Replies (126)
Everyone keeps telling me that, but we have that here, even without the 2nd Amendment.
And Europeans have ovethrown their governments, repeatedly and regularly, including in Western and Central Europe, within my lifetime, without the 2nd Amendment. Sometimes even completely peacefully.
If you have a right you should keep it bc lately governments keep rights away.
I'd rather go to jail for a couple of years, than go down in a hail of bullets for posting a meme.
Sort of. Americans have guns to commit suicide-by-cop, mostly.
![Anhern Sarsalor [IQ: 102]'s avatar](https://image.nostr.build/0ef9488eed98a6091f4c3aa85d4acde81615321da8f156bdd8020c6eca9125c3.jpg)
I'm not American, I'm originally European, and I currently live in a country where guns are banned. Technically you can get guns here, but it's a hard process that may take a decade and results in you losing the right of privacy in your own home, so my reply isn't from the perspective of an American.
The purpose of guns from an American perspective is to guarantee that the final political power always rests with the ordinary citizen, not with the government.
Here in Japan I don't have to fear some criminal is going to shoot me (nor stab me, or throw acid at me, or anything of the sort), violent crimes do happen of course, but they are incredibly rare.
I still believe, however that American gun culture is something every country should aspire to emulate; not because it makes daily life safer in the short term, but because it makes long-term political survival possible.
The Japanese state is polite, efficient [though too bureaucratic], and overwhelmingly non-violent, but it is also a black-box sovereign. If tomorrow a Diet majority decided to impose an unjust law the citizen has no last-resort leverage.
In the United States the Second Amendment is a constitutional declaration that legitimacy flows upward from the people, not downward from the crown, the party or the bureaucracy. The rifle in the closet says: โWe can still say no, even if every other mechanism has failed.โ
That veto power is deliberately expensive to exercise, nobody wants war, but the existence of the veto changes the calculus of every actor inside the system. A would-be autocrat must ask: "Will my police, my judges, my neighbours pull the trigger for me, or will they refuse and, worse, shoot back?" The uncertainty alone keeps the ceiling lower than it otherwise would be.
The system is not perfect of course, but I'd rather have it than not.
Imagine thinking you can hold off a militarized police force from taking you down in your own home with a couple of handguns and rifles.
This is the same reason a lot of Europeans in isolated or rural areas own guns. Most of Europe is empty, after all.
That doesn't change the fact that we don't have the same sort of glorification of violence. That's purely cultural and a peace dividend. It's tangible over there. Even growing up on Army bases and all of my German male relatives being in the Bundeswehr or serving military duty did nothing to prepare me for the gun-fervor I witnessed in the States.
The people in Finnland aren't gun slingers. They are just glad to have a reprieve from fighting the Russians. Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, I know, but when is the last time Anchorage was overun?
We can see that it doesn't work.
America is basically a shithole country, and has the most powerful military on Earth. Life there has gotten increasingly terrible, since I was a child, and nobody has done anything about it except buy more guns and smoke more weed.
I'm not suggesting that they give up the 2nd Amendment. That's just how they roll, like how we like to drink too much booze and drive too fast.
I'm questioning the effectiveness of it.
I wish I were actually joking. ๐
Most American gun deaths are suicides and many of the police shootings involve men who attack the police or instigate a confrontation in order to get shot. Arguably less-gruesome than jumping in front of the train, but... yeah.
American guns are mostly used by Americans to kill themselves. And hunt deer.
I agree to a point. America IS a shithole country. And believe me you would find it hard to find someone more against weed (and drug culture in general) than I am.
But I don't think the 2nd amendment is the issue
You absolutely do not have freedom of speech in the EU...
what kind of gun fervor did you witness while you were here? I'm curious what you saw as an outsider.
I wouldn't say we have a glorification of violence. It's more like glorification of the gun object. People get excited about a 50cal Barrett in the same way they get excited about a 1,064 horsepower Corvette ZR1.
