• Akasazh@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I don’t think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.

    The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it’s a lot if I see one per three months.

    I’ve never been in a situation in my life where I’ve regretted not having a gun. Rather the opposite, I’ve been struggling with depression at a point in my life where access to a gun might have provided an easy way out.

    And generally I like guns. As in I’ve been interested in military history for my entire life. When I’m the us I’ve been to a shooting range and thought that was cool (but also terrifying).

  • hirihit640@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    anybody have examples of the opposite? American hollywood movies/shows that nonchalantly presented something common in the USA, but was jarring when you watched it?

    • Whelks_chance@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Pledge of allegiance in school is quite unusual.

      And how you have flags on everything, including outside people’s houses.

      “Central air” is a term I only learned the meaning of recently, but American TV assumes everyone knows what it is. Which is fair, if you all have it. Same with the hand blenders you have in your kitchen sinks.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        It’s seriously funny how freaked out people get from garbage disposals.
        They’re quite safe. They don’t have spinning blades. They have something closer to a dull grater and arms on swivels that catch loose food and push it against the stationary grind plate.

        You shouldn’t put your hand in one because the little weighted arms are going very fast and could hurt your fingers if they got hit, but it’s unlikely to push them into the wall.

        They’re great if you have proper sewage treatment, since it keeps the trash from getting stinky and it basically just gets turned into fertilizer like a more efficient, roundabout compost heap that I don’t need to remember to poke.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Like this?

            If you look a little closer, you can see the blades are on pivots, and the holes are for water and food particles.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            3 months ago

            Yeah I never really understood that part of it. He was a chemistry teacher so I suppose supposedly he knows how to make meth in principle, but it wasn’t like he was a super genius or anything, why could no one else produce a product as good as his. All he was doing what’s the following basic chemistry steps.

            In the show it’s suggested that it’s mostly down to him using the right glass beakers and stuff. But if that’s all that’s required then how come there isn’t loads of high quality product on the market?

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              He was pretty explicitly a world class research chemist. Even with a written recipe there’s a lot of room for variation in chemistry and knowing what’s happening is how you correct.

              In earlier seasons it’s because he does stuff right and uses the right tools correctly. People are impressed with his product but it’s just uncommon.
              In later seasons he’s making industrial quantities of laboratory grade meth. A rough estimate would have his output being a serious competitor to a pharmaceutical company (walt made ~15,000 kg of meth, and the US produces about 30,000kg of amphetamine per year).

              So his competition is mostly people who work for Pfizer. Similar to how most bomb makers work for national governments. The people who are good at it make more, safer, by doing it legit. It’s why it’s always newsworthy when a professional level player does private business.

  • VoodooMischief@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    All part of the weapons industry plan. The myth that you need guns to be free, that you need guns to revolt, that the world is full of criminals waiting to launch an attack on your home, that global supply chains and regulations that disseminate the food you buy are not to be trusted and you need to drive 4 hours out of your suburbia to go hunting for meat - all an advertising scheme to sell you metal fireworks toys. Not negating their real utility in niche applications but those applications remain just that - niche. Civilized nations don’t need to kowtow to this predatory industry.

    • potpotato@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Hunters play a key role in deer management programs for forest regeneration, but otherwise, yeah.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        More a key role in tourism and managing deforestation. Natural resource management agencies take care of the difference at the end of the season to prevent starvation regardless of hunter involvement.

        We almost hunted them to extinction and our continuous destruction of their habitat and eradication of their predators means they can basically never reach equalibrium again, so it’s just a constant risk of over consumption, over population and starvation.

        Hunters mostly make a lot of money for the area selling the license, both through fees and the economic activity of the hunters.
        Actually letting things get better would involve reintroducing a non-trivial number of wolves, which is largely opposed by farmers and some hunting groups since it would reduce the population of deer.

        So they do currently play a key role, but largely because it’s something they want and it’s generally pretty profitable. It’s just treading water though, since no one with power is particularly interested in fixing it.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Where exactly is it legal to just sell felling permits to tourists, instead of requiring all hunters to actually have a local licence?

          For deer.

          Trophy hunting is quite different and also usually illegal.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and every other state I can think of to check with a deer population?

            I’m not sure what you mean by selling a felling permit. You charge a fee for a deer hunting license.

            Trophy hunting is quite different and also usually illegal.

            What are you talking about? Hunting deer for the antlers is about half the reason people do it. If it’s illegal it’s probably the most regulated and licensed crime I’ve encountered.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Sometimes some populations are controlled. Like moose for instance. The populations are much smaller, and thus need more careful managing, so you can’t just kill any moose you like. A hunting club gets a certain amount of felling permits, and you can’t hunt without belonging to a hunting club, and you can’t join a hunting club unless you live in the municipality of the hunting club.

              Hunting deer for the antlers is about half the reason people do it.

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                3 months ago

                I take it you don’t live in the US, since a lot of what you’re saying is just grossly wrong if you do.

                Since the conversation was about the US I’m not sure I understand bringing another countries laws into it.
                I certainly don’t understand your response to the antler comment. I don’t know a single hunter who doesn’t have at least the antlers of their best buck mounted on the wall, and in many cases an ominous number of heads.

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  I don’t know a single hunter who doesn’t have at least the antlers of their best buck

                  Oh so most the hunters you know are so shit they’ve only killed two deer ever, since you said it was half the reason?

                  I don’t know a single hunter with deer antlers on the wall. Maybe in the 70’s akd 80’s if you happened to fell a particularly old buck with like 10 spikes or more.

                  But anyone under the age of 60 hasn’t had antlers hanging on their walls since the 90’s. Last time I saw some coincided with heavily nicotine yellow walls from indoor smoking.

                  Hunting roe deer is like shooting vermin, basically. While selling deer tags (apparently that’s what you call felling permits) is apparently possible and hunting licences don’t have tests and you can buy them as non-residents (jesus the US really is a capitalist shithole), who the fuck would want to hunt roe deer? I can see some large red deer being attractive for hunters, but that’s veering into trophy hunting. And since tje conversation is about population control and not trophy hunting, I don’t know why you’re bringing it up. ^(/s)

  • Throbbing_banjo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    I do a fair amount of solo bikepacking in the rural Midwest, and have gotten into enough weird altercations that I now ride and camp with a concealed pistol.

    A few years ago, I would have called anyone doing this exact same thing a psychopath. I give myself endless amounts of shit for having a “bicycle gun” and would be fucking mortified if anyone I casually ride with found out, but I’m also intensely aware of how batshit crazy and divorced from reality the average redneck is.

  • HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub
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    3 months ago

    Yes, but it’s also useful for new-ish writers.

    You want to show that the story is in USA without telling it outright? Have someone pull out a gun and nobody bats an eye. You don’t need to fill the scene with fat white men anymore - just the gun and no reaction to it.