Talk:Gun cultures

Suggestion
As I wrote in the discussion In support of Gun cultures as uniquely notable WP:N topics on the Gun cultures in the USA talk page, my intention in creating this article is to have it deal primarily with the non-political aspects of gun cultures - origins, time periods, are-they-still active, etc. - leaving the majority of the gun politics for the "Gun politics in..." articles like Gun politics in the United States, Gun politics in Switzerland, and so on. I find it maddening on Wikipedia that every (it seems to me) article related to firearms gets overrun by advocates and turned into a soapbox. That's just a statement of my intention, FWIW.

May we all edit here in peace. :-) Lightbreather (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2014 (UTC)


 * For the record, this article was nominated for deletion on 26 JAN 2014, but that discussion was closed for "no consensus" on 9 FEB 2014. Lightbreather (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Where to put material on Gun culture in the U.S.
There is a discussion on the Gun politics in the United States talk page about where to put material on Gun culture in the U.S. that may be of interest to editors who come to this talk page. Lightbreather (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Templates
This template needs to go onto the top of the article. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 03:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Duplication


 * Please identify the article(s) or article section(s) with duplication. Thank you. 172.129.246.164 (talk) 09:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Move/rename
Article should be renamed to Overview of Gun Cultures by Nation, Gun culture by Country or some other similar title as it is not discussing the "global culture" but listing/overviewing individual countries cultures.


 * support as nom. Gaijin42 (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose – There are thousands of overview articles in Wikipedia that do not have the word overview in their titles. The 2nd choice with "culture" (singular) doesn't work because "gun culture" in the American sense is different than the British sense. We don't have to include an overview of every country, only those which are significant in reliable sources. The article is plainly about gun cultures around the world, so global is totally user friendly. ...172.162.77.52 (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Notice and request for participation
There is an RfC a Requested move in which the participation of editors/watchers of this article would be greatly appreciated:
 * Talk:Assault weapons legislation

Thank you. --Lightbreather (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It was an RfC, but I realized this is the appropriate process. Lightbreather (talk) 04:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

FWIW
A note to myself or any other editor who comes along re edits of the last couple of days. These two edits - - basically swapped what was in this article's United States section and all but the first paragraph of the Origins section in Gun culture in the United States. OK by me, but it took me a few compares to figure it out. Lightbreather (talk) 23:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Synth Material
I am removing several pieces of synth material. Some of the material makes claims that certain countries have a "gun culture" when in fact there are no citations supporting the idea. When examining the citations, one will find that there is no reference to any "gun culture" whatsoever. In other words, it appears that someone simply decided that certain countries had a gun culture basically because they said so. We must have citations that support these claims if Wikipedia is going to print them. I don't know if citizens of some of these places would appreciate reading Wikipedia and find content naming their country as having a "gun culture" when in fact they do not, and a criminal one at that. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 01:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

✅ If anyone would like to replace any of the material, please discuss it here first. Perhaps someone will find some citations that support the idea of these places having gun cultures. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 01:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Japan
Nothing says anything about a Japanese gun culture. Making guns and using 'em in battles is what most countries do. Military use ain't "gun culture". Felsic (talk) 18:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

New essays
A lotta the new material reads like essays. Like this: "Russia also has a unique firearms culture, though that culture is dedicated heavily towards military use rather than to civilian ownership and much of it originates from the Soviet Union (paradoxically an era of strict gun control) and their war against Nazi Germany...Today, the legacy of Russian weaponry is very popular with firearms enthusiasts in the United States and the world, and are some of the most discussed firearms by historians."

Of course, it's almost all unsourced. Can we get some citations for this stuff please? Felsic2 (talk) 00:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

gun culture and strong gun culture
The full concept of gun culture appears rather fuzzy, by not being properly defined: what do we mea by gun culture and strong gun culture?

Might be it deals with the number of traded guns? The number of trainings with guns? The visibility of guns? The ease to access to guns? The number of times a gun provides a practical solution? An improved safety and a reduced number of fatalities involving guns?

Culture is defined as an an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of the individuals in these groups. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group.

Anyway, strong culture appears to be meaningless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.136.214.49 (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Earlier use of "gun culture"
Contrary to what the introduction says, the phrase "gun culture" was already in use by journalists by the time Hofstadter put it into the title of his article. The TV newsman Dan Rather apparently was the first to use it, five days after the assassination of JFK in 1963. This is the earliest mention I found in the newspaper database newspapers.com. It was used by the Charlotte Observer in 1966, two days after the "Texas Tower" massacre and on September 25 in a Parade Magazine article about mass killings. In 1968 I find four instances in June subsequent to the assassination of RFK. Cpacker666 (talk) 01:57, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Purpose and direction of article
I have added several templates to the top of this article.

The purpose of the article is not clear, as it basically has an incomplete series of sections with a (sometimes accurate) summary of the separate "Gun culture in " article. Some of these sections have been written almost conversationally, as if the contributor is simply passing their impression of the gun culture in that country. Those sections tend to be poorly or entirely unsourced and full of weasel words ("...the government finally made it legal to..."), etc. "Finally"? In respect of what? WP:Synthesis has already been highlighted here in Talk and I agree with the 2020 topic just above here which asks "The full concept of gun culture appears rather fuzzy, by not being properly defined: what do we mea by gun culture and strong gun culture?"

Admittedly, not every country has an exactly equivalent article - some are more "gun laws in" or "gun politics in". Nonetheless, there is substantial duplication. This seems to be a problem with a lot of firearm-related articles since people have very passionate views and want to wax lyrical or stick their thoughts in (the Gun safety article has just been fully rewritten because it was largely written as an instruction manual WP:NOTGUIDE).

I feel this article needs to go one of two ways:
 * Become a disambiguation-type page with an opening couple of paragraphs defining "gun culture" and then a list of related articles.


 * Become an actual encyclopaedic article about the concept of gun culture, discussing relevant topics and differences (self defence, target shooting, hunting, celebratory gunfire etc) in a whole and global context, not simply summarising nation-specific articles (in which case we might as well just be transcluding the lead from each of those articles).

Thoughts? Hemmers (talk) 09:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)