MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked if resistance to gun control and the amount of guns in the US is because “we really don’t believe in government” during a discussion with gun control advocate Mark Glaze on Wednesday.
Glaze stated, “very hard to know the motive. but there is one reason that this happens here, so much more often than it does say in great britain, where culture is actually quite similar, where they watch american movies, they play american video games. they are not less mentally ill. their health care is not better, but we have 20 to 25 times their gun murder rate. And the only difference is in the way we control who has access to a gun in this country.”
After Glaze added that Canada has a lower gun death rate in part, “because they regulate guns and access to them much more strictly than we do. Because they understand there, that you can be a hunter, you can have a gun in your house for self-protection, but that doesn’t mean that we ought to open the floodgates so that we have what we have in this country today, which is more guns than we have people, which makes it a much harder problem to solve.” Matthews asked, “Does this go back to our revolution? We’re revolutionary people, we really don’t believe in government?”
Glaze answered, “there are some people who believe that we’re going to need another revolution some day. And they cannot accept the fact that 1500 ATF agents are not going to come knocking on their door one day, and give them Obamacare, and take away their gun. I mean, that is the real concern. There’s an almost complete overlap between people who really dislike and don’t trust the government, and people who want, not just a gun, but lots and lots and guns. And the NRA stokes this paranoia as a way of selling more of them.”
Matthews then added, “Well, the irony is that you have the guns to protect you when they come to get the guns. It’s very circular.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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