Yes, but it’s also useful for new-ish writers.
You want to show that the story is in USA without telling it outright? Have someone pull out a gun and nobody bats an eye. You don’t need to fill the scene with fat white men anymore - just the gun and no reaction to it.
Some casual racism would work too,
Or walking past a homeless person without it even registering
That could also be England
Not untrue, but have to say your average racist Brit doesnt sound much like your average racist American.
All part of the weapons industry plan. The myth that you need guns to be free, that you need guns to revolt, that the world is full of criminals waiting to launch an attack on your home, that global supply chains and regulations that disseminate the food you buy are not to be trusted and you need to drive 4 hours out of your suburbia to go hunting for meat - all an advertising scheme to sell you metal fireworks toys. Not negating their real utility in niche applications but those applications remain just that - niche. Civilized nations don’t need to kowtow to this predatory industry.
Hunters play a key role in deer management programs for forest regeneration, but otherwise, yeah.
More a key role in tourism and managing deforestation. Natural resource management agencies take care of the difference at the end of the season to prevent starvation regardless of hunter involvement.
We almost hunted them to extinction and our continuous destruction of their habitat and eradication of their predators means they can basically never reach equalibrium again, so it’s just a constant risk of over consumption, over population and starvation.
Hunters mostly make a lot of money for the area selling the license, both through fees and the economic activity of the hunters.
Actually letting things get better would involve reintroducing a non-trivial number of wolves, which is largely opposed by farmers and some hunting groups since it would reduce the population of deer.So they do currently play a key role, but largely because it’s something they want and it’s generally pretty profitable. It’s just treading water though, since no one with power is particularly interested in fixing it.
Where exactly is it legal to just sell felling permits to tourists, instead of requiring all hunters to actually have a local licence?
For deer.
Trophy hunting is quite different and also usually illegal.
Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and every other state I can think of to check with a deer population?
I’m not sure what you mean by selling a felling permit. You charge a fee for a deer hunting license.
Trophy hunting is quite different and also usually illegal.
What are you talking about? Hunting deer for the antlers is about half the reason people do it. If it’s illegal it’s probably the most regulated and licensed crime I’ve encountered.
Sometimes some populations are controlled. Like moose for instance. The populations are much smaller, and thus need more careful managing, so you can’t just kill any moose you like. A hunting club gets a certain amount of felling permits, and you can’t hunt without belonging to a hunting club, and you can’t join a hunting club unless you live in the municipality of the hunting club.
Hunting deer for the antlers is about half the reason people do it.
I take it you don’t live in the US, since a lot of what you’re saying is just grossly wrong if you do.
Since the conversation was about the US I’m not sure I understand bringing another countries laws into it.
I certainly don’t understand your response to the antler comment. I don’t know a single hunter who doesn’t have at least the antlers of their best buck mounted on the wall, and in many cases an ominous number of heads.I don’t know a single hunter who doesn’t have at least the antlers of their best buck
Oh so most the hunters you know are so shit they’ve only killed two deer ever, since you said it was half the reason?
I don’t know a single hunter with deer antlers on the wall. Maybe in the 70’s akd 80’s if you happened to fell a particularly old buck with like 10 spikes or more.
But anyone under the age of 60 hasn’t had antlers hanging on their walls since the 90’s. Last time I saw some coincided with heavily nicotine yellow walls from indoor smoking.
Hunting roe deer is like shooting vermin, basically. While selling deer tags (apparently that’s what you call felling permits) is apparently possible and hunting licences don’t have tests and you can buy them as non-residents (jesus the US really is a capitalist shithole), who the fuck would want to hunt roe deer? I can see some large red deer being attractive for hunters, but that’s veering into trophy hunting. And since tje conversation is about population control and not trophy hunting, I don’t know why you’re bringing it up. ^(/s)
One of the main reasons America isn’t a developed nation, we think being without a gun is scarier than being without a doctor. Even though no mass shooting has ever been stopped by a “Good guy with a gun”
Actually I think that happens pretty often. For example, in this one. It’s unfortunate, but there are so many people with guns and willing to use them that to say they never stop mass shootings is unrealistic.
In that one the shooter killed 26 people, I wouldn’t say they were prevented from doing a mass shooting. Stopped while they would have continued, sure I guess, but the police can do that too in any country.
Desk guns are for desk pops. When was the last time you did a desk pop?
Summer of ‘08
“Thanks for the F-shack”
- Dirty Mike & the Boys
I’m a school bus driver and one of my coworkers is constantly talking about how worried he is that somebody is going to shoot up a school bus instead of a school (I’m not exactly worried about this myself, but a full bus would make a pretty easy target). His proposed solution is that drivers be armed – he wants to carry his beloved AR-15 with him on the bus. I foolishly engaged him and questioned where he would even mount the fucking thing (it’s an assault rifle for those who don’t know, the civilian version of the M-16) so he could reach it quickly but the kids couldn’t get their hands on it. I keep encouraging him to suggest this to the district superintendent so he gets his ass fired but I don’t know if that would actually happen. Our schools already have ex-cops for security and we do fucking active shooter drills with elementary school kids.
Unfortunately, he’s the type who watches action movies because he wants to imagine himself as the hero,
But not saving lives.
He wants to kill, but be considered righteous for it
It’s a sickness, not unique to 'Murica, but definitely more pronounced there
Is there AR his only firearm? It’s just such a impractical suggestion to store and secure something that large when you can just conceal carry a handgun.
I wouldn’t figure even that would help. The driver just seems like the obvious first target and wouldn’t be given much of a chance to do anything, as them getting shot would probably be the thing that tells the whole bus they are under attack.
When I was in Ireland last summer I accidentally took too much food and didn’t want to piss off our hosts (I got nauseated out of where) so I took it back to the room and put it in the drawer in the bedside table and was so worried they would see it while cleaning and think I was stealing by taking too much at breakfast. My companion told me it was okay and that I could explain it away by saying I’m an American and having a bedside sandwich is our culture.
These Americans! No wonder obesity is rampant among them.
I don’t think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.
The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it’s a lot if I see one per three months.
