It’s a dumb comparison, as their reason for owning guns is entirely different and tied to national defense, not self-defense and “freedom”
Comment on Time to bash Americans again
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks agoIt’s not JUST the guns tbh. Everyone in Switzerland has a gun and they don’t shoot eachother up. American society is fucked up on multiple different levels and the guns are just adding extra fuel and oxygen to a forest fire.
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Still shows the problem is the Americans rather than the guns
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
It’s not a dumb comparison because it shows that in a healthy society, people don’t try to murder each other even given the chance. The fact that Americans buy guns for “freedom” is a symptom, not the root cause of all issues.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Also crazy as they don’t really have that much freedom. They’re slaves to capitalism.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I mean, so are most of us at this point. Though working to buy more guns and stuff for “freedom” is peak irony.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As a gun owner in USA, I fucking hate gun culture.
ChillPenguin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s why I never tell anyone outside of my immediate family that I own a firearm. Because some weird fucking people in America exist. And they are gun nuts.
No bro, I don’t want to talk about your 300 blackout how you wish someone would bust into your house so you can shoot them.
I keep my shit in my safe, that’s it. It’s not a personality.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Same. Very few people know I own one and have a concealed license.
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
how do you use it in a home invasion in the middle of the night if it’s locked up and unloaded?
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
honest question: then why do you own one?
I get self defense, of course, but doesn’t the fact of owning a firearm make you part of gun culture? or am I missing something?thermal_shock@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No, you’ll know gun culture when you see it. The people that put the stupid stickers all over the car, the firearm brands, the calibers, stuff like that.
Like the other commenter you would never know that I even own a gun unless we were pretty damn close.
I don’t really have a solid answer for you. I think it started growing up where my dad had guns, rifles, in the army but he was super protective he wouldn’t show them to us, he wouldn’t let us see them, he wouldnt teach us about them so I was just genuinely curious. So when I moved out that was the first thing I bought.
And I hated the gun laws here, you can buy and sell guns just like you’re selling a car just do a bill of sale. There’s no background check for secondhand guns.
It doesn’t really ever come out of lockup unless we’re camping or going on a long road trip. I haven’t carried it in years and I think my license might even be expired at this point. I’m not scared, I don’t carry it around to intimidate anybody. But I guess the fascination has just always been there since it was withheld growing up.
godfish@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
In Switzerland most people give their state issued gun away when they are not serving. So almost nobody has a gun at home.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
and when they had guns, they were highly trained. They didn’t carry them loaded in their purses so their toddlers could play with them.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Ah but is that not something they opt to do because they feel safe? In comparison, American gun nuts would never do that, they don’t feel safe without their guns.
godfish@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Yeah it is their choice.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
So that’s part of the same point. They COULD have access to guns and could shoot each other, but nobody wants to. Thus guns are only a problem when there’s other underlying issues.
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
all 37 of them
iridebikes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And until our societal issues are solved, the guns need to go back into Pandora’s box.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Too late now unfortunately. The people who’d need to give up their guns, will never do so voluntarily. The actually responsible gun owners might give theirs away though.
It’s media, education and the political system that need to change. It won’t.
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
back to 1776
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Whenever i mention the Swiss having as many guns as the US, if not more, and yet the former has practically zero mass shooting incidents, and pointed out the problem of America is cultural, Americans tend to turn a blind eye to it.
modus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Because a gun is cheaper than mental healthcare.
arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
It's more than just mental healthcare. American society is just broken in so many ways.
Ibuthyr@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Yup. I sometimes travel (or travelled for that matter… I’m not going back to that shit hole) to the US and basically everyone there is living an act. It’s so weird and artificial and it all boils down to an “I’m the best and deserve everything, all the others can go fuck themselves” attitude. This is highly toxic and can easily lead to violence. Pair that with how they breathe the most toxic form of capitalism and you have a recipe for the shit show that is the USA. I’m really sorry for all the cool guys over there. There certainly are some fine people, but the majority is completely lost.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
We “tend to turn a blind eye to it” because “cultural problem” is primarily used as a racist dog whistle.
If your intention was to point at the underlying cause, you need to be talking about systematic impoverization, lack of generational wealth, devaluation of labor, etc.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Being American is not exclusive to black people and thus American culture is a country-wide problem in relation to guns.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
That makes sense from an outside perspective, sure. But your criticism was about Americans turning a blind eye to the “cultural” problem.
Within the US, blaming gun violence on “culture” means pointing out that 13-17% of the population commits (and are the victims of) 55-65% of the murders. Blaming “culture” means pointing out that mass shooters are predominantly white, they also account for less than 1% of all murders.
The Americans broadly adopting your “cultural problem” argument are MAGAts. Normal Americans are turning a blind eye to that viewpoint, rather than being lumped in with those racist pricks.
Ibuthyr@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Yup. I sometimes travel (or travelled for that matter… I’m not going back to that shit hole) to the US and basically everyone there is living an act. It’s so weird and artificial and it all boils down to an “I’m the best and deserve everything, all the others can go fuck themselves” attitude. This is highly toxic and can easily lead to violence. Pair that with how they breathe the most toxic form of capitalism and you have a recipe for the shit show that is the USA. I’m really sorry for all the cool guys over there. There certainly are some fine people, but the majority is completely lost.