Pistorius gun culture?

A liberal Guardian writer wonders why the Pistorius trial has gotten more attention than Mandela’s funeral, and he reaches an interesting insight:

Observers have tried to suggest so-called gun culture was partly responsible for the death of Steenkamp. But if you study the statistics, South Africa does not really have such a thing.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/10/oscar-pistorius-trial-hunger-death-murder

But before you celebrate a rare moment of honesty from a liberal, think again:

What about a “Pistorius gun culture”? After all, in the mid-1970s Pistorius’s father allegedly shot himself in the testicles while in the company of his then girlfriend, the former Miss Universe Anneline Kriel. Apparently Henke Pistorius was cleaning his pistol in front of Kriel when the accident happened. (He was not seriously injured.) It has also been reported that the Pistorius family owned 55 firearms. Surely, growing up in this environment must have influenced the Paralympian on that fatal night?

I see, so if your daddy shoots himself in the balls you’re likely to shoot someone in the future? Is that what he’s implying? Good thing he spoke to someone else:

“Perhaps,” says Louw. “But I’ve been talking to serial killers and murderers for 35 years and so many have one thing in common: they say: ‘I never thought I would be capable of such an act’. The more I study them, the more I am convinced that there is no reliable way to profile murderers. I think some human beings have a genetic predisposition to kill, and others do not. There is an X factor, a great unknown.

But I’m sure it is there, waiting to be discovered.

“Sure, a gun culture, or a traumatised youth, can contribute to pulling the X factor trigger. But I’ve seen it umpteen times – two kids can come from the same parents, grow up in the same conditions, but only one will have the capacity to kill.”

So when a black person does something bad, do we blame it on black culture? This is where his argument falls. Millions of people come from a pro-gun culture and they have committed no crimes, ever. Whether Pistorius murdered his girlfriend or thought he was shooting at a burglar is debatable, but that has nothing to do with gun culture. In fact, there are many ways you can commit murder without pulling a trigger. Shooting someone is loud, it would be easier to go hiking and then push her off a cliff, I’ve heard of a woman who was scuba diving and had her tank turned off by her husband, chemists know about poisons that might go undetected during an autopsy.  If a chemist murders, do we blame him on his education? I think not.

 

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