Three Percent of the Population Own Half the Country's Firearms
March 22, 2018 11:01 AM Subscribe
These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears… In fact, stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes."Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?"
These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears.
They are insecure about their place in the job market but have the funds to buy huge numbers of guns, which each cost hundreds of dollars before you even add in the price of bullets? Seems like their 'economic insecurity' is just a cover for racism.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:08 AM on March 22, 2018 [171 favorites]
They are insecure about their place in the job market but have the funds to buy huge numbers of guns, which each cost hundreds of dollars before you even add in the price of bullets? Seems like their 'economic insecurity' is just a cover for racism.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:08 AM on March 22, 2018 [171 favorites]
Or maybe they are economically insecure because of the choices they make due to racism. That would be ironic.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:09 AM on March 22, 2018 [39 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:09 AM on March 22, 2018 [39 favorites]
I've never knew much about US gun culture until I started getting some dead guy's mail, which included a subscription to American Rifleman. I was curious, so I started reading it.
The appeal to fear, and the expertise by which it is cultivated, were beyond anything I had expected. I mean, I knew there would be some of that, but I was expecting mostly standard libertarian rhetoric, gun safety tips, hunting stories, and equipment geekery. But mostly, there was high-production value imagery and manipulative rhetoric of a dangerous world.
Even if such crap weren't causing 3% of Americans to stockpile weaponry and significantly more to oppose reasonable gun control, it is shameful and disgusting to fill people with fear. Even more than most crass capitalism, American Rifleman felt like a deliberate assault on the emotional well-being of its readers, flung at them in an effective ploy to get them addicted to their own terror. The victims in turn buy more guns, dig in their heels more, and fund the NRA both directly and indirectly.
posted by andrewpcone at 11:14 AM on March 22, 2018 [78 favorites]
The appeal to fear, and the expertise by which it is cultivated, were beyond anything I had expected. I mean, I knew there would be some of that, but I was expecting mostly standard libertarian rhetoric, gun safety tips, hunting stories, and equipment geekery. But mostly, there was high-production value imagery and manipulative rhetoric of a dangerous world.
Even if such crap weren't causing 3% of Americans to stockpile weaponry and significantly more to oppose reasonable gun control, it is shameful and disgusting to fill people with fear. Even more than most crass capitalism, American Rifleman felt like a deliberate assault on the emotional well-being of its readers, flung at them in an effective ploy to get them addicted to their own terror. The victims in turn buy more guns, dig in their heels more, and fund the NRA both directly and indirectly.
posted by andrewpcone at 11:14 AM on March 22, 2018 [78 favorites]
Well, they probably feel economically insecure because having even the cost of 100 guns in the bank is jack shit compared to the security provided by a real social safety net, protections against arbitrary loss of job and housing, and civilized healthcare. But I don't really buy that that's why they're stockpiling guns. Everybody in this fucking tire fire of a country feels economically insecure, not just white men.
posted by enn at 11:14 AM on March 22, 2018 [67 favorites]
posted by enn at 11:14 AM on March 22, 2018 [67 favorites]
Well, they probably feel economically insecure because having even the cost of 100 guns in the bank is jack shit compared to the security provided by a real social safety net, protections against arbitrary loss of job and housing, and civilized healthcare.
Maybe it is, maybe it is not ($100k in the bank goes pretty far in securing healthcare, home, and job loss) but they are explicitly against those things as quoted in the article "Obama is for free health care, for welfare. What happened to hard work?" So no.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
Maybe it is, maybe it is not ($100k in the bank goes pretty far in securing healthcare, home, and job loss) but they are explicitly against those things as quoted in the article "Obama is for free health care, for welfare. What happened to hard work?" So no.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
Why is it that when they have an anxiety problem about completely irrational things, we're supposed to fix it before we can regulate guns, but when I have an anxiety problem, nobody's rushing to reassure me that my life has meaning and people just say I should do therapy? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm not heavily armed. I don't think articles like this are wrong about the anxiety and insecurity, but we need to acknowledge as a society that anxiety and insecurity are sometimes completely baseless or founded in things like racism. White guys don't need to get better jobs before they give up their intensely dangerous ways of coping with their nerves. If they want to be less nervous, they can pay for Headspace or Lexapro or whatever like anybody else.
posted by Sequence at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [110 favorites]
posted by Sequence at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [110 favorites]
beset by racial fears.
Strange way of putting it: as though they were being attacked from the outside by these fears, instead of their arising from their own maggot-ridden souls.
We need to push the ‘good guys’ to have a deeper connection to other people.
So once again, I'm being told that I have to placate these hateful, destructive men because they can't handle their own business, on pain of being murdered by them?
At what point do we decide we are no longer going to indulge these men in their violent control fantasies? What exactly is it they are contributing to society that merits their constant privileging? I keep thinking of that line from Heathers: "Football season is over...[they] had nothing left to offer the school but date rape and AIDS jokes."
posted by praemunire at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [161 favorites]
Strange way of putting it: as though they were being attacked from the outside by these fears, instead of their arising from their own maggot-ridden souls.
We need to push the ‘good guys’ to have a deeper connection to other people.
So once again, I'm being told that I have to placate these hateful, destructive men because they can't handle their own business, on pain of being murdered by them?
At what point do we decide we are no longer going to indulge these men in their violent control fantasies? What exactly is it they are contributing to society that merits their constant privileging? I keep thinking of that line from Heathers: "Football season is over...[they] had nothing left to offer the school but date rape and AIDS jokes."
posted by praemunire at 11:18 AM on March 22, 2018 [161 favorites]
White economic anxiety usually IS racism, not a standalone motive.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:20 AM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:20 AM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
"Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?"
Because they can.
posted by flabdablet at 11:23 AM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
Because they can.
posted by flabdablet at 11:23 AM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
I assume they're waiting for Trump's signal.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:24 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:24 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
What if you buy a gun because you’re afraid of them?
posted by gucci mane at 11:25 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 11:25 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
> Everybody in this fucking tire fire of a country feels economically insecure, not just white men.
True, but it's white men who are being told that the things they have - things they deserve - are under threat from people who do not have and do not deserve those things. Lots of us who are not white and not male and not heterosexual and not Christian want things like economic security and to be heard - and, you know, represented - by our political representatives and white men get the message that they will therefore have less. They feel defensive and means buying guns.
posted by rtha at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2018 [29 favorites]
True, but it's white men who are being told that the things they have - things they deserve - are under threat from people who do not have and do not deserve those things. Lots of us who are not white and not male and not heterosexual and not Christian want things like economic security and to be heard - and, you know, represented - by our political representatives and white men get the message that they will therefore have less. They feel defensive and means buying guns.
posted by rtha at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2018 [29 favorites]
The article and the associated studies don't say it's actual economic pressure that causes these men to want lots of guns, but more a sense of insecurity about not being able to play a particular masculine role involving being a protector and breadwinner.
racism and fantasies of dangerous immigrants, Muslims, and blacks is part of what they think they're "protecting" people from. the NRA and the gun industry fuels this, it's not even dogwhistles at this point.
i think guns should basically be treated as a public health problem at this point. there's a very good reason the NRA has lobbied so hard to make this approach illegal.
it seems pretty reasonable to have some moral disgust for racist gunfuckers, but it won't fix the problem. it's sort of like the old saying "if you owe the bank a billion dollars, it's the banks problem". this is apparently 3% of the population, so it's all of our problem now even if it should be theirs.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:31 AM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
racism and fantasies of dangerous immigrants, Muslims, and blacks is part of what they think they're "protecting" people from. the NRA and the gun industry fuels this, it's not even dogwhistles at this point.
i think guns should basically be treated as a public health problem at this point. there's a very good reason the NRA has lobbied so hard to make this approach illegal.
it seems pretty reasonable to have some moral disgust for racist gunfuckers, but it won't fix the problem. it's sort of like the old saying "if you owe the bank a billion dollars, it's the banks problem". this is apparently 3% of the population, so it's all of our problem now even if it should be theirs.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:31 AM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Guns and Ammo $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:33 AM on March 22, 2018 [132 favorites]
Data $150
Rent $800
Guns and Ammo $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:33 AM on March 22, 2018 [132 favorites]
spend less on guns
posted by vogon_poet at 11:34 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 11:34 AM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
True, but it's white men who are being told that the things they have - things they deserve - are under threat from people who do not have and do not deserve those things.
From talking to some resentful conservative white people, my sense is that many of the ones stockpiling guns have absorbed ideas of what they should have if only they are sufficiently virtuous. The narrative implies, either by explicit statement or conspicuous omission, that classes of people who have generally not had those things have lacked them for the same reason.
So when they don't get the things they believe are their birthright for following the rules they thought they were supposed to, they are terrified. A lot of them read it as an accusation that they have not, in fact, been as hardworking or manly or stalwart as they were supposed to. The only other alternative is that the game is somehow rigged—that someone has usurped their birthright.
And maybe it has. But not everything they thought was their birthright actually was, and to the extent it has been usurped, it is not by black people or gay people trying to get their cut, but by the same facts that have always usurped wealth, namely the fact that capitalism has zero guarantee of equitable outcomes. Unfortunately, when you're trying to defend your entitlements from internalized shame and self-loathing, it is hard to be too subtle about that, and the more terrible part of your brain that says "It's those people's fault," tends to win.
None of this excuses the shitty behavior of people in this emotional position, but I do think it's a good frame to use if we are trying to stop it.
posted by andrewpcone at 11:36 AM on March 22, 2018 [49 favorites]
From talking to some resentful conservative white people, my sense is that many of the ones stockpiling guns have absorbed ideas of what they should have if only they are sufficiently virtuous. The narrative implies, either by explicit statement or conspicuous omission, that classes of people who have generally not had those things have lacked them for the same reason.
So when they don't get the things they believe are their birthright for following the rules they thought they were supposed to, they are terrified. A lot of them read it as an accusation that they have not, in fact, been as hardworking or manly or stalwart as they were supposed to. The only other alternative is that the game is somehow rigged—that someone has usurped their birthright.
And maybe it has. But not everything they thought was their birthright actually was, and to the extent it has been usurped, it is not by black people or gay people trying to get their cut, but by the same facts that have always usurped wealth, namely the fact that capitalism has zero guarantee of equitable outcomes. Unfortunately, when you're trying to defend your entitlements from internalized shame and self-loathing, it is hard to be too subtle about that, and the more terrible part of your brain that says "It's those people's fault," tends to win.
None of this excuses the shitty behavior of people in this emotional position, but I do think it's a good frame to use if we are trying to stop it.
posted by andrewpcone at 11:36 AM on March 22, 2018 [49 favorites]
odinsdream: No clue, but the sort of guns that these folks are stockpiling, your AR-15s and other assault rifles, are no good for hunting, unless you want to bring your meat home pre-ground for burgers.
posted by SansPoint at 11:36 AM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 11:36 AM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
Wonder how man have a subscription to BE AFRAID magazine
posted by gottabefunky at 11:37 AM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:37 AM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
I grew up on the good end of a family pulling itself out of poverty and I don't love the rhetoric here of "well hurf durf don't buy pricey guns dummy!"
Because it's basically the same argument people used to criticize poor people who buy tickets to ball games, or TVs, or nice toys at Christmas, or decent cars, or anything people politically opposed to you think poor people "don't need"
Like there are a lot of great reasons to criticize a closet Klansmen for stockpiling a personal armory. But "poor person should spend money the way I'd like better" is maybe not the most virtuous/productive of those reasons.
posted by French Fry at 11:38 AM on March 22, 2018 [46 favorites]
Because it's basically the same argument people used to criticize poor people who buy tickets to ball games, or TVs, or nice toys at Christmas, or decent cars, or anything people politically opposed to you think poor people "don't need"
Like there are a lot of great reasons to criticize a closet Klansmen for stockpiling a personal armory. But "poor person should spend money the way I'd like better" is maybe not the most virtuous/productive of those reasons.
posted by French Fry at 11:38 AM on March 22, 2018 [46 favorites]
Outside the realm of doomsday preppers and infantry wannabes, target shooting is fun. I could see how a target shooter could keep buying more and more guns, as I own some myself.
First you buy a bolt-action rifle or a handgun after maybe renting one at the range for some target shooting. You learn more about how guns work, how to handle them, and so on and it's intriguing. I had fun as a teen disassembling my old WW2 Mosin-Nagant bolt action and cleaning it, and my family always followed the gun safety/security practices by locking the gun, keeping ammunition separate, etc.
Then after experience with your first gun you want to try a different type- a revolver, shotgun, and so on. It's interesting learning the different mechanisms of the gun (guys love moving metal parts) and how to use it for target practice. It's kind of a social event too if you have family/friends over.
It's just objectively intriguing in some way, learning about and firing these incredibly powerful machines. The engineering and history.
I'd support a ban because, while fun recreationally, these machines were designed to kill humans. They're far far too dangerous in the wrong hands. Half-assed restrictions are not going to be enough, as there is just way too much supply out there and not nearly a flawless way to catch potential criminals.
Just my $0.02.
posted by hexaflexagon at 11:38 AM on March 22, 2018 [53 favorites]
First you buy a bolt-action rifle or a handgun after maybe renting one at the range for some target shooting. You learn more about how guns work, how to handle them, and so on and it's intriguing. I had fun as a teen disassembling my old WW2 Mosin-Nagant bolt action and cleaning it, and my family always followed the gun safety/security practices by locking the gun, keeping ammunition separate, etc.
Then after experience with your first gun you want to try a different type- a revolver, shotgun, and so on. It's interesting learning the different mechanisms of the gun (guys love moving metal parts) and how to use it for target practice. It's kind of a social event too if you have family/friends over.
It's just objectively intriguing in some way, learning about and firing these incredibly powerful machines. The engineering and history.
I'd support a ban because, while fun recreationally, these machines were designed to kill humans. They're far far too dangerous in the wrong hands. Half-assed restrictions are not going to be enough, as there is just way too much supply out there and not nearly a flawless way to catch potential criminals.
Just my $0.02.
posted by hexaflexagon at 11:38 AM on March 22, 2018 [53 favorites]
Because people are understandably demonizing gun ownership culture in this country while also being unwilling to recognize the actual history of marginalized groups using guns and violence to achieve progressive goals.
I recently read a fascinating chapter in James Forman, Jr.'s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America that touches on this. It centers on the the complexity of the local debate around gun control in DC, which was fueled in part by fears that it was a white conspiracy to deprive black people of a history-tested tool for resisting racist violence.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:39 AM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
I recently read a fascinating chapter in James Forman, Jr.'s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America that touches on this. It centers on the the complexity of the local debate around gun control in DC, which was fueled in part by fears that it was a white conspiracy to deprive black people of a history-tested tool for resisting racist violence.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:39 AM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
The most dangerous people throughout history are people who are afraid of losing their grip on power. Because (a) they still have power, which means they can inflict a lot of damage and (b) just as it's human nature to fight against unfairness to rise in the hierarchy, it's also human nature to resist falling in it regardless of fairness.
American culture, which prizes individuality and conquest, a land of zero-sum thinking, takes this hierarchical tendency and super-charges it, because it makes some people a shit-ton of cash. Not everyone buys into the story, but enough do to make things dangerous and shitty.
When I talk to other white guys about it -- "hey, what's with all the guns" -- and conversations turn odd quickly.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 11:42 AM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
American culture, which prizes individuality and conquest, a land of zero-sum thinking, takes this hierarchical tendency and super-charges it, because it makes some people a shit-ton of cash. Not everyone buys into the story, but enough do to make things dangerous and shitty.
When I talk to other white guys about it -- "hey, what's with all the guns" -- and conversations turn odd quickly.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 11:42 AM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
Even more than most crass capitalism, American Rifleman felt like a deliberate assault on the emotional well-being of its readers, flung at them in an effective ploy to get them addicted to their own terror.
So...like a women's magazine, but for men?
posted by sexyrobot at 11:43 AM on March 22, 2018 [68 favorites]
So...like a women's magazine, but for men?
posted by sexyrobot at 11:43 AM on March 22, 2018 [68 favorites]
“Racial fears”
Jesus fucking Christ they’re racists
Just call them racists
posted by schadenfrau at 11:45 AM on March 22, 2018 [116 favorites]
Jesus fucking Christ they’re racists
Just call them racists
posted by schadenfrau at 11:45 AM on March 22, 2018 [116 favorites]
insecure about their place in the job market and beset by racial fears
AND SO THEY BUY GUNS???!! JHChrist!
posted by MiraK at 11:45 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
AND SO THEY BUY GUNS???!! JHChrist!
posted by MiraK at 11:45 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
We have to worship the military at all times, but also I have to stockpile weapons to be able to shoot them if I feel I need to.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:47 AM on March 22, 2018 [41 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 11:47 AM on March 22, 2018 [41 favorites]
But "poor person should spend money the way I'd like better" is maybe not the most virtuous/productive of those reasons.
I'm making the point that they aren't actually poor at all - the economic anxiety they say they are experiencing (and is regularly referenced in the article) is a false cover. It's more like a millionaire begging for lower taxes 'because something might happen' than a poor person buying a steak and lobster meal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:48 AM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
I'm making the point that they aren't actually poor at all - the economic anxiety they say they are experiencing (and is regularly referenced in the article) is a false cover. It's more like a millionaire begging for lower taxes 'because something might happen' than a poor person buying a steak and lobster meal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:48 AM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
maybe they are economically insecure because of the choices they make due to racism. That would be ironic.
The_Vegetables, only like rain on your wedding day.
posted by MiraK at 11:50 AM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
The_Vegetables, only like rain on your wedding day.
posted by MiraK at 11:50 AM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Who's got data on how many people there actually are in the US who hunt for their primary source of food?
