I don't know your background, but for my part... I live in Canada, in a province that enjoys fishing and hunting (a great part of which is for leisure).
Notwithstanding, the fetishization of guns I observe from the US is deeply rooted: it's not so much a sexual thing (though I have no doubt that in some cases it could be) as it is an identity thing. (For an example of how the word "fetish" applies to guns in American culture, see [1] or [2].)
Enshrined in the very constitution, it defines what it is to live in America.
Politicians go on TV and passionately advance every argument, meritorious or malicious, that they can against gun regulation.
Civil discourse around guns lacks nuance and is extremely dogmatic.
The loud minority that worships their guns is particularly loud. "Regular people" are obviously more numerous and less noticeable, and my criticism of gun fetishization should not be confounded with denial of their existence or numerical superiority.
Still, the overton window in the US seems to be very accommodative to people with more guns than IQ points, and any proposed solutions to try and protect the vulnerable from violence, or ameliorate the situation, are met with outrage.
Generously speaking, the US (and the American sense of identity) has seriously struggled to transition from a society that broadly depends on guns to function, into a more specialized and developed society.
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> What's changed with guns in that time frame?
Frankly, I don't know enough about gun design and technology to give your question the treatment it deserves or to give a good answer.
Enshrined in the Constitution are the founding principles of the world's first liberal democracy. The men who wrote it and the electorate that ratified it were just a couple years removed from a horrifically bloody struggle for self-determination. The framers were well aware from personal experience that Liberalism could not have won had that generation allowed themselves to be disarmed.
I don't think guns are an identity thing (in general). I think individualism and self-sufficiency are part of a particularly American identity though, and guns can be a symbol or reflection of that. The loud minority that worships guns (to the extent that it is their identity) might be particularly loud, but they're not the main drivers of policy. For every 1 of that loud minority, there's 10 "regular people" with more nuanced and well-thought-out opinions that do drive policy, which is why you haven't seen sweeping legislation involving either side's favorite wedge issues.
The 1:10 ratio is made up... point being that like you said, "regular people" are obviously more numerous BUT what we see legislatively is their noticeable effect, not that of a loud minority. It's a common trope on the internet, mass media, and politicians that there's somehow some small pocket of psychos holding us back from utopia.
Don't know how close you follow US politics, but a good example is the talk around West Virgina's Senator Manchin, who's become a very convenient scapegoat for why the party in power can't pass their more controversial pieces of legislation. In reality, there's just much less solidarity amongst Democrats than politicians want you to believe. And that's fine- all lack of solidarity means is that there's some room for compromise, an absolute necessity in a melting pot of 330 million people.
You're 100% correct on the politicians and the shitty, un-nuanced civil discourse. It makes extremists on either end just scream louder and louder past each other while the rest of us are just more and more stressed out every day, worrying for the future of our communities and country.
> any proposed solutions to try and protect the vulnerable from violence, or ameliorate the situation, are met with outrage
This is tough, and there are huge historical factors to take into account. The history of gun control legislation in the US is rife with racism, classism, ignorance, incompetence, and dishonesty. Whenever the topic comes up, the outrage you see is a direct result of that history, whether those involved in the outrage are aware or not.
> Generously speaking, the US (and the American sense of identity) has seriously struggled to transition from a society that broadly depends on guns to function, into a more specialized and developed society.
I think this is part of a broader "crisis" on how individualism and self-sufficiency fits in modern, developed society.
I honestly hope we figure it out, because I enjoy individualism and being self-sufficient; on a personal level, it makes me feel good about myself, and I think (maybe counterintuitively?) that it makes for stronger communities where people feel better for doing their individual part.
> Kerri Raissian, a professor in public policy at the University of Connecticut, said: βThe NRA has crafted a narrative for decades that guns are a part of American social identity.β
I don't know your background, but for my part... I live in Canada, in a province that enjoys fishing and hunting (a great part of which is for leisure).
Notwithstanding, the fetishization of guns I observe from the US is deeply rooted: it's not so much a sexual thing (though I have no doubt that in some cases it could be) as it is an identity thing. (For an example of how the word "fetish" applies to guns in American culture, see [1] or [2].)
Enshrined in the very constitution, it defines what it is to live in America.
Politicians go on TV and passionately advance every argument, meritorious or malicious, that they can against gun regulation.
Civil discourse around guns lacks nuance and is extremely dogmatic.
The loud minority that worships their guns is particularly loud. "Regular people" are obviously more numerous and less noticeable, and my criticism of gun fetishization should not be confounded with denial of their existence or numerical superiority.
Still, the overton window in the US seems to be very accommodative to people with more guns than IQ points, and any proposed solutions to try and protect the vulnerable from violence, or ameliorate the situation, are met with outrage.
Generously speaking, the US (and the American sense of identity) has seriously struggled to transition from a society that broadly depends on guns to function, into a more specialized and developed society.
---
> What's changed with guns in that time frame?
Frankly, I don't know enough about gun design and technology to give your question the treatment it deserves or to give a good answer.
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[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0323-9
[2] https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1007/978-3-319-33723-4_2