Anon breaks up
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It's not most Americans. It's about a third (which is still huge) and less than half of the population living in a gun owning household.
Then there's a spectrum of how "important" guns are culturally. There are in my experience 3 categories of gun owners.
- People who own a gun or two. They may take it to the range or hunt, but mostly it's tucked securely away and they don't think about it or use it.
2)Then there are collectors and enthusiasts. They enjoy firearms as a hobby. They have multiple. They watch firearms videos on social media. They go to gun shows and might join a club related to the hobby.
3)Then there are the paranoid psychopaths for whom gun ownership and the insistence that they could have to defend themselves at any time is constantly at the forefront of their mind. They wish they had a reason to shoot someone and may end up shooting someone anyway.
Sorry bad phrasing, by most I meant a lot of americans. Thanks for correcting me
I am somewhat familiar with the type of gun owners from US media and movies.
For me the most mind-blowing thing is how easy is to get a gun at some places.
I just imagine some shady people I know in my country, even some of my family members and can't imagine them having access to guns
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I don't avoid guns due to a fear of crime. I avoid guns due to a fear of negligence.
Every single day, someone in my family does something negligent, but ultimately harmless. Oops. Now there's an extra dirty dish. Oops. Broke a coaster. Oops. Dirty towel. Oops. Got sprayed with water.
Putting a gun in that situation would be pretty dangerous.
I suppose some households could keep guns responsibly. Mine could not, despite my personal practices.
I don't understand how you justify in your head adding guns into any of those situations you listed.
If you own guns, you're supposed to have a secure way to store them. Especially if you have kids. While some people do leave guns sitting around the house, that is strongly discouraged.
You're supposed to keep guns inside a safe unless you're about to use it such as going to a range or hunting. And best practice is to keep ammo secured in a separate safe as an extra measure. And when you are handling a gun, you always check if it's loaded and follow the 4 rules of gun safety
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To compare dead children to the cost of failing to check government power, we can reduce both to life-years lost:
Current Cost: Child Firearm Deaths in the U.S.- ~2,000 preventable child gun deaths/year
- ~60 life-years lost per death
- 120,000 life-years lost annually
- Over 30 years: ~3.6 million life-years lost
️ Hypothetical Benefit: Preventing TyrannyAssume a worst-case scenario:
- Authoritarian collapse kills 10 million (based on 20th-century examples)
- Avg. age at death: ~40 → ~35 life-years lost
- 10M deaths × 35 = 350 million life-years lost
Estimate risk:
- Without civilian arms: 0.5% chance over 30 years
- With civilian arms: 0.4% chance
- These figures are speculative; there’s no empirical support that civilian gun ownership reduces the risk of tyranny—many stable democracies have strict gun control.
In fact, high civilian armament may reduce stability:
- Greater availability of weapons increases the lethality of civil unrest, crime, and domestic terrorism.
- Armed polarization can accelerate breakdown during political crises, as seen in failed or fragile states.
- States may respond with harsher repression, escalating rather than deterring authoritarian outcomes.
Expected Value Calculation- Without arms: 0.005 × 350M = 1.75 million life-years at risk
- With arms: 0.004 × 350M = 1.2 million life-years at risk
- Net benefit of arms: ~550,000 life-years saved (generous estimate)
ConclusionEven with favorable assumptions:
- Civilian firearms cost ~3.6M life-years (due to preventable child deaths)
- And prevent only ~550K life-years (via marginally lower tyranny risk)
Bottom line: The ongoing cost vastly outweighs the hypothetical benefit, and high armament may worsen long-term stability rather than protect it.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Tongue in cheek of course but it still makes a point. The facts-over-feelings crowd has to show that the benefit of firearms outweigh the very observable negative consequences, and they cannot. So they are arguing feelings, not facts.
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You don't own a gun in case of a burglar having a gun. It's in case of home invasion period. I'm not going to wait around to determine if they're armed or not and I'm not going to restrict myself to some lesser means of stopping them just because they aren't. I didn't create this situation and I am not going to accept risk to myself to preserve the life of some asshole who doesn't even respect me enough not to break into my home.
Isn't this just a vicious cycle? You own a gun, because other people also have access to guns. The burglar might bring a gun, because the home owner possibly has a gun, etc
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It's not most Americans. It's about a third (which is still huge) and less than half of the population living in a gun owning household.
Then there's a spectrum of how "important" guns are culturally. There are in my experience 3 categories of gun owners.
- People who own a gun or two. They may take it to the range or hunt, but mostly it's tucked securely away and they don't think about it or use it.
2)Then there are collectors and enthusiasts. They enjoy firearms as a hobby. They have multiple. They watch firearms videos on social media. They go to gun shows and might join a club related to the hobby.
3)Then there are the paranoid psychopaths for whom gun ownership and the insistence that they could have to defend themselves at any time is constantly at the forefront of their mind. They wish they had a reason to shoot someone and may end up shooting someone anyway.
Sorry bad phrasing, by most I meant a lot of americans. Thanks for correcting me
I am somewhat familiar with the type of gun owners from US media and movies.
For me the most mind-blowing thing is how easy is to get a gun at some places.
I just imagine some shady people I know in my country, even some of my family members and can't imagine them having access to guns -
I mean if someone makes death threats to someone else they should absolutely have their guns taken away.