This piece doesn't answer that question, but it does note that the total share of the US population that hunts, full stop, was 4.4% in 2016, down from 7.3% in 1991.
So we can conclude that the percentile of subsistence hunters is less than 4.4%. Trying to dig up better info than that ran into an interesting barrier. "Subsistence hunting" appears to have a specific meaning in discussions about hunting in the US, and it is tied to disputes around Native American people seeking to enforce treaty rights to hunting and fishing access. Pretty interesting rabbit hole, actually, but I never got close to getting a subset number.
posted by mwhybark at 11:51 AM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
This piece doesn't answer that question, but it does note that the total share of the US population that hunts, full stop, was 4.4% in 2016, down from 7.3% in 1991.
So we can conclude that the percentile of subsistence hunters is less than 4.4%. Trying to dig up better info than that ran into an interesting barrier. "Subsistence hunting" appears to have a specific meaning in discussions about hunting in the US, and it is tied to disputes around Native American people seeking to enforce treaty rights to hunting and fishing access. Pretty interesting rabbit hole, actually, but I never got close to getting a subset number.
posted by mwhybark at 11:51 AM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
my family always followed the gun safety/security practices by locking the gun, keeping ammunition separate, etc. .... I'd support a ban because, while fun recreationally, these machines were designed to kill humans. They're far far too dangerous in the wrong hands.
I greatly appreciate this comment. Most often when I'm having a discussion about gun control with gun owners who oppose controls, I find that the crux of their argument at some point becomes a variation on the theme of "I, personally, can be trusted with guns, therefore you should not in any way abridge my personal access to them." And that's just entirely missing the point of how the social contract works.
posted by solotoro at 11:51 AM on March 22, 2018 [42 favorites]
I greatly appreciate this comment. Most often when I'm having a discussion about gun control with gun owners who oppose controls, I find that the crux of their argument at some point becomes a variation on the theme of "I, personally, can be trusted with guns, therefore you should not in any way abridge my personal access to them." And that's just entirely missing the point of how the social contract works.
posted by solotoro at 11:51 AM on March 22, 2018 [42 favorites]
> I recently read a fascinating chapter in James Forman, Jr.'s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America that touches on this. It centers on the the complexity of the local debate around gun control in DC, which was fueled in part by fears that it was a white conspiracy to deprive black people of a history-tested tool for resisting racist violence.
Well yes, this makes perfect sense. The police already brutally murder black people for suspecting they might have a gun, a gun ban would accelerate this violence ten-fold.
posted by ReadEvalPost at 11:53 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well yes, this makes perfect sense. The police already brutally murder black people for suspecting they might have a gun, a gun ban would accelerate this violence ten-fold.
posted by ReadEvalPost at 11:53 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Even more than most crass capitalism, American Rifleman felt like a deliberate assault on the emotional well-being of its readers, flung at them in an effective ploy to get them addicted to their own terror.
I'm not so sure I'd point to American Rifleman and other gun-culture magazines as the main catalyst for fear, because a) it's a self-selecting audience and b) it's not the only publication to play on fears to get people to do things. People who aren't in the habit of reading American Rifleman wouldn't see the messages of warning they're delivering; and those that would are already down with the message anyway, becuase - they subscribe to American Rifleman.
And as for "Other publications can get fear-mongery to the point of folly too" - I used to subscribe to The Utne Reader back in the late 90s and early aughts. And in the middle of 1999, they produced a separate pamphlet and stuck it into the middle of their latest issue, advising readers "how to prepare for the Y2K crisis". And it was a completely ridiculous forecast of doom-and-destruction, urging readers to stockpile food and water and make their own generators or solar panels and start forming the community watch patrol services now while there was still time when the totality of civilization crashed and burned. (That was probably why I let my subscription lapse a few months later.)
Bowling for Columbine had its own argument about "where was the fear coming from" that I bought when I saw it - the nightly news media. Here in the US especially, the whole "if it bleeds it leads" approach to news was scaring the hell out of everyone, even more so when CNN introduced the 24/7 news cycle; with that much airtime, and that much of a need for ratings, you have to come up with things that will attract attention. Blood and guts attract attention. Ergo - you play up the alarming stuff to catch people's attention.
I mean, I don't know how to fix this, I just think that the constant drumbeat of news is doing more to scare us all. And all American Rifelman is doing is offering one possible panacea to whoever wants to listen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:55 AM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm not so sure I'd point to American Rifleman and other gun-culture magazines as the main catalyst for fear, because a) it's a self-selecting audience and b) it's not the only publication to play on fears to get people to do things. People who aren't in the habit of reading American Rifleman wouldn't see the messages of warning they're delivering; and those that would are already down with the message anyway, becuase - they subscribe to American Rifleman.
And as for "Other publications can get fear-mongery to the point of folly too" - I used to subscribe to The Utne Reader back in the late 90s and early aughts. And in the middle of 1999, they produced a separate pamphlet and stuck it into the middle of their latest issue, advising readers "how to prepare for the Y2K crisis". And it was a completely ridiculous forecast of doom-and-destruction, urging readers to stockpile food and water and make their own generators or solar panels and start forming the community watch patrol services now while there was still time when the totality of civilization crashed and burned. (That was probably why I let my subscription lapse a few months later.)
Bowling for Columbine had its own argument about "where was the fear coming from" that I bought when I saw it - the nightly news media. Here in the US especially, the whole "if it bleeds it leads" approach to news was scaring the hell out of everyone, even more so when CNN introduced the 24/7 news cycle; with that much airtime, and that much of a need for ratings, you have to come up with things that will attract attention. Blood and guts attract attention. Ergo - you play up the alarming stuff to catch people's attention.
I mean, I don't know how to fix this, I just think that the constant drumbeat of news is doing more to scare us all. And all American Rifelman is doing is offering one possible panacea to whoever wants to listen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:55 AM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm so tired of the "Guns are the founding fathers' check against tyranny."
Instead of "2nd Amendment absolutists," if we're going to take them at their word, let's call them what they say they want to be: cop killers.
That's what they're suggesting, right? That when the government has gone too far (in their opinion) they get to use their personal weapons defend themselves against that?
Gonna mean killing cops, guys. Cops and soldiers.
It's not going to mean marching up the Capitol steps and blowing a hole in the Democratic caucus.
Fighting tyranny means sitting in a fourth floor window waiting for a clean shot on your buddy's son-in-law, the 28-year-old Chelsea FC fan that helped you shingle your shed last summer. It means you're hoarding "tactical" weapons to mow down the neighbor kid who joined the Army Reserves a couple years ago.
If that's your enemy - law enforcement - then fucking own it, cop-killer. But you won't. Because your enemy is really the blacks.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:56 AM on March 22, 2018 [137 favorites]
Instead of "2nd Amendment absolutists," if we're going to take them at their word, let's call them what they say they want to be: cop killers.
That's what they're suggesting, right? That when the government has gone too far (in their opinion) they get to use their personal weapons defend themselves against that?
Gonna mean killing cops, guys. Cops and soldiers.
It's not going to mean marching up the Capitol steps and blowing a hole in the Democratic caucus.
Fighting tyranny means sitting in a fourth floor window waiting for a clean shot on your buddy's son-in-law, the 28-year-old Chelsea FC fan that helped you shingle your shed last summer. It means you're hoarding "tactical" weapons to mow down the neighbor kid who joined the Army Reserves a couple years ago.
If that's your enemy - law enforcement - then fucking own it, cop-killer. But you won't. Because your enemy is really the blacks.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:56 AM on March 22, 2018 [137 favorites]
From this article on NPR yesterday, the latest survey of hunters by the USFWS is 5% of the American population 16 years and older, and the numbers are dwindling as Baby Boomers become less mobile.
It's an interesting story about hunting, money, and conservation.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 12:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
It's an interesting story about hunting, money, and conservation.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 12:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
So...like a women's magazine, but for men?
That's pretty much what the gun advertising and culture has always struck me as, the equivalent of the "You're a horrible mother if you don't buy these products for your baby; you're a horrible wife if you don't do these things for your husband; you're a failure as a woman if you don't buy these things and do these things" advertising aimed at ciswomen in America.
I've been saying this a lot in discussions about guns in America lately, but it's worth repeating my tale. I grew up (ages 11 - 17) in a neighborhood in Ft Lauderdale that was so violent and dangerous that people in other bad neighborhoods called it "Vietnam." I was "beset" by racial fears: I was bullied by white kids because of my race, I had teachers and administrators discriminate both subtly and openly against me. We certainly felt economic insecurity, relying on government aid and private charity at various points.
At no point in my youth would having a gun have helped me in any way. In any way.
And I guarantee that had I acted out in a violent way in response to these pressures I faced as a kid, no police chief would have viewed anything I said prior to or during my acts as "the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point."
I feel pretty sure that a non-trivial number of these dudes have guns because they want to hurt people, and they're hoping for an opportunity. To paraphrase Gunnery Sgt Hartmann, they see themselves as "Minister[s]of Death, praying for war," war against those people.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [84 favorites]
That's pretty much what the gun advertising and culture has always struck me as, the equivalent of the "You're a horrible mother if you don't buy these products for your baby; you're a horrible wife if you don't do these things for your husband; you're a failure as a woman if you don't buy these things and do these things" advertising aimed at ciswomen in America.
I've been saying this a lot in discussions about guns in America lately, but it's worth repeating my tale. I grew up (ages 11 - 17) in a neighborhood in Ft Lauderdale that was so violent and dangerous that people in other bad neighborhoods called it "Vietnam." I was "beset" by racial fears: I was bullied by white kids because of my race, I had teachers and administrators discriminate both subtly and openly against me. We certainly felt economic insecurity, relying on government aid and private charity at various points.
At no point in my youth would having a gun have helped me in any way. In any way.
And I guarantee that had I acted out in a violent way in response to these pressures I faced as a kid, no police chief would have viewed anything I said prior to or during my acts as "the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point."
I feel pretty sure that a non-trivial number of these dudes have guns because they want to hurt people, and they're hoping for an opportunity. To paraphrase Gunnery Sgt Hartmann, they see themselves as "Minister[s]of Death, praying for war," war against those people.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [84 favorites]
The police already brutally murder black people for suspecting they might have a gun, a gun ban would accelerate this violence ten-fold.
The main action of the chapter takes place in the mid-1970s, when the Black Panther Party and, to a lesser extent, black resistance against the so-called "race riots" of the early 20th c. ("more accurately described as organized white-on-black violence" notes Forman) provided much of the context.
DC has had large protests against police brutality and police murders going back to at least the mid-1930s. White violence was so pervasive, though - especially in the minds of the many black people who moved here from the South in the 1st half of the 20th c. - that a significant and vocal contingent still saw arming themselves as the only guarantee of safety.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:15 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
The main action of the chapter takes place in the mid-1970s, when the Black Panther Party and, to a lesser extent, black resistance against the so-called "race riots" of the early 20th c. ("more accurately described as organized white-on-black violence" notes Forman) provided much of the context.
DC has had large protests against police brutality and police murders going back to at least the mid-1930s. White violence was so pervasive, though - especially in the minds of the many black people who moved here from the South in the 1st half of the 20th c. - that a significant and vocal contingent still saw arming themselves as the only guarantee of safety.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:15 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
In some ways these sound a whole lot like abusers. They feel entitled to their weapons, to tools of ultimate violent control. And they feel entitled to use them to make people they don’t like feel fear. Like it’s part of their identity, and if they don’t have this ability theu are somehow unmanned. It’s like terrorism light, until they snap, when it just becomes terrorism.
Something about the intersection of toxic masculinity and racism produces this vile superbug of human evil.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [34 favorites]
Something about the intersection of toxic masculinity and racism produces this vile superbug of human evil.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [34 favorites]
Maybe this isn't the place to post this but a very good friend/co-worker of mine who is white and male, (I am a visible minority) has recently started to take on some more libertarian views and is now getting his gun license and will soon be purchasing a gun. From his perspective, I don't think he's noticed yet that it is causing a rift and that I'm becoming wary of hanging out with him.
But I'm legit worried. I've expressed my views on gun culture, violence, racism, the current POTUS, and he is starting to send me links to reddit threads and fox news and ugh. I feel like the friendship is crumbling before my eyes. I also don't want to have to make it a big thing and draw attention to it because that's stressful. So I feel like I may just let this friendship become distance and ghost out slowly.
I should note, we're in Canada and I've started to see these types of political views creep upwards into our own country. And I'm not naive in thinking that guns or conservatism were not present in this country (the treatment of indigenous/first nations people has a long history of confronting these topics), it's not solely a problem of the US, but I feel like within the last few years, it's become more of a thing and it seems to stem from the normalization of these types of unfounded fears of persecution, victimization, in the United States. I feel like I'm not explaining myself well, so I apologize if I'm making sweeping generalizations, I guess I'm just sad that my friend is turning this way. It scares me.
:(
posted by Fizz at 12:28 PM on March 22, 2018 [49 favorites]
But I'm legit worried. I've expressed my views on gun culture, violence, racism, the current POTUS, and he is starting to send me links to reddit threads and fox news and ugh. I feel like the friendship is crumbling before my eyes. I also don't want to have to make it a big thing and draw attention to it because that's stressful. So I feel like I may just let this friendship become distance and ghost out slowly.
I should note, we're in Canada and I've started to see these types of political views creep upwards into our own country. And I'm not naive in thinking that guns or conservatism were not present in this country (the treatment of indigenous/first nations people has a long history of confronting these topics), it's not solely a problem of the US, but I feel like within the last few years, it's become more of a thing and it seems to stem from the normalization of these types of unfounded fears of persecution, victimization, in the United States. I feel like I'm not explaining myself well, so I apologize if I'm making sweeping generalizations, I guess I'm just sad that my friend is turning this way. It scares me.
:(
posted by Fizz at 12:28 PM on March 22, 2018 [49 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos: W/r/t the "If it bleeds, it leads" stuff, a lot of these reports of crime and gun violence are coming out of cities, yet you don't hear much about urban dwellers packing giant caches of semi-automatic weapons. (It does happen though.)
And I should also add to this, I'm a city-dweller, and I've been the victim of urban crime. This includes an attempted mugging on the subway, an attempted home intrusion, and the armed hold up of the coffee shop I lived over. I not only do not own a gun, I have even _less_ interest in owning a gun after experiencing these things.
posted by SansPoint at 12:36 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
And I should also add to this, I'm a city-dweller, and I've been the victim of urban crime. This includes an attempted mugging on the subway, an attempted home intrusion, and the armed hold up of the coffee shop I lived over. I not only do not own a gun, I have even _less_ interest in owning a gun after experiencing these things.
posted by SansPoint at 12:36 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm a lifelong sportsman, and love both hunting and fishing. I try to take around three deer a year, and this provides our red meat for the year, or maybe more. I hunt other species as well - wild turkeys and small game - but deer are my primary passion.
I've never understood the whole gun stockpiling thing. I'm 50 now, and I use the same shotgun I got for Christmas at the age of 13. I use the same deer rifle I got at age 16. My turkey gun is over 30 years old. I did buy a new muzzleloader - about 15 years ago. If I'm lucky enough to kill my deer with my bow, my deer rifle may never make it out of the closet. My guns never see the light of day unless I'm taking them out to hunt. If I didn't offer the neighbors meat each year, they would never know I have guns in the house. I'm not a member of the NRA. They stopped representing guys like me years ago.
Surely there are others out there like me?
posted by bwvol at 12:38 PM on March 22, 2018 [79 favorites]
I've never understood the whole gun stockpiling thing. I'm 50 now, and I use the same shotgun I got for Christmas at the age of 13. I use the same deer rifle I got at age 16. My turkey gun is over 30 years old. I did buy a new muzzleloader - about 15 years ago. If I'm lucky enough to kill my deer with my bow, my deer rifle may never make it out of the closet. My guns never see the light of day unless I'm taking them out to hunt. If I didn't offer the neighbors meat each year, they would never know I have guns in the house. I'm not a member of the NRA. They stopped representing guys like me years ago.
Surely there are others out there like me?
posted by bwvol at 12:38 PM on March 22, 2018 [79 favorites]
a month or so ago, I skated by the edge of a dumpster fire social media argument where two sides were hashing the practical limits of whether a collective of gun owners could actually provide a real check against a tyrannical government, and one of the arguments that I saw was from a gun collector who basically said, "I am one man, but I have a dozen rifles, which means that if needed, I can train my friends and neighbors and have a militia overnight."
And, yeah, it's anecdata, but it made me wonder how many of these folks really are just living hollow lives, waiting for their moment to be the hero and the general that they felt that they always deserved to be. They probably grew up with toy soldiers imagining heroic victories and firefights and just never grew out of that fantasy.
posted by bl1nk at 12:39 PM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
And, yeah, it's anecdata, but it made me wonder how many of these folks really are just living hollow lives, waiting for their moment to be the hero and the general that they felt that they always deserved to be. They probably grew up with toy soldiers imagining heroic victories and firefights and just never grew out of that fantasy.
posted by bl1nk at 12:39 PM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
bl1nk: A twelve-member militia is no match for a Predator drone.
posted by SansPoint at 12:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [28 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 12:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [28 favorites]
Gun debates on mefi are always really interesting to me because I've seen both sides of the debate.
I can't provide actual numbers for subsistence hunters, but people who hunt by necessity as their main source of food are exceedingly rare. I grew up in a place (mid-Michigan) where hunting was common and quite normal, and I only know of one true subsistence hunter. That said, I would guess that a substantial portion of hunters use hunting as a supplementary method of food, supplementing both quantity and quality of meat for themselves and their families/community. Hunted food is of vastly higher quality from a health perspective than factory farmed food in general, and allows much more ready access to meat. My family was gifted a hunted deer more than once, filling our freezer with meat, and this wasn't uncommon around the community.
