Aussie and American Gun Culture

If you want to understand American Gun culture, you need to recognize how they violently took the land from largely violent people who did not want to let it go, people who put up a good fight for a very long time. Americans fought for every inch against Native Americans, English oppressors, Spanish and Mexican competitors, and they did it over centuries. This shapes their nation.

If you want to understand Australian gun culture, you just have to look at how we did not have to fight for the land from people like the Cherokee or Mexica, we did not have to fight against oppressors. Australia originated in a milder place, at a milder time. Making for a milder people. This shapes our nation.

Our nations are too different to speak to each other on these issues, because most Aussies can go their whole lives without feeling the need for a gun. Whereas, Americans see threats everywhere, because one, this is partly true, and two, they have trained themselves to look.

Australians have trained themselves not to look, but if they did, they would see that our peace is slowly disappearing. We have large and powerful enemies growing in our region, but very little history of needing to actually worry about this. This makes us a complacent people. Sometimes people forget peace is not eternal in this world, it comes in waves and then when it goes, it goes. But people forged in relative peace forget that this world is a dangerous place.