There is – as far as I’m aware – no good data to suggest any of this is true. The severity of punishment has no correlative link let alone causative link to crime rate. As for “politeness” I don’t even know how to tackle this, I know Japan and Canada are considered “polite” by public opinion and both have stricter gun regulation than US. And as for the great equalizer claim while I can see that theoretically it could be an equalizer of force that would only be the case if the “weak” were as likely to have a gun as the “strong”. If we simply compare women to men – since women are often physically weaker than men – we see the gun ownership rates skew heavily towards men. So if anything in that context not only is it not equalizing it is further dividing the gap between the weak and the strong in this context.
Comment on Concealed Handguns Create a Climate of Fear, Gun Industry Research Reveals
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Good. An armed society is a polite society. Guns are the great equaliser. Larger and stronger people aren’t free to assault smaller and weaker people as they wish. There are societies like Singapore and China where crime is punished so severely that people don’t need personal protection. Sadly, today, that’s not how most of the West is run.
lunatic_lobster@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Guns don’t create a more polite society, they create a more fearful society.
breecher@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Polite isn’t the same as fear. Also both your catchphrases are right wing NRA bullshit propaganda which isn’t remotely true.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
If the government won’t protect citizens they have the right to protect themselves.
I’m not American and I don’t care how much you like or dislike the NRA. Your comment sounds like authoritarian bootlicking.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
When has the government failed to protect your or family members? Dont you think those would be the exception rather than the rule? If you are gearing up for the revolution I can’t blame you but I doubt you need to protect yourself in that way unless its from animals or you are a drug dealer.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Just so I’m clear, you think I’m not allowed to care about others? I’m not even allowed to care about my own safety until my family has been attacked? Wild take. I’m glad society isn’t comprised of people like you. I care about others as well as my family. Most people aren’t murdered and raped and assaulted each year. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about murder and rape and assault.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Not OP but I was the victim of years of abuse in school. So many time I was viciously attacked and no one cared. They would follow me home and attack me and my family or steal our things. Reported it all, no one cared.
One day while preparing to go home, I was attacked and one of my bullies began choking me. I thought I was going to die and gripped his neck too. He nearly died. Government blamed me for it and I was expelled pending institutional psychiatric examination.
Another time I was told by someone at college “don’t go to graduation”. He hadn’t been all-there for a while by then so I erred on the side of caution. Took it to local and provincial police, to national police, to the school… No one took it seriously. Had to ping an old friend who worked in intelligence to get someone to take me seriously.
When he finally got raided: thousands of rounds of ammo, body armor, explosives, manifesto, etc… Everything he needed but the guns, but he was working on that too.
Two very serious times the government failed to defend me or other people in my life and I had to take it into my own hands.