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this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Do guns help Americans get their freedoms? Is this country a beacon of hope? Isn't the US slowly following Russia's guidebooks on slowly stripping freedoms away?
For as long as you are scattered and divided, no gun is gonna help you change the game of politics. If you are united, you can overthrow your government without a single bullet.
Most of European countries, for example, have much stricter gun control. And if there's a place of democracy, Europe is the destination to watch.
They sure as fuck did, yeah! :D Just like they're helping Ukranians keep their country right now. They're certainly helping the rebels in Myanmar.
It depends on who you ask. At the moment, people still tend to choose the US over pretty much any other country when they're trying to emigrate and they have a real choice. So for people outside the US? Probably. For people inside the US? I think that we can, and should, do better.
Unfortunately, yes. And the people need to resist that.
That's a nice theory but it rests on two presuppositions. First, it assumes that the US would ever be united and speak with one voice. Given how many people here identify with their oppressors rather than their fellow oppressed, that seems extremely unlikely. (Look at the number of people willing to vote for Trump three times now.) Second, it rests on the idea that governance requires the consent of the governed, and, well, I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
On the other hand, armed groups of civilians that are acting peacefully tend to get the kid glove treatment from cops. Cops tend to want to have the advantage of numbers and the ability to use force before they instigate conflict; when they don't have it, they suddenly remember how to de-escalate. So far, that's mostly been used by the right, but the left is finally starting to pick up on that shit, which terrifies the chuds. Why do you think that you've seen armed groups of civilians protecting drag queens at story time, or protecting people trying to hand out food to the homeless?
I note that the far-right is making significant inroads into European politics.
That's a fair answer, I appreciate the depth you went into.
I think US is the center of immigration due to high economic potential first and foremost. Building careers in the richest country in the world sounds like an attractive option. Especially for young people who consider burdens like healthcare and home ownership to be less significant. Barely so for democracy outside of proclaimed "land of the free". But I may be wrong.
If US will not speak with one voice, no amount of arms is gonna help. And I'd much rather live in a country where people don't have access to guns than in a country where left and right are pointing muzzles at each other (not to mention American left and right are just different sorts of right to the outside world, but that's a story for another day).
On far-right in Europe - true on your side.
I think you're right about the perceptions of economic freedoms, yeah. Which is kinda wild, given that most countries in the EU fare much better overall in cost-of-living versus salaries. So it's like playing roulette; they're betting that they can win big, instead of being just another chump that loses money to the house.
And, TBH, I think that if the US had the same kind of criminal justice reform and social safety networks that you see in most of the EU (and I'm not including Great Britain in this; they really suck in a lot of ways, which is intentional on the part of UK conservatives), I think that you'd see a lot less violent crime in general, and a definitely lower murder rate.
I don't know where you live. But you gotta understand a couple of things about the US. First, the US is big. All of Europe--including Russia--is 3.9M square miles. The continental US (not including Hawai'i and Alaska) is 3.1M square miles. All of Europe has a population of 745M people, and all of the US has a population of about 335M. So the US is a very large country, and statistically it's very sparsely populated. I live in a semi-rural area; if shit happens, it's going to take emergency services--cops, fire department, ambulance, whatever--a minimum of 20 minutes to show up. But in the US, the cops have no legal obligation to protect you in any way; there is no criminal or civil liability if any police officer or agency refuses to do their job. On top of that, cops are far, far more likely than not to be on the political right.
So what does this mean?
You need to be able and willing to protect yourself, and take care of yourself, because the government here can't, and won't. Especially if you aren't white and christian.
You can say, "I don't want to live in a society that's armed", but that's a very privileged stance to take, given that most of the people in the US have to be ready to fend for themselves, and hope that the veneer of civility doesn't fail.
I'm from, well, Russia :D With half the population over almost double the area, and quite some threats, too.
And yeah, we have guns banned here.
Not that we don't have issue with police/other emergency services arriving to remote areas in time, nor are we a thriving peaceful nice democracy, but I certainly don't expect less gun control to improve the situation here - and I don't think it's optimal for the US, either.
Individually, you may benefit from holding a gun. But collectively, there will be plenty of people putting those guns to a bad use, or just overreact in self-defense.
Collectively, if all of you had guns, you could have October Revolution Pt. II, and maybe get your other rights back.
I wish it were true, but Russian opposition is very scattered and in a full disarray, people are individualistic and opportunistic, and if you add guns to that mix, you'd just get massacres and marauders.
Besides, most people opposing the current regime seem to think that Putin is the sole problem, and that without him everything will magically get great.
Not a revolutionary mindset, if you ask me.