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> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s an extreme example of course: the US political system is closer to European-style proportional parliamentary systems than it is to North Korea, but it’s still very different from them, and in many meaningful ways is not actually a democracy.

Aeolun 4y ago
If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. If people haven’t gotten motivated enough after literally decades of this shit, I find it really hard to blame the law.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  > If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. People do care, and they do protest and march, and like most protests anywhere it does not change anything. Sorry but you seem to have a very naive view of the effectiveness of protests. By the way, the pro-Trump protests didn’t achieve anything either (other than furthering the US’s slide into bitter ultra-partisan division and total erosion of trust in institutions). Notably, they did not successfully enable Trump to remain president. So what is your point?
- LoveGracePeace 4y ago
  - chrischen 4y ago
    That amendment was written back when a gun was more powerful than words or information, and when gun ownership was more prevalent and necessary. In our modern day information, speech, and and privacy are the guns that ensure rights are not stomped on. It’s no longer the wild wild west. To think that rules written hundreds of years ago never need to be changed is spitting in the face of our founders who realized that the process of amendments are necessary because things change. The irony is that people are defending the second amendment by claiming it cannot be amended.
    - alar44 4y ago
      - chrischen 4y ago
        I don’t understand your rebuttal?
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      - chrischen 4y ago
        By the time the KGB come knocking at your door it’s already over. What we need is an amendment guaranteeing our right to encryption and privacy, so that the KGB won’t even know which door to knock on. Back then your arms were pretty well matched against the government. Today, not so much. Civilians and their small arms are no match for the KGB or modern US military. If we really wanted a way to check the physical power of the US military we’d need a bit more than some semi automatic rifles. They are literally in their current form just play things for the wealthy who don’t want to give up their gun hobby, and liabilities for the rest of civilian society due to the criminally insane.
  - jdr23bc 4y ago
    January 6th is somewhere in the neighbourhood of the kind of scenario your referencing. Ubiquitous guns change the equation for all kinds of theoretical events. They may be a boon in the "armed populous saves country from corrupt gov't" case, and a curse in another case. Were a more extreme version of Jan 6th to occur in the future, adding civilian firearms into the mix may not be a good thing.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      Civilians chose not to bring guns to that protest. The only person shot was an unarmed civilian. Even so, guns have been involved in protests before without a problem.
      - rswail 4y ago
        The only person shot was an unarmed terrorist that, after repeated warnings not to proceed, while attempting to break through a barrier that was keeping a mob away from elected representatives, broke through that barrier. I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th. And it is untrue that "civilians" "chose" not to bring guns. There were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end. They are currently being tried for sedition.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        > after repeated warnings not to proceed Untrue, there was no warning. Crowd was let in (there is security footage of this), funneled to a location, and a killzone was setup without their knowledge. The antifa person filming the death was the only person hurling threats in that specific interaction. Both hands of the civilian shot were visible when climbing through the window. Officer could have arrested when she made it through. I guess we're for shooting on sight now. > I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th. Yes let's praise cops for not killing more unarmed civilians than they did, very high bar! > there were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end. What a long way to say they didn't bring guns to the event. Any CCW holder has preparations to be armed. > sedition Point to a case, noone is being tried for sedition, only trespassing.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    Ah yes, the hypothetical dictator defense. Nothing that said dictator would need support from the military (which has demonstrated it is not necessarily keen to go that route), how well will your "well armed" people fare against well trained soldiers with, um, "tanks" (using tanks here as a catchall for all their weapons.)?
    - jcbrand 4y ago
      Goat herders with AK-47s did pretty well in Afghanistan and basically defeated the US military after 20 years. A highly motivated and armed insurgency is almost impossible to control, even if you have superior fire-power.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      Ah yes, the "the gov. is too powerful so what's the point of fighting tyranny" talking point. The tank premise is almost as stupid as Biden's nukes / jets threat against the American people. A country is not going to carpet bomb, send tanks in, or nuke its own people / land. It takes a lot of brainwashing to get your soldiers to do that to their own people and direct force like that will lead to instant revolts. What is much more likely is a KGB like secret police that goes around black bagging people, etc. You're much less likely to be able to do that when you know the civilian population has more guns than your secret police.
- curiousgal 4y ago
  > If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. THANK YOU! Say what you will about those supporters but the fact they went that far to support something they believed in (albeit dumb honestly) is admirable. Meanwhile the people with actual good values are just sharing senators' edgy tweets thinking that makes a difference.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
  - mulmen 4y ago
    There's nothing admirable about the January 6th attackers. Do you also admire the 9/11 hijackers? How about the gunman in this most recent school shooting? These are all "true believers". Most people exist in the expansive middle ground between regurgitating Tweets and insurrection.
- rswail 4y ago
  They have and they do. If you recall, there were marches and protests across the US after the Parkland school shooting. However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns. There are Senators today suggesting that schools be turned into prison-like places (Cruz with his "one door in and out" nonsense), that others are suggesting arming teachers, while ignoring the fact that the school protection officer and local law enforcement engaged the murderer in this school shooting but failed to apprehend or stop him and the SWAT team took 40 minutes to engage the murderer and eliminate the threat. People have been marching and protesting and demonstrating continuously and yet there is a specific party, the Republicans, and specific lobby groups, that have stopped any change.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomp 4y ago
    > However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns. Well, there's the political interpretation (NRA lobbying) and the factual interpretation as well: "low population rural states" i.e. where guns are used for hunting & self-defence (low population but also huge, so low density, so the nearest police/neighbours are so far away you can't always rely on their help)
