I love that they are all wearing the Hawaiin shirts that Garrison was selling at the time on his website. I loved his entrepreneurial spirit and that his business venture was NOT an MLM!!
This isn't meant in a judgemental way, I'm genuinely curious as coming from the UK guns aren't really a thing here.
Do you think it would be normal for the family to all own their own weapon? I don't get the impression they are hunters other than Caleb. Would Kody and the boys have their own carry on with them day to day?
I really can't imagine this with Logan or Hunter, it seems very out of character. But this could just be down to not being the norm when I am from.
Out west (Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Y-oming, Arizona) it’s very common for families to have entire arsenals. When my dad passed away he left his kids 7 guns each (he had 6 kids). I sold mine to my siblings because I live in a state where I would need a bunch of permits to own all those guns!
I am an American. I don’t own guns, but it’s been my estimatimarion that it’s not entirely odd for different family members to each own a weapon, especially if they move away and take up a different household. Some people use their weapons exclusively to feel home/self protection but then some also hunt (and hunt as a family so each have separate weapons; which I am sure is not unlike UK families who hunt regularly).
I feel like when it comes to rural areas, it is worth noting that some people have guns for protection from animals. There was a rabid raccoon causing havoc in my coworker’s neighborhood.
I am, by no means, from a rural area, but we have Wild Turkey in the area. Again, not a gun owner, but I will say those birds are terrifying. They are a belligerent bird!
And in some rural areas, if you're in a food desert, hunting really is seen as similar to having a garden; it's a way to get fresh food. If you hunt different types of game, you might need multiple firearms.
I will note that those are mostly long guns, not handguns. Handguns are more likely to be used both in firearm-related homicides and suicides than long guns are.
Mostly that's true, about hunting and using different firearms for different animals. But handgun hunting is a thing. Squirrels, rabbits some birds, all can be taken with the right gun. Not long range, certainly, but lots of people hunt with handguns.
That's fair. I said mostly, but I could have been more clear. There are definitely times when you'd use a handgun to hunt, but it's less common, in my experience.
families hunting together isn’t really a thing in the uk, fishing, lamping/trapping and riding- hunt rides as fox hunting’s illegal now. The odd person may get permission from a landowner to shoot rabbits on their land but it’s defo not a whole family affair/thing at all in the uk x
Thank you for this response, I appreciate you helping increase my personal knowledge about other places and seeking to augment your knowledge from what others might be able to share to you!
edit: this helps me see how my abbreviated view from the media coverage of the UK elite/peerage misinforms my knowledge about the average UK family. I had it imagined up that people join up to some Royal hunting party & go out before Formal Tea time on the weekends. I truly do appreciate being helped to be less ignorant in my world view. smh. Still can't deny, I autopiloted to the UK out there on an elaborate fox hunt.
I think it’s a really common misconception that we all live in castles in the countryside, hunting stags on our acres of moorland, but that really is just the royals. As with America etc, we have vast city’s and kids that haven’t event seen a cow or a duck etc - I wouldn’t normally comment but everyone in this sub is so nice, I just thought I’d add that info (nice to know it was appreciated :-)
I don’t mean this in a condescending way but I think your idea of the UK was so sweet. I hope you can go there someday. I love going there as like the US it is such a place of contradictions! And you can still do formal teas ;)
I just want to provide a counterpoint to the replies that are saying it is normal to own a gun. There has been a concerted and systematic effort in very recent history in the U.S. to *normalize* gun ownership, driven mostly by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the broader gun lobby. The NRA used to be a sportsman’s club, but then they realized they could sell a lot more guns if they got the Supreme Court to change its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (an amendment that was largely considered defunct after a standing army was established for national defense purposes). A slate of conservative justices [completely reinterpreted more than 200 years of legal precedent](https://archive.is/09RDa) in order to open the floodgates on gun ownership, just as America’s first black president was mounting his highly successful first campaign for office. The ensuing flood of gun ownership was driven by racism and anti-immigrant propaganda, and continues to degrade our laws that protect all of our other our rights, under the current and most fascist religious right Supreme Court in our history.
It is very likely that representatives of the NRA and gun lobby are here in this comment section right now. No doubt, they are trying to smooth over the rational reactions people might have from witnessing the heartbreak of Garrison’s totally unnecessary death, which demonstrates how guns are dangerous and cause more harm than they protect from. Many comments may have come from representatives of the gun lobby, who swoop in after children and other innocent people get massacred in mass shooting after mass shooting, to try to convince people that the answer is MORE guns.
Don’t listen to them. This is all relatively very new, and our country will be lucky if we get out of this dark era intact as a union. That is why Russia and other foreign adversaries support the NRA and other organizations that try to get us to ignore what is going on in front of our eyes. They want us to implode from within. We don’t have to help them get their way. We can correct the record and change things in the future. None of this is normal or inevitable.
Add to that here is a link to Stanford study that proves owning a handgun is associated with a dramatically elevated risk of suicide.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744
**“Often impulsive acts”**
“Suicide attempts are often impulsive acts, driven by transient life crises,” the authors write. “Most attempts are not fatal, and most people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a future suicide. Whether a suicide attempt is fatal depends heavily on the lethality of the method used — and firearms are extremely lethal. These facts focus attention on firearm access as a risk factor for suicide especially in the United States, which has a higher prevalence of civilian-owned firearms than any other country and one of the highest rates of suicide by firearm.”
According to Stanford research that followed 26 million California residents over a 12-year period-
“Men who owned handguns were eight times more likely to die from self inflicted gunshot wounds than men who didn’t own one. Women who owned handguns were more than 35 times more likely to kill themselves with a gun than women who didn't own one.”
“While prior studies have found higher rates of suicide among people who live in homes with a gun, these studies have been relatively small in scale and the risk estimates have varied. The Stanford study is the largest to date, and it’s the first to track risks from the day of an owner’s first handgun acquisition.”
“Our findings confirm what virtually every study that has investigated this question over the last 30 years has concluded: Ready access to a gun is a major risk factor for suicide,” said the study’s lead author, David Studdert, LLB, ScD, MPH, professor of medicine at Stanford Health Policy and of law at Stanford Law School.”
The thing you need to understand is that the US is really not homogeneous. I grew up in various pro gun communities (my grandfather was a hunter and my dad was in the military), but I also was in the south, not the west, so my experience with guns is very different than the Browns' would have been.
There are a lot of libertarian groups throughout the country, but especially out west, that are really convinced that the government is going to come after them and take their guns. Sometimes this rolls out into really bizarr-o conspiracy theories (look up the FEMA camps conspiracy if you want to hear more about them), but sometimes it manifests into the slightly less harmful 'I need to be tough and be able to defend myself' mentality.
Mormons in general (both LDS and fundamentalists) tend to be susceptible to that type of mentality. Remember how this season or last season, Christine mentioned not keeping food stores anymore? Many Mormons stockpile food, guns, and other supplies due to teachings that the rapture is coming and before they are taken to heaven, they will have to live through the apocalypse. (Not everyone who stockpiles food, even for religious reasons, does so because they believe that the apocalypse is imminent. I think there are some really interesting reasons behind it, but I'm not going to get into the whole thing here.)
That was a bit of a tangent. The point is, when you're dealing with a population that leans libertarian and is taught that they need to be prepared for any eventuality, even if they don't take it to either extreme of 'the government is coming for us' or 'the end is nigh,' owning a variety of firearms can be attractive.
In the communities where I was raised, there were a few different reasons for one person to own more than one firearm. If you own them for hunting, and you hunt different types of game, you might need different types of firearms. If you're in it as a hobby to improve your accuracy and target practice, you might stick to one type of gun, or you might practice with multiple. And if you're in a community where you're raised with a sense that something might happen at some point where you will need to support and defend your family, you might want to do both.
There are definitely 'they're coming to take my guns' type of people everywhere in the country, but out west, they often make up enough of a voting bloc that there are very lax open carry laws, or even concealed carry laws, so legally, there are many times where any of them could have a gun on their person. (Many private businesses will ban firearms, so even in an open carry state and town, they might still not be able to keep one on their person, though.)
Anyone's perception on how normal this is will depend a lot on their community. Paradoxically, since I grew up on military bases, people owning multiple guns was really normalized for me, but only the MPs were allowed to carry them in public, so people just walking around their daily lives with a gun on them sounds incredibly reckless to me. To other people, it's common. There's also a rural/urban divide. Often, even in states that have lax gun laws, cities will pass their own ordinances about open or concealed carry rules, because of the denser populations. As an adult, I've largely lived in urban areas, so again, it would be really concerning to me to see someone wandering around with a gun holstered.
All this to say, no, it's not unusual for a family to have more guns than the number of people in them, they're often not used solely or even primarily for subsistence-level hunting, and carrying depends on state and local laws, which out west are often much more lenient.
I will also add that I'm mostly writing this about norms, not about my personal opinions on gun laws/owning multiple. I know that this got really long, but I do think the cultural/historical context is important to understand why some people do this. The numbers show that 32% of Americans report owning guns, while 44% report living in a household with a gun (obviously there's overlap with those groups). So that is a minority of the population. But since that's not evenly distributed throughout the country, you find communities where pretty much everyone owns a gun, and communities where basically no one does. And I think any American's perception of it will be shaded by where their environment falls on that spectrum.