I used to hang out in the country with kids whose dads owned tanks and Humvees. They had entire arsenals, with basements full of munition. Ostensibly to protect themselves against the federal government, but mostly they just liked accumulating this stuff. It was a hobby, like collecting classic cars.
Dude down the street in Maryland accidentally blew himself up. He had seemed so normal and then his house went poof.
How could an experiment be designed to measure the effectiveness (computer simulation )? That one way to think about it. Another way and I would say it's more kid like is to use your gut. For example, if we were playing a simulation game like Civilization and you had the option to allow guns like 2nd amendment or not like Europe what would you choose? I would choose to allow guns. Why? Because I have an exptation of my citizens to act morally and I also know my country is likely to be invaded (almost always happens). By trusting my citizens and arming them as the supreme omnipotent leader I would expect better security for my nation. Militias could be formed more quickly. It takes time to distribute guns and if the opposing general is serious that is precious time that can be exploited. In ending while I'm Christin I'll quote Lao tzu "By not trusting the people you make them untrustworthy"
You don't need weapons to effect a change in government.
Velvet Revolution - Wikipedia
No... This is very cringe and irregular.
Peace? Europe caused 2 World Wars.
Peace, ๐.
Enough with your peaceful socialism; it will come a day when Europe turns communist.
Then you will pray to have guns.
False dichotomy.
Europe allows guns and Europeans have some of the highest gun ownership rates per capita. Men in Bavaria are _more likely to own a gun_ than men in many areas of the US, and most men over 40 here have had military or police service.
Wikipedia says, "Countries that guarantee a right to keep and bear arms include Albania, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Switzerland, the United States and Yemen." Switzerland and the Czech Republic don't have the problems the Americans do. They're some of the safest countries on the planet with miniscule homicide rates.
The Falkland Islands, Britain, has 62 guns per 100 people. That is more than one gun per adult male. There was been one gun murder there since 1980.
The 2nd Amendment results in Americans having a warped relationship with deadly weapons because they see them primarily as toys or political symbols. Americans own half of the world's civilian guns.
You actually don't need that many people owning guns to fight a professional army because armies are rather small, in comparison to the entire population. Germany has 1.4 million gun owners, in comparison to 182k active service members.
That's why the UK government nearly crapped their pants when a bunch of ethnic Brits marched downtown armed with FLAGPOLES.
This is what Europeans think American Gun owners are like. What most of them are actually like:
For all my fellow gun nuts out there: This was my first USPA event. So I was more focused on the process and accuracy than the speed. So I took things slow the first few courses to focus on safety. Speed came later. "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast"
#gunstr
I do because it is a sort legislative idol. Quick, what is the 3rd Amendment about? Or the 7th? Yeah, I also have no idea. Even the 1st is probably a mystery to most people.
It's the US equivalent to the UK's perplexing attachment to the dysfunctional NHS and the way Germany cowtows to Israel.
It made a lot of sense, at one point, and now it's just there and everyone thinks it has magical powers to protect them from Evil.
The Constitutional Amendments don't protect you. God protects you.
^
Americans are just crazy but we like it that way. Now we have such a history and culture you can't take the guns away. We need to create better citizens. With Christ and Love it's possible.
Y'all like
lol yes. there are more bike lanes in a lot of cities tho
The UK is not Europe.
This is deranged thinking. That's not most owners, that's most gun deaths. The best case in self defense is not having to use the gun in the first place. You are WAY off base.
Had the most powerful military...
I don't even know where to begin with the other tripe you've said. I guess I'd start by saying what is the greatest threat to your property, to your basic human rights? It's not foreign governments if you already have a government that pretends to own you.
Anyone who thinks guns are inherently violent, that self defense is not important, yes, is very weak and is likely to be trampled upon.
Again, this is the American habit of equating the UK with Europe. UK isn't even in the EU, it's in the Commonwealth, along with Australia and Canada.
A quarter of the people in Bavaria and nearly half of Saxons never got the Covid vaccination, and our lockdowns were comparitively short and light. Sweden hardly did any safety measures at all, other than canceling large concerts and stuff.