The problem is that the system is open to abuse. Anyone who wants to get back at someone can make up allegations and have their guns taken away with no due process.
But on the other hand if you make this process too difficult you can allow someone who is actually dangerous to keep their guns.
I mean if someone makes death threats to someone else they should absolutely have their guns taken away.
The thing is, this isn't shown in the original post. Also, making death threats on its own is illegal, red flag laws aren't required if the person making the report has proof.
Said victim could even get a restraining order if they were worried about violence, which won't completely assure safety but will go down a process that actually uses due process and doesn't violate anyone's rights.
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Some people have bad radars about how dangerous the people they get in bed with are.
Some people self-sabotage by getting with toxic partners in the same pattern over and over again because they have unaddressed psychological issues.
It's usually people who were victims of past abuse, too.
Especially past childhood abuse.
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well even if this is the whole truth it would be a testament to his character that his girlfriend would cheat on him and then lie to the police just so he gets in trouble
In the hypothetical scenario that this is the whole truth, what you're doing is victim blaming.
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Isn't this just a vicious cycle? You own a gun, because other people also have access to guns. The burglar might bring a gun, because the home owner possibly has a gun, etc
wrote last edited by [email protected]Kinda. It’s also a remnant of the old west. Guns were freedom, protection, power, etc.
It would be much more effective to curb crime by meeting everyone’s basic needs than giving everyone a gun.
But dumb Americans don’t know any other way. They are just too self-centered and absorbed to think about anyone else.
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I mean if someone makes death threats to someone else they should absolutely have their guns taken away.
The thing is, this isn't shown in the original post. Also, making death threats on its own is illegal, red flag laws aren't required if the person making the report has proof.
Said victim could even get a restraining order if they were worried about violence, which won't completely assure safety but will go down a process that actually uses due process and doesn't violate anyone's rights.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I never said that Anon made any death threat and the concern you are raising is covered in the rest of my comment.
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This is the horror story for red flag laws existing.
Now imagine the horror stories of red flag laws not existing.
You don't even have to imagine, just listen to one of the million true crime podcasts. Then multiply all those cases by 5 for all the minority women who they don't talk about.
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Where you got that from? Looks like your imagining a whole other discussion there
I'm probably just incredibly disillusioned and mad at the state of the world and the lack of nuance on the internet these days and taking it out on you. My apologies.
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Isn't this just a vicious cycle? You own a gun, because other people also have access to guns. The burglar might bring a gun, because the home owner possibly has a gun, etc
I don't own a gun, I am 100x more likely to use it on myself than need it for self defense where I'm at. But the scenario I'm describing, whether or not the home invader has a gun or not doesn't matter, the simple fact that they are invading your home in the first place justifies lethal force. You could be injured/killed by them even without them having a gun so the safest option for the resident is shoot them immediately. The resident should not have to accept any level of risk whatsoever in dealing with this situation. You're not getting a gun because someone might attack you with a gun. You're getting a gun because someone might attack you.
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Lot of US leftists and liberals hate guns, as a reaction to the right’s obsession with them.
It is a stupid and dangerous reaction, because they give up their means of self-defense against far right militias and a fascist government.
I don't hate guns, I hate the "gun rights" movements and there fetishization of a skewed interpretation of the second amendment where any individual has the unalieanable right to own a gun.
Even if a violent revolution were to happen, which odds are 99 to 1 it wont happen in the US in our lifetimes, then people like op hoarding guns aren't going to help. A well regulated militia might but that requires social organization and discipline, which most people in the gun rights movement don't have the time or willingness for.
They aren't serious about using guns to defend liberty, they just like the aesthetic of it and make it part of there personality. So much so that they get offended by dumb and probably made up stories like this but not the countless other similar stories where there were no red flag laws and the gf gets killed.
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You don't need to be in line of sight, your family needs to be. Are you still going to risk it if you know that the government will throw your family into a concentration camp in response?
Assume that the fascists in this fight have zero respect for human rights or human lives. Because they've already proven that they don't.
The government will throw your family into a concentration camp either way. Will you acquiese and die like a dog, or will you stand and fight?
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Then Tim is probably going to get himself killed in a standoff with the police.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The police in the U.S. are on Tim's side. Hell, Tim might be a police officer.
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I think we just don't like guns.
I like guns.
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if you have multiple guns and can't afford a lawyer you have kinda fucked your priorities
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The government is allowed to suppress your constitutional rights in cases where it's narrowly tailored to a legitimate government interest (the strict scrutiny standard). This may seem suspect, but it allows the government to do things like prevent people from bringing guns into schools or planes, or spreading private information or harmful lies about others, or being overtly loud when their neighbors are trying to sleep. It does require a high burden of proof from the potential violating body, so it's not done casually.
For red flag laws, I imagine temporarily seizing the guns of someone who a judge is convinced is a significant danger to themselves or others would meet this standard. From what the other commenter said, it sounds like it isn't done casually in practice. We are missing parts of the story that may make it seem prudent.
Red flag laws, as written, don't come anywhere near a strict scrutiny standard and rarely involve a judge. Usually police are empowered to make the decision, or worse, instructed to always seize weapons immediately until a judge says give them back, even if the police think it sounds like bullshit (as in the scenario of the greentext).
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Dunno, someone having guns to shoot normal people is a big red flag to me.
Someone having guns to shoot the boot soldiers of an unjust regime? All for it. Big green flag to me.
