Why are guns sold in sports stores---just a few feet from basketballs and skipping ropes---in the US?

I visited a sports store during my last visit to the states. Their rifle section was about 15-feet from their basketballs. Weapons that can be used to kill a deer, or a child dear to you, are just a few feet away from section that sells jump-rope and sports socks with bunnies.

As long as firearms are normalized by being sold in the same store and non-bullet sports, I don't see things changing.

Of course, this is just my view as an outsider who can't escape American media.

@noims -- My grandfather had about 10 war stories that he rotated through telling, pretty much exclusively after one of my uncles "broke the dam" by asking him to recall things as they were at the Oshkosh air show standing next to a P-47 airplane like he had worked on.

By the time that happened, my grandfather was in his 80's and in very good physical and mental shape (cattle rancher that did daily work manhandling heavy feed bags around, etc.) but had a quirky personality because he was 90%+ deaf. I don't think that was a result of the war, hearing problems seem to run in the family.

Anyway, he frequently used those hearing problems as an excuse for not having to interact with people. He had hearing aids, but he'd turn them off most of the time and just ignore people. I think some of that was being an introvert, and some was probably lingering "shell shock" / PTSD effects. But overall he really adjusted back to civilian life just fine. Got a degree in education on the GI Bill and taught and coached basketball to High School students, then worked as a small-town Postmaster, and eventually retired to work the ranch. I don't think any of us in his family, including his wife and children, thought of him as being "impaired" by the mental effects of the war. But it was clear that some of what he experienced had a very deep, lifelong effect on his outlook.


I wrote out the 3 stories of his above because they seemed to be the ones that had the most emotional impact on him. To me, it was interesting that a lot of stuff outside of combat hit him the hardest. He also had more traditional "war stories" stuff about victories and bravery, like when his unit captured / accepted the surrender of a young German pilot in a Bf-109 who deserted to avoid near certain death from flying too many missions after the handwriting was on the wall that the allies were going to win. But by far, he got more choked up about the other stuff like having to knock that French girl off her bike and seeing starving civilians and being unable to help them much.

Like you said, more banal stuff side-by-side with or against a backdrop of horror. I think it's pretty much impossible to imagine what those sorts of experiences in war are really like and what being in those situations would do to us mentally. And then WW2 in particular just had a massive impact on the entire generation. Basically everybody back home knew multiple people that went away and never came back. Then when some did come back, they were clearly different and yet reluctant to talk about what happened. Pretty messed up time to live through, I guess.

I'm almost never in Sift Talk, but I noticed this too. Used to be that to make the top 15 a video would have to get well over the 10-vote generic "sifted" status, but recently I've seen several occasions when there aren't enough videos with 10+ votes to even fill out the top 15 completely.

I'm not an extremely long-time sifter, I've had an account here for 8 years and lurked for probably a couple before that. But in general, the main reasons that I actually joined the community here when I rarely do anything more than lurk (no facebook / reddit / whatever for me) still apply:

Standard YouTube isn't a community, it is a toxic wasteland. Trolls are the rule, not the exception. By far.

On the Sift, I rarely participate by actually posting videos, but the comments sections on videos here are a massive breath of fresh air compared to other sites (particularly YouTube). That's what drew me here and has kept me here.


That being said, I think we've been losing some of the openness to different opinions that has been a real strength of the sift community. With such a divisive US President, I'm sure some of that is inevitable. But, while we've always been better about that than elsewhere on the internet, I think we're losing some of that advantage.

I think the sift leans left -- not extreme, but noticeably. I used to lean moderately right, although generally more in the middle on social issues. My time on the sift (and also NOT living in the US) has pushed me more to the left, again particularly on social issues, but even on the meat-and-potatoes stuff that I think actually belongs in the realm of government. I'm still to the right of sift average, but closer than I was. Credit for that shift in my viewpoints is definitely in part due to the sane, open-minded, and accommodating debates in comments here.

I recognize that it is hard to be accommodating to some of the sifters that are further to the right than I ever was. A certain basketball coach comes to mind. But even when viewpoints from sources like that veer into territory that we find intolerable, I think we here at the sift used to be better about rationally but firmly voicing disagreement without sort of ... picking a fight. If that makes sense.

