British show with a desk gun only reminds me of The IT Crowd
I wonder if it’s loaded.
anybody have examples of the opposite? American hollywood movies/shows that nonchalantly presented something common in the USA, but was jarring when you watched it?
Breaking indoor walls so damn easily, thought it was a Hollywood thing like exploding cars, endless mags etc. Took me a while to get that such thin walls are just common in the US
A teacher needing to sell meth to pay for his cancer treatment.
Pledge of allegiance in school is quite unusual.
And how you have flags on everything, including outside people’s houses.
“Central air” is a term I only learned the meaning of recently, but American TV assumes everyone knows what it is. Which is fair, if you all have it. Same with the hand blenders you have in your kitchen sinks.
a hand blender in my sink? TF?
Are you referring to a garbage disposer?
On the pledge, some of us know.
Hollywood celebrities and writers all have “Central Air”. The rest of us know what it is, but we don’t all have it.
every american police movie
To be fair, part of my desensitization is from the (100% accurate documentary) Hot Fuzz. Maybe they were just establishing that Watson is a farmer… or a farmer’s mum.
Mr. Webley, I trust you have a license for that firearm?
He does for this one
I would have just assumed it was from his time in the army, since, you know… Watson was in the army. And also the fact he is a detective’s assistant that got into scraps with bad guys frequently.
Suicidality?
the suicidification of grammar
The Wikipedia page for suicidal ideation mentions it five times. Once in its text and four times in its references.
(not everything in wikipedia is correct and sometimes people invent new words)
How the fuck else do you think words have ever appeared?
Yes, and that’s why I mentioned the external links. That’s more than Wikipedia saying it.
I kinda want to buy a handgun just because taking them apart and putting them together looks fun. I know they make fidget toys for that but tue ones I’ve seen are too simplified.
Im a believer of responsible gun ownership and I do think things like sport shooting and interest in the mechanics are a totally valid thing. Safety being the most important aspect
Also you should check out the forgotten weapons channel on youtube lots of good history also weapons with weird mechanisms
I assume you’ve tried the game: World of Guns: Guns Disassembly (Steam link)?
I have to hand it to you, this is the most unique reason I’ve heard to buy a gun before.
Seems like a mighty silly way to blow $500+ bucks. On a puzzle that shoots bullets.
You gotta admit, the mechanics of some of them are quite cool.
It’s all fun and gun lube until you have to put back together a trigger assembly.
launches spring across room
A realistically disassembleable toy gun would go hard
Weird example…
I would think he is a character involved with detective work, which is a component of law enforcement and therefore it is not out of the ordinary for the character to possess a gun.
British detectives don’t really carry guns though. Unless they are part of a special unit. This Sherlock episode the post talks about takes place in modern day London so he would definitely not own a gun for his job. At least not legally.
Adding to this, in the first episode of Sherlock John Watson isn’t even a detective/detectives assistant yet. He is a depressed, injured, former military doctor.
I guess it’s just a work of fiction then.
Also, and its been a while since I watched the show, wasn’t he a former cop or something?
I may be way off.
Former army doctor. He’s doctor Watson after all. But usually you don’t take your service firearm home with you when you’re done in most countries at least, so that would likely be a personal one. And in the first episode he hadn’t yet started the detective work.
Is this media literacy?
I mean, I could tell it was an important scene. Maybe because I knew guns were not common in the UK or maybe because I could read the room?
It could also be cultural diffrences manifesting
Americans are desensitized to guns, but the Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories was a military veteran who often carried his army revolver. Anybody with a passing familiarity with the character of Dr. Watson could think, “I guess he keeps his gun in his desk.”
This post says “the first episode of sherlock where john watson opens up his drawer and you see a gun”.
So, it’s talking about the Sherlock mini-series from 2010 which was set in modern times. I don’t think that in modern times a military veteran is allowed to keep a gun in a drawer.
I think that everyone is over complicating this.
When you see he has a gun in the mini-series, you’re just reminded of how the he had a revolver in the books. You aren’t going to think about it because he’s supposed to have a gun. You just say, “Oh, he still has a gun.”
