That is nonsense. Using a gun (or any other weapon) to commit a crime is already illegal.
That is nonsense. "using a weapon to commit a crime" is not the only factor in the high gun violence statistics in the U.S. It's likely not even a primary factor. We have so many contributing factors to gun violence in the U.S., but the primary ones that gun control advocates focus on is the incredible easy with which a person can obtain firearms, likely leading to the incredibly high guns per capita stats, which in turn no doubt directly contributes to our incredibly high gun violence rates (for a non-developing nation).
I think you would be more correct if you said that this "thinking guns are masculine" was a "big contributor" is nonsense, because it does seem poorly supported. I liked guns since probably age 5, and I while I may have been mimicking what I saw, that incredible predisposition to wanting to play with guns was not random, and I don't think it was related to machismo at age 5. A friend gun enthusiast whose joy with guns always gets me to buy more than I need, often remarks that his parents tell the story that toy weapons were forbidden growing up, but that he'd find a stick outside at age 4, shaped like a gun, and run around shooting with that. It could *still* be mimicry, but wow...I mean, there is some predisposition there, and I think that goes way beyond "feeling masculine".
But I agree that focusing on either of those (masculinity of firearms or genetic predisposition), isn't really going to lead to much in terms of gun policy/politics, its maybe interesting academically only at this stage (later it may be used to help shape culture).
It's hard to argue the U.S. doesn't need a strong military, and that means guns and accepting people trained to kill humans in our society...and in some places in Europe we know they don't have the same outlook on the military as us, in some cases BECAUSE we have a strong military outlook.
It's a complex issue. If the NRA wasn't simply opposed to any/all gun control, we could have that discussion..how do we balance 2nd amendment, our need to have a strong military and frankly military accepting culture (bashing our military in Vietnam seemed the *wrong* way to go)? I think most well-meaning legal gun owners could jump through a lot of hurdles to own a firearm, and IMO they should accept that, in exchange for the safety it will bring to society, and they should negotiate for some other fringe benefits as a result of giving up the stupid-ease at which they can currently get guns, and the incredible number/range of weapons available to them...like a tax deduction or something...for helping us, we have to help them back.
They would argue it won't reduce gun crime (because that's the ultimate response to everything), and we'd go round and round. That got longer than anticipated.
