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Why are Americans trying to fight COVID-19 with guns?

TU Curmudgeon

B.A. (Sarc), LLb. (Lex Sarcasus), PhD (Sarc.)
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From The Globe & Mail

Why are Americans trying to fight COVID-19 with guns?

Spooked by COVID-19, Americans not only stripped supermarket shelves of toilet paper and pasta, but also drove gun sales higher than ever.
Lobbyists for the U.S. gun industry want gun stores to be counted as “essential” businesses, like food shops and pharmacies. A number of states have readily complied, as has the Department of Homeland Security.

When it comes to guns, the rest of the world has long viewed the United States as being a little crazy. But there is something particularly odd about this latest rush to buy arms. Conservatives and gun lovers invoke history, tradition and the late-18th-century text of the U.S. Constitution to defend their right to carry anything from a Glock G-19 pistol to the popular AR-15 assault rifle.

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment insisted in 1791 that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The origin of this right goes back to the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution in England, when Protestant militias were authorized to bear arms to protect Parliamentary rule from a tyrannical monarchy.

In the U.S., too, militias of armed citizens were considered a necessary bulwark against a despotic federal state. The potential enemy was what U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters like to call “the deep state,” an overweening federal government that should never be allowed to trample on the rights of freedom-loving people.

COMMENT:-

Please read the WHOLE of the opinion piece BEFORE posting in response to a "GUN BANNER'S threat to strip American's inalienble Second Amendment Rights from the Constitution of the United States of America".

THEN please respond to what the author is ACTUALLY saying.
 
Why?

From the article - "What is most feared now is not the government, but lawlessness from a collapsing economy in a health crisis."

Pretty much my guess as well.
 
A lot of these guys have "Walking Dead" fantasy were they will be called upon to use their guns to defend themselves from hordes of people.
 
A bit absurd to suddenly rush the gun stores amid a virus outbreak. While the economy is going to take a hit (and has, already), it isn't going to be to the level of bunker-down-and-shoot-your-neighbor craziness. If these are brand-new gun owners - which I presume them to be, as established gun-owners have no logical need to buy more guns amid a crisis - I expect to see a rise in violence, whether self-inflicted, domestic, or otherwise, in the near future.
 
Why?

From the article - "What is most feared now is not the government, but lawlessness from a collapsing economy in a health crisis."

Pretty much my guess as well.

Not to mention that if enough LEO's get sick, the thin blue line will get thinner, which would result in more lawlessness. Speaking of which, many current gun buyers are first time buyers and don't even know what ammunition the firearm they bought uses. If someone is a first time buy i would highly suggest they gets some training including firing their firearm, a crisis situation is not the time to learn how to use your firearm.
 
Why?

From the article - "What is most feared now is not the government, but lawlessness from a collapsing economy in a health crisis."

Pretty much my guess as well.

Which tells you what about the state of American society?
 
A bit absurd to suddenly rush the gun stores amid a virus outbreak. While the economy is going to take a hit (and has, already), it isn't going to be to the level of bunker-down-and-shoot-your-neighbor craziness. If these are brand-new gun owners - which I presume them to be, as established gun-owners have no logical need to buy more guns amid a crisis - I expect to see a rise in violence, whether self-inflicted, domestic, or otherwise, in the near future.

A not totally improbable possibility.
 
A bit absurd to suddenly rush the gun stores amid a virus outbreak. While the economy is going to take a hit (and has, already), it isn't going to be to the level of bunker-down-and-shoot-your-neighbor craziness. If these are brand-new gun owners - which I presume them to be, as established gun-owners have no logical need to buy more guns amid a crisis - I expect to see a rise in violence, whether self-inflicted, domestic, or otherwise, in the near future.

We hope it won't, but there's no way to know it won't. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
 
From The Globe & Mail

Why are Americans trying to fight COVID-19 with guns?

Spooked by COVID-19, Americans not only stripped supermarket shelves of toilet paper and pasta, but also drove gun sales higher than ever.
Lobbyists for the U.S. gun industry want gun stores to be counted as “essential” businesses, like food shops and pharmacies. A number of states have readily complied, as has the Department of Homeland Security.

When it comes to guns, the rest of the world has long viewed the United States as being a little crazy. But there is something particularly odd about this latest rush to buy arms. Conservatives and gun lovers invoke history, tradition and the late-18th-century text of the U.S. Constitution to defend their right to carry anything from a Glock G-19 pistol to the popular AR-15 assault rifle.

