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Oh another “The US is big” post. The EU has 30% more people There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. There are 5 ti

Oh another “The US is big” post. The EU has 30% more people There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. There are 5 time as many guns in the US, but 20 times as many murders. There is a cultural problem in the US with firearms.

darkclouds 3y ago
Does that include places like Switzerland, where every male is issued with a gun as part of their national service/canton militia? I think the cultural problem is everyone wants to be like Stallone or Arnie, which would suggest the US population has an inferiority complex towards the old world.
- midasuni 3y ago
  No. Switzerland isn’t in the EU. Include non EU countries and the population and number of guns is even larger, but gun homicides don’t change much. Even gun suicides are far higher in the US per capita and per gun than in the EU. The US has a gun fetish. People sleep with them for crying out loud!
  - rootw0rm 3y ago
    hey now, if i don't sleep with the thing, how am i gonna grab it when i'm asleep?
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I took “sleep with” as a sexual thing but you’re right, it’s probably referring to nightstand guns or the famous bedshotty.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        Worth noting, it is impossible to both have a gun for home defense, and be a "responsible" gun owner. Being a responsible gun owner implies the guns are properly locked up, away from ammunition, because kids regularly play with daddy's guns and kill each other and themselves, but if your gun is locked up in a safe separately from it's ammo like it is often legally required to be, there's no way you can actually use it for home defense. But everyone still claims they are "A responsible gun owner" because all that actually means to the gun culture in the US is that you are white or rural or conservative.
pmarreck 3y ago
> There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. > There are 5 time as many guns in the US, but 20 times as many murders. gonna need a fact-check on these claims, please, because initial googling reveals these are, at the very least, false or misleading I live in the Northeast US and very few people have guns here. Incidentally, even if it is difficult to purchase a gun, it's trivial to order a crossbow or airbow, which has just as much 1-shot stopping power (although, of course, after that 1 shot, reload can be a problem, less so with the airbow)
- zxexz 3y ago
  Depends where in the Northeast you are! Half the people in Vermont own a gun, New Hampshire and Maine aren’t much different. NY/RI/MA/CT/NJ have relatively low gun ownership rates, for sure.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  [dead]
- bee_rider 3y ago
  What did you find in your search? At least, the gun count seems pretty close, as far as I could tell. https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-boasts-the-most-guns- https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-b... > Around 46% of all 857 million guns in civilian hands around the world belonged to people living in the United States in 2017, a survey has found. > The European Union's 513 million inhabitants owned a collective 79.8 million firearms in 2017. And the “20 times as many murders” is not right, but seems to be pretty close if they were just taking about firearms homicides. https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier#:~:text=Including%20physical%20violence%2C%20suicide%2C%20and,number%20jumps%20to%20nearly%2015%25 https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-.... > Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US are 13 times greater than they are in France, and 22 times greater than in the European Union as a whole. I also live in the Northeast, but that’s a point against when talking about this stuff; when you live in the only reasonably run part of the US, it is easy to misunderstand how ridiculous things are in much of the country.
pixl97 3y ago
Nobody really lives in Montana so that's not a big surprise.
- eequah9L 3y ago
  I think it's playing a similar argument as the GP with US-guns-per-Czech-person. OK, Czechia is a bigger part of Europe than Montana is of US, but it looks as if Montana was picked to show how the original argument is invalid.
- MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
  just some dental floss tycoons

darkclouds 3y ago

Does that include places like Switzerland, where every male is issued with a gun as part of their national service/canton militia? I think the cultural problem is everyone wants to be like Stallone or Arnie, which would suggest the US population has an inferiority complex towards the old world.

midasuni 3y ago
No. Switzerland isn’t in the EU. Include non EU countries and the population and number of guns is even larger, but gun homicides don’t change much. Even gun suicides are far higher in the US per capita and per gun than in the EU. The US has a gun fetish. People sleep with them for crying out loud!
- rootw0rm 3y ago
  hey now, if i don't sleep with the thing, how am i gonna grab it when i'm asleep?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I took “sleep with” as a sexual thing but you’re right, it’s probably referring to nightstand guns or the famous bedshotty.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Worth noting, it is impossible to both have a gun for home defense, and be a "responsible" gun owner. Being a responsible gun owner implies the guns are properly locked up, away from ammunition, because kids regularly play with daddy's guns and kill each other and themselves, but if your gun is locked up in a safe separately from it's ammo like it is often legally required to be, there's no way you can actually use it for home defense. But everyone still claims they are "A responsible gun owner" because all that actually means to the gun culture in the US is that you are white or rural or conservative.

pmarreck 3y ago

> There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. > There are 5 time as many guns in the US, but 20 times as many murders. gonna need a fact-check on these claims, please, because initial googling reveals these are, at the very least, false or misleading I live in the Northeast US and very few people have guns here. Incidentally, even if it is difficult to purchase a gun, it's trivial to order a crossbow or airbow, which has just as much 1-shot stopping power (although, of course, after that 1 shot, reload can be a problem, less so with the airbow)

zxexz 3y ago
Depends where in the Northeast you are! Half the people in Vermont own a gun, New Hampshire and Maine aren’t much different. NY/RI/MA/CT/NJ have relatively low gun ownership rates, for sure.
AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
[dead]
bee_rider 3y ago
What did you find in your search? At least, the gun count seems pretty close, as far as I could tell. https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-boasts-the-most-guns- https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-b... > Around 46% of all 857 million guns in civilian hands around the world belonged to people living in the United States in 2017, a survey has found. > The European Union's 513 million inhabitants owned a collective 79.8 million firearms in 2017. And the “20 times as many murders” is not right, but seems to be pretty close if they were just taking about firearms homicides. https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier#:~:text=Including%20physical%20violence%2C%20suicide%2C%20and,number%20jumps%20to%20nearly%2015%25 https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-.... > Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US are 13 times greater than they are in France, and 22 times greater than in the European Union as a whole. I also live in the Northeast, but that’s a point against when talking about this stuff; when you live in the only reasonably run part of the US, it is easy to misunderstand how ridiculous things are in much of the country.

pixl97 3y ago

Nobody really lives in Montana so that's not a big surprise.

eequah9L 3y ago
I think it's playing a similar argument as the GP with US-guns-per-Czech-person. OK, Czechia is a bigger part of Europe than Montana is of US, but it looks as if Montana was picked to show how the original argument is invalid.
MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
just some dental floss tycoons