simon1ltd 4y ago
I don't want gun violence, but I 100% want the 1986 National Firearm Act repealed. I believe fully automatic assault weapons and machine guns should be available for purchase, new, just like any other weapon. (Fully automatic weapons are legal to buy and own right now in the US, if you pay a $200 stamp tax and wait 9 months for the ATF to process the paperwork, but you can only buy "NFA" regulated machine guns that were registered in 1986 or before ... which means they're all collectors items now, and the cheapest machine guns are $15-20k and up). Most people I know would like to see the existing laws enforced, and don't want anything new passed or put in place.
- astockwell 4y ago
  Most people I know would like to see their children grow up.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - boppo1 4y ago
    Children are about 300x more likely to die from leukemia than in a school shooting (2019 numbers). "Regular" gun violence with handguns is another story.
    - relaxing 4y ago
      Do you know much money and effort goes into eliminating leukemia?
  - simon1ltd 4y ago
    I would also like to see my children grown up. I’m aware that insane/evil people will do awful things, but that you don’t suppress the rights of everyone to stop one or two bad apples. In my local community groups I see people demanding metal detectors be installed in our schools. This is in response to: An attempted murderer being chased by police, going into a school he doesn’t belong in, barricading himself inside and murdering children. It’s feel good security theater. If you’re in the middle of a killing spree you’re not going to stop because of a metal detector. If you’re dealing with kids bringing weapons to school, that’s different — but the responses to this event from people local to me are about 90% make-believe security.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
We only have more anti-gun-violence activists because we have more gun violence. I forget where we are on the murders per capita scene, but I think we rank somewhere around Uruguay and Cameroon. Great company while pretending to be "the leader of the free world."
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  I never claimed we are the leader of anything, and in fact I explicitly said that the US is not a democracy by many meaningful definitions of that word. I am the furthest thing from a US ultra-patriot who thinks we’re the greatest country in the world, so please don’t ascribe other people’s opinions to me. Tangent: other than their moderately elevated murder rate, what’s wrong with Uruguay? Is that supposed to be an example of some kind of uniquely shitty country by global standards? (It’s a bad one, if so — Uruguay is a wealthy and highly developed liberal democracy.) What specifically makes you assume that the US should be doing substantially better than Uruguay or be held to a higher standard?
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    I never specifically mentioned you, and I was referencing the rhetoric from our hyper-partisan anti-American "patriots" who fervently believe that the US is #1 in virtually everything.
anigbrowl 4y ago
The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. Because other people don't have this problem. And when you get right down to it, they have megaphones and placards, while their opponents have guns. Amazingly, the gun owners have more political power. My views on gun ownership are complex and don't fit neatly into existing pigeonholes - I'm very much in favor of the right to own weapons, but also in additional social responsibilities that ought to accompany that. I have a lot of sympathy with the gun control crowd even though I disagree with many of their arguments, but the fact is their tactics are simply not working. Unfortunately they don't want to change their approach because they're so locked into the moral dimension of their argument that they're unwilling to consider any other approach. Likewise the 2nd amendment absolutists are so intransigent that they keep retreating to a hardline position of 'shall not be infringed! shall not be infringed!' and then complaining about how unreasonable their opponents are.
- makomk 4y ago
  The US anti-gun movement seems to be more a part of the culture war than something founded in reality or that could ever lead to a healthy culture around guns, unfortunately. They seem to particularly like pointing to the country where I live (the UK) as proof that their measures work whilst misleading people about what the UK's strict gun laws actually restrict and then pushing for almost the exact opposite. They insist that pooor rural conservatives are deluded if they think guns help with self-defense, but that the powerful, wealthy Hollywood celebrities with the correct political views using their power and wealth to push for gun controls should absolutely get to keep their armed security using utterly nonsensical arguments that are treated as obviously right by the media. (This doubly wouldn't fly in the UK - it's not a legal reason to own or carry a gun and the kinds of guns they use are basically completely outlawed for private individuals.) They're proud of their ignorance of even the most basic aspects of what they want to regulate, and the media supports them in that worldview and spins caring about the actual facts as a sneaky pro-gun trick.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    >misleading people about what the UK's strict gun laws actually restrict and then pushing for almost the exact opposite Can you elaborate on this? Everyone I know has been citing the UK
r_c_a_d 4y ago
As another outsider, I can remember seeing reports of mass shootings in the US every year or two for the last 30 years or so. Each time I thought "this time they have to do something" and yet the pattern continues. So to me it also seems "clear" that there isn't _enough_ will in the US to act on this.
- ImaCake 4y ago
  Yes. There is even precedent in other western countries. Australia radically restricted its gun ownership laws after a single high profile massacre. This was done by a conservative government no less! The same one that followed the USA into Afghanistan and Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
  - refurb 4y ago
    Australia still has more than half the guns it had prior to that legislation. And still has regular shootings in Sydney due to gang violence.
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      "Regular" being maybe 10 per year, as a guess. As an Australian, I certainly wouldn't want to swap for the shitshow that is US gun crime.
      - refurb 4y ago
        If by 10 per year, do you mean 13 murders (not just shootings) in just Sydney in the last two years? The US is obviously worse, but to claim Australia has control of gun violence is kind of silly. It's clearly out of police control. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/gangland-violence-has-killed-11-in-sydneys-south-west-in-just-two-years-nsw-police-say https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/gangl...
        4y ago
kergonath 4y ago
> That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. Well, you don’t really need activists if you don’t really have a problem. So it is not really surprising that countries with saner gun control policies have fewer activists. Also, the number of activists does not correlate with the opinion of the people overall. Even though the US is not perfectly democratic, the situation does seem to reflect how a majority of states and a large fraction of the people want to live. This is utterly terrifying to us watching from the other side of the pond, but that’s the way it is.

