18 ms·

honestly, I see pretty much all of America like that. Its not a country I'd feel safe visiting.

by senectus1 6y ago

adrianN 6y ago
It's a pretty big country, it's probably wrong to generalize like that.
- senectus1 6y ago
  probably, but from the outside looking in its what i see. I don't get that feeling from most other 1st world countries. hell, I've been through a few south American countries like Argentina and Ecuador without any real concerns. America as a whole seems to have values that just dont sit comfortably with me. Understand the issue about generalizing. Doesn't change my gut feels though.
  - stoolpigeon 6y ago
    When I moved from the US to Hungary it took a year maybe for me to really relax and realize for the first time how much stress I'd been carrying - all around guns. If you had tried to talk to me about it before I had lived here I would have told you that you were crazy and that the US is really safe. And in a lot of ways it is safe, but the emotional reaction is legitimate and completely understandable. The first time we took our kids back, one night we were out front of the house we were staying in. A truck drove by on the street and the girls kind of huddled together. I said, "What's wrong?" They said, "We don't want to get shot." When you live in an environment where the idea of just any random person having and using a gun is close to unthinkable, shifting to an environment where anyone could have and use a gun at any time is stressful.
    - refurb 6y ago
      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/3/24/coronavirus-triggers-panic-buying-of-guns-in-hungary https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/3/24/coronavirus-trigger... “ “We are selling five times as much as in a normal March,” said Gabor Vass, who runs three gun shops in the Hungarian capital, including the one where Rostas bought his gas pistol.”
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Right, but 1) Even 5x as normal is probably what your average Walmart sells in a day? (I'm paraphrasing, no idea how many guns walmarts actually sell) 2) I don't know about Hungarian gun laws, but I imagine you can't just go in and buy a guy without a permit? Also, are handguns permitted? Gas pistol implies like a CO2 powered air gun?
        luckylion 6y ago
        > 2) I don't know about Hungarian gun laws, but I imagine you can't just go in and buy a guy without a permit? Yes, you need a permit, though illegal gun ownership is somewhat of an issue. Getting a permit isn't easy, from what I hear. > Also, are handguns permitted? Yes. > Gas pistol implies like a CO2 powered air gun? No, they're guns that shoot tear gas and the like, and can often also be used for launching small pyrotechnics. The barrel is usually obstructed to make sure they can't be used to shoot projectiles. Theoretically, they could be manipulated to fire projectiles, but it's complicated, difficult, illegal, and probably easier and cheaper to just buy the real thing.
      - stoolpigeon 6y ago
        That article proves my point. They are taking about people buying air guns that fire rubber bullets. In 2019 the rate of gun deaths per 100000 people in Hungary was 0.61 and in the USA it was 3.96 There are things I worry about but mass shootings like those that happen in the US on a regular basis are not one of them. Violent crime in general is very low here.
      - emptyfile 6y ago
        Hahaha. Title under the header photo. >Gun dealers in Hungary's capital can sell gas pistols, like this Ekol Firat Magnum, to people without a weapons licence Oh, the horror...
        refurb 6y ago
        However, even small weapons not requiring a license can be very dangerous in the wrong hands, given that even non-combat gas pistols can be lethal at close range. And Vass, the gun shop owner, said the interest does not stop there.
    - mrkstu 6y ago
      As long as you realize it is irrational. I’ve lived in the west and south all my 50 plus years, with a couple years spent overseas, and I’ve never seen a gun drawn or shot in anger. I spend zero time worrying about gun violence because there is no rational reason to. Now, I’ve lived in suburbs (no gated communities, just straight middle class) instead of large metros, though I’ve worked in plenty of the same. I’ve felt unsafe in those metros, but it had little to no relationship to guns, just people who acted out in the train or bus or aggressive in their panhandling. I’m no gun fanatic- been to a few events hosted by friends where I shot their guns at targets, but never have owned one. But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence.