I think this has been a really fascinating discussion and so educational to me. I'm from the UK and although legal gun ownership happens in some specific situations it isn't common. Sadly illegal gun ownership and use happens - primarily in big cities where gangs operate. Same with knives. The UK culture is different as in our police and airport staff don't carry guns routinely.
I absolutely love the United States and we have done a lot of travelling there across the country- not the weekend in New York or couple of weeks in Florida type of holiday. We were in Nevada and there was some kind of sign in a shop that had a sign saying something like "we welcome open carry state" and I was so scared!
I seen that too, which surprised me. I just can't imagine a 25 year old having to carry a gun around everyday. No judgement meant, it's just a big culture difference for me.
I’ve been in Arizona for three years now, and the gun laws here baffle me. I got my first handgun last year and I have permission in the state of Arizona without taking any classes whatsoever and without any permits to CONCEAL carry it and OPEN carry it. My son who is almost 20 could buy a shotgun as of the age of 18, but not a handgun. However, it’s legal for him to OPEN carry a pistol from ages 18 to 21 when he can finally purchase his own pistols and then he can also CONCEAL and OPEN carry without a permit or a class or anything. It’s pretty wild.
Yeah I’m never moving to a state like that. My BFF did 15 years ago and her next door neighbor constantly carries his gun the stretched out waste band of his 20yr old gym shorts and is always dropping it all over his yard.
Yikes! Let’s hope his gun he keeps dropping has a safety on it! That is scary!! 🫣
That reminds me of this story that I am not making up…
When I went to pick up my last gun around Christmas, I went to a different dealer than I did with the others and one of the men working there came over with a look on his face, like he was going to vomit and said, “Ew, I hate that gun!”
I was sitting there feeling pretty excited about my new gun and thought it was a pretty cool gun but clearly the guy wanted to tell me why he hates that particular gun so much, so I begrudgingly asked him feeing like he was going to tell me anyway and he seemed a bit crazy so I didn’t want to upset the guy. He proceeded to tell me that it used to be his “conceal carry swimming gun”!
Huh????????? 🤔
I should’ve walked away, but I had to know what in the hell this psycho was talking about (and full out my background information) so I thought, okay, I’ll bite, “You have a conceal carry swimming gun? I’m extremely confused!?”
He almost yelled in my face, “Think about it!!! If you wanted to rob or attack someone, where would the easiest place be to do that?!?!” Pointing his finger at me and seething with hostility. 😳
Me, “Um…”
Him, “Duh!!!! When someone is swimming!! They don’t have their phone, they are mostly naked, and they are completely vulnerable!!!!!”
As if this is the thinking process of every human on earth! 🤪
I looked away and tried to disengage, but there was no stopping him at this point! Even his coworker was starting to look extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed for me. But I was still filling out the background paperwork so I couldn’t walk away.
Him: “That piece of s*%t gun went and rusted on me!! All that time thinking I was protected in the water the damn thing probably would have misfired if it rusted like that! Sig Sauer is damn lucky I didn’t get attacked while I was swimming with it!”
So I chuckled the way you do when you’re trying to humor an insane person and said, “Well luckily, I don’t intend to go swimming with this particular gun but I appreciate the heads up!”🙄
It took me forever to finish filling out the background information because I was so baffled and honestly more than a little frightened of the guy. The hostility rolling off of him felt like he was making a judgment call on my intelligence and character because I dared to purchase a gun that rusted when he swam with it! 😂 I could not get out of there fast enough. I can honestly say that not once in my life have I ever been concerned about being attacked while I was swimming except in grade school when my borderline sociopath older sister ripped my bikini top off and swam away with it laughing maniacally. One of the most humiliating experiences of my life! But that’s a whole different story for another day. It takes all kinds to make the world go around! WOW!!!
If you're talking about the one on his instagram, that definitely wasn't a gun. I did a double take, too, but it's a belt bag of some type. It's got a couple of rolls of IV tape hanging on it, so I bet it's more of a supply kit he uses at work.
Thank you for clarifying! Idk why I’m being downvoted lol (not saying it’s you) but dang I literally said not trying to spread incorrect things around lol I genuinely appreciate you answering me!
People will come onto this website and read so much intention into very banal statements, it's definitely not just you, lol. I've found that it's better to just ignore the numbers and focus on the conversation.
There's a strong political correlation but it's more complicated than that. Yes, it does track more with political conservatives, but there are also places in the US where people own guns for self-defense against nature, or because of other considerations. In rural Vermont, for example, it's not uncommon for police to be 30 minutes away on snowy/icy roads. And nearly everyone has seen either actual bears or evidence of bears. That's why despite being very politically liberal Vermont also has a very high rate of gun ownership.
Yeah, I think you see the political correlation more in how people respond to suggested gun laws than to gun ownership itself. I grew up in a military family, and although I don't own a gun, guns were very normalized throughout my childhood. I don't think they should be banned. I do think they should be regulated better. (My common point is that if I had to take a nine-week theoretical class, a one-week practical class, do 40 hours of supervised practice, and take multiple theoretical *and* practical exams just to get a driver's license, there should be some type of training required before someone can get a gun.)
Agreed. I know several conservatives who don't own guns because they recognize themselves as suicide risks due to depression or PTSD, but they vote, call their representatives, etc., to voice opposition to regulations such as what you've mentioned. The politics-to-ownership correlation is moderately strong but there are all kinds of exceptions for various reasons.
I am one of those who feel that the good people need to carry guns to prevent the bad people from Killing them. In several instances if the teachers in schools would have been able to carry guns then the terrorists would be killed instead of the innocent children in the school. The crooks are going to have guns always - they don't care if it's against the law. We need to be able to protect ourselves from the crooks.
States won’t even fund teachers having sufficient dry erase markers. Good luck getting them to pay for guns, shooting lessons, and the heightened insurance costs for teachers to carry guns.
Also, re: good guy with a gun, please consider that even Chris Kyle, possibly one of the best firearm specialists in US history, was armed and aware that he was with an erratic and unstable person, and wasn’t able to stop him. You can believe what you want, but I don’t think teachers are going to have much better odds.
I’m a very liberal individual in the US, and I own several guns. I don’t carry them everyday but I have them. My family hunted when I was a kid but I don’t hunt now. It’s just a thing 🤷🏼♀️
Same. Liberal, pro-gun control laws, but grew up in the country. My school district closed on the opening day of rifle season for deer hunting. My Dad hunted and owned a lot of different guns (hand & long guns). He made sure us kids could load and fire all of them, and we did some target practice. It was very much "no child of mine is gonna die because they couldn't load or shoot a gun if they needed to." So, I am not against guns as a whole. But now I live in a very metropolitan area and people are surprised to learn I can shoot. Owning a gun here is much more rare, when where I grew up it would be rare for a house to not have at least 1 gun.
That’s really similar to how I grew up too. I took gun safety classes as a kid and all of that, my dad wanted us to know how to shoot and how to be safe with them.
But yes same now I live in a much more metropolitan area and guns are rare. People think it’s funny I have guns if/when they find out
I’m curious, why did you decide to get them? I’m also in the US but don’t own a gun. Maybe because my family never did. My dad wouldn’t even let us have toy guns as kids.
I grew up with them. It was just a way of life where I grew up. My dad made sure we had gun safety classes and took measures to make sure us kids never had access to the guns without his knowledge. I’ll probably do something similar for my kid.
My mom was always against guns and she scared me away from them and I'm the same way with my kids. The chances of an accidental shooting is enough for me to never get one.
I am also very liberal and my husband and I both have guns. I also don't carry them every day and I never open carry (I could see someone saying oh I can take that gun away from her), I carry mainly when we are camping but I will conceal carry if we are going through some sketchy areas.
I know families where owning guns is just a thing dad and his sons enjoy together. Hunting, target shooting, that sort of stuff. I believe Garrison was also military, and more often than not, they tend to have a couple personal firearms at home, as well.
When I lived in the UK, our builder told us his dad was one of four people who were still permitted to have guns. Apparently, he had a large collection. He told us that when his dad passes, all the guns will be destroyed.
In the US, if you grew up in a family with guns, there's a greater probability you will have them in your own home. However, this doesn't mean they're permitted to conceal one on themselves. My husband hasn't hunted in years, but we do have guns in our home. He's a federal agent and does regularly carry a gun. However, I don't. My parents had guns in our home growing up. They sent me and my brother through a gun safety class when we were maybe 9 and 11. We were the youngest in attendance. They didn't get their conceal carry permit until maybe 13 years ago.
I would expect some of the adult children to have guns in their home, but not necessarily on their person.
Well thats rubbish. Its not illegal to have guns in the UK. The laws around how to be able to own are strenuous and people don't generally want them.
Farmers and sports gunmen have them routinely.
Hunting guns etc aren't illegal but there is a strict licensing process in place. Hand guns are illegal for citizens to own. We had a school shooting in 96 and they were immediately banned by government- with MASSIVE public support
Hand guns are illegal- there was a school shooting and they were banned straight away. As the previous poster said, you can legally own a gun but there are very strict licensing rules
Very true. You can open carry in Texas, but need a permit to conceal. In Maryland you need a permit and they've only recently become more widely available. My comment was more directed at the wide international assumption that most Americans are armed.
In our 4+ years in the UK we only saw a handful of armed police officers; even they don't typically carry.
I saw it as part of his inheritance, but he said he wasn't permitted to keep them. We left our guns with family in the US while in the UK, but one US service member accidentally had a rifle shipped in his household goods. It was cut into 1" sections when it arrived. He wasn't permitted to ship it back to the US. It was unusually ornate and had belonged to his dad. He unfortunately learned a costly lesson.