I’ve never been in a situation in my life where I’ve regretted not having a gun. Rather the opposite, I’ve been struggling with depression at a point in my life where access to a gun might have provided an easy way out.
And generally I like guns. As in I’ve been interested in military history for my entire life. When I’m the us I’ve been to a shooting range and thought that was cool (but also terrifying).
I don’t think non-Americans appreciate how few guns one encounters in America if one isn’t a gun nut or gun-nut-adjacent. It is not that everybody owns a gun. It’s that the relative few people who own dozens or hundreds of guns skew the average.
I’ll disagree. I’ve been mugged. There have also been two times I’ve visited friends that have been casually cleaning guns when I arrived. A person I do martial arts with has a conceal carry and has come in with it a few times. Every cop has at least one. There’s a gun store that’s on my commute route. I was hiking and crossed paths with an elderly couple on horseback and they were packing. I’ve known two people that have killed themselves with a gun. I drilled with fake guns in NJROTC in high school and there were opportunities to train and compete in marksmanship with actual guns. I shot BB guns in Cub Scouts (those two are just examples as to how young gun culture becomes part of an American’s life). When I was growing up, Walmart sold guns and ammo. They still do in certain places.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun. Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents. If I get into an argument with my neighbor, is that conservative asshole going to do something stupid if things escalate (yeah yeah, don’t escalate, just an example). All the POCs I know have been taught how to behave during a traffic stop to reduce their chances of getting shot by a cop.
I’ve never even held or shot a real gun, but guns permeate my life.
Edit: Christ, the people who are advocating fear of gun violence being good for society is how idiotic of a gun culture there is in the US.
It really depends on where you live in the USA. Where I live theres definitely people with guns but it’s unusual to see someone actually carrying one outside their home. Now my cousins live like 1-2 hours away (still in the same state) and it’s super common there for people to carry their gun on them at all times for some fucking reason. So my cousins are way more used to seeing guns than my siblings and I are
It sounds like it’s such a part of our culture that you’re missing the point: you cannot opt out of gun culture in America. Anywhere.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun.
Yes, there’s a huge difference between only rarely seeing a gun in public and acting as if nobody has one.
Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents.
That’s called “de-escalation”.
That’s exactly what we should all be doing.
Rather than responding to a road rage incident with our own rage, we are actively reducing the risks of road rage to ourselves and to everyone around us. We are not pushing the initial rager to increase the egregiousness and danger of their rage.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
Paradoxically, if we didn’t fear they would pull guns on us, we would be more likely to respond to their rage with our own. We wouldn’t “put up with it”, but would instead confront them, impede them, seek “justice” for their offensive behavior, or otherwise escalate. In doing so, we would invite them to escalate as well. Your argument suggests that the high incidence of guns being involved in road rage is reducing the occurrence of road rage. I agree completely.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.
Your argument makes no sense. We should deescalate but fear for our lives so we behave? Who’s gonna escalate to put the fear into people? Rethink and try again.
No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.
The idea that actions should have consequences is the real problem that both your latest and your parent comment describe. Parent comment talks about “putting up with shitty behavior”, implying that they should be able to directly respond to such behavior. Any such response is “escalation”. Your parent comment is describing a desire to commit offensive behavior, but that offensive behavior is held in check out of fear of a gun. You behave better.
Your current “consequences” argument says the same thing: You observe what you perceive to be poor behavior, and wish for “consequences”. If that wish culminates in any sort of direct interaction with the poorly behaved, you have escalated. Your “fear for our lives” holds your own behavior in check. You behave better.
I can’t control the road raging asshole. You can’t control the road raging asshole. There will always be one road raging asshole somewhere. There doesn’t need to be three. You can look inward and recognize the harmful, hostile attitudes in yourself that would lead to road rage, and you can actively suppress them. Alternatively, you can fear the external consequences arising from entertaining those harmful attitudes, and elect against such behaviors.
So long as you are going to continue to rationalize your good behavior as being the result of other people being armed, I’m not going to support your efforts to disarm the people creating those good results.
(Edit: Somehow I thought that you were an additional commenter. Edited to reflect that you are also the parent commenter)
Allow me to clarify: I don’t want to ram someone off the road, I just want there to be a way to give feedback without it being escalated from there. Thumbs down, not finger up. Not that people who already drive like that give a shit about other people and any feedback lesser than a major accident. I’m real tired of the car culture here, too.
We do this all the time when on foot. Somebody bumps into someone else, maybe somebody says sorry or watch where you’re going. Or maybe someone decides to pull a gun. That’s more what I’m getting at.
How many dashcam videos do you need to see of drivers crashing into vehicles or obstacles while giving or receiving such “feedback”?
You are turning your attention away from driving, and focusing instead on “feedback”. Simultaneously, you are distracting the shitty driver from driving, and forcing them to focus on your attempt at providing “feedback”. Two drivers are now distracted from the road because you felt some pressing need to communicate your displeasure.
You say “feedback”, I say “escalation”, and “endangerment”. Again, if the possibility of a gun is what keeps you from choosing to escalate in this fashion, I cannot support your efforts to disarm.
Quite the contrary, I would prefer that you chose to arm yourself. Then you would understand that your feedback is not worth the risk, and a person providing you with such “feedback” is not worth your time. You would recognize that if you drew your firearm during a road rage incident, you would invite prison time for brandishing, manslaughter, or attempted murder. You would already understand the extreme dangers of escalation, and would actively avoid it. You would hold your ego in check, rather than allowing it free rein over your actions.
The best course of action is to open the distance between you and the shitty driver. Not try to convince them of their shittiness. If you need them to be possibly armed for your ego to allow you to retreat, then it is better for everyone on the road that they be armed.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
Pure nonsense. That is just regurgitating NRA propaganda, “an armed society is a polite society”, when we know for objective fact that the opposite is true. Gun incidents happen more frequently in the US on a “spur of the moment” thing exactly because they are so prevalent. Arguments more frequently escalate into murder because of the presence of guns, while they don’t in societies where guns are rarer.