I think the disconnect is probably between people who know Dr. Watson from the books, and people who don’t know the books. The Sherlock mini-series is obviously targeted at people who never read the books. So it’s entirely possible that they wanted the viewer to question its existence.
It’s still weird to keep it in a drawer
I’m a veteran with a .22 in my desk drawer that has a muzzle suppressor (if I am going to use it I don’t want to damage my ears).
In the UK?
Merica obviously, those commie governments across the pond don’t allow people on the internet
Are you lost? Do you not understand what this whole thread is about?
Looking at the down votes i think lemmy could use a lesson in media literacy
And do you live inside or outside of the US?
United we stand!
The majority of the UK had guns readily available up until the great war. Then the population was disarmed, the homicide rate was lower than it is today in the UK… Sherlock was written for those times, and guns were not unusual.
This particular series takes the characters and puts them in present day London, what was normal in the 19th century doesn’t apply for the character in the example
The majority of the UK had guns readily available up until the great war.
[sic] there were no firearm restrictions in effect, but less than 1% of the population had firearms. The Firearms act of 1920 disarmed this percentage over fears of surges in crime, as well as worries that the working class would get too unruly
I don’t know what % of the population had firearms but they were as you said no restrictions…and let’s be honest…it wasn’t about crime, it was about disarming the working class.
Sherlock is also armed in several of the original sir. Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Iirc most the time he borrows a revolver from Scotland Yard.
I have no knowledge about the UK, but I can say that was the case for Germany. Gun control in the modern sense only began after WW1 when large numbers of weapons fell into civilian hands.
In the 19th century, shooting practice was mandatory as part of the military system; reserve and conscription. Kinda like how it still survives in Switzerland. But as the UK rarely had a need for large land armies, the population was not militarized to such a degree.
I don’t think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.
The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it’s a lot if I see one per three months.
I’ve never been in a situation in my life where I’ve regretted not having a gun. Rather the opposite, I’ve been struggling with depression at a point in my life where access to a gun might have provided an easy way out.
And generally I like guns. As in I’ve been interested in military history for my entire life. When I’m the us I’ve been to a shooting range and thought that was cool (but also terrifying).
I have a lot of family members that live and work in a rural area, and firearms are simply tools of trade to them, as well as shooting for sport.
The only people you see with them in a city are police though.
I grew up in rural germany joined a shooting club when i was 9,
where i had to shoot a crossbow at first before being allowed operating a bb gun at 10 and yes the crossbow is far more dangerous,
seen plenty of guns legal and illegal ones during my youth after i left the club and i still consider seeing multiple guns in a year as not normal since guns are stored in a safe and usually only shown to friends once and most sport shooters will leave them at the club.
I mean a cook needs a knife to fillet a steak, that is clear,
What rural area business really needs a gun? People have been living rurally without problems without them.
I think it’s an insurance policy for fear, most of the time. But one that doesn’t work because now you contract a fear for fellow humans with guns.
Pest control, genius. Rabbits, hares, magpies, possums, goats and more. One cousin is a commercial goat culler.
They’re not used for self defence.
All those were managed well before the invention of the gun.
Your cousin might need one, but that guy from no county for old men weilded a culler that needed no gun.
But it’s mainly the self defense angle witch angers me. If you need a tool for killing stuff, a gun is your thing.
Butt most people don’t need to kill stuff.
FWIW, I am in the US and I have barely ever encountered a gun really either.
I am pretty sure I have never held a real gun either.
I mean outside the gun range I haven’t either, when visiting.
You’re ofcourse a very diverse bunch and I don’t want to generalize, but it’s a cultural oddity that is quite eyecatcher and without the charm of Finnish saunas or Belgian beer.
I lived in different countries. Many are friendly with actual neighborly caring folks. Like leave your car unlocked safe. Like if you lost your phone outside, someone will kindly put it somewhere safe. Countries with good safety nets and a government that wants to help people.