Hunting also makes sense in Michigan from a conservation perspective. Whitetail deer (by far the most popular hunting target) are a serious pest, and controlling their numbers is actually pretty imperative to prevent mass starvation. But entwined with all of that is a healthy dose of toxic masculinity. Everybody wanted buck permits to go after trophy bucks - I remember plenty of people complaining when they were only able to get doe tags because hunting a doe is considered less manly than going after big-point bucks.
But truthfully speaking, hunting is a deflection tactic used by anti-gun control folks. The three percent of Americans in question are mostly buying weapons that have virtually no use as anything but human-killing machines. Military weapons and those designed to mimic them are designed for killing people, not for hunting. Military rounds cause serious bruising in meat and massive internal damage, spoiling big chunks of the carcass. So people defending their ownership of AR-15s in the guise of "hunting" are lying liars.
You could easily protect the ability of hunters to hunt while seriously limiting the capacity of people to do damage to fellow humans by outlawing semi-automatic weapons that fire over e.g. 10 bullets a minute or with a capacity of over e.g. 8 rounds. The most common hunting weapons in my area were semi-automatic 12 or 20 gauge shotguns and .30-06 hunting rifles. These typically have a max capacity of around 5 rounds. These limits could be determined semi-scientifically based on what we know about hunting needs and gun attacks.
Outlawing ownership by civilians of high-caliber weapons combined with the above would be another easy way to allow hunters to hunt while protecting humans (the bigger the bullet, the more damage it does and the less likely victims are to live). This might be a little more tricky politically, the aforementioned .30-06 is a bullet large enough to do serious damage to humans, but the capacity and loading time of a typical hunting weapon make them poor choices for mass shootings, so you could probably carve out exceptions for typical hunting calibers provided they meet strict firing rate and capacity requirements.
Measures like this would pretty much take the wind out of the sales of the "hunting" argument against gun control, and avoid many of the problems of past gun-control measures where manufactures can change enough minor details to get around the rules. Of course, the hunting argument is at least half cover for people who don't want ANY restrictions on weapons, but appearing to meet people halfway, backed up with some science, would make these restrictions a lot more politically palatable.
posted by zug at 12:45 PM on March 22, 2018 [39 favorites]
I can't provide actual numbers for subsistence hunters, but people who hunt by necessity as their main source of food are exceedingly rare. I grew up in a place (mid-Michigan) where hunting was common and quite normal, and I only know of one true subsistence hunter. That said, I would guess that a substantial portion of hunters use hunting as a supplementary method of food, supplementing both quantity and quality of meat for themselves and their families/community. Hunted food is of vastly higher quality from a health perspective than factory farmed food in general, and allows much more ready access to meat. My family was gifted a hunted deer more than once, filling our freezer with meat, and this wasn't uncommon around the community.
Hunting also makes sense in Michigan from a conservation perspective. Whitetail deer (by far the most popular hunting target) are a serious pest, and controlling their numbers is actually pretty imperative to prevent mass starvation. But entwined with all of that is a healthy dose of toxic masculinity. Everybody wanted buck permits to go after trophy bucks - I remember plenty of people complaining when they were only able to get doe tags because hunting a doe is considered less manly than going after big-point bucks.
But truthfully speaking, hunting is a deflection tactic used by anti-gun control folks. The three percent of Americans in question are mostly buying weapons that have virtually no use as anything but human-killing machines. Military weapons and those designed to mimic them are designed for killing people, not for hunting. Military rounds cause serious bruising in meat and massive internal damage, spoiling big chunks of the carcass. So people defending their ownership of AR-15s in the guise of "hunting" are lying liars.
You could easily protect the ability of hunters to hunt while seriously limiting the capacity of people to do damage to fellow humans by outlawing semi-automatic weapons that fire over e.g. 10 bullets a minute or with a capacity of over e.g. 8 rounds. The most common hunting weapons in my area were semi-automatic 12 or 20 gauge shotguns and .30-06 hunting rifles. These typically have a max capacity of around 5 rounds. These limits could be determined semi-scientifically based on what we know about hunting needs and gun attacks.
Outlawing ownership by civilians of high-caliber weapons combined with the above would be another easy way to allow hunters to hunt while protecting humans (the bigger the bullet, the more damage it does and the less likely victims are to live). This might be a little more tricky politically, the aforementioned .30-06 is a bullet large enough to do serious damage to humans, but the capacity and loading time of a typical hunting weapon make them poor choices for mass shootings, so you could probably carve out exceptions for typical hunting calibers provided they meet strict firing rate and capacity requirements.
Measures like this would pretty much take the wind out of the sales of the "hunting" argument against gun control, and avoid many of the problems of past gun-control measures where manufactures can change enough minor details to get around the rules. Of course, the hunting argument is at least half cover for people who don't want ANY restrictions on weapons, but appearing to meet people halfway, backed up with some science, would make these restrictions a lot more politically palatable.
posted by zug at 12:45 PM on March 22, 2018 [39 favorites]
Regarding the “we shouldn’t criticize people for spending money however they please” - the issue with applying that here is that, for the most part, the people we’re talking about are hoarding many guns and (frequently) planning to buy more.
This is nothing like the Fox News claim that people with refrigerators can’t be poor, this is like saying that a person with a dozen brand new cars shouldn’t claim to be impoverished.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:45 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
This is nothing like the Fox News claim that people with refrigerators can’t be poor, this is like saying that a person with a dozen brand new cars shouldn’t claim to be impoverished.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:45 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
You could easily protect the ability of hunters to hunt while seriously limiting the capacity of people to do damage to fellow humans by outlawing semi-automatic weapons that fire over e.g. 10 bullets a minute or with a capacity of over e.g. 8 rounds. The most common hunting weapons in my area were semi-automatic 12 or 20 gauge shotguns and .30-06 hunting rifles. These typically have a max capacity of around 5 rounds. These limits could be determined scientifically based on what we know about gun attacks.
Agreed. Most of the semi-autos you see with high capacity magazines, etc have very little applicability when it comes to hunting anyway. Give me a pump shotgun, a bolt action deer rifle, maybe a little lever action .22 for small game, and I have all I need to hunt effectively.
posted by bwvol at 12:50 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
Agreed. Most of the semi-autos you see with high capacity magazines, etc have very little applicability when it comes to hunting anyway. Give me a pump shotgun, a bolt action deer rifle, maybe a little lever action .22 for small game, and I have all I need to hunt effectively.
posted by bwvol at 12:50 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
“Ridicule of working-class white people is not helpful,” says Angela Stroud. “We need to push the ‘good guys’ to have a deeper connection to other people. We need to reimagine who we are in relation to each other.”
you can take away my ridicule of craven idiot manchildren when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, person quoted in TFA.
so many racist, gun-owning dipshits have wives, children, big families, communities that they feel like they belong to. but definitely the problem is that the people in their lives aren't doing enough emotional labor for them.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:51 PM on March 22, 2018 [62 favorites]
you can take away my ridicule of craven idiot manchildren when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, person quoted in TFA.
so many racist, gun-owning dipshits have wives, children, big families, communities that they feel like they belong to. but definitely the problem is that the people in their lives aren't doing enough emotional labor for them.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:51 PM on March 22, 2018 [62 favorites]
That when the government has gone too far (in their opinion) they get to use their personal weapons defend themselves against that?
Gonna mean killing cops, guys. Cops and soldiers.
The typical response I hear, with respect to soldiers is, "what makes you think they will be on your side?" They seem to assume every soldier who takes an oath is a small-scale supreme court justice who can interpret the constitution accurately, and will come to the conclusion that the government has gone too far!
(Or, at the very least, that the military has drunk the same Kool-Aid they did.)
When it comes to law enforcement, they pretty much are already there. This is why they are able to so quickly demonize the FBI forlooking into a counterintelligence matter regarding Russia going after Trump.
posted by MrGuilt at 12:52 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Gonna mean killing cops, guys. Cops and soldiers.
The typical response I hear, with respect to soldiers is, "what makes you think they will be on your side?" They seem to assume every soldier who takes an oath is a small-scale supreme court justice who can interpret the constitution accurately, and will come to the conclusion that the government has gone too far!
(Or, at the very least, that the military has drunk the same Kool-Aid they did.)
When it comes to law enforcement, they pretty much are already there. This is why they are able to so quickly demonize the FBI for
posted by MrGuilt at 12:52 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I see they’re trying to rehabilitate the latest school shooter as “lonely”.
I do note that he was only able to scrounge together a handgun, and lacking a proper assault rifle for the job wasn’t able to fend off the local security guards or kill double digits of students.
posted by Artw at 12:53 PM on March 22, 2018
I do note that he was only able to scrounge together a handgun, and lacking a proper assault rifle for the job wasn’t able to fend off the local security guards or kill double digits of students.
posted by Artw at 12:53 PM on March 22, 2018
You could easily protect the ability of hunters to hunt while seriously limiting the capacity of people to do damage to fellow humans by outlawing semi-automatic weapons that fire over e.g. 10 bullets a minute or with a capacity of over e.g. 8 rounds.
For duck and other bird hunting, hunters support and Game Wardens enforce laws that the gun can only hold a limited number of bullets in the 6-8 range, and there are daily limits of the number of birds you can kill. This is because a guy with a few guns and unlimited rounds could decimate the population.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
For duck and other bird hunting, hunters support and Game Wardens enforce laws that the gun can only hold a limited number of bullets in the 6-8 range, and there are daily limits of the number of birds you can kill. This is because a guy with a few guns and unlimited rounds could decimate the population.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
The 3% who own half the guns are not poor people. I've said before that they are not normal. By that, I mean they have a gun fetish; they're perverts. I'm not saying that about the other 90%+ of gun owners, even though I think most of them have made a bad decision.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
W/r/t the "If it bleeds, it leads" stuff, a lot of these reports of crime and gun violence are coming out of cities, yet you don't hear much about urban dwellers packing giant caches of semi-automatic weapons.
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place? Not that it isn't newsworthy, and not that there aren't exceptional cases (the Austin bomber comes to mind), but why would someone in, say, Saugerties NY be hearing as much as they do about crime in New York City? I don't hear about all the crimes in Saugerties - although I'm sure there are some.
My point being: the news cycle has gotten so desperate for content that they are showing us all things that would have previously been confined to local news in various markets. That approach had its disadvantages, of course, but I still feel like we all had a better sense of proportion about whether the news we were hearing about was "does it just affect the people who live over there" or "omigod the bad guys are everywhere".
The reports of crime and gun violence come out of cities. But people in rural areas are hearing about them too, and as a result of getting bombarded with it they are thinking that the crime is about to show up on their doorstep too, and are arming themselves.
My opinion, anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:55 PM on March 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place? Not that it isn't newsworthy, and not that there aren't exceptional cases (the Austin bomber comes to mind), but why would someone in, say, Saugerties NY be hearing as much as they do about crime in New York City? I don't hear about all the crimes in Saugerties - although I'm sure there are some.
My point being: the news cycle has gotten so desperate for content that they are showing us all things that would have previously been confined to local news in various markets. That approach had its disadvantages, of course, but I still feel like we all had a better sense of proportion about whether the news we were hearing about was "does it just affect the people who live over there" or "omigod the bad guys are everywhere".
The reports of crime and gun violence come out of cities. But people in rural areas are hearing about them too, and as a result of getting bombarded with it they are thinking that the crime is about to show up on their doorstep too, and are arming themselves.
My opinion, anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:55 PM on March 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
"I am one man, but I have a dozen rifles, which means that if needed, I can train my friends and neighbors and have a militia overnight."
oh yeah, great, welcome to Afghanistan circa forever. On one hand the mujahideen did drive out the Soviets, on the other hand the place is basically in the stone age at this point so yeah, you have everything it takes to burn all of civilization to the ground local-militia-guy. Enjoy it.
posted by GuyZero at 12:57 PM on March 22, 2018 [24 favorites]
oh yeah, great, welcome to Afghanistan circa forever. On one hand the mujahideen did drive out the Soviets, on the other hand the place is basically in the stone age at this point so yeah, you have everything it takes to burn all of civilization to the ground local-militia-guy. Enjoy it.
posted by GuyZero at 12:57 PM on March 22, 2018 [24 favorites]
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place?
Crime is at an all-time low. Oh, wait, you mean "urban" crime.
posted by monospace at 1:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
Crime is at an all-time low. Oh, wait, you mean "urban" crime.
posted by monospace at 1:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
I've been around guns all my life and two my favorite men have had or continue to have what would be considered a 'stockpile' of guns.
While my dad was casually racist but genuinely kind to people on a one-on-one basis, his stated reason for collecting guns was because he liked them and wanted to be able to protect his family. However, after watching him most of his life I think I can safely say that the reason he had over 40 guns at his death was due to one of the following three reasons:
1. He wanted to be a cowboy when he was a kid, the gun was cowboy like and allowed him to have some of that childish joy back.
2. He was poor as a child and couldn't afford that specific gun when he wanted it. As an older man he could.
3. It was just so damn pretty/well-made/neat that he couldn't pass it up.
With my husband, I've seen similar factors come up, although the largest reason is that my dad bequeathed them to him and he feels obligated to honor the man. My husband has the added factor of being left-handed, so if a gun is built for him it's hard for him to turn it down.
That said, both men firmly believe that if things got bad the guns would protect them. With my husband it's less about criminals and 'bad guys' and more about crazy shit like Trump. But either one fails to fully grasp how little owning a gun will do to keep you safe. It's akin to the idea that if I buy just the right running shoe, I'll be an awesome runner. So I keep trying. Except for the fact that shoes don't kill large numbers of people.
Also, as a hunter, I'd call this statement less than honest:
No clue, but the sort of guns that these folks are stockpiling, your AR-15s and other assault rifles, are no good for hunting, unless you want to bring your meat home pre-ground for burgers.
An AR is semi-automatic. That just means you can fire more quickly with out having to eject the round. You still have to pull the trigger every time you want a bullet to leave. That said, you're kind of a shitty hunter if you have to fire more than once at a deer.
posted by teleri025 at 1:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
While my dad was casually racist but genuinely kind to people on a one-on-one basis, his stated reason for collecting guns was because he liked them and wanted to be able to protect his family. However, after watching him most of his life I think I can safely say that the reason he had over 40 guns at his death was due to one of the following three reasons:
1. He wanted to be a cowboy when he was a kid, the gun was cowboy like and allowed him to have some of that childish joy back.
2. He was poor as a child and couldn't afford that specific gun when he wanted it. As an older man he could.
3. It was just so damn pretty/well-made/neat that he couldn't pass it up.
With my husband, I've seen similar factors come up, although the largest reason is that my dad bequeathed them to him and he feels obligated to honor the man. My husband has the added factor of being left-handed, so if a gun is built for him it's hard for him to turn it down.
That said, both men firmly believe that if things got bad the guns would protect them. With my husband it's less about criminals and 'bad guys' and more about crazy shit like Trump. But either one fails to fully grasp how little owning a gun will do to keep you safe. It's akin to the idea that if I buy just the right running shoe, I'll be an awesome runner. So I keep trying. Except for the fact that shoes don't kill large numbers of people.
Also, as a hunter, I'd call this statement less than honest:
No clue, but the sort of guns that these folks are stockpiling, your AR-15s and other assault rifles, are no good for hunting, unless you want to bring your meat home pre-ground for burgers.
An AR is semi-automatic. That just means you can fire more quickly with out having to eject the round. You still have to pull the trigger every time you want a bullet to leave. That said, you're kind of a shitty hunter if you have to fire more than once at a deer.
posted by teleri025 at 1:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
Crime is at an all-time low. Oh, wait, you mean "urban" crime.
No, I mean "crime in cities". And you are correct that it is low. but it is still talked up like crazy on the media, which causes [insert the statements I already made about the 24 hour news cycle here again]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:06 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
No, I mean "crime in cities". And you are correct that it is low. but it is still talked up like crazy on the media, which causes [insert the statements I already made about the 24 hour news cycle here again]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:06 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Signatures are being gathered in Oregon to get an initiative on the ballot to ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines. If a gun owner meets certain criteria to keep the weapons, the weapons must be licensed.
Of course, since this is local news, the article ends with a well-argued and reasonable statement from a Republican state lawmaker:
"We must do something, but this is crazy."
posted by vverse23 at 1:07 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
Of course, since this is local news, the article ends with a well-argued and reasonable statement from a Republican state lawmaker:
"We must do something, but this is crazy."
posted by vverse23 at 1:07 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
restrictive gun laws don’t prevent white men from defending themselves and their families. Instead, those laws stop them from shooting themselves and each other.
If only it were that simple to get this point across. But they're not interested in facts, as the article points out.
posted by knownassociate at 1:09 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
If only it were that simple to get this point across. But they're not interested in facts, as the article points out.
posted by knownassociate at 1:09 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I guess I was hinting at the underlying racism in that term, "urban" crime. It's always about brown people in the South Side, or The Bronx.
posted by monospace at 1:09 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by monospace at 1:09 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
I've said it in the main politics thread, but here it's more apropos - I think that the stockpiling of more guns than one person can ever use is a manifestation of hoarding disorder. Hoarders are stereotyped as middle-aged women with shopping addictions or too many animals, but I think the gender balance is closer to 50/50, and these men are hoarding something that their mindset thinks is "useful." Because "One day I'm going to train my friends and neighbors" - really? That seems vanishingly unlikely. If I want to know how to use a gun, I'm going to go to a range and hire a professional, not some creepy rando.
Yes, it definitely is channeled through fear and racism, but I think this is going beyond merely being a garden-variety racist to "needs professional help." This is one reason I want a social capital WPA for America: mental health issues are, I think, behind the collecting of guns, behind the opiate crisis, behind a whole raft of social ills. Right now, a lot of people who need professional help are self-medicating, whether with illicit Fentanyl or post-apocalyptic "I'm going to be a hero!" fantasies. And I don't think women - or POC or LGBT people or liberal white men - should have to step in and play amateur therapist/healer.
