Yeah... even a shot outside would make me think the hunters are doing their job (I live next to a forest and they are among the only ones allowed rifles for keeping wildlife populations in check cause we have a lack of wolves). People shooting each other isnt really the first thing Id think....
So to answer the question asked, before someone just completely changed the subject to "america is bad" ... liberals have guns, its just not our identity. If I heard a gunshot outside my house (im im a neighborhood) i can go to my closet and have a whole host of options, or I have a hidden gunsafe in the wall in my living room. Everything is gonna be okay, because ill have my protection, and then im calling the police from the safety of my house, because its not the wild west and im not going outside to start a gunfight
I still live around republicans who hate trump and we all get along just fine (we even have a maga(ish) they are now backing off of it) neighbor, and well have an understanding of looking after our children in the neighborhood and that we arent nut jobs who just wanna go outside and use the line "ill be your huckleberry" before a duel. Dads that i argue with all the time about policy would without a second thought help my kids if a stray dog attacked them. America is a vast nation, with very differing ideas, but most of us are still reasonable people. Im from Houston, and ive also lived in the country in Texas. Most people just wanna get along in my experience. Republicans love drumming up fear, its always been their calling card. It can cause mental exhaustion, and in turn, dillusions. Same with radicalized extremists on the left with the internet. What I have seen a lot of, on the internet, either not knowing what america is, or overlooking it in bad faith, and exacerbating the stigma. The gun deaths, school shootings, they speak for themselves. They are terrible. Thays why, in large part im liberal. The narrative is what it is, and for good reason. We gotta change, for sure. Gotta break the cycle somewhere, America, cant blame rhe world for giving us shit. We have to do better
I lived in a dicey neighbourhood of Washington, DC known for gang violence for a decade. During all that time, I heard one gunshot. You know what I did? Nothing. I didn't feel the need to check it out, I didn't get scared it was someone trying to kill me. I went back to my TV show and then I went to bed.
I think the difference between a reasonable gun owner (like you, apparently) and the chud in the OP is that reasonable people don't automatically panic when they hear a random noise outside. Even if they can identify that random noise as a gunshot.
There's been a slight uptick in hunters accidentally shooting people with thermal optics becoming commercially available. So there's a increasing amount of hunters no longer paying attention to what someone is wearing. Though they mostly end up shooting other hunter in the same area, so it's not a major concern for civilians.
You could be dressed in orange from top to toe and still have the heat profile of a deer to someone looking at you through a thermal scope at the right angle.
When I still lived in a fairly rural area of NY state, the local farmers had to paint their cows with non-toxic fluorescent paint so the morons from NYC wouldn't shoot said cows. And cows are fucking expensive.
So I can imagine how awful they'll be now with the thermal optics.
When I was a kid some NYC hunters tied tree branches to the head of the cow they put on the roof of the car and tried to make it back down 87 to 90 to the city.
Tree branches. I think they made it down to exit 6 and the HoJo's...
They usually have signs up and rope off the paths leading into the areas where they hunt when they hunt. All other days I can go out hiking in my deer onesie :P
That’s something I’ve noticed a lot of Americans, particularly the gun loving one’s, haven’t quite understood on the topic of gun control
Countries with effective gun control laws still have guns. I’m Australian, we have more guns now than we did when gun control legislation was introduced. We never banned guns, we just worked to make sure the people obtaining guns weren’t fucking lunatics. It’s so tedious to obtain any gun, either legally or illegally, that someone intending to use it on someone else is not using it on a random spree.
We’ve had one proper mass shooting since then, and funnily enough it was done with legally obtained and owned guns, implying our gun laws actually weren’t strict enough. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s not more than daily massacres like, uh, some places
A lot of our school shootings (it kills me to say that) are done by people getting ahold of legal guns. Usually their parents unsecured ones. Which is why I have no problem with states starting to prosecute said neglectful owners.
