I was asked this by an Australian kid on another forum. He doesn't remember the days before 2000.
Anyhow this was the reply I posted:
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I'll try to explain without ranting or getting all political, but it's tough. I get angry. You'd get angry too if someone wanted to take away your stuff, right?
You asked "what is the fascination with guns (specifically so many)".
If you are a collector, there's hundreds of different styles and types. No different than any type of collecting really.
Why are we buying in record numbers? Fascination?
No, it's mainly fear and anger.
We're mad at the US government. (Half the world hates the US government, why should the US citizens be different?)
As soon as you try and prohibit something we have, something we handed down over the generations, and particularly something our laws guarantee us, Americans are going to protest and fight. (Sorry Mr POTUS, It's "who we are".)
BTW, prices of guns and ammo are rising here, and the value of our money is slipping away.
It makes sense as an investment right now. Things are going to be harder to get here for sure, and if they make them all illegal, they'll be worth even more.
Now if by using certain words like "fascination" and saying "it's really strange" you mean to imply there is something evil and unwholesome about owning guns, I can certainly understand why you get that idea.
This is a propaganda image the governments are selling the world because they don't want to deal with any civil revolt the next time they try to hike taxes and such. They do everything they can to persuade people that: "Guns are evil so you don't need them unless you are evil too."
Now sometimes you need a revolt, and I know people who would take away my guns now, but were ready to supply them to Ho Chi Minh, because they thought his revolt was OK. It's all so political.
But America's most famous heroes pretty much all carried guns. It's them we emulate. Not the evil ones. Not the revolting anarchists. Not the gangsters.
It's George Washington, Daniel Boone . . . the heroes of our culture.
Also, It's a very Zen experience for me to target shoot. When I'm doing it, the entire world goes away between the time I look into the scope and the time I pull the trigger. It's hard to understand if it's never happened to you
You know there's a big push here to ban all "assault rifles", and they're vilifying the AR-15 as a horrible military weapon totally unnecessary for civilian use. But the propagandists won't mention that the AR-15 is the Army's lightest duty rifle. It's not some atomic robot gun. It's the smallest caliber gun they use. It's the cheapest rifle they buy for combat. It's also one of the world's best made guns, and because of that it's very popular with collectors, hunters, and target shooters too.
Now that politicians are trying to make them illegal, they are being bought up fast and the wholesalers are all out of stock. This means that America will continue to be the best armed country on earth. I tell you, that's not a position we will give up willingly.
It's all sort of funny. When I was a kid, everyone was worried to death about atomic war. Now, that never happened, but somehow now, people are even more worried about plain old gun ownership.
How come nobody's worried about Iran having nukes?
Everyone's focused on these silly little .223 caliber guns, and we're gonna trust Iran not to start WW3 with Israel?
Anyhow this was the reply I posted:
##########
I'll try to explain without ranting or getting all political, but it's tough. I get angry. You'd get angry too if someone wanted to take away your stuff, right?
You asked "what is the fascination with guns (specifically so many)".
If you are a collector, there's hundreds of different styles and types. No different than any type of collecting really.
Why are we buying in record numbers? Fascination?
No, it's mainly fear and anger.
We're mad at the US government. (Half the world hates the US government, why should the US citizens be different?)
As soon as you try and prohibit something we have, something we handed down over the generations, and particularly something our laws guarantee us, Americans are going to protest and fight. (Sorry Mr POTUS, It's "who we are".)
BTW, prices of guns and ammo are rising here, and the value of our money is slipping away.
It makes sense as an investment right now. Things are going to be harder to get here for sure, and if they make them all illegal, they'll be worth even more.
Now if by using certain words like "fascination" and saying "it's really strange" you mean to imply there is something evil and unwholesome about owning guns, I can certainly understand why you get that idea.
This is a propaganda image the governments are selling the world because they don't want to deal with any civil revolt the next time they try to hike taxes and such. They do everything they can to persuade people that: "Guns are evil so you don't need them unless you are evil too."
Now sometimes you need a revolt, and I know people who would take away my guns now, but were ready to supply them to Ho Chi Minh, because they thought his revolt was OK. It's all so political.
But America's most famous heroes pretty much all carried guns. It's them we emulate. Not the evil ones. Not the revolting anarchists. Not the gangsters.
It's George Washington, Daniel Boone . . . the heroes of our culture.
Also, It's a very Zen experience for me to target shoot. When I'm doing it, the entire world goes away between the time I look into the scope and the time I pull the trigger. It's hard to understand if it's never happened to you
You know there's a big push here to ban all "assault rifles", and they're vilifying the AR-15 as a horrible military weapon totally unnecessary for civilian use. But the propagandists won't mention that the AR-15 is the Army's lightest duty rifle. It's not some atomic robot gun. It's the smallest caliber gun they use. It's the cheapest rifle they buy for combat. It's also one of the world's best made guns, and because of that it's very popular with collectors, hunters, and target shooters too.
Now that politicians are trying to make them illegal, they are being bought up fast and the wholesalers are all out of stock. This means that America will continue to be the best armed country on earth. I tell you, that's not a position we will give up willingly.
It's all sort of funny. When I was a kid, everyone was worried to death about atomic war. Now, that never happened, but somehow now, people are even more worried about plain old gun ownership.
How come nobody's worried about Iran having nukes?
Everyone's focused on these silly little .223 caliber guns, and we're gonna trust Iran not to start WW3 with Israel?