      - acdha 6y ago
        > But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence. Your mileage may vary: My high school, in a nice safe San Diego suburb, had a mass shooting a few years after I graduated. One of my favorite teachers retired that year because he couldn’t go back to the place where a student had bled out in his arms while he was trying to tourniquet him. I met the Aurora, CO movie theater killer when he was a UCSD student working on our lab cluster. Good thing I never WONTFIX-ed his support tickets… In what is possibly the most American game of small world, a now-coworker used to go to the late show at that theater often but not that night. A friend of ours had a close call and lockdown due to a disgruntled employee bringing a gun to his office (past armed guards!), a mile from where I work. My wife’s school had a full hostage negotiation one afternoon when a student made a threat. They talked him out of it but … it’s not exactly hard to imagine that it could have gone the other way. Nobody I’ve met from outside of the U.S. has even one story like that, even the ones from countries we look down on.
- dave_sullivan 6y ago
  Fair, but... I always wondered how people in Seoul could deal with living so close to North Korea, with artillery pointed at the city perpetually. But then in europe people would ask me "Aren't you worried about getting shot in America?" And I'd say no, not really. But I guess now I understand how many of the South Koreans deal with it, they just don't think about it. Gun violence is really quite high in every state and every major city in the US. Mostly we don't think about it.
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    > I always wondered how people in Seoul could deal with living so close to North Korea, with artillery pointed at the city perpetually. When was Seoul actually shot at, though? Perhaps a better comparison would be Israel, which is a first-world country that actually has rocket attacks against its citizens weekly.
    - estaseuropano 6y ago
      The rockets are only reaching a veryimiysd diatance. Israel is a whole military state though, led by hardliners with a clear militaristic perspective on things. Everyone does military service. The whole country is modern and tech-heavy but this idea of constant war and the fear of the Palestinians fighting back against Israeli oppression and land theft (or if you believe the right-wing narrative of just defense) is shaping the entire narrative. They could have chosen peace a few times.. The key difference is still that this is perceived as an external threat. You are not scared of an average Israeli/Palestinian walking by, you are scared of 'the other'. In the US you can get shot by someone with road rage.
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    > Gun violence is really quite high in every state and every major city in the US. Mostly we don't think about it. That really isn’t true though. There is huge variation between states and cities in the USA; eg California has much less gun violence than Wyoming, and LA is a lot more safer than St. Louis.
    - 6y ago
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I like how you added 'probably'. It's down to the news and media we get across the pond; school shootings seem to be common, films and TV shows depict that gunfights are common, etc. I mean the US could choose to go for a better world image, but they like the image that everybody has a gun and they have the Greatest army and all that. Joke's on them though, China has a lot of influence on some US made films nowadays, so Hollywood blockbusters is not only American but now also Chinese propaganda. Meanwhile in Europe we get err. idk. Scandi crime dramas?
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Well I only visited San Francisco (and didn't feel particularly safe there...), so I can't speak for the whole country.
    - mod 6y ago
      I'm a gun owner in a state that ranks very highly for number of guns per capita. I feel very safe in my home state. Like you, I didn't feel safe at all in SF. It's the least safe I've ever felt in the US. I felt even less safe in San Jose, but nothing bad happened to me in either place.
      - midasuni 6y ago
        What is your skin colour?
  - tuukkah 6y ago
    > Meanwhile in Europe we get err. idk. Scandi crime dramas? "Nordic Noir". Love it when occasionally behind it all there isn't Russian or East-European mafia but some homegrown extremists.
  - baud147258 6y ago
    in Europe we get Eurovision songs. And the aforementioned Hollywood blockbusters slash Chinese propaganda

