Almost *any* other kind of preparation for collapse scenarios is a better use of your time/money/energy than guns. Like cooking, electronics repair, first aid, fire fighting, CPR...
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This is a topic I don't discuss with Americans much, for the same reason I don't discuss cows with devout hindus. There is a basic deep-rooted belief that there's something exceptional and special about the American relationship with guns that the rest of the world doesn't get.
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I mean, it's not as if guns are a great mystery to the rest of the world. They all have their professional military/police. Most also have serious terrorist/secessionist movements running actual guerrilla wars (not theoretical) with AK-47s. All have private gun culture too.
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Most countries also have their traditional martial classes with some sort of pride/honor culture that makes them more inclined to private gun ownership (legal or illegal). Criminal classes and tough-guy student groups have guns. There's paramilitaries and equivalents of ROTC.
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Plenty of countries have mandatory military service and all adults have firearm literacy -- more than most Americans. Terror-ridden countries like Pakistan have entire cottage industries making AK-47s in villages. So... what's unique about US gun culture is its religiosity.
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I guess this is why I'm meh on US gun culture and besides being aware of the weird risks (mass shootings, possibility that random minor conflict could involve guns), I just can't take the *culture* seriously, even though guns are serious.
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Replying to @vgr
As someone who grew up deep in gun culture, I still find it hard to escape mentally. I think your take is pretty close to my own with the exception that I was raised in it and still "observe" the tradition.
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Replying to @NickPinkston @vgr
Interestingly, I've escaped from pretty much every other aspect of my traditional upbringing: religion, NeoCon ideology, suspicion of alt cultures/norms, etc., but the gun thing still stays with me.
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Replying to @NickPinkston @vgr
I found myself at an anti-gun group one time, and I was like "I'm probably the only here who owns an AR-15" and went on to describe the actual views of pro-gun people but translated into a US liberal language.
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Replying to @NickPinkston @vgr
When I get down to it, I think it's fully a cultural tell like you're comparing to India/cows. Maybe it's like agnostics who still pray sometimes, I still like knowing that I have personal defensive capability.
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Exactly. Similarly I've escaped pretty much every other aspect of Indian culture except vegetarianism, and that behavior I've moved to an alternative basis of simply being concerned about animal welfare, rather than uncritical acceptance of religious-meat-taboo family background.
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Replying to @vgr
Yea totally. That's a good transformation. It's funny because my only equivalent is telling anti-gun people how to regulate guns without triggering the gun culture, but it's likely that time/demographics alone will achieve that end before we convince the gun folks.
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Replying to @NickPinkston
That's generally how these things work. Like being gay went from being beyond the pale to basically "yeah whatever" except for the remaining religious fundamentalists who actually care (and those who pretend to care to pander to them). Generational effect.
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