Aeolun 4y ago

If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. If people haven’t gotten motivated enough after literally decades of this shit, I find it really hard to blame the law.

School-Cotton 4y ago
> If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. People do care, and they do protest and march, and like most protests anywhere it does not change anything. Sorry but you seem to have a very naive view of the effectiveness of protests. By the way, the pro-Trump protests didn’t achieve anything either (other than furthering the US’s slide into bitter ultra-partisan division and total erosion of trust in institutions). Notably, they did not successfully enable Trump to remain president. So what is your point?
LoveGracePeace 4y ago
- chrischen 4y ago
  That amendment was written back when a gun was more powerful than words or information, and when gun ownership was more prevalent and necessary. In our modern day information, speech, and and privacy are the guns that ensure rights are not stomped on. It’s no longer the wild wild west. To think that rules written hundreds of years ago never need to be changed is spitting in the face of our founders who realized that the process of amendments are necessary because things change. The irony is that people are defending the second amendment by claiming it cannot be amended.
  - alar44 4y ago
    - chrischen 4y ago
      I don’t understand your rebuttal?
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    - chrischen 4y ago
      By the time the KGB come knocking at your door it’s already over. What we need is an amendment guaranteeing our right to encryption and privacy, so that the KGB won’t even know which door to knock on. Back then your arms were pretty well matched against the government. Today, not so much. Civilians and their small arms are no match for the KGB or modern US military. If we really wanted a way to check the physical power of the US military we’d need a bit more than some semi automatic rifles. They are literally in their current form just play things for the wealthy who don’t want to give up their gun hobby, and liabilities for the rest of civilian society due to the criminally insane.
- jdr23bc 4y ago
  January 6th is somewhere in the neighbourhood of the kind of scenario your referencing. Ubiquitous guns change the equation for all kinds of theoretical events. They may be a boon in the "armed populous saves country from corrupt gov't" case, and a curse in another case. Were a more extreme version of Jan 6th to occur in the future, adding civilian firearms into the mix may not be a good thing.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    Civilians chose not to bring guns to that protest. The only person shot was an unarmed civilian. Even so, guns have been involved in protests before without a problem.
    - rswail 4y ago
      The only person shot was an unarmed terrorist that, after repeated warnings not to proceed, while attempting to break through a barrier that was keeping a mob away from elected representatives, broke through that barrier. I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th. And it is untrue that "civilians" "chose" not to bring guns. There were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end. They are currently being tried for sedition.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        > after repeated warnings not to proceed Untrue, there was no warning. Crowd was let in (there is security footage of this), funneled to a location, and a killzone was setup without their knowledge. The antifa person filming the death was the only person hurling threats in that specific interaction. Both hands of the civilian shot were visible when climbing through the window. Officer could have arrested when she made it through. I guess we're for shooting on sight now. > I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th. Yes let's praise cops for not killing more unarmed civilians than they did, very high bar! > there were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end. What a long way to say they didn't bring guns to the event. Any CCW holder has preparations to be armed. > sedition Point to a case, noone is being tried for sedition, only trespassing.
- bruce511 4y ago
  Ah yes, the hypothetical dictator defense. Nothing that said dictator would need support from the military (which has demonstrated it is not necessarily keen to go that route), how well will your "well armed" people fare against well trained soldiers with, um, "tanks" (using tanks here as a catchall for all their weapons.)?
