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I wonder if this will simply end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence. 1. Expect violence 2. Think buying a gun will somehow help 3. Because you now

I wonder if this will simply end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence. 1. Expect violence 2. Think buying a gun will somehow help 3. Because you now have a gun it seems safer to turn to violence 4. Violence commences

hodgesrm 5y ago
It follows pretty much the same arc as mutually assured destruction (MAD).
spacephysics 5y ago
Number 3 doesn’t make sense; since one has a gun it’s safer to be violent? I think the rationale is if the violence (real or perceived) comes into your own neighborhood/apartment/etc, that you’ll be able to defend yourself. Much better than helplessness. If I have a family, and never owned a firearm, and now you see the state of affairs (again, in reality more at risk vs perceived more at risk is beside the point - user still takes action on their perception), I would feel compelled to defend my home and family. Regardless where one stands politically, we did have violence of some form break out in many cities in the US. So buying a firearm and some ammo seems to me a reasonable step. And yes, I agree in part on the self-fulfilling prophecy. People buy ammo, shortages occur despite supply chain getting better, prices go up, people buy more.
- oneplane 5y ago
  The idea is that you have 'remote violence' you can assert without getting in harm's way. That is of course not how reality works, but because someone might think that they now possess this capability using it might seem more attractive. There is of course the idea that if you don't have it, you are 'helpless' as you might put it. That is just a precursor to an arms race. You can always retreat, delegate to a specialist (if there are any, i.e. a capable policing system) etc. The issue with 'I might get violenced upon!' is that even if that happens, you having your own source of violence only means that the next incident requires more violence from the attacker's side, and more returning violence from the 'defender'. This is an endless loop that just ends in MAD (as posted below). The only thing it can do is escalate. Someone who already made to choice to attack/invade/break-the-rules is not going to be 'deterred' by someone owning a source of violence. They will just bring their own. A while ago I read an article about a family man with a hidden 'gun room' in his house, which was 'for protection'. Turns out you can't actually carry 20 assault rifles in your two hands at once. Perhaps one might think this is for redundancy. But if you are in a situation where you need redundant firearms, those are unlikely to be the deciding factor, and investing in a car so you can simply drive away might have been the better choice. But it seems people would rather try to get some illegal RPG 'for protection' instead.
  - salawat 5y ago
    An RPG is not illegal with the right tax stamp! It's a destructive device, so the tax is by the round. However it is legal. Now whether you agree with the legitimacy around said regulatory framework, and the severe magnification of sentences for what amounts to glorified tax evasion, and it being a poll tax (a tax which renders a Constitutionally guaranteed right conditional), and in light of the 2nd Amendment, that is a completely different story. Again. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I try to avoid this now, because the regulations are as fickle as the night is long, and I despise having to stay tuned to figure out if some swath or another of the population is in threat of getting turned into felons overnight because someone in the Executive branch got into a tizzy. Nobody else seems to lose sleep over that sort of thing, but I do.
  - ghufran_syed 5y ago
    "44 shot this weekend" in chicago https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-police-weekend/10922870/ https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-polic... I guess they should have applied the "You can always retreat, delegate to a specialist...etc" You may argue about whether chicago police department is "capable" - they certainly have very strict gun laws which don't seems to be preventing this gun violence. But if they are not capable, "retreating" doesn't seem to be helping these people. Or are they doing it wrong?
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Chicago has strict gun laws. Illinois doesn't. The trouble with a raw list of stats is that there's no context; why are all these shootings happening? They don't all or even mostly seem to be armed robbery.