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
I’ve been to protests where everyone was peaceful and it was violently dissolved by police. Where I’ve been to protests which had hired security guards packing guns protecting protesters, and the cops were on their best behavior.
Where I’ve been to protests which had hired security guards packing guns protecting protesters
hwat
i think you just discombobulated my brain
What is this concept? Who does this? Where?
Basically cops want you to be disarmed, you’re easier to harm.
Plenty of people who will get paid to hurt unarmed people, but not a lot willing to die for that same paycheck.
Not the best example. Right-wing gun nuts are cop-adjacent if not cops themselves. Let’s see how an amed BLM or antifa or anti-ICE rally goes.
The cops do not want an armed populous, and those 20k people who were armed during that protest where not cops.
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
Feels like that should have been bold, so here you go:
Here in America, I’m not afraid of the pickpockets or petty theft. The biggest threats to my family’s life are by police officers or ICE, all because of the color of their skin.
I don’t think non-Americans appreciate how few guns one encounters in America if one isn’t a gun nut or gun-nut-adjacent. It is not that everybody owns a gun. It’s that the relative few people who own dozens or hundreds of guns skew the average.
This is the same with any enthusiast though. A keen cyclist will typically have multiple bikes, a car enthusiast will have a few cars, etc. Given how easy guns are to store, it’s no surprise that people will have a collection.
…point taken. 😳
spoiler
(I have a half-dozen cars and more than a dozen bikes.)
There’s fucking ammo at wallmart. You can’t even comprehend how mindboggling that is in most countries
Why would it be mind boggling that a supermarket carry ammo? What is mind boggling is you can order a case online and have it to your doorstep in 2 days.
You’re numb to every cop you see, because I guarantee they all have guns. Around 1/3rd of Americans personally own a gun, this isn’t a Spiders Georg situation.
I don’t see cops very often.
Okay. Plenty of Americans see cops every day because they live in highly policed cities. The metro area I live in isn’t even that highly policed and I still see cops at least half the time when I go outside.
I still suspect you have been desensinsitivised to the permeation of guns in the US so you don’t really notice it, and downplay it in your mind. I can assure you people from outside of the US does notice it though.
I’ll disagree. I’ve been mugged. There have also been two times I’ve visited friends that have been casually cleaning guns when I arrived. A person I do martial arts with has a conceal carry and has come in with it a few times. Every cop has at least one. There’s a gun store that’s on my commute route. I was hiking and crossed paths with an elderly couple on horseback and they were packing. I’ve known two people that have killed themselves with a gun. I drilled with fake guns in NJROTC in high school and there were opportunities to train and compete in marksmanship with actual guns. I shot BB guns in Cub Scouts (those two are just examples as to how young gun culture becomes part of an American’s life). When I was growing up, Walmart sold guns and ammo. They still do in certain places.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun. Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents. If I get into an argument with my neighbor, is that conservative asshole going to do something stupid if things escalate (yeah yeah, don’t escalate, just an example). All the POCs I know have been taught how to behave during a traffic stop to reduce their chances of getting shot by a cop.
I’ve never even held or shot a real gun, but guns permeate my life.
Edit: Christ, the people who are advocating fear of gun violence being good for society is how idiotic of a gun culture there is in the US.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun.
Yes, there’s a huge difference between only rarely seeing a gun in public and acting as if nobody has one.
It really depends on where you live in the USA. Where I live theres definitely people with guns but it’s unusual to see someone actually carrying one outside their home. Now my cousins live like 1-2 hours away (still in the same state) and it’s super common there for people to carry their gun on them at all times for some fucking reason. So my cousins are way more used to seeing guns than my siblings and I are
It sounds like it’s such a part of our culture that you’re missing the point: you cannot opt out of gun culture in America. Anywhere.
Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents.
That’s called “de-escalation”.
That’s exactly what we should all be doing.
