I live in Japan, and gun crime here is very rare. It is one less thing on my mind.

I feel frankly unqualified even to speculate why gun crime is so much less of a problem in Japan. what are the laws about gun ownership where you live?

There is another side to this though. Here in South Africa the criminals are armed to the teeth, the police force is crippled because of a lack of funds and they do not have the resources to do anything about the situation. The normal guy in the street faces legislation that makes it very difficult to own a firearm. The only winners here are the criminals.

I share your frustration, Lyndi. while I agree with and support the aims of gun control advocates where they are successful often does come in reducing the honest guy’s ability to protect himself rather than the criminal’s ability to do him harm

Guns are banned here in Australia, makes no difference, those people who want them still get them on the black market, and those who intend to do harm still do so, gun laws or not.

there are no simple answers and probably can not even possibly be any answers that will work for all peoples everywhere. but I do have to point out that the United States has vastly higher levels of gun violence than, say, Europe

But I agree that it is scary to read about people that have their homes full of them for political reasons. Maybe I would feel differently if I lived in a more dangerous country. Although I know people that would say the reason I feel safe in America is because of the right to have guns.

-Will

When I see knee-jerk comments like these, I can’t help but agree. The arguments against owning firearms listed in these posts sound like they came straight from (former) Brady Center wind-up drones.

clairec23 says, “Now I may be missing something, but even if someone broke into my home, I’m not planning on murdering them. while completely missing the point that the housebreaker in question probably has no such qualms. Even Gandhi advocated self-defense.

clairec23 also says, “How many children have to accidentally die because another child innocently played with a loaded gun they found at their home? How many schools have to go through a massacre?” The first statement is a “straw man” and could just as easily be applied to cars (drunk drivers) and quad ATVs (which actually kill more by far of all ages per total owned in the U.S. than firearms.) She also conveniently fails to mention the school massacres that have been interrupted because a law-abiding gun owner was present and intervened. Think about the Dunblane (Scotland) school shooting in 1996. What to have been the outcome if there had been an armed teacher or other school official? We’ll never know that answer but statistically, some of the victims would probably be alive today. On the other hand, Finland is country of widespread private gun ownership and the recent school shooting in Tuusula is the first of it’s kind to ever occur in that country.

Saying that America is full of people who have absolutely no tolerance for anyone that isn’t exactly like them seems, at least in this case, to be the pot calling the kettle black.

I have plenty of distrust for the government. And the guy with the huge machine gun whose politics I find strange, alien and frightening and which I readily admit I do not begin to understand, scares me badly.

As it happened I became so engrossed in several of the photographs that it was not until after I had posted the review and went back to look at the book again that I even Saw the picture or the African American man with his dog.

I suspect you are right that these photographs do serve as a litmus test of sorts. Certainly my reaction was visceral as I suspect was the author’s intention.

Striking as the book was and much conversation as it has generated I do find it a bit sad that the book seems to offer no bridge for the members of the two camps to find a way to talk to rather than past each other.

from the sound of it, he simply has a healthy distrust of government, though perhaps with a slight leaning towards overly distrustful. the homophobic Cheney-ites you compare him to, on the other hand, tend instead to be too trusting of any government that makes loud enough claims to conservatism. liberal democracy does rely on a modest amount of distrust; that’s why we have accountability, transparency, verifiability, and all those other nice things.

I’m not goin to dispute your political take on this book. It seems to be, more than anything else, a litmus test on one’s feelings about guns. Either you like the family photos, or you find them deeply and vicerally frightening. As far as I can tell the differences between the two camps are axiomatic and irreconcilable.