Instagram models, (pretty ladies) will do a lot for the attention of middle-aged single men.
IMO I don't think it's glorifying violence. Lot's of guys like to show off the firearms themselves, more of a materialistic thing. It's also a really fun (and expensive) hobby. It's more of a fuck around and find out. I don't know any man that truly wants to have to pull their weapon. Lot's of talk, but I think every man is (or should be) terrified of having to make that decision.
XD
Says person so scared of his government that his online persona is a strip of bacon.
Still do, cuz of the nuclear arsenal.
I don't do instragram models. You gotta follow them around and take pictures of them everywhere so they can show off their boobies to other men while you watch. I think there is a term for that?
What conflict was Romania in your lifetime??
Romania was involved in the Moldovan war, in the 90s.
Transnistrian War - Wikipedia
Wer lesen kann, ist im Vorteil.
Awesome stuff. Now we just have to get you in the weight room a bit ๐ค
โLesen? Meinst du so wie du Mein Kampf liest?โ
did you know Palin never said that? That was a Saturday Night Live TV skit, and now people think she said it in real life - same as the Trump "drink bleach to cure covid" supposed quote
The principle is simple, and based on natural law. You are born into this world, and have a right to defend yourself. The state cannot grant this right. It can make it that much more difficult to defend yourself. There is nothing cowboy about defending your life.
Looking at data in big cities in Germany, US would you, as a woman, feel safe today walking all neighborhoods at any time of day? Remember that guns are an equalizer for more the vulnerable and weaker against those who would cause harm.
As for the a foreign state invasion, it is an incredibly more complex thing to discuss. Would an armed with butter knifes & pretzels, or armed with AKs and RPGs populace be easier to roll over?
The Taliban provide a clue.
I do guns because I can't pack on weight. ๐ No time. I eat plenty.
Sweden was ๐คฉ
I wasn't referring to the UK and don't tend to equate them with EU countries. In fact I don't know much about UK compliance with covid restrictions. I do know friends who had to show ID to be on the street in Paris, and overall - even with the low rates in Saxony - I believe that the vaccination numbers in Germany are higher than in the US.
But fair enough- there's clearly variation within each country! Although even there I wonder what the cultural trends might be that made some regions more reasonable.
You're the one who is deranged.
I am multiple times less-likely to be shot or arrested, by a criminal or my own government, here in Germany, than in the USA.
The best case in self-defense is _the other person not having a gun_.
And how do you propose we get the all the guns that are currently out there.
most rational humans become calmer, and have very well regulated emotional control if they choose to be armed every day - there won't be emotional outbursts - if a situation arises, it is all about de-escalation, avoiding anything that could lead to even a minor altercation...
its why Bruce Banner does everything he can to avoid any situation that could lead to violence - he knows he will win, and someone will get hurt
not everyone is rational, but most people I deal with who chose to be armed, operate this way -
America has not been invaded so why does it have a gun culture? You just answered your own question. Governments are historyโs largest killers, thatโs why citizens must be able to make the cost of tyranny too high.
America is a shit hole? Youโre crazy now, life here is awesome.
Someone is humble enough to post a video of learning to better defend himself and you want to cut down his physique? Thatโs a dick move for sure.
The problem in America is not the guns, much as the guns are not a problem in heavily armed European countries. The problem lies elsewhere, perhaps culture?
i mean.. if yโall havenโt figured it out yet, she is rizful because the need for conflict and attention ๐คท
but u do u โค๏ธ
You don't. I don't think you can actively reverse it.
But gun ownership is steadily declining, with the numbers mostly propped-up by marketing them to women, or selling one person more guns than he could ever shoot. Also, the population is aging, so crime should trend down. Hunting is falling out of favor as a sport, as well.
I think a lot of the guns will just decay from disuse or be given up to buy-backs, when people find one in their deceased uncle's belongings.
The push for gun culture is mostly a marketing campaign by the manufacturers and I think their local, civilian market is going to shrink and their foreign, military market is going to grow. You can make a lot more money selling rifles and amunition to the Danish or Japanese armies than to Joe Sixpack. Americans were being encouraged to buy so many guns because _someone_ needed to buy one.
