Conflict resolution vs. teaching kids how to kill

[peteryoung]

At depressing times like this I find myself reverting to the admittedly rather simplistic notion that 'weapons will find a way of being used', and most especially this might apply to guns. It may not be accurate in the strictest sense, but if the global arms trade ever needed a motto this would suffice more than adequately, and it's the kind of phrase that might provide that uncomfortable extra degree of truth that you would not read about in the weapons sales brochures available at any Arms Fair. I often feel it is the existence of the weapons themselves that are the problem, to which the usual reply/non-answer/excuse might be "guns don't kill people, people kill people", which is equally inaccurate in the strictest sense when seen from my side of the argument.

Yesterday, as I came through San Francisco airport, and before I'd even heard about this shooting, I was counting the number of people I saw carrying guns, as far as I could tell all police and customs officers. About twenty, in a not very large area of a few hundred square metres. Walking through American airports sometimes feels like walking through a militarized zone, and I often wonder what are these people's individual relationships with the guns they carry: do they like them or hate them, carry them willingly or under duress? Do they get a kick from the weapons training they receive, or only do it because it's part of the job? Do they have guns at home as well? If so, why? These people also have psychological testing as part of their weapons training, but when and where did the guy who pulled the trigger so many times yesterday actually learn how to do it? At school?

When I was 14 in 1974 I was more or less press-ganged at my own school into joining the voluntary Combined Cadet Force, the national 'kid’s army' recruitment drive to induce children into a future military career. Its current stated aim is "to provide a disciplined organisation in a school so that pupils may develop powers of leadership by means of training to promote the qualities of responsibility, self reliance, resourcefulness, endurance and perseverance" (no mention of weapons). This was done by means of playing at soldiers, khaki uniforms, square-bashing in the school playground, and gun training with both blank and live ammunition. I refused to attend after a few weeks. When it came down to it, they were legally putting weapons of death into the hands of children, and for all I know the CCF may still do so now. I was being taught how to shoot (and, by extension, kill) two years before I was even allowed to legally have sex, and four years before I was allowed to vote. This is the kind of thing we abhor when we see guns put in the hands of press-ganged children in Africa, so it's something of a hypocrisy to turn a blind eye to a similar exposure to weapons when it goes on in your own country. Our kids are not being given a gun and told to go out and kill, so why give them this knowledge at such an unnecessarily immature age, knowledge that they may wish to use either in or out of the military or other armed public services if they can get access to guns? There are non-violent means of teaching children the qualities the CCF aspires to, so guns clearly do not need to be involved. There are also methods of conflict resolution and self-discipline that can be taught that don't also involve teaching kids how to kill, such as the non-violent conflict resolution classes that are taught to schoolchildren of all ages in Norway.

Gun culture in America is not a subject I feel any need or desire to have a detailed knowledge of, just knowing it's a huge problem is more than enough. I don't know if American kids are taught weapons training in any context. Britain has had its own school killing sprees which have made me equally depressed. We abhor this kind of violence when it is used against kids, but at the same time we continue to put guns in the hands of children and teach them how to use them. For twenty years now I've been saying if I ever have kids I will not buy them toy guns. A personal relationship with violence is something I have long tried to minimize in all forms after various exposures at a younger age, and for more than two decades it has also come right down to what I eat and wear. It feels like yet another time to look inward and ask "what is my personal relationship with violence?", and ask can I/we do any better.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I can sympathise entirely with your viewpoint, and I'm not at all sure I disagree with any of it.

The UN has a list of countries that have "child armies", which they define as having people under 18 in it, and yes, the UK is on that list along with DR Congo and other countries we try to feel superior to ...

... there is a lot to be said, however, for making children aware of how dangerous guns are and teaching them gun safety. I was taught it when I was young and it still makes me flinch when I see someone wave a toy gun around and across where people are standing.

But then I used to have a Fire Arms Certificate (even though I have never owned a gun)

There's also a lot to be said for "brainwashing" children into a military career since it is much harder to get people, once they are grown up, to willingly sign up and put themselves in the line of battle (there may be a moral here, even if the morality is obviously dubious)

I have no idea about the figures, but I'd suspect that most of the "kids" that have run amuck with guns in the US have not had military training ... quite the opposite I'd guess (and this is just my personal bias speaking) that most of them have had little impulse control put on them in their lives and so when something snaps they have no resources to control themselves and so find it easy to take it out on everyone else with whatever weapon comes to hand. Sure they would end up killing fewer people with a baseball bat or a car, which is a good reason in itself for keeping guns away from them, but the main problem is the ease of killing people with a gun, it's just point and click and they are injured or dead, while many other forms of violence require more thought or application of physical force (and as such are easier for a bunch of people to mob the attacker and restrain them).

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

The UN has a list of countries that have "child armies", which they define as having people under 18 in it, and yes, the UK is on that list along with DR Congo and other countries we try to feel superior to ...

