[mothballed]

Guns and (relatively) freedom of speech (yes I'm aware it comes with asterisk) are the two big ones. If I left the USA it would probably be to a place with weak governance on these points in practice rather than on paper. Only Yemen, Iraq, Somaliland, parts of Pakistan, parts of Rojava and maybe KRG (Kurdistan), Idlib, and Palestine are only places I know of with looser (to me better) gun laws than America and out of all those I'd only really consider Somaliland & KRG & Rojava as places where a westerner could probably settle without getting their head cut off. Freedom of speech, IDK where, hard to find anyplace with looser speech restriction than America.

However if you are willing to go with de facto rather than de jure, plenty of places in Africa and Latam can be freer on these points, especially if you have a little coin.

Financially though, places like Dubai blow away the absolutely dystopic USA controls like FATCA and world taxation/filing, KYC, AML and other madness USA uses to keep an iron grip on traditional finance channels.

[titanomachy]

I think relatively few people choose their home based on “where can I have the most guns and least oversight on banking”.

But I suspect that the people who care about these things care about them a LOT.

[Bender]

For me it was a factor to some degree. I am not a firearm collector. For me it was knowing that I was moving from a state that hates firearms and wants to justify law enforcement budgets by punishing anyone that defends themselves to a state that not only has very few restrictions on firearms and ammo but also actively and legally supports people defending themselves and their neighbors. That was just one of many factors however. No state income tax was also a big plus for me personally.

[ryandrake]

It seems so weird to even know which states "hate firearms" and which ones support them, let alone care. It's not something that would even appear on my radar if I had to move across the country to some new town. I'm worried about things like good schools, access to amenities, commute times, access to fresh air and nature, stuff like that. How gun-friendly the place is? It wouldn't even make my top 20 or even cross my mind. Do Americans really factor this into their decision when they move somewhere?

I take it as a given that being in America in general means you could be shot randomly, with a uniform, but low probability distribution. It doesn't really matter what the state's gun laws are. So outside of notoriously "unsafe" areas, it doesn't play into my mind at all.

[bulbar]

I know nobody who owns a firearm and I am pretty sure close to nobody of them know somebody themselves.

Same goes for being a victim of a criminal offense.

Against what/who are your defending with those firearms in the US?

[mothballed]

Who would tell you they have them if you are in a country where it is illegal? For instance the fgc-9[] commonly seized in parts of Europe was invented by a German in Germany (ethnic Kurd though).

No one knew who he was until he was arrested and for the most part until he was dead. His european friends would be saying the same thing as you, "don't know anyone with guns..."

Lots of guns in Europe by people who aren't supposed to have them. Either because they are criminals thus don't care about gun laws, or if they are 'good' people then they should know not to pull out a gun unless their other option is to be dead -- at which point 'fuck the law' and better to be in a jail cell than dead.

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9

[bulbar]

At least in Germany they are legal in general, only highly regulated.

Most guns are owned by relatively few people. Nobody from the common crowd here thinks about owning fire arms, virtually nobody does. Maybe that's a cultural gap hard to imagine from an US perspective.

The question remains, against what and who are you even defending? Maybe it's different in Europe because it's densely populated, but people generally don't consider fire arms being a net plus to the security of themselves and that of their family.

It also just doesn't seem useful to move to a state with loose fire arms laws - it's much better to move to a state/city/neighborhood with low crime rate instead.

[mothballed]

It's still within living memory of some Germans of their own government systematically mass murdering them after blocking their escape.

[mnky9800n]

You could live in Norway. Guns are very popular there for hunting, biathalon, target shooting, etc. you can even have silencers which are banned in USA.

[mothballed]

Not a bad choice. I'd probably pick Greenland out of the European (Denmark I think?) jurisdiction territory. You can buy bolt action rifles like a hammer at hardware store. They are looser than the USA on that point, though I didn't initially include them because they are stricter on most everything else. But open carrying a rifle probably isn't frowned upon in Greenland, so it might not matter that you can't carry a handgun.