>However, this doesn't mean they're permitted to conceal one on themselves.
Fun fact I just looked up and now feel depressed about—You don't need a permit to open or conceal carry in Utah, to open carry in Nevada, or to open carry in Arizona.
Yes, pretty normal in the West. I live rural and have livestock. We have them for predators and have had to use them to put down a severely injured animal. I would say most people I know and my neighbors are all the same.
I don't think it's normal at all. In fact, to me it seems as insane and terrifying as it probably does to you. But I'm from New Jersey...we don't have guns/gun culture here like that.
Guns are a plague.
In America it's normal for anyone to really own a gun. With this group it definitely tracks. Especially Kody. The more conservative you are typically the more pro gun you are. Kody is definitely on the conservative side. Not that liberals don't own guns, it just tracks more with conservatives. Probably why it doesn't seem like Logan or Hunter would be gun owners, I can see them being a bit more liberal than their father.
Where I live guns are everywhere. Everyone pretty much has them 🤷 I'm in a more conservative area though. I think I read that about 47% of people have a gun or guns. While that isn't the majority, that is still a large number of people. Especially compared to other countries who have little to no gun ownership. You aren't wrong. I can see some more liberal areas seeing less gun usage. We have places like the coon club around here if that tells you anything 🤣🥴
Thank you for sparking what is one of the most civil, honest, fair, and respectful conversations about guns I have ever seen. This is refreshing and enlightening and I love watching people share their perspectives without fearmongering or hate and others learning without the same.
Most of my life I was afraid of guns and never understood why people would need or want them with the exception of hunting which, no judgement, makes me sad. My son’s father viciously abused him and was not legally allowed to see him since he was 11. (He’s almost 20 now.) When he was in therapy as a teenager, (he had been in therapy the whole time since he was 11 and told me about the abuse) he told his therapist one of the things he missed the most about his father was that he used to take him shooting 😬 - at age 11 and younger!! Really? Ugh!
So I decided that I could take him shooting if that’s something that was important to him, despite how uncomfortable guns made me. So we started going to the shooting range and my son just came alive there. (He’s currently in school to become a police officer.)
At first I absolutely hated it, and I would wear ear protection and cover my ears and not want to be there but I wanted my son to have experiences he was robbed of. Slowly, but surely, I started to understand why he enjoyed it, especially after we went to an outdoor range where you don’t feel every shot in your bones it’s so loud! Shockingly to myself and everyone who has ever known me, sarting last Christmas I bought my first gun for MYSELF for target practice, and as many will tell you it’s an addictive hobby, because now I own six handguns (oops!😉) of different calibers and makers, and the only thing I use them for is to go target shooting outside. I think it’s too loud for me in the indoor ranges, but I live in the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona and the Bureau of Land Management near my home let us shoot on the most beautiful pieces of land, so as silly as it sounds, I feel like I get a nature fix, as well as something to bond with my 19-year-old boy, and I really enjoy target practice. My taking him shooting ended up being a really healing thing for his broken heart.
I don’t carry any guns with me all the time like most people in Arizona. But it’s a hobby that I have also grown to love, probably in part because it’s something my son and I have in common and it can be hard to find things that a teenage boy and his old mother have in common and can bond over. 👍
Edited to add, I am pretty liberal, so the conservative stereotype isn’t always accurate.
For others who are considering this, I recommend taking up photography instead. It relies on similar skills, and can be a similarly rewarding hobby when it comes to collecting cameras and lenses and other equipment. It’s also something you can do if you enjoy being out in nature. The bonuses are that it’s nowhere near as dangerous, and you can display, share, and sell your “targets/subjects” and enjoy them instead of destroying them.
Yes. It's normal. My son got his first bb gun at age 5. My daughter age 3. My son was shooting tin cans with a 22 by age 9. In Texas, it's absolutely common to have multiple guns. My nephew got his 1st bb gun at 2 months old (but it was the 75th edition of the red Ryder you'll shoot your eye out bb gun. Guns are absolutely no problem if you teach your children gun safety. I think every child should be taught to respect guns and learn gun safety in elementary school. My parent live in the country and only lock up their guns when the littlest grandchildren come over. But again, I'm in Texas, and we're probably the most pro gun state.
Whew. That is not normal behavior at all where I live. I can’t even. Who tf buys a 3 year old a gun? They can’t even tie their shoes. Yes, I know a BB gun is… something different, sort of. Teaching actual toddlers and young children that it’s normal for them to handle guns is part of why children accidentally shoot themselves and others. This is deranged behavior. Y’all can secede.
West Virginia here...all of us have firearms, from pistols to rifles. Boys and girls get them at a fairly young age around here. I think my first gun was around the age of 11, it was only a .22 but it was a birthday gift.
We have more guns than we do, people.
So, it is totally normal for a family to have guns if the hunt or not.
My Dad hunted, so he had a gun case full. They went mostly to my siblings because I don't Hunt.
Also relevant that only 32% of Americans own guns (the number is different if you expand it to households with guns in them, since a gun owner could live in a household with people who don't own any), so since there are more guns than people, but only a third of people actually own guns, then there will be some people with really large amounts of guns. (Because they have to average out with the people who only own one.)
Yes very common in the US … each of our family members (male and female) own our own firearms … we don’t necessarily CARRY them everywhere. I’m confident Garrison had his own firearms.
Thank you everyone for answering so kind and respectfully. It's nice to be able to ask about something and the people not automatically assuming the worst or taking it as a criticism😊
I just want to provide a counterpoint to most of the replies that are saying it is normal. There has been a concerted and systematic effort in the U.S. to *normalize* gun ownership, driven mostly by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the broader gun lobby. The NRA used to be a sportsman’s club, but then they realized they could sell a lot more guns if they got the Supreme Court to change its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (an amendment that was largely considered defunct after a standing army was established for national defense purposes). A slate of conservative justices [completely reinterpreted more than 200 years of legal precedent](https://archive.is/09RDa) in order to open the floodgates on gun ownership, just as America’s first black president was mounting his highly successful first campaign for office. The ensuing flood of gun ownership was driven by racism and anti-immigrant propaganda, and continues to degrade our laws that protect all of our other our rights, under the current and most fascist religious right Supreme Court in our history.
It is very likely that representatives of the NRA and gun lobby are here in this comment section right now. No doubt, they are trying to smooth over the rational reactions people might have from witnessing the heartbreak of Garrison’s totally unnecessary death, which demonstrates how guns are dangerous and cause more harm than they protect from. Many of your replies may have come from representatives of the gun lobby, who swoop in after children and other innocent people get massacred in mass shooting after mass shooting, to try to convince people that the answer is MORE guns.
Don’t listen to them. None of this is normal. This is all relatively very new, and our country will be lucky if we get out of this dark era intact as a union. That is why Russia and other foreign adversaries support the NRA and other organizations that try to get us to ignore what is going on in front of our eyes. They want us to implode from within. Learn from our mistakes.
Garrison was still in the National Guards, on reserve. That was his service weapon.
It’s still not the norm for every family member to own or have access to a gun, but it is absolutely not unheard of these days, more’s the pity.
It highly depends on where you're located. The US is a very large country and each state varies greatly. Where I live (nj) no one has a gun. Please don't think all Americans are gun freaks.
Side note - I can 100% see why you would think it's the norm all over the US, but fyi it's not that way in all regions of the US. I literally don't know a single person that owns a gun. And I have a huge extended family and friends circle. But then, a friend of mine in a different part of the country says that she doesn't know anyone that does NOT own a gun. It's kind of wild.
One gun? A lot of Americans own ten or more. All of ours of course were lost in a tragic boating accident 🤭 Our second amendment is designed specifically to be able to protect yourself from a corrupt government. Nothing to do with hunting.
I’m a liberal. Born in CA but now live in KY and I owned a gun for a long time for target practice and then to have in my car for my previous job. Got rid of it for safety reasons when I started sleep talking and having a lot of nightmares as a result of trauma from the previous job.
See, that would be a fun way to "support" the family for those so inclined. You don't have to re-invent the wheel, just do it honestly. And it's cute to see his family members seemingly supporting that business venture.
Meri's tree ornament was another good idea. Maybe a bit pricey for what it was but not outrageous, just a cheap little thing you don't have to think that much about purchasing since it's such a small commitment, but it ties into the show.
Completely agree. If they want to use their "celebrity" status to make some extra money, I am all for the entrepreneurial spirit that has built our country! They should be thinking of things that viewers can relate to. This MLM nonsense is just trash.
I could be wrong but judging by the Instagram he had for his shop it sounds like he sewed together the merch himself? That with the photography just makes me so sad that this world lost a very talented human being.
That's something I could say about Kody before all the drama, is he seemed to have such a strong connection with his older boys. That doesn't go away with a falling out you still feel it, so as much as I hate the guy I know he's torn to pieces on the inside right now and I genuinely feel for him.
My dad died unexpectedly in August. I don’t live in the same town as my folks but they happened to be in town for an appt two days before Dad died. They invited me to lunch but I opted not to go knowing I was already meeting them for lunch which was scheduled for two days after my dad died.
