• madjo@feddit.nl
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    6 days ago

    A MAGA IMMIGRANT in Amsterdam? ewww, I wish we could close our borders to the likes of them.

    • Baylahoo@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      No, no, no. These weapons pale in comparison to basic infantry in the modern military. Not only are they way overkill for anything a law abiding citizen should ever need for recreation, they would also be useless in the case of a 2nd Amendment related coup of the corrupt government.

  • drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    After columbine my school banned all black clothing. And forbid boys picking up sticks in case we used them to pretend they where weapons.

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 days ago

        I always thought expats had to live in little expat communities, keeping themselves aloof from the rest of the population. It’s a level of snobbery beyond even still caring where you’re originally from. That was my understanding from all the little compounds I saw in the global south.

        • Gonzako@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I’d personally argue against it. I’ve a British neighbour old-man who I walk with and he’s very nice and world travelled. He even said that he chose to have the British retirement fund over my country’s because that’s where he paid taxes in.

      • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        we should call the us ones immigrants though. i think it would bother them a bit.

      • purplemonkeymad@programming.dev
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        7 days ago

        I’ve always assumed it depends on what your context is. If your perspective is the country that the immigrant is from, then they would be an expat. If you are in context of the other country they are an immigrant.

        Ie

        “My friend is an expat who went off to The Netherlands.” “My friend is an immigrant that came here from The USA.”

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Emigrant. That’s the kind of migrant who leaves a country. They’d be an immigrant in their new country.

          But, IMO there’s a difference with an expat. An expat is often someone who isn’t moving permanently, and as a result is often not trying to integrate into their new country.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 days ago

            From my observation when living in The Netherlands as an immigrant (from Portugal) sometimes working in companies with lots of foreigners, most of us said of ourselves as being “immigrants”, except Americans and Brits who often said they were “expats”.

            Curiously, generally the other people from different nations, including the Dutch, would use immigrant rather than expat when refering to the status of the self-proclaimed “expats” in that country - “expat” was very much their label for themselves.

            The Americans and Brits were there in average for just a long as the rest.

            I don’t think it’s really length of stay, at least not directly, I think it’s about the immigrant believing or not that their country of origin is a “greater country” than the country they’re living in. You can see this for example in places like Spain where British retirees have retired to and live the rest of their lives in their own Little Britain communities calling themselves “expats”.

            This also matched to how some of the British immigrants most pissed of about their homeland (for example, a gay guy who had to move to The Netherlands to marry his partner, as back then that was not allowed in Britain) made a point of using “immigrant” for themselves instead of “expat”.

            It’s about national delusions of grandeur, IMHO.

        • Soulg@ani.social
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          7 days ago

          That’s what I’ve always assumed too, but I only ever hear it in reference to other Americans, so I could absolutely believe that it’s just some weird shit they use to separate themselves from immigrants.

        • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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          7 days ago

          I always assumed that ‘expatriate’ meant that you gave up citizenship in the old country to get citizenship in the new country. Like it’s a type of immigration that a lot of people like to pretend they’ve done because it’s pretty hardcore.

    • I’m an American living in the EU, and I’m surprised by that. All the other American immigrants I’ve met so far have been opposed to Trump and Republicans generally. I always figured the conservatives were likely to be buying into AmErIcA iS tHe BeSt propaganda and would thus be uninterested in moving to another country.

        • MisterOwl@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          No need for an apology here, I too am beyond mortified by what my country has revealed itself to be. I do sincerely hope the rest of the civilized world resists the ideology we seem to be exporting before it’s too late.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      We have plenty of fascists here. It’s not like the US have a monopoly. We don’t quite let them run the show yet, but we’re certainly working on it.

      • Rothe@piefed.social
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        7 days ago

        Yeah, but a really big part of the MAGA platform is hating on the “communist” and “woke” “yuropoors”. She must really really hate it here.

      • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The difference is that while we may have several fascists here, unlike in the US the majority are not fascists.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        As an American, please enthusiastically tell any American that tries to do this to fuck all the way off and go back to our own shitty country. I don’t want us fucking up your continent too.

        • this@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Here here. If Europe goes to trash I won’t even be able to VPN my way out of fascist bullshit.

          • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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            7 days ago

            If Europe goes to fash, my options narrow to Japan or SK or A/NZ, and none of those have the same geopolitical weight as the EU.