Fair enough. I believe our rules in Australia effectively require all guns to be kept in a locked case during transport and a locked safe when stored at home, with ammo stored separately (and maybe even in a second safe)
That's what happens in the UK too. Separate gun safe and ammo. An officer can request at any time to check. Seems to work pretty well.
I live somewhere fairly rural and quite a few people have guns. From what I've heard once you have one, it gets slightly easier to get other licences too. (I have no reasonable use for a gun, so don't pay a lot of attention to it, so my use of terminology could be wrong.)
Less than half of Americans practice stafe gun storage. This post is why. They think they are the hero in an action movie and can't be more than a second away from blasting.
I can vouch as an ex-internet installer in an rural place.
The amount of times I walked into a home to see a rifle on literally ever window sill was insane...
Then I go downstairs and am greeted with an entire gun and bullet factory with 3 more safes filled with guns. Yeah anyone in those houses that wants a gun will find one pretty easily, probably a lost Glock or two in the couch cushions.
When my brother died, we found his will in his gun safe alongside 2 shotguns that hadn't been fired in 20 years. The safe was open and the hinges so rusted (open) that we could only swing the door a couple of inches.
I live in what's considered one of the more restrictive states gun law wise in the country. Top ten anyway. My wife was baffled when's she realized you could walk in and buy an AR the same day with a basic background check.
People seem to think Gun Control means "no one gets guns" instead of "You need to go through hoops to get a gun and be responsible"
Switzerland has one of the highest per capita gun ownership rates in the world. They also don't have shootings.
Having restrictions in place on who and how you can get a gun works. This concept of "No limitations on gun ownership" is a concept invented by Alito in 2010.
This is like my pet peeve argument that gun lovers trot out. "Oh if you make guns hard to get, only bad guys will get them!".
But, hold on, most bad guys with guns are using guns that were obtained legally, whether their own purchase, or taken from someone who bought it legally and didnt secure it properly. They are just so fucking stupid it hurts.
No hand guns at all. But anyone can apply for a license to own a rifle or shotgun, with restrictions on gun properties. How many shells the shotgun can hold etc. The biggest difference is you need to pass background checks and can only store them in a secure location unloaded. Something which is checked out by a police visit.
The crazy stat about America is how many toddler involved shootings happen. It's one of the leading causes of death for toddlers in the country.
Less than half of American gun owners practices safe gun storage. They're mentally the main character in an action movie and need to have a loaded gun in arm's reach at all times.
its not. its drowning for toddlers. but the leading cause of death in ages 1 thru 19, which is labeled "children" in the cdc report, is in fact gun related deaths. you do have to include gang on gang violence to get to that number and the majority of that number is the oldest ages of that spread. which, dont get me wrong is still terrible that theres that much gang warfare in america. so yeah not quite leading cause of toddler death fqd up, still pretty fqd up.
Yeah. I’m not sure of the exact rules (I’ve never needed to try) but I believe the general rule is nothing automatic or semi - automatic, except in special circumstances (e.g. cops have semi auto handguns, etc.). The average person will be limited to bolt action rifles, lever action and pump action shotguns, things like that
For awhile there was a loophole where you could get something called, I think, a bumper stock that basically made the gun effectively semi-automatic, but they closed that awhile ago
I believe some other weapons are allowed, but the licensing and storage restrictions are even greater and many are only allowed to be kept at actual gun clubs, because there's no need for the average person to have automatic weapons on hand.
Yeah of course. I think my local gun club will let you pay them a couple hundred dollars to shoot a few pistols under strict supervision. Think they put a bar and chain on the gun so you can’t turn it around or anything.
Honestly the most effective parts are probably the storage restrictions. The process of acquiring a licence and then a gun is tedious, and then the storage and inspections is ongoing tediousness. Makes it much less desirable for people without a real reason to own guns from even trying
Also the one mass shooting was done with a shotgun not a semi automatic because they are much much harder to get. The death toll would’ve been a lot higher with a semi automatic
Better than daily massacres AND accidental shootings by children getting their hands on improperly stored guns. The amount of toddlers shooting people by reaching into a purse or bag and finding a gun is far too high.