Rather than responding to a road rage incident with our own rage, we are actively reducing the risks of road rage to ourselves and to everyone around us. We are not pushing the initial rager to increase the egregiousness and danger of their rage.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
Paradoxically, if we didn’t fear they would pull guns on us, we would be more likely to respond to their rage with our own. We wouldn’t “put up with it”, but would instead confront them, impede them, seek “justice” for their offensive behavior, or otherwise escalate. In doing so, we would invite them to escalate as well. Your argument suggests that the high incidence of guns being involved in road rage is reducing the occurrence of road rage. I agree completely.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.
Your argument makes no sense. We should deescalate but fear for our lives so we behave? Who’s gonna escalate to put the fear into people? Rethink and try again.
No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.
The idea that actions should have consequences is the real problem that both your latest and your parent comment describe. Parent comment talks about “putting up with shitty behavior”, implying that they should be able to directly respond to such behavior. Any such response is “escalation”. Your parent comment is describing a desire to commit offensive behavior, but that offensive behavior is held in check out of fear of a gun. You behave better.
Your current “consequences” argument says the same thing: You observe what you perceive to be poor behavior, and wish for “consequences”. If that wish culminates in any sort of direct interaction with the poorly behaved, you have escalated. Your “fear for our lives” holds your own behavior in check. You behave better.
I can’t control the road raging asshole. You can’t control the road raging asshole. There will always be one road raging asshole somewhere. There doesn’t need to be three. You can look inward and recognize the harmful, hostile attitudes in yourself that would lead to road rage, and you can actively suppress them. Alternatively, you can fear the external consequences arising from entertaining those harmful attitudes, and elect against such behaviors.
So long as you are going to continue to rationalize your good behavior as being the result of other people being armed, I’m not going to support your efforts to disarm the people creating those good results.
(Edit: Somehow I thought that you were an additional commenter. Edited to reflect that you are also the parent commenter)
Allow me to clarify: I don’t want to ram someone off the road, I just want there to be a way to give feedback without it being escalated from there. Thumbs down, not finger up. Not that people who already drive like that give a shit about other people and any feedback lesser than a major accident. I’m real tired of the car culture here, too.
We do this all the time when on foot. Somebody bumps into someone else, maybe somebody says sorry or watch where you’re going. Or maybe someone decides to pull a gun. That’s more what I’m getting at.
How many dashcam videos do you need to see of drivers crashing into vehicles or obstacles while giving or receiving such “feedback”?
You are turning your attention away from driving, and focusing instead on “feedback”. Simultaneously, you are distracting the shitty driver from driving, and forcing them to focus on your attempt at providing “feedback”. Two drivers are now distracted from the road because you felt some pressing need to communicate your displeasure.
You say “feedback”, I say “escalation”, and “endangerment”. Again, if the possibility of a gun is what keeps you from choosing to escalate in this fashion, I cannot support your efforts to disarm.
Quite the contrary, I would prefer that you chose to arm yourself. Then you would understand that your feedback is not worth the risk, and a person providing you with such “feedback” is not worth your time. You would recognize that if you drew your firearm during a road rage incident, you would invite prison time for brandishing, manslaughter, or attempted murder. You would already understand the extreme dangers of escalation, and would actively avoid it. You would hold your ego in check, rather than allowing it free rein over your actions.
The best course of action is to open the distance between you and the shitty driver. Not try to convince them of their shittiness. If you need them to be possibly armed for your ego to allow you to retreat, then it is better for everyone on the road that they be armed.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
Pure nonsense. That is just regurgitating NRA propaganda, “an armed society is a polite society”, when we know for objective fact that the opposite is true. Gun incidents happen more frequently in the US on a “spur of the moment” thing exactly because they are so prevalent. Arguments more frequently escalate into murder because of the presence of guns, while they don’t in societies where guns are rarer.
Pure nonsense? Parent commenter specifically indicated that the presence of firearms induced improvement in their own behavior.
No, I did not indicate it’s an improvement. Please get your words out of my mouth.
You most certainly did. You indicate you are more tolerant because other people are armed. You indicate you tolerate (“put up with”) greater offense because of it.