            The EU is, IMO, the last best hope for democracy in the world these days, in the context of a geopolitically significant polity that is (mostly) cohesive.

            And I hope that statement ages like wine, not milk (or, like the B5 S3 intro)

            • arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zone
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              7 days ago

              I mean Japan’s political situation is kind of weird. The LDP has basically been in power forever (with super brief interruptions). It lost power recently though so we’ll see what happens I guess. IIUC tho anti-immigrant sentiment is rising (at least partly fueled by the massive waves of shitty tourists IMO), which prob isn’t a great sign based on what’s been happening in other countries.

              • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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                7 days ago

                I still speak a reasonable amount of Japanese, and am familiar with the social norms. I think I would be fine, despite being white as a picket fence.

                That’s not to say I am dismissing the xenophobia - it’s real, and it’s one of the aspects of Japanese society that troubles me the most, in a general sense.

    • crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      Could be a military member stationed there. A guy I work with is one of those 4chan “libertarians” and had nothing but “horror stories” about living in Germany. Same guy is terrified to venture into the local major metropolitan area or take the light rail system.

    • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 days ago

      Maybe for a specific job? Booking.com used to heavily recruit US talent to work in Amsterdam. It was usually only for a few years at a time, though, in accordance with Dutch labor and immigration laws.

      • gaiussabinus@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Not for years and years. Most of the booking.com staff is remote. All the senior staff is outsourced now too and very little is in Amsterdam. If you get a job there, word to the wise, don’t compliment the one lady’s chickens, she gets big mad.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      It’s funny, the fascists “won” here, but they are still expatriating themselves to fuck up other people’s countries too.

    • Denjin@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, fuck off back to your own shit country if you don’t like it

    • mhague@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Imagine being racist and wanting to enjoy it instead of making it political. In the US it’s culture war shit. In Europe you can go to a football match and throw bananas at the black players and it’s chill. It’s just easier to be casually racist in Europe because racism doesn’t exist there, and if it does, it’s not as bad as America.

  • ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    “Expat” is my favourite dog whistle. Because “migrant” is only used for brown people, or other undesirable minorities for racists.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org
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      7 days ago

      She has “MAGA” in her display name. Why listen for dogwhistles when there’s a red alert siren?

      BTW I had several teachers that described themselves as expats from the UK or US, and they were alright.

    • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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      There is technically a difference in the definition, but mostly people use it exactly as you’re describing.

      I’ve really had to catch myself when I notice myself using it.

      But honestly it’s so expected that people can get confused when you call yourself an immigrant (and you aren’t doing it to make yourself a martyr somehow).

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      From my own experience as an immigrant in The Netherlands and Britain, “expat” is generally used by Americans and Brits when living abroad and pretty much nobody else no matter what their skin tone. I mean, I’ve seen on or two Ozzies using it but it’s way rarer with them and I suspect they were just copying the Brits and Americans. The New Zeelanders I crossed paths with weren’t “expats” and neither were the Canadians. Similarly I never heard any of the other Europeans immigrants there refering to themselves as “expats”.

      I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.

      • fodor@lemmy.zip
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        7 days ago

        I would have said the two words are different by perspective. An “expat” is talking about where you’re from. An “immigrant” is talking about where you are. Also, if you start talking about 2nd generation immigrants, then “expat” can’t be used at all, which means it is narrower in scope, too.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 days ago

          In my experience people will use “immigrant” to talk about were they’re from by referring their nationality (i.e. “I’m a Portuguese immigrant”) or explicitly adding a “from” and then using the country name (i.e. “I’m an immigrant from Portugal”).

          If talking about where they’re an immigrant in, they will explicitly use “in” (i.e. “I’m an immigrant in The Netherlands”).

          Even though “emmigrant” is about where you were born and aren’t living in anymore and “immigrant” is about were you went to, in my experience emmigrant is only ever used when physically in one’s country of original and talking about living elsewhere (i.e. when in Portugal I would say “I’m an emigrant” whilst when in The Netherlands I would say “I’m an immigrant”).

          It’s funny since as I’m writting this I remembered that when I first left my country of birth to go live abroad it actually took me a while to figure out the proper usage of the whole immigrant/emmigrant thing.

          As I said, I was an immigrant in The Netherlands and worked often with other immigrants from all over there (mainly because until I learned Dutch I could only work in English-speaking environments and in my area - software engineering - those attracted immigrants), and most people would use “immigrant” when talking about were they came from (i.e. “I’m a French immigrant”) and I only ever heard expat used instead of immigrant by people from Anglo-Saxon nations, overwhelmingly Brits and Americans.

