Yup. I used to be a vol firefighter. If your response time for any emergency service is under 5min you’re very lucky. But often even that isn’t enough. You need the tools and skills to do what you can until help arrives. Fire prevention, medical and self/fam defense. Until they get there it is up to you, and many people don’t realize that.
I sometimes think of visiting USA as tourist, but get reminded by these weekly news flashes that I might never return home if I did. Probably not a good idea to visit this third world shithole with a Gucci belt.
It was in the news in the UK a few years ago that a doctor visited the US to see some of his family that lived there, and while he was asleep in bed a stray bullet hit him and he died. Obviously I’m sure these things are unlikely but it’s still kind of scary. That and I find the idea of walking around and having deranged psychos all around me potentially having a gun and them being able to pull it out and end my life at any moment kind of… unpleasant.
Okay I guess. I personally like just being able to live my life without almost getting shot every couple of hours. I have a friend who basically sounds exactly like you and lives in Texas, he also told me that he hears gunshots around him like multiple times a day. Forgive me but that doesn’t sound particularly appealing.
I love how people are mad that you’re right. The only technicality I’d add is that concealed carry is a thing, so you likely walk past people carrying without knowing it, but that’s the whole point of concealed carry in the first place.
Mass shooting events like this are a social problem that ends up being very complex when you start to actually try and figure out why they happen and how to prevent them. There is no short answer, but Angry White Men by Michael Kimmel is a good place to start.
I… think I am good. I will travel to any other country on earth where these risks practically do not exist. As an Indian, I know how bad it can get for me in specific white countries, considering some of the Indian refugees from Ukraine got beat up and injured on Poland border last year.
As disturbing as these mass shootings are, they’re still very rare. The vast majority of Americans will never be in a mass shooting, let alone tourists who only visit occasionally.
It’s telling that most American police officers go their entire career without shooting their guns except at the firing range.
But, it is a sign of US dysfunction that the problem is so obvious but there’s zero chance of the problem being solved any time soon.
A lot compared to other countries, but not so many that a tourist would have to worry about it, especially if they stick to touristey areas.
If someone decided to go into certain neighbourhoods in certain cities, especially while looking like a tourist, they could get in trouble. But, not visiting the US because you’re afraid of getting shot is like not being willing to swim anywhere in the Atlantic ocean because you’re afraid of being bitten by a shark. In both cases, the danger is minimal unless you ignore the warning signs.
So, you know some people who were in a mass shooting, but they lived. If they know some people who died in a mass shooting that’s two degrees of separation between you and a mass shooting death.
As for the mass shootings this week, they include a convenience store robbery, something that seems to be a murder-suicide where someone killed their family, a shootout over a stolen car, shots at a house party. And, in only 2 of those cases (the 5 dead in a house, and the rampage in Maine) were more than 1 person killed. These all technically qualify as mass shootings, but the rampage in Maine is the only kind we really think of as being a typical mass shooting.
It’s far too many. There’s no question about that. It’s also absurd how much more frequent it is in the US compared to other places. On the other hand, the US has a population of 330 million people. So, while the odds of dying in a mass shooting are higher in the US than any other developed country in the world, it’s hardly a warzone. The vast majority of people in the US will not be in a mass shooting ever. Most people will never be shot in their lives. And tourists shouldn’t avoid the US out of a fear of being involved in a mass shooting. Yes, it’s much more likely in the US than in say Japan. But, the overall odds are low.
The guys was committed for two weeks and had threatened to shoot up a national guard base. They had the information to act on and take away his guns and they didn’t because they didn’t need to. This is even more fucked because it was probably avoidable.
There are no red flag laws in Maine. There was no legal way to take his guns even if they thought that was necessary. Also, the christofacist supreme court is set to strike down laws that prevent people convicted domestic violence from owning guns, which will chip away at the legality of red flag laws everywhere. Happy Thursday everyone!
It’s not about listening, it’s about the commander issuing an order, which has the same weight as a judge issuing a warrant, to actually take the weapons from his possession/home. An order that MPs and local law enforcement can legally go and execute.
Though I think this whacko is ultimately responsible for this ill and evil shit, I think the commander might’ve been negligent here not doing more. (If indeed the gunmen was institutionalized, and the commander was aware of that fact.)
And yes, I think the lack of any red flag laws in that state is insane, and that such laws likely could’ve helped here. I’m just making a point that more realistically could’ve have been done given the situation as it existed in that moment.