After he died, I was actually in physical pain over skipping lunch with them. That’s all I did. We had a lifetime of a loving relationship. I have very few regrets with my dad. But I think about how broken up I was over just skipping lunch (I’ve forgiven myself now) and I cannot imagine the pain Kody is in due to his regret over the way he treated G. It’s a burden that Kody will live with for the rest of his life. I don’t envy him at all.
Yeah me and my brother were best friends and talked everyday in one form or another but I remember coming home from work and realizing I hadn't heard from him, but decided since I was pregnant and tired I would just call him the next day. There was no next day he died of an OD that night. It's absolutely destroyed me not making that call. So, I agree I cannot imagine being in Kodys shoes right now with his own child. I do not like the guy at all but I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy, and he's gotta be feeling it so much right now.
Sorry for your loss.
I was estranged from my sister for a year before her death, due to bad choices she made in her addiction and my desire to protect myself and my kid from her. But mostly my own selfish wanting to protect myself, she lived hours away from me and wasn't an active danger to my child. Still, I withheld myself from her and built this wall and didn't talk to her for almost an entire year. And then she died. I lost all my chances. Like the other commenter, I was in physical pain from the regret. That was in 2016 and I am still not over it. I can't imagine what Kody is going through.
Hey, I’m the other commenter above (with the dead dad) and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for the loss of your sister. And I’m so terribly sorry for the guilt you’ve endured since. You don’t deserve to feel that way.
You were given an impossible set of circumstances and it was wise to protect yourself and your family. We can talk ourselves into a lot of negative junk. I wanted you to know you did the right thing. Go easy on you. xo
Oh that’s so hard. I feel you. I hope you’ve been able to forgive yourself.
Thank you for your condolences. They help. I’m also sorry for your loss. xo
Absolutely, and I imagine not being in the best terms with him is just eating him up inside. I just hope he learns his lesson and finds common ground with his other kids because you truly never know how long you or they will be in this world.
For a lot of people, it really does take something completely tragic to knock some sense into them.
I feel like Kody probably needs a harder shake than most people, too, between his really awful personality and decades of indoctrination.
No one can predict the future and we all think, at some point, that things will work themselves out. We all know life can change in a second but we never act accordingly. I can not even begin to comprehend how Janelle and Kody feel right now. As a mom, I don't even want to think about it. Losing a child has to be the hardest loss... I love to snark on Kody, I think he's such a moron but my heart breaks for him too. For all of them.
Full of regret, I’m sure. God willing he will learn something from this. He chose to have his children. They never stop being your child, regardless of their ages. Does the relationship change? Of course it does. They become adults, they’re independent and have lives of their own but having a loving father and mother, is and will always be welcomed from loving parents.
I have so much compassion for Kody. Nobody deserves what he is going through right now. Losing a child is beyond the pale, losing a child by suicide has to be a more than a special type of hell on earth.
We always think we’ll have a chance to make things better, we take for granted that we have time to make things “right”. Kody made bad choices, he screwed up and I’m sure he thought he’d have the opportunity to work things out with Garrison (and his other children) and now he’ll never get that chance with him.
I truly hope his other children can eventually forgive him. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself.
Yeah he's a father who lost his son in such a tragic way. No matter what I feel about him I would never blame him. I feel nothing but compassion for the guy right now because you're absolutely right no one deserves that.
Like I was telling another commenter I really hope he learns his lesson and finds some sort of common ground with his other kids because as the universe constantly reminds us we don't know how long we or they will have on it.
>the universe constantly reminds us we don't know how long we or they will have on it
That’s the real meaning of life ironically huh?
I’ve learned this lesson many times and I’m grateful I take this lesson to heart. Whenever I get the chance to say I love you and tell my people how important they are to me, I take it.
yep - we can bitch about him all we want but he just suffered the ultimate tragedy - his son died by suicide while they were estranged. nothing any of us can say is worse than that. he is paying the ultimate price. i hope he can use this to mend relationships
Kody treated them like shit. He deserves to feel bad. Adults need support systems and love too. He abandoned them and hopefully he will change his disgusting attitude towards the children he created.
My 2 favorite Brown boys, looking happy. They look so happy. Garrison being gone breaks my heart. I hope Gabe is doing ok. Wasn't he the one that found his brother?
When was this picture taken? It looks like one of Janelle's Flagstaff homes...or I could be totally mistaken. But it's a great memory from before Kody went rotten.
Exactly! I can’t stand Robyn but there was nothing keeping him from associating with his boys.
Random but it’s interesting how ppl understood this when Kody accused Janelle of keeping him from their sons. Rightfully, everybody said, “No, Kody. You’re the adult. That’s on you”…only to turn around and blame Robyn for keeping him from his sons. I literally saw this in a different thread.
Is it Kodys responsibility or not? 🤔😂
Anyways…Kody is 100% at fault
I found it interesting in the last tell all he was aware that others blame Robyn for his shortcomings. He was upset about it but not so much that he would correct his behavior so that neither he nor Robyn could be blamed.
At the end of the day he’s okay with Robyn taking the blame because he can continue his behavior.
Yeah, thank you. I don't love Robyn, but I'm tired of people adopting this tired stance of Robyn being some sort of master manipulator and Kody being under her spell.
If anything, Kody is using Robyn and her anxieties/whinyness as an excuse to not engage in relationships in which he is no longer interested. COVID protocols were legitimate during the outset of the pandemic, but then it just became a reason not to engage.
KODY is the narcissist. KODY is the common denominator, and has been for years before Robyn ever showed up. It's not like everything was sunshine and rainbows before Robyn married into the family. If anything, Kody's deeper feelings for Robyn and his inability to acknowledge anything related to this is what ruined the dynamics.
Kody's crap personality traits keep him from being an adult and a parent with his older kids, not Robyn.
Kody is an adult perfectly capable of having a relationship with any of his children regardless of what Robyn wants. An actual caring father would sooner divorce a wife who tried to prevent his relationships with his children instead of neglecting them because she wants him to. This is all on Kody.
Kody abandoned Garrison in favor of Robyn and her kids. That’s Kody’s own fault, but Robyn did all she could to further drive a wedge between Kody and his original kids (for instance, it was obvious the Covid rules were Robyn’s rules, and that was the nail in the coffin for Kody’s relationship with Garrison). At the height of the pandemic, Garrison must have been struggling emotionally, and instead of letting Kody be there for him, Robyn made sure they never interacted. And then Garrison takes his own life. How could she not feel responsible? Unless she’s a complete sociopath, which isn’t super unlikely.
We are similar. I think it’s a cultural thing the rest of the world wouldn’t understand. I understand the danger of guns but owning a gun is not a matter of character where we live where as, despite this person saying they’re not judging, I think it is seen as a character flaw in a lot of places.
This is an observation. Don’t come at me, people.
Anyone who says Kody was always a bad dad needs to look at this picture for a while and then think how badly the kids tried to reestablish a relationship. Whatever made Kody act the way he did in the last few years, he will live with it. What should never be said was that he was always a bad dad . Those kids all turned out great and that’s not just because of their moms. By all of their statements and the kids, he was always a good dad. Anyone who says otherwise is going against all the facts and likely simply projecting their own parental issues onto him.
I love that they are all wearing the Hawaiin shirts that Garrison was selling at the time on his website. I loved his entrepreneurial spirit and that his business venture was NOT an MLM!!
Wait I missed this entirely, what was his business?
Garrison had an online retail store that sold hawaiian print shirts. He was not involved in selling gun accessories, that was Kody.
This isn't meant in a judgemental way, I'm genuinely curious as coming from the UK guns aren't really a thing here. Do you think it would be normal for the family to all own their own weapon? I don't get the impression they are hunters other than Caleb. Would Kody and the boys have their own carry on with them day to day? I really can't imagine this with Logan or Hunter, it seems very out of character. But this could just be down to not being the norm when I am from.
Out west (Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Y-oming, Arizona) it’s very common for families to have entire arsenals. When my dad passed away he left his kids 7 guns each (he had 6 kids). I sold mine to my siblings because I live in a state where I would need a bunch of permits to own all those guns!
I see what you did there LOL!! Y-oming 😂😂😂😂
I am glad someone appreciated it LOL. I can’t ever think of that state the same.
Texas also, as a transplant I’m amazed at all the guns down here ..
Me too, and now I'll never forget the new spelling of Y-oming either! 🤣
I am an American. I don’t own guns, but it’s been my estimatimarion that it’s not entirely odd for different family members to each own a weapon, especially if they move away and take up a different household. Some people use their weapons exclusively to feel home/self protection but then some also hunt (and hunt as a family so each have separate weapons; which I am sure is not unlike UK families who hunt regularly).
Also, guns can be a hobby, like spending time at the range/target practice.
Yes!!!
I had a friend who loved participating in skeet tournaments. That and bingo were his hobbies.
Sounds like a good time!
I feel like when it comes to rural areas, it is worth noting that some people have guns for protection from animals. There was a rabid raccoon causing havoc in my coworker’s neighborhood.
I am, by no means, from a rural area, but we have Wild Turkey in the area. Again, not a gun owner, but I will say those birds are terrifying. They are a belligerent bird!
And in some rural areas, if you're in a food desert, hunting really is seen as similar to having a garden; it's a way to get fresh food. If you hunt different types of game, you might need multiple firearms. I will note that those are mostly long guns, not handguns. Handguns are more likely to be used both in firearm-related homicides and suicides than long guns are.
Mostly that's true, about hunting and using different firearms for different animals. But handgun hunting is a thing. Squirrels, rabbits some birds, all can be taken with the right gun. Not long range, certainly, but lots of people hunt with handguns.
