Family move and guns

[Appleblossompetal]

Hello,

English Mum here with an American DH. We are considering a move to the US because in my DH’s line of work he would earn seriously more in the US compared to here, house prices would be cheaper and generally we would have a better lifestyle. We might just go for a few years and save rather than a permanent move.

However, some of the places where he could potentially work are in a state with very lax gun laws, as in open carry including of concealed guns is legal.

Would that be a deal breaker for you? I just feel like I don’t have a frame of reference for living in a country with guns but I don’t like the idea of my DC doing active shooter drills at preschool or seeing people carrying handguns around.

YABU- It’s not a dealbreaker, get over it.
YANBU- This would be a deal breaker for me.

Definitely a deal breaker for me. Guns terrify me. But then so does American politics in general so I know I couldn’t ever live there happily.

@gogohmm New Hampshire has no sales tax (VAT equivalent) and no state tax, so overall tax liability is likely to go down.

@FirstTimeNameChanger

What you've said above is largely true, but I work with very deprived families here, and I can assure you, they are not living a very pleasant existence.

I am (or was - now renounced my citizenship) also an American living in the UK and I agree with everything you said (except for the guns bit which I will come back to)

It always makes me wince when I read posters talking about how amazing the schools in the rich areas are and the healthcare if you have great insurance is - because that is all true but the disparities are so huge. Really much bigger than in the UK. You have school districts without much money right alongside ones where there's loads of money.

I went to a truly amazing American high school for a couple of years but it made me really uncomfortable that the schools a few miles away were literally crumbling. One of the biggest reasons why I don't want to live there again is that I wasn't able to take the "I'm alright Jack" POV.

On guns - on here here is a real obsession with school shootings which do obviously happen in the US but are rare. The thing I would find harder to deal with with young children is that I would not be happy for my kids to go on playdates to people's houses without knowing whether they have a gun and, if so, is it carefully locked away. But it's socially awkward to ask about that in the US in my experience. My parents come from a different culture and did ask this sort of question and got very angry reactions.

But in my time living in and visiting the US I don't think I actually saw a gun (except with a police officer) more than once or twice so I don't find it hard to believe some Americans have never seen them.

I have cousins who left England to live in the U.S. I've seen photos of the guns one of the lads owns and it's shocking

He has a sniper rifle and another gun used by front line Marines, he can legally carry them in public if he wanted to

Absolutely ridiculous

Has he shot anyone with the guns he owns?

@Theelephantinthecastle yes I get it. I probably will move back to the US one day, but I will and do find the attitudes very difficult. The crazy individualism and fear of socialism and utter self belief is hard to handle. As is the idea that, for example, American health care and education is world beating. Well, yes, for a privileged sub group it is, but what about everyone else?

Re the guns - I have family in Georgia and Florida, so that accounts for a fair few. But even in my liberal NE hometown some school friends parents had guns, and the kids would show them off.

"Does this mean that the American posters have never seen a police officer in real life? They are all armed! Perhaps guns are so engrained in society that they don't even notice them."

Yep, I think they just don't notice them. I saw men going about their normal routines (queuing in a fast food restaurant and another hiking on a popular trail) with their guns on their belts. Both of these were in Tennessee. No obvious reason to need to carry the gun but yes, the police all have them as well as the security guy at a motel we stayed at.

I'm not sure it would be a dealbreaker. But you claim that "generally we would have a better lifestyle". That's something I'd think twice about when I consider that the USA has expensive healthcare, very little social safety net, basically no job security, frequent school shootings and higher violent crime generally, abortion bans in many states, more car crashes, general lack of public transport and even lack of sidewalks, and unless you like it hot then a worse climate in a lot of the country.

Again, not necessarily a dealbreaker - pick the right neighbourhood in the right city in the right state and it addresses most of those complaints. But there's more to quality of life than how much discretionary income you have.

For what it's worth, here's a link to a quality of life index - I can't vouch for their numbers and it's pretty general, although you can do some specific city to city comparisons. US and UK essentially equal

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+Kingdom

Cheap supermarket cheese anywhere is shit. America makes lots of fine cheeses.

By the way, New Hampshire is lovely and safe, and you're close to Boston for fine dining and culture. You'll love it there.

