Dick's Sporting Goods will stop selling assault-style rifles

Interesting link you listed that I clicked on

https://thesocietypages.org/socimag...-s-what-makes-so-many-american-men-dangerous/

So it's a masculinity and cultural problem.

"The research on this topic is primarily experimental. Men who are brought into labs and have their masculinity experimentally “threatened” react in patterned ways: they are more supportive of violence, less likely to identify sexual coercion, more likely to support statements about the inherent superiority of males, and more."

"American culture plays in influencing boys and young men to turn to this kind of violence at rates higher than anywhere else in the world. This means we need to turn our attention away from the individual characteristics of the shooters themselves and to more carefully investigate the sociocultural contexts in which violent masculinities are produced and valorized."

 

So the uphill struggle for America is a cultural change.

How do you achieve that? Bring out laws for the future generation, so as generations die out, culture changes?

 

Corporate involvement in polarizing social issues is a new development, this isn't "market-driven", whether it is more profitable is unclear, it is risky. If you favor gun-control you probably think Dick's made a good decision, but if you don't favor gun-control you probably think they're a bunch of 'dicks'. One wonders whether Dick's has more customers who support or oppose gun-control, presumably the leadership at this business did some market analysis and figured this would drive sales? If this didn't boost Dick's sales and corporate management failed to do adequate market analysis, there will get some complaints from shareholders.

 

Interesting that you would call it a "masculinity" problem.

Perhaps this is what you are actually trying to say so correct me if I am wrong.

But the culture, especially here in America, has been that of telling masculine men who are being masculine that they are wrong. That being a strong male makes you a bully and that "more feminine persona's" are needed throughout the American culture.

I even see it in my nieces and nephew where when he plays a little more "rough and tumble" (like me and my friends used to when we were kids) he is scolded and literally put in a corner by my sister.

I personally feel it is a similar reaction to why Trump was elected. People are putting such a bias against male masculinity that a lot of men are starting to feel out of place and starting to not understand why they are being scolded and told they are "evil" or whatnot.

As a personal example, I used to get in A LOT of fights when I was in college, typical fraternity kid and we were the typical roided out fraternity guys who did ... blah blah blah.

Two years after graduating, I started training in MMA and had a way to channel my "male aggression" (or whatever you want to call it) and felt a NOTICEABLE difference in my "anger/rage" and way of dealing with people and problems.

I think the issue is two fold:

a) We are not letting men be men, we are not allowing a lot of them to actually BE masculine and they are starting to feel repressed because of it.

b) The media is turning these mass shooters into stars. A lot of people who hate their life and don't feel like they belong anywhere, see this attention they get on TV and think "Whelp, if I gotta go I am gonna go like that and be all over TV!" If you do not believe in god and therefore are not scared of hell, or have no moral compass that steers you away from that, why would you not do so? (FYI I am definitely not religious)

So to say it is a masculine problem I think is accurate, but I think it is actually that we are repressing masculinity on a massive scale as opposed to a few decades ago and before that like when I grew up. The saying "boys will be boys" is almost made out to be an evil saying by a lot of people.

Looking at the charts, I would say that our laws and morals are actually DOING A GOOD JOB of taking effect which is why you see gun violence and homicides actually decreasing over time.

It is just recently that the mass shooting spree has popped up, due to (in my opinion) the reasons stated above

 

It is already happening.

If you look at "Generation Z", you can find article after article of how they are hyper opposed to "Political Correctness" and some of the things that the very liberal Millennial Generation (my generation) has put forth.

Will it do the trick? Dunno, but I think there are A LOT of backlashes that are currently happening as America and "The West" took a hard Left turn for a few decades there and it is being seen in basically every country in "The West" as now everyone is starting to turn hard Right.

Italy is a perfect example as last week they just elected a very "Rightwing" government into office. The answer IMO is moderation, but we never seem to be able to do that, it just bounces one way to the other every time throughout history, left-right-left-right .....

But I personally think to blame the issue of "mass shootings" which is a rather new phenomenon on guns is just a copout and will not solve the problem at all long term. In fact, I think it will make it worse.

 

@Draco As teenagers, we had air rifles and shot guns, used to go lamping. To be honest, restrictions on the types of weapons has never bothered us. In fact, masculinity never crossed my mind until I clicked on your links and did some reading.

We had cap guns (hand guns and rifles) as little kids but they were just for play, we never grew up feeling the need to own the real thing or felt our masculinity was under attack.

That's why masculinity never crossed my mind.

