non Americans: do you think we are violent?

[chuckman1]

And, as has been said before, Americans have a strange preoccupation with guns and gun control. Which is very hard to understand for someone who lives in a country where even cops aren't allowed to always carry guns. Guns kill people. So, basically, less guns is good, IMO. While it seems that a lot of Americans think that less guns is bad, and that they should be able to kill someone if necessary. This combined with America's history of violence on the street and cop violence, etc, makes me think that besides being aggressive and violent towards other countries, America is also very aggressive and violent withing its own borders.

To clarify the gun issue:

The anti-gun Americans agree with you thinking that having guns legal leads to violence. They point at other countries have that outlawed guns and try to make the point that, since they have less violence, guns that the true evil. The second amendment to the US constitution states that citizens have the right to carry guns to be able to create a militia if ever needed. Anti-gun advocates claim that this is an outdated right, and, thanks to public shootings, they think that this right has been abused and needs to be taken away. I?m not really well-versed in the anti-gun advocate arguments.

There are multiple motivations for why some Americans are pro-gun. My favorite one is because of business. Guns create SOOOO many jobs. Guns salesmen, gun range owners, gun accessory designers, etc. If we banned guns, A LOT of people would lose their jobs; that alone is a good reason for why America should keep guns.
The front-runner reason is for self-defense, although this is strongly argued with anti-gun Americans. Personally, I agree that it?s good for self-defense and I have a shotgun for this. But in practice I really do think an armed society is a polite society. In the USA, citizens really can go full-cowboy and carry a gun in a holster without a license or anything. Buy a pistol and holster at a sporting goods store and citizens can walk out of the store wearing them in the open like a new pair of shoes. Seriously though, if I was a woman walking around at night, I would totally open carry a pistol. If a rapist sees a woman carrying a gun around her waist, he should know not to mess with her unless he wants a bullet in his chest. You need a license to conceal a weapon, though.
The third most popular reason as for why Americans want guns is for protection against an oppressive government. Just like most of the posters in here, a lot of Americans also don?t trust the government. If the next Hitler somehow sneaks his way into power, Americans citizens still have our guns to pull a revolution and take our country back. Anti-gun Americans say that the Check-And-Balances system is enough to protect from any oppressive government, but I feel that guns are our lifeline security from having the next Stalin from taking control of the strongest army in the world.
Lastly, a lot of people just want their guns for fun. They enjoy shooting at targets or go hunting. It?s a hobby for some and that generates business (constantly buying bullets, safety equipment, etc.), so it?s OK by me.

in my state you don't need a conceal carry license so you can if you can buy a pistol. We are one of the most gun loving states not in the "bible belt".

 

[MorphBallBomb]

Generating fear of America abroad is a part of realpolitik, I'm sorry to say.

We are an empire. We do want to rule the world. We do want you think we are that crazy because yes we are crazy.

Embrace the hegemon.

 

[Xan Krieger]

As an American I'd say our government is extremely violent because they know during any way it's not their lives at risk. They're cowards who are perfectly fine with spending my generation's lives for their money.

 

[Therumancer]

this is a question mainly directed to Europeans but also a bit to Africans and Asians.

Do you think that the United states are violent or scary and crime ridden? I know globally we look good, but compared to rich European countries we may seem like the ghetto. also most of Asia and some of Africa has lower murder rates. The only European countries I can think of with more murder are more corrupt or Russia.

I know my friend from ghana thinks were these crazy barbaric drug addicted violent people. Is that sentiment common?

Violence in the us is half what it was 20 years ago, but in the hood gunshots are a fact of life.

Simply, what do all you guys think of American violence? Are we violent? A lot of our music talks about shooting down your enemies.

Is this just the way it is in a county that was born from violent revolution.

Bonus: also interested in the perspective of other Americans (Mexicans, Chilean) and especially Canada since you guys seem like the cousin who succeeds better at everything.

Edit: plus there's our tendency to invade anyone that can make us a profit for vague reasons as long as the world doesn't all denounce if.