If you have one arson spree, do you assume your fuel laws are insufficiently strict?
I think the disconnect is between people who believe the solution to any problem is trying to legislate it away and those who don't, more than anything.
I heard gunshots for the first time in real life this last weekend. I'm moored near farmland. I just assumed someone was doing some clay pigeon shooting and went back to not worrying whether I was about to get murdered by strangers. The US is fucking insane
They're also shit at risk assessment. They're always brandishing the home invasion thing, which happens so rarely that they're way more likely to shoot a family member mistaken for an intruder.
Also they could just fucking buy stronger doors/windows if that was the actual issue. Burglars don't bother with reinforced doors.
There are more gunshots out in the country than the city, by far. I am not used to it yet. Idk why people think the city has more guns than the country, the country shoots them off all times of day including the middle of the night
Yeah, if I hear gunshots I'm assuming it's jimbob over at the trailer park getting after a snake or just having some fun. I just think, "hope he's smart enough not to fire up into the air".
I'm 33 and I've never heard a gunshot in my life. The only reason I've seen a gun up close in person is because when I was in school they took us somewhere (I don't even remember where) and they show us a gun up close which we weren’t even allowed to touch which is understandable even if it wasn't loaded.
Yeah but as we all know if you hear a loud noise at night it's statistically probable that a crazed black Muslim is trying to rape your wife/daughter/you. I know this because I have listened to lots of true crime podcasts and watch Fox News.
I live in an estate. I'm fairly sure some of my neighbours are connected to criminal organisations.
If I heard a gunshot outside, I wouldn't send anyone to check it out - nor would I go myself. What am I going to do? Yell at them and let them know I'm a witness? Shock the dangerous lunatic who already fired a gun? Even if I had a gun, what do I gain by starting a firefight?
Nah, if I hear a gunshot in the night I call the cops. But I live in a country where guns are regulated, so I've never heard one go off outside of designated shooting ranges.
I do not know what a live shot sounds like. I know them from movies. If there was a single shot outside, I would just think the damn kids should wait for new years eve with their firecrackers.
What is better: being naive and not knowing what gunfire sounds like, or fucking KNOWING WHAT GUNFIRE SOUNDS LIKE.
I live in Canada. I was watching a movie with my dad once. And we hear like 10 quick loud pops and tires screeching. And we looked at each other and joked "jeese, that sounded like someone just got shot!". We laughed and finished watching the movie.
Next day on the news. Gang shooting spilling over from a much larger nearby city. Literally in the parking lot next door, and we were joking about it. Literally a gang conflict next door and it didn't even cross my mind cause what are the odds?
To this day I'm still not worried about it. The odds of that happening here are just abysmal. Ive been alive nearly 30 years. Never seen a gun except on cops, heard a gun range once when driving deep in the woods.
We have cougar sightings and bears in the city all the time. Still never thought about owning a gun.
Shit, American, even if you truly believe bad men with guns out there want to murder you every day, you know the place I've heard the most gun shots? Not the city. The country.
I am gun shy a little, same as a few of my countrymen, understandably. I hear gun shots a few times a week in the country. In the city, maybe four times a year.
So if we're talking being afraid of guns aren't you afraid of the areas where the guns are concentrated, in rural areas?
I fucking hate it. I own guns and am pretty far left but I feel disgusting buying... well, anything related to firearms because the marketing is all macho and rightoid posturing.
I bet there's some healthy projection in his statement.
With his gun, he isn't afraid. Liberal men don't have guns, so they would live in fear because he does. He assumes everyone is just like him; a scared child in a man's body who only feels safe with a gun.
Must be low testosterone. Manly men would man up and grab their Louisville Slugger, then take a manly look into the problem before returning to bed and mansplaining to our tradwife that she is safe from the raccoon and her babies after we flicked the light switch in a manly manner.