An American Cheese Won the World Cheese Awards for the First Time Ever

American cheeses performed well this year, as seven U.S. cheeses were included in the competition's list of the World's 84 Best Cheeses. But not everyone is celebrating America's new dairy dominance; according to Sky News, France isn't taking the results well. One widely read newspaper in the country called it "sacrilege" that only one French cheese placed in the top 16. (That cheese tied for eighth.)

If you were into hiking and never came face to face with a bear you might not bother about having a gun, or some form of other protection with you.

One experience of that though might change your mind.

I wouldn't live in a country that has lax gun laws, and where parts still have capital punishment. The US would be a total deal breaker for me.

I lived in Texas for a good year - the ubiquity of guns (combined with a lot of drugs, poverty and gang culture)ade me quite uneasy. Didn't see so many openly carried, but knowing they were all around me, and occasionally hearing a shot in the distance was somewhat unsettling. It was a relatively rough area though, so it may feel very different in the area you're considering. I did feel very homesick for a more European culture as well, despite being very adventurous, and settling easily in the UK (I'm from Germany originally)

"If you were into hiking and never came face to face with a bear you might not bother about having a gun, or some form of other protection with you.

One experience of that though might change your mind."

Mate, I saw a bear (3 actually) on that hike. Had he shot them he'd have been completely fucking mental.

They were black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains, he is not ok to shoot them. Bear spray, yes, guns, no.

We’re sort of working it out together. He’s from a different state and has been out of the country for a while and is very anti-gun, so it’s a question from both of us really.

There have been 305 mass shootings in the US this year alone. Over the weekend 38 people shot - two fatally - in three separate incidents. Why does a supposedly civilised country tolerate this?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/18/us-mass-shootings-weekend

More importantly, do you want to normalise guns with American laws and values about them for your son?

It’s bullshit because every 3-5 days there’s these US this threads rang just descends I to how horrible the US is and amazing the UK is and over and over and over.

You should not be coming to mumsnet if your want unbiased views about the US as all you get is the typical stereotypical from people who don’t really know what they are talking about.

Many of us were raised and have raised children in the states without normalising anything about guns. That's ridiculous.

You realize that police officers carry guns in pretty much every country except the UK right????

Someone also needs to make the usual mumsnet point about what happens to your sons residency if you and DH split.

Do you have the right to live and work there? Any acrimonious split may make it hard to take your son out if the country etc etc.

"It’s bullshit because every 3-5 days there’s these US this threads rang just descends I to how horrible the US is and amazing the UK is and over and over and over."

Rubbish. They're both a bit shit for a variety of reasons. Just because you're over-sensitive about the very real issue of gun ownership is the US to the point of denial, doesn't mean we can't speak of it here.

I lived in Alabama for 13 years.

The DC's elementary school was put in lockdown as a 14 year old with a high powered rifle was walking around the perimeter 'shooting rabbits'. A neighbor's son shot himself in the leg about 50' from my friend's children on a pleasant afternoon. A couple of children were accidentally shot at school because their elementary school aged classmates brought guns to school. The brother of one of the DC's friends was expelled for bringing a gun to school. I saw a guy walking around the mall open carrying, why was he so threatened at the mall? I have no idea. A junior rower was grazed by a bullet during indoor rowing practice because some dumbass couldn't tell the difference between a 100' long 30' tall metal boathouse wall and a deer (DD was a few feet from him when it happened, I try not to think about it too much). An acquaintance happily told me she walked around with a gun in her handbag.

I would think twice before moving back to a Southern state, especially one with no background checks or training requirements for safely owning and storing a gun. I wasn't quite so worried about an intentional shooter as I was about some fool cleaning their gun in the restroom at a cinema/shop/restaurant and accidentally shooting me in the butt.

I wouldn’t say the replies to this thread back you up at all. There’s been a range of views and opinions, which I’m finding helpful. Defensive much?

"You realize that police officers carry guns in pretty much every country except the UK right???"

Of course, in fact they carry them in the uk too just not all forces. That's not the point though is it? It's pps with the whole "79 years in the Deep South and only just learned what a gun is" shite 🤣. Happens every thread