You’re not an asshole road rager, and you’ve indicated you won’t escalate to some other asshole’s road rage, specifically because of guns. If guns are no longer an issue, what will it take for you to continue “putting up with” what you perceive to be shitty behavior on the road?
The roads are a much safer place while you’re “putting up” with it. I really, really, need you to keep putting up with it, even if all the guns are removed. If guns are the only reason you’re “putting up” with it, we can’t get rid of the guns. Give me a better option.
I lived in the US for a decade without ever seeing a gun, other than in a cop’s holster.
When I lived in a small town, the MAGA neighbor showed my mixed family how many guns they had to “remind them”. He sure didn’t like it when I told them I conceal carry because of people like him.
Yeah I can count on one hand the amount of guns I’ve seen in person even after going to gun nut relatives’ houses.
This is ignoring police guns because yeah that skews results. Like autistic kids skewing tech literacy resultd.
All of our street cops are also carrying guns around, which (if I’m not mistaken) is not the case everywhere.
Years ago, the UK government announced they were going to arm the general police. The people with the biggest issue with it was the police union!
The UK has a police by consent basis. The heaviest firepower they carry is a tazer. If there is a risk of guns being involved, the normal police pull back and call in the armed response officers. When they do, however, they call the whole cavalry!
End result, criminals don’t feel they MUST have a gun to defend from the police. Conversely, going in armed will bring the whole, focused weight of the armed response down on you. (As in multiple helicopter level searches) Most don’t carry guns, and so the status quo keeps everyone safe.
It’s pretty common, I think only Ireland and Britain (among countries that people are likely to visit) don’t carry guns.
In fact, what’s unusual is that in many places where civilian use of guns is extremely rare, police standing around with submachine guns in airports, train stations, etc. is common.
I was thinking of British TV when I posted that so not too surprising if its mostly a thing there.
I remember I visited Italy on a Latin class trip back in high school, and got a real culture shock when I saw carabinieri(?) patrolling the airport armed with some kind of assault rifles or SMGs. I don’t remember seeing any “normal” police once I was out walking around in the cities so I have no idea if they would’ve been armed or not, but that was definitely heavier weaponry than I’d seen any American cop carrying, in the airport or otherwise.
Being heavily armed is kind of the point of the Carabinieri, who are a part of the military.
Yeah, in Italy there’s a lot of armed officials in public places and big stations (even train stations!). Usually they’re only there to look intimidating. The ones who will actually bother people (usually immigrants) are regular policemen, who, paradoxically, are less likely to carry firearms
I like that idea. Armed cops who focus only on violent felonies, and are forbidden to involve themselves in lesser offenses.
Well, “relative few” is technically correct at about 45% of Americans. Now, way less than that carry, and even less with any regularity, and even less open carry, so yeah you probably don’t see them often, but they’re around.
Are we or are we not counting the fair few you don’t see because they’re concealed on the people around you?
And yes the stats are absolutely skewed by gun nuts with big collections it’s still true that 40% or more of American households have a gun…
But I’d feel uneasy not knowing which of them is the nutty one.
A lot of the nutters tend to advertise it at least. Super gung-ho patriot driving an oversized truck with Trump and flag stickers, maybe an actual flag, possibly open carrying, yard with one or multiple trump signs and likely American flags in case you forget which country you’re in, probably some cars on the lawn as decoration… you get the picture
Yeah, I think I get it, but I don’t want to share the planet with them as well.
Yeah… can’t say I’m the biggest fan of living in an area where I have several examples within walking distance of me, it has left me feeling slightly on edge at times. I don’t think it’d be taken too kindly if I started to get outspoken about politics so I just let it be
So much freedom. I have to shed a tear for you 🥹
Living in the blessed realm. What a dream!
Yeah, as a life-long Californian I’ve seen only a dozen or so guns in my entire life not in the hands or belts of police officers.
Still, we know they are out there. People in rough areas of town are going to have a very different experience.
not in the hands or belts of police officers
I’d like to just point out that this alone is a huge difference. Police in Europe generally do not carry firearms. It’s even unusual to see them with weapons at an airport.
