I do see what the parent poster meant. Here in Canada, about 1 in 4 households have a firearm. It's over 10% even in large cities like Toronto. Statistically speaking, it seems likely several households in my condominium have firearms. Not quite at American ownership rates, but firearm ownership is far from scarce in Canada. You wouldn't get impression though; most owners are very discreet about it. That same sort of vibe seems to exist in parts of the USA, too.
Do you think people who own guns who live in non-rural areas do so for (a) personal protection, (b) hunting, or (c) sport shooting? I'm not a hunter myself, but (b) and (c) seem pretty reasonable anywhere that you live. However, I never understand the (a) crowd.
For the record, Finland also has very high gun ownership.
It's illegal to conceal a gun here in most cases, particularly a handgun. It technically is legal to walk around with a firearm openly if you have a valid reason to (such as carrying it to and from hunting). But you'll certainly get in trouble if you do that, outside of rural areas where polar bears roam. (One of the most common reasons to own a firearm is protection, but from animals. The bears here can and do eat people.)
It's generally illegal to carry anything as a weapon with the intent of using it as a weapon against a person, even in self-defence, unless you have one of those very rare concealed weapons permits. Knives, pepper spray, and tasers are also illegal in Canada to carry around for self-defence. Though the law does let you use whatever is coincidentally at hand, if you truly must use force as a last resort, to defend from an attacker.
So officially, no, people aren't supposed to be carrying firearms around for protection. American-style "right to defend oneself" with firearms is a bit taboo here. You're also not supposed to keep a firearm loaded at home. But I imagine quite a few do keep shotgun shells nearby and their shotgun safe can be unlocked very quickly.
(a) is common. I don't know that there's anything particularly complex to understand about it - to people who are interested, owning a gun for personal protection is just like owning a stash of food and water for disaster preparedness.
I live in America, and work in agriculture as an agronomist, but live in a very “left leaning” Oregon city.
In rural areas my impression is it a mix of A, B and C in different ratios per person.
In urban areas, it seems primarily A, especially for women. Here pistols are favored, because they are discreet and Supreme hasn’t released an AR-15. Yet. You probably wouldn’t suspect for example my ethnically ambiguous gym coach and his hispanic girlfriend to be packing, but they are very enthusiastic about having the capability of defending themselves from strife. Police after all cannot be relied upon to do anything other than start paperwork about the the mess a criminal or group rioters/looters leave. Consider the sentiments of survivors of Hurricane Katrina are likely to hold.
My impression is there are also periodic mass renewals of interest whenever we elect a new president, or some massive thing like covid or a depression occurs. Obama was often called “gun salesman of the year” in regards to conservatives, and Trump did a bigly job convincing many liberals that the whole “perhaps I need a gun because government” sentiment most commonly associated with rural/conservative areas wasn’t so outrageous after all. Now, for all the posturing and larping of some blowhards, there are vanishingly few who actually think having a civil war would be a grand time. But it doesn’t hurt to be ready, just in case. Especially with the worlds most powerful military involved.
That said, the future of effective defense against governments will be drones, with the classic “heroic personal stand” being far less desirable for obvious reasons.
I myself don’t hunt, but I occasionally shoot for recreation. An AR-15 is basically an engine you can easily modify, playing around with weights, springs, muzzle devices and ammo to achieve silly low recoil. I also for some reason just love troubleshooting firearms. This is a great video about how things function, and how the use of gauging can be used to help find tolerance issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv6a1hs9U5o
And of course then there’s the whole making holes close together from far away aspect as well. Really tickles my nerdy white guy autism (at least once I got a suppressor, because funny enough I don’t like loud sounds lmao). I didn’t really understand “car guys” who were always fucking with their car until I realized I was doing the same thing.
I tend to mostly carry when I’m up doing agronomy in the foothills, because bear, mountain lions, methheads, deer and dogs (the last two are what I’m most likely to be attacked by). I also have bear spray, and a knife, allowing me to actually deter something not already deterred by my ATV engine, and to react to an ambush attack by a mountain lion (in the event I manage to not immediately have my neck snapped). Now, an actual incident is very unlikely and I certainly don’t operate under some kind of omnipresent terror or anything. After an initial scan of an area I basically go about my day completely preoccupied with other things. But if a motherfucker wants to take me down, they better do it right the first time because I am prepared and willing to drag them down to hell with me.