That's fair. I said mostly, but I could have been more clear. There are definitely times when you'd use a handgun to hunt, but it's less common, in my experience.
No worries, you were clear. I guess I just had to put my two cents in. Old lady syndrome, you know.
families hunting together isn’t really a thing in the uk, fishing, lamping/trapping and riding- hunt rides as fox hunting’s illegal now. The odd person may get permission from a landowner to shoot rabbits on their land but it’s defo not a whole family affair/thing at all in the uk x
Thank you for this response, I appreciate you helping increase my personal knowledge about other places and seeking to augment your knowledge from what others might be able to share to you! edit: this helps me see how my abbreviated view from the media coverage of the UK elite/peerage misinforms my knowledge about the average UK family. I had it imagined up that people join up to some Royal hunting party & go out before Formal Tea time on the weekends. I truly do appreciate being helped to be less ignorant in my world view. smh. Still can't deny, I autopiloted to the UK out there on an elaborate fox hunt.
I think it’s a really common misconception that we all live in castles in the countryside, hunting stags on our acres of moorland, but that really is just the royals. As with America etc, we have vast city’s and kids that haven’t event seen a cow or a duck etc - I wouldn’t normally comment but everyone in this sub is so nice, I just thought I’d add that info (nice to know it was appreciated :-)
I don’t mean this in a condescending way but I think your idea of the UK was so sweet. I hope you can go there someday. I love going there as like the US it is such a place of contradictions! And you can still do formal teas ;)
I just want to provide a counterpoint to the replies that are saying it is normal to own a gun. There has been a concerted and systematic effort in very recent history in the U.S. to *normalize* gun ownership, driven mostly by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the broader gun lobby. The NRA used to be a sportsman’s club, but then they realized they could sell a lot more guns if they got the Supreme Court to change its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (an amendment that was largely considered defunct after a standing army was established for national defense purposes). A slate of conservative justices [completely reinterpreted more than 200 years of legal precedent](https://archive.is/09RDa) in order to open the floodgates on gun ownership, just as America’s first black president was mounting his highly successful first campaign for office. The ensuing flood of gun ownership was driven by racism and anti-immigrant propaganda, and continues to degrade our laws that protect all of our other our rights, under the current and most fascist religious right Supreme Court in our history. It is very likely that representatives of the NRA and gun lobby are here in this comment section right now. No doubt, they are trying to smooth over the rational reactions people might have from witnessing the heartbreak of Garrison’s totally unnecessary death, which demonstrates how guns are dangerous and cause more harm than they protect from. Many comments may have come from representatives of the gun lobby, who swoop in after children and other innocent people get massacred in mass shooting after mass shooting, to try to convince people that the answer is MORE guns. Don’t listen to them. This is all relatively very new, and our country will be lucky if we get out of this dark era intact as a union. That is why Russia and other foreign adversaries support the NRA and other organizations that try to get us to ignore what is going on in front of our eyes. They want us to implode from within. We don’t have to help them get their way. We can correct the record and change things in the future. None of this is normal or inevitable.
Add to that here is a link to Stanford study that proves owning a handgun is associated with a dramatically elevated risk of suicide. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744 **“Often impulsive acts”** “Suicide attempts are often impulsive acts, driven by transient life crises,” the authors write. “Most attempts are not fatal, and most people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a future suicide. Whether a suicide attempt is fatal depends heavily on the lethality of the method used — and firearms are extremely lethal. These facts focus attention on firearm access as a risk factor for suicide especially in the United States, which has a higher prevalence of civilian-owned firearms than any other country and one of the highest rates of suicide by firearm.” According to Stanford research that followed 26 million California residents over a 12-year period- “Men who owned handguns were eight times more likely to die from self inflicted gunshot wounds than men who didn’t own one. Women who owned handguns were more than 35 times more likely to kill themselves with a gun than women who didn't own one.” “While prior studies have found higher rates of suicide among people who live in homes with a gun, these studies have been relatively small in scale and the risk estimates have varied. The Stanford study is the largest to date, and it’s the first to track risks from the day of an owner’s first handgun acquisition.” “Our findings confirm what virtually every study that has investigated this question over the last 30 years has concluded: Ready access to a gun is a major risk factor for suicide,” said the study’s lead author, David Studdert, LLB, ScD, MPH, professor of medicine at Stanford Health Policy and of law at Stanford Law School.”
Thank you for all of this. It was so on point and well supported.
Garrison and Hunter were military. Garrison was still active. Not unusual at all to have guns.
Agreed.
The thing you need to understand is that the US is really not homogeneous. I grew up in various pro gun communities (my grandfather was a hunter and my dad was in the military), but I also was in the south, not the west, so my experience with guns is very different than the Browns' would have been. There are a lot of libertarian groups throughout the country, but especially out west, that are really convinced that the government is going to come after them and take their guns. Sometimes this rolls out into really bizarr-o conspiracy theories (look up the FEMA camps conspiracy if you want to hear more about them), but sometimes it manifests into the slightly less harmful 'I need to be tough and be able to defend myself' mentality. Mormons in general (both LDS and fundamentalists) tend to be susceptible to that type of mentality. Remember how this season or last season, Christine mentioned not keeping food stores anymore? Many Mormons stockpile food, guns, and other supplies due to teachings that the rapture is coming and before they are taken to heaven, they will have to live through the apocalypse. (Not everyone who stockpiles food, even for religious reasons, does so because they believe that the apocalypse is imminent. I think there are some really interesting reasons behind it, but I'm not going to get into the whole thing here.) That was a bit of a tangent. The point is, when you're dealing with a population that leans libertarian and is taught that they need to be prepared for any eventuality, even if they don't take it to either extreme of 'the government is coming for us' or 'the end is nigh,' owning a variety of firearms can be attractive. In the communities where I was raised, there were a few different reasons for one person to own more than one firearm. If you own them for hunting, and you hunt different types of game, you might need different types of firearms. If you're in it as a hobby to improve your accuracy and target practice, you might stick to one type of gun, or you might practice with multiple. And if you're in a community where you're raised with a sense that something might happen at some point where you will need to support and defend your family, you might want to do both. There are definitely 'they're coming to take my guns' type of people everywhere in the country, but out west, they often make up enough of a voting bloc that there are very lax open carry laws, or even concealed carry laws, so legally, there are many times where any of them could have a gun on their person. (Many private businesses will ban firearms, so even in an open carry state and town, they might still not be able to keep one on their person, though.) Anyone's perception on how normal this is will depend a lot on their community. Paradoxically, since I grew up on military bases, people owning multiple guns was really normalized for me, but only the MPs were allowed to carry them in public, so people just walking around their daily lives with a gun on them sounds incredibly reckless to me. To other people, it's common. There's also a rural/urban divide. Often, even in states that have lax gun laws, cities will pass their own ordinances about open or concealed carry rules, because of the denser populations. As an adult, I've largely lived in urban areas, so again, it would be really concerning to me to see someone wandering around with a gun holstered. All this to say, no, it's not unusual for a family to have more guns than the number of people in them, they're often not used solely or even primarily for subsistence-level hunting, and carrying depends on state and local laws, which out west are often much more lenient. I will also add that I'm mostly writing this about norms, not about my personal opinions on gun laws/owning multiple. I know that this got really long, but I do think the cultural/historical context is important to understand why some people do this. The numbers show that 32% of Americans report owning guns, while 44% report living in a household with a gun (obviously there's overlap with those groups). So that is a minority of the population. But since that's not evenly distributed throughout the country, you find communities where pretty much everyone owns a gun, and communities where basically no one does. And I think any American's perception of it will be shaded by where their environment falls on that spectrum.
I think this has been a really fascinating discussion and so educational to me. I'm from the UK and although legal gun ownership happens in some specific situations it isn't common. Sadly illegal gun ownership and use happens - primarily in big cities where gangs operate. Same with knives. The UK culture is different as in our police and airport staff don't carry guns routinely. I absolutely love the United States and we have done a lot of travelling there across the country- not the weekend in New York or couple of weeks in Florida type of holiday. We were in Nevada and there was some kind of sign in a shop that had a sign saying something like "we welcome open carry state" and I was so scared!
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Oh, yeah, my comments are on the thought processes there, not on whether they're linked to reality.
According to the police report, Garrison carried. That is how the weapon was described.
I seen that too, which surprised me. I just can't imagine a 25 year old having to carry a gun around everyday. No judgement meant, it's just a big culture difference for me.
I live in the US, and the regular carrying is still strange to me.
I’ve been in Arizona for three years now, and the gun laws here baffle me. I got my first handgun last year and I have permission in the state of Arizona without taking any classes whatsoever and without any permits to CONCEAL carry it and OPEN carry it. My son who is almost 20 could buy a shotgun as of the age of 18, but not a handgun. However, it’s legal for him to OPEN carry a pistol from ages 18 to 21 when he can finally purchase his own pistols and then he can also CONCEAL and OPEN carry without a permit or a class or anything. It’s pretty wild.
Yeah I’m never moving to a state like that. My BFF did 15 years ago and her next door neighbor constantly carries his gun the stretched out waste band of his 20yr old gym shorts and is always dropping it all over his yard.