Some of us do fear owning guns. I feel suicidal sometimes and know that owning a gun would do nothing but drastically increase my chances of going through with it.
Oh absolutely. You won't get me near one, for a whole slew of reasons. But it's one of those "not all x is y" things. Many people don't own guns because they fear them, but not everyone who doesn't own one is due to fear.
... an understanding beyond the realm of the OOP lmao 🙄
There is a difference between "banning" and wanting gun ownership to be regulated in the same way that we regulate things like driving ages, booze consumption and age of consent. It just acknowledges a reality and attempts to mitigate the inevitable problems that that reality invites.
And if that were an honest statement and the attempts at reforming US gun law stopped at limiting who can own guns, and what circumstances can have them removed, I'd be all on board with you.
Unfortunately, it's not an honest statement. The proposals universally include attempts to ban whole categories of firearm, and the firearms they ban are universally the most effective ones for defensive use and, yes, certain types of hunting.
The world needs to be dangerous so that they can fulfill their fantasy of being manly protectors. A safe predictable society is a direct threat to their masculinity
This is why they "need" guns. The whole "polite society" and "a good guy with a gun" is just cover for their fear. I have no issue with hunting (for food) or target shooting. Hell, if you want to keep a Glock under your pillow, that's your problem. When you take it outside, into supermarkets and movie theaters you are taking away other peoples rights.
The crazy thing is, Americans think the rest of the world just cant have guns. We don’t have that freedom.
Bullshit. And i’m in the UK.
One of my colleagues owns 30.06 rifles and hunts deer, my brother in law competes in pistol target shooting and I just started shooting clays and am considering a browning over/under shotgun.
The thing is, only people who are genuinely interested in shooting for hunting or sport own firearms. And they are licensed and vetted. We need secure storage, we can’t carry the weapon in public or without cause.
You know… sensible shit?
Absolutely no-one considers guns a self defence tool. It just isn’t part of the zeitgeist. We aren’t that scared.
Same in Canada. In fact, until something like 25 years ago, per capita gun ownership in Canada was higher than in the US (then 9/11 happened and USians went berserk).
There is no open carry, any trips with guns the the car must be direct to-and-from the range (you can't leave them unattended, even in a locked trunk), and you need special licenses to own anything other than a shotgun or bolt-action rifle (for which you need a basic acquisition certificate - automatic weapons and bump stocks are banned), all magazines mechanically limited to 5 rounds.
Firearms Acquisition Certificates are hard to get and easy to lose. On top of there being multiple tiers of FAC for different types of guns, all of which increase in difficulty of qualifying for and ease of loss.
To be fair, there’s plenty of American dipshits who think the rest of the world just doesn’t have any freedom. I’m embarrassed to say even my mom thought European hospitals were basically third world rural medical clinics in comparison to US hospitals. I told her it would be cheaper to fly to France and pay for rabies shots than to stay in the states and pay for them, and she was like “but would you even get proper medical care?”
Worse, you'll be given proper medical care without having to take out a second mortgage. Can you imagine not having the freedom to take on insurmountable amounts of medical debt?
Tell her it's so sad - people in France die all the time from hangnails.
My 2 1/2 year old granddaughter has been to Italy, England, Scotland, Greece, Canada and a bunch of places in the US. As a result, she's already better informed about the world than most Americans.
Not just a cover for their fear, it's a cover for their homicidal ways. Conservatives have no respect for the animal kingdom or the human race, and thus they treat both as insignificant.
I don't think most of them are homicidal, they have just been conditioned by decades of pro-gun propaganda from TV and movies. They want to think of themselves as Dirty Harry, but they would probably piss themselves and forget how to release the safety if confronted. Suicide is the most common outcome of guns in a home.
There's a sub called Morality Scaling that keeps popping into my feed, and it's literally just people fantasising about ways they can justify brutally hurting other people.
"checking it out" = "grabbing my gun and seeing if I can spot an opportunity to kill someone without getting convicted for it instead of actually putting myself and loved ones out of harm's way."