That's interesting. Will research later.

while many other forms of violence require more thought or application of physical force

Rude Pundit is worth reading today (http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech-massacre-and-american.html): "No one ever heard of a drive-by stabbing".

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/478077.stm
But a spokesman for Amnesty International told the BBC: "The UK has the dubious distinction, of first of all of having the equal lowest minimum age of recruitment - that being 16.

"Second, they also have the largest number of recruited under 18-year-olds in its army of any of the armed forces in Europe.

"Third it is the only in country that actually deploys 17-year-olds into armed conflict situations in some of the most dangerous places in the world."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6328771.stm
Mr Ingram said the UK ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict on 24 June 2003 to ensure that under-18s were not deployed to war zones.

"Unfortunately, these processes are not infallible and the pressures on units prior to deployment have meant that there have been a small number of instances where soldiers have been inadvertently deployed to Iraq before their 18(th) birthday," he said.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

I was aware of the recent 'under-18s in Iraq' issue but not aware of the UN list, or quite how bad Britain's standing on the matter of child soldiers really is, so thanks enormously for those links.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I think one of the problems we have is that we are continuously misled about the real consequences of violence. Far too many Holywood movies and TV shows arrive at neat conclusions where the bad guy gets a little round hole in the forehead and all the characters problems are solved by that act of violence. Graphic depictions of the real consequences of gunshot wounds, either short or long term, are discouraged. The image of firearms and, by extension, other forms of (typically lethal) violence as a way to solve problems are everywhere. You don't need to have held a gun to get the idea that they solve, rather than cause, problems. However, some familiarity with real violence (I'd suggest through a non-competitive martial art but I'm sure there are other ways) can dispel this illusion. I very much doubt that the CCF is a good way of doing this.

More depressingly, I'm subject to Fox News as I'm out of the UK. Their take on this is that its Virginia Tech's fault for prohibiting guns on campus since, if they had been allowed, someone would have 'taken out' the shooter before things got bad. This is a typically cinematic and unrealistic response from Fox. It won't stop a lot of USians believing it though.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Their take on this is that its Virginia Tech's fault for prohibiting guns on campus since, if they had been allowed, someone would have 'taken out' the shooter before things got bad

This reminds me of a memorable post-Columbine comment from a gun-toting NRA hick, who said something to effect that "if those defenceless kids had had proper weapons training they'd be alive today". He seemed to be calling not only for compulsory weapons training for teenagers but also the liberty to carry those weapons into the classroom.

The image of firearms and, by extension, other forms of (typically lethal) violence as a way to solve problems are everywhere. You don't need to have held a gun to get the idea that they solve, rather than cause, problems.

That illusion is at the root of it, plus the illusion that scripted TV shows somehow reflect real life. If you then glamourise guns and violence in a society which also enshrines 'the right to bear arms' aswell, it gives a pretty clear picture of the kind of society one will get. It may be interesting to know how the depiction of guns is regulated on American TV (again, another area in which I must declare complete ignorance, but also can't be bothered to Google for that nugget of information right now).

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Word.

Guns regulated on US TV? It is to laugh! you will look long and hard, my friend. We are up to our eyeballs in the fantasy Westworld where Mr Colt Made Us All Equal. (I found myself just yesterday advocating guns for women just to give their menfolk pause.) Particularly problematic with young people who typically feel somewhat invulnerable anyway... certainly if their driving is any indication.

Oh the saga I could tell of when Number One Son was growing up. I refused to buy toy guns, he hammered a couple of blocks together (improve the stick with a magazine). The rule No Shooting Mom (It Makes Her Mad) was strictly enforced, don't you point your finger at me daddy-o, you are right out of here. With the squirt guns when they grew up into supersoakers and it was all the rage on our block, I said No Guns In My House, and extended that to the yard, months later I find he stashed them in the garage.

I think that it was an issue for me was the education for him, that and growing up on the island that is Madison. Now he is in college up north, with more white boys than he has ever been around before. Normal small town midamerikan boys, not the collegiate melting pot we have in our town. He has friends who have gone hunting regularly all their lives, and has thus been introduced to the non-fantasy gun culture. He thinks it is all pretty wild, and can identify paranoid racist craziness when he hears it.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Re: regulation of guns on US TV...

Few realistic gunshot wounds are depicted on TV or in the movies (list of possible improvements to current depictions removed to not cause nausea). Is this the result of regulation or a wish to keep things cheap and easy for the production? Real depictions of the messiness of all forms of violence would give a lot of people pause for thought...

