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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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Thank you for laying out your thoughts but this feels like the majority of apologetics - only convincing to those already convinced and skating quickly and lightly over the difficult points.

In particular you seem to pass very quickly over argument one. You lay out the anti-gun argument reasonably well:

  1. We allow people to have some dangerous things because it's not practical to do otherwise.
  2. Lots of unnecessary things are fine because they're not dangerous to anyone.
  3. Guns don't fall into either of these categories and so we ban them.

Then having clearly explained the main reason why lots of countries ban guns (they don't fall within either of the categories of object we usually tolerate), you don't refute it.

Guns and other lethal weapons are a unique confluence of incredibly dangerous and almost completely unnecessary. You seem to want to argue that banning things because they are unnecessary is a slippery slope, and that banning unnecessary things even when they are lethally dangerous weapons is excessive because most people can handle dangerous things just fine. But now you've parted ways with everyone except the people who think that you should almost never ban anything, and those people are already on your side!

This is why most gun apologists either try to make them seem less dangerous (no automatic fire, strong license checks, short-range hunting shotguns or bolt-action only) or more necessary (defend yourself, defend your liberty); those arguments don't always work but they sometimes do.

Likewise for argument two. Your response to the argument that guns cause more people to die from suicide is, essentially, YesChad.png. Where's the argument here? I know someone who's intermittently suicidal; it's genetic and it runs in the family. If he had guns he'd be dead by now.

I'm reasonably pro-gun for a Brit and these arguments are doing the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. Also, it's just that classic American thing of happily insisting that all other countries are just pits of suffering and distrust and only (part of) America has achieved true civilisation. I'm a nationalist myself but really.

Guns and other lethal weapons are a unique confluence of incredibly dangerous and almost completely unnecessary.

It strikes me that there's some tension in this notion. To the extent that guns are incredibly dangerous, it's because others might deliberately use them on you, right? Not that accidents don't happen, but we rarely describe cars as 'incredibly dangerous,' and they're much more dangerous than guns on that score. Cars are certainly more useful, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. If you mean they're 'inherently' more dangerous... I don't think that's true? A speeding car carries vastly more energy than any bullet, and, if used carelessly, is certain to cause injury while guns are only moderately likely to do so. They're designed to kill while cars are not... But so what? Imagine a dud artillery shell which, through some manufacturing failure, doesn't actually contain any explosive. This object was certainly designed to kill, and in fact to be far more deadly than a normal firearm, but if someone called it 'incredibly dangerous' I'd expect them to be roundly mocked.

If it is about crime: to the extent that it's reasonable to fear others might attack you with lethal weapons, aren't means of self defense necessary? It can't really be both.

Banning guns entirely in a highly criminal society might reduce the level of danger you're subjected to, but not because they're unnecessary -- in fact, you'd be much safer if you acquired a gun illegally and kept it carefully concealed -- but because being denied that necessity is balanced out by degrading the capacity of the others to hurt you. In a minimally criminal society, guns might be almost completely unnecessary, but they're also not all that dangerous.

Yeah I'm in a similar mind as somebody from a country where there's no real norm of gun ownership. I feel like the benefits I get from general disarmament outweigh the costs I get in the rare situation where I'm being attacked violently and would have had my gun at hand and be able to use it effectively, or I am achieving intense guerilla warfare against state oppressor of my choice.

general disarmament

I feel though that the kind of people who will not attempt to get illegal guns because they're more trouble than they're worth are the kind of people that are peaceful enough that they could be trusted with them anyway.

In europe it's quite common even for terrorists and other hard criminals to use knifes simply bc guns are just too hard to get for them. And that's despite hunting licences being available!

At least in the case of terrorists specifically, they are demonstrably vulnerable to copycat contagions, and stabbings are the current contagion in Europe. So that particular point I would observe is a little bit faulty.

I don't think that follows. Terrorists clearly choose to copy based on a combination of lethality and availability, as seen by the proliferation of car-based attacks since the Nice truck attack. Easier gun availability would mean more initial gun-based attacks, and a higher transmission likelihood for following copycats.

I have a hard time believing that if there was demand bringing guns into european countries would be that difficult, considering how big the external frontiers of the EU are and how open the internal ones are, and considering how drugs make it there, illegal refugees make it there, etc...

I think that for the most part, there is little demand because local hard criminals are still civilized enough to understand deadly shootouts are not worth the hassle because they bring down a lot more heat on them. North American street gangs are not civilized; they believe shootouts are cool. As for terrorists, if you distinguish mental health cases (random nutjob just starts stabbin') from organized terrorist cells, I think the latter are usually packing (and packing military equipment).

You don't even need the if here. You can already get guns provided you're sufficiently functional, patient and have the right connections. AFAIK the easiest way is generally getting your hands on old soviet stock from eastern Europe.

But these conditionals matter, because the average terrorist and hard criminal does not have these properties. People still get caught before they can do anything because they fell for obvious honeypots on silk-road equivalents. This is also why the large-scale entry of organized crimes into Europe is so dangerous; Not only do at least some of the members have these properties and so can organize guns for the rest of the members, while there at it they can also buy more stock that they can sell further locally, making it much easier to get a gun.

I think the latter are usually packing (and packing military equipment).

by that definition nearly no terrorist attacks in Europe were done by terrorists