[mnky9800n]

I can’t imagine why you need to walk around with a gun. Life is not Star Wars. But I suppose that’s the fantasy.

[zingababba]

What do you mean banned? I have several.

[OutOfHere]

When was the last time that guns protected someone in the US from an ICE raid? Basically never. Now imagine ICE five years in the future as a much more ingrained police state when they actively start hunting citizens.

[mothballed]

It bought quite a few people some extra hours or days during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And a couple women their lives, since one of the officers that saw them fight decided a few of the Jews were people with courage rather than just more trash for the incinerators and actually went out their way to send a couple of the brave fighters to the work camps instead of the gas chambers. (See woman on right here[], for example)

[] https://1943.pl/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Kobiet...

[Gud]

In Switzerland you can have guns, so it’s just factually wrong.

[mothballed]

Sure but bearing arms is a lot more restrictive in Switzerland. I'm not claiming you can't have guns in other countries, hell you can have a gun even in places like Japan in a limited capacity with the right permits.

Where I live in Arizona you can 3d print a handgun, load it, stick it down your pants, and walk around with it around town all day doing basically whatever (as long as you don't go to a school, jail, or courthouse basically). All with zero background checks, licenses/permits, or even needing to carry an ID. Can I do that in Switzerland? I doubt they would let you do that even with a long rifle, unless you are going to/from some sort of approved activity.

The only euro-controlled place I know where you can basically do that is Greenland, as long as it is a bolt action rifle. Greenland is actually looser than USA in that regard, you can buy a bolt rifle like a hammer from a hardware store in Greenland with zero checks or license (IIRC, even as a foreigner) whereas in USA you could only do that if you bought it privately or made it yourself.

[Gud]

Ok, sounds like a feature, not a bug.

[neilv]

If you moved to a place that was physically safe, would gun ownership still be a top priority?

[mothballed]

Seems paradoxical.

If I'm not allowed to have guns, then I am physically unsafe, because someone from government will use violence against me if they both discover it and have the ability to do something about it. I wouldn't feel safe anywhere violence is used for malum prohibitum 'crimes.' In fact I don't feel safe basically anywhere a government exists because they all do this; this is part the reason why I live in a rural area with basically no government services, no police, no public utilities or anything like that with involvement by the state beyond the bare minimum possible in the USA.

Your proposition also relies on the place itself not changing, and my and my offsprings atrophying their practice of skills of self defense and therefore not needing them when moving elsewhere. But sure if you had a magic wand and could trade 'no guns' for anyone for world peace, I'd take it.

[titanomachy]

Are there any examples of someone in the US successfully defending themselves from “government violence” using a gun? I mean, examples where it ultimately worked out for that person?

Maybe you could be the first!

[mothballed]

Yes, American Revolution. More recently, Battle of Athens[0]. Also see the Bundys who are still (as far as I know, to this day) ranching on the land they had an armed standoff over the BLM with in Nevada [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff

[titanomachy]

Ok, I guess you’d be the first in ~100 years. Crazier things have happened. But the much more likely outcome of meeting government violence with lethal violence of your own is that you are now dead. That’s a scenario that plays out all too often in this country; no need to reach into the distant past for examples.

Kudos for engaging civilly and earnestly on this even though the majority here seem to disagree with you. It’s rare that I encounter someone coherently articulating a belief system so wildly divergent from my own.

[47282847]

Oh wow! I wonder what must have happened to you that you feel so threatened. I only have positive experiences with government and police interactions. In multiple situations they made me feel safer and protected. I would however not feel safe around a gun, regardless of who owns it. Too much can go wrong.

[ponector]

>> I am physically unsafe, because someone from government will use violence against me

And how your gun can prevent this now? If you are allowed to carry a gun police will act like you have one lane shoot you. While in other case they will just beat you with stick.

[gls2ro]

(coming from a country where having guns at home or seeing a civilian with a gun is very very strange and an huge emergency so maybe my question is stupid)

IF the government decides to use violence against you do you really have a chance with a gun? or 10?