People get wrapped around the axle about this. If you don’t know the military doesn’t turn you into John Wick. Most people in the military have never been issued a gun outside of qual, but all are given a bare minimum level of training just in case things got dire.
Annual (if that) weapons training is basically “don’t tk your buddies 101” a bit of shooting to prove you can and cleaning after. You only get more if direct combat is your actual job, or will be soon.
Just like anything else if you want to get good you have to put in some effort on your own time.
I read your reply as “He was a weapons instructor and therefore cannot burn a fuse and go on a psychotic rampage”. I believe that is what the exchange was about before you replied. The question people are asking is “Why did he have guns” and not “How was he trained to use them”.
That’s not what I’m saying. He had a pretty good “why” for having easy access to weapons until he was checked into a mental institution. If he was a danger to himself or others I bet they could have prevented him from getting weapons. I’m interested to see why they chose not to or how their attempts failed.
I admit it was a deviation from the subject and might have been confusing. Every time this guy’s background is brought up people tend to think military training is some forbidden knowledge that citizens don’t have access to, which isn’t the case at all.
Every iteration of gun control, with few exceptions, carves out exceptions for LEOs and Military. If you want this to stop a good start would be making these guys have to follow the laws the rest of us do, because if you campaign for more of the same from your lawmakers, I guarantee there will still be exceptions for the people who protect the rich.
I’m not aware of any federal exemptions to gun laws for military/ex-military citizens.
The only ones I’ve seen relate to state gun law in e.g. AZ, where if military/ex-military want a conceal carry permit, the training requirement is waived. You still have to submit an application with fingerprints and everything to DPS. (Which is kinda moot anyway, since AZ citizens who can federally own a firearm can also open/conceal carry.)
None of them were using muzzle loaders. The death toll and injury count would have been drastically lower if it took roughly 30 seconds to a minute to reload the guns per shot.
Exceptions for active military can work because they are subject to the far more strict ucmj. Cops are a real problem though, they kill 1000 or so people every year with minimal consequence.
The ucmj being strict is worth little against someone taking up his guns and going rampage.
Why does anyone from the Police or Military need to own firearms privately? The only reason i could think of is training, but that is a responsibility of the employer, to give enough training to the cops and soldiers.
That’s where the gun culture comes in. America has none, they just have guns and no protective, strict culture of do’s and don’ts around them. Not everything has to be restricted by law if a society decides that there are still rules. We have a social rule that when we sneeze or cough we put something in front of our mouth. It is not a law, but it is a healthy social rule that is helpful; everyone accepts that they are not free to sneeze in other people’s faces. You need either gun laws or gun culture, Switzerland chose more culture, Germany more law, both work. America chose … more guns and the “freedom” to shoot them in other people’s faces. That’s stupid and dangerous.
you should clarify what exactly you mean by ‘free’, cause as an outsider it just seems like you have the freedom to get indiscriminatly mowed down by high powered rifles owned by mentally ill spree shooters.
you should clarify what exactly you mean by ‘free’, cause as an outsider it just seems like you have the freedom to get indiscriminatly mowed down by high powered rifles owned by mentally ill spree shooters.
As an insider it seems like this too.
But to the guy you replied to it's most likely the freedom to have a gun which you never do those bad things with, while also plugging your ears regarding the reality that the same laws protecting your ability to have a gun and not do those bad things are enabling that endless stream of indiscriminate deaths by the folks who do those bad things.
And although I don't know him personally, he probably also deflects to mental health being the cause while continuing to vote for the party that both is responsible for our lack of mental health infrastructure and also refuses to consider restrictions on gun ownership.
Being able to choose either of those myself is unarguably the freest. The real question is the conflicting rights. If the right to own guns is conflicting with the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness then we need to find a resolution. Legally speaking when two rights collide like this the they typically try and preserve as much of both rights as possible. Thats not what every gun control advocate wants though. Everyone has a different version of how it should shake out.
This argument would make more sense if this free society wasn’t the same society that would jail me for years for wanting to occasionally do some cocaine. As it stands, this is not a free society and this argument isn’t one.
Not so fun fact cops were invented to prevent people like us from stealing crates in the harbor 200 years ago. They used to be just upper class people who patrolled the port. They didn’t always exist, so it’s just as possible for them to cease to exist. A society without goons in blue is possible. Cops protect the owners of the country. edit: Why can’t we commoners set up our own force to protect us the regular people?
