> The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two.
The American gun fetish dates back to the earliest arrivals in the New World, in all areas of the country, both initial northern states, and later southern states, and the West. If you haven't spent enough time in the wild to encounter a grizzly, a 300 pound boar, a wolf pack, a coyote pack, or a solitary mountain lion intent upon considering you as a food source - consider yourself lucky.
> As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion.
Au Contraire
The Taliban, freedom fighters, or Terrorists, perhaps both, just seized pretty much the entirety of Afghanistan with roughly ~70k light infantry, against a force roughly 4x their numbers with much heavier armament. [1] This, after having fought to a standstill one of the nations with the best fighting force in a long guerilla warfare, vs airpower, advanced weaponry, drones, armor, you name it.
Because they had willpower.
> The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.
Flyover country has neither the presidency, the House, or the Senate, but the US wants not for authoritarianism.
The unfortunate, and tragic fact is that the vast majority of the gun violence in the US happens in inner cities [2], typically with repressive gun laws. Sure, there will be the occasional red state nutjob too.
If you truly and deeply cared about the horrible gun violence, you might ask why, where, for what reason, who, and why don't we know more about it? [3]
You might seek to grasp a true understanding of the culture involved, the economics, education, or lack thereof, opportunities denied, the crime involved, or not, and to paint us a full picture.
But you don't.
Instead you leave us with a shallow political attack on others. Demonizing, rather the engaging in a civic manner. Pontificating, rather than questioning. Politicizing, rather than conversing.
Take a break from the keyboard and have a socially-distant coffee with others. Your others. Have two.
We're all human.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victor...
[2] https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-vio...
[3] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-...