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Unfortunately, this video doesn’t start its explanation of America’s “love affair” with guns by pointing out that we’re armed against government tyranny. It also fails to highlight the fact that our natural, civil and Constitutional right to keep and bear arms is not dependent on the democratic process or arguments based on social utility (which are front and center here). But it gets there, eventually. Thankfully. Educationally. And then the video goes off the deep end . . .

lumping in teenagers (i.e. gang bangers) with “children” to inflate anti-gun stats. Using the word “conflate” to diss the link between guns and liberty.

None of this fully answers the question, IMHO. Why do Americans love guns? [h/t JK]

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86 COMMENTS

    • what a weird mutant lookin thing to begin with, it looks like someone borrowed 1911 design elements for… well, something else… Not a bad thing, really.

      As for the finger grooves, they look to be part of the grip and not the frame, which means that a little competence and some patience can fix that problem pretty darn quick.

      • Well, if the front strap of my 1911 wasn’t slicker than snot, I wouldn’t have put Hogues on to keep from having t readjust my grip after almost every shot. They work for me,and are a lot cheaper doing that then having them cut, even if that would be the preferred route to go.

        • here, here !!

          did the same to my 1911; same result as you. also installed on my S&W model 10, for the same reason. i have guns for looks, and guns for business. business is more important.

      • “What don’t you like about finger grooves?”

        Ideally, your hand should just naturally fit the grip.

        You shouldn’t need to adjust your grip after picking up the weapon. It should feel like an extension of your hand.

  1. Exactly, except that a ton of people in Murica want us to be just like everyone else world-wide, bending over…

    • Give the current political climate, if you use your guns to ensure your freedom, you’ll be in deep do-do.

    • ” I don’t love guns, I see them as an important part of ensuring my freedom.”

      That pretty much explains it for me. It always surprises me when cosmopolite sheeple can’t seem to grasp that it’s entirely possible for People Of The Gun to clearly understand that armed individuals and armed households are rather profound manifestations of popular political power. We know exactly what gun ownership means. Armed private citizens equal a kind of power that directly challenges statist, centeralized, forms of government. Perhaps that’s why people who actually think government should be more in charge are so upset by gun ownership.

  2. Because we were founded as the greatest social experiment in the history of the world. The Founders recognized that ALL people have rights (admittedly, they weren’t perfect either), and that the greatest way for people to live would be in the freedom to do as they pleased so long as no others were harmed while doing so. They trusted the people with the power more so than they did any government entity. They also trusted that a large group of people sharing that power would most likely be the most responsible with the power. The greatest of these powers, IMO, is the freedom to keep and bear arms. Think about it, all of us who chose to carry daily walk about this land with the most effective tool to take a life. Yet we are statistically 99.999% responsible enough that we refrain from abusing said power. Could you possibly say the same about governments around the world during the same period? I think not.

    • I like my guns , I like feeling their power and performance and I like knowing they have the ability to stop bad people from doing bad things to other people . They are truly an equalizer in most situations , if the person using the tool has trained themselves properly in it’s use and hopefully practiced with it . A hammer is better at driving a nail than a rock is but I know I could drive a nail better with a rock than someone who has never used a hammer because I have driven nails with rocks many times . The wise men and women who formed our republic understood the need for free citizens to be freely armed and trained because they understood tyranny and bloated government better than any American could today , but they also understood that a free and armed citizenry without personal regulation of itself under basic moral laws , i.e. , a belief in a higher entity and judgment for ones actions could and would end as we see happening before us . These are truths that have already been chronicled in history . This is a reason to serve a God even if you can find no other reason . Serving a God ultimately secures your freedom . The more moral breakdown we see and the further our citizenry strays from belief in a higher plateau the more we will see these killings and the closer we will get to top side down government tyranny . I hope I haven’t simply confused . I also love to put holes in stuff with fast moving projectiles

  3. Individuals in the US have several different opinions on the matter. “America” is an aggregate and can’t really have an opinion.

    • Except that is a myth created by the statists in their relatively recent attempt to rewrite America’s history.

      We didn’t become the greatest country of economic and military power and a world recognized symbol of freedom and the “land of opportunity” by accident or by not having a fairly common cultural agreement about how we were to exist as a people.

