I suspect it’s not the US relationship with guns, but the US relationship with violence.

The national myth about the founding of the US is about using violence to solve problems. And Americans seem very quick to turn to violence when under any sort of perceived threat.

I doubt getting rid of guns, even if you could find a way to do it, would solve the problem.

Other countries have violence too, but it's scaled down from military grade assault rifles, to fist-fights.

To play devil's advocate and be only a little cheeky, it seems the way the right of recent American politics tries to help people help themselves is to offer them military-grade weaponry, deregulated environmental protections, laws to enforce sexual and vice Christian-specific rules not widely agreed on by non-Christians, and decreased worker protections. This seems almost perfectly calculated to help them become criminals or wage slaves to modern robber barons. The people most served by the modern right are the robber barons themselves (except for the weapons part). If I was a robber baron the last thing I'd want is all my workers watching their livelihoods disappear to all have automatic weapons.

I think this is why so much messaging goes to convince people that their worsening situation is because LGBTQ+ or immigrants exist and God is punishing them for the "wickedness of the land."

I myself very much would prefer a model that helps people help themselves, but I am unclear what policies would achieve that goal that aren't already supported by the left. Many Americans don't want hand outs, they want dignity and a good job that pays them a thriving wage.

However, they also will vote against policies that enforce a fair wage, because it's coming from the mouths of "sinners" who for all they know are causing this via "wickedness." The left can be very condescending and is large enough to have lots of people who similarly think that lack of ideological purity is the cause of the nation's issues, only the ideology is not completely agreed on by any of followers, so it's always shifting, which gives the impression that it's less serious and is very easy to mock. There's a lot about making places safer, which runs counter to how many Americans want to see themselves: they don't want places to be safer, they want to be tougher individuals, so such attempts feel weak to them.

As someone who's studied the Bible far more than average (I read New Treatment Greek and went to seminary for a bit), I feel like there is _very_ little thought about sins like pride, hatefulness, and gluttony in the modern church, so it's only a partial truth according to the Bible. Describing the classic "fruits of the Spirit" does not sound anything like the modern Right: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.

It seems a situation where the messaging has just enough Christian ethics to resemble some of what one would hear from church leadership, but without the inward reflection required of most of the New Testament. It's very Old Testament with messaging that implies "it's these sinners among you who are the problem and need to be stopped or killed." The New Testament would instead lead someone to conclude that if they are being punished it is from their own personal sin. This is enforced with lessons like "let he without sin cast the first stone."

I really diverged a bit here, but I've been thinking a lot about the situation of politics. The right cannot be understood without understanding how much of that worldview is shaped by religion, but also that it really isn't a Christian worldview, it's an Old Testament worldview. Too many people crave "righteous" wrath against sinners, not humble admission that all are sinners all the time, and we all need grace and forgiveness not a murderous rampage.

As it pertains to policies, I'm not sure how to even start to deescalate the situation. But attempting to do so without understanding the worldviews involved will never work.

I think this is oversimplifying the political compass. There are a whole class of people that believe helping people should be voluntary, not mandatory. Dignity is something that comes from within, but if you want a "thriving wage", negotiate for it. The left supports all sorts of policies that make helping people compulsory, at which point it starts to more resemble slavery than charity.

How would you define a "fair" wage? Enough to stay alive? Raise a family? Own a house? A car? A TV? An air conditioner? I personally don't see how entitling people to these things is remotely "fair". You'll note that none of this has anything remotely to do with religion.

> I'm not sure how to even start to deescalate the situation.

The best way would be to refrain from imposing your view of "good" or "fair" on other people. Society is about coexisting peacefully, not binding everyone into a single ideology.

You're right, it's definitely an oversimplification.

I don't think though we live in a society that could allow people to negotiate for a thriving wage without a power as large as the government. It is in no way a hyperbole to state that if the American government's worker protections weaken much more we will have companies with their own private armies forcing people into company towns like what happened to our great grandparents. It wasn't that long ago, and a lot of people have forgotten how much blood was shed to give us the safely nets we have today. And yet so many people act as if individual freedom is what earned us those rights, not the government's strong arm and labor unions.

You've rather hit the nail on the head - companies shouldn't be allowed to use violence (private armies) in order to force people to cooperate. Likewise, government should not be allowed to force terms of employment on employers. When things turn violent is the exact point the government should intervene, no sooner. It should otherwise refrain from interfering with private, peaceful negotiations between its citizens.

Kellogg's is a perfect example here - the employees tried to collectively bargain for higher wages, and the employer decided that the cost of replacing the workforce was lower than the cost of meeting their demands. No violence required, just a voluntary basis for cooperation. This is how it should work.

And yet the power Kellogg's has means that they can just find enough desperate people elsewhere to take their unlivable wage. It's a race to the bottom, and the end is a few massive companies all colluding to pay slave wages. See Amazon and Walmart for examples of this happening right now. People think that market will reach equilibrium, but don't realize that equilibrium will be reached with third world style factories with 12 hour days and dorms for the "employees" and nets outside the windows so they can't even die the way they want.

heh, define "unlivable", these people are clearly still alive. Unskilled labour is usually in surplus. The only reason the likes of Walmart pay as little as they do is because our government subsidises their employees. We've already reached the equilibrium, we've just offshored all the suffering so we don't have to look at it. We still consume goods made in these places. By the way, the factories in places like Bangladesh offer an improvement in quality of life compared to subsistence farming, which is why people work there. Isn't that a good thing?