      - jdkee 5y ago
        This is incorrect. Unlike the vast majority of US states, Illinois requires any possessor of firearms or ammunition to have a state issued license. Illinois bans the possession of Class III firearms. Certain jurisdictions in Illinois, such as Cook County, ban modern sporting rifles.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > I think the rationale is if the violence (real or perceived) comes into your own neighborhood/apartment/etc, that you’ll be able to defend yourself. Much better than helplessness. If the violence/danger is only perceived/imaginary and not real, then someone going out to "deal with it" will create calamities where otherwise nothing bad would happen without the firearm being present (and that person feeling 'empowered' or some such).
  - spacephysics 5y ago
    Perhaps I should add, the assumption being that the firearm would be brandished/used in the event the person came into their home, and there was an immediate threat. The user would adhere to basic firearm safety and use it lawfully. I meant perceived as in, things seem worse than they are, versus someone thinking “hey QAnon said my neighbors are false flags, let’s go” (hyperbolic, but you get the point) I understand the confusion though without the assumption laid out.
bavell 5y ago
> now you have a gun it seems safer to turn to violence That's not how it works. I'm guessing you don't own any firearms and haven't had much exposure to them. Violence is never safe and the only people "turning to violence" after acquiring one are criminals or those soon to be one.
- oneplane 5y ago
  Of course that is not how it works, hence the word 'seems'. But that doesn't mean suddenly all gun owners are educated gun owners with realistic expectations, experience and training. It would be interesting if a spike in sales also came with a spike in training, range usage or gun safe sales. > I'm guessing you don't own any firearms and haven't had much exposure to them. You'd be guessing very wrongly.
  - albroland 5y ago
    >It would be interesting if a spike in sales also came with a spike in training, range usage or gun safe sales. Anecdotally, I'd say yes. The three ranges in closest proximity to me have hour long waits for lanes on weekends. Everywhere, dealers are consistently sold out of "beginner" type firearms: ruger mark iv's, 10/22s, sr22s, etc. It is a similar story with magazines for these types of firearms, and I doubt demand for these is being driven by existing gun owners (who likely already have them). I also happened to order a new safe recently, and every dealer in my metro area had zero inventory on hand. The best you can get is an order allocation, or buying one of the safes they already have on order with an expected delivery of 1-3mo. Part of this is certainly supply chain disruption, but I heard the same story over and over again that demand was through the roof.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Violence is never safe and the only people "turning to violence" after acquiring one are criminals or those soon to be one. I wouldn't say it was always "turning to violence", but there are a lot of people out there that probably 'should' not have a firearm given things like poor impulse control, lack of knowledge/acknowledgement of dangerous they inherently are, or just carelessness: * https://twitter.com/well_regulated_ https://twitter.com/well_regulated_ Once someone owns a gun, or a household has a gun with-in it, there are all sorts of disasters that can now occur that were not possible without one being present.
hansvm 5y ago
Step (3) is shaky, but a major contributing factor to suicides is household gun ownership. As far as I'm aware the theory is that the ability to go through with it the moment you're sufficiently motivated rather than having to plan a few minutes prevents a lot of people from talking themselves down.
tbihl 5y ago
Crime is much less common amongst people who legally own (i.e. buy) guns than in the general population.
- oneplane 5y ago
  That's like saying crime is much less common amongst people who aren't in jail. If people follow the rules, and also try to be civil in general, and just enjoy guns, you get a combination of foresight, expectation and planning. Usually, when something goes wrong (be it 'being the baddies' or just accidentally have your children shoot themselves because you keep a loaded firearm in your nightstand) I'd expect it to be unplanned, unexpected and a lack of thinking. And therein lies the problem: we cannot assume everyone has the same skillset, same mental capacity and the same outlook.
- handrous 5y ago
  Adjusted for income?