      The liberal/progressives/statists tried to rewrite americans belief that the second amendment really wasn’t about personal freedom, personal protection and a defense against a tyrannical government. They have been unsuccessful.

      They are furiously trying to rewrite the common view by our early americans ancestors that government was to be distrusted, which is why they believed in having a small and weak military.

      Everything that our early americans ancestors believed about personal responsibility, being ashamed to take government welfare, being self-reliant and only looking to neighbors and ones church for help and support during hard times is what the liberal/progressives want to erase from out cultural memory.

      The only way that the big government statists can enact their burning desire to control everyone from birth to death is if they convince the people that the Nanny State and Big Brother are not an abomination, but is in fact, the natural order of things. They can only do this by making people forget their roots.

  4. Because we have, like everyone else in the world, an innate distrust of government. The difference is that our laws are structured to recognize that distrust.

  5. The words “Tyrannical Oppression” do make an appearance. The video seems to be less for the consumption of people who already know this and more for the consumption of folks who are not actually FROM America, where all they know about the United States they learn from Comedy Central, or worse, the evening news.

    You know, places like New York and California.

    Annnnd then, yes, it starts going hard a port, way off into left field so deep that we really can’t see it. I also think it’s disingenuous that they compare “gun murders” … because if someone really wants to kill you, banning guns will totally keep him from using a knife or a claw hammer or a rope or a large pointy stick or a rock. Right. Banning guns could have saved Abel when Cain wanted him dead! The blood is on your hands, gun owners!

  6. I dunno. You might as well ask why Englishmen love to riot during soccer games or why Germans love gassing Jews.

    • This is actually a morbid truth Ralph , thanks for sharing , sad but true , I think what is worse , is that a great number of humanity today would also gas a Jew if they thought it would make their lives better . The entire world is coming unhinged . God bless .

  7. Because we love technology, we love building things and building better things. Weapons are one of the oldest forms of technology that humans invented, right there with tools.

  8. First of all, the phrase “Americans love guns” is a meaningless and idiotic statement. What does “America” mean in this context, all 300+ million people? Including babies?

    There is a full range of feelings and motivations around gun ownership. If someone owns a gun it doesn’t necessarily mean that they love guns. Next time try asking a half-way intelligent question.

  9. I’d love guns a lot more if I could afford more pimped out ones. As it is, I only buy based on functional criteria. I end up with ugly plastic and aluminum things with no soul.

  10. We can’t all be lumped into loving them for the same reason. Some people simply like the security it gives them. Some use them often for hunting, pest control, etc. And there are those of us who like watching water jugs blow up.

  11. The mechanical genius of design as well as the manufacturing skills and technology required to make quality firearms is a major appeal to many. Saying it another way, many people really appreciate the design and manufacture of firearms.

    Many people like how much fun it is to try and put projectiles on target. It really isn’t any different than the satisfaction someone feels about picking up a basketball and throwing it through the hoop. I know we would normally say “shoot baskets” but I didn’t want to confuse people — although the choice of words that we use for basketball reinforces my point.

    And many people like the utility of firearms. For some that takes the form of hunting: without firearms, they would probably never acquire wild game for their freezer. For others, that takes the form of decisive self-defense: without firearms they have little chance of prevailing over attackers who usually have the advantages of surprise, tactics, weapons, numbers, youth, strength, and/or speed.

    Did I miss any other reasons?

  12. American Guns; When a Government whether it is Foreign or Domestic, comes to take my “Life, Liberty or Persuite of Happynes” I CAN & WILL defend my self,
    On the lesser side if some person threatens me with bodily harm, I will defend my self with a gun. Dial 911 when, the authorities will be there in Miniuts when Seconds count

    “The United States of ARIZONA”

  13. Because the United States is the most individualistic nation in the world. A gun empowers an individual in ways that few, if any, other things can. Possession of a firearm is a fundamental, powerful, and extreme expression of individualism.

  14. Why does America love guns? Tyrannical governments by nature cannot have an armed populace, and an unarmed populace cannot have a representative government which serves them.

