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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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What greater freedom is there than the ability to buy a small army's worth of guns and ammo, to use as a backdrop to explain how you need to defend your rights from a imaginary monster, while actual monsters use those guns to kill children... nearly every single day, with school shootings nearing every other week. (About 30 of them this year!
Have you considered stopping the monsters before they're monsters by fixing poverty and jingoism, instead of just deciding you're going to babble mindlessly about taking away the human right to self defense?
Like that would even be possible in a nation with more guns than people?
Technically yes, because half of all privately owned guns in the US are owned by 3% of people according to this CNN article. So while there are more guns than people in the US, legislation to regulate them would mostly affect a minority of the population.
That being said, you're right that a lot of the problem with gun violence has to do with external factors such as poverty and extreme nationalism. An overwhelming majority of mass shooters are male and less overwhelmingly white which hints at a problem more to do with the environments they are raised or live in. If the problem was stricly gun access, we should expect more mass shootings to have been committed by women. In addition, half of all mass shootings in the US have occured since 2000, a third of which since 2010.
The rise of mass shootings seem to coincide with the rise of more general nationalist violence moreso than increased gun access, however more guns are being manufactured now than ever. I think the problem that needs addressed more is the public perception and marketing around guns and gun culture, because the past couple decades have seen people own guns more for the "tough guy" fake masculinity reasons rather than actual practicality. For further evidence to back myself up, pickup truck sales have risen in a similar way. Pickup trucks are marketed in almost the same way minus the whole potentially killing people part, not that they haven't also been used in mass violence though.
A lot of gun regulation tends to target poor people too, intentionally or not. Tax stamps, fees and mandatory wait times assume someone has the money and ability to take time off to acquire a gun, and wealthy people (the ones who already own most guns) have both. Making it harder for poor people, who are disproportionately black, to arm themselves in a time where racist violence is hitting record highs and stories about police brutality hit front pages every week at least, is unfair.
I wonder what gun ownership would look like in 20 or 30 years if right now were enacted (and not thereafter repealed) a countrywide prohibition on advertising of guns & ammo, and on showing any firearms before the watershed and at any time in G- and PG-rated media.
Putting aside the reality that this could never happen because of frozen peaches and strawmen on slippery slopes, I strongly suspect it would do a lot to curb the fetishisation of firearms.
Often see that statistic about half of all guns being owned by 3% of people
It's only used to gloss over the fact that nearly half of all households in the US own a firearm
That's fuckin insane
Freedom also means that we blame poor people on being poor. And if they have cancer, that's their fault for being poor.
Thirty to fifty wild hogs are cursing your name right now.
I don't normally get too engrossed in meme culture, but hotdamn was I all in on that one.
Lol fixing those two things in the US are even harder than controlling guns
I don't tend to consider "it's hard" to be a reason to take a lesser and more dangerous path.
I can see US passing laws restrict guns before passing any kind of law to alleviate poverty though.
I literally had somebody argue that we can't have gun laws because some people have 20+ hubs cause they're "collectors" (emphasis mine of course)
I'm sure the fact that they've stockpiled ammo for all of them is completely unrelated.