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    Goat herders with AK-47s did pretty well in Afghanistan and basically defeated the US military after 20 years. A highly motivated and armed insurgency is almost impossible to control, even if you have superior fire-power.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    Ah yes, the "the gov. is too powerful so what's the point of fighting tyranny" talking point. The tank premise is almost as stupid as Biden's nukes / jets threat against the American people. A country is not going to carpet bomb, send tanks in, or nuke its own people / land. It takes a lot of brainwashing to get your soldiers to do that to their own people and direct force like that will lead to instant revolts. What is much more likely is a KGB like secret police that goes around black bagging people, etc. You're much less likely to be able to do that when you know the civilian population has more guns than your secret police.
curiousgal 4y ago
> If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. THANK YOU! Say what you will about those supporters but the fact they went that far to support something they believed in (albeit dumb honestly) is admirable. Meanwhile the people with actual good values are just sharing senators' edgy tweets thinking that makes a difference.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
- mulmen 4y ago
  There's nothing admirable about the January 6th attackers. Do you also admire the 9/11 hijackers? How about the gunman in this most recent school shooting? These are all "true believers". Most people exist in the expansive middle ground between regurgitating Tweets and insurrection.
rswail 4y ago
They have and they do. If you recall, there were marches and protests across the US after the Parkland school shooting. However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns. There are Senators today suggesting that schools be turned into prison-like places (Cruz with his "one door in and out" nonsense), that others are suggesting arming teachers, while ignoring the fact that the school protection officer and local law enforcement engaged the murderer in this school shooting but failed to apprehend or stop him and the SWAT team took 40 minutes to engage the murderer and eliminate the threat. People have been marching and protesting and demonstrating continuously and yet there is a specific party, the Republicans, and specific lobby groups, that have stopped any change.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tomp 4y ago
  > However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns. Well, there's the political interpretation (NRA lobbying) and the factual interpretation as well: "low population rural states" i.e. where guns are used for hunting & self-defence (low population but also huge, so low density, so the nearest police/neighbours are so far away you can't always rely on their help)

simon1ltd 4y ago

I don't want gun violence, but I 100% want the 1986 National Firearm Act repealed. I believe fully automatic assault weapons and machine guns should be available for purchase, new, just like any other weapon. (Fully automatic weapons are legal to buy and own right now in the US, if you pay a $200 stamp tax and wait 9 months for the ATF to process the paperwork, but you can only buy "NFA" regulated machine guns that were registered in 1986 or before ... which means they're all collectors items now, and the cheapest machine guns are $15-20k and up). Most people I know would like to see the existing laws enforced, and don't want anything new passed or put in place.

astockwell 4y ago
Most people I know would like to see their children grow up.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- boppo1 4y ago
  Children are about 300x more likely to die from leukemia than in a school shooting (2019 numbers). "Regular" gun violence with handguns is another story.
  - relaxing 4y ago
    Do you know much money and effort goes into eliminating leukemia?
- simon1ltd 4y ago
  I would also like to see my children grown up. I’m aware that insane/evil people will do awful things, but that you don’t suppress the rights of everyone to stop one or two bad apples. In my local community groups I see people demanding metal detectors be installed in our schools. This is in response to: An attempted murderer being chased by police, going into a school he doesn’t belong in, barricading himself inside and murdering children. It’s feel good security theater. If you’re in the middle of a killing spree you’re not going to stop because of a metal detector. If you’re dealing with kids bringing weapons to school, that’s different — but the responses to this event from people local to me are about 90% make-believe security.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

We only have more anti-gun-violence activists because we have more gun violence. I forget where we are on the murders per capita scene, but I think we rank somewhere around Uruguay and Cameroon. Great company while pretending to be "the leader of the free world."