  15. I don’t love guns anymore than I love the other tools in my other box of wrenches, screwdrivers, and other gadgets. In fact I didn’t own a gun until the day, way back, when I heard Jimmah Cawtah talking about gun control. My reaction was a blanket, “anything Jimmah Cawtah favors, I am against”, and, “why does he want to control guns?”
    In the intervening years of Ruby Ridge, Waco, Fast and Furious, Watertown, Executive Orders, NDAA, ARGUS-IS, Standing Army Militarization of Police, etc, etc, etc, I have been educated on the finer points of gubmnt overreach, and particularly and even more so in the intervening past six years of this…um….sadministration. Not a typo.
    So, I don’t love guns. I love my wife and family. I miss the America I grew up in. I love a peaceful life and wish the OCD, Obsessive, Controlling, Democrats along with Group RINO et al would go the fk away. But alas, not a chance. They will keep pushing until they drop the last straw on the camel’s back.
    The silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud is:
    1) BO is the BEST damn Guns and Ammo Salesman on the face of the earth.
    and
    2) Holger Danske is stirring

  16. I don’t “love” guns but I thoroughly enjoy using them and purchasing them as an investment (like some people do with old cars, rare coins, sports cars, boats, etc.)
    In addition to the enjoyment of this hobby, there’s also the self-reliance factor and also a degree of control on protecting not only my life but my family’s as well.

  17. I have guns because I’ve experienced first hand how quickly we drop our veneer of being a civilized society during a disaster. At any given moment we are 3 days away from becoming a 3rd world nation. I was a first responder on the MS gulf coast during Katrina. I often show my friends who are anti-gun this video of pictures I took during that time and tell them stories of the things I witnessed. I then ask them if they want to be defenseless in a situation like that. Sometimes they begin to understand, sometimes they don’t.

    https://youtu.be/Jc8tHCPH3dM

  18. I love guns, cars, computers, electronics, welding, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and women. Is it wrong to love all of those things?

  19. I’ve considered the possibility that places like most of Europe and Japan are so rabidly anti-gun because both cultures used feudal systems in their history. The guys in charge hated guns because they gave peasants an advantage against knights and samurai, making it harder for the armed ruling classes to just ride in and take what they wanted. Yep, as romanticized as the Knight in Shining Armor and the Bushido Code of Honor tropes are nowadays, in practice they basically boiled down to “Honor means not resisting us when we steal your resources, rape your women and burn your livelihood to ashes.”

    Neither continues to practice feudalism now [allegedly], but the old attitude of “know your place and bow to authority” still lives on there among the general population. Contrast their history with the US, which pretty much began with Colonials cocking their muskets and telling the ruling class to piss off. We chased out the concept of feudalism at gunpoint and taught fear to those who would call themselves our “betters,” so it’s not hard to see why those with a good grasp of history understand why firearms are such a valued part of our culture; we wouldn’t be here without them. That they’re also great for self-defense and recreation is just gravy.

    I know, someone’s bound to point out slavery and Jim Crow as glaring exceptions to this, and they’d be right, but how do you think the people in charge back then managed to subjugate Black Americans in the first place? If you guessed “gun laws,” you win a cookie.

  20. I do not love my guns, in fact I hate them. I hate that people use an enormous amount of time to design, build, sell, distribute and use armaments. When the same effort could be used to create things that improve our lives. Time spent on the range could be spent with families at a park, or a lake or camping, or sports….

    What I hate more than all of the above is half our population and our government wants to impose values on the rest of us. I hate people who have no clue about the hearts of evil men. I hate people who cite statistics to leverage a point a view they have no responsibility for. And if implemented gives cover to criminals. I hate that, local, state, and federal government make no promise of security while actively removing my ability to protect myself and family.

    I finally, wrapped in all this hate is the most cost effective tool designed by man to equalize an encounter with a criminal and perhaps allows me to live so I can continue supporting the family that I love.

    Someday centuries from now perhaps we’ll evolve and no longer need armaments. Until then I’ll keep on hating for all the right reasons.

  21. Screwdriver for turning screws , hammer for driving nails saws and knives for cutting things , flashlights for seeing in the dark , pencils for drawing , toilets for reading . Americans love tools The ones that go bang also can put food on our tables and keep thieves from taking said food for their table . Simple question , simple answer and for some reason guns look really cool .

