link to original reddit post by /u/mattman119
Breitbart News might be trash, but I've often found that the Breitbart Doctrine, "Politics is downstream of culture," is usually true. I use this a lot to argue against AuthRights that are dismayed at the current state of the culture war and want the government to step in and "fix" what they perceive to be degeneracy. Using politics to address cultural problems is like swimming upstream - it's counterproductive.
Of course, this argument also applies to Leftists who want to see the government "cure" poverty (which is itself often the result of a "poverty culture" that disfavors personal fulfillment and accountability) and racism (the product of an intolerant culture). But I've only recently realized the argument also applies to guns.
Back when the Second Amendment was written, most (if not all) households owned some type of firearm. Most children grew up around guns and learned from an early age how to operate, care for, and most of all, respect them. Up until the 1970s it was not uncommon for a high school to have a range on campus and active shooting or rifle clubs.
How much gun violence would be curtailed if we could foster the healthy gun culture we had for so long again? How many tragic accidents would be avoided if everyone grew up with a deep respect for firearms? And to take it a step farther, how many young kids with violent tendencies would there be if they grew up understanding the gravity of the situation when they held a gun? For so many kids with repressed issues, their only "exposure" to guns are video games. Video games might not make you violent, but for someone with violent tendencies, seeing guns in exclusively a simulated warzone setting has to at least be desensitizing. Would these kids lash out so violently if they knew what it actually meant to use a firearm before playing these games? It's an interesting thought.
Ultimately, questions like these are what make me a libertarian. The government attempts to control culture but is really just a product of culture itself. This will always make it ill-suited to address social issues - but if we can reframe these issues as cultural instead of political, we might make some progress in fixing them.