Americans actually do shoot quite well, but the rules around gun handling are incredibly strict for Olympic shooting.
Things like minor celebrations, emotion, or even the cadence of your walk while leaving the range can cause disqualification.
Since American shooters can’t hit a bullseye without shotgunning a beer and magdumping into the sky as eagles carry exploding fireworks in celebration, they often do not place in Olympic shooting
Or in other words, what’s missing from our country’s gun use is respect.
The vast majority of our issues with gun violence is the fact that we disrespect guns almost as much as each other, they’re just another crass tool for achieving a feeling, like power, masculinity, reassurance and comfort. So then guess what happens when you flood the streets with more guns than every other developed nation combined?
We are a nation of undisciplined shooters, they may shoot “quite well” in some cases, but for every shooter who does quite well at hitting a target you have several thousand who have no idea how to shoot, AND have no clue about gun safety, respect and responsible ownership.
Respect is a big part of it. Another problem is that they aren’t seen as actual tools. They’re probably more often a male enhancement device than a tool.
They should be viewed as a tool for the production of meat, for the efficient removal of varmints. In the worst case they are a tool for the defense of self or others. That worst case scenario is actually very rare.
Tools and toys can be interchangeable. However: some pretty strict laws govern the use of toys like sports cars.
My shooting tools are mostly polymer stocked or gripped. Plain, cheapest base model I can get. Then I take them apart and work on the mechanisms to make them mine. I don’t have a lot of them, just have a few for my particular use cases.
I really like them. I get pleasure from using my tools. I also really like my lathe and my daily driver small truck. I’ve also taken them apart and worked on them.
I think this attitude should be required if one is going to own and be responsible for such a dangerous tool. There should be an interview process or something to weed out dumb fucks and the mentally unstable. After all, the militia was supposed to be well regulated. It’s not particularly complicated.
They’re probably more often a male enhancement device than a tool.
Exactly what I’m saying, and people hate hearing it, because guns are fun and if you tell people to have less fun with something they fucking want to rip your head off, especially as we enter an age of desocialization.
Desocialization is gonna be our really big problem, because while unstable backwoods hicks and suburban commando-wannabes are thoroughly worrying when they go out in the open, but they’re mostly harmless, they have social groups, they talk to others, they have range clubs, even “militia” groups that I’ve known are just chubby dads who want an excuse to camp in the desert and bring a cooler of beer.
Nah, where we really need to be concerned is the growing mass of people who cling to guns like pacifiers AND live in social isolation bubbles, spending all their time on social media and chat groups that only reinforce their beliefs, getting locked into weirder and weirder interpretations of reality, losing the line between reality and fantasy.
You saw this starting in earnest as far back as the Charlottesville “Unite The Right” white nationalist rally where one protester was murdered. There were, along the “hardened” white supremacists were no small number of kids. White, pasty, tubby kids who spend all their time on 4chan or in deeply unhinged areas of the internet. There are some famous clips of these kids, some crying on the curb after being pepper-sprayed, saying “This was supposed to be like a game!” as they sobbed.
If you notice, we’ve only had a dramatic uptick in mass-shootings since, and I firmly believe social isolation is breaking people. Most of the shooters we see now fit that bill, everyone is looking for patterns, but the only one I see is these are people with no friends, no social lives, infatuations with guns, and read fucked up nonsense on the internet until they believe it.
Yup. You get it. The solution is simple, with one exception. Simple doesn’t mean easy.
We need socialized healthcare including mental healthcare. That would do a lot, there are almost always signs that a non-gang mass shooter is mentally unwell.
Gang and crime based mass shootings would fall through the floor if we removed the incentive for them, prohibition of drugs. Addiction should be treated as a health problem.
We need to identify these sources of hateful propaganda, the nests of poisonous ideology and root them out through education. We aren’t teaching critical thinking, I think that also has a lot to do with it.
You also have many young men that lack good role models for positive masculinity. This is a big thing I’m not sure how to fix. Toxic masculinity has become so pervasive and has infected almost every straight man that can be considered macho. I’m a very masculine man, and proud of it. My zippo says Daddy. My straw hat also has a pride/equality pin next to a Ruger pin. The number of men that I meet like myself is quite low. Met a very macho trans man once that I found had a similar worldview. Have met similar men in the gay leather communities but they tend to cluster in large cities and form insular communities for their own safety.
The number of men that I meet like myself is quite low
You’ve met at least one here, I was raised by nutcases out in the boonies, raised deeply conservative and religious, did a sharp 180 when I got out on my own/escaped, and have now settled into an ideology that’s really all about harm reduction, personal freedom and kindness to one another, something that is completely at odds with how most men see masculinity right now.
