this matter are accessible to anyone who cares to look. It had nothing to do with hunting. Furthermore, faith was placed in the citizenry to act responsibly and law was put into place for those that did not. We The People have rights…governments do not. If you want a free society and personal liberty and the opportunity that comes with that you MUST also choose to have a, at times uneasy, faith in your fellow man. The fact of the matter is civil society rests on this very act and not on it being imposed by any state. This is the republican position and it remains mine and that of a great many Americans on either side the make believe political spectrum.
and this brings us to what most folk do not understand about American gun violence.
We can all agree that someone being killed is awful whether it be by gun or knife or cudgel. A pro-gun position, is not a pro-murder position.
Lets look at what is truly happening in the USA. By far and away, the murders are primarily in the major metropolitan areas (i.e., Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans, etc) where firearms are simply not legally permitted. Statistically speaking, as limited as such speech is, if you remove the gun murders of the top five cities, the gun murder rate in the USA would fall to the bottom quartile. Now, we know we cant to that and it is purely a rhetorical point. Gun-Control folk respond by saying that it is the lax gun control laws around these urban areas that remains the issue. And that makes no sense. If the mere ubiquity of firearms caused murders the murder rate would be not be so geographically influenced…people would be shooting other folk all over the place and far more often! Furthermore, if you look at the data and map out the areas of the cites, like Chicago, you will see that the murders are, even then, largely associated with specific neighborhoods. If you draw pull in the microscope even further you will see that the murders are largely racially skewed toward the black community, the poorer community, and the criminal elements (i.e. gang and drugs related). Look at that again, we have, largely, the criminal elements in poor black communities shooting the crap out of themselves with guns that are already illegal.
The NRA aside, as they are certainly on the extreme end of the spectrum, most Americans are all for waiting periods and background checks which a lot of communities already have in place (like my own). Now you know… that such measures would do absolutely no good in stemming the gun murder rate as we now see it (criminals do not heed the law). The gun murder rate is the direct result of the failure of the government of the USA in yet two other wars…one allegedly on poverty and the other allegedly on drugs.
It is our republican political ideology that acknowledges the primacy of the citizen. It requires that the citizen become able to exercise their rights responsibly. It also asserts a legal system to deal with those who impede upon the rights of others (murder being a definitive imposition!). By far, and I mean BY FAR, citizens of the United States who legally exercise their right to keep and bear arms do so responsibly.
Political opportunists, and it is my understanding that there may be a few of those here in the two states that exist in this nation, will seek at every turn to use the issues of the day to acquire, retain, and accumulate power. We The People are supposed to stand up for each other and not for them. We are supposed to expose them and bring them down…not go along with their spin and quests for power at the expense of the truth. We have a humanitarian issue, certainly, but it isn’t what you are being led to believe.
The republican political ideology may fade from history altogether. It is kinda looking like that way. Perhaps humans are more comfortable as “subjects”. Me, I choose to be a citizen and to not empower the state against my fellow citizen (whether I agree with them, or like them… or not). If you choose differently, “…may your chains rest lightly upon you”…
As someone who wants to move to the USA to live in the near future, I have obviously did a lot of private study on American culture, society, history, etc There is an ingrained fear of Government amongst the American population and they see guns as their protection against that State should it ever try to control their lives and restrict their freedoms. After WW2 there was mass paranoia about Communists infiltrating the US Government, media, etc Many gun holders in the USA then and today believe that one of the main objectives of Communists is to disarm the American public of their right to defend themselves. I’m not sure but some Americans say that the first thing that was done in Russia when the Soviet Union was formed was to disarm the public. This is the main reason why so many Americans are wedded to their fire arms, which they see as their weapon to protect themselves and their families against the State or anyone else who wishes to do them harm.
When it comes to fire arms in Norneverland, I think it very strange how more Protestants have guns than Catholics. Lets be blunt, do they have weapons because they fear Catholics/Republicans? I remember reading about a B Special gun club (which still operates today) in the Belfast Telegraph that is being funded by the Council in, I think, County Down. Why is a council funding a gun club, specifically a Unionist gun club? And who are the members of this gun club?
When it comes to the outpouring of grief for the refugees from Syria, I cant help but feel many of those people offering their spare bedrooms are hypocrites. Where is the outcry for the thousands of homeless begging on our streets every day? Whom they pass and usually ignore when they are out shopping? There’s people even dying on our streets due to being homeless, why isn’t there spare bedrooms being offered to them?
The United States is not the United Kingdom, how hard is that to understand? In a perfect world you could choose between the cousins and their vision of liberty. Unfortunately, with US immigration regulations that choice is no longer available to many.