Just speaking for myself, I think I've probably been upvoting videos less because a higher percentage of what is being sifted is political, and I get fatigued with the volume of that. That's very much tied in to the current situation and media environment, so there isn't necessarily anything to be done about it, but I'd wager that is partially responsible for the lower traffic beyond just myself.

2 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Yeah, and a Democrat shot up a GOP basketball practice after Kathy Griffin {or insert whatever left-leaning public persona you want} made negative / seemingly "violent" comments about Trump / Republicans.

The common thread isn't that trivial nonsense like this video "incited" those people to violence. The common thread is that unhinged idiots that can't differentiate between fiction and reality sometimes do crazy / terrible / violent stuff. The fault lies with said unhinged idiots, not any external entity that they claim influenced them (Trump, Kathy Griffin, Grand Theft Auto / Doom video games, Ozzy Osbourne, whatever).

Your video, The Time Kanye and Ninja Played Basketball at Drake's, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

That upside down juggling act around 1:51:00 was pretty creative.

I also now wish unicycle basketball was a real sport.

Also, backflips. Backflips everywhere. Like it's casual backflip day or something.

Some really impressive skits here. Would have been great to see live.

I used to have a crossover that was just the same (although not as out-of-control on the right-handed dribble where you push the basketball far out and then reverse it). I have great memories of it accomplishing the same thing.

Stomp has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

STOMP - Suspension has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

Stomp - Basketballs and Kitchen Music has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

For some reason i have an insatiable love for people losing their shit as a group. Just like in this video, when people are screaming, jumping about and going apeshit. I especially love it when one of them pretends to faint or fall over and everyone clamours round to prop them up.

I think i've seen it here recently in some sort of basketball best celebrations compilation possibly. A good place to see it is in the crowds of fighting game competitions (like Super Smash Bros), when someone pulls off a feat of inhuman prediction, nerve and timing. Sometimes they're almost competing to pull the funniest face/stunt and it has me crying with laughter.

I must sound really strange.

Friends and neighbors had to form a human shield to protect a child playing basketball from adults with guns drawn!? And these adults are called the police and demand our respect? Fucking assholes. Not that it surprises me...

There are so many great black role models to look up to. The media just provides useless basketball players are Al Sharpton.

Absolutely....but you asked ME what I thought, not them. ;-)
I gave my opinion, which is often not the normal or accepted opinion.
There is a single, original text for each religion, the sects offer different interpretations and translations, but use the same originals. If you read the original bible in Latin (or whatever language the testaments etc. were first written in), you can interpret for yourself the exact 'words of god', not someone else's interpretation/translation.

As I see it, those you describe were/are religious, but if they stray from the text in any way, they are not (insert a specific sect of Christianity here). It's like the difference between a pick up basketball game and a professional one, they're both technically players of basketball, but only one is a "basketball player"
I have at least met many who SAID they thought that....but none that had the nerve to try it....but if your text says that's the prescribed treatment for an 'infidel' and you ignore it, you aren't following your religion, so aren't an (insert sect of any religion here).

I disagree that it's a 'no true Scotsman' fallacy, (EDIT: It's a "very few true Scotsman" argument) it's a strict reading of the rules of religions and allowing no personal interpretation or modification, as they all REQUIRE. Just because very few people (but not zero) actually practice religion as their texts prescribe doesn't change the rules for religion, it just makes them non devout...and I say, to me, that makes them not part of their chosen religion, but fans of it, since they don't actually practice it.
I do agree, that opinion is based on a far more strict interpretation of religious rules than most people's, but I can't understand how you can ignore a single letter of the "word of god" if you believe, so I can only believe that most people don't actually fully believe, so aren't devout, so (IMO) aren't "Christians" (or "Muslims", or "Jewish", etc).

EDIT: I certainly hope my environment as a child was the exception, I would hate to think that everyone went through that as a kid. It was a daily struggle living as a vocal atheist in Texas in the 70's.

Its a *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Freak-Basketball-Shot-Saves-Dad-Millions-Of-Dollars

Also guessing its a self post