MedWheeler
Member
If there really is such thing as a "gun culture" in the USA, what the media is lashing out at right now isn't it.
A "gun culture", the way I see it, would be no more than a culture in which the common existence and possession of firearms is integral with society, and living in general. The days in which it was more common than not to see a shotgun leaning in a corner inside one's front door, a rifle in a rack in the rear window of a pickup (perhaps even parked outside a school!), and a sixgun on a man's hip as he went about his business. People didn't fear them; they were as ordinary to see around as any other tool or implement of daily living, such as a stove, washboard, appliance, or a car. Children played "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and Indians" with real-looking toy guns, and even pointed them at each other. If there were "real" guns in the house, everyone knew it, and no one feared them. All able-bodied and responsible members of the household knew how (and when) to use them.
This started well before the year 1800, and continued well into the 1970s, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line. Yes, there were bad guys with guns who used them, but there were good guys with guns to stop them.
Most of us over the age of 35-40 years old, especially those who grew up in the South and West, went through this lifestyle and came out without being drawn into a lifestyle centered around firearms-related violence. We didn't become mass-murderers, spree-killers, or gang-banging thugs. For the last 20 years or so, though, young people have spent far more time sitting at home on their pasty-white soggy rears learning more about weapons and firearms from "virtuality" than from reality. With curiosity sparked by that, and no education or experience with the real thing, they can easily become tempted to "try out the power" of a game's glorified weapon when they get their hands on a real one.
No, I'm not blaming video games at all. But, I believe that young people, whose minds are still so easily influenced, need to be spending time and experience in the "real world" far more than in the so-called "virtual world."
No, there is no such thing as a "gun culture". Since, in those times, firearms were no more than tools for recreation, sustenance, or defense, they can no more be the subject of a "culture" as any other tool. I've never heard of a "hammer culture", or a "rod-and-reel" culture, yet there are at least as many people, if not more, that actively enjoy tinkering or hand-working, or fishing.
Perhaps what the media is actually looking at could more accurately be described as a "violence culture" or a "thug culture"? These types of lifestyles as practiced by enough like-minded people to be indeed be classified as a "culture". The glamorization of violence and death, coupled with the loss of the fear of death (largely due to its perceived glory and the lack of a belief in a higher power to answer to) are what is steering people of that culture. Firearms simply happen to be an available outlet for them with which to carry out their fantasies, which all too often carry from their virtual worlds into the real one.
A "gun culture", the way I see it, would be no more than a culture in which the common existence and possession of firearms is integral with society, and living in general. The days in which it was more common than not to see a shotgun leaning in a corner inside one's front door, a rifle in a rack in the rear window of a pickup (perhaps even parked outside a school!), and a sixgun on a man's hip as he went about his business. People didn't fear them; they were as ordinary to see around as any other tool or implement of daily living, such as a stove, washboard, appliance, or a car. Children played "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and Indians" with real-looking toy guns, and even pointed them at each other. If there were "real" guns in the house, everyone knew it, and no one feared them. All able-bodied and responsible members of the household knew how (and when) to use them.
This started well before the year 1800, and continued well into the 1970s, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line. Yes, there were bad guys with guns who used them, but there were good guys with guns to stop them.
Most of us over the age of 35-40 years old, especially those who grew up in the South and West, went through this lifestyle and came out without being drawn into a lifestyle centered around firearms-related violence. We didn't become mass-murderers, spree-killers, or gang-banging thugs. For the last 20 years or so, though, young people have spent far more time sitting at home on their pasty-white soggy rears learning more about weapons and firearms from "virtuality" than from reality. With curiosity sparked by that, and no education or experience with the real thing, they can easily become tempted to "try out the power" of a game's glorified weapon when they get their hands on a real one.
No, I'm not blaming video games at all. But, I believe that young people, whose minds are still so easily influenced, need to be spending time and experience in the "real world" far more than in the so-called "virtual world."
No, there is no such thing as a "gun culture". Since, in those times, firearms were no more than tools for recreation, sustenance, or defense, they can no more be the subject of a "culture" as any other tool. I've never heard of a "hammer culture", or a "rod-and-reel" culture, yet there are at least as many people, if not more, that actively enjoy tinkering or hand-working, or fishing.
Perhaps what the media is actually looking at could more accurately be described as a "violence culture" or a "thug culture"? These types of lifestyles as practiced by enough like-minded people to be indeed be classified as a "culture". The glamorization of violence and death, coupled with the loss of the fear of death (largely due to its perceived glory and the lack of a belief in a higher power to answer to) are what is steering people of that culture. Firearms simply happen to be an available outlet for them with which to carry out their fantasies, which all too often carry from their virtual worlds into the real one.
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