[datsci_est_2015]

The non-paranoid sportsman is a shrinking demographic, I fear, mostly due to decades of propaganda within the sportsman culture (magazines, organizations).

They still exist within academic and reservationist circles, but the grand majority of gun owners I know in my rural backcountry speak pretty matter-of-factly about racist and anti-social ideas (source: friends, family, and going to bars called things like Rusty’s, Bill’s, etc.)

[gcheong]

I got my hunter's safety card back just before covid. Prior to the actual course starting, our instructors spent a good 15 minutes "encouraging" us to join the NRA because "they're really trying to take our guns, blah blah". This was in "liberal" California. When I had last taken the course as a kid in my home state of Oregon, in a conservative majority town, there was never any kind of propaganda that I can recall of this level.

[Glyptodon]

I think with younger shooters there are many people who enjoy 3 gun and other modern match style sort of tactical shooting or cowboy action without obsessively carrying or planning for defensive use. But I don't think these folks overlap with the hunter-type sportsman. And do overlap with the "tacticool" folks. Don't know if that translates to rural though.

[colechristensen]

The attempted (failed) fascist takeover of Minneapolis by ICE motivated plenty of new and existing gun owners. It is not reasonable to call that fear paranoia, and it's not about the sport. The fact that it failed doesn't mean that chapter of history is over, just that lessons will be learned and it will be a more difficult situation next time unless there are some really substantial changes we see no evidence of yet.