Some people just aren't scared of guns, or of a world where everyone has one, regardless of the real risk such a world would entail.
Differences within the populace with regard to risk tolerance and perception doesn't tell you anything about systemic issues. It just points to cultural differences. That is itself an issue, but certainly of a different flavor than "declining empire". It could still tear things down, but it would be more explosion than stagnation and collapse.
How we deal with it as a society does though - some people don't mind going fast but we as a society decided to impose speed limits on roads, especially around schools. Some people don't mind the smell of cigarettes but we as a society decided that indoor smoking shouldn't be allowed in general. No one likes paying taxes but as a society, we accept that we need it to function, however imperfect the process may be.
This is where US feels like a dysfunctional society when viewed from outside. If US views occasional mass-shootings as a non-issue, sure. But if it does see it as a problem and it's not able to deal with it because for whatever reason (culture, freedom, constitution etc.), I think that's a problem.
My interpretation isn't that some people don't see a problem, its just that different people believe in different solutions because the 'cost' of proposed policies is different to them. The cost of new guns laws is huge for some, and non-existent to others.
Honestly I think the national gun debate is kind of a joke. Most of the farthest left states don't even enforce or do a good job implementing the laws they have already. What difference would it make if the policy in DC changed when the cops on the street and the capital at home don't care. Buying a gun in California is just as easy as it is in Florida, it's just a bad idea because you can be thrown in jail the rest of your life if you use it even in self defense, so people don't buy them as often.
Switzerland is a good point of comparison; they have about half as many guns per capita as the US which includes military-grade weapons, but no mass shootings.
Source: google.
The fact of the matter is that
“The previous analysis, which examined data through 2016, showed that firearm-related injuries were second only to motor vehicle crashes (both traffic-related and nontraffic-related) as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents, defined as persons 1 to 19 years of age. Since 2016, that gap has narrowed, and in 2020, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death in that age group. From 2019 to 2020, the relative increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined) among children and adolescents was 29.5% — more than twice as high as the relative increase in the general population.”
So outlawing vehicles is not proposed but laws, and regulation to control risk appears to be effective.
Well, we aren't. We are applying cost benefit analysis, which is subjective. Society agrees pretty uniformly that motor vehicles are worth the risk. It's the same with guns, there just isn't as much of a consensus. Some people thing the risk is worth it, others don't.
If you frame it as a binary right and wrong based on your own risk tolerance rather than making genuine arguments for certain trade offs you aren't having a good faith conversation, which is what I was satirizing.
Perhaps we go in on a startup to modify the AR platform to distribute COVID tests or vaccines?
If you listen to gun fanatics, the benefits of widespread arms ownership is a government scared to overstep. How much that is worth to you depends on how much you worry about the government infringing on your rights, and how much you think guns being around prevent that.
I personally subscribe to that ideology to a degree (not full tilt, but somewhat). The US has the oldest constitution, and that's arguably only possible if the federal government hasn't pissed us all off too much :P
We all recognize cars are dangerous and there are laws and regulations to combat that.
That something so mundane and annoying, pennies, is impossible to solve for the the US is eerily similar to Caligula playing music while his city burned.
Like it would be fine if they did just disappear, but it's also a pretty "meh" issue day to day.
But that only works once: its days of 7-8% GDP growth year over year[1] are behind it and not coming back. The CCP government seems somewhat aware of this - the social credit system, internet firewall and various other police state measures seem to be an effort to "pre-oppress" the population once the growth levels off (or flat lines entirely) since the implied social contract of China has always been "tomorrow is better then today" - and that's all going to stop once the graft and corruption eats the much lower GDP growth which a developed nation has.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263616/gross-domestic-pr...
It's only a weak character who tries to demonize others in exchange for self-comforting. Sadly, I'm seeing more and more people doing that.
US has a lot of issues but we can see it as a platform offering more chances to succeed than other (countries) platforms. You don't need the entire population to succeed, with only a few outliers (Google, Facebook, open Source, an NGO) you can structurally change US and the entire world. I don't want to sound positive about US but more negative about other countries in the world. You cannot take apart the military aspect (even after disastrous wars) the weapons are there in the US. A crisis is completely possible but the gap between the US and other countries is amazing AND US is a talent atractor.
In the 1960's the US had multiple race riots where dozens died and cities were burnt down. It was bogged down in a war in SE Asia and had constant protests. Radical groups were killing policemen and sending bombs to politicians. Political leaders were being assassinated on a regular basis. The economy was in shambles.
Things are way better than then, but for some reason people think the end is near.
Time to take a break from social media I think!
One can see this in dysfunctional companies, from its inability to acknowledge the root of the problem (e.g. trying to solve product problems with re-branding), bloated bureaucracy and rent-seeking behavours (e.g. we'll just raise the price!).
I really do hope things get better because the outcome is very scary but I also don't have much hope.