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posted by on Monday January 09 2017, @08:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the second-amendment dept.

The love of guns in the United States has been well documented, as have multiple mass shootings across the country such as those in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown, and Virginia. The ease of access to guns in American society comes at a shocking cost.

As of September 2016, almost 11,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence. Despite this high death toll, mass shootings in America show no sign of disappearing.

The Stateside obsession with guns can appear baffling to UK observers unfamiliar with its origins. So just how did this gun culture become so deep-rooted in the American psyche?

BBC source: Why Are Americans so Obsessed with Guns?

Wikipedia: Gun politics in the United States


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Monday January 09 2017, @09:44PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 09 2017, @09:44PM (#451664) Journal

    I think you miss the prime reason.

    Obsession with guns is due to being prudish about sex and therefore continuously frustrated. Is there a higher gun fascination among right wing people?

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 09 2017, @10:00PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 09 2017, @10:00PM (#451677)

    Its well known that "discovering girls" results in the temporary (decades) abandonment of ham radio as a hobby, so its not a completely ridiculous idea.

    What I observe is I don't see that in the shooting sports beyond the usual "old people have more spare time and more spare money" effect that applies to all hobbies.

    If the hypothesis were true, one could theorize that military personnel would be unusual non-horny given access to machine guns and battle rifles to satisfy their urges, yet I never really saw that effect when I was young either before, during, or after I was in the Reserves. If anything, fondling M-16 barrels (barrel guards ribbed for your pleasure) made us even worse.

    There is some truth to the "hunters widow" stories about the wife laying down the law and "no you are not going 'hunting' with your bros I know damn well you spend five hours at the strip club getting drunk for every hour you spend in a field supposedly shooting at deer" and depending on red or blue pill consumption levels the husband might get whipped into staying home. As a non-hunter it was never an issue for me.

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 09 2017, @10:48PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday January 09 2017, @10:48PM (#451706) Journal

      > red or blue pill consumption

      Let me guess, you took the red one? Cripes, if I roll my eyes any harder they're gonna get stuck staring at their own optic nerves...

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 09 2017, @11:14PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 09 2017, @11:14PM (#451731) Homepage Journal

        You know, I could write a bot that would throw out better insulting replies than you. If I let you have the source would you promise not to try manually anymore? You're really bad at it.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:30AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:30AM (#451810) Journal

          You stole that one from me anyway, dipshit. Remember when I replied to you and said something along the lines of "I could take a text dump of your post history, hook it up to a Markov generator, and no one would tell the difference?" Pepperidge Farm remembers, and so do I :D But you apparently don't.

          And wow, you sure do seem to be making it a point to hunt down my posts on this thread and bitch about them. Walgreens is still open; here's five bucks for the extra-large tube of Preparation H. Now piss off, feathers-for-brains.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:50AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:50AM (#451821) Homepage Journal

            I like guns. You like to shitpost. Our getting crossways in this story was a foregone conclusion.

            No, I don't bother remembering what you say. It's unimportant and doesn't even have the saving grace of being especially witty. And "go away or I will replace you with a very small script" isn't something you can claim ownership of on account of it being older than you and stolen a gerzillion times over the years.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 10 2017, @02:04AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @02:04AM (#451825) Journal

              Hey, I like guns too, surprisingly. Shot a fair few since moving out here to Wisconsin. I consider it a good skill to have under my belt, like cooking or fixing my own computers. Some people shouldn't own the things, though.

              Sorry you think my posts are shitposts. But I suppose it's inevitable you would; as I said in this very thread, hypocrisy, projection, and ignorance are the bread and butter you regressive morons thrive on. It's okay, Uzzard; I've long since accepted that you can't be saved, that you've willingly and spitefully sold your soul for what amounts to an eye's blink of temporal triumph. You are not the first, you sure as death and taxes won't be the last, and by Cthulhu, I am going to *enjoy* watching you get yours in this world and the next :)

              Keep posting. Keep modding me down. Keep trying to break me. You can't. You lost this fight before it even began.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:26AM

                by Sulla (5173) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:26AM (#451856) Journal

                I go to soylent for the articles, I say for the back and forth argument. Regardless of dislike between you if either of you were not here the disussion would be of a much lower quality.

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                Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
                • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:33PM

                  by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:33PM (#452000) Journal

                  Agreed, but I often wish the back & forth was wittier. Knee-jerk insults I can get on Huffington Post or Drudge. Here I hope for more.

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                  Washington DC delenda est.
                  • (Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday January 10 2017, @02:47PM

                    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 10 2017, @02:47PM (#452058)

                    I agree with Phoenix666 that holier than thou eye rolling is weak sauce.

                    If you like banjos, the only thing better than a banjo is dueling banjos, played well. Even if you don't like banjos, dueling banjos sound better. But a banjo plus eyerolling or ranting, eh go home and sleep it off.

                    The problem with a response like "you're a big poopy head" is its basically stockholm syndrome speech for "I agree with you completely on all the facts and analysis and conclusion, but for political reasons I must pretend to disagree in public". Its a way of saying "AOL me too" in a politically non-diverse setting where the truth can't be spoken. Very millennial college student-esque, like something you'd hear said in "problematic white identity 101" class. But... this isn't a college campus where diversity in political thought is strongly suppressed. If you like something non-progressive counter-cultural non-establishment, you can just say it, at least here. No need for obtuse "My areas of disagreement are as numerous as angels dancing on the head of a pin" (aka... I have no idea what this means, actually) or "Your argument contains as many errors as Moldbug" (aka infallible).

                    I always enjoy reading and occasionally disagreeing with AthanasiusKircher's well reasoned posts. Also Aristarchus and Azuma when those two are not triggered. Runaway1956 is interesting because we agree and disagree in so many apparently unpredictable ways and his arguments are uniformly very strong. None of that is weak sauce.

                    We should have a new mod option "triggered" where people can just filter it out once its been identified. Yeah yeah yeah Azuma is all fired up, turned up to 11 ranting again, just mod it as "Triggered" to skip it and get on with reading the good stuff.

                    The God Emperor's inauguration is in ten days I should be decorating and preparing the feast and readying Kek's worship shrine alcove in my house and celebrating in good cheer not getting in flamewars about whacked out UK gun control.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:53PM (#452098)

    This is so true. Find a guy that knows how to use a sword, and he'll be called a geek, every single time. Something is more masculine about knowing how to attack and defend in personal combat, but the typical 'gun nut' is more about the size of the weapon...

    There are certainly gun enthusiasts that understand very well how their weapons work, how to maintain them, all of the complicated aspects of owning and maintaining and improving upon a weapon. But most that I have met are simply users that think it provides them power they can't get elsewhere. The knowledge aspect of it is for chumps, they can pay someone to clean it or fix it or buy a new one when it gets old.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:35PM (#452169)

      There are certainly gun enthusiasts that understand very well how their weapons work, how to maintain them, all of the complicated aspects of owning and maintaining and improving upon a weapon.

      NONE of that is complicated, and "improving a weapon" is typically a matter of bolting on an accessory to an existing bolt-on point.

      Cooking is more complicated than the responsible use, maintenance, and even "improvement" of firearms. The fact that you believe otherwise is evidence of your lack of simple education.