          That said, “expat” was used as a single word combining both “immigrant” and “emigrant” - in other words, unlike with the immigrant/emmigrant pair, the single word expat is valid both when one is physically on one’s country of origin and when one is physically in one’s host country: when I lived in Britain I did hear Britons saying that they were “expats” and meaning it as “living elsewhere than Britain”.

          And yeah, 2nd generation don’t call themselves expats, but they also don’t call themselves immigrants. It’s only people from outside talking in general about people who are the direct descendants of immigrants in a country who will use “2nd generation immigrants” for the groups as a whole. Calling somebody who is a national of that country and has immigrant parents “an immigrant” in that country is only ever used as an insult by Far-Right extremists.

        • chaos2007@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Hopping onto this matter of perspective. I think it also takes on a state of permanence. My brother and I both moved to an EU country. He plans on returning home at some point, and he calls himself an expat, while I have no plans on returning, so I think of myself as an immigrant. Though I guess it’s not the technical definition. It’s how I always thought about it

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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          I know there’s some opinions on this, but I would consider this to be the case. Many people don’t have so much pride in their origins to consider using a term like expat, then there’s Americans, who’s entire identity is based on where they were born.

          So it makes sense that someone from America living in another country would identify as an American expat, while everyone else is just, immigrated to where they are. Not enough focus on what country they came from to bother with an expat definition.

          Makes me think that American expats are looking backwards, while other immigrants are looking forwards.

      • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.

        This is it. If you move from a “better country” to a “worse country” you are an expat (because you think you are something better than the lower people you live among). If you move from a “worse country” to a “better country” you are labelled as a migrant (by the “better” people you live among).

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 days ago

          Well, in my experience it’s the immigrants themselves doing it and never the locals.

          Further, even in a poorer European country like Portugal I’ve never heard say, Germans or French calling themselves “expats” even though those are much more wealthy nations - it’s pretty much only Brits and Americans living there who speak of themselves as “expats”.

          I think the use of expat is specifically a thing for people from countries were national delusions of grandeur are widespread (which I know for sure from direct experience is the case in the UK and seems to very much be the case in the US) rather than merelly the coutry of origin of the migrant being “better” than the host country.

          Also these experiences of mine I’ve mentioned are in some cases from way back in the 90s - this shit was already done over 2 decades ago well before the recent anti-immigration sentiment in the West.

    • Serpent@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      I hate the word for the reasons you’ve said, but I know a lot of black Americans in Portugal that refer to themselves as expats.

      Feels to me that the line is drawn along economic privilege lines rather than simply race.

      • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        There’s also this level of like, still identifying as being primarily of the country they’re from, like a rejection of assimilation into the place they’ve moved to. I’m not saying that’s inherently good or bad, but, it’s an interesting dynamic, and an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.

        • Wolf@lemmy.today
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          an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.

          Especially when a lot of the same type of people will throw a fit if an ‘immigrant’ doesn’t do everything they can to assimilate.

          • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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            Because these people think they are “better”. So when a wild barbaric immigrant shows up, they want that person to assimilate, but when they move among the unwashed lower folks, they don’t want to assimilate themselves, because it would be a step down in their eyes.

            (I am talking about their view, which I very much despise, just as a clarification)

    • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Wherever white people get mad at black people you hear the word “thug” thrown out a lot and i always wonder if they’re just using that word to substitute another one they’re not allowed to use publicly.

      For us latinos it’s immigrant.

  • VeryInterestingTable@jlai.lu
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    7 days ago

    Why would you move to the Netherlands if you are MAGA? Isn’t your country so much greater again now? You ellected your king and then you left?

    • hanrahan@piefed.social
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      7 days ago

      Well, the Dutch are moving right. Gert Wilders is a literal fascist.

      AfD in Germany then we have Norway, Italy, Finland, UK, France and on and on. They probably feel at home

    • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works
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      Well, if this wasn’t a troll account, it would probably be for work. The US has a military presence in the Netherlands, and we have a lot of corporate cross-over, especially in the tech industry, like the photo lithography involved in making CPUs. It isn’t that weird.

      This is s troll though

    • jdf038@mander.xyz
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      Yeah this confuses me to no end. I thought they made America great last election?