Well, to be honest if you ask a question like this it's of course going to lead to a lot of Anti-Americanism, especially from our rivals, sometimes with hilarious results.

At the end of the day the US is probably one of the least violent countries on earth, but that goes for most first world nations as well, and these kinds of questions tend to only wind up involving the most civilized first world nations. Compared to 90% of the world first world "white" countries are very stable and peaceful compared to Africa, most of Asia, South and Central America, and of course The Middle East, of course a big part of the problem is that news from those parts of the world is spotty at best, and while known to be torn with violent conflict it's impossible to really gauge the extent especially as many of these parts of the world try and present themselves as something else.

A lot of the violence that takes place in the US ultimately comes down to behavior from other countries. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, as well as one with very open borders and a generally accepting society we welcome international trade, and this makes smuggling and crime relatively easy for people to engage in as they bring some of the few things actually illegal in the US like drugs into the country. Being relatively healthy as well, despite pretensions to the contrary, we're also routine victims of human trafficking. One of the reasons why an American girl can be so valuable on the global market isn't just because of the "exotic" appeal given that whites are actually one of the less common ethnicities globally, and it isn't because of the political power trip, but because of simple things like our quality of vaccinations and health care especially during early childhood. Americans might arguably eat ourselves into obesity but we also carry it fairly well society wise, and before people get into that our infrastructure is top notch. Just the vaccinations an infant can get in the US can arguably be worth a fortune in other parts of the world and guarantee a degree of resilience, which can be valuable if your going to say put a girl into slavery in a whorehouse. It's a point I've had explained to me before and I probably wouldn't have thought of, and results in say Americans and a lot of other people from the first world netting sometimes as much as ten times the going rate for say a domestic human product assuming they bring someone in who is in good shape/pretty/whatever to begin with. The point here being that a lot of our violence has to deal with people bringing it into this country for financial reasons, we've pretty much got every kind of gang and international syndicate present in the US and holding territory somewhere, where other nations usually tend to be a lot less open and thus don't deal with quite as much on such a large scale. Down near our borders for example where a lot of the worst violence takes place it's largely coming from Mexican cartels (which Mexico itself acknowledges are a problem) who want to bring drugs into the US, and of course they just don't run into Law Enforcement but other people from literally around the world who want to do the same bloody thing.

A lot of our other violence largely comes from tolerance as much as anything, as these "commonly heard gunshots in the hood" largely come from allowing say the black counter culture to flourish. Right here in these forums we argue about facets of this all the time, and that's just one internal cultural problem. Other nations that have more stability, including first world ones, might pretend otherwise but have less hesitation in putting boots up asses and not caring about things like political correctness the way the US does. The kind of race warfare crap that we see the media dredging up, and the antics of guys like Al Sharpton simply wouldn't be tolerated elsewhere, which is one of the reasons why these people limit themselves largely to the US. Of course this isn't to say the rest of the world is devoid of this kind of thing, they just don't air their dirty laundry as much. For example we've had massive Islamic riots in nations like France, and it was what two years ago that we have massive youth riots in the UK? The thing is that other countries don't harp on these kinds of things and prefer to forget them, the US on the other hand loves sensationalism so if something happens people are going to bring it up in the media every five minutes to get a rise out of people. This tends to present an illusion that things are a lot worse in the US than they are elsewhere. For example we've taken "Freedom Of The Press" to the point where we allowed the American media to pretty much plaster "Ferguson" everywhere and since it was getting attention it's inspired people to raise similar incidents elsewhere. At the end of the day even with four buildings burned down Ferguson wasn't crap compared to what I saw of those riots in the UK and some of those Islamic riots, the difference is that we're still talking about it and inspiring copycats where other countries prefer to try and forget it and move on, and sure as hell don't let the media glorify it to encourage every media outlet to find their own little bit of similar controversy and see if they can feed an explosion for ratings. Don't get me wrong, freedom of the press is a noble sentiment, but also understand that despite their pretensions otherwise most of the world, including the civilized world, doesn't actually practice freedom(s) the way the US does, which is both a good and a bad thing, and leads to a lot of our turmoil since we both can't keep domestic rabble rousers in line very well, and we also make it so we pretty much see a version of every conflict on earth playing out in our back yard.

