Clearly I was generalising to the point of hyperbole. But to clarify the issue rather than troll.John D wrote: ↑There is a pretty broad view of guns in the US. You are a smart guy. You probably realize this but just want to be hyperbolic about the topics.Brive1987 wrote: ↑ At its simplest, American gun culture is just the normalisation of weapons (and their possession) by the ‘every-man’.
Believe it or not, this is not considered typical, sane or desirable by pretty much every other western society. Now that doesn’t mean guns have to be 100% banned. They are simply regarded as exotic and un-necessary by most and a risk to-boot.
But in the States, apparently there’s one next to every coffee maker in every house and that’s just peachy. So no wonder the tendency of many Americans to go full-on berko, quickly escalates to fire-fights in the streets.
Many Americans are very negative toward guns. As a gun owner you have to be very careful with the topic. You will make many people scared even if you just talk about guns in a realistic way. People never talk about guns in the workplace. There will always be one person who even panics at the thought of a gun. You can see this in the media and it expresses itself in a strange way. We have lots of violence in our movies and such... but it is a strange kind of fantasy violence. Cops shoot people in the leg, or cops surrender their guns in a hostage situation. Somehow, Americans can handle this kind of media version of guns... but many can't handle a realistic idea of guns.
I know people who will not go into a house where there is a gun... even one locked in a safe. Many parents ask if a house has a gun before little Johnny can even come over to play. So, it is no so simple over here.
And... you never really see a gun except on a cop in public. Very very few people open carry. They do it to make a political point, but it is pretty uncommon. Open carry is a really stupid idea anyway. Open carry just scares people and allows bad guys to find a target whose gun the can steal.
There is a pile of people who are gun nuts. This is true. They go out in the woods and stage live fire training to practice for when the country is taken over by the UN or some such shit. This is true. It is pretty scary to most people. Lots of gun owners don't like this kind of thing. It just scares people and makes many people ask for more gun regulation.
I do think that many Americans think these LARPing militia types are part of gun culture. I guess they are... I don't know. Youall still haven't really given me a good definition of what "gun culture" is.... and why this horrible murder is somehow gun culture. That fact that this guy had a gun has little to do with the fact that these idiots were actively feuding. This is more like "honor culture" to me.... and honor culture is very common in America. Combine honor culture with gun availability and you get lots of murders.
The interblogs say this: the attitudes, feelings, values, and behaviour of a society, or any social group, in which guns are used
Which really doesn't mean anything.
My point is that to a more or lesser extent (the point on the spectrum doesn’t matter) guns are more normalised in law, society and popular expression in the USA as a whole than they are in any other western country.
Concealed carry, personal assault weapons, high capacity magazines, stand and defend, neighbours shooting each other just because .... these are well outside our culture but they are the unfortunate collateral of yours.
It doesn’t we are gun (or crime) free. But the distinction is real and pertinent. There is a gun culture in the US and it’s a distinctive part of who you are as a collective relative to say Wales or Denmark. 🤷♂️