Pure nonsense? Parent commenter specifically indicated that the presence of firearms induced improvement in their own behavior.
No, I did not indicate it’s an improvement. Please get your words out of my mouth.
You most certainly did. You indicate you are more tolerant because other people are armed. You indicate you tolerate (“put up with”) greater offense because of it.
You’re not an asshole road rager, and you’ve indicated you won’t escalate to some other asshole’s road rage, specifically because of guns. If guns are no longer an issue, what will it take for you to continue “putting up with” what you perceive to be shitty behavior on the road?
The roads are a much safer place while you’re “putting up” with it. I really, really, need you to keep putting up with it, even if all the guns are removed. If guns are the only reason you’re “putting up” with it, we can’t get rid of the guns. Give me a better option.
There’s fucking ammo at wallmart. You can’t even comprehend how mindboggling that is in most countries
Why would it be mind boggling that a supermarket carry ammo? What is mind boggling is you can order a case online and have it to your doorstep in 2 days.
Because its not a commonly used item. It should only be sold at gur ranges for immediate use.
The 14 million hunters would disagree.
Hunt with bows and crossbows
All of our street cops are also carrying guns around, which (if I’m not mistaken) is not the case everywhere.
Years ago, the UK government announced they were going to arm the general police. The people with the biggest issue with it was the police union!
The UK has a police by consent basis. The heaviest firepower they carry is a tazer. If there is a risk of guns being involved, the normal police pull back and call in the armed response officers. When they do, however, they call the whole cavalry!
End result, criminals don’t feel they MUST have a gun to defend from the police. Conversely, going in armed will bring the whole, focused weight of the armed response down on you. (As in multiple helicopter level searches) Most don’t carry guns, and so the status quo keeps everyone safe.
criminals don’t feel they MUST have a gun to defend from the police
Criminals know that they won’t win a gunfight against the police. Instead they always flee, and if they’re caught often have their guns on them or in their vehicle.
Most criminals in the US who carry guns do so to kill rival criminals. The police or law-abiding civilians being disarmed wouldn’t change that.
I’m not saying the USA should just disarm its police. I was more pointing out how fucked up gun culture has made it. Most UK gangs don’t have guns. The risk reward balance doesn’t justify them. Any gang that does try to escalate with guns becomes the focus of a LOT of police attention.
Sure, that increased attention probably makes a difference, but ‘gun culture’ is not the reason US police forces often seem to do a mediocre job investigating gang vs gang killing. Nor is having guns what makes the killings happen. It’s exactly the other way around. They have the guns in order to kill their gang opposition. If you could magically un-invent guns they would be using other tool to do it because the numerous other societal problems which created the environment of desperation hadn’t been solved.
It’s pretty common, I think only Ireland and Britain (among countries that people are likely to visit) don’t carry guns.
In fact, what’s unusual is that in many places where civilian use of guns is extremely rare, police standing around with submachine guns in airports, train stations, etc. is common.
To add an additional exception here, police in Northern Ireland are routinely armed, but obviously enough there’s reasons there.
I was thinking of British TV when I posted that so not too surprising if its mostly a thing there.
I think it’s more common in Europe since those are large targets for terrorism. Plus if you have a distinct “armed police” they are more likely to be heavily armed.
Also, I think most police outside of major cities in the USA all have ARs in their patrol cars now. I remember when my cop buddy was complaining about five years ago when they took his car shotgun and gave him an AR instead.
Terrorism is still incredibly rare. Perhaps a train station is a bit more likely as a target, but it’s extremely unlikely that any given train station will be attacked. And, an “armed response” team is pretty similar to a SWAT team. They’re probably better used sitting in some central place from which they can quickly mobilize and get anywhere rather than walking around among the public at an airport or train station.
I remember I visited Italy on a Latin class trip back in high school, and got a real culture shock when I saw carabinieri(?) patrolling the airport armed with some kind of assault rifles or SMGs. I don’t remember seeing any “normal” police once I was out walking around in the cities so I have no idea if they would’ve been armed or not, but that was definitely heavier weaponry than I’d seen any American cop carrying, in the airport or otherwise.
Being heavily armed is kind of the point of the Carabinieri, who are a part of the military.
The point that they’re making though is that you don’t see the military hanging around public transportation terminals in the US. That’s a level of militarized police state that not even the US has.
Yeah, in Italy there’s a lot of armed officials in public places and big stations (even train stations!). Usually they’re only there to look intimidating. The ones who will actually bother people (usually immigrants) are regular policemen, who, paradoxically, are less likely to carry firearms
I like that idea. Armed cops who focus only on violent felonies, and are forbidden to involve themselves in lesser offenses.
Are we or are we not counting the fair few you don’t see because they’re concealed on the people around you?
And yes the stats are absolutely skewed by gun nuts with big collections it’s still true that 40% or more of American households have a gun…
But I’d feel uneasy not knowing which of them is the nutty one.
A lot of the nutters tend to advertise it at least. Super gung-ho patriot driving an oversized truck with Trump and flag stickers, maybe an actual flag, possibly open carrying, yard with one or multiple trump signs and likely American flags in case you forget which country you’re in, probably some cars on the lawn as decoration… you get the picture
Yeah, I think I get it, but I don’t want to share the planet with them as well.
Yeah… can’t say I’m the biggest fan of living in an area where I have several examples within walking distance of me, it has left me feeling slightly on edge at times. I don’t think it’d be taken too kindly if I started to get outspoken about politics so I just let it be
So much freedom. I have to shed a tear for you 🥹
Living in the blessed realm. What a dream!
When I lived in a small town, the MAGA neighbor showed my mixed family how many guns they had to “remind them”. He sure didn’t like it when I told them I conceal carry because of people like him.
“You really showed him!”
/s
Well, “relative few” is technically correct at about 45% of Americans. Now, way less than that carry, and even less with any regularity, and even less open carry, so yeah you probably don’t see them often, but they’re around.
This is the same with any enthusiast though. A keen cyclist will typically have multiple bikes, a car enthusiast will have a few cars, etc. Given how easy guns are to store, it’s no surprise that people will have a collection.