It's not uncommon in some forums and chat rooms to hear people, especially from Europe, talking about how the US seems to be on it's way of becoming a third world country because of the people we let run wild, and there is some truth to that, though for the most part we do manage. At the end of the day our relatively loose gun laws (which aren't as loose as many people think anymore, it varies state by state, some like Arizona are very free with guns, others like Connecticut not so much) have minimal impact because the kinds of people causing the problems are going to arm themselves illegally if they can't do it legally, as shown by many of these same people operating much the same way elsewhere in the world. Basically The Russian Mob doesn't give a crap about anyone's gun control laws, neither do Mexican Border cartels, however only in the US are you likely to see these two forces start shooting at each other, and a dozen other similar organizations, all trying to carve out and control valuable smuggling territory. I mean in parts of the country you can literally see competing crime groups with origins on the other side of the bloody planet, mention some of these guys in say Europe and they would be like "Who is that? Never heard of them" because they just never left the doors open the same way.

The bottom line though is that for the most part things remain relatively peaceful due to these groups all being in business and working things out one way or another. I can see why people have the impressions they do of the US due to our media, but at the same time I don't think we're really that much worse off than most of the rest of the world, we just love to sensationalize our dirty laundry. The slight differences are also balanced by the simple fact that no other country really allows the same degree of freedom as the USA despite pretensions, and freedom comes at the cost of less social control. For the record I do think we should embrace some of the attitudes of Europe in being a bit less tolerant of counter cultures (at least in practice, if not in lip service), and find ways of "encouraging" our media to stop airing our dirty laundry to the globe non-stop. I mean cover the problems fine, but six months later we shouldn't have the media still harping on an incident and talking about all these similar incidents happening which largely occurred because they kept covering it and now people want attention. Of course in the US if you so much as suggested we put some of the laws people take for granted (or don't think about) in say the UK into force people here would start screaming about oppression and Nazism... which I think is hilarious, especially on the latter point, since a lot of people here tend to compare the generation of the 1940s and their mentality to Nazis when those are the guys who defeated the Nazis... but that's a whole different discussion, and really the point here isn't for me to rag on SJWs.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

violent, hell yes, the way you seem to cling on to gun rights, shooting after shooting.
but it not the worst preconception i have of America

 

[Armadox]

Is the US violent? Yes and rightfully so. We never forgot our roots. We have what we have in bloodshed and we'll keep what we have or blow it to high hell so no one else'll ever have it again. You know this, and honestly it's the only way to keep out tenuous foothold in this world. The U.S. has been around 238 years. If at 02/04/1776 someone was born, and they died at 50, to have someone born that day and live to 50, etc. The U.S. is only 4 lives and 3/4ths old. And I assure you all 4 of those lives where brutal. Our sports are brutal, our hobbies are brutal. We like fast cars and explosions.

But you know what?

None of that matters. 90% of the U.S. has found ways to cope. We do, we find outlets for that. We watch our violence, or feed our violence, or play our violence rather then commit violence. You'll die if you walk in the U.S. about the same rate as anywhere else. Stay out of the alleys of Miami, don't stop in Gary, Indiana. Keep your head down in Detroit. Easy. Know the rules, and you'll have a good day.

This isn't about tolerance for violence, this is about having a 200+ year old ant hill full of the meanest red ants ever bred. Left alone they'll continue to live their ant lives.. Sure they'll kill something occasionally but it happens. Walk around that ant hill.. Just walk around it..

 

[Steve Waltz]

We are an empire. We do want to rule the world. We do want you think we are that crazy because yes we are crazy.

Well, kids learn from their parents! That sounds like an honest description of England?s behavior a few hundred years ago.


Though I?m surprised at the reputation of our police; I had no idea they had such a bad reputation around the world. I will admit that I?m white, and that might be part of it, but I?ve met nothing but pleasant police officers, for the most part. Maybe it?s because the media focuses of all of the negative things that happen with our police is the reason they get such a bad reputation?