This kind of societal mental illness is manifesting in a certain kind of white man because it's white men who can stockpile guns without the boom being lowered. And a social capital WPA - investing in our schools, our medical system, and our health care system - will benefit all communities, not just insecure white men.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [28 favorites]
Yes, it definitely is channeled through fear and racism, but I think this is going beyond merely being a garden-variety racist to "needs professional help." This is one reason I want a social capital WPA for America: mental health issues are, I think, behind the collecting of guns, behind the opiate crisis, behind a whole raft of social ills. Right now, a lot of people who need professional help are self-medicating, whether with illicit Fentanyl or post-apocalyptic "I'm going to be a hero!" fantasies. And I don't think women - or POC or LGBT people or liberal white men - should have to step in and play amateur therapist/healer.
This kind of societal mental illness is manifesting in a certain kind of white man because it's white men who can stockpile guns without the boom being lowered. And a social capital WPA - investing in our schools, our medical system, and our health care system - will benefit all communities, not just insecure white men.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [28 favorites]
I don't see how "to fight back against racists" is a candidate answer to "why are (racist) white men stockpiling guns". This isn't a general "Should We Have Gun Control Though" article, it's specifically about the titular 3% and their paranoid gun hoards.
posted by inconstant at 1:11 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by inconstant at 1:11 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place?
*HITS BUZZER*
Imma go with “racism”.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
*HITS BUZZER*
Imma go with “racism”.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
The 3% who own half the guns are not poor people. I've said before that they are not normal. By that, I mean they have a gun fetish; they're perverts. I'm not saying that about the other 90%+ of gun owners, even though I think most of them have made a bad decision.
This ties into the way the stereotype of Republicans (and especially Trumpists) is poor rural folks, when the real bastion of the GOP is middle, upper-middle, and rich white people, especially the men of those categories.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
This ties into the way the stereotype of Republicans (and especially Trumpists) is poor rural folks, when the real bastion of the GOP is middle, upper-middle, and rich white people, especially the men of those categories.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos: why would someone in, say, Saugerties NY be hearing as much as they do about crime in New York City? I don't hear about all the crimes in Saugerties - although I'm sure there are some.
Part of why is because local media has been hollowed out by the dual forces of the internet and media consolidation. There's no local news station in the Saugerties area, I'll bet. It's in the catchment of the major network affiliates for NYC, which aren't going to focus on anything happening in Saugerties, and there's no incentive for anyone to start a local network affiliate station in the Saugerties region.
posted by SansPoint at 1:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Part of why is because local media has been hollowed out by the dual forces of the internet and media consolidation. There's no local news station in the Saugerties area, I'll bet. It's in the catchment of the major network affiliates for NYC, which aren't going to focus on anything happening in Saugerties, and there's no incentive for anyone to start a local network affiliate station in the Saugerties region.
posted by SansPoint at 1:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place?
My experience of living in a rural area about 1.5-2 hours from a city is that the TV stations are all out of the cities and the people there wind up thinking that the cities are war zones. My husband and I were both teachers in a district that ranged from exurban to very rural and every time we'd mention to our students that we were going to the closest city for the weekend for a getaway we'd get asked things like, "Aren't you afraid you're going to get shot?" It took me a while to put 2 and 2 together that these kids a) didn't get up to the city very much if at all, but b) got the entire police blotter from the city delivered to their family's eyeballs at 6:00 every night.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [30 favorites]
My experience of living in a rural area about 1.5-2 hours from a city is that the TV stations are all out of the cities and the people there wind up thinking that the cities are war zones. My husband and I were both teachers in a district that ranged from exurban to very rural and every time we'd mention to our students that we were going to the closest city for the weekend for a getaway we'd get asked things like, "Aren't you afraid you're going to get shot?" It took me a while to put 2 and 2 together that these kids a) didn't get up to the city very much if at all, but b) got the entire police blotter from the city delivered to their family's eyeballs at 6:00 every night.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [30 favorites]
soren_lorensen: Yeah, I don't live in Philadelphia anymore, but I regularly check up on the /r/philadelphia Subreddit to catch up on what's happening at home. At least once a week there's a post by some would-be tourist asking about how safe it would be to come and visit. While the incidents I mentioned upthread all happened in Philly, I will be the first to say that the last thing anyone who visits my hometown has to worry about is being shot. Let alone mugged, or being the victim of any other random crime.
posted by SansPoint at 1:20 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 1:20 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am a POC. I also own guns. I don't view them as something with which I would use for self-defense; they are locked up and I have a baseball bat plus a panic button that, when slapped, immediately triggers my security system to notify the police.
I would support a ban on all semi-automatic firearms, including hand guns (even semi-automatic .22s, I'm tired of exceptions -- just ban anything that self-loads), and will happily turn mine in.
However, I would only support a ban that includes the police. Now I can go with SWAT getting an exception, but those weapons should stay locked up and only used when they deploy; I'd rather not, though, but can understand that it may be a necessity during this period of transition. As for your regular patrol officer? They can go back to carrying revolvers. I don't care what they say, they are civilians and should be held to the same law as the people they are supposed to protect and serve.
posted by linux at 1:25 PM on March 22, 2018 [68 favorites]
I would support a ban on all semi-automatic firearms, including hand guns (even semi-automatic .22s, I'm tired of exceptions -- just ban anything that self-loads), and will happily turn mine in.
However, I would only support a ban that includes the police. Now I can go with SWAT getting an exception, but those weapons should stay locked up and only used when they deploy; I'd rather not, though, but can understand that it may be a necessity during this period of transition. As for your regular patrol officer? They can go back to carrying revolvers. I don't care what they say, they are civilians and should be held to the same law as the people they are supposed to protect and serve.
posted by linux at 1:25 PM on March 22, 2018 [68 favorites]
Also, as a hunter, I'd call this statement less than honest:
No clue, but the sort of guns that these folks are stockpiling, your AR-15s and other assault rifles, are no good for hunting, unless you want to bring your meat home pre-ground for burgers.
An AR is semi-automatic. That just means you can fire more quickly with out having to eject the round. You still have to pull the trigger every time you want a bullet to leave. That said, you're kind of a shitty hunter if you have to fire more than once at a deer.
And the individual rounds for the most usual chambering are LESS powerful than a typical deer rifle. I don't say this as an argument against regulation - I am very pro regulation!
posted by flaterik at 1:25 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
No clue, but the sort of guns that these folks are stockpiling, your AR-15s and other assault rifles, are no good for hunting, unless you want to bring your meat home pre-ground for burgers.
An AR is semi-automatic. That just means you can fire more quickly with out having to eject the round. You still have to pull the trigger every time you want a bullet to leave. That said, you're kind of a shitty hunter if you have to fire more than once at a deer.
And the individual rounds for the most usual chambering are LESS powerful than a typical deer rifle. I don't say this as an argument against regulation - I am very pro regulation!
posted by flaterik at 1:25 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
The sad thing is, the "if it bleeds it leads" news mindset is so misleading. The crime rate - both violent and property - has dropped like a stone since the early 90's. Most cities are so much safer than they were 30 years ago.
I think there are also a lot of people 50 or older who came of age in the 80's or earlier, when violent crime was much worse, and never left that mindset behind. And they are inoculating their kids with the OMGCRIMEINTHECITY fears. The fact that well-educated, liberal folks do tend to move to more urban areas - as much for the job market as anything else - means that the left-behinds are the more parochial, fearful, and yes, racist people.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:26 PM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
I think there are also a lot of people 50 or older who came of age in the 80's or earlier, when violent crime was much worse, and never left that mindset behind. And they are inoculating their kids with the OMGCRIMEINTHECITY fears. The fact that well-educated, liberal folks do tend to move to more urban areas - as much for the job market as anything else - means that the left-behinds are the more parochial, fearful, and yes, racist people.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:26 PM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
Rosie M. Banks: Also worth noting you'll get that attitude even within a city limits. There are parts of Philadelphia, including the neighborhood where I grew up, that are heavily white, and heavily paranoid and racist about any part of the city that isn't heavily white. (I'm not bloody kidding. I once came across KKK recruitment materials by my bus stop at Frankford and Magee Avenues in Northeast Philly.)
posted by SansPoint at 1:29 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 1:29 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
Which only begs the question: why do people in rural areas hear so much about urban crime in the first place?
So yeah, racism, but also selection bias. Rural and exurban areas are pretty dull. Because there's no one there. By definition these places are empty of live and activity, relative to cities. So of course TV stations report on cities because wtf are you going to say about rural areas day after day?
Also there is the fear that due to the remote, empty nature of rural and exurban areas that if something does go down the police won't come or won't come in time. And that is true to come extent, the flip side is that there's also very few home invasions or the type of crime that required armed defense. So there's some legitimacy to their anxiety in the sense that yeah, the police are fairly limited in these areas. But the intersection of "urban"-style frequency of violence and rural isolation is pretty much imaginary.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
So yeah, racism, but also selection bias. Rural and exurban areas are pretty dull. Because there's no one there. By definition these places are empty of live and activity, relative to cities. So of course TV stations report on cities because wtf are you going to say about rural areas day after day?
Also there is the fear that due to the remote, empty nature of rural and exurban areas that if something does go down the police won't come or won't come in time. And that is true to come extent, the flip side is that there's also very few home invasions or the type of crime that required armed defense. So there's some legitimacy to their anxiety in the sense that yeah, the police are fairly limited in these areas. But the intersection of "urban"-style frequency of violence and rural isolation is pretty much imaginary.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is my dad. And it's a hundred percent attributable to the fact that equality feels like oppression when you come from the side of privilege. He'd be quick to remind you that his best friend is black - even though he doesn't see color.
These conversations always leave me feeling cold. I worry about him having the guns. But I worry more about someone trying to take away his guns.
It's not that I don't support the effort. But I am skeptical that we have the political fortitude to disarm privileged people after a few attractive white families have bloody stand-offs with law enforcement. Especially in the age of Instagram and Facebook.
And without that, gun control tends to be a tool to criminalize marginalized people and stigmatize mental illness without any corresponding benefits to public safety.
posted by politikitty at 1:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
These conversations always leave me feeling cold. I worry about him having the guns. But I worry more about someone trying to take away his guns.
It's not that I don't support the effort. But I am skeptical that we have the political fortitude to disarm privileged people after a few attractive white families have bloody stand-offs with law enforcement. Especially in the age of Instagram and Facebook.
And without that, gun control tends to be a tool to criminalize marginalized people and stigmatize mental illness without any corresponding benefits to public safety.
posted by politikitty at 1:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
I used to noodle around a bit on city-data for my city and there were a couple people who lived way out in the burbs who were constantly harping on alllll the criiiime in the city, while those of us who actually lived in the city were like... wtf are you talking about? Like, of coruse any crime is worse than zero crime, but our crime rate is low and you have to kind of actively seek out trouble. My neighborhood Nextdoor is legit boring. The worst crime committed in my neighborhood ever was perpetrated by... a racist white dude who stockpiled weapons, abused his family members, and shot 3 cops in a pre-meditated ambush, because he was afraid Obama was coming to take his guns.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
I have never liked the phrase "senseless violence" because the root of any particular violent action almost always makes sense and pretending that one can't see what that is marks one as unwilling to take action to address the problem. There have been a lot of incidents of "senseless violence" in the US lately that actually make a whole lot of sense if you start with the premise that this country was founded on a system of white male supremacy and its foundational documents enshrined into law the right to perpetuate that system of white male supremacy by force of arms. If you start with that premise and ask me how things are going to play out, I'm always going to answer with "violence happens". That's what makes sense.
About six months before my father died he got my brother and me together and parceled out his guns to us. He had seventeen of them. I took two and my brother took two; I don't know what ended up happening to the rest. I asked my mom why she thought one man needed seventeen guns; she shrugged and admitted that she hadn't known that he'd accumulated so many of them.
My dad was a friendly guy with a strong social safety net. His social circle was mostly other white dudes, but he also had plenty of friends who ran the gamut of ancestral backgrounds and he raised me with the principle that people had all been created equal and were entitled to the same human dignity and respect.
But he also had a job that kept him on the road a lot in a car that only had AM radio, and as he got older you could hear some of what he'd heard there bleed into the things that he'd say. If you asked him he’d still profess that he had the same beliefs that he always had and I never heard him say anything directly negative about an ethnicity, but he’d start making worrying comments about things like white people not reproducing fast enough to stay ahead of the population curve. He’d say things about “thugs” and “criminals” without ever naming a group, but you could still figure out who it was he was talking about. And his gun collection just grew. And he started getting gun magazines that had views that were a lot less veiled in their opinions about who was ruining the country and what the reader should do about it.
I love my dad and I miss him every day, but there’s a part of me that is relieved that he didn’t live long enough for me to see how much further down that particularly scary road he would have ended up going.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:39 PM on March 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
About six months before my father died he got my brother and me together and parceled out his guns to us. He had seventeen of them. I took two and my brother took two; I don't know what ended up happening to the rest. I asked my mom why she thought one man needed seventeen guns; she shrugged and admitted that she hadn't known that he'd accumulated so many of them.
My dad was a friendly guy with a strong social safety net. His social circle was mostly other white dudes, but he also had plenty of friends who ran the gamut of ancestral backgrounds and he raised me with the principle that people had all been created equal and were entitled to the same human dignity and respect.
But he also had a job that kept him on the road a lot in a car that only had AM radio, and as he got older you could hear some of what he'd heard there bleed into the things that he'd say. If you asked him he’d still profess that he had the same beliefs that he always had and I never heard him say anything directly negative about an ethnicity, but he’d start making worrying comments about things like white people not reproducing fast enough to stay ahead of the population curve. He’d say things about “thugs” and “criminals” without ever naming a group, but you could still figure out who it was he was talking about. And his gun collection just grew. And he started getting gun magazines that had views that were a lot less veiled in their opinions about who was ruining the country and what the reader should do about it.
I love my dad and I miss him every day, but there’s a part of me that is relieved that he didn’t live long enough for me to see how much further down that particularly scary road he would have ended up going.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:39 PM on March 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
>The most dangerous people throughout history are people who are afraid of losing their grip on power. Because (a) they still have power, which means they can inflict a lot of damage and (b) just as it's human nature to fight against unfairness to rise in the hierarchy, it's also human nature to resist falling in it regardless of fairness.
I know the conversation has moved past this a little, but this comment helped me make a connection I had not made before. The behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman presented an idea in prospect theory that I think this idea relates to. The pattern occurs because people experience emotions associated with losing (or not losing) something that they already had about twice as powerfully as emotions associated with gaining (or not gaining) something that they don't have. One of the results of this is something called "risk-seeking in the losses". It means that people are more likely to accept gambles to avoid losses than to secure gains.
(Self test: Would you rather have $900 or a 90% chance of winning $1000? Would you rather lose $900 or have a 90% chance of losing $1000? Most people choose the sure shot at winning $900, but will gamble on the losses, demonstrating risk-seeking in the losses).
Kahneman suggests that this pattern is responsible for some major disasters, because people will take ever greater risks to avoid a bad consequence, and thus escalate a situation from bad to catastrophic. I had seen this pattern in business and finances, but it didn't occur to me to connect it to social status this way. I am suddenly much more worried about what old white men will be willing to risk to avoid losing the status they have now.
posted by agentofselection at 1:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
I know the conversation has moved past this a little, but this comment helped me make a connection I had not made before. The behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman presented an idea in prospect theory that I think this idea relates to. The pattern occurs because people experience emotions associated with losing (or not losing) something that they already had about twice as powerfully as emotions associated with gaining (or not gaining) something that they don't have. One of the results of this is something called "risk-seeking in the losses". It means that people are more likely to accept gambles to avoid losses than to secure gains.
(Self test: Would you rather have $900 or a 90% chance of winning $1000? Would you rather lose $900 or have a 90% chance of losing $1000? Most people choose the sure shot at winning $900, but will gamble on the losses, demonstrating risk-seeking in the losses).
Kahneman suggests that this pattern is responsible for some major disasters, because people will take ever greater risks to avoid a bad consequence, and thus escalate a situation from bad to catastrophic. I had seen this pattern in business and finances, but it didn't occur to me to connect it to social status this way. I am suddenly much more worried about what old white men will be willing to risk to avoid losing the status they have now.
posted by agentofselection at 1:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
This kind of societal mental illness is manifesting in a certain kind of white man because it's white men who can stockpile guns without the boom being lowered. And a social capital WPA - investing in our schools, our medical system, and our health care system - will benefit all communities, not just insecure white men.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 13:10 on
“Benefitting all commmnities” is one of their main complaints:
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 13:10 on
“Benefitting all commmnities” is one of their main complaints:
But Stroud also discovered another motivation: racial anxiety. “A lot of people talked about how important Obama was to get a concealed-carry license: ‘He’s for free health care, he’s for welfare.’ They were asking, ‘Whatever happened to hard work?’” Obama’s presidency, they feared, would empower minorities to threaten their property and families.posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:44 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
White, cis-het here. My dad did 4 tours in Vietnam while in the Navy. He did the John Kerry "swift-boats" type of work, in-country. He was a 20+ year Navy vet and was one rank down from Admiral when he moved on to other work, ROTC at Northwestern, then consulting on HVAC systems in giant new frontier businesses in India and Asia.
We never had a gun in the house. We were not allowed to play with fireworks, as he had seen where fireworks were manufactured.
Yes, it's an anecdote, but it's true that gun culture doesn't come from the military.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:51 PM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
We never had a gun in the house. We were not allowed to play with fireworks, as he had seen where fireworks were manufactured.