I have walked in both worlds, I get it, I get how so many people can feel so afraid and so ready to withdraw from the system and fight anyone who would take away their comforts. I get how so many young men are so lonely, traumatized and insecure. I get how so many women can’t trust men and end up making the problems worse as a result. I get how so many people are tuned-out from politics and social discourse and what this is doing to the world.
The causes of all this are many, but they all highlight a massive failing in the human experience, we are a cursed creature who are stuck on the rails of biology and evolution, we think we have far more free-will than we really do, we think we’re somehow logical and rational, but we can’t even see the actual universe around us, if there even is one. We are trying to fit a ridiculously complicated world into our brains that were formed over ice ages and only really knows how to predict dangerous predators.
And I don’t know which is worse anymore. Having awareness of all this, or being naive, blissful and ignorant. Neither gives peace, neither offers solutions, neither makes our lives better.
We’d probably get along just fine.
Knowing is better. Knowing is always better. All we can do is try and tell others what we’ve learned and keep trying to grow ourselves. My purpose is loving my people, my little family. Care for them and treat other folks with respect and kindness. To err is human, and we forgive others when we can.
On that last point I think part of the issue is positive masculinity needs to be tied with self love/empowerment. The focus on toxic masculinity has overall been negative and easily spun as “men are toxic” (even though the people who’d benefit most from positive masculinity would be men themselves). Men are struggling because its hard to find a way forward that society accepts and supports
Yeah. I have no clue how the path out of it works.
Lots of disenfranchised young men full of anger and drives, piss and vinegar, see negative messaging for liking the stereotypical things that young straight men like on one side. On the other side they’re welcomed with open arms and then drip fed poison while reinforcing their identity.
Here on Lemmy if you talk about hunting, meat eating, etc.; people get all riled up. Think I have at least one troll following me and down voting every post.
The left is failing young men and driving them into the open arms of fascism.
I have no clue what can be done about it.
Yeah, I agree with you on pretty much all points. All I can really do is see my peers or juniors who may be at risk of falling into the darker corners, and try and bring them into my circle before that happens, but I only have so much time and energy, and that only helps the ones who get seen before they fall
Well, sure, but you don’t send a random selection of citizens to the Olympics. You send the best.
The nation with the most gun owners per capita and a huge population should have many pinnacle-tier shooters, even if it also has many bad ones. So the question is, why aren’t they at the Olympics?
.22’s are too small for them
Honestly? Opportunity. It starts with money, or willingness for you or your parents to give up everything that isn’t training.
I was in the service with some incredible shots. I’ve been on the range with some pretty incredible shots. Most of them would never have the opportunity for any number of reasons.
Some of that comes down to simply money. Flavor Flav is sponsoring our women’s water polo team because some of them were working three jobs while training to stay afloat. Not everyone wants to or even can do that.
That is really fucking cool that Flavor Flav is doing that.
So the question is, why aren’t they at the Olympics?
I think I did answer this, just because there’s a larger pool doesn’t make the pool deeper necessarily.
(But also, there is military poaching)
A lot of the people who would be excellent at shooting have no interest in specifically Olympic shooting or training for the type of shooting required, unfortunately. That, and the military has probably poached the best of the best, and don’t want to show what “best of the best” shooting looks like for strategic reasons.
(side note, happy cake day!)
smells like the gymnastics problem to me, incredibly strict ruling and doing things “too dangerous” will get points knocked off to me.
You certainly don’t need to a fucking psychopath to shoot guns respectfully, but you also shouldn’t be deranged either.
Those ones probably aren’t trying to compete in the Olympics.
The Olympic venue is probably intimidating when you’re used to using schools as shooting ranges.
“I can tolerate precision shooting, but I draw the line at emotional regulation!”
yeah i was gonna ask, do we even have a team that runs for this? I feel like we would’ve heard about it otherwise, yknow, being american and all that.
Don’t worry. They just wrapped up the Presidential Candidate leg of the competition. School is up next and we’re expected to have a strong showing.
That’s why muricans need assault rifles.
Competition shooter here. Olympic shooting is boring as hell.
Americans place really well in IPSC, USPSA, and 3gun.
The IPSC rifle world shot is happening right now in Finland.
So it should be even easier, right?
No. Why do you think that logic follows?
Because a self-proclaimed competition shooter said it’s boring. Boring things usually aren’t more difficult than the non-boring version.
You’re already backtracking by saying “usually” so you could easily answer your own question here: this is an unusual case.
But that being said, there is nothing in the definition of boring that contains the term “easier.” Like go play video games for an hour, then go sit in a room with the lights off and try to guess when an hour has passed. You’ll see how easily boring can be much more difficult.
What did I backtrack from? You asked for my logic and you got it. Here’s some more.