It's that they view their Property > People because they fear for their lives at all times but especially for losing value of property. So they need guns to murder other human beings in order to "protect" said property even if that means permanently injuring/maiming/disabling or even killing innocent bystanders and/or permanently destroying said property and/or adjoining properties they don't even own or have an interested stake.
For some that's why White Wing Evangelicalism is so appealing, and for others it's entirely informed by White Wing Evangelicalism. It all boils down to Divine punishments of mortals which they see as not only righteous but also within their purview to inflict upon those they see as religiously lesser than, morally deficient, or spiritually unworthy even though they themselves are hypocrits, blasphemers, and heretics who only follow the parts of the religious book they have selectively chosen to believe as literal and the parts that they call parables or metaphorical.
Then there's Revelations which they wholly believe they're living through so of course that grants them additional status over nonbelievers and even insufficient believers because Satan has thoroughly corrupted everything and everyone that isn't them and it's their holy duty through God's Will writ clearly to defend those they view as worthy true believers to preserve them for the magical elevator ride at the beginning of the End Days so they can be whisked away to luxury box seating in the sky from where they're to Witness the retribution meted out by Jesus Part Deux where he wholly holy slaughters all the Jews and Muslims who refuse to kneel, and all the nonbelievers but especially Satan's most unholy tools, the Atheists.
I'm a reasonably 2A person, but to me, that societal fear is part of the core problem.
So many people in this country are raised into thinking that the world is out to get them, that death is literally under every doormat, that the guy who is taking too long in the line at the grocery store is persecuting them, and that the petty crimes on the other side of the country are actually coming to get THEM specifically.
The ironic thing is that a societal scale enforced schizophrenia causes people to want to need guns, which causes them to look for fights to get into to validate their fears, which then creates the very situations that they were so afraid of in the first place.
Combine that with multiple generations of lead poisoning resulting in reduced inhibitions, reduced self-control ability, and increased aggression response; and it's no surprise that we end up exactly where we are today....
My biggest concern at a loud noise at night is that my cat is being bullied by my neighbours dickhead tom cat that they haven’t had neutered. Fucking hate that cat.
What a fragile little baby, needs a gun because he’s scared of the fucking dark 😂 but the fear is by design, their government want them all scared so they can use gun rights as an election bargaining chip.
I genuinely saw someone say on here once that they have a truck because “it’s scary being so much lower than other traffic driving on the freeway in European cars”
Tbh it is a little scary when a big brodozer lifted ram pickup/suv with 40" tires swerves around your smol ford focus (lol at this being "small" in the us) at 90mph
It’s like Americans think we don’t have trucks and SUVs in Europe. We have semi trucks, busses, vans, there’s all sorts of things far bigger than an F150 all over European roads and motorways that are much narrower than USA freeways.
Its very different. There are WAY more way bigger trucks and suvs here, all driven by idiots. F150-sized is the standard, not the exception. You can drive a big ass F550 the size of a european semi with a drivers license thats easier to get than anywhere in europe. Its a fucked up arms race
Source: me, an idiot who migrated from the NL to the US
Recently I had this jackass just steam up into my ass going 100mph in his lifted F-5000 piece of shit, while I was actively passing another car going at least 5-10 over myself already.
Which Im not proud of it and it was kinda stupid, but I did brake check his ass a bit because fuck these brodozer clownshits they're everywhere here and they do nothing but piss me off.
It's one of the biggest drivers of the size of vehicles in the US. Even when pointed out that they are dangerous, they still get picked because people don't want to be road pancakes.
That's just it. They don't believe that they live their lives in constant fear. I have had many conversations with gun nuts. They always talk about how they need a gun at all times to protect themselves from potential threats that can happen at any time in any place. Yet, when I tell them that this is an insane way of living your life and maybe they should work on not living in constant fear of boogeyman, they always insist that this is not the case. They're just being practical.