Yes, it's an anecdote, but it's true that gun culture doesn't come from the military.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:51 PM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
Then you can hang out awkwardly in progressive groups, like mefi here, because people are understandably demonizing gun ownership culture in this country while also being unwilling to recognize the actual history of marginalized groups using guns and violence to achieve progressive goals.
Say what you want about the firearms industry, but their political power and love of profits has ensured that the Second Amendment is probably the most universally-available right in America. Or is it more difficult for minorities and marginalized groups to buy weapons compared to the 3%?
posted by Apocryphon at 1:59 PM on March 22, 2018
Say what you want about the firearms industry, but their political power and love of profits has ensured that the Second Amendment is probably the most universally-available right in America. Or is it more difficult for minorities and marginalized groups to buy weapons compared to the 3%?
posted by Apocryphon at 1:59 PM on March 22, 2018
jeff-o-matic: Yeah, I'll second that. My dad was a Vietnam-era vet (drafted during Vietnam, but went to Germany instead. Hooray for being a Sole Surviving Son.) and we had no guns in the house. We did have an NRA sticker on the back door, though, largely to deter would-be burglars, kind of like having the sticker for an alarm system, but no actual alarms.
While we had no weapons of any sort in the house when I was growing up, when my Dad lived in South Philly back in the 70's he did have something for home defense: a crossbow. One night, he heard someone break into his rowhouse, and took up a prone position at the top of the stairs with his crossbow. There was a window at the bottom of the stairs, and when the burglar walked past, Dad yelled at him not to move. The burglar moved, my dad fired. The bolt hit the burglar in the shoulder, pinning him to the window frame. When the police showed up, one complimented Dad on his shot. His response? "I missed. I was aiming for his head."
(Back in the army, Dad was an engineer. His arms training after Basic consisted of "This is your rifle, you will be pointing it behind you as you run away.)
posted by SansPoint at 2:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
While we had no weapons of any sort in the house when I was growing up, when my Dad lived in South Philly back in the 70's he did have something for home defense: a crossbow. One night, he heard someone break into his rowhouse, and took up a prone position at the top of the stairs with his crossbow. There was a window at the bottom of the stairs, and when the burglar walked past, Dad yelled at him not to move. The burglar moved, my dad fired. The bolt hit the burglar in the shoulder, pinning him to the window frame. When the police showed up, one complimented Dad on his shot. His response? "I missed. I was aiming for his head."
(Back in the army, Dad was an engineer. His arms training after Basic consisted of "This is your rifle, you will be pointing it behind you as you run away.)
posted by SansPoint at 2:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
But Stroud also discovered another motivation: racial anxiety. “A lot of people talked about how important Obama was to get a concealed-carry license: ‘He’s for free health care, he’s for welfare.’ They were asking, ‘Whatever happened to hard work?’” Obama’s presidency, they feared, would empower minorities to threaten their property and families.
These are the inheritors of the "Slaves are going to rise up and rebel, and murder our wives and children in their beds", line of thinking, and that explains all of their behaviour to me perfectly.
posted by mikelieman at 2:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
These are the inheritors of the "Slaves are going to rise up and rebel, and murder our wives and children in their beds", line of thinking, and that explains all of their behaviour to me perfectly.
posted by mikelieman at 2:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
Apocryphon: I'll put it this way: Philando Castile had a licensed gun, and the NRA said nothing after he was killed.
posted by SansPoint at 2:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [72 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 2:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [72 favorites]
Or is it more difficult for minorities and marginalized groups to buy weapons compared to the 3%?
Come on. There are not that many instances of oppressed groups in the US arming themselves.
Here’s How The Nation Responded When A Black Militia Group Occupied A Government Building - spoiler alert: it was in California and they regulated the hell out of gun ownership.
posted by GuyZero at 2:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
Come on. There are not that many instances of oppressed groups in the US arming themselves.
Here’s How The Nation Responded When A Black Militia Group Occupied A Government Building - spoiler alert: it was in California and they regulated the hell out of gun ownership.
posted by GuyZero at 2:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
They are insecure about their place in the job market but have the funds to buy huge numbers of guns, which each cost hundreds of dollars before you even add in the price of bullets?
If there’s one thing I think people outside gun culture don’t functionally understand, it’s the investment value of firearms. Guns cost hundreds of dollars, but they are one of the few pieces of personal property that don’t really depreciate. Because they lose value only with poor maintenance, and you can easily check functionality, if you buy a decent gun for 500$, you can usually sell it a few or even ten or fifteen years later having used it the whole time for the inflation adjusted value of 475$. And if you are careful around when you buy and when you sell, you have a higher rate of return than a savings account.
Now that’s far from the only reason people stockpile, but any analysis of gun stockpilers that doesn’t account for speculation is faulty.
posted by corb at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
If there’s one thing I think people outside gun culture don’t functionally understand, it’s the investment value of firearms. Guns cost hundreds of dollars, but they are one of the few pieces of personal property that don’t really depreciate. Because they lose value only with poor maintenance, and you can easily check functionality, if you buy a decent gun for 500$, you can usually sell it a few or even ten or fifteen years later having used it the whole time for the inflation adjusted value of 475$. And if you are careful around when you buy and when you sell, you have a higher rate of return than a savings account.
Now that’s far from the only reason people stockpile, but any analysis of gun stockpilers that doesn’t account for speculation is faulty.
posted by corb at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
And let me add this to the "We may need to take back our government" argument.
They didn't rise up when the US Government was torturing prisoners held in Cuba, so they're full of shit.
posted by mikelieman at 2:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
They didn't rise up when the US Government was torturing prisoners held in Cuba, so they're full of shit.
posted by mikelieman at 2:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
if you buy a decent gun for 500$, you can usually sell it a few or even ten or fifteen years later having used it the whole time for the inflation adjusted value of 475$.
Yeah, buying something for $500, holding it for a long time, and then selling for $475 (these numbers are pretty close) is not an investment, or if it is it's a bad one. Guns may not depreciate, but they certainly don't appreciate either because the market is basically flooded with them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:07 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
Yeah, buying something for $500, holding it for a long time, and then selling for $475 (these numbers are pretty close) is not an investment, or if it is it's a bad one. Guns may not depreciate, but they certainly don't appreciate either because the market is basically flooded with them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:07 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
Guns may not depreciate, but they certainly don't appreciate either because the market is basically flooded with them.
Like beanie babies, you hope you buy the one that ends up being rare and desirable in the future and the price will increase due to high demand and low supply.
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Like beanie babies, you hope you buy the one that ends up being rare and desirable in the future and the price will increase due to high demand and low supply.
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I recently received "ALICE" training in my small-town workplace, and the facilitator, a retired (white male) police officer, spent most of our time telling us about how much he loved guns and how he had so many guns he'd forget where they all were. Then he told us an anecdote about how one night someone knocked on the door of his rural home and he responded by creeping out the back door to flank the guy from the side and shoving a gun in the guy's face. And I thought "this is how someone who's had a car accident gets killed," but he could not imagine any reason for someone to knock on his door at night other than a violent threat, which, if that had been the visitor's intent, why would he have knocked? Turned out the dude got lost trying to find his friend's house and nearly got his head blown off because another guy has a disproportionate sense of threat. That seemed to encompass the issue for me: White men's fears kill.
And maybe this is partly a result of too many white men being bombarded by images of other white men solving the world's problems with guns in our society, or a subconscious urge to be "right" one day, and therefore justify taking the life of another, and probably get away with it. Or maybe it results from constantly feeding yourself resentment, disdain, and suspicion of others; and conflation of masculinity with domination, violence, and callousness. I don't know, but there's a horrible gestalt effect going on in American culture today that we aren't going to solve without a real "come to Jesus" moment about where all this stuff leads.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [52 favorites]
And maybe this is partly a result of too many white men being bombarded by images of other white men solving the world's problems with guns in our society, or a subconscious urge to be "right" one day, and therefore justify taking the life of another, and probably get away with it. Or maybe it results from constantly feeding yourself resentment, disdain, and suspicion of others; and conflation of masculinity with domination, violence, and callousness. I don't know, but there's a horrible gestalt effect going on in American culture today that we aren't going to solve without a real "come to Jesus" moment about where all this stuff leads.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [52 favorites]
Or is it more difficult for minorities and marginalized groups to buy weapons compared to the 3%?
The problem is that possession of a firearm can escalate any criminal charge - and for communities with underfunded access to attorneys, this leads to more plea agreements for non-provable crimes and longer prison sentences. And since policing and prosecution carries a lot of discretion, that magnifies the implicit bias we all carry around.
posted by politikitty at 2:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
The problem is that possession of a firearm can escalate any criminal charge - and for communities with underfunded access to attorneys, this leads to more plea agreements for non-provable crimes and longer prison sentences. And since policing and prosecution carries a lot of discretion, that magnifies the implicit bias we all carry around.
posted by politikitty at 2:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
I have no doubt that arms manufacturers and guns rights groups cater to specific demographics of gun owners, but the question is that is it actually harder for a person from a marginalized minority to purchase weapons in the U.S.- are they subject to more stringent background checks, discriminatory regulation, etc.? If not, and it's easier to get a gun than say, get access to affordable medical care, then that's one of those stark observations about the priorities of America.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Apocryphon at 2:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Say what you want about the firearms industry, but their political power and love of profits has ensured that the Second Amendment is probably the most universally-available right in America. Or is it more difficult for minorities and marginalized groups to buy weapons compared to the 3%?
Viral Video Shows White Gun-Store Owner Calling Cops on Black Customer After Refusing to Sell Him Firearms
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
Viral Video Shows White Gun-Store Owner Calling Cops on Black Customer After Refusing to Sell Him Firearms
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [32 favorites]
Regarding price, some of those 17 guns are probably cheap military surplus weapons, which aren't as available or cheap as they are today, but used to be insanely cheap, like $100 Mosin-Nagants and $200 SKSes. Same for ammo. The Saskatchewan man who killed Colten Boushie used an old Russian Tokarev with cheap Czech ammo from the 1950s.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 2:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 2:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
beset by racial fears.
Spend five minutes on a porn site or reading conservative blogs and you will quickly realize that they are not involuntarily beset by racial fears at all.
They are titillated by them. They seek it out and cultivate it. They nurture it.
posted by srboisvert at 2:33 PM on March 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
Spend five minutes on a porn site or reading conservative blogs and you will quickly realize that they are not involuntarily beset by racial fears at all.
They are titillated by them. They seek it out and cultivate it. They nurture it.
posted by srboisvert at 2:33 PM on March 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
the price will increase due to high demand and low supply.
One of the things that’s kind of terrible right now is that when gun owners think a ban is coming, the prices spike enormously. So if you buy during a lull and sell right before a fear peak, you can actually make significant money. A lot of people bought guns in 2015 and sold them before the election, for example, when people thought Clinton would win and bring about stringent gun control. 500$ guns were selling for 1000$ or even 1500$ during that time, so people buying and selling at a good time have made easily five or ten thousand dollars - which for many people is essentially a small fortune.
Now, I will definitely admit that many of these guys SAY they are speculating, but when they get up to it, they get high on their own supply and buy into the fear they were hoping to capitalize on. They all want to sell high, but not if there’s really going to be a ban.
posted by corb at 2:34 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
One of the things that’s kind of terrible right now is that when gun owners think a ban is coming, the prices spike enormously. So if you buy during a lull and sell right before a fear peak, you can actually make significant money. A lot of people bought guns in 2015 and sold them before the election, for example, when people thought Clinton would win and bring about stringent gun control. 500$ guns were selling for 1000$ or even 1500$ during that time, so people buying and selling at a good time have made easily five or ten thousand dollars - which for many people is essentially a small fortune.
Now, I will definitely admit that many of these guys SAY they are speculating, but when they get up to it, they get high on their own supply and buy into the fear they were hoping to capitalize on. They all want to sell high, but not if there’s really going to be a ban.
posted by corb at 2:34 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Echoing hexaflexagon, I think something people who haven't been around guns miss is that shooting is fun. I have a friend or two that "stockpile" because the guns are all different and novel toys to them.
"Today I want to shoot a shotgun!"
"Ooh, a six-shooter, nifty!"
"Wow this article makes it sounds pretty sweet to shoot this new model... "
etc.
I don't own or like guns and would be happy if they all disappeared, but damned if I haven't enjoyed a few rounds of target practice at cans. (And yes, I don't think guns should be considered toys, but that's how my friends think of them.)
posted by matrixclown at 2:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
"Today I want to shoot a shotgun!"
"Ooh, a six-shooter, nifty!"
"Wow this article makes it sounds pretty sweet to shoot this new model... "
etc.
I don't own or like guns and would be happy if they all disappeared, but damned if I haven't enjoyed a few rounds of target practice at cans. (And yes, I don't think guns should be considered toys, but that's how my friends think of them.)
posted by matrixclown at 2:40 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
No, I mean "crime in cities". And you are correct that it is low. but it is still talked up like crazy on the media, which causes [insert the statements I already made about the 24 hour news cycle here again]
Paradoxically, in these times when such crime is generally on the decline, these same people scoff and say that the crime is bad but is being covered up or downplayed by the politicos to keep their image looking good.
posted by dr_dank at 2:57 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Paradoxically, in these times when such crime is generally on the decline, these same people scoff and say that the crime is bad but is being covered up or downplayed by the politicos to keep their image looking good.
posted by dr_dank at 2:57 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Also, Hollywood, with its Dad Revenge Fantasies (see: Liam Neeson's recent career, Death Wish, etc. etc.) that portray white men with guns making things right.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 3:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [20 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 3:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [20 favorites]
Such fears may drive the purchase of other items as well. I remember as a kid hearing a racist uncle say that he owned an SUV (or that era's equivalent, the aptly named Suburban) so that when there were riots in the nearby big city he would be able to drive over people.
posted by larrybob at 3:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by larrybob at 3:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
And, yeah, it's anecdata, but it made me wonder how many of these folks really are just living hollow lives, waiting for their moment to be the hero and the general that they felt that they always deserved to be.
To me this is the curdled nugget at the core of the prepper movement, which makes for a nice easy laugh, but there are over 3 million of these people. Pandering to them is big business, they have their own TV shows, ads on right wing talk radio selling them food bricks and gold bars, selling the fantasy that they too could be the king of the rubble pile after the world ends, which it certainly will any day now. It's an extremely cynical and caustic point of view and I wouldn't be surprised if an outsized portion of these gun hoarders believed in it. "You may be a sad sack now, but boy howdy, won't your neighbors be singing a different tune when your guns are the only thing between them and the ravening "zombie" hordes." You can't have this fantasy without there being some dangerous "other" to fight against. Banding together to grow a cooperative garden in the ashes of society and trading with neighboring groups isn't nearly as sexy.
And it's like, maybe their world is ending, they certainly feel threatened by the twilight of white supremacy and can't imagine anything better than destruction. How do you convince people that what they need to value when they feel threatened is community, social connections, that regardless of these macho wank fantasies, realistically even if they were in that Mad Max apocalypse, one man vs the world, they'd be taken down by a snakebite or an easily treated infection? That we are social creatures and all need some kind of society to survive, and that unless they are producing all the food, medicine, and clothing they use they are dependent on others for survival and should be humbled by this?
I feel like a lot of the problems with this particular species of toxic masculinity disguised as "rugged individualism" can be boiled down to apathy, a lack of faith that things can ever improve and an unwillingness to try, so instead they buy into stories of fear and blame and bitterness, waiting for someday when they can "prove themselves", and living in a simplistic action adventure fantasy where violence can solve everything. Meanwhile they don't have to do anything to fix the actual problems facing us all, instead playing endless games of "if only it weren't for _____ I'd have the success I clearly deserve!"
If they're so insecure about their ability to help others and provide for their family, if they are out of work and feel worthless, why don't they start a soup kitchen to help feed their neighbors who are as poor as they are with this gun buying money? Why don't they plant that community garden? Start up a series of classes held in each other's homes and teach your neighbors the woodworking skills you have, pool your gun buying money together and create a neighborhood shop space with tools you all can use and loan out, band together, for fuck's sake, and be the community you wish you had instead of the one you feel abandoned by. You don't need the nihilistic death cult of guns and you don't need to wait for somebody to come around and do these things for you.
"I don't know how to convince you that you should care about other people."
posted by Feyala at 3:05 PM on March 22, 2018 [53 favorites]
To me this is the curdled nugget at the core of the prepper movement, which makes for a nice easy laugh, but there are over 3 million of these people. Pandering to them is big business, they have their own TV shows, ads on right wing talk radio selling them food bricks and gold bars, selling the fantasy that they too could be the king of the rubble pile after the world ends, which it certainly will any day now. It's an extremely cynical and caustic point of view and I wouldn't be surprised if an outsized portion of these gun hoarders believed in it. "You may be a sad sack now, but boy howdy, won't your neighbors be singing a different tune when your guns are the only thing between them and the ravening "zombie" hordes." You can't have this fantasy without there being some dangerous "other" to fight against. Banding together to grow a cooperative garden in the ashes of society and trading with neighboring groups isn't nearly as sexy.
And it's like, maybe their world is ending, they certainly feel threatened by the twilight of white supremacy and can't imagine anything better than destruction. How do you convince people that what they need to value when they feel threatened is community, social connections, that regardless of these macho wank fantasies, realistically even if they were in that Mad Max apocalypse, one man vs the world, they'd be taken down by a snakebite or an easily treated infection? That we are social creatures and all need some kind of society to survive, and that unless they are producing all the food, medicine, and clothing they use they are dependent on others for survival and should be humbled by this?
