In the past few years, more and more people from the United States have chosen to move to European cities to settle down with their families. For them, some facilities are better there than in their home country. Like many migrators, one woman named Luna Ashley Santel (@lunanearandfar) too wanted to shift to Spain, but her husband was reluctant until she told him one special thing. Luna posted a TikTok video narrating the incident and it quickly went viral.
Luna is a mom, traveler, and former high-school Spanish teacher turned multi-six-figure entrepreneur. In a video titled “How my hubby got on board with moving to Spain,” she was seen riding in a car with her husband, as they filmed this Vlog. She had previously noticed many women revealing that their husbands were hesitant to move abroad. So, when her husband finally dropped his hesitation, she posted a video telling others what caused him to change his mind. “This guy, he didn’t want to move abroad,” she said at the beginning of the video.
“What changed your mind?” she asked her hubby. As he spoke, he referred to a trip the couple took to Spain from their hometown in St. Louis, Missouri. They visited a cafe there, an experience that shifted the man’s perspective. “At a cafe, and there are tons of people walking around.” He said, as an American, it was quite unusual for him to see people like this, “Being from St. Louis, that’s not a very comfortable place to be in.” And then Luna said something that drastically fuelled his determination to move to Spain, “None of them have guns.”
It is a fact that gun violence has been a debatable issue in America for many years. The cause is loose laws. In Missouri itself, the state has allowed people to carry concealed, loaded firearms in public without a background check or permit, according to Gifford’s Law Center.
In 2022, Missouri had the fifth-highest gun death rate among all the states. In an average year, 1,378 fall victim to gun violence in the state. Fifty-three percent of those deaths are gun suicides, and 44% are gun homicides, as per the site.
On the flip side, the legislation in Spain forbids guns and has strict rules about it, per Velasco Lawyers. The Spanish government has exclusive competence control over the production and any type of usage of firearms and explosives. The law only allows the use of weapons freely during Olympic shooting and other official shooting sports or hunting.
So it was quite evident when Luna spoke about guns, her husband’s deepest emotions to protect his family were triggered within him. “And I realized this weight that I’ve been carrying around with me my whole life wasn’t necessary. Like, what we think is normal, is not normal,” he said in the video. Luna described this change in him by writing in the caption, “Here’s what shifted for him. I’m sure that’ll piss the right people off. No pun intended.”
The video was well-received by people. More than 221,000 watched it, 25,500 liked it, and hundreds of them left supportive comments. Many of these shared their agreement over the dread people feel in America due to prevalent gun violence. “There’s so much mental energy we dedicate to simply existing in the US,” commented @mintmage. @doulafaye_ said, “That is my main motivator for leaving the country. I am terrified for my son.” @runwithwhimsy added, “When I moved to Germany. I had no idea how much energy I used feeling unsafe in the U.S. to do normal tasks.”
You can follow Luna Ashley on Instagram and TikTok to catch up on her updates on living life in Spain.