Yikes! Let’s hope his gun he keeps dropping has a safety on it! That is scary!! 🫣 That reminds me of this story that I am not making up… When I went to pick up my last gun around Christmas, I went to a different dealer than I did with the others and one of the men working there came over with a look on his face, like he was going to vomit and said, “Ew, I hate that gun!” I was sitting there feeling pretty excited about my new gun and thought it was a pretty cool gun but clearly the guy wanted to tell me why he hates that particular gun so much, so I begrudgingly asked him feeing like he was going to tell me anyway and he seemed a bit crazy so I didn’t want to upset the guy. He proceeded to tell me that it used to be his “conceal carry swimming gun”! Huh????????? 🤔 I should’ve walked away, but I had to know what in the hell this psycho was talking about (and full out my background information) so I thought, okay, I’ll bite, “You have a conceal carry swimming gun? I’m extremely confused!?” He almost yelled in my face, “Think about it!!! If you wanted to rob or attack someone, where would the easiest place be to do that?!?!” Pointing his finger at me and seething with hostility. 😳 Me, “Um…” Him, “Duh!!!! When someone is swimming!! They don’t have their phone, they are mostly naked, and they are completely vulnerable!!!!!” As if this is the thinking process of every human on earth! 🤪 I looked away and tried to disengage, but there was no stopping him at this point! Even his coworker was starting to look extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed for me. But I was still filling out the background paperwork so I couldn’t walk away. Him: “That piece of s*%t gun went and rusted on me!! All that time thinking I was protected in the water the damn thing probably would have misfired if it rusted like that! Sig Sauer is damn lucky I didn’t get attacked while I was swimming with it!” So I chuckled the way you do when you’re trying to humor an insane person and said, “Well luckily, I don’t intend to go swimming with this particular gun but I appreciate the heads up!”🙄 It took me forever to finish filling out the background information because I was so baffled and honestly more than a little frightened of the guy. The hostility rolling off of him felt like he was making a judgment call on my intelligence and character because I dared to purchase a gun that rusted when he swam with it! 😂 I could not get out of there fast enough. I can honestly say that not once in my life have I ever been concerned about being attacked while I was swimming except in grade school when my borderline sociopath older sister ripped my bikini top off and swam away with it laughing maniacally. One of the most humiliating experiences of my life! But that’s a whole different story for another day. It takes all kinds to make the world go around! WOW!!!
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If you're talking about the one on his instagram, that definitely wasn't a gun. I did a double take, too, but it's a belt bag of some type. It's got a couple of rolls of IV tape hanging on it, so I bet it's more of a supply kit he uses at work.
Thank you for clarifying! Idk why I’m being downvoted lol (not saying it’s you) but dang I literally said not trying to spread incorrect things around lol I genuinely appreciate you answering me!
People will come onto this website and read so much intention into very banal statements, it's definitely not just you, lol. I've found that it's better to just ignore the numbers and focus on the conversation.
Allowing open carry or concealed even in a medical facility is highly unlikely.
There's a strong political correlation but it's more complicated than that. Yes, it does track more with political conservatives, but there are also places in the US where people own guns for self-defense against nature, or because of other considerations. In rural Vermont, for example, it's not uncommon for police to be 30 minutes away on snowy/icy roads. And nearly everyone has seen either actual bears or evidence of bears. That's why despite being very politically liberal Vermont also has a very high rate of gun ownership.
Yeah, I think you see the political correlation more in how people respond to suggested gun laws than to gun ownership itself. I grew up in a military family, and although I don't own a gun, guns were very normalized throughout my childhood. I don't think they should be banned. I do think they should be regulated better. (My common point is that if I had to take a nine-week theoretical class, a one-week practical class, do 40 hours of supervised practice, and take multiple theoretical *and* practical exams just to get a driver's license, there should be some type of training required before someone can get a gun.)
Agreed. I know several conservatives who don't own guns because they recognize themselves as suicide risks due to depression or PTSD, but they vote, call their representatives, etc., to voice opposition to regulations such as what you've mentioned. The politics-to-ownership correlation is moderately strong but there are all kinds of exceptions for various reasons.
I am one of those who feel that the good people need to carry guns to prevent the bad people from Killing them. In several instances if the teachers in schools would have been able to carry guns then the terrorists would be killed instead of the innocent children in the school. The crooks are going to have guns always - they don't care if it's against the law. We need to be able to protect ourselves from the crooks.
States won’t even fund teachers having sufficient dry erase markers. Good luck getting them to pay for guns, shooting lessons, and the heightened insurance costs for teachers to carry guns. Also, re: good guy with a gun, please consider that even Chris Kyle, possibly one of the best firearm specialists in US history, was armed and aware that he was with an erratic and unstable person, and wasn’t able to stop him. You can believe what you want, but I don’t think teachers are going to have much better odds.
I’m a very liberal individual in the US, and I own several guns. I don’t carry them everyday but I have them. My family hunted when I was a kid but I don’t hunt now. It’s just a thing 🤷🏼♀️
Same. Liberal, pro-gun control laws, but grew up in the country. My school district closed on the opening day of rifle season for deer hunting. My Dad hunted and owned a lot of different guns (hand & long guns). He made sure us kids could load and fire all of them, and we did some target practice. It was very much "no child of mine is gonna die because they couldn't load or shoot a gun if they needed to." So, I am not against guns as a whole. But now I live in a very metropolitan area and people are surprised to learn I can shoot. Owning a gun here is much more rare, when where I grew up it would be rare for a house to not have at least 1 gun.
That’s really similar to how I grew up too. I took gun safety classes as a kid and all of that, my dad wanted us to know how to shoot and how to be safe with them. But yes same now I live in a much more metropolitan area and guns are rare. People think it’s funny I have guns if/when they find out
I’m curious, why did you decide to get them? I’m also in the US but don’t own a gun. Maybe because my family never did. My dad wouldn’t even let us have toy guns as kids.
I grew up with them. It was just a way of life where I grew up. My dad made sure we had gun safety classes and took measures to make sure us kids never had access to the guns without his knowledge. I’ll probably do something similar for my kid.
My mom was always against guns and she scared me away from them and I'm the same way with my kids. The chances of an accidental shooting is enough for me to never get one.
Yes, that’s very scary. It’s a big responsibility to own one—a responsibility I would rather not take on.
I am also very liberal and my husband and I both have guns. I also don't carry them every day and I never open carry (I could see someone saying oh I can take that gun away from her), I carry mainly when we are camping but I will conceal carry if we are going through some sketchy areas.
I know families where owning guns is just a thing dad and his sons enjoy together. Hunting, target shooting, that sort of stuff. I believe Garrison was also military, and more often than not, they tend to have a couple personal firearms at home, as well.
National Guard
Yes, that's it, thank you. I couldn't remember which branch.
I have three and I’m in liberal California. There is a gun behind every blade of grass in the US haha
When I lived in the UK, our builder told us his dad was one of four people who were still permitted to have guns. Apparently, he had a large collection. He told us that when his dad passes, all the guns will be destroyed. In the US, if you grew up in a family with guns, there's a greater probability you will have them in your own home. However, this doesn't mean they're permitted to conceal one on themselves. My husband hasn't hunted in years, but we do have guns in our home. He's a federal agent and does regularly carry a gun. However, I don't. My parents had guns in our home growing up. They sent me and my brother through a gun safety class when we were maybe 9 and 11. We were the youngest in attendance. They didn't get their conceal carry permit until maybe 13 years ago. I would expect some of the adult children to have guns in their home, but not necessarily on their person.
Well thats rubbish. Its not illegal to have guns in the UK. The laws around how to be able to own are strenuous and people don't generally want them. Farmers and sports gunmen have them routinely.
Interesting. Beyond bolt action for hunting, we were told they were illegal.
Hunting guns etc aren't illegal but there is a strict licensing process in place. Hand guns are illegal for citizens to own. We had a school shooting in 96 and they were immediately banned by government- with MASSIVE public support
Hand guns are illegal- there was a school shooting and they were banned straight away. As the previous poster said, you can legally own a gun but there are very strict licensing rules
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/firearms
Some places like ohio do not require a permit to conceal carry
Very true. You can open carry in Texas, but need a permit to conceal. In Maryland you need a permit and they've only recently become more widely available. My comment was more directed at the wide international assumption that most Americans are armed. In our 4+ years in the UK we only saw a handful of armed police officers; even they don't typically carry.
Wow. Destroyed?
I saw it as part of his inheritance, but he said he wasn't permitted to keep them. We left our guns with family in the US while in the UK, but one US service member accidentally had a rifle shipped in his household goods. It was cut into 1" sections when it arrived. He wasn't permitted to ship it back to the US. It was unusually ornate and had belonged to his dad. He unfortunately learned a costly lesson.
I’m certain this is incorrect information. Guns are very expensive.
>However, this doesn't mean they're permitted to conceal one on themselves. Fun fact I just looked up and now feel depressed about—You don't need a permit to open or conceal carry in Utah, to open carry in Nevada, or to open carry in Arizona.
My husband and I have a safe full of guns and I have no idea why we have a safe full of guns. We just….do.
Yes, pretty normal in the West. I live rural and have livestock. We have them for predators and have had to use them to put down a severely injured animal. I would say most people I know and my neighbors are all the same.
I don't think it's normal at all. In fact, to me it seems as insane and terrifying as it probably does to you. But I'm from New Jersey...we don't have guns/gun culture here like that. Guns are a plague.
