[monkeycantype]

In a life in Australia I got shot at once by a guy who thought I was a kangaroo and apologised, in five years in the us, I had guns drawn on me 5 times twice by police on one occasion at least five guns, twice by strangers unprovoked threatening to kill me, and once more or less abducted. I love California, I really really love it, but gun violence and the threat of it is not a media beat up. The difference in the feeling of threat in us v Australia is quite different, on average, there are places in Australia that are not safe, and in the end I believe the causes are the same, there are places in both countries where the inequality is brutal, and where the sanctioned violence that maintains economic disparity is on clear display

[frongpik]

The risk of being shot in the US is below obscure kidney problems. Guns is a microscopic problem in the US that looks big only under the media's microscope. The real elephant is cancer.

[monkeycantype]

I agree with you. But I also think that there is threat of potential violence that is unfamiliar to people from quiet little countries like Australia.

I never got shot and killed in the US, not even once. But the fear of gun violence is real, not just as a subjective experience but as a tool, Switzerland has more guns, but the US is unusual in that it is both a democracy and has so many guns on display. The standard response to this from my side of politics is to say that the US needs gun control. My feeling is that the US is different because the US is different, it’s bigger, more complex and there are greater and more numerous tensions and conflicts than the other Anglo/euro democracies. Americans relationship to their government and the culture around personal responsibility and political participation is very different to the disconnected disinterest in my own country. So I don’t want US gun culture exported, and I don’t want my kids living in it. But when you read things like:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War

It seems there is an intimate connection between the generative political culture of the United States, that doesn’t shy away from conflict in pursuit of ideals, and gun culture, that cannot be easily separated. I believe there is something in American culture that calls people to intervene, that urges facing into conflict, even violence in pursuit of higher ideals that is both useful and destructive, even if we could never tally the full cost, in short order we can produce horrific numbers, but I believe this same imperative drives vital movements like feminism, gay rights, anti racism that inspire required changes in my country. So I both agree with you and think you’re missing the point. Cancer, heart disease, dementia are numerically vastly greater killers, but as an outsider from Australia coming to the US the underlying conflict in the society is hard to come terms with, it is much better hidden in Australia. I think my experience is common, I will always regret leaving the US. I adjusted to that sense of threat that personally, and I think I would have tolerated it if I had stayed and had children there, but I can’t bring myself to move my children there.

[frongpik]

The fear of gun violence is imaginary. The media instills the fear because, quoting the Chomsky propaganda model, "when people fear, they accept authority". Most people in the US wouldn't know gun ownership is a thing, because most of them will never see a gun unless they go to a range.

My hypothesis as to why the new US administration is so fixated on gun control is that they really need to import big piles of migrants to do the low rung labor, but if that new underclass gets guns, things will go downhill. So their plan is to pack the supreme court with anti-gun judges (to bypass the bill of rights) and take the guns. They seem to be trying the Australian scenario where a possibly manufactured shooting was used as an excuse to ban guns.

[monkeycantype]

Hang on are you suggesting Port Arthur was a a 'false flag' operation? If that is what you are saying? I have to ask whether you have done sufficient investigation to make such a claim. It is a statement that has potential to deeply offend and hurt, shouldn't be said lightly without robust evidence. I think you're seriously over estimating the organisational capacity of the Australian government and intelligence services (if you want to see the abysmal record of the Australian Intelligence services, look up hilton hotel bombing) and seeing shadows of the US political landscape in the Australian landscape - they aren't the same. The government in power in Australia at the time was conservative, and they did not want to introduce gun control. We don't have the same gun culture here, in a large part because right or wrong people don't believe the government has the competency and capability to pull off tyranny.