honestly, I see pretty much all of America like that. Its not a country I'd feel safe visiting.

adrianN 6y ago

It's a pretty big country, it's probably wrong to generalize like that.

senectus1 6y ago
probably, but from the outside looking in its what i see. I don't get that feeling from most other 1st world countries. hell, I've been through a few south American countries like Argentina and Ecuador without any real concerns. America as a whole seems to have values that just dont sit comfortably with me. Understand the issue about generalizing. Doesn't change my gut feels though.
- stoolpigeon 6y ago
  When I moved from the US to Hungary it took a year maybe for me to really relax and realize for the first time how much stress I'd been carrying - all around guns. If you had tried to talk to me about it before I had lived here I would have told you that you were crazy and that the US is really safe. And in a lot of ways it is safe, but the emotional reaction is legitimate and completely understandable. The first time we took our kids back, one night we were out front of the house we were staying in. A truck drove by on the street and the girls kind of huddled together. I said, "What's wrong?" They said, "We don't want to get shot." When you live in an environment where the idea of just any random person having and using a gun is close to unthinkable, shifting to an environment where anyone could have and use a gun at any time is stressful.
  - refurb 6y ago
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/3/24/coronavirus-triggers-panic-buying-of-guns-in-hungary https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/3/24/coronavirus-trigger... “ “We are selling five times as much as in a normal March,” said Gabor Vass, who runs three gun shops in the Hungarian capital, including the one where Rostas bought his gas pistol.”
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Right, but 1) Even 5x as normal is probably what your average Walmart sells in a day? (I'm paraphrasing, no idea how many guns walmarts actually sell) 2) I don't know about Hungarian gun laws, but I imagine you can't just go in and buy a guy without a permit? Also, are handguns permitted? Gas pistol implies like a CO2 powered air gun?
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > 2) I don't know about Hungarian gun laws, but I imagine you can't just go in and buy a guy without a permit? Yes, you need a permit, though illegal gun ownership is somewhat of an issue. Getting a permit isn't easy, from what I hear. > Also, are handguns permitted? Yes. > Gas pistol implies like a CO2 powered air gun? No, they're guns that shoot tear gas and the like, and can often also be used for launching small pyrotechnics. The barrel is usually obstructed to make sure they can't be used to shoot projectiles. Theoretically, they could be manipulated to fire projectiles, but it's complicated, difficult, illegal, and probably easier and cheaper to just buy the real thing.
    - stoolpigeon 6y ago
      That article proves my point. They are taking about people buying air guns that fire rubber bullets. In 2019 the rate of gun deaths per 100000 people in Hungary was 0.61 and in the USA it was 3.96 There are things I worry about but mass shootings like those that happen in the US on a regular basis are not one of them. Violent crime in general is very low here.
    - emptyfile 6y ago
      Hahaha. Title under the header photo. >Gun dealers in Hungary's capital can sell gas pistols, like this Ekol Firat Magnum, to people without a weapons licence Oh, the horror...
      - refurb 6y ago
        However, even small weapons not requiring a license can be very dangerous in the wrong hands, given that even non-combat gas pistols can be lethal at close range. And Vass, the gun shop owner, said the interest does not stop there.
  - mrkstu 6y ago
    As long as you realize it is irrational. I’ve lived in the west and south all my 50 plus years, with a couple years spent overseas, and I’ve never seen a gun drawn or shot in anger. I spend zero time worrying about gun violence because there is no rational reason to. Now, I’ve lived in suburbs (no gated communities, just straight middle class) instead of large metros, though I’ve worked in plenty of the same. I’ve felt unsafe in those metros, but it had little to no relationship to guns, just people who acted out in the train or bus or aggressive in their panhandling. I’m no gun fanatic- been to a few events hosted by friends where I shot their guns at targets, but never have owned one. But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence.
    - acdha 6y ago
      > But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence. Your mileage may vary: My high school, in a nice safe San Diego suburb, had a mass shooting a few years after I graduated. One of my favorite teachers retired that year because he couldn’t go back to the place where a student had bled out in his arms while he was trying to tourniquet him. I met the Aurora, CO movie theater killer when he was a UCSD student working on our lab cluster. Good thing I never WONTFIX-ed his support tickets… In what is possibly the most American game of small world, a now-coworker used to go to the late show at that theater often but not that night. A friend of ours had a close call and lockdown due to a disgruntled employee bringing a gun to his office (past armed guards!), a mile from where I work. My wife’s school had a full hostage negotiation one afternoon when a student made a threat. They talked him out of it but … it’s not exactly hard to imagine that it could have gone the other way. Nobody I’ve met from outside of the U.S. has even one story like that, even the ones from countries we look down on.
dave_sullivan 6y ago
Fair, but... I always wondered how people in Seoul could deal with living so close to North Korea, with artillery pointed at the city perpetually. But then in europe people would ask me "Aren't you worried about getting shot in America?" And I'd say no, not really. But I guess now I understand how many of the South Koreans deal with it, they just don't think about it. Gun violence is really quite high in every state and every major city in the US. Mostly we don't think about it.
- dotancohen 6y ago
  > I always wondered how people in Seoul could deal with living so close to North Korea, with artillery pointed at the city perpetually. When was Seoul actually shot at, though? Perhaps a better comparison would be Israel, which is a first-world country that actually has rocket attacks against its citizens weekly.
  - estaseuropano 6y ago
    The rockets are only reaching a veryimiysd diatance. Israel is a whole military state though, led by hardliners with a clear militaristic perspective on things. Everyone does military service. The whole country is modern and tech-heavy but this idea of constant war and the fear of the Palestinians fighting back against Israeli oppression and land theft (or if you believe the right-wing narrative of just defense) is shaping the entire narrative. They could have chosen peace a few times.. The key difference is still that this is perceived as an external threat. You are not scared of an average Israeli/Palestinian walking by, you are scared of 'the other'. In the US you can get shot by someone with road rage.
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  > Gun violence is really quite high in every state and every major city in the US. Mostly we don't think about it. That really isn’t true though. There is huge variation between states and cities in the USA; eg California has much less gun violence than Wyoming, and LA is a lot more safer than St. Louis.
  - 6y ago
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I like how you added 'probably'. It's down to the news and media we get across the pond; school shootings seem to be common, films and TV shows depict that gunfights are common, etc. I mean the US could choose to go for a better world image, but they like the image that everybody has a gun and they have the Greatest army and all that. Joke's on them though, China has a lot of influence on some US made films nowadays, so Hollywood blockbusters is not only American but now also Chinese propaganda. Meanwhile in Europe we get err. idk. Scandi crime dramas?
- adrianN 6y ago
  Well I only visited San Francisco (and didn't feel particularly safe there...), so I can't speak for the whole country.
  - mod 6y ago
    I'm a gun owner in a state that ranks very highly for number of guns per capita. I feel very safe in my home state. Like you, I didn't feel safe at all in SF. It's the least safe I've ever felt in the US. I felt even less safe in San Jose, but nothing bad happened to me in either place.
    - midasuni 6y ago
      What is your skin colour?
- tuukkah 6y ago
  > Meanwhile in Europe we get err. idk. Scandi crime dramas? "Nordic Noir". Love it when occasionally behind it all there isn't Russian or East-European mafia but some homegrown extremists.
- baud147258 6y ago
  in Europe we get Eurovision songs. And the aforementioned Hollywood blockbusters slash Chinese propaganda