this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
302 points (96.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43948 readers
662 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's not gun culture per se, but gang culture. Gun "culture" in the US is something that trends far more right wing in general, and tends to be mostly white, mostly (nominally) christian.
I can't speak to other cities, but the south side and west side of Chicago (esp. around Garfield Park, Douglas Park, and all of Austin) have a serious gang problem. If you aren't willing and able to engage in violence at the slightest perceived provocation, then you tend to be victimized. The net result is that someone that jumps a line can end up getting a beat down, or killed. (And, BTW, the gang problem is a result of a century of institutionalized racism, combined with a few decades when CPD was exceptionally effective at jailing gang leaders; instead of just two or three major gangs in Chicago, you have hundreds of small ones, all constantly fighting over tiny patches of turf.)
I get what you mean, but this was in the central loop, in a business district, between a white woman in her 50’s and a black man in his 30’s. Very much gun culture by your definition.
Gang culture I can somewhat understand, but this was just wild to me.
Not saying it’s right or wrong… not my circus. But at a chemist?
I think that most people that have lived in Chicago for a while are pretty aware that, due to this kind of culture of violence, that kind of action in Chicago carries a degree of risk that wouldn't be present in many other places. So I don't think that it would be that out of line to make that kind of comment in general. It's just kind of pervasive.
I would be much more surprised to hear that kind of statement in, say, Phoenix, AZ, where you almost certainly have far, far more people carrying concealed firearms legally, but don't seem to see the same kind of gang/violence problems.