Gun culture in the US is minority serious, majority some sort of EDC tacticool larp. It plays a weird fetishlike role in discussions of societal breakdown that it doesn't in other countries. Guns are not generally a major variable. You expect some will be around, but that's it.
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In the US, it is hard to separate mythology around guns from the practical effects of their presence in large quantities in citizen hands. The main practical effect is that police-citizen relations get a lot more edgy and violent.
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The cops militarized in part because of history of drug war etc, but also because they operate in an environment where they expect the *citizens* to have guns. Cops in most countries does not expect guns in typical policing situations like domestic violence or traffic stops.
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But in situations like this, where people are thinking about SHTF scenarios, guns play an even bigger role in the imagination. Guns are in top 5 things everybody's minds turn to (second only to toilet paper perhaps). They buy guns. There are debates about gun stores being open.
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I'm kinda neutral on the whole gun debate. I think of it as the American equivalent of holy cows and beef-eating prohibitions in India. A meaningless piece of historical baggage you nevertheless have to navigate.
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I've thought idly of at least taking a gun handling class, simply because basic level of firearm literacy here is so high, but I'm not actually interested in the skill and I doubt it's actually useful for *me* to have even in US. I lack the larp instinct and have no other need.
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It's a bit like my attitude towards investing. Keep it mostly in index-tracking passive. I have zero confidence in my ability to beat the professional investors in the public markets, and I lack the net worth to be an accredited investor to play in the private markets. Same logic
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In an actual armed conflict, even the gun nut larpers/EDC type mall ninjas stand absolutely no chance against the vast ranks of professional police and military who handle weapons in live risk situations day in and day out, not just during weekend target practice.
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Otoh, the equivalent of "accredited investor" is having enough of a physical asset base (eg. a house and property worth looting by mad max gangs). Don't have that either. I lack reasons to be an "active investor" (gun owner) in both the public and private violence markets.
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The primary reason to invest in guns is intellectual growth. Gun people offer individualism without analysis. It is both birthright and sovereignty in a talismanic object.
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Big meh. There are plenty of other ways to get there. There is no good reason to overload guns with some sort of mythic-philosophic significance. They're just a tool that the entire world knows well and the US has turned into a religion.
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Name another way to get to symbolic equality, sovereignty, self-reliance and individualism. We work with the symbols we have, not the symbols we wish we had.
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Not actually interested in convincing you of anything. It's like atheist-religious debates. There's no point to it.
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