Best Of

You can derail it as you wish, it was more of a rant, really. I often hear that pornography is harmful or can be potentially harmful because it can shape the way you see healthy sexual relations in your own life. I think the algorythm does something similar to how we perceive healthy political relations and discussions. We see a lot of bad faith stuff, how people try to win debates instead of learning to find common ground, how the opponents are characterized as evil or inhuman even and that must be contributing a lot to why a lot of people feel like things are inevitably shifting towards a civil war in the US for example. It's not the ability to debate with each other that we've lost, it's just that a good will approach to people with different political beliefs now takes more effort.

The question, "Should Buddhists own Guns?"
The question should rather be,"What attitude or mind set should Buddhists who own weapons have regarding their ownership and use of said weapons?"

Even if guns are unlikely to disappear, that does not make their presence harmless. Guns in homes make people far more likely to be killed or to die by suicide, and the “good guy with a gun” rarely stops mass shootings, often making situations worse.

The Second Amendment was written for a very different time, today, citizens cannot realistically defend against modern police or the military, but real people are being killed daily in preventable ways. Stronger licensing, background checks, safe storage, and limits on high-capacity weapons would save lives. Treating guns as inevitable ignores the human suffering they cause.

Again we need to agree to disagree.

I own 3 guns, passively acquired by gift or inheritance. Wouldn't care to generalize about whether I, or anyone else, should have them or not.

@Shoshin1 said:

I also don't feel comfortable with the notion of "should". People, and Buddhists, can do what they want with their lives.

Yes, a Buddhist can technically do whatever they want (and I know I often do), but the real question is whether those choices move us toward liberation and compassion, or deeper into suffering and entanglement.

Bearing in mind that guns were developed for the purpose of killing or maiming, their very existence sits uneasily alongside the Buddhist precept of avoiding harm.

I think its similar to the question of political involvement. Does it move us toward liberation and compassion, or deeper into suffering and entanglement?

@RobinH said:
I mean that if violence has a culture I'd rather be known as non-violent. Which, in that way would seem like the radical alternative.

Non-violence has a long tradition in India and Tibet, for instance. I recall a story about how Tibetans would sweep the ground with soft brushes in front of a gate, in order to not harm ants and small beetles who may be walking there when the wooden gates were opened. The Jains of India have a strict tradition of not eating after dark, because one may not see insects who land on the food and harm them by eating them. This kind of level of respect for ahimsa, non-violence, is rare in the world.

In the Western world we have largely outsourced violence. The butcher slaughters animals for the meat on your dinner table, the police tackle thieves and robbers, the prison service detains jailed criminals, the army defends the country. Violent action is taken on your behalf, and sometimes without your consent.