Why are the american people so desensitized to gun violence?

Question

i'm not a bad person, i love my family and my friends, i only want good things to happen to other people and i would never intentionally hurt someone unless i was defending myself. but why dont guns scare me like they do to most people in the world? if i saw someone shot in the street i dont think i would be traumatized, i dont really think thats normal.. what do you all think... (people of the uk your more than welcome to give your opinion to) PLEASE NOTHING INSULTING IM LOOKING FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ANSWERS, THANKS

Answer 1

i think, that alot of us haven't been exposed to guns and their effects, but say if you had a child or loved one gunned down by gang violence or something, i bet your perspective would shift dramatically

Answer 2

The American people are desensitized to all kinds of violence don"t dump it all on the gun.  It's the way society is today. The criminals rights are more important than the victims. Thats the way the liberal judicial system works.  My god, you dont want to violate the criminals rights. then the liberal judge will have to turn the criminal loose on a technicality.   It happens hundreds of times a day.     By the way, people in the U.K. are not citizens, they are SUBJECTS of the crown. There is a big difference. Parliament decides what will be law, and the subjects bow to it.

Answer 3

Have you ever seen anyone shot though ? Your just imagining what it would be like, you feel desensitised probably by the amount of shooting on TV but the reality of the sight, the blood the smell I'm sure it would have a different effect.

Answer 4

Compared to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, America is probably a lot more sensitive to gun violence than most countries.  I don't see many small children in America wielding assault weapons, and RPGs.  

   The news media is full of anti-gun references and propaganda. Interestingly enough,  the criminal element, the ones who are the problem with the weapons, are on a catch and release program for all but the most heinous crimes, and it's becoming an institutional problem.

   Note that you specified gun violence, not vehicular homicide, not knife attacks, not people dying from diseases...you fixated on guns, when all the other categories are much more common. You should be more upset that we have so many violent people, and that the majority of people are being distracted from the real issue in order to follow someone's personal anti-gun agenda

Answer 5

we might be desensitized to video game/tv/ movie violence, but actual real life violence- I don't think so. that's what the military is for- guys must train, go through some type of indoctrination in boot camp to prepare for real life violence/carnage- and even then some soldiers are traumatized.

guns are not scary,plenty of law abiding,responsible citizens own them. stupid people who obtain guns,and use them or other weapons are scary. and idiots who can't obtain guns ,find other means to kill/harm others.

Answer 6

maybe somehow its not what scares you because you know that you're not the person getting shot or the fact that on the outside shell a gun just doesn't look threatening to you. Its a case of what weapon DOES scare you  

Answer 7

Possibly because it is one of the quicker and less "messy" ways to deal death.  If the person is not shot in the face, it is not significantly graphic, and if the first bullet hits its mark, death is pretty much instantaneous.  The wounds made by most bullets are smaller and less destructive than wounds made by most other weapons.

If someone is beaten to death with a baseball bat, golf club or other heavy blunt object, the resulting gore is horrific - not to mention that the victim's suffering was prolonged and significantly more traumatic if death didn't come instantly with the first blow.

Much the same could be said for murder with a sharp object.  That, too, is bloody, and traumatic for the observer as well as the victim.

Even strangulation, electrocution, falls from high places, poisoning, etc., can get pretty grotesque, depending on how long they took to finish the victim off and what he/she went through in the process.

Horrible as murder is in ANY form, shooting is probably the least traumatic form of it for both victim AND witness.

Answer 8

The key here is you don't THINK you'd be traumatized. Trust me, you would be. Its simply that you don't know what to expect. So your mind can't really process it on an emotional level. You might not be desensitized. You probably not have developed your sensitivity yet.

When I was your age, I was immortal. Nothing could hurt me. All that bad stuff out there, it didn't happen to me only other people. That sense of invulnerability was enhanced when I was in the ARMY. I learned to shoot and jump from airplanes etc. (No wars back then.) When I got back to my civilian life, I was so calm cool and collected. Nothing phased me. I felt like the whole world was just so simple and I was the only one with a clue as to what was going on. I was alone and separate from the sheep that surrounded me.

That stuff changes as time goes on. My parents were in a car accident. I got a divorce. My brother and I spent a night in jail for fighting with each other. I saw a guy die from a heart attack at the grocery store. Lightning hit a tree in the back yard. Someone flew some planes into the World Trade Center.

Unexpected c**p happens all the time. When the chaos starts to become more obvious, your views will change. If you're not scared on some level, you're not really paying attention to whats going on.