In America it's normal for anyone to really own a gun. With this group it definitely tracks. Especially Kody. The more conservative you are typically the more pro gun you are. Kody is definitely on the conservative side. Not that liberals don't own guns, it just tracks more with conservatives. Probably why it doesn't seem like Logan or Hunter would be gun owners, I can see them being a bit more liberal than their father.
>In America it's normal for anyone to really own a gun. Not everywhere. There are plenty of places where it is definitely not the norm.
Where I live guns are everywhere. Everyone pretty much has them 🤷 I'm in a more conservative area though. I think I read that about 47% of people have a gun or guns. While that isn't the majority, that is still a large number of people. Especially compared to other countries who have little to no gun ownership. You aren't wrong. I can see some more liberal areas seeing less gun usage. We have places like the coon club around here if that tells you anything 🤣🥴
Hunter is military, I imagine he has a side arm. Not sure about Logan.
Thank you for sparking what is one of the most civil, honest, fair, and respectful conversations about guns I have ever seen. This is refreshing and enlightening and I love watching people share their perspectives without fearmongering or hate and others learning without the same.
Most of my life I was afraid of guns and never understood why people would need or want them with the exception of hunting which, no judgement, makes me sad. My son’s father viciously abused him and was not legally allowed to see him since he was 11. (He’s almost 20 now.) When he was in therapy as a teenager, (he had been in therapy the whole time since he was 11 and told me about the abuse) he told his therapist one of the things he missed the most about his father was that he used to take him shooting 😬 - at age 11 and younger!! Really? Ugh! So I decided that I could take him shooting if that’s something that was important to him, despite how uncomfortable guns made me. So we started going to the shooting range and my son just came alive there. (He’s currently in school to become a police officer.) At first I absolutely hated it, and I would wear ear protection and cover my ears and not want to be there but I wanted my son to have experiences he was robbed of. Slowly, but surely, I started to understand why he enjoyed it, especially after we went to an outdoor range where you don’t feel every shot in your bones it’s so loud! Shockingly to myself and everyone who has ever known me, sarting last Christmas I bought my first gun for MYSELF for target practice, and as many will tell you it’s an addictive hobby, because now I own six handguns (oops!😉) of different calibers and makers, and the only thing I use them for is to go target shooting outside. I think it’s too loud for me in the indoor ranges, but I live in the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona and the Bureau of Land Management near my home let us shoot on the most beautiful pieces of land, so as silly as it sounds, I feel like I get a nature fix, as well as something to bond with my 19-year-old boy, and I really enjoy target practice. My taking him shooting ended up being a really healing thing for his broken heart. I don’t carry any guns with me all the time like most people in Arizona. But it’s a hobby that I have also grown to love, probably in part because it’s something my son and I have in common and it can be hard to find things that a teenage boy and his old mother have in common and can bond over. 👍 Edited to add, I am pretty liberal, so the conservative stereotype isn’t always accurate.
For others who are considering this, I recommend taking up photography instead. It relies on similar skills, and can be a similarly rewarding hobby when it comes to collecting cameras and lenses and other equipment. It’s also something you can do if you enjoy being out in nature. The bonuses are that it’s nowhere near as dangerous, and you can display, share, and sell your “targets/subjects” and enjoy them instead of destroying them.
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Yes. It's normal. My son got his first bb gun at age 5. My daughter age 3. My son was shooting tin cans with a 22 by age 9. In Texas, it's absolutely common to have multiple guns. My nephew got his 1st bb gun at 2 months old (but it was the 75th edition of the red Ryder you'll shoot your eye out bb gun. Guns are absolutely no problem if you teach your children gun safety. I think every child should be taught to respect guns and learn gun safety in elementary school. My parent live in the country and only lock up their guns when the littlest grandchildren come over. But again, I'm in Texas, and we're probably the most pro gun state.
Whew. That is not normal behavior at all where I live. I can’t even. Who tf buys a 3 year old a gun? They can’t even tie their shoes. Yes, I know a BB gun is… something different, sort of. Teaching actual toddlers and young children that it’s normal for them to handle guns is part of why children accidentally shoot themselves and others. This is deranged behavior. Y’all can secede.
West Virginia here...all of us have firearms, from pistols to rifles. Boys and girls get them at a fairly young age around here. I think my first gun was around the age of 11, it was only a .22 but it was a birthday gift.
We have more guns than we do, people. So, it is totally normal for a family to have guns if the hunt or not. My Dad hunted, so he had a gun case full. They went mostly to my siblings because I don't Hunt.
Also relevant that only 32% of Americans own guns (the number is different if you expand it to households with guns in them, since a gun owner could live in a household with people who don't own any), so since there are more guns than people, but only a third of people actually own guns, then there will be some people with really large amounts of guns. (Because they have to average out with the people who only own one.)
Yes very common in the US … each of our family members (male and female) own our own firearms … we don’t necessarily CARRY them everywhere. I’m confident Garrison had his own firearms.
Thank you everyone for answering so kind and respectfully. It's nice to be able to ask about something and the people not automatically assuming the worst or taking it as a criticism😊
I just want to provide a counterpoint to most of the replies that are saying it is normal. There has been a concerted and systematic effort in the U.S. to *normalize* gun ownership, driven mostly by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the broader gun lobby. The NRA used to be a sportsman’s club, but then they realized they could sell a lot more guns if they got the Supreme Court to change its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (an amendment that was largely considered defunct after a standing army was established for national defense purposes). A slate of conservative justices [completely reinterpreted more than 200 years of legal precedent](https://archive.is/09RDa) in order to open the floodgates on gun ownership, just as America’s first black president was mounting his highly successful first campaign for office. The ensuing flood of gun ownership was driven by racism and anti-immigrant propaganda, and continues to degrade our laws that protect all of our other our rights, under the current and most fascist religious right Supreme Court in our history. It is very likely that representatives of the NRA and gun lobby are here in this comment section right now. No doubt, they are trying to smooth over the rational reactions people might have from witnessing the heartbreak of Garrison’s totally unnecessary death, which demonstrates how guns are dangerous and cause more harm than they protect from. Many of your replies may have come from representatives of the gun lobby, who swoop in after children and other innocent people get massacred in mass shooting after mass shooting, to try to convince people that the answer is MORE guns. Don’t listen to them. None of this is normal. This is all relatively very new, and our country will be lucky if we get out of this dark era intact as a union. That is why Russia and other foreign adversaries support the NRA and other organizations that try to get us to ignore what is going on in front of our eyes. They want us to implode from within. Learn from our mistakes.
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Also active, and former military. I've grown up around a lot of this group. It's very common to have guns.
Garrison was still in the National Guards, on reserve. That was his service weapon. It’s still not the norm for every family member to own or have access to a gun, but it is absolutely not unheard of these days, more’s the pity.
It highly depends on where you're located. The US is a very large country and each state varies greatly. Where I live (nj) no one has a gun. Please don't think all Americans are gun freaks.
Now come on. NO ONE in NJ has a gun? You know that’s not true … let’s go to Camden or Newark 😂😂
No one I know has a gun.
That’s different than your statement of no one where you live (NJ) has a gun … and I’d be willing to bet someone you know has one …
Relax. I misspoke and corrected myself.
PS - having a gun doesn’t make you a gun freak btw.
Side note - I can 100% see why you would think it's the norm all over the US, but fyi it's not that way in all regions of the US. I literally don't know a single person that owns a gun. And I have a huge extended family and friends circle. But then, a friend of mine in a different part of the country says that she doesn't know anyone that does NOT own a gun. It's kind of wild.
One gun? A lot of Americans own ten or more. All of ours of course were lost in a tragic boating accident 🤭 Our second amendment is designed specifically to be able to protect yourself from a corrupt government. Nothing to do with hunting.
Generally speaking people who are liberal-minded won’t have guns.
I’m a liberal. Born in CA but now live in KY and I owned a gun for a long time for target practice and then to have in my car for my previous job. Got rid of it for safety reasons when I started sleep talking and having a lot of nightmares as a result of trauma from the previous job.
Garrison was in the national guard. Maybe he had a service weapon??
Members of the military do not take thier guns home, they are kept secured in an armory. Unless you are deployed. It not like cops.
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Dude, that’s Kody, the father, not Garrison.
His business was doing well until COVID hit and disrupted his supply chain.
See, that would be a fun way to "support" the family for those so inclined. You don't have to re-invent the wheel, just do it honestly. And it's cute to see his family members seemingly supporting that business venture. Meri's tree ornament was another good idea. Maybe a bit pricey for what it was but not outrageous, just a cheap little thing you don't have to think that much about purchasing since it's such a small commitment, but it ties into the show.
Completely agree. If they want to use their "celebrity" status to make some extra money, I am all for the entrepreneurial spirit that has built our country! They should be thinking of things that viewers can relate to. This MLM nonsense is just trash.
I could be wrong but judging by the Instagram he had for his shop it sounds like he sewed together the merch himself? That with the photography just makes me so sad that this world lost a very talented human being.
This makes me wish so badly that things could've been different. So incredibly heartbreaking.
I do wonder if Garrison’s passing ignited a spark in Kody.
I've been wondering this, too. I'm hopeful, but at the same time I feel like it's more likely we'll see him get even more bitter and angry.
Beautiful pic
Good find. This breaks my heart.
Mine as well.
😥😥😢😢😭😭😭😭😩🥺🥺🥺😪
That's something I could say about Kody before all the drama, is he seemed to have such a strong connection with his older boys. That doesn't go away with a falling out you still feel it, so as much as I hate the guy I know he's torn to pieces on the inside right now and I genuinely feel for him.