hodgesrm 5y ago

It follows pretty much the same arc as mutually assured destruction (MAD).

spacephysics 5y ago

Number 3 doesn’t make sense; since one has a gun it’s safer to be violent? I think the rationale is if the violence (real or perceived) comes into your own neighborhood/apartment/etc, that you’ll be able to defend yourself. Much better than helplessness. If I have a family, and never owned a firearm, and now you see the state of affairs (again, in reality more at risk vs perceived more at risk is beside the point - user still takes action on their perception), I would feel compelled to defend my home and family. Regardless where one stands politically, we did have violence of some form break out in many cities in the US. So buying a firearm and some ammo seems to me a reasonable step. And yes, I agree in part on the self-fulfilling prophecy. People buy ammo, shortages occur despite supply chain getting better, prices go up, people buy more.

oneplane 5y ago
The idea is that you have 'remote violence' you can assert without getting in harm's way. That is of course not how reality works, but because someone might think that they now possess this capability using it might seem more attractive. There is of course the idea that if you don't have it, you are 'helpless' as you might put it. That is just a precursor to an arms race. You can always retreat, delegate to a specialist (if there are any, i.e. a capable policing system) etc. The issue with 'I might get violenced upon!' is that even if that happens, you having your own source of violence only means that the next incident requires more violence from the attacker's side, and more returning violence from the 'defender'. This is an endless loop that just ends in MAD (as posted below). The only thing it can do is escalate. Someone who already made to choice to attack/invade/break-the-rules is not going to be 'deterred' by someone owning a source of violence. They will just bring their own. A while ago I read an article about a family man with a hidden 'gun room' in his house, which was 'for protection'. Turns out you can't actually carry 20 assault rifles in your two hands at once. Perhaps one might think this is for redundancy. But if you are in a situation where you need redundant firearms, those are unlikely to be the deciding factor, and investing in a car so you can simply drive away might have been the better choice. But it seems people would rather try to get some illegal RPG 'for protection' instead.
- salawat 5y ago
  An RPG is not illegal with the right tax stamp! It's a destructive device, so the tax is by the round. However it is legal. Now whether you agree with the legitimacy around said regulatory framework, and the severe magnification of sentences for what amounts to glorified tax evasion, and it being a poll tax (a tax which renders a Constitutionally guaranteed right conditional), and in light of the 2nd Amendment, that is a completely different story. Again. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I try to avoid this now, because the regulations are as fickle as the night is long, and I despise having to stay tuned to figure out if some swath or another of the population is in threat of getting turned into felons overnight because someone in the Executive branch got into a tizzy. Nobody else seems to lose sleep over that sort of thing, but I do.
- ghufran_syed 5y ago
  "44 shot this weekend" in chicago https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-police-weekend/10922870/ https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-polic... I guess they should have applied the "You can always retreat, delegate to a specialist...etc" You may argue about whether chicago police department is "capable" - they certainly have very strict gun laws which don't seems to be preventing this gun violence. But if they are not capable, "retreating" doesn't seem to be helping these people. Or are they doing it wrong?
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Chicago has strict gun laws. Illinois doesn't. The trouble with a raw list of stats is that there's no context; why are all these shootings happening? They don't all or even mostly seem to be armed robbery.
    - jdkee 5y ago
      This is incorrect. Unlike the vast majority of US states, Illinois requires any possessor of firearms or ammunition to have a state issued license. Illinois bans the possession of Class III firearms. Certain jurisdictions in Illinois, such as Cook County, ban modern sporting rifles.
throw0101a 5y ago
> I think the rationale is if the violence (real or perceived) comes into your own neighborhood/apartment/etc, that you’ll be able to defend yourself. Much better than helplessness. If the violence/danger is only perceived/imaginary and not real, then someone going out to "deal with it" will create calamities where otherwise nothing bad would happen without the firearm being present (and that person feeling 'empowered' or some such).
- spacephysics 5y ago
  Perhaps I should add, the assumption being that the firearm would be brandished/used in the event the person came into their home, and there was an immediate threat. The user would adhere to basic firearm safety and use it lawfully. I meant perceived as in, things seem worse than they are, versus someone thinking “hey QAnon said my neighbors are false flags, let’s go” (hyperbolic, but you get the point) I understand the confusion though without the assumption laid out.

bavell 5y ago

> now you have a gun it seems safer to turn to violence That's not how it works. I'm guessing you don't own any firearms and haven't had much exposure to them. Violence is never safe and the only people "turning to violence" after acquiring one are criminals or those soon to be one.

oneplane 5y ago
Of course that is not how it works, hence the word 'seems'. But that doesn't mean suddenly all gun owners are educated gun owners with realistic expectations, experience and training. It would be interesting if a spike in sales also came with a spike in training, range usage or gun safe sales. > I'm guessing you don't own any firearms and haven't had much exposure to them. You'd be guessing very wrongly.
- albroland 5y ago
  >It would be interesting if a spike in sales also came with a spike in training, range usage or gun safe sales. Anecdotally, I'd say yes. The three ranges in closest proximity to me have hour long waits for lanes on weekends. Everywhere, dealers are consistently sold out of "beginner" type firearms: ruger mark iv's, 10/22s, sr22s, etc. It is a similar story with magazines for these types of firearms, and I doubt demand for these is being driven by existing gun owners (who likely already have them). I also happened to order a new safe recently, and every dealer in my metro area had zero inventory on hand. The best you can get is an order allocation, or buying one of the safes they already have on order with an expected delivery of 1-3mo. Part of this is certainly supply chain disruption, but I heard the same story over and over again that demand was through the roof.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Violence is never safe and the only people "turning to violence" after acquiring one are criminals or those soon to be one. I wouldn't say it was always "turning to violence", but there are a lot of people out there that probably 'should' not have a firearm given things like poor impulse control, lack of knowledge/acknowledgement of dangerous they inherently are, or just carelessness: * https://twitter.com/well_regulated_ https://twitter.com/well_regulated_ Once someone owns a gun, or a household has a gun with-in it, there are all sorts of disasters that can now occur that were not possible without one being present.

hansvm 5y ago

Step (3) is shaky, but a major contributing factor to suicides is household gun ownership. As far as I'm aware the theory is that the ability to go through with it the moment you're sufficiently motivated rather than having to plan a few minutes prevents a lot of people from talking themselves down.

tbihl 5y ago

Crime is much less common amongst people who legally own (i.e. buy) guns than in the general population.

oneplane 5y ago
That's like saying crime is much less common amongst people who aren't in jail. If people follow the rules, and also try to be civil in general, and just enjoy guns, you get a combination of foresight, expectation and planning. Usually, when something goes wrong (be it 'being the baddies' or just accidentally have your children shoot themselves because you keep a loaded firearm in your nightstand) I'd expect it to be unplanned, unexpected and a lack of thinking. And therein lies the problem: we cannot assume everyone has the same skillset, same mental capacity and the same outlook.
handrous 5y ago
Adjusted for income?