…point taken. 😳
spoiler
(I have a half-dozen cars and more than a dozen bikes.)
I still suspect you have been desensinsitivised to the permeation of guns in the US so you don’t really notice it, and downplay it in your mind. I can assure you people from outside of the US does notice it though.
I lived in the US for a decade without ever seeing a gun, other than in a cop’s holster.
Yeah, as a life-long Californian I’ve seen only a dozen or so guns in my entire life not in the hands or belts of police officers.
Still, we know they are out there. People in rough areas of town are going to have a very different experience.
not in the hands or belts of police officers
I’d like to just point out that this alone is a huge difference. Police in Europe generally do not carry firearms. It’s even unusual to see them with weapons at an airport.
I could be subject to police brutality from a random traffic stop technically, but I wouldn’t have any chance of a gun being pulled on me.
Not in Europe generally. It is true for the UK, but not so much anywhere else. But even in European countries with armed police deescalation is still the pereferred method and they only rarely draw their guns or fire them, especially compared to the US where the police have been trained with overly aggressive lethal violence responses.
Concealed is concealed. If we’re seeing them, they’re doing concealment wrong.
We can look at the rate of licensing to get an idea of scale and prevalence.
In 15 states, more than 1 in 10 adults have permits. Pennsylvania, ~1 in 6. Colorado, ~1 in 5. Indiana, over 22% of adults are licensed concealed carriers.
Nationwide, 7.8% of adults are licensed. Outside CA and NY, 9.3% of adults are currently licensed.
Licensing numbers peaked in 2022, but 29 states (Covering 47% of the population) have recently abandoned licensing requirements. The reduced number of licenses don’t indicate falling carry rates.
To me, the most interesting statistic from that link is almost overlooked: We all know that cops are under-prosecuted and under-convicted for their crimes. ACAB. Despite their cop-privilege, police are still convicted of gun crimes at 12 times the rate of licensed concealed carriers.
They also kill around 1k people a year… including suicides, 1 in 40 of all gun deaths are from the police. Take out the suicides, and it’s down to 1 in 13.5/14… basically the cops kill a lot of people in the usa.
Yeah I can count on one hand the amount of guns I’ve seen in person even after going to gun nut relatives’ houses.
This is ignoring police guns because yeah that skews results. Like autistic kids skewing tech literacy resultd.
You’re numb to every cop you see, because I guarantee they all have guns. Around 1/3rd of Americans personally own a gun, this isn’t a Spiders Georg situation.
I don’t see cops very often.
Okay. Plenty of Americans see cops every day because they live in highly policed cities. The metro area I live in isn’t even that highly policed and I still see cops at least half the time when I go outside.
I lived half my life in New York and saw a gun once. I lived the other half in Paris and also saw a gun once. I’m now in Paris and there’s a gun range a few blocks away from me.
🤷
Edit: actually nevermind, plutopos just reminded me I see guns all the fucking time in Paris because we have soldiers patrolling the streets with assault rifles, I’m so desensitized to it it completely slipped my mind.
I lived in different countries. Many are friendly with actual neighborly caring folks. Like leave your car unlocked safe. Like if you lost your phone outside, someone will kindly put it somewhere safe. Countries with good safety nets and a government that wants to help people.
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
I’ve been to protests where everyone was peaceful and it was violently dissolved by police. Where I’ve been to protests which had hired security guards packing guns protecting protesters, and the cops were on their best behavior.
Where I’ve been to protests which had hired security guards packing guns protecting protesters
hwat
i think you just discombobulated my brain
What is this concept? Who does this? Where?
Basically cops want you to be disarmed, you’re easier to harm.
Plenty of people who will get paid to hurt unarmed people, but not a lot willing to die for that same paycheck.
Not the best example. Right-wing gun nuts are cop-adjacent if not cops themselves. Let’s see how an amed BLM or antifa or anti-ICE rally goes.
Highly dependent on what state you’re in. Myself and others have legally carried at rallies, protests, and BLM. Cops don’t like armed minorities and leftists, but presently they’re still obliged to tolerate them if you do so well informed of your rights and within the confines of the law (like not being able to enter certain buildings, and obviously not using them to threaten someone).
This is why community planning is important. You can’t control who all is going to show up to rep for the cause, and you can’t predict who’s going to show up armed. You can encourage attendance to pre-event planning, figure out who will be there and with what, then coordinate their involvement to lessen the likelihood of escalation without discounting that guns are a psychological show of threat of force and a worst case scenario defense, as well as make sure they’re aware of their rights, the law, and what to do if a cop decides to overstep their authority and harass. You teach deescalation for when the counter-protesters try and spark a confrontation. You plan for if and when supporters you don’t know arrive armed, how to approach, how to figure out if they’re well intentioned, allies but extremists, or an agent provocateur.
The cops do not want an armed populous, and those 20k people who were armed during that protest where not cops.
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
Feels like that should have been bold, so here you go:
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
This is a very western/european mindset. Guns, ak’s in particular are INCREDIBLY visible in MANY parts of the world.
I don’t think people who don’t live in the US appreciate the concept of Pandora’s box.
I hear a lot of people talk about how bad guns are. How Americans are crazy to own them. How guns need to be made illegal here.
There are literally more guns than people in the United States of America. They aren’t going away.
If we could Thanos snap half the guns away, it would solve nothing. If we could Thanos snap all of them, then hey! Yes! Let’s talk.
But we can’t do that. Guns are just part of life over here. We actually do appreciate how dangerous they are, because we see violence done with them all the time… But there’s no easy solution here. Criminals all have guns. Even kids in gangs have guns.
If you live in an area that has a lot of crime, you may want a gun, and that is okay so long as you’re trained and responsible.
So what you’re really arguing for is mass gun confiscation. I will subscribe to that newsletter gladly.
Yeah I think the US has way too many people who’d never willingly give their guns to the government. Particularly in Texas after Waco.
I’m wondering if we just have a gun registration program and a ban on inheriting guns, so nobody would have to give up their own guns, just their dead parents’ guns.
