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Quora has been inundated by question about last week's mass shootings and gun control.  Here's one answer I left recently:

Original question: “Another shooting in a mall and Americans still don't want to ban weapons, why?”

Democracy.

Yes, I’m serious. Here’s what the rest of the world doesn’t seem to grasp about the U.S. We have a population of more than 250,000,000 people of voting age. Of those, probably a third own a firearm. Well over half know someone who owns a firearm, and in a majority of cases, they live in the same home with someone who owns a firearm. As someone once said, “Basically, I figure guns are like gays. They’re kind of scary until you get to know a couple, and once you have one in your home you get downright defensive about them.”

Other nations don’t have that kind of familiarity with firearms, and the unknown is frightening. For example, this news “story” from the UK:

MOST TERRIFYING GUN IN THE WORLD SEIZED

That’s extreme, but indicative of the mentality. For citizens of the UK the pearl-clutching is completely normal. They know hardly anyone who owns a firearm, and if they do, it’s most probably a nice old 12-gauge double-barreled bird gun. Here most people recognize that “MOST TERRIFYING” weapon as the machine pistol wielded by Morpheus in The Matrix movie.


Yeah, not that terrifying. Because a lot of people actually know how guns WORK.

So we have a population that owns and is comfortable with guns, and you know what we think when some whack-job shoots up a public venue? This:

“Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night, I didn’t. So piss off.”

We refuse to be collectively shamed for the actions of an individual. And we make up a significant portion of the voting public. So when our supposed “betters” tell us what’s best for us is to give up the guns we didn’t kill anybody with, we go to the polls and tell them “Piss off.”

For example.

OP, do you know anyone who owns a firearm?

The "guns are like gays" quote comes from acknowledged lefty Teresa Neilson Hayden. The "piss off" quote comes from Tam off of Facebook.