Also similar in theory to how European kids/teenagers/young adults tend to respect alcohol more since they grow up around it and can even drink watered down versions. Regarding your second analogy: I remember the first time I drove 441 from Cherokee NC to Gatlinburg TN cutting right through the Great Smokey Mountains. White knuckle drive for me in low gear, locals zipping by as soon as they have the chance to pass. Mentioned this to a woman at the local hiking shop and she said "shoot, I go about 75-80 on that road...when its raining!"

I wish there was a way to tell how many of the "Anti Gun voters" in this poll are not from the USA. Seems a wee bit skewed.

Well but that notion is mostly true. I do not have victim complex(just health issues and society brainwashing) but i understand where this message comes from by now with more exp from life gained(even while not owning license myself) cause over time without exposure to weapons and training(training also requires stable psycho state otherwise having weapons license will make people into unstable manhunters) etc. people do become unready to use them or solve conflict IRL FlightOrFight situation(s) therefore respond very similar way like those "sissies and snowflakes" you mentioned. This is just another case of being upset on unpleasant truth. Same goes for video games make people weak and unhealthy food make people weak situation. They do not make them actually weak(given enough time process is fixable) but they meake them weaker in emergency situation(s) cause obviousity : instead of children spending time improving themselves growing up learning martial arts and other self-growth skills they are preventing self-growth by playing video games or eating unhealthy food but in FlightOrFight situation(s) acquired selfgrowth skills decides outcome. They do not make people weak by spirit but in a war situation or conflict none cares that spirit is not weak cause body is weak to be injured or killed and this is where that notion about "sissies and snowflakes" are. They are sissies cause not have emotionaly ready to handle gun without self-control issues and snowflakes cause not know how to use weapons properly but teach others usually. Just like on YouTube(there should be findable episode scene from Penn & Teller who show that untrained video game player is shooting gun wrong by default and unstable).

IMO (and stressing OPINION), a well-armed society is a safe society.

Not really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vi...tates_by_state

I never go by charts. I can say locally. West Texas is pretty safe except for barrios and colonias.

Guess what. Illegals can't own guns. That don't seem to stop them though. Hence your stats are skewed.

As stats usually are.

America is safer when everyone has the same chance to survive as anyone else.

Since that is pipe dream.

Sometimes guns are needed. Nice to have one around. Even if it collects dust.

I carry a sling shot on my motorcycle. For troublesome humans and dogs.

I would say that America is incredibly safe on that front.
Simply consider all shootings and co false flags to seize the rights for gun ownership.
Sure, that might cause people to label you as a nutjob, but, if you ask me, that still does less damage than having no weapons at all.

Your higher standing in the eye of Joe Sixpack over there by foregoing gun ownership means very little to your 'non societal fitness' than having a rooty tooty point and shooty to hopefully keep a threat at bay.
Just because we have a very high social aspect to our biological life, which results in things like civilization and society, doesn't mean that you're not also under the most basic of evolutionary pressure.
Like walking off a cliff, itdoesn't give a damn if you were an upstanding citizen who could have done no wrong (except walking off a cliff)

It's not like psychopaths are the norm, anyway, in fact, they're vast outliers. Even straight up soldiers (at least used to) didn't shoot to kill because they couldn't bring themselves to end the lives of someone that isn't a direct threat to them.
(Like for sharpshooters/snipers. That guy over there doing his shaving routine in the trench can't hurt you right now, etc)
And in face to face situations, it would be enough to make the enemy flee.

You can play along on the surface but you should never, if you have the right to own something like that, to give it up.

Just like racism. Yeah yeah it's evil, but if I seriously believed that everyone from the Gambia is a crazed cannibal and I would therefore do my best to avoid them like the plague.
Guess how high my chances of getting eaten by Gambian cannibals are versus someone who thinks that all Gambians are angels.

If you can live with missing out on Gambian friends and cooperation, there is nothing immediately bad about racism against Gambians, or anyone else.

I have nothing against Gambians, by the way, if I were afraid of actual Cannibals, then I'd probably avoid Germans, or perhaps Belgians :P
It's just to illustrate a point.

And sure, it can ruin people if they get ostrazised because of that, but the people who get into high precarious situations because of such things are usually the most domesticated and powerless in the first place.

Keep those guns. Never let go of them. Even if the tactical bowlcut squad marches up and down the streets shooting up everything.
Never let terrorists win. In this case, people who want you unarmed. Don't let them pull off those kind of stunts just to take your guns away.

They are all false flags. Simple as that. No negotiation on that topic.
Once you lose the right, you ain't getting it back. Not without more struggle than if you had never let go of it in the first place, anyway.