For Americans, “going to the range” is an average Wednesday activity.
To pretty much anyone else in the world - unless you’re in a profession that works with guns - that statement will get: weird looks, people judging you, and a number of friends distancing themselves as they’d be afraid you could go loco and shoot them…
I live in the south and I don’t know a single person who goes to a range ever. I think you are exaggerating.
I think it’s income dependent. Going to a shooting range and just tearing through ammo sounds expensive, and I’ve never done it, but I’ve known generational-farmer types who do it on a regular basis. They usually bring friends with them. I don’t think most people in the south have been to a shooting range, but it doesn’t strike me as terribly uncommon.
I think it’s a lot like having a boat. If you know a guy who has a boat, you’re much more likely to go boating on the regular, and if you know a someone who has a lot of guns, you’re more likely to go shooting with them.
I’d say the majority of people in the states don’t give a hoot about baseball, but it’s still ‘America’s pastime.’
>.>
Plus, being in the south, why would they go to a range? A friend within an hour probably has property where you could shoot for free.
Yep, not a ton of ranges in the south. Probably 6 in the 200 mile radius of me. They’re not that profitable, because everyone has usually land or a friend with land.
Yeah, we lived outside of town, so we just shot in the backyard.
Live in the north where southerners flee to for jobs (still a shitty Red state) and the range is a regular for gun people. When I had friends that shoot, it was an every or every other weekend thing for the cheap shit, once month take out something nice to shoot that costs a little.
as a european, i went to the range a lot as a kid, because my dad’s side of the family did game hunting back then and he wanted me to learn. this was exclusively with bolt-action long guns, because that’s everything they allow. the process of getting the rifles out of the safe, packing them in locked bags, going to safe ranges far away in the woods, marking every bullet fired on a form, and collecting all the cartridges bored me to tears.
later my dad got in a legal dispute with the police over firearms registration, because as a sporting goods salesman he had to make sure every part he sold had a laser-engraved serial number and it took months for them to finally get that you can’t laser-engrave a 2mm spring.
thank god for regulations.
I don’t think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.
How often you see guns varies wildly in the US too.
Yeah I think it’s possible to live in the US and not encounter guns. It’s mostly driven by people’s interest and the interests of those around them. There is no obligation to be near or interact with firearms in the US. There are certainly a lot of guns in the US and that does lead to more homicides and shootings, but I don’t think it means everyone sees guns regularly in their daily life. If someone displays a firearm in public, people will not be casual about it.
Yeah I haven’t seen many guns ‘in the open’ outside the range when I was visiting.
Yours is a very big and diverse county and it’s hard to generalize. But usually cultural generalizations are somewhat cute and folksy, like French cheese and Chinese chopsticks.
Guns aren’t endearing though, and they stick out like a sorethumb.
The number of engineering/design choices that go into guns is fascinating. A P90 and an AK-47 have so many different design choices that it’s incredible they do basically the same thing.
Yeah I love the engineering and history, but wouldn’t want to live with them in close proximity
And the manufacturing. Forgotten Weapons is a brilliant channel not just because of the sheer quality and variety and humour but because Ian will actually explain and show the functioning and ideas behind the crazy mechanisms that have been made over time.
I have a lot of family members that live and work in a rural area, and firearms are simply tools of trade to them, as well as shooting for sport.
The only people you see with them in a city are police though.
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I mean a cook needs a knife to fillet a steak, that is clear,
What rural area business really needs a gun? People have been living rurally without problems without them.
I think it’s an insurance policy for fear, most of the time. But one that doesn’t work because now you contract a fear for fellow humans with guns.
Pest control, genius. Rabbits, hares, magpies, possums, goats and more. One cousin is a commercial goat culler.
They’re not used for self defence.
All those were managed well before the invention of the gun.
Your cousin might need one, but that guy from no county for old men weilded a culler that needed no gun.
But it’s mainly the self defense angle witch angers me. If you need a tool for killing stuff, a gun is your thing.
Butt most people don’t need to kill stuff.
FWIW, I am in the US and I have barely ever encountered a gun really either.
I am pretty sure I have never held a real gun either.
I mean outside the gun range I haven’t either, when visiting.
You’re ofcourse a very diverse bunch and I don’t want to generalize, but it’s a cultural oddity that is quite eyecatcher and without the charm of Finnish saunas or Belgian beer.
The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it’s a lot if I see one per three months.
Here in my country (in Europe), you can just go to any important train station or public place and there’ll be a bunch of soldiers doing fuck all with guns in their belts. They’re just meant to stand there and look intimidating lmao. I’ve never even seen them bother immigrants or anything (that’s the police’s job)
Im 30 years old and I dont think I have ever seen someone hold a real gun in my own country.
i’m 26 and the only guns i’ve ever seen were a bb gun and an air gun, and the interval between seeing them was like 10 years
That’s a shame.
Gus are cool and fun.
Gus are a national treasure
Try camping in bear country or hiking anywhere with predators. Or something about 30 wild hogs.
I don’t think there’s much wildlife out there that poses a mortal threat. Bear spray works for most, even though more rural and Northern countries do allow shotguns for use against wildlife.
You don’t really need a handgun in your desk to scare off bears tbh
But in the hypothetical scenario where a bear or 30 boars came at you… You’ll wish you did have a gun! /s
I am pro-gun but people who use wild animals as an excuse for buying handguns are exhausting.
They aren’t an excuse for buying guns. They are an explanation for why certain people in certain situations would legitimately need guns.
And if they have guns for that situation, they have guns for any situation. And if guns are available for people in those situations to acquire, guns are available for anyone to acquire.
There are many types of guns. Heat guns, spray guns, desoldering guns, guys at the gym arms, etc
I think that is isn’t hard to figure out from context which ones are referred to, don’t you think?
Hey hey are you bringing out the big guns now?
The guns of never one
I feel like you’re gunning for me.
When I saw the desk gun, my only thought was that it was going to be featured eventually due to Chekhov’s Gun.
Americans are desensitized to guns, but the Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories was a military veteran who often carried his army revolver. Anybody with a passing familiarity with the character of Dr. Watson could think, “I guess he keeps his gun in his desk.”
