this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
656 points (94.4% liked)
Comic Strips
21141 readers
1971 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'mma be honest, while I understand your distinction, those using the phrase "gun nut" without a shred of irony do not. To them, you're one and the same.
Collector? Don't you mean "why do you need that many guns, you gun nut?"
Fuck it, I for one embrace the label. Honestly if anything, all conflating the two actually serves to accomplish is to normalize the actual "nuts" as "nerds," rather than making the nerds out to be nuts.
I've seen this argument used in the context that the average gun owner in the US owns 2-3 guns. For context, that's not the number of guns in the US per citizen, it's the number per gun owner.
The person complaining was saying that nobody needs more than 1 gun. This is a good example of non-gun owners getting reactionary because they don't know what they're talking about. What if someone owns a rifle, shotgun, and a pistol? That's 3 guns, all of which serve very different purposes.
Plus a lot of people don't seem to factor in that sport shooting is a thing. Personally, I regularly take a dynamics class, where you go through a variety of scenarios where you're moving between positions while shooting. There's also competition formats that do this too.
Not only that, people don't seem to understand that competition guns and everday carry guns are usually fairly different too. Much like how I wouldn't want to drive a Lamborghini to pick up groceries or haul a trailer, I generally wouldn't want to use a Sig P365 (a concealed carry gun) for a competition.
Oh for sure lmao, don't even get me started on us cloners! "Yes I have 8 different configurations of the same gun, I have the a1, a2, 727, 733, then my moderns with the a3 flattops in 3 different lengths/calibers!"
Lol I just mean that while to us nerds there may be a distinction between nut and nerd, to anyone outside of the nerddom that distinction is moot. They're just waiting to ask how many people have to die so we can "enjoy our nerd hobby." Telling them the distinction isn't going to help, they aren't "insulting" you with "nut" out of confusion but out of contempt. And so, I do not take insult in it, I accept it and "actually it's a good thing."
We're having this same discussion in Australia, where the number of guns you can own is now being restricted quite heavily. However, the limits are quite reasonable for people who need it for farm work, sports shooting, hunting etc. I'd hate to be a collector, because that might not be a thing any more.
As a country though we're making the choice to prioritise lives over convenience, as we often do. And for that I am happy.
Except restricting gun ownership isn't necessary for that. The motivations for gun crimes are the same as any violent crime, in that they're largely done out of desperation. Because of that, your best way to reduce gun crime is to reduce violent crime, which is done by improving people economic conditions: nationalize healthcare, have strong workers rights, properly tax the wealthy, improve environmental quality.
As you can probably tell, the US really sucks at what I described, hence the higher rates of violence. What's frustrating is that Europe did fix them, but also restricted access to guns and continually (and incorrectly) points to that as the reason they have little violent crime.
Also, another thing to note is that a lot of gun control proponents tend to point solely to "gun crime" not "violent crime". That's disingenuous because they're only looking at the methods, not the actual motivations
Honestly maybe that's the answer. You can like guns without being all "don't tread on me armed militia 2nd amendment" someone calls you a "gun nut", just say you're a "gun nerd".