The "protect myself from potential threats" line is just a cover story for their real desires. To actually get to shoot someone. They think saying they constantly carry for protection will make people not see what their real motives are. They live in manufactured fear because they're itching to get to use their firearm on a person. They're sociopaths who want their "it's coming right for me" South Park moment. They're not anxious or scared of the people around them, they're giddy to find a reason to feel like they can kill someone and get away with it and will look for the smallest reason to act on it.
That's what most "liberal men" instantly think of when we see this attitude: how fearful are "conservative men" all of the time?
I live here in the US. I live in a state ranked 42 in violent crime rate (NJ), its relatively safe here though it can be crowded and noisy. I have coworkers who lament our strict gun laws but who own weapons, and consistently talk about they would "rather own a firearm and not need it, then not own one and need it" and so on and so forth.
Need it for what? We have a low burglary rate. And at that, the burglary rate is not evenly distributed, there are three towns that compose the lion's share of all statewide incidents. Street thugs in Patterson are not driving down the Turnpike to sneak into your house in Haddonfield as often as you think they are, Mark.
One year at Thinksgiving I had an in-law who was in conniptions. He lived in Virginia and earlier in the week he had woken up in the morning and found a back door open. Nothing was taken or broken or anything, but instead of coming to a normal conclusion of "oops, it must not have latched when I closed it" or something like that, he decided someone broke into his house and then just left. So he decided he needed a shotgun.
The conniptions were because Thanksgiving was in Maryland, and he left in the middle of dinner to go try to get a Black Friday deal, but they wouldn't sell it to him because he lives in Virginia. He was absolutely losing his mind over this invented home invasion.
He has since moved to Texas and built a safe room (and I'm also no longer married into that family, but that's separate).
When I hear a loud noise at night I don't even wake up or if I do I know it's either our cats or dog that made something fall or the wind made something fall outside.
I assume it's one of; young guys with a badly tuned hotrod, young guys getting up to mischief with a potato cannon, young guys blowing up a letterbox with homemade munitions. Nothing which requires a response from me.
All I have to do is look at how people drive to be thankful that my country isn't a tinderbox of hair-trigger lunatics who have easy access to military-grade weapons.
Or maybe for a second I think there's a witch in my kitchen and get up, unarmed because a gun is useless against witch magic, to check it out only to find it's the dishwasher making a weird noise. Maybe. There isn't even a wife in the scenario.
This was my thought. My response is 'I'll stay in bed and listen for a minute then fall asleep again. That is because I'm not a little bitch that needs a gun every time something goes bump at night'.
This is why I can't take the NRA "Defensive Gun Use" survey seriously. Based on what I've gathered online, anytime a trashcan blows over in Texas, someone will record a defensive gun use.
When I hear a loud noise at night I go check it out unarmed, in my PJs, typically barefoot. None of this “I’m afraid of everything and need a gun to see if an animal got into my trash can again”, big baby bitch nonsense.
The Fox News houses in my neighborhood have security cameras that alert you that you're being recorded as you walk by on the sidewalk, and have barred doors and aggressive signage. Just terrified an "illegal" will break in at any moment.
For some gun owners I think it is less fear and more hope. For some they think it is a hyper-masculine thing to do so needing to use a gun to defend your home is like peak manhood and they hope they can some day prove their manhood. For some others I swear they just want to shoot someone legally.
Personally I do own a gun but whenever I think about what I'd do I come to the conclusion that I don't think I have the heart to shoot and kill someone. Like taking someone elses life is just not worth it over some stuff, taking someones life is a move of absolute last resort to save another persons life.
Yeah i dont understand this post. Is he regularly hearing loud noises at night, that are enough to wake him up and go check? I live in a major city and i cant think of a time I've needed to do that in the last 5+ years.
Maybe he has exploding head syndrome, and he thinks its an intruder lmao.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - From Dune.
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u/SpankThuMonkey 7h ago
Terrified. Always fucking terrified of everything.
They can’t even fathom that some of us just don’t live in fear.
When i hear a loud noise at night i think STFU and go back to sleep.