 

[Frankster]

"Do you think that the United states are violent or scary and crime ridden?"

I don't know about violent or crime ridden but yes to scary. I have 0 desire to travel to USA because I find the gun fetish very disturbing, as well as the whole patriotic USA USA USA schtick. Swearing allegiances to flags is very North Korea-esque in my book.

The stories and vids I've seen of USA cops further fuels my desire to give the USA a wide berth.

I went to London once (I'm from the U.S.A) and I ran into this. We were all having tea and this random stranger came up to our school group and just chewed us out. Said our country was ruining the world, we're too obsessed with bombing anything or anyone we don't like, and just a whole bunch of that stuff.

Unless you are the secret monarch of the USA who rules behind the scenes and the rest of your class was part of your high council, then that guy is a twat and had no right to speak to you like that.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Not particularly.

Most of the US citizens I've met are far more open and friendly at first meetings than Europeans. I even believe there's a lot more racism and such hiding in Europe, it's just far more "under the skin".

You just have a number of laws or general opinions that seem insane or dumb to me. Gun ownership being a prime one, as well as health care (I guess formerly, but not sure what has actually changed).

The rebutals offered when you enter a discussion about this also seem so ridiculous to me that I don't even reply any longer to be honest.

As far as travelling there goes. I'm simply not keen on getting my luggage broken apart and my fingerprints taken even though I haven't done anything wrong or suspiciious, thank you.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

From Switzerland here and i'd answer with a short: yes.

The obssesion with guns really had a toll on you guys. Violence in general seems to be glorified a little bit much. Constantly being in a war, having many guns, being very patriotic and way to religous is not a great combination. But alot of things i can say now were already said by George Carlin 20 years ago.

Even your language gets more and more "violent". I mean if you read/watch the news it's always "War on X", be it drugs, terror or whatever.
If i'm really honest, whenever i take a glance across the ocean i'm really really reliefed living over here.

On a side note: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9ae_1428565689
Apparently the US police killed more people last month than the UK in 100 years. I mean even if you've 6x as many citizens in your country this is just nuts.

 

[chuckman1]

SNIP)

I'm gonna have to disagree with some points here. You sort of sound like a guy who believes in American exceptionalism (I sort of do too).
First, I'll give you that not having completely closed borders allows commers (including black market) to flourish and for triads/cartels to operate here and spread violence. But I'm pretty sure violence is mostly American vs American in the US. Also your comment about "black counter culture" sounds like a racist 50 year old who thinks they're politically correct. I'm pretty sure the majority of murders in the US are committed by whites. Maybe if you are talking about gangs, which encourage violence, I can see what you're trying to see. But black gangs started later in the USA than white, mexican, and chinese gangs. Don't beleive the media with their portrayal of all black men as thugs.

Gun shots in the hood are gonna mainly be two reasons.
Revenge (Killed my cousin, banged my girlfriend, etc.)
Drugs (Robbing, stopping the robber, killing the debtor, etc.)

It is not about "black counter culture" for god sake.

Also I have always found the term "civilized" to be complete bullshit that colonists used.
"Hey conquistador Carlos let's go murder and rape some brown people for GOD AND JESUS!!!!"
"YEAH AWESOME they are not civilized so our swords and guns are purifying the savages and bringing the light of god"

 

[Sniper Team 4]

"

I went to London once (I'm from the U.S.A) and I ran into this. We were all having tea and this random stranger came up to our school group and just chewed us out. Said our country was ruining the world, we're too obsessed with bombing anything or anyone we don't like, and just a whole bunch of that stuff.

Unless you are the secret monarch of the USA who rules behind the scenes and the rest of your class was part of your high council, then that guy is a twat and had no right to speak to you like that.

Well nuts. I'm afraid we have to...take care of you now. You know too much. I'm sorry. ;-)

It didn't bother us that much, but it was weird. I'd never been the target of so much hate, anger, and stereotypes before.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

The United states is super violent! Forget about how things are withen the borders, only considering foreign policy they are uber violent. When was the last time the United states was not at war?

