Political Memes

why isn’t that ever reflected when comparing the U.S to other countries with gun control? Why isn’t the U.S government less authoritarian? Why aren’t the crime rates lower? Why isn’t police brutality nonexistent?

I mean it's a pretty common talking point, but it isn't exactly a lie to say that the US is pretty unusual as a country on the global stage. I dunno let me hit you with the, again, constant disclaimer of: I still support federal gun legislation as long as we could maybe figure out a way to combat the inevitable compliance problem which probably has to due more with regulation on guns as an industry. Probably like that guy said in the comment chain I linked two comments back, an expansion of NICS on private sales, and with better and more precise data, as well as probably better registration with mental health services, and also mental health services existing, which probably also includes the existence of single-payer healthcare.

I dunno, if you're asking why the US is a uniquely authoritarian country. I could just gesture at like, the entire US's history of religious fanaticism and settler colonialism, and the fact that white people as a collective were willing to totally burn the futures of their children just because they wanted to stick it to black people, which we're still seeing. I'd probably gesture to the fact that the US's military industrial complex is THE military industrial complex of the western world's exploitation. It's not surprising to me, after any of those, that the US is pretty authoritarian. In that perspective, the US is maybe more similar to a fucked up version of south africa, than being similar to most European countries, or even Australia or New Zealand, which are obviously much less militarized and used as a global engine for imperialism abroad.

But also notice how I didn't bring up guns in that? I'm not going to blame a technology for the factors which drove that technology's use, that's buying too much into a guns, germs and steel style meta-narrative of history. The guns are not like a driving factor in that shit, the guns are just a relatively like, simplistic tool which is used to enact it. A probably inevitable one, at that, given the relative advancements of chemistry, metallurgy, and mechanics which lead to their development from a minor kind of historical footnote or oddity into a large encompassing weapon type, over the course of hundreds of years.

Again it's also unrealistic to expect that guns, being a tool through which this happens, that the guns' mere existence alone is capable of reversing these problems, which is basically what like, the common narrative would have you believe. Their use is never brought up or really intellectually engaged with politically, outside of the really simple stuff like hunting, self-defense, historical collections. Simply the ownership of the guns themselves is the end point, which isn't a wonder to me in the current economic system that wants you to buy and own shit.

If you were to put me on a spectrum and play out the like, country to country comparison, right, the comparison of the UK, me personally, I would be agreeing more with the IRA, if that helps you understand the sentiment, and gives you more of a use case for guns. Police are an occupying force.

At this point we're also getting more into overarching political strategies for revolutionary action or political reform, and guns as a vehicle for that, which, again, I'm less sure on, and it's sort of much harder to make a clear assessment of because it's pretty case-by-case. There are lots of ways to engage in that even without guns. The IRA, once again, made great use of IEDs. I'm pretty sure I just have a more radical take on the use of violence for political ends, than you do. It's maybe important to understand violence, or, the threat of violence, as a form of political leverage, over just the violence itself kind of being like, again, an end all be all goal. I don't think it's a mistake necessarily to think that property damage that arises as a result of a protest or riot can create a political incentive in decision making bodies to cave to demands, lest they might face the wrath of a large scale protest once again. The organization of people can provide an implicit threat. Guns are a mechanism by which this can also be accomplished with a smaller force, with greater efficiency per person, maybe at a greater risk to each individual as well. Are you getting what I'm saying so far?

The other shit, I won't disbar that generally people are stupid around guns, that's pretty clear. Victims of 2A lobbying and gun industry marketing and inner city crime wave narratives.