[mothballed]

I'm not claiming you'd be safe even with a gun. I'm not claiming there is any real government you are safe living under given a long timespan (maybe longer than even your own lifespan, but still these skills are passed down in families so breaking the chain during 'safe' times is still harmful).

To your specific question, probably not, but the better question is whether you have more of a chance with or without a gun? If you look at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising for example, having a gun bought those people hours to days, which is better than nothing. Of course if you look at places like Chechnya, it bought them outright years that they were able to obtain independence from the brutality of Russia (even if not from their own brutality) as a result of militia activity in the first Chechen war.

[neilv]

(don't know why you were downvoted for an honest-sounding response)

If I understand correctly, the reasoning is a kind of long-term best-practice thinking?

And that best-practice is a high enough priority that it would prevent you from moving someplace that was otherwise better than a place that would let you have guns?

Is it only reasoning, or it there also a psychological component, like you'd also feel unsafe without guns, maybe due to past or current threatening situation (e.g., physical danger, or economic)?

[mothballed]

My reasoning is that if firearms are banned then the underlying threat is that violence will be used against me for obtaining them. I consider myself unsafe if 'legitimate' violence will be used against me despite the fact I have deprived no one of their life, liberty, or property.

[neilv]

Thanks, I have a better idea where you're coming from.

If I understand correctly, you have both practical (near-term or long-term) and also philosophical objections, to the power imbalance between citizen and state, when citizens can't have guns. And it's a high priority.

FWIW, I sympathize with vigilance. Though my own priorities around guns are different. I live in a fairly safe city, with good police. Where I live, the prevalence of citizen guns seems to create more problems than it solves. The problems I have don't seem to be solvable with guns. I might feel differently, if I lived in a less-safe place or in different circumstances.

[danaris]

> someone from government will use violence against me if they both discover it and have the ability to do something about it

This is a statement so far removed from reality that it makes anything else you say immediately suspect.

You appear to view "government" as an entity whose primary purpose is to bring violence against anyone who cannot resist that violence with lethal force. There is no possible justification for that as a blanket definition.

If you are omitting, perhaps, the fact that you are a wanted and dangerous person, who has, for instance, committed a string of murders, and that is why the government would "use violence against you", then that would seem to make anything you say quite inapplicable to anyone else's situation.

[jerhewet]

See: I.C.E.

[danaris]

ICE exists in a very specific context in one country.

This discussion is, very specifically, about leaving that country for other countries.

[lucyjojo]

well said!

i myself am a maximalist about this and i don't feel safe unless i carry some strains of ebola with me. it would be nice if you could support my ebola open-carry efforts (dm me for details).

[array_key_first]

The actual paradox is that, in the US, simply having a firearm in your home increases your risk of death to gun violence.

[mothballed]

Simply owning or encountering a seat belt also 'increases' your risk of dying in a car crash. This is the kind of nonsense causation-correlation mix-up statistics you are operating on.

[array_key_first]

It's not, because most gun death are actually from the person owning the gun or people close to them.

It's much more likely that you shoot yourself or your kid shoots you or your husband/brother/other-troubled-man has a bad day and shoots you than a criminal shooting you.

The relationship between gun deaths and guns is not correlative, it's causative. Because, surprise! Guns cause gun death.

Generally, less guns = less gun death. Which might seem like such a simple understanding that it must be naive or stupid. But no, it's actually just that simple.

On a related note, less automobiles = less automobile deaths.

[mothballed]

Show the evidence you have that it is causative rather than correlative.

>Generally, less guns = less gun death. Which might seem like such a simple understanding that it must be naive or stupid. But no, it's actually just that simple.

It's really not, in many cases it's been found anti-correlative i.e. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/guns4.jpg

[47282847]

May I ask, why you want guns? I honestly have no idea why one would want them.

[karmakurtisaani]

My guess is sense of security. Although that just works if you ignore the fact that now everyone has more access to guns, including criminals! And they typically get to shoot first..