This post says “the first episode of sherlock where john watson opens up his drawer and you see a gun”.
So, it’s talking about the Sherlock mini-series from 2010 which was set in modern times. I don’t think that in modern times a military veteran is allowed to keep a gun in a drawer.
I think that everyone is over complicating this.
When you see he has a gun in the mini-series, you’re just reminded of how the he had a revolver in the books. You aren’t going to think about it because he’s supposed to have a gun. You just say, “Oh, he still has a gun.”
I think the disconnect is probably between people who know Dr. Watson from the books, and people who don’t know the books. The Sherlock mini-series is obviously targeted at people who never read the books. So it’s entirely possible that they wanted the viewer to question its existence.
It’s still weird to keep it in a drawer
Where else are you going to keep it? The fridge? Hell I keep my muzzle loader next to my desk, mostly because I just got it and have yet to find a proper place for it.
From the other comments I concluded that in the UK the gun stays at the police station. But even if an officer were to be allowed to take it home, in most developed countries it has to be stored in a safe. And the key must be unavailable for anyone other than the permit holder.
I’m a veteran with a .22 in my desk drawer that has a muzzle suppressor (if I am going to use it I don’t want to damage my ears).
In the UK?
Merica obviously, those commie governments across the pond don’t allow people on the internet
Are you lost? Do you not understand what this whole thread is about?
Looking at the down votes i think lemmy could use a lesson in media literacy
Yeah, this place seems full of people nobody would enjoy being around. Like fuck anyone taking the piss and having fun with something trying to joke around at the shit state of the world.
I am honestly finding myself using reddit more now.
And do you live inside or outside of the US?
United we stand!
The majority of the UK had guns readily available up until the great war. Then the population was disarmed, the homicide rate was lower than it is today in the UK… Sherlock was written for those times, and guns were not unusual.
This particular series takes the characters and puts them in present day London, what was normal in the 19th century doesn’t apply for the character in the example
The majority of the UK had guns readily available up until the great war.
[sic] there were no firearm restrictions in effect, but less than 1% of the population had firearms. The Firearms act of 1920 disarmed this percentage over fears of surges in crime, as well as worries that the working class would get too unruly
I don’t know what % of the population had firearms but they were as you said no restrictions…and let’s be honest…it wasn’t about crime, it was about disarming the working class.
Sherlock is also armed in several of the original sir. Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Iirc most the time he borrows a revolver from Scotland Yard.
I have no knowledge about the UK, but I can say that was the case for Germany. Gun control in the modern sense only began after WW1 when large numbers of weapons fell into civilian hands.
In the 19th century, shooting practice was mandatory as part of the military system; reserve and conscription. Kinda like how it still survives in Switzerland. But as the UK rarely had a need for large land armies, the population was not militarized to such a degree.
To be fair, part of my desensitization is from the (100% accurate documentary) Hot Fuzz. Maybe they were just establishing that Watson is a farmer… or a farmer’s mum.
Mr. Webley, I trust you have a license for that firearm?
He does for this one
British show with a desk gun only reminds me of The IT Crowd
I wonder if it’s loaded.
anybody have examples of the opposite? American hollywood movies/shows that nonchalantly presented something common in the USA, but was jarring when you watched it?
No school uniforms, not even basic colour guidelines.
Bacon strips for breakfast, as if they have healthcare.
The concept of Boy Scouts.
A teacher needing to sell meth to pay for his cancer treatment.
Tbf he didn’t have to do that.
He liked it and was good at it (debatable)
Yeah I never really understood that part of it. He was a chemistry teacher so I suppose supposedly he knows how to make meth in principle, but it wasn’t like he was a super genius or anything, why could no one else produce a product as good as his. All he was doing what’s the following basic chemistry steps.
In the show it’s suggested that it’s mostly down to him using the right glass beakers and stuff. But if that’s all that’s required then how come there isn’t loads of high quality product on the market?
He was pretty explicitly a world class research chemist. Even with a written recipe there’s a lot of room for variation in chemistry and knowing what’s happening is how you correct.
In earlier seasons it’s because he does stuff right and uses the right tools correctly. People are impressed with his product but it’s just uncommon.
In later seasons he’s making industrial quantities of laboratory grade meth. A rough estimate would have his output being a serious competitor to a pharmaceutical company (walt made ~15,000 kg of meth, and the US produces about 30,000kg of amphetamine per year).So his competition is mostly people who work for Pfizer. Similar to how most bomb makers work for national governments. The people who are good at it make more, safer, by doing it legit. It’s why it’s always newsworthy when a professional level player does private business.
The show is fairly explicit about Walter White being an extremely gifted chemist, and only being a teacher rather than a multi millionaire because he’d left the company making money from his innovations because he was in a sulk that his co-founder was dating his ex, and he just assumed that he was going to be able to make a second multi million dollar company on his own and that his friends hadn’t contributed at all.
The meth was better quality not just because he used the right equipment, but also because he put what other people considered an unreasonable amount of effort into avoiding trace contamination, and intuitively knew which unwanted reactions he needed to worry about and take measures to avoid. In a later episode, Jesse has to demonstrate how to make comparable quality meth to some professional chemists who have been failing to do so, and the only thing he can find that they’ve been doing wrong is not keeping things clean enough. After meticulously cleaning things that were already deemed clean, he gets something close to Walt’s results.
How it was written, it came down to the care taken in the process and cleanliness of the gear being used. You can see part of this when Pinkman show the cartel their method.
I haven’t watched it in years but IIRC he was kind of a genius. He founded a (medical?) research group but he left before it got successful. I think because his son was born and had special needs so he had to get a more stable income.
The friend he co-founded it with is the one who offers to pay for the treatment. He still holds Walt in high regard but Walt feels like a failure in comparison.
In addition to the cleanliness of the lab, Walter also decided to cut the pseudoephedrine from over the counter drugs out, along with the steps required to extract it from the other ingredients in the cold medicine and instead synthesised his own from methlemine.