P.S.:
Also, don't forget, at this point in time, you're gonna die anyway, eventually.
Even if you are the most precious accomodating cooperative diplomatic angel who would take care that all the people are protected because some nutjob here and there kills someone with a gun:
You cannot escape the reaper regardless. You're gonna die. You aren't preventing death, you might, MIGHT prolong the lives of some who would have otherwise gotten shot.
But you aren't saving their lives.

On the other hand, having weapons can do the same, and I would argue in a much better manner.
I can't think of a single animal out there that would voluntarily give up its weapons. Especially if they're external ones, like ours.

(Cats have dagger teeth, we have daggers in the drawers.)

Weapons are part of us. Our biology reflects this.
A chimp or a gorilla is stronger than the average man today, but neither of them can swing a club or throw a spear like we can, simply because their bones and joints aren't adapted to it.
We are.

If you believe that you shouldn't declaw a cat or detooth a dog, then you should oppose the same when it comes to your fellow man.
Our weapons are external, but they're still our partners, so to speak. Our very bodies reflect this.

Happy border day!

Flash forward.

I don't mind guns for self defense. I do however not see any reason for people to own assault weapons. I don't care how many guns you own. A bunch of spread out disorganized rednecks (proud redneck here) don't stand a chance against an organized force. I find their whole argument about tyranny and stuff laughable for that reason. Imho they are just guaranteeing their own demise.

I'd imagine most from the rest of the world are what you'd call anti-gun. Just as I knew in advance exactly which users here would come out to defend their "right to self-defence". The rest of us look at pictures like this
https://hw-static.worldstarhiphop.co...sZ8ST4FoEQ.jpg
and thank the gods there's an ocean between us!

"Unimaginable tracks of time" doesn't include guns... they've only started evolving fractions of a time ago!If it were ordered in importance, it would be our need to poop.

We've come. We may go?code_yes

I am 75 years old. My father gave me my first gun when I was 12 years old. As an adult I collected guns and I had 35 when my house burned 5 years ago and I lost most but not all of my guns.

I have lived about half of of my adult life in urban areas and half in rural areas. People's attitudes about firearms in the two areas of the country are so far apart that they could be from different worlds. People in urban areas see firearms as being used against people either aggressive (crime) or defensive (legal). They either want to ban firearms to protect themselves or they favor "stand your ground" laws that allow people to use firearms to defend themselves against crime.

People in rural areas see firearms as tools. They are used to kill snakes or skunks, hunt (a very popular sport in rural America), or target practice. For example I kept firearms in my dormitory room at Virginia Tech. I would target practice by shooting rats at the local dump. Keeping guns was fairly common on campus and there was a student firearms club which had a target practice range on private land out in the countryside. This was 50 years before an insane student named Seung-Hui Cho perpetrated the Virginia Tech shooting, killing 32 people and wounding 17. Cho was a senior-level undergraduate student at the university and committed suicide as the police closed in. Virginia Tech responded by passing a rule against firearms on campus.

I think that people should be allowed to use firearms in self defense. I have often carried firearms to go hunting or target shooting or to buy and sell them. Only once have I ever carried a firearm for self defense. A bear wanted to dispute ownership of my garbage cans so for a few months until the bear hibernated I carried a very high powered revolver whenever I went out into the back yard at night.

Most rural people would agree that firearms usage in self defense should be allowed but the crime rate in rural America is so low that this is not a major issue to them. Gun owners do get very upset about the attempts to ban firearms. Since the anti-gun lobby cannot ban firearms outright they try to whittle down gun ownership with a series of impediments. Gun owners find these creeping restrictions highly annoying.

I had a deceased sister who had a PhD in psychology. She was a life long political activist and she was strongly anti-gun among other issues. I asked her one time what the mental processes were of people like Seung-Hui Cho. Her answer was, "They are insane." In another conversation she said in exasperation, "We have the strongest gun laws in the country in Connecticut and we still had the Sandy Hook killings." I think that she was typical of gun law activists in that she did not see that there is no connection between gun laws and crime and no connection between gun laws and insanity.

So to answer the question about tourist safety in America: If you come to America you will not be any particular danger from gun toting crazies. Mass killings and defensive killings are rare but when they occur they are sensationalized all over the country (world?) and rightly so. But it still means that you as a tourist face only a minuscule risk of gun violence if you visit America.

------------------------
Steve Stites

I'm a gun owner. Yet in the US I'm considered extremely anti-gun (my conlusion from several (amicable) conversations during my visits there).

Florida, old people and immigrants? Haha!

A standardized education (not exceptional or worldwide and) taught by people generations behind the students... no wonder there's more guns than sense.

In afterlifes they trust, guns evolved nukes so after our lifes that'll teach'em!