I could be subject to police brutality from a random traffic stop technically, but I wouldn’t have any chance of a gun being pulled on me.
Not in Europe generally. It is true for the UK, but not so much anywhere else. But even in European countries with armed police deescalation is still the pereferred method and they only rarely draw their guns or fire them, especially compared to the US where the police have been trained with overly aggressive lethal violence responses.
Concealed is concealed. If we’re seeing them, they’re doing concealment wrong.
We can look at the rate of licensing to get an idea of scale and prevalence.
In 15 states, more than 1 in 10 adults have permits. Pennsylvania, ~1 in 6. Colorado, ~1 in 5. Indiana, over 22% of adults are licensed concealed carriers.
Nationwide, 7.8% of adults are licensed. Outside CA and NY, 9.3% of adults are currently licensed.
Licensing numbers peaked in 2022, but 29 states (Covering 47% of the population) have recently abandoned licensing requirements. The reduced number of licenses don’t indicate falling carry rates.
To me, the most interesting statistic from that link is almost overlooked: We all know that cops are under-prosecuted and under-convicted for their crimes. ACAB. Despite their cop-privilege, police are still convicted of gun crimes at 12 times the rate of licensed concealed carriers.
They also kill around 1k people a year… including suicides, 1 in 40 of all gun deaths are from the police. Take out the suicides, and it’s down to 1 in 13.5/14… basically the cops kill a lot of people in the usa.
I don’t think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.
How often you see guns varies wildly in the US too.
Yeah I haven’t seen many guns ‘in the open’ outside the range when I was visiting.
Yours is a very big and diverse county and it’s hard to generalize. But usually cultural generalizations are somewhat cute and folksy, like French cheese and Chinese chopsticks.
Guns aren’t endearing though, and they stick out like a sorethumb.
Yeah I think it’s possible to live in the US and not encounter guns. It’s mostly driven by people’s interest and the interests of those around them. There is no obligation to be near or interact with firearms in the US. There are certainly a lot of guns in the US and that does lead to more homicides and shootings, but I don’t think it means everyone sees guns regularly in their daily life. If someone displays a firearm in public, people will not be casual about it.
I don’t think people who don’t live in the US appreciate the concept of Pandora’s box.
I hear a lot of people talk about how bad guns are. How Americans are crazy to own them. How guns need to be made illegal here.
There are literally more guns than people in the United States of America. They aren’t going away.
If we could Thanos snap half the guns away, it would solve nothing. If we could Thanos snap all of them, then hey! Yes! Let’s talk.
But we can’t do that. Guns are just part of life over here. We actually do appreciate how dangerous they are, because we see violence done with them all the time… But there’s no easy solution here. Criminals all have guns. Even kids in gangs have guns.
If you live in an area that has a lot of crime, you may want a gun, and that is okay so long as you’re trained and responsible.
So what you’re really arguing for is mass gun confiscation. I will subscribe to that newsletter gladly.
Yeah I think the US has way too many people who’d never willingly give their guns to the government. Particularly in Texas after Waco.
I’m wondering if we just have a gun registration program and a ban on inheriting guns, so nobody would have to give up their own guns, just their dead parents’ guns.
The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it’s a lot if I see one per three months.
Here in my country (in Europe), you can just go to any important train station or public place and there’ll be a bunch of soldiers doing fuck all with guns in their belts. They’re just meant to stand there and look intimidating lmao. I’ve never even seen them bother immigrants or anything (that’s the police’s job)
Try camping in bear country or hiking anywhere with predators. Or something about 30 wild hogs.
I don’t think there’s much wildlife out there that poses a mortal threat. Bear spray works for most, even though more rural and Northern countries do allow shotguns for use against wildlife.
You don’t really need a handgun in your desk to scare off bears tbh
But in the hypothetical scenario where a bear or 30 boars came at you… You’ll wish you did have a gun! /s
I am pro-gun but people who use wild animals as an excuse for buying handguns are exhausting.