No idea which one is easier to get a pure result from, but that was his first “level up” to the blue meth he became known for.
Though what set him and Jessie apart from Gail is hard to say, other than Walter sabotaging Gail instead of just teaching him his techniques (iirc, been a while since I saw it).
The series does seem to be taking the stance that “before Walter White, professional chemists worked for legitimate companies doing legitimate work in professional labs while drugs were made by hobbiest chemists in ad-hoc labs that were neglected even if they had professional equipment and the people running them had no idea about the single most important factor when targeting high purity: the purity of everything else along every step of the process or some way to extract purity before the end step”.
I always find it jarring when the actors get out of a car and it moves. Not a lot, just a small jolt, but quite noticeable. Apparently this is normal if you put an automatic transmission in park and get out quickly. Everyone I know here (mostly manual transmission) always pulls the parking break when parking, so the car only moves up because of the weight of the person getting out.
Whenever we park (in an automatic), we set the parking brake, because we do Not like feeling that small jolt.
A surprising number of new cars these days just… don’t seem to have a parking brake control? at all?? anywhere???
And the rest have it as a button instead of a manual thing you can pull if the computer goes haywire. What is the state of cars coming to.
– Frost
I always thought that when heros fought and threw things and people though walls it was an extra strong emphasis of how strong they were. As if they were close to supermen because of their rage/determination/skills. I recently realise that american home have super fragile wall. Like a normal human can punch it through if they want to. So movie makers didn’t meant what I thought.
Eh, they may be ‘fragile,’ but they’re not ‘human body gets tossed through by a breeze’ level of fragile. I think when some friends of mine crashed into a wall in a drunken wrestling match at full force during a high school house party, they still only cratered the wall, not broke through or smashed it down.
They’re made of gypsum most often, so they’re fragile but not that fragile. I don’t know that I’ve ever accidentally broken drywall.
I currently have my foot leaning against some drywall and am tilting back in my chair. Not at all worried about it breaking. I can bounce about as much as I can without falling and it’s solid.
We use it because it’s cheaper, faster, pretty durable, easy to repair and paint, a decent insulator, sound blocker and most importantly fire resistant.
For almost all uses it’s a better material.
It’s less common where houses are older than the 50s.I’d normally avoid correcting spelling, but these ones were confusing until I realized what you were trying to say. “I always thought that when heroes fought and threw things and people through walls it was an extra strong emphasis (I think?) of how strong they were.” English is a stupid language.
Though walls aren’t quite that easy to go through. Drywall is brittle enough to punch a hole through (though it probably won’t be a clean hole), but there’s still the frame and a second layer of drywall (for an interior wall, even more to go through if it’s exterior) you’d need to go through for most north American walls. Movies will use prop walls, I’m guessing designed for that specific crash through them (like with a specific shape precut so it just tears away as desired when whatever passes through it) and extra effects like dust and debris added in post or thrown in from outside the frame.
Edit: Done. Thanks again. “Emphasis” was really buchered here. Idk what excuse to make!
Thank you. I’ll check that and correct it later. I felt I was making mistake even as I was writing this…
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Flags in front of random houses. It’s technically illegal in my country (India), although no one will bother you over it.
Wow, really? Is it just country flags?
No, just the national flag. There are some strict rules for flying national flag which are very easy to violate. Some countries don’t even allow the national flag to be flown by citizens only the government. The citizens get a different flag for non-official purposes.
AFAIK flying a tiny but long ass flag is normal in Denmark. You are however only allowed to fly a Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or German flag.
In Germany it is forbidden to fly a German flag with the state emblem (yellow shield with black eagle) as that is the official German flag and may only be flown by federal goverment entities.
Also flying the wrong flag or the right one incorrectly on a boat or ship im Germany can get you fined up to 10k€
Only the Indian flag. You can freely fly the flags of states, organisations, or other countries.
There are a lot of complicated rules about flying the Indian flag. No one knows all of them, so if you break them (and someone notices), you’ll just get asked not to do it again. But when some politician or govt officer accidentally breaks one, it becomes very embarrassing for them.
Breaking indoor walls so damn easily, thought it was a Hollywood thing like exploding cars, endless mags etc. Took me a while to get that such thin walls are just common in the US
They make them out of literal cardboard now because drywall is too expensive. I wish I was joking. Look up cyfy on YouTube, he’s a home inspector in Arizona and some of the million dollar+ homes he inspects are actual temu quality shitholes from big name builders.
I was astonished to see that they sometimes do stucco walls in Arizona by just putting the wire mesh directly onto the wood framing and applying the stucco. It doesn’t even have cheap OSB behind it. Stucco is shitty enough even when it’s done “properly”.
Yeah and they don’t even fully cover the wire mesh most of the time so it rusts and your entire stucco wall falls off a few years later (out of warranty lol get fucked)
Pledge of allegiance in school is quite unusual.
And how you have flags on everything, including outside people’s houses.
“Central air” is a term I only learned the meaning of recently, but American TV assumes everyone knows what it is. Which is fair, if you all have it. Same with the hand blenders you have in your kitchen sinks.
It’s seriously funny how freaked out people get from garbage disposals.
They’re quite safe. They don’t have spinning blades. They have something closer to a dull grater and arms on swivels that catch loose food and push it against the stationary grind plate.You shouldn’t put your hand in one because the little weighted arms are going very fast and could hurt your fingers if they got hit, but it’s unlikely to push them into the wall.
They’re great if you have proper sewage treatment, since it keeps the trash from getting stinky and it basically just gets turned into fertilizer like a more efficient, roundabout compost heap that I don’t need to remember to poke.
Weird. I swear I remember my father taking ours apart when I was a young kid, and it had a blade like a mandolin slicer.
Like this?
If you look a little closer, you can see the blades are on pivots, and the holes are for water and food particles.
It’s been long enough that I don’t trust the memory to be correct. Too much muddling from imagination, time, and popular culture.