  22. The issue of defending ourselves against a tyrannical government with whatever low power arms we might have is something that needs careful consideration. Frankly, we can’t fend/fight off a government as powerful as ours. The idea that holding guns keeps the government at bay worked a long time ago. Let’s review:

    In the 1770s, local organizations of armed citizens were absolutely essential for protection of the citizenry of the individual colonies; the British army was not large enough to keep indigenous hostiles from wiping-out the vilages/cities. The militias held the best armament they could afford, INCLUDING CANNONS ! At the time, the British did not think that British Colonials were about, at any moment, to rise-up and overthrow their rulers.

    Come a time later, the militias had serious firepower at their disposal that they could significantly challenge the British regular troops. This is why the whole Paul Revere thing was important – the British regulars (army as opposed to armed colonists) were marching to confiscate some of the colonial weaponry that would be used against the British troops. The weapons were just not simple handguns and hunting rifles. The weapons included cannon, grenades (bombs), long rifled barrel guns, and other assorted items. The British regulars (their commanders) knew they could not easily subdue the colonists if those weapons were not captured. The British knew the match would be one-sided, but not overwhelmingly so. Thus, the militias that once assisted the British regulars defending the colonies presented a serious problem.

    Fast forward to today….handguns and sporting rifles alone are no match for heavy SWAT teams and eventually reinforced army battalions. The citinzery/militia lack grenade launchers, tear gas, automatic weapons, heavy sniper rifles, anti-tank weapons and air assets.

    We like to believe the idea of 300 million guns fielded by the local resistance group represents a threat to current armed forces, as did the colonists of the 1770s. Once the government decides (and it will) that gun confiscation is desired, it will happen. Showing on CNN a small town wiped-out for resisting will go a long way toward discouraging other communities. We can run into the bushes, but the roads will be controlled by the government. Very few, very few of us have sufficient skills to truly live off the land for more than 12hrs.

    Bottom line….we are grossly inadequate to pose a real threat to a government determined to eradicate us. Don’t think so…take a look at the idea England had to disarm the public – no notice inspections of registered (it will happen here) gun owners, complete with confiscation of weapons and ammunition. The government will find a way to starve us out, and dry-up our ability to re-arm/re-load.

    In truth, our only hope is through legislation and court decisions.

    • Some big bad mechanized armies did not do so well in SE or SW Asia. Sometimes in history, the Partisan units in Eastern Europe bedeviled certain modern armies more than you would think. Partisan armies cannot stand up to a modern army and play tit for tat. But they can surround the modern army as water and suffocate it.
      You are also assuming that these big bad modern armies will have their super sophisticated equipment working after a rebellion has been going on for sometime. Truth is that our military high speed low drag operators are very dependent upon us lowly civilian serfs to keep the big military machine rocking and rolling.

      • We just watched the most advanced military in the world fail to subdue peasants with Ak-47s in two Middle Eastern countries. The Taliban averaged about 30,000 active fighters at any given time, which is a figure orders of magnitude smaller than the manpower of the coalition arrayed against them.
        From the next blog thread.
        Oh, and probably a fair amount of our troops and weapons might go walking over to the little yellow flag with the funny snake on it.

        • Once again, we have our military positioned to send a message, or build a nation, or import democracy, or some other non-sense. Given the task of completely destroying the enemy, our military is quite good. As to the entire terrorist problem, we are not employing strategic targeting of the enemy means of production. Every terrorist has a mother. Eliminate all the females, and terrorists die-out. No? Too harsh? Would make us just like them? You can’t just annihilate an entire population? In 1942, in a little village called Lidice in what was then Czechoslovakia, the Nazi governor of the area was assassinated. He was very popular with Himmler and Hitler. The Nazis executed everyone and scraped the village to the ground. It has never been rebuilt. And…there were no further assassinations of Nazis in that village. Then, take a look at the nation of Carthage. Never heard of it? Probably because the Romans wiped it out, leveled the buildings and salted the ground so nothing could grow there ever again.

          Don’t mistake political blundering for a weak, incompetent military force.

      • The little people did beat us; I was there.