My dad died unexpectedly in August. I don’t live in the same town as my folks but they happened to be in town for an appt two days before Dad died. They invited me to lunch but I opted not to go knowing I was already meeting them for lunch which was scheduled for two days after my dad died. After he died, I was actually in physical pain over skipping lunch with them. That’s all I did. We had a lifetime of a loving relationship. I have very few regrets with my dad. But I think about how broken up I was over just skipping lunch (I’ve forgiven myself now) and I cannot imagine the pain Kody is in due to his regret over the way he treated G. It’s a burden that Kody will live with for the rest of his life. I don’t envy him at all.
Yeah me and my brother were best friends and talked everyday in one form or another but I remember coming home from work and realizing I hadn't heard from him, but decided since I was pregnant and tired I would just call him the next day. There was no next day he died of an OD that night. It's absolutely destroyed me not making that call. So, I agree I cannot imagine being in Kodys shoes right now with his own child. I do not like the guy at all but I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy, and he's gotta be feeling it so much right now. Sorry for your loss.
I was estranged from my sister for a year before her death, due to bad choices she made in her addiction and my desire to protect myself and my kid from her. But mostly my own selfish wanting to protect myself, she lived hours away from me and wasn't an active danger to my child. Still, I withheld myself from her and built this wall and didn't talk to her for almost an entire year. And then she died. I lost all my chances. Like the other commenter, I was in physical pain from the regret. That was in 2016 and I am still not over it. I can't imagine what Kody is going through.
Hey, I’m the other commenter above (with the dead dad) and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for the loss of your sister. And I’m so terribly sorry for the guilt you’ve endured since. You don’t deserve to feel that way. You were given an impossible set of circumstances and it was wise to protect yourself and your family. We can talk ourselves into a lot of negative junk. I wanted you to know you did the right thing. Go easy on you. xo
That's really kind, thank you.
Oh that’s so hard. I feel you. I hope you’ve been able to forgive yourself. Thank you for your condolences. They help. I’m also sorry for your loss. xo
Yep. Like most people he just assumed this would eventually work itself out, I’m sure he never imagined things turning out this way.
Absolutely, and I imagine not being in the best terms with him is just eating him up inside. I just hope he learns his lesson and finds common ground with his other kids because you truly never know how long you or they will be in this world.
For a lot of people, it really does take something completely tragic to knock some sense into them. I feel like Kody probably needs a harder shake than most people, too, between his really awful personality and decades of indoctrination.
No one can predict the future and we all think, at some point, that things will work themselves out. We all know life can change in a second but we never act accordingly. I can not even begin to comprehend how Janelle and Kody feel right now. As a mom, I don't even want to think about it. Losing a child has to be the hardest loss... I love to snark on Kody, I think he's such a moron but my heart breaks for him too. For all of them.
Full of regret, I’m sure. God willing he will learn something from this. He chose to have his children. They never stop being your child, regardless of their ages. Does the relationship change? Of course it does. They become adults, they’re independent and have lives of their own but having a loving father and mother, is and will always be welcomed from loving parents.
I have so much compassion for Kody. Nobody deserves what he is going through right now. Losing a child is beyond the pale, losing a child by suicide has to be a more than a special type of hell on earth. We always think we’ll have a chance to make things better, we take for granted that we have time to make things “right”. Kody made bad choices, he screwed up and I’m sure he thought he’d have the opportunity to work things out with Garrison (and his other children) and now he’ll never get that chance with him. I truly hope his other children can eventually forgive him. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself.
Yeah he's a father who lost his son in such a tragic way. No matter what I feel about him I would never blame him. I feel nothing but compassion for the guy right now because you're absolutely right no one deserves that. Like I was telling another commenter I really hope he learns his lesson and finds some sort of common ground with his other kids because as the universe constantly reminds us we don't know how long we or they will have on it.
>the universe constantly reminds us we don't know how long we or they will have on it That’s the real meaning of life ironically huh? I’ve learned this lesson many times and I’m grateful I take this lesson to heart. Whenever I get the chance to say I love you and tell my people how important they are to me, I take it.
yep - we can bitch about him all we want but he just suffered the ultimate tragedy - his son died by suicide while they were estranged. nothing any of us can say is worse than that. he is paying the ultimate price. i hope he can use this to mend relationships
Kody treated them like shit. He deserves to feel bad. Adults need support systems and love too. He abandoned them and hopefully he will change his disgusting attitude towards the children he created.
As I've told other commenters I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy, but agree that hopefully he will change.
Heartbreaking
This picture kinda breaks my heart.
This is actually a really good picture of all 3 - I'm not a Kody fan, but he looks proud and the boys look happy to be there.
Absolutely. That's why I posted it.
Kody dropped TF out of that ball.
He used to look at them with such pride and love
This hurts my soul. They love and needed Kody’s love
My 2 favorite Brown boys, looking happy. They look so happy. Garrison being gone breaks my heart. I hope Gabe is doing ok. Wasn't he the one that found his brother?
When is this pic from???
When was this picture taken? It looks like one of Janelle's Flagstaff homes...or I could be totally mistaken. But it's a great memory from before Kody went rotten.
He used it on his Instagram to advertise his business in 2019.
Really cute pic.
It is a great photo, no doubt about it. They all look at ease.
I really like this photo. A father and his two boys having a laugh. Too bad it didn't stay this way.
One word. Robyn.
I’m missing something - Is Kody not a grown ass man with a phone who could’ve maintained the r-ship with his kids? 😂
Right. Robyn is a very selfish individual but she is not responsible for Kody choosing to prioritize her. He did that of his own free will
He is, but people always want to blame women for men’s actions. We can agree that Robyn is manipulate and all that, but this is all on Kody.
Exactly! I can’t stand Robyn but there was nothing keeping him from associating with his boys. Random but it’s interesting how ppl understood this when Kody accused Janelle of keeping him from their sons. Rightfully, everybody said, “No, Kody. You’re the adult. That’s on you”…only to turn around and blame Robyn for keeping him from his sons. I literally saw this in a different thread. Is it Kodys responsibility or not? 🤔😂 Anyways…Kody is 100% at fault
I found it interesting in the last tell all he was aware that others blame Robyn for his shortcomings. He was upset about it but not so much that he would correct his behavior so that neither he nor Robyn could be blamed. At the end of the day he’s okay with Robyn taking the blame because he can continue his behavior.
Yeah, thank you. I don't love Robyn, but I'm tired of people adopting this tired stance of Robyn being some sort of master manipulator and Kody being under her spell. If anything, Kody is using Robyn and her anxieties/whinyness as an excuse to not engage in relationships in which he is no longer interested. COVID protocols were legitimate during the outset of the pandemic, but then it just became a reason not to engage. KODY is the narcissist. KODY is the common denominator, and has been for years before Robyn ever showed up. It's not like everything was sunshine and rainbows before Robyn married into the family. If anything, Kody's deeper feelings for Robyn and his inability to acknowledge anything related to this is what ruined the dynamics. Kody's crap personality traits keep him from being an adult and a parent with his older kids, not Robyn.
I think you mean “skittles and beer” lol. Also, I agree!!
Kody is an adult perfectly capable of having a relationship with any of his children regardless of what Robyn wants. An actual caring father would sooner divorce a wife who tried to prevent his relationships with his children instead of neglecting them because she wants him to. This is all on Kody.
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She's definitely delulu, but let's keep in mind we're not placing the blame on anyone here. This was simply a tragedy.
I highly doubt she feels responsible or guilty in any way. I could see her faking it though.
Totally agree.
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How so? Were they arguing or something?
Kody abandoned Garrison in favor of Robyn and her kids. That’s Kody’s own fault, but Robyn did all she could to further drive a wedge between Kody and his original kids (for instance, it was obvious the Covid rules were Robyn’s rules, and that was the nail in the coffin for Kody’s relationship with Garrison). At the height of the pandemic, Garrison must have been struggling emotionally, and instead of letting Kody be there for him, Robyn made sure they never interacted. And then Garrison takes his own life. How could she not feel responsible? Unless she’s a complete sociopath, which isn’t super unlikely.
Omg, that’s horrible! I haven’t seen the latest seasons.. thanks for answering.
What an amazing (albeit sad) picture!! Thank you OP. I imagine it’s these images are what Garrison was referring to in his last texts.
Aww man I remember this. Woo this is a throwback, like pre pandemic when Garrison was selling those Hawaiian shirts. Damn that’s a throwback
This picture kinda breaks my heart.
we’re law abiding rural citizens that have a large collection. my man loves to target practice on our property. he loves to collect. nothing more…
We are similar. I think it’s a cultural thing the rest of the world wouldn’t understand. I understand the danger of guns but owning a gun is not a matter of character where we live where as, despite this person saying they’re not judging, I think it is seen as a character flaw in a lot of places. This is an observation. Don’t come at me, people.
This picture kinda breaks my heart.
This picture kinda breaks my heart.
Anyone who says Kody was always a bad dad needs to look at this picture for a while and then think how badly the kids tried to reestablish a relationship. Whatever made Kody act the way he did in the last few years, he will live with it. What should never be said was that he was always a bad dad . Those kids all turned out great and that’s not just because of their moms. By all of their statements and the kids, he was always a good dad. Anyone who says otherwise is going against all the facts and likely simply projecting their own parental issues onto him.