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    As a Canadian, I would very much like some sort of barrier between my country and the United States. We’ve got our own brand of crazy up here and have absolutely no need to import any junk from the USA.

  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 days ago

    Because we don’t have regular mass shootings in schools because we don’t give every single person the money for a ticket to a gun show a gun and where we do, we legislate that they keep their gun in a gun safe. You know, like the rest of the world…or the USA in 1792.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      It’s not JUST the guns tbh. Everyone in Switzerland has a gun and they don’t shoot eachother up. American society is fucked up on multiple different levels and the guns are just adding extra fuel and oxygen to a forest fire.

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        Everyone in Switzerland has a gun and they don’t shoot eachother up. American society is fucked up on multiple different levels

        Whenever i mention the Swiss having as many guns as the US, if not more, and yet the former has practically zero mass shooting incidents, and pointed out the problem of America is cultural, Americans tend to turn a blind eye to it.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          We “tend to turn a blind eye to it” because “cultural problem” is primarily used as a racist dog whistle.

          If your intention was to point at the underlying cause, you need to be talking about systematic impoverization, lack of generational wealth, devaluation of labor, etc.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              That makes sense from an outside perspective, sure. But your criticism was about Americans turning a blind eye to the “cultural” problem.

              Within the US, blaming gun violence on “culture” means pointing out that 13-17% of the population commits (and are the victims of) 55-65% of the murders. Blaming “culture” means pointing out that mass shooters are predominantly white, they also account for less than 1% of all murders.

              The Americans broadly adopting your “cultural problem” argument are MAGAts. Normal Americans are turning a blind eye to that viewpoint, rather than being lumped in with those racist pricks.

            • Ibuthyr@feddit.org
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              Yup. I sometimes travel (or travelled for that matter… I’m not going back to that shit hole) to the US and basically everyone there is living an act. It’s so weird and artificial and it all boils down to an “I’m the best and deserve everything, all the others can go fuck themselves” attitude. This is highly toxic and can easily lead to violence. Pair that with how they breathe the most toxic form of capitalism and you have a recipe for the shit show that is the USA. I’m really sorry for all the cool guys over there. There certainly are some fine people, but the majority is completely lost.

      • godfish@lemy.lol
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        7 days ago

        In Switzerland most people give their state issued gun away when they are not serving. So almost nobody has a gun at home.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          Ah but is that not something they opt to do because they feel safe? In comparison, American gun nuts would never do that, they don’t feel safe without their guns.

            • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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              So that’s part of the same point. They COULD have access to guns and could shoot each other, but nobody wants to. Thus guns are only a problem when there’s other underlying issues.

                • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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                  7 days ago

                  Aye, but when all the lunatics already have guns and you remove the guns from the responsible citizens, is that putting people in more or less danger?

                  I think it’s too late at this point to solve this one via gun control.

              • godfish@lemy.lol
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                Nope, Switzerland had one of the highest rates of gun suicides before measures were taken.

                • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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                  7 days ago

                  Gun suicides or suicides in general?

                  Because suicides will always be an issue. Guns just make it easier. How many mass shootings have the swiss had though? Switzerland has a “List of mass shootings” article on Wikipedia. The US has a “ListS of mass shootings” category. The US list for 2018 alone is significantly longer than Switzerland’s list starting with 1905. I realize that Switzerland has a smaller population, but the per capita rates have a large discrepancy too. Something like a 9x difference.

      • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        It’s a dumb comparison, as their reason for owning guns is entirely different and tied to national defense, not self-defense and “freedom”

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          It’s not a dumb comparison because it shows that in a healthy society, people don’t try to murder each other even given the chance. The fact that Americans buy guns for “freedom” is a symptom, not the root cause of all issues.

          • ChillPenguin@lemmy.world
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            That’s why I never tell anyone outside of my immediate family that I own a firearm. Because some weird fucking people in America exist. And they are gun nuts.

            No bro, I don’t want to talk about your 300 blackout how you wish someone would bust into your house so you can shoot them.

            I keep my shit in my safe, that’s it. It’s not a personality.

            • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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              Same. Very few people know I own one and have a concealed license. Made sure the gf knew how to shoot and that she wouldn’t hesitate to use it if necessary. But that’s it. Been locked away at least since Valentine’s last year when we went to shoot.

            • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl
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              how do you use it in a home invasion in the middle of the night if it’s locked up and unloaded?

          • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl
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            7 days ago

            honest question: then why do you own one?
            I get self defense, of course, but doesn’t the fact of owning a firearm make you part of gun culture? or am I missing something?

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              6 days ago

              No, you’ll know gun culture when you see it. The people that put the stupid stickers all over the car, the firearm brands, the calibers, stuff like that, becomes a major part of their personality.

              Like the other commenter said, you would never know that I even own a gun unless we were pretty damn close.

              I don’t really have a solid answer for you. I think it started growing up where my dad had guns, rifles, in the army but he was super protective of them, he wouldn’t show them to us, he wouldn’t let us see them at all, he wouldn’t teach us about them so I was just genuinely curious. So when I moved out that was the first thing I bought.

              And I hated the gun laws here, you can buy and sell guns just like you’re selling a car, just do a bill of sale. There’s no background check for secondhand guns. i bought my first one at a metro stop in DC area, rode the train out, guy pulled up to the metro parking lot and we traded. i mean we took pictures of each other’s IDs and did a bill of sale, but beyond that, nothing.

              Mine doesn’t really ever come out of lockup unless we’re camping or going on a long road trip. I haven’t carried it in years and I think my license might even be expired at this point. I’m not scared, maybe wildlife, I’m near the Appalachian Mountains. I don’t carry it around to intimidate anybody, or try to use it for coercion. But I guess the fascination has just always been there since it was withheld growing up.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          7 days ago

          Too late now unfortunately. The people who’d need to give up their guns, will never do so voluntarily. The actually responsible gun owners might give theirs away though.

          It’s media, education and the political system that need to change. It won’t.

    • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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      7 days ago

      Europe has gangs and guns and whatnot. But people have more to lose I think. Something like that. Better education maybe?

      Could be way better here as well

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        7 days ago

        Hardened criminals have access to firearms but they tend to be expensive and difficult enough to get a hold of that you don’t waste them on holding up a 7-11.

        But angry children and adults who just want to hurt people generally don’t.

        It is why gun control works. It isn’t about getting rid of ALL guns. It is about reducing their number so that people don’t realize a year later that five of their ar-15s are missing

        • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl
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          7 days ago

          eh… in my country firearms are illegal, yet somewhat available. heavy explosives/fireworks and WW2 grenades on the other hand… plentiful

          • Obinice@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            The above chap hit the nail on the head in terms of the UK.

            Sure, hardcore criminals can get their hands on a gun, but the sort of people who want to cause trouble at a school certainly don’t.

            I went to one of the worst schools in the country and while some of our students did occasionally murder people out in their private lives (I lived in the biggest shit hole in the country - the government even said so), in the school itself the worst thing I ever saw was a pupil throwing a chair at a teacher. And that was incredibly rare and shocking.

            A student did arson one of the maths rooms too but that was over the weekend when nobody was there. They really hated that teacher haha. We had to do the rest of the year’s maths lessons in the Hall. So weird.

            But ya, that’s all the extreme cases, and they’re nowhere remotely near “gun” territory. That’s just insanity. I never felt unsafe in a school.

      • altkey (he\him)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        More chill, probably.

        Unchecked capitalism of this degree is a stressful world to live in and it drives people insane. Fear and hate not only breeds mass shooters, it makes your random Joe shoot PoCs, delivery guys or really everyone stepping on their lawn. And it’s not racism or some other kind of hatred alone. It’s a general fear that EVERYTHING entering your comfort zone is there to fuck you over. And in the US they aren’t totally wrong, because many things we find normal in Europe, like affordable healthcare, insurance, education, etc - are traps constructed to drink you empty, not to say about how many real scams flourish there. They are in a fight or flight mode like 24/7, so it’s no wonder they shoot on sight and cheer to bigotry.

        Meme/anecdote: many european listeners of Cool Zone Media podcasts were confused, while visiting US of how many advertisements to buy gold deposits were in automatic ads while there, and how agressive they were. In a sense, gold investments is a panic button you press when you gamble on everything else going down. And this particular scam, the popularity of crypto, and the power of rabid christian sects kinda says a lot about how secure regular folks feel.

        I’ve never been to the US, so it’s all built on assumptions and hearsay.

      • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        Every country have criminals and guns. The difference is how available they are to the general public. And what type of guns.

        Anyone in the US that isn’t a convicted felon can buy a handgun as soon as they turn 21. And there are very few laws on how you’re required to store them.

        Compared to Europe where it’s incredibly rare for an average citizen to have access to a handgun.