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Having never lived in the US, I find it astounding that you could make a comment like that and get so many nods. I've never even heard a gunshot, and I don't k
by ra 14y ago
Having never lived in the US, I find it astounding that you could make a comment like that and get so many nods.
I've never even heard a gunshot, and I don't know anyone who ever has.
- omegaham 14y agoI shoot pretty regularly, so gunshots aren't foreign to me at all. But I would be seriously, seriously disturbed if I heard them off-range. Generally, Americans do the "Out of sight, out of mind" thing when they hear about violence. They only care when it's happening in situations where they could see themselves. Kid gets shot walking on the sidewalk in inner-city Camden for wearing the wrong color shirt? Meh, he was probably a gangbanger anyway. Kid gets shot in Cambridge? Oh no, the sky is falling.
- dmight 14y agoI once lived in a part of Los Angeles that at one point I heard at least two gun shootings per week for about a year. Fortunately every year since about 7 years ago shootings in that area gradually declined.
- jlgreco 14y agoWhen I used to live in Philadelphia, summer holiday nights used to be very unnerving. Previously I had thought that firing guns wildly into the air in some form of celebration was something that was only done in underdeveloped countries... I grew up in a very rural area where there were lots of guns, but nobody was that irresponsible with them.
- grecy 14y ago> I had thought that firing guns wildly into the air in some form of celebration was something that was only done in underdeveloped countries... ...it is.
- jlgreco 14y agoTouché. More accurately stated I suppose, I had previously thought I lived in a developed area.
- youngerdryas 14y agoAnd the hate America first crowd rolls on.
- grecy 14y agono, no, no, you're looking at it all wrong. The crowd is not "Hate America". The Crowd is "America needs to get better". The first step to fixing problems in to acknowledge they exist. I don't know about you, I strive for constant improvement in my life.
- youngerdryas 14y agoListen to the uncle of the bombers, he has more sense than you.
- Surio 14y agoAmen to that sentiment! Although, I've been there couple of times, yes I totally agree with you. A couple of times in my visit, gun shots plus/followed by siren wails in the distance have had the combined effect of inducing sleepless nights and prayer-mode in me, many times. :-) I know, I know... crossing the street, swimming, etc., all carry equal risks, but for a lot of people like me, "rat-a-tat" and "bang-bang-kapwing" is great, as long as it is seen on comic books, films and cheesy batman TV serials.
- lostlogin 14y agoUmm... The risk might be equal to those things, but where you normally live doesn't have a gun risk anywhere near that high. It's like saying that an astronauts risk if blowing up on the launch pad is the same as his risk of being hit by a car. It might be true, but most people don't have that risk (or the stress and fear it causes, which may elevate the risk of other health issues).
- ars 14y agoI live in the US and neither have I. Most people who live in cities in the US haven't either. People outside the US have this image of people dodging bullets left and right as they walk down the street.
- mh- 14y agoI say let's not fight that stereotype; it makes us sound agile and stuff.
- swalsh 14y agoThe US is a big place, it depends on where you are. Where I grew up half the boys in my class would go deer hunting with their fathers. While gun violence was rare, guns were not. Now I live in Boston. Here there's literally the toughest gun laws in the country. There a very few legal guns in the city (and most of the illegal ones gravitate towards area of higher crime such as Roxbury), in fact a lot of the people I work with are even troubled with the fact that I know how to operate one. Its a different culture.
- mindcrime 14y agoHeh, it seems so weird to hear somebody say that. My maternal grandfather purchased my first rifle for me before I was born. When I was about 9 or so, my dad gave it to me, and took me out and taught me to shoot, taught me gun safety and - maybe most importantly - drilled into my head the importance of respect for human life, and how you never point a gun at someone unless you absolutely need to kill them (because they are an active threat to your own safety). Then again, I grew up in a very rural area, but guns are - from my perspective - an absolutely routine, normal, everyday part of life. I guess that's why I find it so hard to "get" the mindset of the radical antigunners here, who act like guns are intrinsically "evil" and seem to think that a gun can pick itself up off a table and go out and shoot somebody.