• Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    In suburban North America… steps outside you have nothing but roads with cars going 50km/h+, no shops or cafes to walk to because of zoning laws, maybe a small park a 15 minute walk away.

    You have to have your parents take you places, you cannot go anywhere alone. In the USA you also have to worry about potential shooters because people play fast and loose with gun laws there.

    • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
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      18 hours ago

      maybe a small park a 15 minute walk away

      This is really dependent on where you live in the US. I just checked and the house I grew up in was within a 15 minute or less walk of 7 parks and 15 minutes isn’t really that far to walk. Especially in the US.

    • atticus88th@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      As often as shootings are in headlines. Do the vast majority teenagers across the U.S. ever encounter a shooting in their lifetime?

      I have a feeling the media might be blowing it out of proportion and any time someone throws a statistic it includes urban areas where gun crimes have always been a daily occurrence.

      Or were you just making small talk?

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Shootings happen here way more than they make headlines! The media unreports it. Yes kids are exposed to this, it’s fucking real. Where are you getting your “feeling” from? US has a terrible gun violence problem.

        • sleepmode@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Yep we have on average 125 shootings that result in fatalities per day and 2 mass shootings.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        In Scarborough, Canada where I grew up, shootings occur once every few years at the malls I go to, a library or neighbourbood park I’ve been to or like yeah even if i don’t get a gun pointed at me in my life, knowing that shootings have happened in places I’ve been to is harrowing to know. In the US, it happens several times a year in many neighbourhoods. Compare Chicago and Toronto, cities of similar size and climate, one has 2726 per year shootings, the other has 461

        When mass shootings happen regularly, and knowing that gun ownership is ubiquitous (rather than largely connected to presumably illicit criminal weapons), active shooter drills are as commonplace as fire drills worldwide, it’s a structural fear, of course we’re not paralyzingly afraid all the time, but it’s built into peoples’ upbringing. The effects bubble up in other areas and affect overall happiness.

      • crimsonpoodle@pawb.social
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        2 days ago

        I dunno I was a teenager last decade; sure people got anxious when there were the drills, but mostly people are desensitized to it.

        It’s sorta like hearing about a fire in a far off place, or an earthquake, it could happen here, and that would be scary, and you feel bad, but at the end of the day if you let yourself worry about it you would just be in a constant state of panic.

        So you talk a bit about legislation afterward and then go back to worrying about finding a job that pays a living wage. Since that economic catastrophe is not, as in the former case, a matter of statistical bad luck but an approaching inevitability.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        A lifetime is a pretty long time. With the number of gun related incidents every day in America the odds are certainly not negligible.

      • poopkins@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Let me get this straight: your position on this is that the issue is only worth even talking about when on average, each American experiences a shooting at least once? Or are you just making small talk?