How much of the national budget is spent on "defense"?

"Terrorists" exist for a reason, and that reason is there is no other way for them to fight back.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Hard to say. I don't know any Americans personally, so I don't really know how violent the people are in general. What I do, and I believe everyone here, knows well is that the USA has, for the last 80-odd years, practiced very aggressive and military-based foreign politics in large quantity. This, combined with your apparent love for the right to carry firearms (and the plentiful cases where that has bitten you in the ass royally) and the amount of violent action movies the U.S. exports, would at least make me confident to say that the US seems to have a more relaxed relationship with violence than at least the EU has. Here in Finland violence, or even the threat of it, is something you resort to when you've arrived at an absolute impasse, and isn't seen as anything to be glorified or be proud of.

 

[MorphBallBomb]

"Terrorists" exist for a reason, and that reason is there is no other way for them to fight back.

America is so bad you feel the need to sympathize with al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIL?

Consider this:

The reason our military is so big, is because NATO has allowed the EU to outsource its military resources to the United States. We enable your lives to be peaceful, your defense spending to be small, and your domestic spending on healthcare, etc. to be prudent. We have aircraft carriers, so that former naval powers in Western Europe no longer have to. We keep bombers in the air 24/7, so that you don't have to. We build counter-missile installations in your countries, so you don't have to. A clandestine network of spy satellites launched by our covert space program keeps tabs on everybody, everybody including a subset of nations whose actions would threaten your own security, be it economic or territorial, far more than we ever would.

One might beg the question: "without the US and Russian cold war, nuclear annihilation would never have been a threat in the first place!". The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. History cannot be rolled back for a do over. The world we live in has nukes now.

Does China mind our containment of Russia or North Korea? No.
They might mind our increased presence in the Pacific, but to be frank, it's only to sabre rattle at them for attempting to claim chunks of the South China Sea (an extremely large area) that belong to other sovereign nations, like Japan, who also does not mind utilizing our military for their security.

Has the United States made mistakes?
Sure.
Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't been fruitful. Arming insurgents to fight the Soviets bit us in the ass, but also allowed Afghanistan to live up to its name as "the graveyard of empires". We made a gamble that future terrorism would be less harmful than the continuation of the Soviet state, and we were right. Chechnya also helped, and I don't doubt that we had a hand in that either. Occupying Afghanistan was our mistake, but hunting al-Qaeda there was not.

I have no justification for the war in Iraq, other than destabilizing the region to place power into a reforming Iran's hands while proving that Israel could be tempered. Look up the Samson Option, if you think we're the only crazy ones. Getting Israel to stop feeling threatened enough to potentially kill us all is definitely part of the chess strategy.

If you have any delusions of a kumbayah world, you should lose them now. Everything, including economics, is war by other means. Humanity has never not been in a state of war, and as long as resources are few and ideologies are in conflict, it will continue. Be glad that you are part of the hegemony, and not its enemy.

The real question is, would you rather China, or Russia, or India have geopolitical dominance? Do you miss the British Empire? Or the French? Or the Spanish?

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

"Terrorists" exist for a reason, and that reason is there is no other way for them to fight back.

America is so bad you feel the need to sympathize with al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIL?

Consider this:

The reason our military is so big, is because NATO has allowed the EU to outsource its military resources to the United States. We enable your lives to be peaceful, your defense spending to be small, and your domestic spending on healthcare, etc. to be prudent. We have aircraft carriers, so that former naval powers in Western Europe no longer have to. We keep bombers in the air 24/7, so that you don't have to. We build counter-missile installations in your countries, so you don't have to. A clandestine network of spy satellites launched by our covert space program keeps tabs on everybody, everybody including a subset of nations whose actions would threaten your own security, be it economic or territorial, far more than we ever would.

One might beg the question: "without the US and Russian cold war, nuclear annihilation would never have been a threat in the first place!". The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. History cannot be rolled back for a do over. The world we live in has nukes now.

