Ambi wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 9:34 pm
It is next to impossible to imagine that a veteran actor like Baldwin, living in a country where owing a gun is second nature, having featured in so many films and TV shows, would have carelessly handled a gun, be it real, dummy or replica pointing it at someone with his finger on the trigger, much less pull it.
Yes, it would seem to be as you say. However, consider that there are many automobiles in the USA, and many people who own cars, but not very many who understand how cars work. The cars are engineered so that even the most clumsy and unknowledgeable person can operate one, and sometimes rudimentary training in driving techniques is available. Still, overall, people generally drive cars the way they want, paying varying degrees of attention to safety. This is apparent when driving about in traffic situations that are more dense.
Guns, on the other hand, are not at widespread in the public's experience as you assume. Many people have ideas of firearms that are obtained from movies and TV. I suspect that this is the same all over the world. Many people have never even held a gun. Consider these data points reported here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... hip-survey
Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every American adult, according to the most definitive portrait of US gun ownership in two decades. But the new survey estimates that 133m of these guns are concentrated in the hands of just 3% of American adults – a group of super-owners who have amassed an average of 17 guns each.
(Here, one should note that these figures are not different from the ownership figures of other areas of interest: enthusiasts of computers, high fidelity sound gear, and amateur radio also have more of that equipment than the ordinary citizen. I probably have 20 computers around the house, myself!)
The strongest predictor of gun ownership was military service. 44% of veterans said they owned a firearm.
Gun ownership varies considerably by state: It is low in states like Massachusetts (14.7%), New Jersey (14.7%), Rhode Island (14.8%), and Hawaii (14.9%), while Montana (66.3%), Wyoming (66.2%), and Alaska (64.5%) have the highest rates of gun ownership.
So, familiarity with guns isn't something that's uniform across the USA at all. One of my son-in-laws was horrified that I owned a handgun, and refused to touch it as if it was demon-possessed, for instance.
There are some aspects of gun ownership that are the same across all countries, and other aspects that are different, and within nations, there are also differences. For instance, Switzerland (45.7% own guns), Finland (45.3% own guns), and Sweden (31.6% own guns) have high rates of gun ownership, but low crime rates, while other nations, like Yemen (54.8% own guns), Serbia (37.8% own guns), and Iraq (34.2% own guns) are relatively more violent. We can see from these figures that gun ownership does not have to result in gun violence.
What does seem to be common in many countries are people who think that, by depriving others of their gun rights, society can be made to be better. I don't think that the data support such conclusions, nor am I convinced that those who hold such beliefs are very well informed about people or guns.
But, back to Baldwin, he says he didn't pull the trigger. Who cocked the hammer then, as this was a single action revolver? i think his story will unravel under proper cross examination.