This was in 2017. I'm much faster now. ๐
Still weigh the same though. And I don't take offense. I know I'm smoll.
Iโm confused?
Thatโs a mighty big paintbrush your paintinโ with maโam.
Good stuff. Iโve got some extra pounds youโre welcome to anytime ๐๐
me too.
but we go on, like true champions
Being a dick is that dudes whole brand.
UK is the best example of gun confiscated followers by the loss of civil liberties.
Itโs a slow erosion but all of Europe has fewer gun owned by civilians and civil liberties have declined.
Does your post refer to a specific country?
The true purpose is one reason and one reason alone. To shoot tyrants and their order followers. The War for Independence was NOT about tea taxes. It began when the order followers came to confiscate the militia's armory. And its secondary purpose, shoot anyone else attempting to harm you or others.
There's a push for gun culture? Based.
I presume you are significantly more likely to be assaulted by means other than guns in Germany than in the USA, as well. That's how that tends to work. I never expected you to be so indoctrinated into phony beliefs.
There are of course other factors at play like culture and the efficacy of police.
Look, I prefer to live as bacon and to die as a man, standing up for my right to not be aggressed upon. I'm not so much scared as I am doing what is morally right: doing my part to protect myself and everyone else from the tyranny of the state. Something you obviously don't fully understand. I swear someone stole your nsec or something.
_The other person not having a gun_ is also the best case for a murderer, or a monopolist. Somehow this slips through the cracks in your argument. Might want to think about that.
โFor now.โ
Youโre like the Thanksgiving day turkey, your life is fine, until one day your government decides youโre an unfavorable and they black bag you, torture you, and cremate you.
Youโre not actually safe or fine, you just think you are.
โIs that Nostr server youโre hiding under the floorboards?โ
Many gun deaths are suicides, this is true.
The vast majority of the rest and blacks and Mexicans.
โSuicide by cop,โ or even cop shootings, are incredibly rare.
No, sorry, it was a phase.
There is little chance of my being assaulting by anyone other than a romantic partner, here. But he's less likely to shoot me, that is true.
Great so you can get knifed instead. I for one prefer death by a gun. Knives wig me out. But whatever floats your boat in the fascist utopia your compatriots have erected over there.
You are, again, missing the fact that my town hasn't had a single homicide or murder in 50 years.
That's your town. I didn't know what your little esoteric town was or any details about it. This is empirical reality, of course there are intricate nuances. Duh.
My point.
Your reasoning for why this is the case is faulty and could not accurately be applied in a general sense.
No, this was not the point you were making. I'm talking about aspects other than gun culture, which you conflate with admiration of violence or of aggression and presented as the key component. I reject that characterization.
The county has had 0 murders and homicides. The big city nearby had 8, mostly domestic violence.
You totally misunderstand 2A on multiple points:
1) โno invasionโ: most of American history, especially during the โcowboyโ era and before, consisted of NUMEROUS frontier conflicts with native Americans. Americans had DOMESTIC threats on their border just as much as Europe had for this time period. Besides the natives, the USA also fought the English in Canada (they literally burnt down our capital in the war of 1812), and then the Mexican American war. It has actually only been since the world war period that America has had no formal โarmed forcesโ threat on their borders. However, I would argue that with foreign cartels like Tran de Aragua taking over whole apartment complexes and the tranny miltantism on our home front, the โpeacefulโ nature of our domestic situation is really more of a propaganda piece to TAKE our second amendment more so than it is any truth.
2) โbut Europeans see invasionโ: the Japanese said it themselvesโโAmerica cannot be invaded because there is a gun behind every blade of grassโ. How much of Ukraine did Putin and the Russians take before the international campaign to send them weapons to fight back? Did you know that, like most other Europeans, Ukrainians werenโt allowed to have their own weapons until AFTER Putin invaded. How far do you think his men could have marched if every granny and farmer the whole way to Kiev was armed the way Americans are? Answerโnot very, and it would have been so costly as to have totally changed the dynamic of the invasion. At the bare minimum, it would have denied the Russians the advantages of speed that was critical to their decision to invade in the first place.
