Does Environmental Protection Matter in the US?
Here’s a quick summary of what’s going on in the U.S. Congress when it comes to environmental protection.
So many things in our lives are shades of gray; this one’s not.
Here’s a quick summary of what’s going on in the U.S. Congress when it comes to environmental protection.
So many things in our lives are shades of gray; this one’s not.
If burning fossil fuels protected the environment, I am sure the fossil fuel industry would be the biggest proponent of environmental protection, however since the opposite is true, they pay lip service to the environment whilst doing everything possible to undermine anything that might reduce their profits.
There are analagious but opposite situations in medicine where the drug companies are quite rightly highly supportive of the FDA regulating medicines and so protecting their R & D investment – this time, public protection and the financial interests of powerful businesses allign.
What about guns?
In the UK, very few people have or want guns, and most of those are used either to hunt (rabbits, Pheasent etc), or for sporting purposes like target shooting or clay pigeon. Sporting rifles and shotguns are legal with a licence, (which can be refused if a person is considered a risk – even without a criminal record) but handguns are completely prohibited. There is no significant business lobby for the gun industry in the UK as guns are a highly regulated minority interest.
By contrast, in the US, there is a huge fuss when the most modest reforms and restrictions are proposed – like requiring basic criminal and mental health background checks for all gun sales to protect the innocent from malicious and or unstable individuals, and unstable individuals from themselves. (Most gun deaths in the US are suicide)
Why the fuss? I would suggest it is a case of a powerful business lobby protecting their financial interest and wrapping it up in patriotic dogma i.e a certain argueable interpretation of the constitution
The following story illustrates how different attitudes are in the UK to civilian firearms posession – specifically on the somewhat autonomous island of Guernsey where I grew up.
Many years ago, my brother was proscecuted for a firearms offence – sounds serious doesn’t it?
What happened?
At the time, he held a licence to posess shotguns and amunition, however the licence is specific to registered firearms – and even if you hold a licence, you cannot take posession of a new firearm before it is added to and registered on your licence.
Without any criminal intent, he took posession of a shotgun from a friend who owned it illegally and wanted to get rid of it. He went to the police station to apply to add the gun to his licence, and thought nothing more of it.
A little while later, the police arrived at his door to inspect his storage locker (Local law requires gun storage in a locked cabinet when not in use, with the ammunition stored separately in a different room so that a thief could not easily aquire both gun and ammunition.
During the inspection, they found him to already be in posession of the new gun, charged him with illegal posession, and confiscated his guns pending a court hearing. He was found guilty – fined £100 ($150)
On leaving the court was given the licence he had requested and told he could collect his guns from the police station. (This was after all a purely technical offence not involving any illegal intent let alone any risk over and above that arising from his legally held shotguns).
In the US he could be a mentally unstable fellon just released from prison having served time for murder, and a private individual at a gun show can sell him some types of semi-automatic weapon on the spot without background checks without risk of proscecution provided the fellon lies about his criminal history!
Can you imagine how different US gun laws might be if they were under the control of the FDA and followed the precautionary principle? The general public would be barred from most use of firearms – with a few exceptions for protection from dangerous wild animals and for pest control, and even water pistols would be under strict controls lest they be filled with noxious substances or trigger a health issue through spraying contaminated water!
I agree with this 100%. (That’s one of the reasons we’re good friends; we agree on essentially everything.) 🙂
Sad but interesting story, btw.