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There is such a strong cultural connection with these ideas that Idk what you can do.
It's that idea of being a real life John McClane. Even Die Hard calls back to Westerns. That image is leveraged by the entertainment and weapons industry and round you go.
hugo7-
Idk what you can do
There’s a few ways of affecting (or more correctly, effecting, I think?) cultural change. The principal causes and main actors are already identified. Suing them into the ground and campaigning against anyone who supports them is a start, but comes with consequences most people are understandably afraid to face: financial hardship, social isolation, legitimate security concerns about gun-toting wackos.
Hollywood and the music industry are complicit with the gun industry in equating guns with play things rather than ultra-specific tools, and in reframing shooting a person as a footnote rather than a pivotal moment in a character’s life. They occasionally pay lip service to the victims of violence but you don’t see A listers putting their money where their mouth is and refusing roles.
The demilitarisation of the police post-9/11 is something that will require a much greater effort.
Leshaches
In America, probably yes. I don't suppose there's a cop in the US who doesn't carry a gun. However the whole country seems to have the same gun culture, cop or not. If this same scenario played out in the UK the kid would have got to the shop, done his business and been given a carrier bag to carry it away in. The concerned off duty security guard would have phoned it in and if the unarmed police had got there they would have observed from a safe distance. Inquiries in the shop made and everyone goes home safe. In an ideal world that's what would happen but if UK armed cops had turned up I doubt the kid would have been shot. UK armed cops are trained to de-escalate as soon as practicable and are in pairs whenever possible. The untrained fuckwit with a gun scenario would not happen in the UK.