Fortunately though we don’t have moose here. Those are “I can’t even make you regret it” scary, unless you want to carry a repeating large caliber rifle.
Very good breakdown. I do have to ask, though--have you been attacked by deer before? I've never heard of a deer attack once in my life, unless you count a deer jumping into my windshield an attack.
I haven’t been attacked by a deer, but I’ve had a scary encounter. Came around a corner on my mountain bike and a very large male deer, in season, with a huge rack was aggressively staring me down from 30 yards.
Also had encounters with yaks that were scarier than that (and I know of incidents with cows/bulls).
It seems people think of deer as giant harmless bunny rabbits. But you can get into situations where the big animal with horns feels trapped and threatened and shows you their horns. Bluff charges are a real thing, they show you what’s up.
Fortunately I’ve never actually been charged by an animal, and I’ve seen bears, mountain lions, coyotes, bobcats, yaks, deer, etc at close range in the wild. 99.9% of the time they are just as surprised to see you and book it. Except big cats—they just walk off like bosses.
I've not been attacked by deer yet, but it's a distinct possibility. So far it's only a few badgers (out in kansas) that decided they wanted to be persistently aggressive, though we came to an understanding with some persuasion from a shovel.
Deer are absolutely capable of attack though. While they normally try to just fuck off, there are a few situations where otherwise can happen:
1. For unprovoked attacks, Male deer can be territorial, especially in a rut where they basically get seasonal roid rage and decide to square up even with the creepy things that walk around on two legs. Getting stabbed with antlers and pounded by hooves is dangerous.
2. If deer (male or female) become used to humans because they are being fed, then they lose their timidness and can get mean if they think it'll get them what they want, though they are unlikely to have the goal of killing.
3. They can also attack if their young are nearby. I come across baby deer roughly once a year, and while usually the mom is somewhere else for most of the day, that may not always be the case. I've been in hazelnut orchards, only to realize I almost just stepped on a fawn laying at a base of a tree. Pretty sure this raises both of our heart rates for a while.
4. Deer can also sometimes attack if they feel trapped and panic, generally from entering a neighborhood and having curious humans start coming around.
5. If you hunt deer, sometimes they'll decide to fight back or not be as dead as you think. Fair enough, TBH.
6. They can also become rabid. This is a good time to remind everyone that all animal attacks should immediately be followed up with a medical examination, no matter how minor any injury. You are vastly more likely to survive trying to commit suicide with a gun, than untreated rabies. Tuberculosis and all the other diseases and parasites they carry are also a consideration.
Horses and Cows will also wreck serious shit if they become inclined. Deer, horses and cows each cause something like a few dozen deaths (not to be confused with attacks, which is far greater) each year, similar to dogs. While bears cause something closer to just 1 death per year when averaged out, and mountain lions and rattle snakes are something like 0.25 deaths per year averaged out. All these numbers are very rough, as this is from foggy memory from past investigation, rather than a nice and neat source I have on hand. As an aside, most rattlesnake deaths are from a drunk deciding to mess with a snake, getting bit, and decide they're fine and go to sleep instead of the hospital. Big rattlesnakes aren't really a danger, just take a hint and leave them alone, they are fat and lazy and really don't need your shit.
Comparatively, things like driving my truck around, or even my ATV is a far larger source of danger, with ATV deaths being in the several hundreds per year I believe. But most of those are not likely from people puttering slowly around like me for crop inspection work.
Only slightly related, but prior to Oregon's partial drug legalization a short while ago, there was a non-zero danger of running into someone in the mountains looking after their million dollar weed plots and no interest in witnesses. There were areas that law enforcement would straight up refuse to go because of Reefer Rambos crawling about.
I like how thorough you are, even on a throwaway hacker news comment. I lived in Iowa for most of my life, so we're no stranger to a lot of this. I've never even thought of deers getting rabies, but it makes sense.
We've had out fair share of horse and cow accidents around these parts. Them back hooves are deadly. We used to joke that you have to exceed the number of cow-caused deaths to declare something a serious problem.
> Only slightly related, but prior to Oregon's partial drug legalization a short while ago, there was a non-zero danger of running into someone in the mountains looking after their million dollar weed plots and no interest in witnesses. There were areas that law enforcement would straight up refuse to go because of Reefer Rambos crawling about.
Here, you have to be steering clear of meth labs and moonshine operations out in the woods.