What’s unsurprising is how strictly gun control is implemented on US military bases and navy ships.
If you live in barracks on-base and own a personal gun, if often has to be stored in the base’s firearm storage. The only people who can walk around armed are MPs or people on their way to/from authorized training. Even if you have a concealed carry permit for the state the base is in, you can’t conceal carry in the base. If you’re on your way to the base’s firing range and stop to get gas at the base’s gas station, you can’t leave your gun in your car while you go into the convenience store at the gas station unless your car is locked in your trunk. Often even a paintball gun has to be stored in the base armory.
Keep in mind these aren’t rules for random civilians. These are the rules for people who have already had to pass extensive firearms training courses.
It’s pretty insane that random untrained civilians have far fewer restrictions on guns than members of the military on a military base.
I understand why it seems strange that the Military has stricter regulations on weapons than civilians but honestly thats a good thing to me. Not saying the level of rules on civilians is fine the way it is, however soldiers are quite literally tools of and representative of the US government, what they do, the US government does, or at the very least is accountable for. Often times what they are doing they are doing to citizens (or soldiers) of other countries as well. A random US citizen doesn’t represent the government, but an active soldier is very much representetive of theirs. From the governments POV its like self preservation.
Aside from all that, it’s just sane to lock down weapons.
The military knows how dangerous they are, so they don’t let people on military bases just wander around with them. They’re carefully controlled. It’s just insanity that outside the walls the rules are less strict.
The lack of laws around weapon storage are wild. As a part of gun culture I can tell you in the US the gun culture around you is going to determine how safe the area is from guns, and in no small part due to storage habbits that somehow come down to the culture rather than the law. When I see divisions between red and blue state gun crime, it makes intament sense to me having seen how gun culture is in each place. Even the conservatives in liberal areas are generally more careful with weapons than the conservatives in area where they are the majority. Advertising is another problem that imo is a massive contribution to the negative aspects of US gun culture. Not many outside of the culture would see this but if you go to a web site that sells gun accessories and buy something, just wait for the bonkers catalogue they send you in the mail later. For me it looked like a mall ninjas paradise, with just enough inflammatory marketing to not be punished for it, and if we can’t reign that in as well I fear all we will be doing is chnging what type of gun the next shooting will be done with.
Extensive firearms training is a bit of a stretch. Yes combat jobs get plenty of range time, but many only get a basic refreshers as needed (before deployment)
But yes military bases are pretty strict compared to outside the fence
Those positions of power exist to serve a function in the machinery of capital, which means that even the best-intentioned people filling them only have the ability to act in it’s (and their) immediate interests. Unfortunately the system isn’t fundamentally broken, it’s excelling beyond all initial expectations-at what it’s actually designed for. Things are now breaking down because the various contradictions and feedback loops of it’s destructive economic methods are piling up, like a huge lobster suffocating under the weight of it’s shell.
Fuck Reagan. He created this shithole of a situation and ruined this country. I’m happy he died of Alzheimers and simply pray he was terrified and miserable in the last moments of his life.
The Second Amendment is possibly one of the most frequently and wilfully misinterpreted pieces of writing in the history of humanity. Right next to the bible.
Reagan dismantled the mental health institutions which were commonly abusive to patients and featured no objective pathway to release for those committed. They were basically prisons for the mentally ill and undesirable that hadn’t already committed crimes. They did successfully isolate a handful of truly dangerous people though.
The second amendment isn’t what is causing mass shootings. Mass shootings are a recent and regional phenomenon that haven’t existed (or been incredibly rare) in many instances with just as many guns
The 2a doesn’t, or didn’t until 2010, make reasonable gun control outside government legislation.
It was a sharp shift to the constitution first in 2008 at the federal level and then applied to the states under the doctrine of incorporation in 2010.
Gun nuts like to pretend it is some eternal constant, or more likely most of them simply don’t know the law here and are just parroting the gun lobby take on things, but it’s a straightforward fact that the individualized right to own guns didn’t even really exist until 2008 and the near complete inability to pass any gun laws didn’t exist until 2010.
The 2a was reinterpreted very recently. Before 2008 it wasn’t well defined and most assumed the bit about militias had something to do with it. Scalia basically is the one who decided to edit out that part of the constitution by calling it a preamble, which is extremely against the fundamental principles of constitutional interpretation which is to assume every word was written for a reason.
And for the record I like guns and am for gun policies that allow sane and healthy adults to have guns.