 

Hmm, well you were the one who used the word masculinity in the first place so I'm not sure how you can claim it didn't cross your mind.

Back to the topic at hand, as I showed you in links, the vast majority of gun deaths happens in a small minority of the country where the votes actually happen to be voting Democrat. So your question and to be quite honest condescending tone should be directed in that direction.

I guess my question would be why can't your country or the areas of the United States where the VAST majority of gun violence is happening respect guns and what their purpose is for? Knives and scissors are just as dangerous and can do the same thing, you seem to be able to have the intelligence to not kill yourselves with them right? So why not guns?

And back to the topic at hand, rifles are A TINY MINORITY of gun violence committed in the US, so why is it being targeted so much?

Answer - The Media

That is why Trump won and that is why The Right is winning all across Western countries. People are tired of being talked down to and told how they should talk, act, think and speak

 

@Draco, because masculinity and culture were in the links. Before I read the links, masculinity didn't cross my mind but I already knew culture was part of it.

 

Well your kinda going off topic in that case then, but I am more than happy to discuss it. The point is that "rifles" (which is what are being banned) have nothing to do with 99% of the gun violence in the United States. It is a complete misnomer as to why the media and stores are going after those specific firearms. It is nothing but a marketing campaign by those stores who are doing so as they try to market to one side of the political isle or the other, which is the topic of this thread.

As to the masculinity argument, I agree and have always found the "hate speech" laws of Europe to be quite similar to the argument you are using there.

I was taught not to call people such horrible names, we never grew up feeling the need to call people such horrible names so we did not create "hate speech laws" to actually put people in jail for saying certain phrases.

Different cultures for different people I suppose, some people want laws against saying things, some people want laws against guns and some people want laws against neither so the population can be mature enough to not use either themselves.

 

Be it falling rocks, vehicles, knives, scissors, smoking, drugs etc.. legislation continually evolves and is implemented as events etc.. come to light.

Yes, social science points out that the media has a great effect on legislation. We've seen laws appear because of the press over 2 or 3 instances!!

But because of falling rocks, vehicles, knives, scissors, smoking, drugs etc.. guns are not exempt.

Just with everything in life, the majority suffer because of the minority.

 

Ah, and now you get to the whole point of the NRA and people who vote on that end of the spectrum.

Their quote is literally that "They Refuse to be Held Hostage by the Minority!" which is pretty much exactly what you just said.

This is why most of America land wise voted for Trump and not Clinton in the elections.

 

We were brought up, "Sticks and stones..". Yup, people get jailed if the name calling is classed as illegal !! Crazy.

I can't recall hand gun problems as such in the UK until umpteen school kids and the teacher were shot. Then hand guns were banned.

Rifles, as you say, are getting it in the neck in your media. Is that the gun type used in recent events?

 

I suppose there's no NRA equivalent for vehicles? People are not bothered being restricted in driving tanks and Nascars on the highway. So it boils down to the 2nd amendment.

 

Yup, people don't get jailed if the weapons are not classed as illegal !! Crazy.

No it is not, that was the whole point of the links I posted to you which you ignored and instead chose to attack my and anyone in Americas' "masculinity".

99% of all deaths in America are caused by hand guns, but these stores (the point of the thread) are banning something that has nothing to do with most of the deaths in this country

 

I don't think the NRA represents the majority.
Rather a powerful minority who basically say, try and take my favourite gun away and I will massacre you.

2nd Amendment Sam.

So to avoid gun massacres we have to allow those who threaten us with massacre to keep their guns.
Or from the other angle....to avoid losing my gun that I wish to use for peaceful purposes only I have to buy the type of gun I can use to kill lots of people and then threaten everyone with it.

Dumb and dumber.

American culture is currently this. It's acceptable to machine gun schools.
This culture won't last long.

 

Sure there is, that is why we have laws about what kind of mufflers and other restrictions we have on our cars. Otherwise, sure, you would be able to drive a NASCAR down the road. As to tanks, I know you can buy Jets as long as they don't have armaments, I assume tanks may be the same thing. As the sentence above says though, not sure where you would be able to drive it legally as we have laws against what can go on what roads.

It would almost be like certain countries having highways that didn't have speed limits and then me going on a message forum to tell them how wrong and evil they are!

Oh wait....

 

Guess I will quote the poster above for this one since it is so close together.

"Just with everything in life, the majority suffer because of the minority."

 

Up to the point where you start killing their children, then they will revolt.
Count on it.

Exercise your shooters rights irresponsibily and you will lose them.
Actions have consequences.
Shooters are about to reap them.