Does China mind our containment of Russia or North Korea? No.
They might mind our increased presence in the Pacific, but to be frank, it's only to sabre rattle at them for attempting to claim chunks of the South China Sea (an extremely large area) that belong to other sovereign nations, like Japan, who also does not mind utilizing our military for their security.

Has the United States made mistakes?
Sure.
Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't been fruitful. Arming insurgents to fight the Soviets bit us in the ass, but also allowed Afghanistan to live up to its name as "the graveyard of empires". We made a gamble that future terrorism would be less harmful than the continuation of the Soviet state, and we were right. Chechnya also helped, and I don't doubt that we had a hand in that either. Occupying Afghanistan was our mistake, but hunting al-Qaeda there was not.

I have no justification for the war in Iraq, other than destabilizing the region to place power into a reforming Iran's hands while proving that Israel could be tempered. Look up the Samson Option, if you think we're the only crazy ones. Getting Israel to stop feeling threatened enough to potentially kill us all is definitely part of the chess strategy.

If you have any delusions of a kumbayah world, you should lose them now. Everything, including economics, is war by other means. Humanity has never not been in a state of war, and as long as resources are few and ideologies are in conflict, it will continue. Be glad that you are part of the hegemony, and not its enemy.

The real question is, would you rather China, or Russia, or India have geopolitical dominance? Do you miss the British Empire? Or the French? Or the Spanish?

There is a difference between sympathizing with your enemy, and understanding your enemy.

I sympathize with the peoples and regions this type of attacker spawns from, not the attacker itself. I want to prevent terrorism spawning from futility, as well as you know.... just killing them all as they pop up and do ridiculously evil shit.

The question is do I think America is violent, whether or not the violence is the right course of action is a different and much more complicated conversation

 

[Varis]

Finn here, from all that I've picked up in the media, the Ferguson "incident" for example, if you could call it that, rather something around the lines of "chaos" and "holy shitbiscuits". The gun fanaticism is also incomprehensible. Healthcare shenanigans are rather off-putting... Well, the general lack for an individual's well-being is what seems the most reprehensible.

Whenever someone mentions USA to me as a Finn, I always associate it with negative stuff. So, wouldn't want to live there. In general all the major world powers just seem like they're just these big bullies around the playground, only taking us into their games when they can somehow garner more influence for themselves, or to just feed us sand and give us wedgies.

 

[MorphBallBomb]

There is a difference between sympathizing with your enemy, and understanding your enemy.

A fair distinction. Apologies for implying you were a 'sympathizer' in that sense.

 

[Dwarfman]

From Australia.

It is an unfair stereotype to label all Americans violent but at the same time...

Your media seems to either constantly force feed viewers or glorify in violence.
Many of your movies are based around big Americans doing violent things to non-Americans.
You go to war on multiple fronts.
And we've really got to sit down one day and have a good talk about that unhealthy obsession you have about guns!

 

[beastro]

No. Look at the rest of the world and their love of such things as soccer riots.

Hmm I think it'd be more accurate to say that the US glorifies violence. It's well known that in the US it's: violence = fantastic, sex = terrible.

More like Americans are violence = as comfortable with it as entertainment as Europeans are with nudity, sex = something intensely private that shouldn't be put on display.

In the latter case, you are talk about the country that produces and consumes the most porn, but like sex in general, Americans just like it out of sight, something the randy Victorians would agree on.

From Australia.

It is an unfair stereotype to label all Americans violent but at the same time...

Your media seems to either constantly force feed viewers or glorify in violence.
Many of your movies are based around big Americans doing violent things to non-Americans.
You go to war on multiple fronts.
And we've really got to sit down one day and have a good talk about that unhealthy obsession you have about guns!

Americans are still high on WWII and when they were both top dog taking on the big baddies of the world and well loved, they've just found it very hard since then to be both world hegemon and disliked, something Britain took almost perverse pleasure in.

Plus movies are movies, the bigger problem is real violence in news media, something which many Americans hate and something that dovetails into what Jim Sterling has talked about with people's reactions to fake violent compared to real film of people dying.