I feel like a lot of the problems with this particular species of toxic masculinity disguised as "rugged individualism" can be boiled down to apathy, a lack of faith that things can ever improve and an unwillingness to try, so instead they buy into stories of fear and blame and bitterness, waiting for someday when they can "prove themselves", and living in a simplistic action adventure fantasy where violence can solve everything. Meanwhile they don't have to do anything to fix the actual problems facing us all, instead playing endless games of "if only it weren't for _____ I'd have the success I clearly deserve!"
If they're so insecure about their ability to help others and provide for their family, if they are out of work and feel worthless, why don't they start a soup kitchen to help feed their neighbors who are as poor as they are with this gun buying money? Why don't they plant that community garden? Start up a series of classes held in each other's homes and teach your neighbors the woodworking skills you have, pool your gun buying money together and create a neighborhood shop space with tools you all can use and loan out, band together, for fuck's sake, and be the community you wish you had instead of the one you feel abandoned by. You don't need the nihilistic death cult of guns and you don't need to wait for somebody to come around and do these things for you.
"I don't know how to convince you that you should care about other people."
posted by Feyala at 3:05 PM on March 22, 2018 [53 favorites]
It really isn’t a new phenomenon. White men have been stockpiling weapons for ages. Heck, even in the 80s, I recall hearing stories of guys having buried bunkers filled with guns in their back yard.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 3:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
It seems to me like conservative media has been creating this social reality in the minds of their audience since the late 80's. Don't neurologists study how the political brain of conservatives is fearful, authority seeking, and resistant to change of any kind? Mix that with a toxic brand of social alienation pointed/aimed at anyone not a white gun-owning male protecting his spawn against the ravening undeserving hordes and you get these folks. When I've seen some forms of right-wing propaganda it's like entering a toxic universe where respected political figures and movements on the left are presented as ogres, demons and of course racial stereotypes.
posted by diode at 3:19 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by diode at 3:19 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
@Corb: and if you are careful around when you buy and when you sell, you have a higher rate of return than a savings account.“Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do. Then I ask myself: how well does that reason explain what they say and what they do?”
Now that’s far from the only reason people stockpile, but any analysis of gun stockpilers that doesn’t account for speculation is faulty.
-Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, Game of Thrones
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:44 PM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
3% of the people have half the tattoos.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:53 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 3:53 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Because "One day I'm going to train my friends and neighbors" - really?
In their fantasies, there are no gun ranges and weapons instructors left. Just their stockpiles of guns hidden underground before the feds could take them away. And then Red Dawn!
posted by pracowity at 4:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
In their fantasies, there are no gun ranges and weapons instructors left. Just their stockpiles of guns hidden underground before the feds could take them away. And then Red Dawn!
posted by pracowity at 4:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
You could easily protect the ability of hunters to hunt while seriously limiting the capacity of people to do damage to fellow humans by outlawing semi-automatic weapons that fire over e.g. 10 bullets a minute or with a capacity of over e.g. 8 rounds. The most common hunting weapons in my area were semi-automatic 12 or 20 gauge shotguns and .30-06 hunting rifles. These typically have a max capacity of around 5 rounds. These limits could be determined semi-scientifically based on what we know about hunting needs and gun attacks.
I mean, anyone who's gone hunting knows the absurdity of high capacity hunting rifles. Guns are LOUD. Deer are skittish at the best of times. The first shot is the one that matters.
Even with shotguns, if you're hunting birds, you're not going to get much more than a couple of shots off. And everybody knows over-unders are what you really want to be shooting. That's two shots before you need to reload.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:15 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I mean, anyone who's gone hunting knows the absurdity of high capacity hunting rifles. Guns are LOUD. Deer are skittish at the best of times. The first shot is the one that matters.
Even with shotguns, if you're hunting birds, you're not going to get much more than a couple of shots off. And everybody knows over-unders are what you really want to be shooting. That's two shots before you need to reload.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:15 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
In their fantasies, there are no gun ranges and weapons instructors left. Just their stockpiles of guns hidden underground before the feds could take them away. And then Red Dawn!
Not anymore. They have the memories of goldfish and so they love the Russians now.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Not anymore. They have the memories of goldfish and so they love the Russians now.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Because "One day I'm going to train my friends and neighbors" - really?
Yeah, because a lot of these guys have teaching skills, and, you know, personalities that really inspire confidence in their leadership abilities.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [21 favorites]
Yeah, because a lot of these guys have teaching skills, and, you know, personalities that really inspire confidence in their leadership abilities.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:17 PM on March 22, 2018 [21 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos, sounds partly like "Mean World Syndrome"
"But people in rural areas are hearing about them too, and as a result of getting bombarded with it they are thinking that the crime is about to show up on their doorstep too, and are arming themselves."
Wikipedia: "a phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is."
posted by RuvaBlue at 4:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
"But people in rural areas are hearing about them too, and as a result of getting bombarded with it they are thinking that the crime is about to show up on their doorstep too, and are arming themselves."
Wikipedia: "a phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is."
posted by RuvaBlue at 4:30 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
It should be noted that two of the biggest right-wing militias, the Oath Keepers and III Percenters, started right after Obama's inauguration, assuming he would take away their guns and put them in FEMA camps. It's sometimes fun (that's not exactly the right word but I'm on my first John Bolton tequila) to check up on what they think about Orange Fearless Leader.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
There are open III Percenters on the police force in my town.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
It's not that I don't support the effort. But I am skeptical that we have the political fortitude to disarm privileged people after a few attractive white families have bloody stand-offs with law enforcement. Especially in the age of Instagram and Facebook.
We don't need Facebook or Instagram, anybody remember Ruby Ridge?
posted by The Power Nap at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
We don't need Facebook or Instagram, anybody remember Ruby Ridge?
posted by The Power Nap at 5:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
SansPoint: “A twelve-member militia is no match for a Predator drone.”Quite. Still, the United States has been at war against light infantry squads in Afghanistan and many other places for almost two decades. It seems unlikely that will stop anytime soon. One presumes that if drones actually won wars, they would have by now.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:53 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
I considered mentioning Ruby Ridge. But I realized I don’t actually have a good sense if they were sympathetic across the US the way they were to my libertarian tilted suburb.
posted by politikitty at 6:16 PM on March 22, 2018
posted by politikitty at 6:16 PM on March 22, 2018
One presumes the U.S. is fighting light infantry squads composed of more than 12 members though, as well.
posted by agregoli at 6:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by agregoli at 6:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Plus I don't know if anyone's noticed but a Black American doesn't even have to actually be holding a gun to be shot by a cop. It's not that great for everyone.
posted by allthinky at 6:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
posted by allthinky at 6:31 PM on March 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
It’s hilarious that Red Dawn, one of the ultimate conservative gun fantasy flicks, features a scene where a gun owner actually does have his gun pried out of his cold, dead fingers.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:58 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:58 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I could see how a target shooter could keep buying more and more guns, as I own some myself.
Facilitating that is that guns are relatively cheap, even good quality ones. You can buy one for the same money as an off-brand TV, or for the price of a 13" Macbook pro you could buy three of newest generation Glock pistols and have a nice chunk of change left over, or any number of combinations of rifles, shotguns, etc.
Most gun owners just own a few, but even "stockpiling" (or more neutrally, "collecting") is a cheap hobby. They don't take up much space, don't require any upkeep other than an occasional cleaning, and hold their value and usability long after the consumer electronics have gone to the dump.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Facilitating that is that guns are relatively cheap, even good quality ones. You can buy one for the same money as an off-brand TV, or for the price of a 13" Macbook pro you could buy three of newest generation Glock pistols and have a nice chunk of change left over, or any number of combinations of rifles, shotguns, etc.
Most gun owners just own a few, but even "stockpiling" (or more neutrally, "collecting") is a cheap hobby. They don't take up much space, don't require any upkeep other than an occasional cleaning, and hold their value and usability long after the consumer electronics have gone to the dump.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I considered mentioning Ruby Ridge. But I realized I don’t actually have a good sense if they were sympathetic across the US the way they were to my libertarian tilted suburb.
I was in high school in New Mexico at the time. NM has some libertarians for sure, but I lived in a pretty moderate Democratic world and my sense of the thing was that some crazy white dude committed suicide by cop and took a bunch of women and children down with him. So: not sympathetic all across the US.
(I actually just looked up the Unabomber to see when that was going on, because in my mind Ruby Ridge, the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City Bombing all got filed under "crazy anti-govt extremists"). So on the one hand I was just a kid but on the other I was on the school newspaper and probably paid more attention to the news than many adults.
posted by mrmurbles at 8:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was in high school in New Mexico at the time. NM has some libertarians for sure, but I lived in a pretty moderate Democratic world and my sense of the thing was that some crazy white dude committed suicide by cop and took a bunch of women and children down with him. So: not sympathetic all across the US.
(I actually just looked up the Unabomber to see when that was going on, because in my mind Ruby Ridge, the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City Bombing all got filed under "crazy anti-govt extremists"). So on the one hand I was just a kid but on the other I was on the school newspaper and probably paid more attention to the news than many adults.
posted by mrmurbles at 8:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
The typical response I hear, with respect to soldiers is, "what makes you think they will be on your side?" They seem to assume every soldier who takes an oath is a small-scale supreme court justice who can interpret the constitution accurately, and will come to the conclusion that the government has gone too far!
Of course it doesn't occur to them that if the military is fighting with them, the most likely first step is the soldiers are going to tell them to get the hell out of the way and hand over those weapons to somebody who knows what they're doing.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:46 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
Of course it doesn't occur to them that if the military is fighting with them, the most likely first step is the soldiers are going to tell them to get the hell out of the way and hand over those weapons to somebody who knows what they're doing.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:46 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
I considered mentioning Ruby Ridge. But I realized I don’t actually have a good sense if they were sympathetic across the US the way they were to my libertarian tilted suburb.
I was in high school. The common perception I encountered were that some religious whackos who were in the Aryan Nations or something tried to break bad on the police and lost. Seemed very of a piece with Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:52 PM on March 22, 2018
I was in high school. The common perception I encountered were that some religious whackos who were in the Aryan Nations or something tried to break bad on the police and lost. Seemed very of a piece with Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:52 PM on March 22, 2018
Should add that I grew up around lots of conservative Reagan fans, but almost none of them cared about guns, or would have sympathized with violent confrontation with law enforcement.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:59 PM on March 22, 2018
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:59 PM on March 22, 2018
the individual rounds for the most usual chambering are LESS powerful than a typical deer rifle
At the risk of gunsplaining a bit: assault rifle ammunition is about 30% less powerful than typical deer rifle ammunition. The AR's 5.56 round is essentially a copy of the commercial .223 small game (e.g. coyote) hunting ammunition. There's nothing special about it: any centerfire rifle cartridge is quite deadly at short range. The power comes from the number of bullets fired, and having a lighter rifle with less recoil allows that.
The common thread of mass shootings are weapons that autoload out of large-capacity interchangeable box magazines. The "military" part doesn't matter: a mini-14 is functionally equivalent to an AR-15. The ammunition isn't important: even pistol rounds are quite deadly at close range. Regulations should focus on small magazines, fixed magazines, and manual reloading. Australia effectively banned all semiautomatic weapons, not just "military-style assault weapons." Perhaps that's a bit much (tube-magazine .22LR's aren't exactly tactical), but it makes far more sense than banning Garands before mini-14's.
posted by netowl at 9:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
At the risk of gunsplaining a bit: assault rifle ammunition is about 30% less powerful than typical deer rifle ammunition. The AR's 5.56 round is essentially a copy of the commercial .223 small game (e.g. coyote) hunting ammunition. There's nothing special about it: any centerfire rifle cartridge is quite deadly at short range. The power comes from the number of bullets fired, and having a lighter rifle with less recoil allows that.
The common thread of mass shootings are weapons that autoload out of large-capacity interchangeable box magazines. The "military" part doesn't matter: a mini-14 is functionally equivalent to an AR-15. The ammunition isn't important: even pistol rounds are quite deadly at close range. Regulations should focus on small magazines, fixed magazines, and manual reloading. Australia effectively banned all semiautomatic weapons, not just "military-style assault weapons." Perhaps that's a bit much (tube-magazine .22LR's aren't exactly tactical), but it makes far more sense than banning Garands before mini-14's.
posted by netowl at 9:03 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
I guess a North Korean invasion is plausible if you live in a bunker full of guns on a diet of Bibles and iInfowars supplements.
posted by Artw at 9:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:10 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I used to competitively shoot. It's a fun hobby. I know full well the power of "ohh, that looks neat - I should get one of those". I still - immediately to my side have a small collection (<10).
I stopped competitively shooting back in the early 2000's when I looked around and saw all the nastiness of the politics and the latent racism lined up in the scenarios. Literally in these competitions, the setups were like "you're riding on a bike through a neighborhood and are suddenly attacked by thugs" (riding a stationary bike, aim and fire off hand at a series of cardboard targets in a row, like you're riding by). "you're changing a tire on your car in a bad neighborhood when thugs approach you - fortunately your firearm is in the open trunk, unloaded. Load, fire at the targets near the trunk, move down the line of the car, under cover, tactically reload and fire on the targets at the front of the car".
From a sheer challenge point of view- damn was that fun - stepping back and thinking on all the Anti-Clinton and conservative motto stickers - all the "molon labe" posturing - blaaaaah. All the conversations I had to have when people discovered I'm a really lefty liberal and liked shooting.
I've never wanted to shoot anyone in my life. I don't want anyone to get shot. The Philando Castile shooting should have stopped all arguments about the NRA being for gun owners in their tracks. I'd love to complete my collection of US WWII firearms, but that's not going to happen and that's ok in my mind.
But to give you an idea how pervasive this stuff is, my best friend, who's never owned a gun in his life and with two little kids probably won't for a good long while, has always been libertarian leaning and a big supporter of the 2nd amendment. Isn't even phased by the idea that resisting the government doesn't work so well when they have armored and air support.
Don't know. I like the fun of shooting. I like the differing aspects of the differing guns. I can't get behind the "omg 'urban' people are coming for me" shit. Heck, I went hunting once and wasn't even a huge fan of thing even if I enjoyed the meat.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:24 PM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
I stopped competitively shooting back in the early 2000's when I looked around and saw all the nastiness of the politics and the latent racism lined up in the scenarios. Literally in these competitions, the setups were like "you're riding on a bike through a neighborhood and are suddenly attacked by thugs" (riding a stationary bike, aim and fire off hand at a series of cardboard targets in a row, like you're riding by). "you're changing a tire on your car in a bad neighborhood when thugs approach you - fortunately your firearm is in the open trunk, unloaded. Load, fire at the targets near the trunk, move down the line of the car, under cover, tactically reload and fire on the targets at the front of the car".
From a sheer challenge point of view- damn was that fun - stepping back and thinking on all the Anti-Clinton and conservative motto stickers - all the "molon labe" posturing - blaaaaah. All the conversations I had to have when people discovered I'm a really lefty liberal and liked shooting.
I've never wanted to shoot anyone in my life. I don't want anyone to get shot. The Philando Castile shooting should have stopped all arguments about the NRA being for gun owners in their tracks. I'd love to complete my collection of US WWII firearms, but that's not going to happen and that's ok in my mind.
But to give you an idea how pervasive this stuff is, my best friend, who's never owned a gun in his life and with two little kids probably won't for a good long while, has always been libertarian leaning and a big supporter of the 2nd amendment. Isn't even phased by the idea that resisting the government doesn't work so well when they have armored and air support.
Don't know. I like the fun of shooting. I like the differing aspects of the differing guns. I can't get behind the "omg 'urban' people are coming for me" shit. Heck, I went hunting once and wasn't even a huge fan of thing even if I enjoyed the meat.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:24 PM on March 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
#NotAllWhiteMenStockpilingAPersonalArmory
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:24 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:24 PM on March 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
I feel like I should also make it clear - if it came time and everyone said "surrender your firearms", I'd be there without hesitation unlike some folks I've hear proudly bragging post Assault Rifle ban that no one could ever take their guns away.
(Admittedly, I'd try and find some way to hold onto the .22 LR target rifle my mom won her state high school championship with for sentimental reasons. If i gotta, I'll spike the barrel).
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:32 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
(Admittedly, I'd try and find some way to hold onto the .22 LR target rifle my mom won her state high school championship with for sentimental reasons. If i gotta, I'll spike the barrel).
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:32 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
Also, light infantry squads in Afghanistan do really well because they have literally spent the last 300 years fighting more technologically advanced armies. They've kind of organized significant portions of their society around that.
I mean, I have an ancestor who was considered lucky because his artillery regiment was sent to Quebec in the 1860s, instead of Afghanistan.
It's not like fucking Dennis from down the street is going to suddenly know how to lay an ambush, or set an IED, just because he's been collecting AR-15s and modified SKSs while managing the Lowe's over on Route 11.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:35 PM on March 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
I mean, I have an ancestor who was considered lucky because his artillery regiment was sent to Quebec in the 1860s, instead of Afghanistan.
It's not like fucking Dennis from down the street is going to suddenly know how to lay an ambush, or set an IED, just because he's been collecting AR-15s and modified SKSs while managing the Lowe's over on Route 11.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:35 PM on March 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
It's not like fucking Dennis from down the street is going to suddenly know how to lay an ambush, or set an IED, just because he's been collecting AR-15s and modified SKSs while managing the Lowe's over on Route 11.
good news he can watch a youtube video from Afghanistan
posted by GuyZero at 9:46 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
good news he can watch a youtube video from Afghanistan
posted by GuyZero at 9:46 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know - Dennis sounds like a shifty character - he already has exposure to plumbing and wiring which means he has the basic building blocks for pipe bombs.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:47 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:47 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
biggest right-wing militias, the Oath Keepers
If i was guessing, I would have guessed these were the American lunatic fringe who were saving themselves for marriage not the American lunatic fringe gun nuts.
posted by biffa at 2:32 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
If i was guessing, I would have guessed these were the American lunatic fringe who were saving themselves for marriage not the American lunatic fringe gun nuts.
posted by biffa at 2:32 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have watched my 67 year old father slowly get brainwashed by Fox News and the NRA. He was never a big gun owner when I was growing up, that I recall. However, in the early to mid 90s, he was living in an apartment between divorces and it was broken into while he was at work. They stole the usual stuff, TV, stereo, etc.