 

1000000% Agree, and this coming from a guy who has 4 firearms less than 50 ft away from me locked up in my gun safe.

The biggest problem with all this stems back to the media, I truly believe that. And no, not the Left Wing media, but ALL media, including Fox and the other Right Wing stuff.

The Left media gets everyone so fired up that they want to create laws that go over the top, then the Right media gets everybody all fired up that they are going to go even further and take away their freedoms including 2A.

In reality, the MASSIVE majority of people including those in the NRA are for certain gun restrictions.

But if there are 1000 murders per year in black communities with a handgun that are never talked about, never covered and in fact just covered up. Then 10 white school children get killed with a rifle, the news comes out with how they should ban rifles.

That hypocrisy right there is where you lose a large section of the American public. They think: "Well wait a minute, if you are ignoring this you are basically lying to me. And if you are lying to me, what else are you lying about? Why should I trust you?"

Then they take their ball, they go home and split off into groups.

Hence the tribalism and Left vs Right nonsense we have today. People can't even talk to each other without being condescending or rude or just flat out attacking them anymore and this board is a perfect example of that on a mini-macro (does that work as a phrase?) scale.

***EDIT***

I also wholeheartedly believe that "shooters are about to reap them" will not happen.

I would love to register (actually all my guns are registered) all firearms so you had to be in charge of your guns. You had to lock them up safely, if my kid (say I had one) took my AR-15 (yes I do own a scary black gun) and used it to shoot up a neighboring school, that would be my fault. Or at the very least it would be under investigation as to why I "allowed" it to happen.

Growing up with a father who was a marine, I was taught to respect guns. Obviously a lot of these kids aren't. Then when you pair them with idiot parents who just leave their guns sitting around the house, you get events like this.

I have a gun safe in my closet with 2 pistols and my AR-15, all registered and legal.

I also have a little tiny safe next to my bed with a fingerprint mechanism allowing me to get to it very quickly, that is the only loaded gun in my home and the ONLY way into that safe is with my thumb print. Well, I am sure you could break it with something, but you get the idea.

Guns are a part of American culture, I have debated this (especially with Australians) that knowing about them, how to use them and how to be responsible with them is a very American past time. I respect the differences in our country and go from there.

But I do agree that there needs to be laws put in place to keep us safe, kinda like not being able to drive on the freeway with slicks on my cars. Sure (once they heat up) I may be able to hold a turn like crazy with those on my 800 HP sports car, but without them they are super dangerous and liable to hurt people. So we came up with good sensible laws about how we have to drive our cars.

Like I said to the poster above, the fact that some countries don't have speed limits is INSANE to me, but so be it, I respect their laws. Same with certain countries and alcohol laws, so be it, I respect their laws.

Guns are the ONLY topic however where Americans constantly get lectured from other countries about how evil we are for having them.

Usually the lecture stems from "Your guns get sold to the world who uses them" which is part of what I am talking about, a lie. The most used weapon worldwide is the AK-47.

Do I see myself having to use my firearms for self defense? 99.9999% no, but am I happy they are there? Damn straight I am.

I have studied too much of history to think that disarming an entire populace is a good idea

 

The western cow towns, central to US culture, banned guns. When the US government banned effectively automatic weapons in the 30's most supported it.

Our culture has never been consistently opposed to all regulation. From 1980 on dislike of government drove anti-regulatory views, but they have not always been dominant. Americans forget their history.

 

They only banned concealed and open carry of guns.

And they weren't banned in most western townships.

And one entering or leaving the town was still allowed to be armed,

Gun ownership was legal in the home and businesses and outside a town limits.

 

I am not sure what type there is other than that.

I have never seen a historical analysis of the townships so I won't comment on that. The point is throughout US history when guns were seen as dangerous they were limited. With rare exception it was not until the 20th century that some argued this was unconstitutional under the 2nd amendment.

What the public wants, they usually get.

 

Guns carried in gunboxes or in sleeves.

 

The two aren't dependent on each other. People seem to think anyone who carries a firearm is going to shoot kids. While I can appreciate the hyperbole, it is false.

I'm repeating myself, but Florida was the culmination of a multitude of failures in the laws regarding the possession of firearms.

Shall we also take away vehicles because children die in them?

 

The FBI let those kids die, not guns, not the NRA.....the FBI. There are millions and millions of gun owners, if guns were the problem the left claims them to be then none of us would be here discussing them. Second hand smoke is literally more dangerous to children than guns. I don't see your outrage at smokers. Why not?