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment insisted in 1791 that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The origin of this right goes back to the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution in England, when Protestant militias were authorized to bear arms to protect Parliamentary rule from a tyrannical monarchy.

In the U.S., too, militias of armed citizens were considered a necessary bulwark against a despotic federal state. The potential enemy was what U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters like to call “the deep state,” an overweening federal government that should never be allowed to trample on the rights of freedom-loving people.

COMMENT:-

Please read the WHOLE of the opinion piece BEFORE posting in response to a "GUN BANNER'S threat to strip American's inalienble Second Amendment Rights from the Constitution of the United States of America".

THEN please respond to what the author is ACTUALLY saying.

TUC:

In my opinion this stems from two deeply rooted notions, one in a powerful minority of Americans and the other inculcated into a majority of Americans.

The minority notion is born out of the historical fiction that America was made great out a sense of rugged individualism rather than the cooperation of people within communities. This has allowed a minority of Americans the philosophical and political wiggle room to write off those other Americans not of their family and circle of friends as socially expendible. This has translated into a political force which strongly and constantly opposes allowing the state or federal governments from developing a fully operable societal safety net which can prevent people in society from becoming so desperate that they must resort to violence in order to survive.

The majority notion is irrational fear, which is regularly inculcated and fulminated by political and economic factions in America to get things done. Fear is sold through advertising, through news reports, through opinion pieces and more generally through the American culture so that the people living in the richest and most militarily powerful and secure country in the world are still a frightened, huddling mass which can be easily manipulated through that common culture of fear. Red-skins = fear, British = fear, Mormons = fear, Freed African-American slaves = fear, Hispanics = fear, unionists = fear, socialists and communists = fear, Germans = fear, Japanese-Americans = fear, Russians and Chinese = fear, Neighbours = fear! urban/rural folk = fear, Muslims/Arabs = fear, refugees = fear, foreign cultures = fear, etc. The selling of public policy and snake-oil products for private profit through fear-mongering has left the American public conditioned to be a paranoid polis which can be easily manipulated.

Indifference to the needs of other Americans and fear are part of the reasons why modern America is the way it is today.
 
Last edited:
We like our guns.

The more illiterate seem to think they can stand off Covid19 with them.
 
We aren't a victim society.

It tells anyone who isn't intimately wedded to the idea that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created that the American society is one hell of a lot more fragile than those who believe that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created want to think it is.
 
TUC:

In my opinion this stems from two deeply rooted notions, one in a powerful minority of Americans and the other inculcated into a majority of Americans.

The minority notion is born out of the historical fiction that America was made great out a sense of rugged individualism rather than the cooperation of people within communities. This has allowed a minority of Americans the philosophical and political wiggle room to write off those other Americans not of their family and circle of friends as socially expendible. This has translated into a political force which strongly and constantly opposes allowing the state or federal governments from developing a fully operable societal safety net which can prevent people in society from becoming so desperate that they must resort to violence in order to survive.

The majority notion is irrational fear, which is regularly inculcated and fulminated by political and economic factions in America to get things done. Fear is sold through advertising, through news reports, through opinion pieces and more generally through the American culture so that the people living in the richest and most militarily powerful and secure country in the world are still a frightened, huddling mass which can be easily manipulated through that common culture of fear. Red-skins = fear, British = fear, Mormons = fear, Freed African-American slaves = fear, Hispanics = fear, unionists = fear, socialists and communists = fear, Germans = fear, Japanese-Americans = fear, Russians and Chinese = fear, Neighbours = fear! urban/rural folk = fear, Muslims/Arabs = fear, refugees = fear, foreign cultures = fear, etc. The selling of public policy and snake-oil products for private profit through fear-mongering has left the American public conditioned to be a paranoid polis which can be easily manipulated.

Indifference to the needs of other Americans and fear are part of the reasons why modern America is the way it is today.

You do realize that you are saying something that it is very likely that more than 60% of all Americans REALLY do not want to think about, don't you?
 
It tells anyone who isn't intimately wedded to the idea that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created that the American society is one hell of a lot more fragile than those who believe that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created want to think it is.

The United States is the greatest country in human history. We prove it every day.
 
The United States is the greatest country in human history. We prove it every day.

So says someone who IS intimately wedded to the idea that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created.

Now I will agree that the version of what the United States of America actually is that is taught to innocent young American school children is pretty damn good, but to confuse that with reality is behaviour that invites a stay at "The Home".
 
So says someone who IS intimately wedded to the idea that the United States of America is the ONLY PERFECT society ever created.