School-Cotton 4y ago
I never claimed we are the leader of anything, and in fact I explicitly said that the US is not a democracy by many meaningful definitions of that word. I am the furthest thing from a US ultra-patriot who thinks we’re the greatest country in the world, so please don’t ascribe other people’s opinions to me. Tangent: other than their moderately elevated murder rate, what’s wrong with Uruguay? Is that supposed to be an example of some kind of uniquely shitty country by global standards? (It’s a bad one, if so — Uruguay is a wealthy and highly developed liberal democracy.) What specifically makes you assume that the US should be doing substantially better than Uruguay or be held to a higher standard?
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  I never specifically mentioned you, and I was referencing the rhetoric from our hyper-partisan anti-American "patriots" who fervently believe that the US is #1 in virtually everything.

anigbrowl 4y ago

The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. Because other people don't have this problem. And when you get right down to it, they have megaphones and placards, while their opponents have guns. Amazingly, the gun owners have more political power. My views on gun ownership are complex and don't fit neatly into existing pigeonholes - I'm very much in favor of the right to own weapons, but also in additional social responsibilities that ought to accompany that. I have a lot of sympathy with the gun control crowd even though I disagree with many of their arguments, but the fact is their tactics are simply not working. Unfortunately they don't want to change their approach because they're so locked into the moral dimension of their argument that they're unwilling to consider any other approach. Likewise the 2nd amendment absolutists are so intransigent that they keep retreating to a hardline position of 'shall not be infringed! shall not be infringed!' and then complaining about how unreasonable their opponents are.

makomk 4y ago
The US anti-gun movement seems to be more a part of the culture war than something founded in reality or that could ever lead to a healthy culture around guns, unfortunately. They seem to particularly like pointing to the country where I live (the UK) as proof that their measures work whilst misleading people about what the UK's strict gun laws actually restrict and then pushing for almost the exact opposite. They insist that pooor rural conservatives are deluded if they think guns help with self-defense, but that the powerful, wealthy Hollywood celebrities with the correct political views using their power and wealth to push for gun controls should absolutely get to keep their armed security using utterly nonsensical arguments that are treated as obviously right by the media. (This doubly wouldn't fly in the UK - it's not a legal reason to own or carry a gun and the kinds of guns they use are basically completely outlawed for private individuals.) They're proud of their ignorance of even the most basic aspects of what they want to regulate, and the media supports them in that worldview and spins caring about the actual facts as a sneaky pro-gun trick.
- boppo1 4y ago
  >misleading people about what the UK's strict gun laws actually restrict and then pushing for almost the exact opposite Can you elaborate on this? Everyone I know has been citing the UK

r_c_a_d 4y ago

As another outsider, I can remember seeing reports of mass shootings in the US every year or two for the last 30 years or so. Each time I thought "this time they have to do something" and yet the pattern continues. So to me it also seems "clear" that there isn't _enough_ will in the US to act on this.

ImaCake 4y ago
Yes. There is even precedent in other western countries. Australia radically restricted its gun ownership laws after a single high profile massacre. This was done by a conservative government no less! The same one that followed the USA into Afghanistan and Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
- refurb 4y ago
  Australia still has more than half the guns it had prior to that legislation. And still has regular shootings in Sydney due to gang violence.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    "Regular" being maybe 10 per year, as a guess. As an Australian, I certainly wouldn't want to swap for the shitshow that is US gun crime.
    - refurb 4y ago
      If by 10 per year, do you mean 13 murders (not just shootings) in just Sydney in the last two years? The US is obviously worse, but to claim Australia has control of gun violence is kind of silly. It's clearly out of police control. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/gangland-violence-has-killed-11-in-sydneys-south-west-in-just-two-years-nsw-police-say https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/gangl...
      - 4y ago

kergonath 4y ago

> That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. Well, you don’t really need activists if you don’t really have a problem. So it is not really surprising that countries with saner gun control policies have fewer activists. Also, the number of activists does not correlate with the opinion of the people overall. Even though the US is not perfectly democratic, the situation does seem to reflect how a majority of states and a large fraction of the people want to live. This is utterly terrifying to us watching from the other side of the pond, but that’s the way it is.