Someone asked:
"Americans...
Why when there are school shootings and mass shootings daily across America...WHY do people keep banging on about their rights to own guns? Wtf is wrong with you all 
I know the amendments were written up (hundreds of years ago) in a time when the land was pretty much lawless! So why carry on with this utter madness?!
Here in the UK shooting and mass shootings are almost unheard of, in America it's daily!
How can you send your kids to school or even feel comfortable walking out of your front door?
Why are schools not fenced off and locked when kids are at school?
My mind is utterly blown by it all.
I have no idea why people want to move to America "
"Since I wrote up a long reply, I have decided to post it here (with edits to keywords since this is not Facebook):
"So, there're several reasons why pro-gun people have the views that they have. This excludes stupid "arguments" like eurocuck or "your country sucks", some of which you see above
- They view it as a fundamental right that is non-negotiable. If, for the sake of argument, you could get rid of acid attacks in the UK by getting rid of freedom of speech, would you? Most people probably would say no (of course this depends on how important one views the right, the effect one thinks compromising the right will have on the harm and how serious the harm is - see below)
- They think the problem is not that bad. There is some merit to this view. The US is a big country with many people, so the absolute problem is not as bad on a per capita basis. On some measures, the US does not have that big of a mass shooting problem. In any event, gun crime in the US is a big problem, but mass shootings are the wrong way to understand it, as they make up a small portion of deaths. They just make headlines because of their visibility and the victims being perceived as innocent. Think about the cost, hassle and inconvenience that fencing and locking schools involves for all this
- They have fantasies about overthrowing a tyrannical government. Given that many claim that all gun laws are unconstitutional but we don't see the "militas" rising up, this is nonsensical (one pro-gun person claimed Waco and Ruby Ridge were examples, but they weren't about gun control and were failures and anyway in the 30 years since there has been nothing else)
- They don't think it will help. They like to claim that gun laws only affect law-abiding gun owners and that criminals will always get guns. This ignores the fact that the world is not binarily divided into law-abiding citizens and criminals - people can and do crossover. It also pretends that gun laws are useless when there is robust evidence that many are effective (or puts up an impossible standard - if the law is not 100% effective there is no point to it - under which we'd never get anything done, as nothing is ever 100%)
- Related to the above: they think that more guns are the solution, because criminals are rational and won't shoot up places if they think someone will shoot them. This pretends that more guns doesn't increase the chances of a gun incident and assumes that criminals are perfectly rational (even normal humans aren't, so)
- They claim guns are not the root cause of gun crime. They like to repeat the myth that without guns, criminals will just use other weapons, and will claim once again that in the UK, with gun control, criminals just use knives (ironically, in the US, knife crime itself is higher than in the UK, even though guns are easily available there). And ironically, this undermines their claims about needing a gun to protect themselves - if knives are equally effective as guns, they don't need guns to defend themselves
- Underlying everything, basically guns are about identity to many pro-gun people, and the rationalisations they give for why guns are so important and there's no point regulating them are just copes for this"
- They view it as a fundamental right that is non-negotiable. If, for the sake of argument, you could get rid of acid attacks in the UK by getting rid of freedom of speech, would you? Most people probably would say no (of course this depends on how important one views the right, the effect one thinks compromising the right will have on the harm and how serious the harm is - see below)
- They think the problem is not that bad. There is some merit to this view. The US is a big country with many people, so the absolute problem is not as bad on a per capita basis. On some measures, the US does not have that big of a mass shooting problem. In any event, gun crime in the US is a big problem, but mass shootings are the wrong way to understand it, as they make up a small portion of deaths. They just make headlines because of their visibility and the victims being perceived as innocent. Think about the cost, hassle and inconvenience that fencing and locking schools involves for all this
- They have fantasies about overthrowing a tyrannical government. Given that many claim that all gun laws are unconstitutional but we don't see the "militas" rising up, this is nonsensical (one pro-gun person claimed Waco and Ruby Ridge were examples, but they weren't about gun control and were failures and anyway in the 30 years since there has been nothing else)
- They don't think it will help. They like to claim that gun laws only affect law-abiding gun owners and that criminals will always get guns. This ignores the fact that the world is not binarily divided into law-abiding citizens and criminals - people can and do crossover. It also pretends that gun laws are useless when there is robust evidence that many are effective (or puts up an impossible standard - if the law is not 100% effective there is no point to it - under which we'd never get anything done, as nothing is ever 100%)
- Related to the above: they think that more guns are the solution, because criminals are rational and won't shoot up places if they think someone will shoot them. This pretends that more guns doesn't increase the chances of a gun incident and assumes that criminals are perfectly rational (even normal humans aren't, so)
- They claim guns are not the root cause of gun crime. They like to repeat the myth that without guns, criminals will just use other weapons, and will claim once again that in the UK, with gun control, criminals just use knives (ironically, in the US, knife crime itself is higher than in the UK, even though guns are easily available there). And ironically, this undermines their claims about needing a gun to protect themselves - if knives are equally effective as guns, they don't need guns to defend themselves
- Underlying everything, basically guns are about identity to many pro-gun people, and the rationalisations they give for why guns are so important and there's no point regulating them are just copes for this"