        However, they had:
        – automatic weapons
        – mines
        – high explosives
        – unlimited amount of ammo
        – no history of luxurious living
        – – easily live off the land when needed
        – ability to use civilians as human shields

        We had:
        – limited objectives
        – ROE that did not allow random, continuous targeting of civilians
        – strategy and tactics designed to convince the enemy to quit, rather than a mandate for us to win

        And as we saw in Waco and Ruby Ridge, the US government has no compunction about killing civilians just to prove a point. Combine unrestricted warfare against citizens with heavy firepower, and you have a tougher fight on your hands than you might expect.

    • take a look at the idea England had to disarm the public – no notice inspections of registered (it will happen here) gun owners, complete with confiscation of weapons and ammunition. But…they had support of their subjects, not citizens.

      • Taking it all in, are we not seeing our citizens becoming subjects? Import several million people who are already steeped in dependency, and you have enough votes to do anything you want.

    • “Frankly, we can’t fend/fight off a government as powerful as ours.”

      You can not be more wrong. Our founders understood that gun ownership empowers the the kind of governmental checks and balances that militates against tyranny. It is our form of government that needs us and not the other way around. That was true in the beginning and it’s true now. That is why The Left is so obsessed with confiscating guns. If the forces of tyranny and oppression didn’t think People Of The Gun were a threat to their designs, they’d leave us alone.

      • I tried to explain the difference between militias then and gun owners now. Heavy weapons and explosives. If the insurgent forces had been restricted to low power weapons, the outcome would likely have been different. Charging a line of riflemen is one thing, charging a line of infantry backed by cannon is quite another.

    • You’re assuming all of the various troops/agents of the government will march lock-step against the resistance. A LOT of those folks would surely side with the rebels and they will probably brings some of those heavy arms/planes/tanks with ’em.

      • Defectors (turncoats?) would need to bring a serious number of maintainers with them, because the militias don’t have what it takes.

    • I have had this conversation countless times over the years , particularly since Ruby Ridge , Waco , and as recently as the militarization of Boston after the marathon bombings . Never ever forget that you and I own every weapon in Americas arsenal . You and I are the proud owners of thousands of nuclear tipped missiles , tanks , hundreds of thousands of RPGs and planes , ships and all the other toys that yours and mine and our parents and their parents and in today’s world , our great , great , great grand children have purchased from “cash making ” , ” free to make a profit ” , manufactures , with our hard earned money , earned in most cases by the sweat of our brows and given to those men and women who work for you and I , that we have authorized by vote and law to spend said monies on weapons to defend and protect us . We can not defeat the greatest military might on earth with our little semi auto ARs and AKs with our 40 round magazines full of green tips but we can damn sure use them to keep what is rightfully ours from insurgents by respecting our active duty soldiers and veterans , supporting them and their families , keeping them informed and understanding our history , the constitution , our bill or rights and how imperative it is to stay free . We need to know where our military bases are and have a strategy to confiscate them if we need . States need to keep their rights and independence and we need to keep our American military personnel moral and nationalistic . Shunning globalism and keep voting no matter how useless it seems . We still own the USA , me and you and Marylou . We must stay on top of everything . Stop playing all the time . There are way to many things to distract us . If we don’t stay diligent we will lose it all . Keep our soldiers on our side and we stay in charge .

    • “Frankly, we can’t fend/fight off a government as powerful as ours. ”

      Oh, yes we can.

      “The British regulars (their commanders) knew they could not easily subdue the colonists if those weapons were not captured.”

      Why you never, EVER, allow your guns to be registered.

      “Fast forward to today….handguns and sporting rifles alone are no match for heavy SWAT teams and eventually reinforced army battalions.”

      They’ll need many hundreds reinforced army battalions.

      That they don’t have. There are currently 1.3 million in the armed services. We have 100 million citizens.

      “The citinzery/militia lack grenade launchers, tear gas, automatic weapons, heavy sniper rifles, anti-tank weapons and air assets.”

      Haven’t you heard? Long range shooting is getting very popular… Lots of rifles are good out to a few hundred meters, easily.

      “Once the government decides (and it will) that gun confiscation is desired, it will happen. Showing on CNN a small town wiped-out for resisting will go a long way toward discouraging other communities.”

      It will also go a lot longer way motivating the citizens to resist. Hit-and-run. Snipers picking off soldiers.

      “We can run into the bushes, but the roads will be controlled by the government.”