They aren’t an excuse for buying guns. They are an explanation for why certain people in certain situations would legitimately need guns.
And if they have guns for that situation, they have guns for any situation. And if guns are available for people in those situations to acquire, guns are available for anyone to acquire.
i’m 26 and the only guns i’ve ever seen were a bb gun and an air gun, and the interval between seeing them was like 10 years
For Americans, “going to the range” is an average Wednesday activity.
To pretty much anyone else in the world - unless you’re in a profession that works with guns - that statement will get: weird looks, people judging you, and a number of friends distancing themselves as they’d be afraid you could go loco and shoot them…
I live in the south and I don’t know a single person who goes to a range ever. I think you are exaggerating.
I think it’s income dependent. Going to a shooting range and just tearing through ammo sounds expensive, and I’ve never done it, but I’ve known generational-farmer types who do it on a regular basis. They usually bring friends with them. I don’t think most people in the south have been to a shooting range, but it doesn’t strike me as terribly uncommon.
I think it’s a lot like having a boat. If you know a guy who has a boat, you’re much more likely to go boating on the regular, and if you know a someone who has a lot of guns, you’re more likely to go shooting with them.
I’d say the majority of people in the states don’t give a hoot about baseball, but it’s still ‘America’s pastime.’
>.>
Plus, being in the south, why would they go to a range? A friend within an hour probably has property where you could shoot for free.
Yep, not a ton of ranges in the south. Probably 6 in the 200 mile radius of me. They’re not that profitable, because everyone has usually land or a friend with land.
Yeah, we lived outside of town, so we just shot in the backyard.
Live in the north where southerners flee to for jobs (still a shitty Red state) and the range is a regular for gun people. When I had friends that shoot, it was an every or every other weekend thing for the cheap shit, once month take out something nice to shoot that costs a little.
as a european, i went to the range a lot as a kid, because my dad’s side of the family did game hunting back then and he wanted me to learn. this was exclusively with bolt-action long guns, because that’s everything they allow. the process of getting the rifles out of the safe, packing them in locked bags, going to safe ranges far away in the woods, marking every bullet fired on a form, and collecting all the cartridges bored me to tears.
later my dad got in a legal dispute with the police over firearms registration, because as a sporting goods salesman he had to make sure every part he sold had a laser-engraved serial number and it took months for them to finally get that you can’t laser-engrave a 2mm spring.
thank god for regulations.
The number of engineering/design choices that go into guns is fascinating. A P90 and an AK-47 have so many different design choices that it’s incredible they do basically the same thing.
Yeah I love the engineering and history, but wouldn’t want to live with them in close proximity
And the manufacturing. Forgotten Weapons is a brilliant channel not just because of the sheer quality and variety and humour but because Ian will actually explain and show the functioning and ideas behind the crazy mechanisms that have been made over time.
Im 30 years old and I dont think I have ever seen someone hold a real gun in my own country.
That’s a shame.
Gus are cool and fun.
Gus are a national treasure
There are many types of guns. Heat guns, spray guns, desoldering guns, guys at the gym arms, etc
I think that is isn’t hard to figure out from context which ones are referred to, don’t you think?
Hey hey are you bringing out the big guns now?
The guns of never one
I feel like you’re gunning for me.
I do a fair amount of solo bikepacking in the rural Midwest, and have gotten into enough weird altercations that I now ride and camp with a concealed pistol.
A few years ago, I would have called anyone doing this exact same thing a psychopath. I give myself endless amounts of shit for having a “bicycle gun” and would be fucking mortified if anyone I casually ride with found out, but I’m also intensely aware of how batshit crazy and divorced from reality the average redneck is.
Brother, I went camping twice in the South and both times, I had some serious weirdos on the trail. One redneck asked us if we “had any guns on us”. What?
My camping partner said, “If we pull it out, we use it.” And the dude ran off.
Regardless of the actual amount of guns one sees around and in desks, one thing I think is particularly relevant is how many guns are in American media. I’ve never personally seen a desk gun in the USA, though I do see a fair amount of holstered guns in public, but so many TV shows, movies, and even advertisements have random guns popping up even if it’s not thematically relevant or appropriate.
