• octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    15 days ago

    Are there Americans that go their whole lives together without ever seeing a gun in person

    100% there are many who do. But there are many in rural areas or with certain jobs (and I don’t just mean law enforcement) who consider bringing their gun every day as routine as bringing their wallet and phone.

    The US is a huge place, and the average day for someone working as a farm hand in the midwest could hardly be more different than the average person working an office job in NYC.

    Depends how you define “without ever seeing a gun in person” though. Anyone who has seen a cop has seen one.

    I had many family members with guns growing up. I’ve put holes in a lot of tin cans. Then I was in the military for awhile. If we don’t count seeing one strapped to a soldier or cop, I probably haven’t seen a gun in person more than two times in the past several decades, and both of those were the same relative showing me the same gun. OTOH I know with certainty that many of my neighbors own guns, even if I haven’t seen them.

    I haven’t spent much time in NYC, but I’m sure there are lots and lots of people there who don’t see a gun often in any non-cop context, and many others who see or carry one every day.

    It’s not RDR2, but I also don’t think there’s anything resembling a universal answer, even within a single city.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      Regardless of what you may have heard, cities like NYC are not just full of gangs brandishing firearms on all street corners. In fact, firearm violence is higher, per capita, in rural areas.

      So yes, there are millions of people who live in NYC that will never see a gun in their lives. The gun laws there are very strict, so people aren’t just carrying them around in the open for the most part.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        14 days ago

        Regardless of what you may have heard, cities like NYC are not just full of gangs brandishing firearms on all street corners. In fact, firearm violence is higher, per capita, in rural areas.

        I’m not sure if you might have replied to the wrong comment, but this isn’t something I believe about NYC in the first place, nor something I implied.