Visitors to the US are apparently surprised that guns are sold at WalMart, K-mart, L.L. Bean, and whatnot. When I was in high school I worked at at hardware store, and we sold guns. Heck, when I was a kid you could go into a rural general store and they usually had a “junk rifle” bin, which was usually an old barrel, right next to the counter.
So I have two questions:
Why is that so surprising?
Where the heck else to you think people should go to buy guns?
Seriously, it’s a department store. If you want clothing, you go to “Menswear” or whatever. If you want a rifle, you go to “Sporting Goods.” Dedicated gun shops exist, but there isn’t really a lot of money to be made on retail gun sales. Profits are really made on accessories like hunting gear and ammunition, so big stores have a better incentive to offer guns for sale than smaller ones.
I’m from Massachusetts, and I always find this to be odd. Guns just aren’t sold in stores here. As far as I know, you HAVE to go to a gun shop, and that’s just what I expect. Going to Walmart and finding guns is just…not normal, for me, so every time I go to the one in NY and see guns, it surprises me. If I came from a country that just plain doesn’t have guns, period, I’m sure it would be even more surprising. To me, guns aren’t consumer goods. They’re guns, and fall into a different category. A gun in Walmart is, to me, just as wierd as a car in Walmart.
Interesting. I thought the exact opposite. In the UK people (both male and female) are extraordinarily vain and obsessed with appearance. I was delighted when I moved to the US that women seemed to not care too much. They were certainly capable of dressing up with makeup and so on, but they would also go out for a bagel and coffee on a Sunday morning in shorts and T-shirts, without makeup. Women (especially younger, single women) in the UK wouldn’t ever do that.
Outside of one or two areas of the US, I always found US people to be much less “style over substance” than their UK counterparts. It also surprised the hell out of me when I returned to the UK that people here are even more celebrity obsessed than the US (I don’t remember it being that way when I left).
I’ll take a swing at that: Being from Yurp, I’ve always considered guns to be objects that are either in the hands of trained professionals doing their jobs (soldiers, police officers) or carried by licensed individuals - hunters or target shooters - while those individuals are actually in the process of using them.
Guns are rare, carried with specific intents and not at all in general circulation. You see someone on the street with a firearm, you call the police. Under these circumstances, having a gun pop up in an everyday setting like a trip to the hardware store simply jars. For a pathetic comparison, I guess most Americans would do a bit of a double-take if there was a crate of grenades (“Frags on offer this week, $25 a piece, 5 for $100”) next to the pots and pans
Oh, and people buy guns in specific stores that are licensed to keep and store guns and ammo securely and safely. (Most often the stores will sell general hunting supplies, too.)
Well, the stores selling guns in the States are obviously licensed, too.
I realize that the attitudes are different in many other countries, but there ARE regulations. What I still don’t understand is how so many Euros can act like it’s mind-boggling to sell guns in the gun department, as if no one in their countries ever goes hunting. There are regulations here, too, they’re just state-specific.
I know that came off a little snippy, but I honestly don’t understand.
Cardinal, you seem to misunderstand Spiny Norman’s post. He meant to say that guns in Europe are available too, but only in licensed stores, while in the U.S. guns are (in some states) also sold in stores like WalMart (in the gun-department). It is the latter that elicits surprise. Maybe a good analogy for U.S. people would be seeing WalMart sell marihuana and morfine (for medical purposes, of course), or adult entertainment articles?
We’re not condemning here, we’re just expressing our natural (i.e. spontaneous) surprise to see an article, which in Europe is generally considered illegal except in the hands of police or the military, on display in a supermarket/general store where normally only non-contentious goods for daily usage are sold (at least in Europe, so there may be another difference). Rationally we can follow the reasoning, but the primary reaction is one of surprise.
Selling guns in a supermarket makes it seem like U.S. citizens ‘consume’ guns and ammunition on a daily basis like coffee and cookies. It’s as if there would have been a breakfast conversation: ‘Oh honey, I’m all out of ammo after shooting last night at those darn’ neighbours’ dogs again? Pick up a new box for me, willya ? And while you’re at it, buy me a new pistol as well.’
Even if we know that this is nonsense, that most people who own guns rarely use them, the ability to pick up guns while shopping for toilet paper still seems for us difficult to rhyme with thoughtful, responsible gun-ownership. (that latter bit of reasoning is what distinguishes guns from TVs and computers, which supermarkets do sell here as well, and which I also find odd because of my (admittedly ungrounded) preconception what supermarkets should sell)
Oh, I know what I meant to ask…in English speaking countries outside the US, then, is the word “drugs” only used to refer to pharmaceuticals when they are used illicitly/illegally?
No, not ‘only’, but ‘usually’. I.e. the majority of the time it’s used, the word “drug” refers to illegal substances. Thus “drug store” looks funny to us. It looks like a store selling illegal psychotropics etc.
When I was in America a few years ago I was utterly horrified to see a man walking around with a hunting knife in a sheath on hte belt of his jeans, WTF?! Is that allowed? That’s a lethal weapon people! And he has in in plain site where anyone can grab it and use it … ! Hel-lo!
Depends where you are. Some places restrict the blade length that you can carry (3 inches is a generic rule of thumb) but some don’t have a problem. And the police would rather the knife be in plain sight than concealed. In fact, I think some places you can have a fairly long blade as long as it’s in the open.
I am sure everybody knows on the intellectual level that there are regulations and that things are under control, as it were.
But if you grow up where some people quite literally walk through life and never even see a gun except sticking out of a policeman’s holster, suddenly seeing a few dozen in a mundane setting like a hardware store is just baffling. Not necessarily bad or scary, just cause for a sudden realization that you’re far from home.