3) But, of course, why is it that even under Biden, the most corrupt president of my lifetime, we didnโt get an โonline safety actโ and Americans being jailed for calling out Bidenโs invasion the way the English and other Europeans are? Why is it that THIS has gotten THIS far in Germany, but not the USA?
The reason is because they have to โfrogs in the potโ is instead of just dropping the hammer in the USA. Obviously, the USA has tolerated WAY too much overreach. But our politicians have to slowly inch the decline to serfdom or Americans would explode and kill them all.
Meanwhile I got English and Irishmen begging me to teach them how to make cheap approximations of real guns (musket era stuff) to take their countries back from the brink.
Right on, great mentality and bravo on focusing on basics.
I'm just saying that does make for a smaller target. You're tactically slim
It's just in my name.
Well that's good!! I'm keeping my guns, I'm not hurting anybody, and the government is not taking my shit. GFY.
I dont see the violence in the picture. I do however see guns and beautiful women.
I beg to differ on that. We've been invaded since at least Bush by unlawful immigration.
We just watched a largely-unarmed populace get invaded by Russia and they're still fighting back, three years later.
More older European men have had professional-quality military training than Americans have, and they're bringing back mandatory service, in the majority of countries that paused it. Or already have.
There are multiple conversations conflated into one here.
Most people in Europe can attain a firearm, but choose to not do so. That is because the crime rate here is low.
Most big German cities are safer than most big US cities, and I feel comfortable walking around them day and night. I take the public transportation everywhere. There are better and worse neighborhoods, but even the worst ones are also surprisingly safe.
Most American women are afraid to even walk around in the suburbs. That's one major reason that so many are so fat. They're prisoners in their McMansions. And you can hardly walk around in the country because everything is private and fenced in and the owners will shoot you.
America is a gigantic open-air prison, where people lock and fence themselves in.
Women are not necessarily a match for a man, even if she has a gun. Her best bet is to just live in a country that is safer, overall. Like Denmark.
Best take away for USPA is how to be safe with your gun.
It's the same for most towns, here. The entire country had 214 murders, in 2023. Baltimore alone, had more.
Mass immigration added about 100/year more, for a few years, but now the rate is lower than before the borders opened.
Statista
Murder cases in Germany 2024| Statista
In 2024, there were 222 murders in Germany, and 508 attempted murders resulting in 730 murder cases in that year, compared with 704 cases in the pr...
The figures appear too low to me
That's murder. All homicide, to the widest definition, (Tรถtungsdelikte) was 2858 in 2023, including things like car accidents, shaking babies, and late abortions.
That's harder to directly compare, internationally, as the categories and laws don't align. A lot of American abortions would be prosecuted as homicide, in Germany, and would be in the 20k+ range.
That's a drastic reduction since the peak in the 1940's.
They appear too low because our feeling of safety has declined faster than the numbers rose. It is simply much worse, when a guest kills you, than when a local kills, you. It adds insult to injury because they are ostensibly here, to seek safety.
Also, foreign criminalism has replaced native criminalism, which has been declining due to the aging population.
Arenโt there stabbings in Europe like every day?
What has nearly doubled, is rape and sexual assault. That's the big one. But it's still more than twice as high, in the USA.
You should read our constitution if youโre going to be so critical.
The first amendment is a protection of the right bestowed by God to speak freely.
The second amendment is a protection of the right bestowed by God to carry a weapon.
The government doesnโt give us rights. God does. These amendments are in place so that the government has a harder time taking them away.
The language is โCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.โ
And
โA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.โ
In America the problem is implanting the idea in kids heads with โactive shooter drillsโ training.
I think that if I were American I'd be able to tell you!
But good point, i completely agree with everything else you said!
dang y'all uspa courses are nice.
would you say these photos are a glorification of sex too?
