This is a fantasy. I’ve never been in a situation I’m the US where I thought a gun could appear at any time, and I don’t even live in a particularly great neighborhood.
Congrats, also, on graduating school before school shootings became a big thing. Me, too. It was great not having to go through metal detectors on my way to class.
I am sorry you don't ever fly, though. It's not a lot of fun, but there are a lot of great places to go, and it's usually worth the hassle of being checked for guns.
I also have flown many times. Nobody has ever ‘checked me for guns’. Generally they are checking for knives and explosives. You might be too young to remember, but much of today’s airport security was brought in as a response to 9/11.
If you really think a gun might appear at any moment, I recommend you do some research on how unlikely that actually is. It’s a totally unrealistic fear, and one that can only result from being misinformed.
Aren’t you? Here’s what you said earlier:
> The actual murders are comparatively few, but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time.
I guess you must have changed your mind. I’m glad you are no longer on edge at the thought of a gun appearing at any instant.
Oh, come on. You seriously don't think the metal detectors pick up guns too?
> It’s a totally unrealistic fear, and one that can only result from being misinformed.
Police officers routinely justify their actions on such grounds.
I suspect the reason is because a higher than average proportion of people who post here tend to live in cities (and be in their 20s), where crime is both naturally higher and vastly more visible than it is when not in a city; this is why city people tend to be a lot more authoritarian and risk-averse than people who live in regions with population densities with a more favorable ratio of People Who Destroy Society per mile.
These people are people who, all else being equal, do things the average person would rather them not do, like property crime, pounding the apartment walls at 1 AM, shitting in the street, and the like. It's possible to build places where these things don't happen, but none of them are compatible with maintaining the political power of the risk averse as they currently exist today (even though, ironically, those places give even more power to the risk-averse).
Case in point,
>Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in case one has a gun.
which is only in effect in the places with most of the crime (read: inner city), and the occasional suburban district where irrational risk-aversity got a foothold. Everywhere else tends to be a little bit saner and would prefer to not constantly broadcast a message of "be constantly afraid of a thing that's vanishingly rare" (which is what the backpacks are meant to symbolize), at least until irrational risk-aversity starts paying political dividends in those areas as well (or it is forced upon them by the cities if the state isn't structured in a way to keep them in check).
These precautions are probably not statistically necessary, since the school shootings are rare, and exaggerated by their awfulness. But the fact is that they do happen, and the response from gun manufacturers of "Oh, your kid probably won't be shot so let's do nothing at all" is equally irrational. And then you get the even more psychotic ones claiming that every instance is in fact fake.
That's my point: the guns create a persistent, low-level paranoia, because of the very low risk of a very bad thing. It is not just in the inner cities. The school shootings, when they do take place, are most often in suburbs, and no suburb is sure they won't be next. So children are confronted every day with preparing for it.
The idea that Americans are on edge is simply not correct. The average American, not intending to end their own life and not engaged in a criminal career, is much, much more likely -- about 10× -- to be killed by their own or another person's car than by a gun, and American attitudes reflect that.
Hopefully I don't get gunned down by a cop thinking I have a gun when I leave my house tonight, although I probably will.
Every police encounter has to assume you have a gun. A lot of innocent deaths at the hands of police are treated as "I thought he had a gun", which makes everybody scared of the police -- especially minorities. School children go through metal detectors every single day, never turning up any guns. Many are even required to carry transparent backpacks, just in case one has a gun.
And despite the low murder rate, many are still convinced that they're about to be killed by one of those many, many guns, as seen right here in this HN thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28556161
All of those guns have a significant, negative effect on daily life in America. The actual murders are comparatively few, but the ability of guns to appear at any instant keeps the entire country on edge, all the time.