I used to love watching crime shows and war movies. Today, I can't stand that stuff. When I was in the Army, I saw news footage where a helicopter crashed and the terrorists were dragging the bodies of soldiers around in the streets. I wanted to do something, but there was nothing that could be done. I was back home at Ft. Bragg. I realized that wars and battles are NOT a form of entertainment. I don't watch war movies any more.

Now that I'm a father, I find I have a REALLY hard time watching any kind of crime show or medical show where something bad happens to a child. It hits too close to home for me. I never could have imagined how being a father would affect me until it happened. I worry about my daughter all the time on some level. I don't fear what might happen to me for my own sake. I fear what might happen to my daughter if I wasn't here to take care of her.

Hopefully, you never experience something to remove that perceived sense of fearlessness you have. But sadly, you probably will and you don't know what will happen to you inside until it does.

Good luck.

Answer 9

Guns and violence are completely normal for us. Sad, but we are used to it. As you said, we have become desensitized to guns. It is a form of conditioning. Say you are sitting quietly, and suddenly I come along beating a pot with a spoon. It is going to scare you the first couple of times, but then you become conditioned to it, you are expecting it. It's not going to startle you anymore.

Answer 10

Most households in US have guns apparently its for their defence, I think it was on Michael Moores Bowling for Columbine (very good documentary) he said that some banks gave a gun away when you opened a bank account with them.  

Answer 11

Most think " Oh, that would never happen to me or my family" so they blow it off. American people in general are desensitized due to the mass coverage and the reoccurance of gun violence. Watch the news tonight there will be a ton of murders on there. After awhile, people get used to it and see it is a common part of society ( but often think it would never happen in the part of society they live in).

Answer 12

All I can state is you really don't know how you will react, until it happens.  

My husband and I live on a farm.  I raise meat goats, and meat rabbits to sell to customers, and for our own table.  We raise 90% of the food we eat ourselves.

I've assisted with the butchering of animals many, many times.  Yet I'm still a big wussy baby.  I cannot bring myself to do the actual kill.  Once the animal is dead, I'm ok.  I can assist with taking the hide off, gutting, ect., but not the actual killing.

We had three pit bulls get in with our goat herd.  They kill one of my livestock guardian dogs, and wounded several goats horribly.  Some of the injured goats were ones I've bottle raised from babies.  If you bottle raise a goat, it thinks of you as "mama" for the rest of it's life.  Goats can be as charming and as affectionate as pet dogs.

I had to go out and shoot goats laying on the ground, looking up at me and crying to me, because I was "mama."  It ripped my heart out.  Me...the big baby, who cannot bear to do the actual kill, having to kill goats that were my pets, because their injuries were too horrific.

I worked in the medical field for many, many years.  I saw a young woman who had been horibly beaten by her boyfriend.  Broken arm, ribs, nose, face swollen beyond anything normal, ect.  I felt nothing for her....it was the third time it had happened to her.  If she was too stupid to leave I was not going to waste any of my emotions on her.

We saw a three year old girl who was RUSHED in by her Dad.  That little girl disolved the entire staff to tears, including the doctors.  It was so hot outside, the little girl had stepped onto a manhole cover, barefoot, and her feet "stuck" as the skin cooked to the manhole cover.

You can see horrific things in life that may or may not move you emotionally.  You may be called upon to do things you wouldn't dream yourself capable of.

I believe TV does desensitize Americans to gun violence.  Yet, in when presented with real life, you never know how you will react.

Another example (true story).  A Mom and Dad rushed their little girl to the E.R.  She had split her lip badly, and needed stitches.  The nurse tried to send the Dad out to the waiting room, while the doctors were working on the little girl (because believe it or not men have more of a problem with blood than women).  The Mom said, "It's ok, he's a firefighter."  So here's big burrly Dad, who pulls people out of burning buildings, and mangled bodies out of car wrecks....he's seen it all.

The nurse walking by was just in time to notice Dad was that sickly grey color.  The nurse shoved her hand against the Dad's chest, and pushed him to the wall, so he slid down the wall as he passed out, instead of splitting his head open crashing to the floor.

A man who has picked up limbs and pieces of humans.  Yet the sight of his own daughter's blood is too much for him.

One never knows.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 13

                                                                                                                     The devil knows that his time is short so he is bombarding our airwaves with sin/" gun violence" in the hope of desensitizing people.