Open question to non-gun people posting in /t/guns
Despite the fact that more people are killed every year from cars than from guns, if I head over to /t/cars I can read articles reviewing the latest supercar, or read community discussion about "ugly" the new Google self driving car is. What I don't see is articles about yesterdays car fatalities, or footage of a road rage incident, or even articles about the plethora of recalls that have been plaguing the auto industry of late.
So why is /t/guns (and the general subject of guns) treated differently by some people? I keep seeing articles pop up about the Charleston shooting, and a crazy guy in Walmart, and sure... guns are in some way involved in the story, but those stories aren't about guns. They are about crazy people. If an event happened tomorrow on the order of Princess Di killed in a car crash, you would not see it posted to /t/cars. If someone choked on a chicken bone and died while eating out, you wouldn't read about it in /t/restaurants.
Maybe it's time for someone to start up /t/antigun or /t/gunpolitics to post these articles to?
EDIT: I also want to make it clear that I understand that there are people who just hate guns and everything about them and just want them to go away, and I respect that some people feel that way, and I would never want to take away their voice, or diminish that point of view. I just hope that if there are people like that here, that reading my wall of text above may cause them to think a little and perhaps realize that this tribe is for the kind of people who do like guns, and want to read reviews, and watch videos, etc.
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Yep, that... or we can go the opposite direction and have someone start a tribe like /t/gunfans or /t/allthingsguns. I think as long as tribes have default names and default rules people will continue posting all things related to guns (or any subject for that matter). Also, /t/cars has more positive news in regards to cars because cars are essentially tools for transportation, cars are generally not designed to be used as weapons and thus a huge difference between guns (designed to be weapons).
I categorically disagree that the posts in /t/cars are positive because "cars are generally not designed to be used as weapons". Posts in /t/cars are positive because that community is made up of car enthusiasts and the posts are about the things they are interested in.
I guess I view /t/guns as a place to post things about guns, the same view that any other tribe would be afforded, while people who do not like guns view it as a platform to push a negative point of view and that will not stop unless rules are put in place and enforced.
I feel this is an entirely subjective point of view. For instance, If there was a story about a self driving car gone haywire and killed 3 pedestrians it would be within the tribe's rules to post that news article. I don't see how a story involving a "car" shouldn't be posted.
I don't agree with your opinion as to why users post what they do in /t/cars, but I also don't try to delegitimize your opinion by labeling it subjective. The truth is both of our opinions about why the posts in /t/cars are made are speculation.
Maybe you have a point about the self-driving car accident scenario. I will say this though: if I search for "elliot rodger" on snapzu and look at all the snaps from about a year ago, I will find they are posted to /t/guns , /t/crime, /t/news, etc. but I won't find any posted to /t/cars even though he used his car to run over several people after stabbing and shooting several other people.
Yes, pretty much everything posted here could be construed as relevant to /t/guns, hell, anything could as long as the word "gun" appears in it, but the negativity around guns and gun owners in the articles posted here is not due to relevancy, accuracy, or an interest in growing the /t/guns community for people who want to discuss guns themselves instead of lunatics that cause devastation.
I'm not trying to debate gun control or change anyone's mind about the subject. I am just trying to point out that some people don't have respect for a community they aren't really interested in contributing to. I'm also starting to get that "dreadful reddit" feeling reading these comments; I know some people don't agree with me, which is fine, but I do not feel like any effort is being made to understand my position, which is fine also, and at the same time disappointing.
I apologize if I came off that way, I didn't mean to offend, I was only suggesting that these "default" tribes ie. cars, food, medicine, animals, etc. are regarded to host misc stories / content that fit into the general nature of the subject matter they stand for which is subjective for anyone looking to submit content. And thus the reason why my suggestion was to create a new tribe that is named more appropriately for what the expected content should be.
As for the car argument, I feel it's because cars were originally invented as a mode of transportation and are considered to this day to be such devices, they can be used as deadly weapons and sometimes are but in general that is not why the car exists. Guns on the other hand were invented to kill things, its the sole reason for their invention even though they can be used for so much more, ie, target shooting, skeet shooting, celebratory purposes, home defence, and much more.
Either way, I think the best possible course of action is to create a niche tribe that focuses on the positive side of guns, and create rules that reinforce this approach. BTW, I hunt, lots, and I own rifles and restricted firearms which I take to the range on a regular basis. I am not arguing for or against guns here.
If a car series had a known defect that the manufacturers were trying to play down or ignore, wouldn't that be relevant in /t/cars?
Yes it would and at the same time, I don't see any. Also, this is just something I threw in there to bolster the point. Do you have any thoughts on my question?
Whether you consider the capacity for harm by guns a feature or a defect, safety precautions regarding guns is a relevant topic just as such precautions in cars is relevant to /t/cars. As are the topic of people lobbying against safety precautions. The difference between cars and guns in this context is that fewer people are arguing that the right to drive cars recklessly should be protected.
Nicely put. When a tribe name consists of a single word like this, it will get snaps that are simply filed under that word. This word even more so. Might expect to see, in some hypothetical near future Snapzu, a tribe at /t/firearms that would have people more familiar, knowledgeable, and interested in the subject. Claim that! Overwhelming numbers of people that confuse guns for crime would never think to post there. Tribe rules against gun control zealotry that would be tedious to enforce at /t/guns would hardly be necessary at /t/firearms. I think it follows from that it would be easier to cultivate a clear headed membership and better conversations as well.
As far as I've noticed in the few years I've used Snapzu, we haven't had any gun control zealots obsessively campaigning against arms rights. The kind of no-nonsense criticism on the subject of guns to be found at /t/guns is probably about the same intensity now as it would be as Snapzu grows. And as wince-inducing as it is when you see someone railing against other people's personal rights in a misguided reflex reaction to whatever recent tragedy, /t/guns is a place where they'll go. And where they can be straightened out.
Your statement above is very clear, and I'm glad to see it. Beyond the practical reasons for claiming /t/firearms, I, personally, think that generic one-word tribes like this kinda ought to be catch-alls. Anywhere there are boards with names like this, there will be a stream of posts from people less into the subject than the moderators. Trying to block that stream, or filter it out even to meet seemingly simple criteria, can mean a lot of day to day work, and an unavoidable amount of resentment. Can't help but think of the worst examples of this at Reddit, on subs like /r/news and /r/politics. Resentments about how those are moderated are as wide-spread as they are, often, perfectly justified.
So my take is it'll be easier to make a very nice niche for a firearm-positive tribe at /t/firearms. /rant