Monday, July 4, 2016

Gun Ownership In Decline

Or are more people lying to the poll takers now?

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The percent of American households owning guns is at a near-40 year low in the latest CBS News poll released this month.
According to the survey, which was conducted among 1,001 Americans in the aftermath of the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting, 36 percent of U.S. adults either own a firearm personally, or live with someone who does. That’s the lowest rate of gun ownership in the CBS poll going back to 1978. It’s down 17 points from the highest recorded rate in 1994, and nearly 10 percentage points from 2012.
Gun ownership is not down, given the change in the politics on gun control. In 1994 they could get an assault weapons ban passed. Today they can’t do anything. If tomorrow we were selling as many guns as we did in the nineties, they would declare the entire industry in a hopeless recession. There are not fewer gun owners today. There are far more. They just won’t admit it.
I mainly find it interesting, in that back in 1994 I would probably have told a phone-surveyor that I owned a firearm, just to fly the flag for the NRA. Today, no way would I ever admit that to anyone, just to fly the colors for a survey. Back then I saw a world of rules and safety for those who played by them, where you could be honest. Today, there are no rules, anything and everything is possible, and you never trust anyone who you don’t know completely.
I can’t tell you what did that, or point to any specific event or state of affairs that triggered that change. But my mind hardened, and shifted toward K without my even knowing it.
As a people, we have crossed the boundary of fully distrusting our government and everyone associated with it. Conservative Americans are now becoming full cynics who subconsciously view everyone on the outside as the enemy, and they are proactively preparing for a harsh world with an inherent tendency toward devious and deceptive conflict.
That doesn’t bode well for the stability of our nation, as it careens toward a massive economic collapse. Nor do I think these changes are arising completely by chance. Ancient evolved mechanisms are being triggered in the warrior class, preparing them for harshness. I can only assume that the subtle environmental triggers that are precipitating this shift have evolved to do so in humans, because of what these subtle environmental conditions have been portents of in history.
The amygdala isn’t fully there yet to drive action, but when the shortage begins, that will be taken care of quite quickly, adding a measure of relentless drive to brains that have already been remodeled to plan for survival.

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