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Our police dramas are currently edging up to the depiction of gunshot to the head. These shows begin at seven in the evening. We see all kinds of messy results, although the convention of leading-interview with the subject requires the camera to cut away more or less discreetly, which I assume is a technical problem since most actors aren't really looking for that kind of fame. Also various kinds of explosions (which result in people either whole or in bits, but not so much in between, according to the rules of fantasy violence). I cannot help but think it is a matter of scruples rather than of production technique, because we are also up to here with autopsies in various nasty conditions, which cannot be cheap and easy to reproduce.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling there are rules here in the UK about what is or is not appropriate, especially with regards to children's TV (or at least the 9pm watershed).

Glad to hear your son didn't turn out a crazy paranoid gun-totin' racist like some... must be the benign influence of his mother. :) But why was he so insistent, or was it just case of forbidden fruit?

[maryread.livejournal.com]

I thought there was a nine p.m. rule here too, but lately, not. The industry has a coding system that flashes a rating on the screen in the first few seconds of the show, much like the movie rating system, but further distinguished with code letters V, S, L, depending on whether the objectionable content is Violence, Sex, or bad Language. Otherwise parents can get a box to attach, but I don't know how that works. Probly have to get a kid to hook it up anyway.

However much one might like to protect one's children, they very early become part of the rest of society. When he came home from preschool I started asking Where did he get This? particularly about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and then the Power Rangers, which I would never have purposely introduced to him, although I tried to watch it a bit. He heard the early evening news as a toddler, and was playing War In Iraq at about the same time that he wanted to be Batman, or a Jedi Knight. That is how I remember "Gwound War In Saudi Awabia!!!"

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

"if those defenceless kids had had proper weapons training they'd be alive today"

Heinlein probably expressed this point of view the most eloquently: an armed society is a polite society. You can call those who believe this hicks, but it doesn't make the belief go away. It's an extremely powerful force in American culture.

Oh, and regarding your initial post: I never received any gun training at all, although my dad and brother both hunt and I went out with them a few times as a kid. But coming from a Mennonite background, we didn't have a very militaristic outlook, to say the least. My dad, however, has become a hawk over time.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

an armed society is a polite society

Yes, which says plenty about Heinlein, as we know. If he were alive today people could counter his argument with reference to such ideas as non-violent conflict resolution education in Norway, and suggest that that's a far healthier form of polite society. He might even agree. Who wouldn't rather teach kids to be peacemakers these days?

[chilperic.livejournal.com]

I was dragooned into the Combined Cadet Force too when I was at school. From the age of 14 or 15, I think. I realised very soon that it was a total waste of time, and although I had to put in my twice-termly duty of cleaning the rifles in the Armoury, I actually otherwise never touched a gun while in CCF uniform -- I joined the military band. I stayed there until I left school. I was deadly with the clarinet. But it wasn't for any hostility to guns at that age: to try and get out of playing compulsory rugby at one stage (now there is a deadly sport!) I opted for shooting on the school's rifle range. I was properly trained, and came out of it with very clear ideas of how dangerous guns were. I had not been "trained to kill"; I had been trained to hit a target (occasionally). I literally have not touched a gun since.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

I remember our rifle training involved shooting at the vaguely human-shaped cardboard cutout at a hundred yards, with the bullseye in the centre of the chest. One thing that was drummed into us was never to point the barrel of your gun at anyone, even an unloaded gun. There was discipline, but for what military purpose at such a young age? ...they were about as useful as our Latin classes (now there is a dead language!)

[chilperic.livejournal.com]

OK, so I never used my "gun training" ever again, and never will. But Latin a dead language? Not to me it isnt'! I use it every day! (OK, so I am a medieval historian; I have to): I am deeply grateful for my school training in Latin, even if it took about ten years to get me to the stage that university students using the standard Latin book (by Wheelock) would reach in a year these days!

[miramon.livejournal.com]

You know, there's nothing to feel depressed about. The US has made a decision that occasional massacres are an acceptable price for people being able to wave guns about as much as they want. So when people get killed it's just statistics. Twenty people or so will get massacred every year in school shooting accidents. It's like road accidents (says another ex-CCF survivor).

Waving Guns

[godelescherbach.livejournal.com]

"The US has made a decision that occasional massacres are an acceptable price for people being able to wave guns about as much as they want."

Huh. Must be some part of the US other than any place that I've visited or lived in (and I've visited a good chunk of the country). I guess I missed the gatherings of the gun wavers.

The US is not some monolithic bloc. And it most certainly is not the place depicted in the movies or television. Most of us are pretty decent, peaceful folk. Even those of us who spent time in the military or work with "para-military organizations" (in my case, the local volunteer fire department).

[tobesv.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of bullet wounds sustained by US police are accidental and self-inflicted. I'm guessing that their relationship to their firearms isn't particularly enthusiastic.

And anyone with half a brain (howver deranged) can effectively use a gun. I've enjoyed shooting as a sport, though I've got a deep aversion to pointing a firearm at anything except a piece of paper.

The problem is, as we all know, there are too many guns in the USA and it is too easy to buy them.

My response to "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is
"yes, people with guns kills people"