That's about the time I first recall him getting into guns. He bought a pump action shotgun with pistol grips. The next house he bought had a security system. He now always locks the doors and sets the security system even when he's home. He lives in a very white neighborhood in a very white county.
He once advised me to get a gun for home defense. I told him we felt pretty safe and we have a dog that is big enough to be a deterrent. His response was "What if someone breaks in with a shotgun?"
He really does live in fear. It's sad.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:43 AM on March 23, 2018
That's about the time I first recall him getting into guns. He bought a pump action shotgun with pistol grips. The next house he bought had a security system. He now always locks the doors and sets the security system even when he's home. He lives in a very white neighborhood in a very white county.
He once advised me to get a gun for home defense. I told him we felt pretty safe and we have a dog that is big enough to be a deterrent. His response was "What if someone breaks in with a shotgun?"
He really does live in fear. It's sad.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:43 AM on March 23, 2018
good news he can watch a youtube video from Afghanistan
Maybe not any more! Reportedly, Youtube is cracking down on gun instruction and promotional videos. So - those gun enthusiasts are taking their videos to Pornhub.
As one wag in my Facebook feed quipped - "lo, the subtext has become text."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2018 [18 favorites]
Maybe not any more! Reportedly, Youtube is cracking down on gun instruction and promotional videos. So - those gun enthusiasts are taking their videos to Pornhub.
As one wag in my Facebook feed quipped - "lo, the subtext has become text."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2018 [18 favorites]
It's not like fucking Dennis from down the street is going to suddenly know how to lay an ambush, or set an IED, just because he's been collecting AR-15s and modified SKSs while managing the Lowe's over on Route 11.
He can look it up on the internet like that “poor misunderstood nerdy kid” in Austin.
posted by tilde at 8:09 AM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
So basically the 2nd amendment is about being a low level terrorist asshole.
posted by Artw at 8:16 AM on March 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:16 AM on March 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
I would have much more respect for the 2nd Amendmenters if they were talking about protecting themselves from a corrupt and violent government. If they actually meant that, they'd be supporting black men's rights to carry guns to protect themselves from overzealous cops.
Instead, most of them talk about protection from home break-ins and street thugs. If that's the problem, the solution is more cops, not more random citizen vigilantes. 2nd A is supposed to protect you from the government, not from other citizens gone bad. We have an entire system of law enforcement for them.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:58 AM on March 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
Instead, most of them talk about protection from home break-ins and street thugs. If that's the problem, the solution is more cops, not more random citizen vigilantes. 2nd A is supposed to protect you from the government, not from other citizens gone bad. We have an entire system of law enforcement for them.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:58 AM on March 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
So - those gun enthusiasts are taking their videos to Pornhub.
I saw someone's analysis of this and the deal is apparently plain old advertiser pressure - there's a number of legal things that YT won't allow on their service, to varying levels of controversy. But yeah, it's become literal gun porn.
posted by GuyZero at 10:03 AM on March 23, 2018
I saw someone's analysis of this and the deal is apparently plain old advertiser pressure - there's a number of legal things that YT won't allow on their service, to varying levels of controversy. But yeah, it's become literal gun porn.
posted by GuyZero at 10:03 AM on March 23, 2018
I would have much more respect for the 2nd Amendmenters if they were talking about protecting themselves from a corrupt and violent government. If they actually meant that, they'd be supporting black men's rights to carry guns to protect themselves from overzealous cops.
I mean, there are some of us! But I will acknowledge that I didn’t see a lot of people celebrating, say, Micah Johnson, or Christopher Dorner, both of which at least had legitimate claims and grievances.
Fighting back against tyranny could involve shooting the agents of the state: politicians, police, ICE, and potentially the military. But you’re right that few 2A supporters really take a hard look at that.
posted by corb at 10:32 AM on March 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
I mean, there are some of us! But I will acknowledge that I didn’t see a lot of people celebrating, say, Micah Johnson, or Christopher Dorner, both of which at least had legitimate claims and grievances.
Fighting back against tyranny could involve shooting the agents of the state: politicians, police, ICE, and potentially the military. But you’re right that few 2A supporters really take a hard look at that.
posted by corb at 10:32 AM on March 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
(I should state, in both cases they wounded and killed civilians so it’s not a perfect metaphor, but the goals and aims were directed against police for brutality)
posted by corb at 10:34 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 10:34 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I would have much more respect for the 2nd Amendmenters if they were talking about protecting themselves from a corrupt and violent government. If they actually meant that, they'd be supporting black men's rights to carry guns to protect themselves from overzealous cops.
Yeah, should have clarified, 2nd amendment is about the ability to be a low level terrorist asshole in support of white supremacy.
The should change the language to clarify - “well regulated militia” should changed to “racist Facebook page” or something.
posted by Artw at 10:35 AM on March 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Yeah, should have clarified, 2nd amendment is about the ability to be a low level terrorist asshole in support of white supremacy.
The should change the language to clarify - “well regulated militia” should changed to “racist Facebook page” or something.
posted by Artw at 10:35 AM on March 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
So - those gun enthusiasts are taking their videos to Pornhub.
I'm predicting a whole bunch of really awkward to explain gun cleaning accidents.
posted by srboisvert at 10:38 AM on March 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm predicting a whole bunch of really awkward to explain gun cleaning accidents.
posted by srboisvert at 10:38 AM on March 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yes, it's more difficult for these groups, for a variety of reason, including but certainly not limited to:
- less disposable income to cover fees and actually purchase guns, much less arsenals
- there are time investments like getting training, going to a local police station to fill out paperwork
- a gun store isn't obligated to sell you anything, and gun stores are owned and operated by racists and conservatives
- due to other socioeconomic disparities, it's more difficult to pass the background checks
There's just no rhetorical argument to make around your idea that the 2nd amendment is anything like a great equalizer.
In Chicago the police can nix your gun license application on feels. And CPD is not exactly color blind.
Plus the law has a lot of other tricks: No guns on public transit. No guns in city buildings. Stores and businesses can have no gun policies as well.
Basically concealed carry in Chicago is for car commuters to arm themselves and store their guns in their parked cars if they are going anywhere they're not allowed.
Even if I wanted to carry I couldn't because I choose not to drive and it would logistically impossible.
posted by srboisvert at 10:51 AM on March 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
- less disposable income to cover fees and actually purchase guns, much less arsenals
- there are time investments like getting training, going to a local police station to fill out paperwork
- a gun store isn't obligated to sell you anything, and gun stores are owned and operated by racists and conservatives
- due to other socioeconomic disparities, it's more difficult to pass the background checks
There's just no rhetorical argument to make around your idea that the 2nd amendment is anything like a great equalizer.
In Chicago the police can nix your gun license application on feels. And CPD is not exactly color blind.
Plus the law has a lot of other tricks: No guns on public transit. No guns in city buildings. Stores and businesses can have no gun policies as well.
Basically concealed carry in Chicago is for car commuters to arm themselves and store their guns in their parked cars if they are going anywhere they're not allowed.
Even if I wanted to carry I couldn't because I choose not to drive and it would logistically impossible.
posted by srboisvert at 10:51 AM on March 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
Ijeoma Oluo:
Being rejected by girls will be a valid reason as to why a white man drives his car into a group of women. Being laid off will be a valid reason as to why a white man opens fire in an office. Being “frustrated” will be a valid reason as to why a white man leaves bombs on the doorsteps of black families. Being unpopular will be a valid reason as to why a white man shoots up a school.posted by rtha at 12:09 PM on March 23, 2018 [45 favorites]
But living in systemic poverty with no job prospects won’t be a valid reason for why a black man sells loose cigarettes on the street. Being frustrated by constant harassment by police officers won’t be a valid reason for why a black woman refuses to put out her cigarette at a traffic stop. Living in a neighborhood with no jobs, no infrastructure, underfunded schools, and no dependable police presence won’t ever be considered a valid reason for higher crime rates in black and brown neighborhoods.
Because we were never supposed to expect any of those things. We were never supposed to expect jobs or police protection or investment in our communities or quality education. We were never supposed to expect to see ourselves in movies or read about our heroism in novels.
I considered mentioning Ruby Ridge. But I realized I don’t actually have a good sense if they were sympathetic across the US the way they were to my libertarian tilted suburb.
I know at the time it happened I was surrounded by some libertarian gun-weirdoes, but several comments in this thread gave me pause and I hopped over to the wikipedia entry to compare what has been documented with what I remember.
posted by bastionofsanity at 1:01 PM on March 23, 2018
I know at the time it happened I was surrounded by some libertarian gun-weirdoes, but several comments in this thread gave me pause and I hopped over to the wikipedia entry to compare what has been documented with what I remember.
posted by bastionofsanity at 1:01 PM on March 23, 2018
I'm white, and male, and cis-gendered, and I live in a red state. I was born that way, I didn't choose it. In the hopes that it might actually matter to some of y'all: This thread makes me feel really bad. I don't feel welcome here at all. I don't feel like anything I might could add with my voice could be seen as valuable. I feel like the Them in Us vs. Them, other, way outside what this community and the people in this place consider acceptable.
Granted, I've never contributed much to this site. But, I've thought of you folks as "my kind of people" for far longer than I've had an account here. When I was younger, growing up rooted in that red state, this site provided one of few vital life-lines to the larger world, and the world of ideas.
And now I just feel like I should leave... either for my own mental health (because it can't be good to hang out somewhere that makes you feel like that, more and more every week, can it?), or just because it seems like so many of you would be happier without one more of me around.
This might be best-formulated, by a more articulate fellow, on the grey. I don't know how to make it full-thread-worthy there. But I know in my bones this thread is as relevant a place as I've ever seen to finally tell MetaFilter this thing I've been pondering for so long. And, I really wonder if it'll be seen as worthwhile enough to not delete, or not. Sincerely, thanks for all the better times!
posted by teatime at 5:45 PM on March 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Granted, I've never contributed much to this site. But, I've thought of you folks as "my kind of people" for far longer than I've had an account here. When I was younger, growing up rooted in that red state, this site provided one of few vital life-lines to the larger world, and the world of ideas.
And now I just feel like I should leave... either for my own mental health (because it can't be good to hang out somewhere that makes you feel like that, more and more every week, can it?), or just because it seems like so many of you would be happier without one more of me around.
This might be best-formulated, by a more articulate fellow, on the grey. I don't know how to make it full-thread-worthy there. But I know in my bones this thread is as relevant a place as I've ever seen to finally tell MetaFilter this thing I've been pondering for so long. And, I really wonder if it'll be seen as worthwhile enough to not delete, or not. Sincerely, thanks for all the better times!
posted by teatime at 5:45 PM on March 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Hi, teatime.
I’m sorry you feel bad. I’m sorry you feel unwanted or unwelcome. I hope that, rather than buttoning, you just kind of sit with those feelings for a while. I’m a cis woman, a lesbian, brown-skinned, with a non-Anglo name. American. In my fifties. I’ve felt this way pretty much my whole life, except in little places (bubbles!) I’ve been lucky enough to be able to fall into or build. I’ve been told for decades that I’ve never been intentionally excluded or othered - and yet, that is the result. Because it’s been necessary for my survival, I’ve learned how to listen, and to pay attention to things I wouldn’t have otherwise. Consider that you may be in that place now, as well.
posted by rtha at 6:59 PM on March 23, 2018 [23 favorites]
I’m sorry you feel bad. I’m sorry you feel unwanted or unwelcome. I hope that, rather than buttoning, you just kind of sit with those feelings for a while. I’m a cis woman, a lesbian, brown-skinned, with a non-Anglo name. American. In my fifties. I’ve felt this way pretty much my whole life, except in little places (bubbles!) I’ve been lucky enough to be able to fall into or build. I’ve been told for decades that I’ve never been intentionally excluded or othered - and yet, that is the result. Because it’s been necessary for my survival, I’ve learned how to listen, and to pay attention to things I wouldn’t have otherwise. Consider that you may be in that place now, as well.
posted by rtha at 6:59 PM on March 23, 2018 [23 favorites]
Mod note: If we want to talk about teatime's comment at more length, let's have a MeTa.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:21 PM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:21 PM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Vox: Why so many American men want to be the “good guy with a gun”
posted by soundguy99 at 8:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by soundguy99 at 8:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm making the point that they aren't actually poor at all - the economic anxiety they say they are experiencing (and is regularly referenced in the article) is a false cover.
An endeavor in which they’re aided by this ubiquitous notion, which evidently must be clung to even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that only downscale whites are capable of being racist wingnuts.
posted by non canadian guy at 6:37 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
An endeavor in which they’re aided by this ubiquitous notion, which evidently must be clung to even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that only downscale whites are capable of being racist wingnuts.
posted by non canadian guy at 6:37 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Licensed conceal carry, held her unloaded gun up to try and stop someone ramming their car into hers, sentenced to two years in prison. Has a two year old and is currently enduring a high risk pregnancy. This is what being a black gun owner in America is like, #KillerMike.The NRA and the 2A didn’t mean shit for Siwatu-Salam Ra. Because they were never intended to protect people like her in the first place.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:37 PM on March 25, 2018 [6 favorites]
But they absolutely should, and we should fight for these people even if the NRA doesn’t. We saw their true colors with Philando Castile - but that doesn’t mean these rights aren’t worth winning. Civil rights includes the right to defense with firearms without unnecessarily harsh treatment.
posted by corb at 2:42 PM on March 25, 2018
posted by corb at 2:42 PM on March 25, 2018
That’s a version of “civil rights” whose cultural legitimacy is is currently under debate in the nation at large. There was a big meeting about it yesterday in the D.C. area, got a lot of press.
Many people are coming to the opinion that that version of “civil rights” is the kind of thing Thomas Jefferson had an opinion about:
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:59 PM on March 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
Many people are coming to the opinion that that version of “civil rights” is the kind of thing Thomas Jefferson had an opinion about:
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."The Second Amendment is a holdover from the days of our barbarous ancestors. And the civilized parts of the nation are coming to realize we don’t want to live like barbarians any more.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:59 PM on March 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
Civil rights includes the right to defense with firearms without unnecessarily harsh treatment.
As I noted in the thread linked by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (and elsewhere), the concept that they are individual civil rights didn't really exist until the 1960s, when the 2A was hijacked by racist gun nuts. Not coincidentally, that was a point in history (one of several, including most infamously Reconstruction) when the ties between the right to bear arms and white supremacy grew tighter.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:13 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
As I noted in the thread linked by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (and elsewhere), the concept that they are individual civil rights didn't really exist until the 1960s, when the 2A was hijacked by racist gun nuts. Not coincidentally, that was a point in history (one of several, including most infamously Reconstruction) when the ties between the right to bear arms and white supremacy grew tighter.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:13 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
BTW there's tons of information on the perversion of the Second Amendment since it was ratified, especially in the last 50 years:
Azmat Khan (interviewing Jeffrey Toobin): How Conservatives “Reinvented” the Second Amendment
Jill Lepore: Battleground America
Dalia Lithwick: The Second Amendment Hoax
Cass Sunstein: How the Gun Lobby Rewrote the Second Amendment
Michael Waldman: How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment
Garry Wills: To Keep and Bear Arms
Academic papers from NIH cover the topic, too:
Changing the Constitutional Landscape for Firearms: The US Supreme Court's Recent Second Amendment Decisions
Firearms and health: the right to be armed with accurate information about the Second Amendment
posted by zombieflanders at 4:22 PM on March 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
Azmat Khan (interviewing Jeffrey Toobin): How Conservatives “Reinvented” the Second Amendment
Jill Lepore: Battleground America
Dalia Lithwick: The Second Amendment Hoax
Cass Sunstein: How the Gun Lobby Rewrote the Second Amendment
Michael Waldman: How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment
Garry Wills: To Keep and Bear Arms
Academic papers from NIH cover the topic, too:
Changing the Constitutional Landscape for Firearms: The US Supreme Court's Recent Second Amendment Decisions
Firearms and health: the right to be armed with accurate information about the Second Amendment
posted by zombieflanders at 4:22 PM on March 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
Whatever you may feel about guns, civil rights mean equal treatment under the law. Wanting the laws to change on guns doesn’t mean that it is any less egregious for a woman to be jailed for a perfectly legitimate use of firearms as self defense simply because of the color of her skin. We can argue about what the laws should be, but we should be united that they should be equally applied as they are right now.
posted by corb at 6:16 PM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 6:16 PM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
And what I'm telling you is that the white supremacy is baked right into into the system and has been for decades. We're talking about laws that are designed to be taken advantage of by white people and wielded against marginalized groups. I'd love for the laws to be equally applied, but that would require rewriting pretty much the entirety of firearm law starting from the Second Amendment and going all the way down.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:36 PM on March 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by zombieflanders at 6:36 PM on March 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
I had the thought tonight that we should get the guns off TV. Also if a gun appears in a movie — even a ray gun — it should be an automatic R rating. We did it with cigarettes, we should do it with guns too.
If that also means no more cop shows, so much the better.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:59 PM on March 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
If that also means no more cop shows, so much the better.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:59 PM on March 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Sign from the March for Our Lives: "A Gun Won't Fill The Hole Toxic Masculinity Left, Bro."
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:18 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:18 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
If that also means no more cop shows, so much the better.
