(As a general concept of how a society should run, not intended as a US-specific question.)

I sometimes see people on the internet saying that giving people easy access to guns is too risky and there should be stricter gun control, while simultaneously wanting to abolish the police? I’m just confused on what people really want?

You cant both abolish the police and then also disarm the citizens, gotta pick one. So which is it, internet? Self-policing with guns? Or reform the police?

[Please state what country you’re in]

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(Also its funny how the far-right of the US is both pro-gun and pro-police, I’m confused by that as well)

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 days ago

    American, white, liberal, redneck gun nut here. If you’re talking about “defund the police”, that’s yet another idiot liberal slogan that misses the mark. The idea is to take police funds and pay for workers who can handle situations police should never have been sent to. Want to kill yourself? Call the cops!

    The far right loves cops because cops are on their side, or are perceived to be. To put it bluntly, guns are for shooting marauding black people, not white people. See all the stories about white people being shocked when law enforcement doesn’t go their way? Yeah.

    Also, I suspect people who are anti-gun have never had violence inflicted upon them, or cops who are far away, or haven’t had a bear wander in the dog door, or haven’t had an enraged redneck struggling to be polite because they’re visibly armed. In related news, my MAGA neighbor came stomping down here to kick my ass, turned right the fuck around when I went inside for my .45.

    I could write all night on the subject, but let me leave it at this: Now is not the fucking time for Americans to disarm themselves. The only reason fascists haven’t run us completely over is that they know there will be a real chance we’ll fucking kill them. Look where the ICE raids are happening, in the places where guns are the most suppressed.

    Yes, this all sucks, but it’s where we’re at in America.

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      3 days ago

      Also, I suspect people who are anti-gun have never had violence inflicted upon them

      Have you considered that some have just had violence inflicted upon them by people with guns?

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 days ago

        I understand your point but guns are a great equalizer for anyone who isn’t a young, strong male. Gun vs gun is more equal than fist vs fist or whatever else would be happening instead.

        • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          Except that when you allow guns to be purchased widely, malcontents will always purchase them in greater quantities and more frequently, by nature of being malcontents and attracted to something that gives them more power.

          Because guns are not inherently an equalizer, they are just a way of giving someone an enormous amount of deadly power. If you give two people that same enormous amount of deadly power then it can equalize them compared to where they were before, but that is the only case where they equalize things, and they’ve equalized them by making them both twitchy dangerous live grenades.

          I.e. I can equalize milk that’s a month old and milk that I just bought by leaving them both in the sun for a few hours. That doesn’t mean I’ve made society better or safer. Like I said, the arguments for gun ownership only ever make sense in an anecdotal one off scenario. Every single one falls apart when you examine its effects at a society wide, systemic level.