Gun culture in the US

[djm]

In a week where yet another senseless mass murder has taken place I am wondering how many terrible shootings does it take for the general public in America to get behind more stringent gun controls?

In common with many other Brits and Europeans, I find it strange how easy it is to own guns in many states in the US. I come from a country where firearm ownership is rare and subject to very strict control. The police here are not normally armed (unless you count truncheons), and there is little or no public appetite for it to ever happen. It baffles people here that despite there being a seemingly endless stream of atrocities nothing ever seems to be done to curb gun ownership there.

Questions I would like to explore in the thread include (but are not limited to):

What is your attitude to firearm ownership?
Should guns be illegal for the general populace?
If the US did impose stricter gun controls would it work, or is the genie too far out the bottle?

[Madrigal]

In a week where yet another senseless mass murder has taken place I am wondering how many terrible shootings does it take for the general public in America to get behind more stringent gun controls?

In common with many other Brits and Europeans, I find it strange how easy it is to own guns in many states in the US. I come from a country where firearm ownership is rare and subject to very strict control. The police here are not normally armed (unless you count truncheons), and there is little or no public appetite for it to ever happen. It baffles people here that despite there being a seemingly endless stream of atrocities nothing ever seems to be done to curb gun ownership there.

Questions I would like to explore in the thread include (but are not limited to):

What is your attitude to firearm ownership?
Should guns be illegal for the general populace?
If the US did impose stricter gun controls would it work, or is the genie too far out the bottle?

I kind of like that whole romantic idea of the population being armed just in case they have to fight tyranny one day.

On a realistic and practical level, I don't think that guns should be banned to the general population. I think people should be able to access guns for home defense, or hunting. I don't think a gun for home defense needs to be carried outside the home. And I think that the guns allowed to the general population for home defense should be small, low caliber guns.

I tend to agree with the idea that the Unitd States has a gun violence problem because of their relationship with war and how the glorification of violence as a solution and as a form of empowerment impacts their culture from an early age. This is a country that is always at war. (Biden already dropped some bombs, didn't take him long.) It is rather breathtaking to think of how many Americans have a personal or familial connection to the military, when you would not find this in most other countries except maybe Israel and others with mandatory military service.

Aggravating factors are the types of guns allowed, which can do much damage in very little tme, and the mental health crisis in the country. The mental health crisis probably deserves another thread, and I don't think it can only be reduced to the lack of appropriate health care, I think the grotesque freedom of the pharmaceutical industry has a huge role in this crisis as well, as well as the absence of a social security network for vulnerable groups (which to some degree exists in most civilized countries).

I read at some point about an investigation into the profile of homegrown terrorists shooting up public venues. It seems the amount that 1) has been in the military and 2) is batshit crazy is not negligible, to make an understatement.

[djm]

I agree with many of your points Maddy.

I spend a fair bit of time in rural southern California, and the culture difference to here in the UK is stark. I got asked last year by a guy I know there about guns in the UK, and he was shocked that we don't have them. His reaction was "what do you do when shit goes down" to which I responded that on the mean streets of Woodplumpton not much shit does go down. Woodplumpton will have a vastly higher gun ownership proportion than most of the UK as there a couple of decent pheasant shoots in the area, and half the population are farmers, but there isn't much crime.

Sal who is a second-generation Mexican American and has a ranch near the border explained that in his small town you get Mexican drug runners come in with machine guns mounted on the back of their pick up trucks, the police are scared of them and you need to protect your property from them. He also explained that his family left Mexico to get away from that, not have it follow them over the border hence he is a Trump voter. Indeed most Mexican Americans I know are Republican voters, but I mostly hang around in one-horse towns in farming areas.

I guess the whole west was built with gun ownership being fundamental to protection, in a way that never happened here. However something needs to improve there, these events are too frequent.

[Ferrus]

I have relatives in Switzerland, and there nearly everyone has a gun because they are in the Swiss army reserves. Being armed isn't so much a right and more a responsibility of a free citizen in a country that is one of the last classical republics.

Essentially to have that gun you have to have done mandatory military training. The 25% or so of the population that don't do it for whatever reason don't have a gun, which would probably include a lot of the nutters that do these sort of things in the US. My cousin even after having finished the service has to go and practice shoot every year and show basic knowledge of it. Mass shootings are extremely rare.

Giving just about anyone a gun seems as mad as letting anyone drive without a passing a test, though from what I hear the system in the US amounts to that.

[jyng1]

I just think certain types of people should not be able to own guns. Australians for example.

[djm]

I just think certain types of people should not be able to own guns. Australians for example.

I was surprised how much I like Australia when I went there just over a year ago. If I had to flee the UK it would be the place I would go to.

Not as far fetched as it sounds. During the recent general election I was actively looking at my options if Corbyn got elected, as I would have left the country rather than be governed by the idiot.

[jyng1]

I just think certain types of people should not be able to own guns. Australians for example.

I was surprised how much I like Australia when I went there just over a year ago. If I had to flee the UK it would be the place I would go to.

Not as far fetched as it sounds. During the recent general election I was actively looking at my options if Corbyn got elected, as I would have left the country rather than be governed by the idiot.

We send them little babies and they send back 2,500 hardened criminals who commit the sort of crimes we've never seen here before...

[djm]

I just think certain types of people should not be able to own guns. Australians for example.

I was surprised how much I like Australia when I went there just over a year ago. If I had to flee the UK it would be the place I would go to.

Not as far fetched as it sounds. During the recent general election I was actively looking at my options if Corbyn got elected, as I would have left the country rather than be governed by the idiot.

We send them little babies and they send back 2,500 hardened criminals who commit the sort of crimes we've never seen here before...

Could have ended up an aussie myself. A lot of the kids my grandfather was friends with in the orphanage got forcibly sent there. He exchanged letters with his friend Ronnie for more than 50 years until he died. A couple of his other friends became £5 Poms, but he stayed here. I don't think some of his mates had a good time of it there (less said the better).

[Madrigal]

We send them little babies and they send back 2,500 hardened criminals who commit the sort of crimes we've never seen here before...

This reminds me, it happened in Central America/the Caribbean during Obama. He had a really aggressive deportation policy, I think more than anyone else before him. He deported people who had been raised in the US and become criminals. This basically changed the face of a lot of previously peaceful Caribbean islands, and yeah, they began to see crimes that had never existed there before.

[jyng1]

We send them little babies and they send back 2,500 hardened criminals who commit the sort of crimes we've never seen here before...

This reminds me, it happened in Central America/the Caribbean during Obama. He had a really aggressive deportation policy, I think more than anyone else before him. He deported people who had been raised in the US and become criminals. This basically changed the face of a lot of previously peaceful Caribbean islands, and yeah, they began to see crimes that had never existed there before.

And they come back with an Australian accent, no family, no social connections and an attitude.