Particularly on youtube there's this huge Forgotten Weapons, Garand Thumb, DemolitionRanch etc style sphere that stays relatively apolitical, or at least just mildly right wingy.
I'm not blaming hobbyists for gun violence or anything, obviously, but these ideas are not unconnected.
about 2/3 of gun deaths in 2022 are suicides. Of homicides, it's mostly young black men. Suicide rates are highest for old white men.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-09/202...
We are failing specific people at specific stages of their lives by not offering them opportunity and hope for the future, resulting in gun violence and suicide. Even if you could round up all the guns, the hopelessness and violence will remain without some structural changes.
If you're a US citizen, gun control is an infringement on your civil rights and a weak topical solution for systematic flaws.
As a parent, and as a gun owner, I'm fine with there being gun control that leads to no more school shootings. And no, you can't depend on a "good guy with a gun" (Uvalde, Parkland). I don't know what the solution is, to be honest, but other countries don't have the school shooting problem the US has.
I literally said "I'm not blaming gun hobbyists for violence." Thank you for starting off with a terribly bad faith reading of my comment.
> If you're a US citizen, gun control is an infringement on your civil rights
And this is what I mean by them being connected. Gun hobbyists in the US will argue for it based on their "rights", which just makes it harder to make any changes that might actually reduce gun violence.
> Even if you could round up all the guns, the ... violence will remain without some structural changes.
It's difficult for me to believe that if you remove one of the easiest ways to kill people, violence would just remain the same. Is there any evidence to support this theory? I've never seen any, but I have seen data suggesting that countries with stricter gun control laws tend to have less murders.
> gun control is an infringement on your civil rights
Because gun ownership is part of your constitution, you can easily make it seem as though those questioning it are attacking the very basis of your country. Seems like a systemic issue to me...
> the hopelessness ... will remain without some structural changes.
I don't disagree that hopelessness is the core issue here, but I think it's blatantly silly to think that if you give a hopeless population easy access to tools whose entire function is to kill, and tell them that owning that weapon (and using it when necessary...) is a fundamental part of their identity... that it won't result in more and more intense violence.
Like with many widespread societal issues, you can't just ignore the symptoms and try to cure the actual problem - and certainly nor can you do the opposite, as you say - you need to fix both.
I grew up supporting gun control, but I think that’s because of my background. I grew up trusting the police, not only to protect me from any would-be ne'er-do-wells, but also that I wouldn’t be antagonized by the state.
If you live in a rural area, where the response time for the local sheriff is half an hour, then having a gun can be vital. Or if you live in an area where the cops simply won’t show up when called.
I don’t want to have to fully rely on the state for my personal safety, and in particular this current government.
Ah yes, paint the issue as only solvable by a "magic" item... Of course, trying to make the other side seem fundamentally silly is a primary tactic of the pro-gun crowd
> only be used to defend yourself, and not for offensive purposes, then sure!
Of course not, but the question is more the damage one can do when used for offensive purposes.
Anyway, here's your magic solutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_lethal_weapon
Society believes it can stomach that cost because it is largely irrational, incapable of long-term or worst-case thinking, and utterly oblivious to ground-state reality.
I always feel the need to preface this statement when I make it here, so here we go: this is in no way meant as a threat or even a statement of my own political beliefs. It is my belief based on being a member of these communities for decades.
Any attempt to ban firearms in the United States would result in more death and injury than the problems it is intended to solve. The American people will not give up their arms without bloodshed.
That's the community I'm speaking of - in fact, we'd call those people "Fudds", after Elmer Fudd.
It's definitely a political position. It's just one that's prone to violence. If anything, it's the opposite; the gun community does an excellent job of policing itself. I've personally seen people displaying violent tendencies get reported and ultimately charged and convicted within that particular community.
