• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    17 hours ago

    IMO the biggest cultural difference is guns. Apparently there are liberals in the US who think nationalized healthcare, cheap or free university, paid parental leave, guaranteed long vacation, etc. is all wonderful. But, they love their guns so much that that would be a red line. They’d forfeit all the great things that a European socialist country has to offer if the deal also requires that they give up their guns.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Okay, hear me out. How about we get all that good stuff and just carve out a gun excepion. There’d be a lot less shooting each other if people weren’t afraid of starving on the streets and were getting free mental health care.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      Or maybe it’s because republicans take every opportunity to block it or remove it, like they did this past December.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      8 hours ago

      You are allowed guns but the reason that you have for owning a gun has to be a little bit more than “because I want one”.

      Also the decision about whether or not you get a gun is up to local police. And they can deny you for any reason they like including that they know you to be a frequent flyer.

      But really it’s more about the fact that people aren’t really interested in guns outside the US. In the US they are a cultural thing, outside they are just a tool but a useful to have if you need to make use of that tool. I don’t own a gun for the same reason that I don’t own a quad bike, I’m not a farmer and I live in the city, so I don’t need one.

      • HalfSalesman@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        You are allowed guns but the reason that you have for owning a gun has to be a little bit more than “because I want one”.

        Yeah, I don’t like that and I don’t even own a gun. I don’t think governments should have a monopoly on violence or the tools of violence.

        With the exception of nukes, but mostly because I don’t think anyone should have those. If only governments have them though at least they have some level of self interest to not nuke their own population.

        Then again I’m pretty nihilistic these days, maybe I’m ok with the McNuke now. As long as I’m instantly vaporized if one goes off, I don’t want to experience the black rain and slow agonizing radiation death.

        I also don’t think its the government’s business should I decide to buy a gun what I intend to do with it. Will I ever buy one? Probably not. But still, principle of the thing.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          5 hours ago

          I also don’t think its the government’s business should I decide to buy a gun what I intend to do with it.

          Personally I feel that if you’re buying a gun someone should know why, and who else better than the government?

          You already ID people for buying knives, and you limit how many packs of painkillers people can purchase. I don’t see why it’s necessarily any different for a gun.

          Do you know what violent people who do not have access to guns are? Extremely annoying. That it. Then you called the police who come and deal with them. There are so many idiots that are still alive today who’s drunken escapades would have got them shot in the United States rather than a stint in the cells to sober up.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        You are allowed guns

        Which would be a red line for Americans who think that guns are an inherent right and that the very idea that the government might be able to say “no” is unacceptable.

    • SyntaxError@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I live in the socialist paradise Sweden and have three rifles for hunting, my wife has two, my mom three. Some of my friends have pistols for sports shooting. I don’t get why Americans think guns only exist in America. Also, we currently have a right wing government. Funny thing is that is was the social democrats who made the laws that anyone could own rifles for hunting as it used to be only the land owning people who had that right before, the parties on right opposed that because they were afraid the rifles would be used to start a revolution or something.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        Does anybody in the country have the right to go to a store and get a gun without question? What makes the US unique is that the constitution is currently interpreted to mean that gun ownership is a right, and that the government can’t do anything to regulate it.