Ask Americans

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So let's hit the ground running: Guns (self.askamericans)

submitted 1 year ago by ttmrichter to c/[email protected]

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The USA has literally more than one mass shooting^1^ per day. It has reached the point where these don't even reach the news any longer unless there's some special angle to make them "interesting". The reaction to this, from an outsider perspective, should be "maybe we should do something about the proliferation of freely available guns". The reaction to this, again from an outsider perspective, seems to be rather "OMG I BETTER BUY MORE GUNS!!!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!"

What gives? How come the USA has not yet figured out that doubling down on the strategy that led to the nation having a shocking murder rate for the developed world is not a working solution?

What is it about the USA and guns that makes you tolerate this state when you've got a culturally-similar nation to the north of you that, despite your cultural problems being imported, still doesn't have your kill rate?

^1^ Defined as a shooting event in which at least 4 people other than the shooter are injured or killed.

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[+] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] ttmrichter 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First, c’mon, “insane” is not a useful descriptor for a nation, regardless of the difficulty in wrapping your head around the peculiar challenges.

One of the more popular definitions of "insanity" is "doing the same thing and expecting different results".

By that standard, yes, I'm sorry, the USA is insane. (And not just on the gun thing, but it's the most visible and startling manifestation of said insanity.)

I mean every time there's a popular mass shooting in your nation the gun sales go up. Every. God. Damned. Time. Because the solution to the problem of people shooting each other up with guns available willy-nilly is obviously to increase the number of guns. This is just plain nuts.

It's like how your solution to voting in a bad government is to vote in ... a ... bad government.