I'm a sucker for the police procedural. I want to see horrible crimes happen, and by the end of 42 minutes, I want to see a competent group of professionals make the world a better place. I've noticed that over the last few years, I've appreciated the story lines that discourage rule-bending and unnecessary force. I don't want to see Chaos Evil defeated by Chaos Good, I want Chaos replaced by Good, perhaps with a decent amount of reflection of whether our systems or values need changing to achieve Good.
I'm not sure if it's part of a broader trend, or just a response to headlines that will fade.
posted by politikitty at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm a sucker for the police procedural. I want to see horrible crimes happen, and by the end of 42 minutes, I want to see a competent group of professionals make the world a better place. I've noticed that over the last few years, I've appreciated the story lines that discourage rule-bending and unnecessary force. I don't want to see Chaos Evil defeated by Chaos Good, I want Chaos replaced by Good, perhaps with a decent amount of reflection of whether our systems or values need changing to achieve Good.
I'm not sure if it's part of a broader trend, or just a response to headlines that will fade.
posted by politikitty at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm a sucker for the police procedural. I want to see horrible crimes happen, and by the end of 42 minutes, I want to see a competent group of professionals make the world a better place
Which doesn't require guns! The Wire, said by cops to be the most accurate portrayal of police work (see also: Barney Miller), famously has the police shooting their guns a total of three times over the course of the entire series (all by Prez, natch). (previously)
posted by rhizome at 1:42 PM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]
Which doesn't require guns! The Wire, said by cops to be the most accurate portrayal of police work (see also: Barney Miller), famously has the police shooting their guns a total of three times over the course of the entire series (all by Prez, natch). (previously)
posted by rhizome at 1:42 PM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]
Who is the target market for Eli ("Torture Porn") Roth's reboot of Death Wish starring Bruce Willis?
The same guys stockpiling personal armories and fantasizing about being the "Good man with a gun."
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:19 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
The same guys stockpiling personal armories and fantasizing about being the "Good man with a gun."
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:19 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
The common thread of mass shootings are weapons that autoload out of large-capacity interchangeable box magazines.Events like Parkland were especially horrific because of the combination of (a) high-velocity, highly lethal 5.56 rounds that were (b) able to be fired very quickly and accurately (c) from a platform optimized for that purpose and (d) that is loaded from high-capacity, quickly-replaceable, removable magazines.
The "military" part doesn't matter: a mini-14 is functionally equivalent to an AR-15.It does, kinda, because "semi-auto with removable box mag" is basically a military requirement with little utility in civilian shooting.
The Mini-14 is the 'same' as an AR in lots of important ways, in that it's a semi-auto rifle fed from removable box magazines -- but it has a key difference in that it's chambered for a much larger round (7.62, aka .308), which makes rapid fire harder and less accurate. It's much less controllable. It's an objectively worse choice for mass murder (or war) because of this. The Garand, which used an even larger round (.30-06), was even worse for this purpose (but does make a better deer rifle).
The ammunition isn't important: even pistol rounds are quite deadly at close range. Regulations should focus on small magazines, fixed magazines, and manual reloading. Australia effectively banned all semiautomatic weapons, not just "military-style assault weapons." Perhaps that's a bit much (tube-magazine .22LR's aren't exactly tactical), but it makes far more sense than banning Garands before mini-14's.Ammo IS important, though. Did you see the article by the Parkland radiologist contrasting the wounds from handguns vs. the wounds from an AR firing 5.56? The AR is deliverying 375% of the destructive energy of 9mm. It's a very, very different situation. (481J vs. 1801J, per Wikipedia)
The tl;dr is that an AR in 5.56 is an almost perfect mass-murder machine in a way the same platform chambered in something bigger or smaller wouldn't be.
I'm ALL ABOUT a move to ban any semiautomatic rifle with a removable box magazine. I think we can make that happen.
Going after handguns is going to be much harder. I don't disagree that it's probably needed, but I think it's legislative nonstarter TODAY.
posted by uberchet at 3:15 PM on March 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
The Mini-14 is the 'same' as an AR in lots of important ways, in that it's a semi-auto rifle fed from removable box magazines -- but it has a key difference in that it's chambered for a much larger round (7.62, aka .308),
I really don't enjoy getting down in the weeds with details of gun features, but you're wrong. The Mini-14 fires the same round as AR-15s and M-16s. The original M-14 fired a 7.62 mm round, and there is a variant of the Mini-14 called a Mini-30, that fires a 7.62, but the distinction you are trying to make about the Mini-14 being hard to keep on target is not valid.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:48 PM on March 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
I really don't enjoy getting down in the weeds with details of gun features, but you're wrong. The Mini-14 fires the same round as AR-15s and M-16s. The original M-14 fired a 7.62 mm round, and there is a variant of the Mini-14 called a Mini-30, that fires a 7.62, but the distinction you are trying to make about the Mini-14 being hard to keep on target is not valid.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:48 PM on March 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
In "good guy with a gun stops things" news, it should be noted that an investigation into last week's shooting at a Maryland school has shown that the shooter killed himself when confronted by the on-duty armed guard, and was not killed by the guard.
(Surprisingly[1], the shooting turns out to be another instance of domestic violence, where a kid shot and killed his ex-girlfriend)
[1] Narrator: It was not surprising in the least.
posted by hanov3r at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
(Surprisingly[1], the shooting turns out to be another instance of domestic violence, where a kid shot and killed his ex-girlfriend)
[1] Narrator: It was not surprising in the least.
posted by hanov3r at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
I really don't enjoy getting down in the weeds with details of gun features, but you're wrong. The Mini-14 fires the same round as AR-15s and M-16s. The original M-14 fired a 7.62 mm round, and there is a variant of the Mini-14 called a Mini-30, that fires a 7.62, but the distinction you are trying to make about the Mini-14 being hard to keep on target is not valid.I misremembered about M-14 vs. Mini-14, and so I stand corrected on this point.
However, the Mini-14 platform is still a worse choice for mass murder for design reasons. I'm sure you can GET a pistol-gribbed Mini, but by and large they have stocks set up for shoulder fire, etc.
posted by uberchet at 6:23 AM on March 28, 2018
However, the Mini-14 platform is still a worse choice for mass murder for design reasons.
Lack of pistol-grip didn't stop this guy. I'm guessing "worse choice" means "could've killed more," which...pardon me while I retch.
posted by rhizome at 10:20 AM on March 28, 2018
Lack of pistol-grip didn't stop this guy. I'm guessing "worse choice" means "could've killed more," which...pardon me while I retch.
posted by rhizome at 10:20 AM on March 28, 2018
The common thread of mass shootings are weapons that autoload out of large-capacity interchangeable box magazines.
Honestly, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think one of the things that I've identified but really don't know how to do much with is - these mass shooters don't seem to really be very good at understanding firearms. There are a lot of weapons that autoload out of box magazines that they're not using - they're not actually choosing the most lethal weapons - what they seem to be doing is choosing the most toxic-masculinity "coolest" weapons. So you get a lot of features that don't actually make the firearm more dangerous, but that look more like what they've seen in military movies, or military video games, or that make them, to their own eyes, look more tough.
So like- there's practically no functional difference between a customized wood stock and an adjustable black stock - but you see these people using the latter almost every time, because it fits their self-image of who they want to think of themselves as, what they want to look like while they engage in their horrific crimes.
I don't know how or if you can regulate for that, but - it's something I've been thinking about, the broad gap between people who, say, need a pistol grip because of upper body strength issues, and ones who want a pistol grip because it looks 'badass' or whatever.
posted by corb at 2:03 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Honestly, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think one of the things that I've identified but really don't know how to do much with is - these mass shooters don't seem to really be very good at understanding firearms. There are a lot of weapons that autoload out of box magazines that they're not using - they're not actually choosing the most lethal weapons - what they seem to be doing is choosing the most toxic-masculinity "coolest" weapons. So you get a lot of features that don't actually make the firearm more dangerous, but that look more like what they've seen in military movies, or military video games, or that make them, to their own eyes, look more tough.
So like- there's practically no functional difference between a customized wood stock and an adjustable black stock - but you see these people using the latter almost every time, because it fits their self-image of who they want to think of themselves as, what they want to look like while they engage in their horrific crimes.
I don't know how or if you can regulate for that, but - it's something I've been thinking about, the broad gap between people who, say, need a pistol grip because of upper body strength issues, and ones who want a pistol grip because it looks 'badass' or whatever.
posted by corb at 2:03 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
corb: Guns, like so many other consumer products, aren't bought according to need, but according to coolness factor and branding. I don't need an Apple Watch, and I could get by with a cheap, no-name Android smartphone, but I buy Apple products in part because I like the brand. I like the brand because it's a brand that's proven to be reliable, and worth the cost, but I'm still buying for the brand at some point.
The implication of the AR-15 in so many shootings is, in no small part, a part of the branding of that rifle, and there's plenty of people who are going to go into their gun shop and say "Gimme an AR-15" because that's the semi-automatic rifle they know most.
posted by SansPoint at 2:18 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The implication of the AR-15 in so many shootings is, in no small part, a part of the branding of that rifle, and there's plenty of people who are going to go into their gun shop and say "Gimme an AR-15" because that's the semi-automatic rifle they know most.
posted by SansPoint at 2:18 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
these mass shooters don't seem to really be very good at understanding firearms. There are a lot of weapons that autoload out of box magazines that they're not using - they're not actually choosing the most lethal weapons - what they seem to be doing is choosing the most toxic-masculinity "coolest" weapons.I'm not sure that's true; see what I wrote above about the AR. Everything I said is also true about several other relatively short, box-mag-fed, semi-auto rifles in 5.56, but the overwhelming market leader is the AR platform for reasons of "tacti-cool" (military and LEO adoption) in addition to simple efficacy, plus this is a self-perpetuating state. It's the volkswagen of that space, so accessories are available for it, which fuels its market dominance, etc.
All this means that if you set out, this afternoon, to buy a rifle with those characteristics, an AR variant would be the easiest option to get, regardless of how much you know about guns.
I'm also not sure what you mean when you say "not actually choosing the most lethal weapons." From a "shoot lots of targets quickly and accurately" POV, I think they are (though probably not because they're experts; more because of the market status I outlined above).
There are absolutely guns that are more powerful on single-shot basis, but the AR's horror is because it's deadly ENOUGH but also not so powerful as to make it hard to shoot a lot, and do so accurately.
My ideal gun laws would probably never mention features like pistol grips or collapsable stocks; I'd focus on being semi-auto and fed from a box mag -- and MAYBE being chambered above .22LR, but also maybe not. With those two points, you make mass-murder machines harder to get while leaving sportsmen alone for the most part.
posted by uberchet at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
So like- there's practically no functional difference between a customized wood stock and an adjustable black stock - but you see these people using the latter almost every time, because it fits their self-image of who they want to think of themselves as, what they want to look like while they engage in their horrific crimes.
This kind of thinking is why I've come on board to banning or limiting things like pistol grips and muzzle dinguses and whatnot even if they're mostly just cosmetic. If all an angry rando can easily get is something wooden and old-timey looking, so they end up looking to themselves like a bored redneck or like Ward Cleaver instead of looking like THE TACTICAL DEMON, I expect at least some of them will just not bother murdering people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:38 PM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
This kind of thinking is why I've come on board to banning or limiting things like pistol grips and muzzle dinguses and whatnot even if they're mostly just cosmetic. If all an angry rando can easily get is something wooden and old-timey looking, so they end up looking to themselves like a bored redneck or like Ward Cleaver instead of looking like THE TACTICAL DEMON, I expect at least some of them will just not bother murdering people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:38 PM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
but you see these people using the latter almost every time, because it fits their self-image of who they want to think of themselves as, what they want to look like while they engage in their horrific crimes.
"Tacticool."
posted by rhizome at 6:11 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
"Tacticool."
posted by rhizome at 6:11 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
All this means that if you set out, this afternoon, to buy a rifle with those characteristics, an AR variant would be the easiest option to get, regardless of how much you know about guns.
It would also quite likely be the cheapest option, since the R&D costs were paid by the taxpayer years ago and they are produced in such vast quantities.
So you get a lot of features that don't actually make the firearm more dangerous, but that look more like what they've seen in military movies, or military video games, or that make them, to their own eyes, look more tough.
I disagree. Not that people want tacticool features -- they obviously do -- but that those features aren't functional. There are good reasons for the ergonomics and design of widely-used guns like the AR and the AK variants that were developed and refined with a tremendous amount of engineering and design over decades. They work really well for what they were designed for, which unfortunately is wounding and killing people.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:50 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
It would also quite likely be the cheapest option, since the R&D costs were paid by the taxpayer years ago and they are produced in such vast quantities.
So you get a lot of features that don't actually make the firearm more dangerous, but that look more like what they've seen in military movies, or military video games, or that make them, to their own eyes, look more tough.
I disagree. Not that people want tacticool features -- they obviously do -- but that those features aren't functional. There are good reasons for the ergonomics and design of widely-used guns like the AR and the AK variants that were developed and refined with a tremendous amount of engineering and design over decades. They work really well for what they were designed for, which unfortunately is wounding and killing people.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:50 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Paul Waldman: America's made-up culture of guns (emphasis in original)
We're told that if you grew up around guns, then you're right to worry that your culture could be eroded, and we need to understand and sympathize with your perspective. But here's something that might surprise you: For millions of Americans, not having guns around is an important cultural value. It's part of how we define the kind of places we'd like to live. Since most Americans don't own guns, maybe that's worthy of respect and consideration, too.posted by zombieflanders at 1:06 PM on March 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
We never seem to hear that — both sides of the gun issue may have opinions, but only one side is supposed to have a "culture." But it's important to understand that "gun culture" is a relatively recent invention.
[...]
[T]he gun culture of today, with so much fetishizaton of guns and an entire political/commercial industry working hard to spread and solidify the idea that guns are not just a thing you own but who you are, is what we're now expected to show respect for. For instance, the idea that anyone should be able to own military-style rifles designed to kill as many human beings in as short a period as possible, for no real reason other than the fact that some people think they're cool, is supposed to be a part of people's culture, no matter how ludicrous it would have seemed to your grandparents.
And when you say something is part of your culture, you're placing it beyond reasoned judgment. Its status as a component of culture infuses it with value that can't be argued against. I don't tell you that your religious rituals are silly, because they have deep meaning for those within that culture. Your ethnic group's traditional music may not be pleasing to my ears, but I'm not going to argue that it sucks and you ought to start listening to real music, defined as whatever I happen to like. The food your parents taught you to make from the old country might not be to my taste, but I'll appreciate it (at least once or twice) as a window into another aspect of our rich human tapestry.
In other words, when you place something in the sphere of culture, you automatically afford it a kind of conditional immunity from criticism. And you can demand that it be respected.
Nobody understands this better than gun advocates, who have been working to change the culture around guns, and our expectations about them, for some time. With only the most minimal restrictions on who can buy guns and what kind, their focus in recent years has been on putting guns in the hands of as many people as possible in as many places as possible. State laws have been passed to allow guns in government buildings, churches, schools, restaurants, even bars. They encourage people to get concealed carry licenses and to open carry whenever possible, to inculcate everyone with the idea that we should just expect to see guns wherever we go — until their culture becomes your reality, whether you like it or not.
And if you don't? You just need to show more respect.
There's a whole boatload of toxic-rural/suburban-white-guy-stuff that gets labeled as "culture" where the equivalent urban-nonwhite-nonguy-stuff is just... hobbies.
And it's not for no reason that when I don't feel like defending being a vegetarian and someone (let's face it: some dude) presses me on it, I immediately claim a religious reason (technically not incorrect, but I was a vegetarian long before I was a Buddhist). Using "religion" or "culture" as your explanation for why you do what you do is an instant get-out-of-criticism card in most social situations. I absolutely use that to my advantage when I don't want to get into it with some edgelord about they LOVE ANIMALS,THEY'RE DELICIOUS HAR HAR.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:51 PM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
And it's not for no reason that when I don't feel like defending being a vegetarian and someone (let's face it: some dude) presses me on it, I immediately claim a religious reason (technically not incorrect, but I was a vegetarian long before I was a Buddhist). Using "religion" or "culture" as your explanation for why you do what you do is an instant get-out-of-criticism card in most social situations. I absolutely use that to my advantage when I don't want to get into it with some edgelord about they LOVE ANIMALS,THEY'RE DELICIOUS HAR HAR.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:51 PM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
There's a whole boatload of toxic-rural/suburban-white-guy-stuff that gets labeled as "culture" where the equivalent urban-nonwhite-nonguy-stuff is just... hobbies.
If you're lucky. Often it's "lack of civilization".
posted by the agents of KAOS at 5:40 PM on March 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
If you're lucky. Often it's "lack of civilization".
posted by the agents of KAOS at 5:40 PM on March 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Civil rights includes the right to defense with firearms without unnecessarily harsh treatment.
That attitude is literally and explicitly a holdover from slavery and the racist, honour culture of the Southern American states. That stain is their legacy on the nation This is what we mean when we say it is holdover from the days of our barbarous ancestors.
We’re trying to build a world where espousing those attitudes is not something one does in public. Where that gets one disinvited from the party for talking like that because it’s just not done in civil society.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:25 PM on March 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
That attitude is literally and explicitly a holdover from slavery and the racist, honour culture of the Southern American states. That stain is their legacy on the nation This is what we mean when we say it is holdover from the days of our barbarous ancestors.
We’re trying to build a world where espousing those attitudes is not something one does in public. Where that gets one disinvited from the party for talking like that because it’s just not done in civil society.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:25 PM on March 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
A school shooting preempted a Florida high school’s walkout against school shootings
posted by zombieflanders at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by zombieflanders at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
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* Maybe some in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But even then, they seem to do fine with one or two.
posted by GuyZero at 11:06 AM on March 22, 2018 [79 favorites]