this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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I'll disagree. I've been mugged. There have also been two times I've visited friends that have been casually cleaning guns when I arrived. A person I do martial arts with has a conceal carry and has come in with it a few times. Every cop has at least one. There's a gun store that's on my commute route. I was hiking and crossed paths with an elderly couple on horseback and they were packing. I've known two people that have killed themselves with a gun. I drilled with fake guns in NJROTC in high school and there were opportunities to train and compete in marksmanship with actual guns. I shot BB guns in Cub Scouts (those two are just examples as to how young gun culture becomes part of an American's life). When I was growing up, Walmart sold guns and ammo. They still do in certain places.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun. Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents. If I get into an argument with my neighbor, is that conservative asshole going to do something stupid if things escalate (yeah yeah, don't escalate, just an example). All the POCs I know have been taught how to behave during a traffic stop to reduce their chances of getting shot by a cop.
I've never even held or shot a real gun, but guns permeate my life.
Edit: Christ, the people who are advocating fear of gun violence being good for society is how idiotic of a gun culture there is in the US.
It really depends on where you live in the USA. Where I live theres definitely people with guns but it’s unusual to see someone actually carrying one outside their home. Now my cousins live like 1-2 hours away (still in the same state) and it’s super common there for people to carry their gun on them at all times for some fucking reason. So my cousins are way more used to seeing guns than my siblings and I are
It sounds like it's such a part of our culture that you're missing the point: you cannot opt out of gun culture in America. Anywhere.
Yes, there's a huge difference between only rarely seeing a gun in public and acting as if nobody has one.
That's called "de-escalation".
That's exactly what we should all be doing.
Rather than responding to a road rage incident with our own rage, we are actively reducing the risks of road rage to ourselves and to everyone around us. We are not pushing the initial rager to increase the egregiousness and danger of their rage.
The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.
Paradoxically, if we didn't fear they would pull guns on us, we would be more likely to respond to their rage with our own. We wouldn't "put up with it", but would instead confront them, impede them, seek "justice" for their offensive behavior, or otherwise escalate. In doing so, we would invite them to escalate as well. Your argument suggests that the high incidence of guns being involved in road rage is reducing the occurrence of road rage. I agree completely.
No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.
Your argument makes no sense. We should deescalate but fear for our lives so we behave? Who's gonna escalate to put the fear into people? Rethink and try again.
The idea that actions should have consequences is the real problem that both your latest and your parent comment describe. Parent comment talks about "putting up with shitty behavior", implying that they should be able to directly respond to such behavior. Any such response is "escalation". Your parent comment is describing a desire to commit offensive behavior, but that offensive behavior is held in check out of fear of a gun. You behave better.
Your current "consequences" argument says the same thing: You observe what you perceive to be poor behavior, and wish for "consequences". If that wish culminates in any sort of direct interaction with the poorly behaved, you have escalated. Your "fear for our lives" holds your own behavior in check. You behave better.
I can't control the road raging asshole. You can't control the road raging asshole. There will always be one road raging asshole somewhere. There doesn't need to be three. You can look inward and recognize the harmful, hostile attitudes in yourself that would lead to road rage, and you can actively suppress them. Alternatively, you can fear the external consequences arising from entertaining those harmful attitudes, and elect against such behaviors.
So long as you are going to continue to rationalize your good behavior as being the result of other people being armed, I'm not going to support your efforts to disarm the people creating those good results.
(Edit: Somehow I thought that you were an additional commenter. Edited to reflect that you are also the parent commenter)
Allow me to clarify: I don't want to ram someone off the road, I just want there to be a way to give feedback without it being escalated from there. Thumbs down, not finger up. Not that people who already drive like that give a shit about other people and any feedback lesser than a major accident. I'm real tired of the car culture here, too.
We do this all the time when on foot. Somebody bumps into someone else, maybe somebody says sorry or watch where you're going. Or maybe someone decides to pull a gun. That's more what I'm getting at.
How many dashcam videos do you need to see of drivers crashing into vehicles or obstacles while giving or receiving such "feedback"?
You are turning your attention away from driving, and focusing instead on "feedback". Simultaneously, you are distracting the shitty driver from driving, and forcing them to focus on your attempt at providing "feedback". Two drivers are now distracted from the road because you felt some pressing need to communicate your displeasure.
You say "feedback", I say "escalation", and "endangerment". Again, if the possibility of a gun is what keeps you from choosing to escalate in this fashion, I cannot support your efforts to disarm.
Quite the contrary, I would prefer that you chose to arm yourself. Then you would understand that your feedback is not worth the risk, and a person providing you with such "feedback" is not worth your time. You would recognize that if you drew your firearm during a road rage incident, you would invite prison time for brandishing, manslaughter, or attempted murder. You would already understand the extreme dangers of escalation, and would actively avoid it. You would hold your ego in check, rather than allowing it free rein over your actions.
The best course of action is to open the distance between you and the shitty driver. Not try to convince them of their shittiness. If you need them to be possibly armed for your ego to allow you to retreat, then it is better for everyone on the road that they be armed.
Pure nonsense. That is just regurgitating NRA propaganda, "an armed society is a polite society", when we know for objective fact that the opposite is true. Gun incidents happen more frequently in the US on a "spur of the moment" thing exactly because they are so prevalent. Arguments more frequently escalate into murder because of the presence of guns, while they don't in societies where guns are rarer.
Pure nonsense? Parent commenter specifically indicated that the presence of firearms induced improvement in their own behavior.
No, I did not indicate it's an improvement. Please get your words out of my mouth.
You most certainly did. You indicate you are more tolerant because other people are armed. You indicate you tolerate ("put up with") greater offense because of it.
You're not an asshole road rager, and you've indicated you won't escalate to some other asshole's road rage, specifically because of guns. If guns are no longer an issue, what will it take for you to continue "putting up with" what you perceive to be shitty behavior on the road?
The roads are a much safer place while you're "putting up" with it. I really, really, need you to keep putting up with it, even if all the guns are removed. If guns are the only reason you're "putting up" with it, we can't get rid of the guns. Give me a better option.
I'd like to be able to give feedback without escalation. I don't engage in extra risky driving behavior for a whole lot more reasons than guns. My point is I have to have that as a factor, not that it consumes my every thought. If guns were the only thing keeping me from behaving badly, I don't think I'd like myself very much. If you think guns are or should be a primary motivator for good behaviors, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't get along either. I'm done with this for today; I've been given the maintenance dose for my misanthropy.
"Feedback" IS escalation. "Feedback" IS an extra-risky driving behavior. Specifically, you are distracting two drivers (yourself and the "shitty" driver) from focusing on driving.
Deterring you from such offensive behavior is a good thing. So long as guns serve as such a deterrence to you, I cannot support your desire for disarmament.
Do you clap with your fingers spread nice and wide?
Is that an ableist slur, or just an ad hominem?