Now I will agree that the version of what the United States of America actually is that is taught to innocent young American school children is pretty damn good, but to confuse that with reality is behaviour that invites a stay at "The Home".

Your jealousy is obvious.
 
You do realize that you are saying something that it is very likely that more than 60% of all Americans REALLY do not want to think about, don't you?

TUC:

Meh. Just my take firm outside the great American fishbowl. If Americans don't agree or don't want to think critically about why their culture is the way it is now, they can ignore me. That won't change my truth, just theirs. If they raid northwards across the border in order to silence me, then I will meet them with replica Medieval weapons and armour and face them down honourably. Otherwise I will just continue to say my truth and let others come to their own conclusions about the state of the Union.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Your jealousy is obvious.

Indeed, living in a country
  • where the educational system is more highly rated than the US one is, and
  • where the healthcare system is more highly rated than the US one is, and
  • where the level of freedom is more highly rated than in the US, and
  • where the level of happiness is more highly rated than in the US, and
  • where the corruption level is lower rated than is the one in the US, and
  • where the conduct of elections is done in a non-partisan manner, and
  • where the determining of electoral districts is done on a non-partisan basis, and
  • where the requirements for "Voter ID" are deliberately designed to ensure that the maximum number of people who are qualified to vote will be able to identify themselves when they want to vote, and
  • where the federal government makes it incredibly easy for voters who have moved to ensure that they are entered on the correct voter's list (and presents them with an annual opportunity to correct any date concerning them on the voter's list, and
  • where I can walk the streets at night (even in the most poverty struck areas) without (statistically significant) fear of being killed either in a mugging or simply because the people who live there have a different level of melanin in their skin than I do,
  • where the Head of Government is actually an intelligent and literate person who actually supports the platform of the party that they belong to, and
  • where the police do not draw their guns and point them at me if they want to give me a ticket for having a burned out tail light,

I have much to be jealous about because I wouldn't have those things if I lived in the US.
 
We like our guns.

The more illiterate seem to think they can stand off Covid19 with them.

Not really. And even if you're literate, you're missing the point.
 
From The Globe & Mail

Why are Americans trying to fight COVID-19 with guns?

Spooked by COVID-19, Americans not only stripped supermarket shelves of toilet paper and pasta, but also drove gun sales higher than ever.
Lobbyists for the U.S. gun industry want gun stores to be counted as “essential” businesses, like food shops and pharmacies. A number of states have readily complied, as has the Department of Homeland Security.

When it comes to guns, the rest of the world has long viewed the United States as being a little crazy. But there is something particularly odd about this latest rush to buy arms. Conservatives and gun lovers invoke history, tradition and the late-18th-century text of the U.S. Constitution to defend their right to carry anything from a Glock G-19 pistol to the popular AR-15 assault rifle.

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment insisted in 1791 that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The origin of this right goes back to the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution in England, when Protestant militias were authorized to bear arms to protect Parliamentary rule from a tyrannical monarchy.

In the U.S., too, militias of armed citizens were considered a necessary bulwark against a despotic federal state. The potential enemy was what U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters like to call “the deep state,” an overweening federal government that should never be allowed to trample on the rights of freedom-loving people.

COMMENT:-

Please read the WHOLE of the opinion piece BEFORE posting in response to a "GUN BANNER'S threat to strip American's inalienble Second Amendment Rights from the Constitution of the United States of America".

THEN please respond to what the author is ACTUALLY saying.

The premise is completely ridiculous.

People aren't trying to fight the Trumpandemic with guns anymore than Nunes sued a cow.

Silly.
 
Why?

From the article - "What is most feared now is not the government, but lawlessness from a collapsing economy in a health crisis."

Pretty much my guess as well.

Mine too.
 
Not to mention that if enough LEO's get sick, the thin blue line will get thinner, which would result in more lawlessness. Speaking of which, many current gun buyers are first time buyers and don't even know what ammunition the firearm they bought uses. If someone is a first time buy i would highly suggest they gets some training including firing their firearm, a crisis situation is not the time to learn how to use your firearm.

Weren't you one of the people arguing that this whole Covid thing was overblown?
 
Mine too.

So pretty much the exact opposite of what Trump has been preaching. Do you think he is that detached from reality? And if so, in November would you vote for a POTUS who is so detached from reality?
 
Weren't you one of the people arguing that this whole Covid thing was overblown?

Nope, I only said it was not the black death, but have Always said this is serious and needs to be treated as such.
 
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