Most words have more than one denotation and all words have innumerable connotations. That’s where context and inference come into play, both of which I employed in determining precisely what the original commentor meant by “boring as hell.” It seemed obviously defensive given the context of the meme, as did many other comments in this thread trying to distance Olympic shooting from
slaughtering school kidshunting or whatever. That implied, to my subjective reasoning, that the commentor thought it was somehow inferior to whatever version of competitive gun-shooting they prefer. If your subjective reasoning led you to believe “boring as hell” meant “really, really hard,” that’s something you’ll have to settle with you and your brain, friend.What did I backtrack from?
You started with it “should” be easier to “usually” being easier. Statement of fact to just more than 50%.
If your subjective reasoning led you to believe “boring as hell” meant “really, really hard,” that’s something you’ll have to settle with you and your brain, friend.
You’re projecting. I do not believe that saying something is boring indicates anything about it’s relative difficulty. That’s you.
You’re thinking of “would.” “Should” just means it’s probable. You know, like “usually.”
You’re projecting
Again, I’m using context and experience to infer your opinion. Naturally it’s bound to be biased, it is my experience, but it’s the best I can do with nothing but your condescending whinging to go on.
USPSA
It would be a little strange if Americans didn’t place well in United States Practical Shooting Association competitions
I mean, they should add a version of this competition where you shoot two guns vaguely at the ceiling without looking at it, while dancing in a cow-boy outfit.
Sucks that there are no schoo children and black people available as targets.
Their averages are still fucked.
American police officers will spend 43 rounds on a single eight year old jaywalker while the average Japanese assassin requires less than three rounds per Prime Minister.
*47 rounds
While the one Japanese assassin requires one round per 47 Prime Ministers.
mfw the shooting venue wasn’t a school
Don’t be rude.
The venue could also be a populated street, a supermarket, or a playground. Our mass shootings aren’t just limited to helpless school children.
i apologize; that was culturally insensitive.
I am embarrassed.
Olympic shooting has nothing to do with shooting of any other kind. The guns are custom made. Unless you are speficially training for the Olympics you’ll likely never handle such a “weapon”. I think using these guns is the equivalent to a running being able to use spring blades. I am not a gun owner but it feels like a pointless sport as done.
No, that is not true, these are fundamentally single shot bolt action rifles. Maybe like a race bike to a normal street bike. The additional precision and adjustability are no use to a normal shooter but they are not more complicated to handle.
Doesn’t look like a similar firing experience to me.
No no… America has always been about quantity over quality. This proves that.
At Olympic competition you just don’t have black people or school children as targets. Which is a severe disadvantage for American shooters.
Not to take anything anyway from the Olympic athletes who are incredibly talented at their sport, but their sport doesn’t resemble the practical shooting of real guns.
There are actual competitons for that, such as the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) world shoots. The U.S. is much better represented in these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPSC_Handgun_World_Shoots
Biathalonn used to use serious rifle rounds before they switched to .22 LR.
Tbf you could definitely hunt squirrels, weasels, stoats, hare, tarmigan and many other winter animals with 22LR.
Sure, but biathlon wasn’t about hunting. Nor was the pentathlon.
Yeah 10m distance with a laser pistol really downplays the old cavalry competition with real high caliber handguns. That said, the old competition was fucking stupid because it allowed cavalry officers to complete but not enlistedmen, because enlistedmen were supposedly more professional and officers were the real amateurs. So you can say the rules were always stupid.
The U.S. is much better represented in these
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Xuefeng Cao
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Nils Jonasson
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Elias Frangoulis
Feels like America might be running a few ringers.
America is a nation of immigrants and many families keep ethnic names alive through generations.
Xuefeng Cao is American and prefers to go by Luke. Lives in Maryland.
Nils Jonasson is from Phoenix, AZ.
I’m not seeing where Elias was born but he did go to college in Tuscon, AZ. Given his abundant praise of God and the USA I’m inclined to believe he may be, in fact, very American.
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Archery isn’t “practical archery” either, and equestrian isn’t “practical horseback riding”.
Honestly a historical version of these would be pretty damn cool alongside the modern olympic take. Show me the best 100lb longbowman
It’s like football, americans rule american football.
Classic Americans, making up our own rules and sucking at following the rest of the world lol
True but it looks like the IPSC is international as well, and the most awards are held by a French man, so US kinda sucks a little at that too.
IPSC is common around the world.
This isn’t about the facts. We’re on Lemmy. It’s about shitting on America, regardless if it makes any sense to.
To be fair, America deserves it.
When it makes sense, yes. When it doesn’t make sense, no.
Imagine downvoting this, lmao
You must be new here. I defended the US. That’s sure to get a few downvotes. Lol
We’re the best in our own country!
It’s everyone else who sucks at following our rules, buddy 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Pfft. I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home.
Stop bragging and go over to Tosche Station. We’re totally out of power converters.
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If they had a mass shooting category we would cleanup. Who wants to shoot just one bullet at a time
Where Americans lack in quality, they make up in quantity.
This shortened graphic doesn’t even show that they got last place, smh my head
