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I think I've put my finger on why it doesn't seem to explain things. Let's say guns were solely about entertainment, no other use. Alcohol is also solely about
by agarden 11y ago
I think I've put my finger on why it doesn't seem to explain things.
Let's say guns were solely about entertainment, no other use. Alcohol is also solely about entertainment, so it should have a similar risk/reward ratio. And in the US, about the same number of people (~10k) die of DUIs every year as die of gun homocide (~10k). Yet alcohol does not raise the same fear and terror in the population as guns. The original article even cited drunk teenagers as something we should not care about when there are people who own guns.
It feels like there must be something else driving the fear and revulsion of guns.
- alistairSH 11y agoBut guns aren't about entertainment. Or, at least not to a large portion of the population. Even among gun owners, many own out of a sense of fear, not because they enjoy visiting the range or plinking cans. I think you're previous comment really sums it up. The risk/reward analysis just doesn't make sense to many people. To the extreme anti-gun population, the only possible outcome of owning a gun is somebody dies. And that is almost never warranted. In many cases, it's the classic "This is why we can't have nice things." A few bad apples don't store their guns properly, causing some deaths, and it doesn't take long for the general population to shift towards an anti-gun stance.