Do lots of people have desk guns? The only time I’ve ever seen a pistol was when I was a Cub Scout, and they brought us to a gun range to lecture us about the danger of guns. I’ve never handled one or touched one even.
I learned how to shoot a shotgun in high school, but only at Clay pigeons. I haven’t touched another gun in the almost 30 years since. And this is coming from someone who has lived in Brooklyn, Florida, and Minnesota. All places with lots of guns (or so I’ve been told).
I have worked at a couple of places where there was always a loaded handgun by the cash register. Just in case. Never saw them used, but they were there. Appalachian region.
Hmm, from my personal experience, I wouldn’t say “lots of people,” but there are a few who have something similar. A cop (skewed statistic, but here’s my anecdote) I knew had a gun in almost every room. I think I hid my chuckle pretty well when he talked about his “bathroom gun.”
Nope!
But the “desk gun” has been a trope in fiction for at least 40 years, which I think is what the original poster is confusing with reality. It’s ironic given their talk of “media literacy.”
What they seem to mean is that Hollywood movies and U.S. TV series use guns in different ways, and it became clear to them when they saw Sherlock.
I’m actually not sure if they consciously know the difference, because a significant number of people take media as a representative shorthand for reality and it’s not.
I remember that scene, and as an American, I understood the context immediately. But, then again, I watch a lot UK media, so maybe I’m a bit biased in that direction.
I’m pretty sure I remember the scene too, actually! That’s probably why I’m so adamant that the original poster is confused or bending the truth for dramatic purposes.
I think most people from the U.S. would understand the context like I did… because Watson reacts to the gun being in the desk.
If I’m remembering it correctly, Watson pauses or something when he sees a gun in the drawer. At the time I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of show it was going to be, or what the context of the gun might be. But him pausing gave me information! It’s a TV show made when they provided information visually instead of also saying it out loud.
Even if someone wasn’t thinking about the laws or culture of the country the media was made, the context needed to understand is provided right in the episode.
But it’s more fun for OP to spin that up into “People from the U.S. are so used to guns…”
Not only does it come at a time where both US and UK media made a big deal about guns being made illegal in the UK, but the scene is also surrounded by a bunch of flashbacks of John Watson, being in the war and him experiencing a bunch of PSD flashbacks about a bunch of war trauma, so it’s not exactly a mystery as to what’s going on in the scene.
The show came out in, I think, 2006, so this is all contextualized around the war in Iraq, in which the UK military played a big assist to the United States military in that theater. This article has some serious myopia in talking about this subject.
Have you not seen Dead Poets Society?
It’s one of my favorite movies, and influenced my decision to go to boarding school. But it’s a movie. I was talking about real life.
We didn’t have any guns in the house growing up, but I know plenty of people who did and so a desk gun is fairly common across the US.
I know my parents had a gun in the house, because they told me. But they had it locked up in a safe. I actually never saw it.
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Well, he’s probably right, but I’m gonna guess he’s not stocking up on predator drones.
Horseshoe theory has no basis in reality. If you actually knew the definitions of Left and Right, you would realize that they’re diametrically opposite. Please educate yourself.
Leftist aren’t anti gun. The workers should be armed.
I mean, is he really THAT wrong?
I’m usually less concerned about the hobbyists who learn gun safety than I am about the people who are mainlining extreme stuff online about needing a gun to use against “the enemy”. Hopefully he’s at least a bit in the former camp too.
I agree with the illustration, but not the example.
I disagree, John Watson in the example is not a person you’d expect to store a gun in a drawer on. Any former or current law enforcement/ army people who own a gun for legitimate reasons would not just have it in a drawer. People who have guns in drawers either want to show off or protect themselves against (other) criminals, neither would make sense for his character. Him having a gun is one detail, him not storing it safely is another.
Yeah……
Americans are desensitized to guns, and it is totally normal for watson to have a gun.