      It will cost them their lives to move on those roads. Bridges will mysteriously blow up. Sudden rock slides in the mountain passes.

      “The government will find a way to starve us out, and dry-up our ability to re-arm/re-load.”

      Wrong, we will starve *them* out. How many years supply of MREs do they have in inventory?

      When the video of them wiping out a small town gets out the tractor trailer loads of food to re-supply the bases will stop.

      If they shut down the internet, ham radio, in particular HF (Shortwave) will cover long distance comms quite nicely.

      The factories making MREs will shut down. Rifle fire will destroy the transformers that feed the military bases. There will be citizens willing to do a suicide mission to destroy those transformers.

      If they guard the transformers, hunting rifles will shoot the high-tension wires somewhere between the base and the power plant.

      Bases will have a few weeks fuel for generators. Then they go dark.

      How long can they last like that?

      And ask yourself this – Will the soldiers fire on their family, their neighbors?

      “Frankly, we can’t fend/fight off a government as powerful as ours.”

      Bullshit.

      • You are over-counting the number of people who will actually fight, especially after they see for the first time the result of a government assault. If you have never run to the guns, you are relying on pure speculation. And again, in the beginning the militias had CANNON and EXPLOSIVES.

        All this is why I wrote that any thought of rebellion needs careful consideration. We do not even have the basic drill experience the colonials had. They were organized before the shooting started. It is not prudent to imagine that an un-drilled, un-organized gang of gun carriers will provide as much resistance as imagined.

  23. I love guns because they are one of the very, very few things in life that are as enjoyable as they are essential. I can spend a wonderful day with my family plinking at the range, and sleep soundly that same night knowing we are better protected. How can you beat that?

  24. I hate guns…they steal my money, and get me in trouble when my wife discovers another one lives with us.

  25. Because having a gun means freedom in America. And having a welfare check means slavery. You will have to turn in your guns if you want money from the government. This will happen if it has not happened all ready. Public housing project’s?????

  26. I’m going to also add that guns are fun. I don’t think that’s the most important factor (Accur81 nailed it above), but I won’t deny that I appreciate the intricate mechanical design behind expelling a projectile at high speed via controlled explosion, the pleasing aesthetics of fine craftsmanship and the thrill of affecting action at a distance. I often tell newbies who are wary of guns that shooting is like bowling, only faster.

    Those are all reasons I love guns. I don’t consider any of those particular reasons to be valid arguments for why I should be able to own them, but that wasn’t the question. I’m not going to deny that I simply find them fun and interesting.

  27. I don’t love guns. I love liberty. So much so that I demand the best tools in the universe for obtaining/maintaining it. That would be guns.

  28. I love guns because they are intricately designed and built machines that take more than a passing knowledge of engineering to create.

    The fact that they piss off all the right people is just icing on the cake IMO.

  29. Ok, so more children are killed with guns, but are more children killed overall? Look at Australia since they went after guns mass shootings have stopped but now the psychos use matches. They’ve had a number of multiple casualty arson files started by deranged people in the last few years. Antigun people always want to focus on the gun.

  30. I love guns because they make the leftards completely insane.

    And I love them even more when some little unarmed leftist ninny threatens me from his mommy’s basement because I have guns.

    Ooooooo, that’s so frightening!

  31. My geography nerd gene just can’t let this slide – Romania was never a part of the Soviet Union. It was part of the Warsaw Pact but never part of the Soviet Union like Lithuania. Test Tube News did catch the mistake and annotated it.

    Why guns? Bang!

  32. In Great Britain in the 1700-1800s (and possibly even today), when you worked for a man, you called him “the master” (said with a British accent – ‘mahster’). Teddy Roosevelt tells a story in one of his books about ranching in the Dakotas, where a British ‘aristocrat’ (baron of duke or whatever) was visiting the West to hunt, and came to Roosevelt’s ranch. The Brit rode up to a cowboy who was sitting on his horse near the ranch headquarters, and said “I say, my good man, where may I find your mahster?”

    The cowboy looked at the Brit for a few seconds, then said “He ain’t been born” and rode away.

    That’s why we love guns. Because we have no interest in returning to the days of the aristocracy, no matter what the media and the Democrats want.

    “He ain’t been born.”

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