When I was in public elementary school we had old textbooks and one of them was trying to talk shit about the Soviets by saying that their educational system was creating robotic, unemotional children who obeyed instructions unquestioningly. They juxtaposed a picture of Soviet students standing uniformly with a picture of American students all doing different things. I questioned it at the time and said if they took a picture of us doing the pledge it would look the same as the commies. I sound 100 years old but this was only 20 years ago.
Central air and garbage disposals are amazing and should be the norm
Central air and garbage disposals are amazing and should be the norm
After juxtaposition with Soviets this one got me real confused, thinking what kind of central garbage disposal you meant? And air disposal? Surely you must’ve meant central (i.e. district) heating and garbage chutes? And I was like no you do not want these, only then I realized you referred to the things from previous comment.
Ha you went through a whole thought journey
Your garbage disposals are absolutely terrible. They offer a little convenience for the individual at a far greater, unseen cost than people realise (so, very American)
Central aircon isn’t uncommon in modern houses in my country, but it’s difficult to retrofit to hundred-year-old homes in the major cities
What issues with garbage disposals have you seen?
Why, because it fucks up the plumbing? I haven’t seen an issue with it and don’t shove huge amounts of food down it regularly. My least favorite household maintenance task is sticking my hand in the sink and picking up little scraps and gunk so I’m attached to mine.
At this point, I think FistingEnthusiast is just vibing. Pretty sure the hate for garbage disposals is 90% because they’re associated with the US.
“Central air” is a term I only learned the meaning of recently, but American TV assumes everyone knows what it is. Which is fair, if you all have it.
It’s why no one has air conditioning in a lot of Europe. You’d have to have a separate system for each room, it would get very expensive very quickly, or I can buy a fan for the equivalent of $20. I know in places like the south of Spain they actually do this, but it’s not common.
In Spain we often have an air pump (sometimes two) in the house that can pump cold or hot hair depending on what you set it to. Mostly for cold in summer, but it comes handy when radiators aren’t enough in winter.
Air pumps will become the norm in Germany in a few years to phase out gas heating in private homes. Some also use it for cooling in summer. Although the one family I know that has it cools a water tank that is circulated in the ceilings of the house to cool it down without wind or noise
Someone didn’t grow up in the Cold War era. They drilled that shit and followed it up with “duck and cover” in case the Soviets nuked us. As if your desk provided cover from the nuclear holocaust.
ATLA ironically may have desensitised me to the pledge thing by trying to show it as a creepy thing in the Fire Nation school. Instead, it just became part of the narrative flow, which was somewhat opposite the intent.
Then again, I’ve probably come to associate it with singing shitty school songs and national anthems in Australia anyway.
I hadn’t said the (US) Pledge of Allegiance since the 1970s but I attended my local school board meeting last year and they kicked off with it. I couldn’t even remember which fucking hand to put over my heart, let alone the actual words of it.
I tried to refuse to say it because it was unconstitutional with the under God part and they made me do it anyway, which I tried to dispute because it has been upheld as a right under the First Amendment but I didn’t really care enough to pursue it. That teacher was a geriatric veteran and would have been stubborn too.
It’s burned into my brain now.
a hand blender in my sink? TF?
Are you referring to a garbage disposer?
On the pledge, some of us know.
Hollywood celebrities and writers all have “Central Air”. The rest of us know what it is, but we don’t all have it.
every american police movie
In this sci-fi film with Tom cruise’s clones that are some kind of watchmen over the planet, there’s a flashback scene. Tom cruise is reminded of his human life before the cloning because he sees an American gridiron football goal.
That scene immediately broke my immersion and I was like, yeah that’s Hollywood, it’s a film by Americans. I was no longer in the story.The same happened to me with other forms of media. There’s a song that would translate to “favourite person” and has a line “even the traffic jam on the A2 is quickly over when I’m with you”. But I never use the A2. It’s at the other end of the country. That made me stumble when I listened to it the first time.
That’s a bit too…I dunno, I think both of those are on you lol
Do you not enjoy stories about things you’ve ever experienced?
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it or that I stopped it. It just breaks the immersion briefly and I’m reminded that I’m experiencing media made by people.
Fair enough!
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I would have just assumed it was from his time in the army, since, you know… Watson was in the army. And also the fact he is a detective’s assistant that got into scraps with bad guys frequently.
I mean it is, but you’re very much not allowed to keep your gun after you leave. (I’m assuming OP is referring to “Sherlock”, the modern-day BBC adaptation)
As I recall in the books, Holmes calls upon Watson several times specifically because he has a gun and can use it.
Yeah but even then that’s one of the seemingly universal jokes about the military, that being folks smuggling out their service weapons. Great grandad’s Colt/ Makarov/ Webley/ Beretta/ Luger/ et cetera. Pretty sure I’ve heard stories of soldiers jacking artillery back in the 1700s for similar reasons, have folks use and take care of a piece of equipment and they’ll probably try to keep it forever, hell you can still find WW2 era junk that got smuggled out for basically that reason.
I mean the newest example you gave is from over 80 years ago, so thanks for backing my point up
Except it really doesn’t have a basis. There are few militaries from developed and stableish nations that allow you to keep your weapon outside of the situation that require it, let alone have a mechanism for service weapons to be kept after service. Several Nordic countries bordering russia notwithstanding.
oh goody, a high comment post about guns. I’m sure the white yanquis on lemmy are going to have a really hinged and normal conversation about this
Weird example…
I would think he is a character involved with detective work, which is a component of law enforcement and therefore it is not out of the ordinary for the character to possess a gun.
British detectives don’t really carry guns though. Unless they are part of a special unit. This Sherlock episode the post talks about takes place in modern day London so he would definitely not own a gun for his job. At least not legally.
Adding to this, in the first episode of Sherlock John Watson isn’t even a detective/detectives assistant yet. He is a depressed, injured, former military doctor.
But hes not carrying it. It was in his desk.
I guess it’s just a work of fiction then.
Also, and its been a while since I watched the show, wasn’t he a former cop or something?
I may be way off.
Former army doctor. He’s doctor Watson after all. But usually you don’t take your service firearm home with you when you’re done in most countries at least, so that would likely be a personal one. And in the first episode he hadn’t yet started the detective work.