Wow, that is definitely the exception, not the rule. You knew some incredibly wealthy and privileged people. That isn't representative of the average gun owning American. I can see why you have a skewed perspective about gun culture in the US.
It's a gun club called pinetuckey. Uspsa just uses their range. It is really nice though. But the downside is it's about 40 minutes away from town. They got this and a nice skeet shooting place and everything.
Pinetucky Gun Club
Pinetucky Gun Club
Established in 1986, Pinetucky is one of the most complete shooting ranges in the Southeast, if not the country.
dang that's nice. I'm in a blue state so our gun ranges are few and far between.
they don't call the gun the great equalizer for nothing ๐
Move to GA. We will welcome you with open arms. On a side note, I really enjoyed seeing your posts about your new baby. I love babies. More people is always gy. And you seem like a great mom.
knives are dangerous as fuck. They can do a lot of damage very quickly.
a GSW from a 9mm, the most common handgun round, is likely survivable as long as it didn't go directly through your brainstem.
If choosing between a slice through the abdomen with a shot, take the shot and hobble to the nearest ER rather than bleed out on the subway.
that makes me so happy to hear. raising the next generation is hard work, but rewarding.
I loved my time visiting GA when I went for a work trip once. So friendly and welcoming ๐
Yea most of us are the kind of people that wave at you with a smile when you drive by my, even though we have no clue who you are ๐
We have 2 children as well. You ain't wrong. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done and continue to do. But the reward of raising the next generation is priceless.
This doesn't address my point.
Europe is always at war. Maybe you need more to stop it
Sex and guns are very entertwined, in the American psyche. Probably because of Hollywood movies and characters like Lara Croft.
Before Trump's first election, Twitter was nearly overrun with pictures of sexy women with fake boobs, holding big guns and flags. I complained and absolutely everyone said that this is quintessential Americana, and then they muted me for being a prude and a commie. LOL
Obviously, they are extreme examples, but outlayers reveal the overall tendency. Every culture has outliers in some general direction.
They weren't wealthy. I just lived in the country, in the 1990s, where people had large properties and lots of land was just empty. People bought up retired Army equipment, after Desert Storm, and drove it around and target-shot.
It's all subdivisions for Austin, now, and full of left-wing software developers drinking green smoothies.
europeans pay a small price to live in a gun free zone:
to have a bloody fuckin war every 40 years or so
by the way, bloody fuckin wars are usually being excluded from statistics too, how convenient?
> So, the 2nd amendment is preemptive. By disincentivizing oppressive ambitions, government overthrow is not necessary in the first place.
The US concentrated 120,000 Japanese descendants (mostly citizens) in camps during WWII. Apparently the disincentive is not very strong.
More guided research (cheating?) from the bot below.
Regarding the Velvet Revolution, communism was already in decline and, crucially, Gorbachev had signaled that it would no longer use military force to keep satellite states in line.
So, the Czechoslovak Communist Party knew Moscow wouldnโt send tanks like in 1968 (Prague Spring). Without that backing, their willingness to violently crack down was weaker.
So peaceful worked but, at least partially, by coincidence.
Also read that during Prague Spring a 20 year old named, Jan Palach, committed suicide by setting himself on fire in protest.
To more directly respond, perhaps the second amendment is about preventing change, rather than effecting it?
No I think you're on Twitter too much. The only people there intertwined to or cringy far right Americans that are perpetually online.
Which means you were on it before Trump's election. Like your note implies. Online people, especially Twitter are not most normal people. They're chronically online. Like redditors.
Yes, perhaps.
Not the one I quoted. The Global Peace Index takes both crime and conflict into account.
That's why the EU and the Euro were invented. To give us a common currency, ability to change residency, and a common court system and parliament.
But this is always the case.
Yes, I am old enough to remember the sketch. But the reference was ๐ค๐ป
I don't know why it took nearly a day for many of your comments to display, but I hope I at least managed to โฅ๏ธ them all.
I see you, now. ๐ซ
Primal says this note has only 18 responses because they only count top-level replies. Had no idea so many people had replied.
So, stay armed