I have been to a lot of gun shows in my day and for all I know, what you wrote might be the modern legal argument or whatever as far as libs on the joke of our SCOTUS; but I can personally vouch for the absolutely confirmed existence of insane “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” gun libertarians, sov cits, white supremacy, tree of liberty watered with the blood of the patriot, cult compound guys since at least the 70s, and undoubtedly before that, and I’ve seen the typewritten manifestos to prove it.
If anything the 2A guys are WAY more moderate than they used to be. The old guard of rednecks before my time all had a bunch of basically illegal shit that was grandfathered into being quasi legal, not because it was a good idea, but because the ATF didn’t feel like losing all their field agents.
Could not disagree more with what you said. Reagan doing a heel turn on his nut job electorate and dramatically restricting gun rights as governor because of the black panthers is def peak radicalized shit for libertarians working their way into a more coherent political systems theory, though.
I didn’t say anything about Reagan. If you are saying “Fuck Reagan” then we don’t disagree about anything important so far as Reagan is concerned.
As for it not being a legal right in the USA that’s a straightforward fact. It was DC vs. Heller, a 2008 case where a Washington DC law was found to be unconstitutional which is the first case where such a law restricting access to handguns was found to be unconstitutional. There were plenty such laws prior to 2008 that survived legal challenges which is what proves the legal right to own a gun didn’t exist prior. But in 2008 the Supreme Court stated the law was unconstitutional at the federal level (DC being a federal district) establishing an individualized right to guns for the first time.
And it was in 2010 that this was extended to additionally restrict the law making power of states, in addition to the federal government, since by default the constitution is understood to restrict the federal government and not the states, but the poorly defined legal doctrine of “incorporation” basically says some bits are applied to restrict states as well.
In the sense of having an individualized legal right to own a gun, prior to 2008 it didn’t exist.
As for ruby ridge types saying shall not be infringed sure, I’m sure many of them advocated the maximalist interpretation way back when that the courts later adopted in 2008, but up until at least the late 90s the idea that weapons could be regulated wasn’t even controversial and the maximalist position could then be called mostly fringe and was only just beginning to emerge as a position a suit wearing serious legal professional would advocate. Bill Clinton banned a bunch of them in 1994 and no one really blinked an eye at the constitutionality of it and the federal assault weapon ban of 1994 survived legal challenges that it definitely would not have survived after 2008 and DC vs. Heller.
The NRA became a lot more activist in the 80s and 90s and really it was their activism that pushed the once-fringe idea that the constitution required largely unrestricted access to weapons into the mainstream.
Which requires editing out an entire sentence by calling it a prefatory clause, a preamble, which flies in the face of the fundamentals of constitutional interpretation which requires the assumption that each word was written for a reason.
I think we live in very different worlds. People absolutely lost their shit over Clinton’s bans.
Legal interpretation doesn’t always match up to what people see as their right and how aggressively they will enforce that right until the courts catch up to where they are. You’re saying it happened with guns and we all just saw it happen with the religious extremists that run this country and abortion.
Unfortunately, this the correct way to view the legal system, as a means to an end that can be lobbied or bullied into getting what you want. Even more unfortunately, liberals view it as inviolable holy scripture handed down by God that must be honored regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Seeing it as your right, having an expectation that it should be a right, isn’t the same as being a legal right though.
You could have said you disagreed with the court but unless you’re sitting on that court you can disagree all you want and it actually just doesn’t mean anything in terms of changing the reality that it’s not up to you what legal rights are or how the constitution is interpreted because that’s what the Supreme Court is for - and it says so in the constitution.
A legal right is a constructed and formal concept. A legal right simply does not exist unless the courts say it does even if you strongly feel it should exist. That’s what I’m saying.
And since 2008 that legal right has existed but before then it simply didn’t.
And I’m not a liberal man. I’m not even anti-guns.
I am a progressive and you probably view the terms progressive and liberal as synonyms but they aren’t.
In fact youre the one who is appealing to an idealism here, and in that sense you’re more of a liberal than I am even if I’m closer to them in the sense or being a progressive. You’re pointing to a right existing in some almost metaphysical sense, ie you’re saying that because people felt it should be a right you’re saying it in some sense existed. Which is liberal idealism.
Look, we probably aren’t actually very far in terms of what we think sensible gun policy should be since I think if you’re in Montana or whatever then yeah sure a rifle makes a lot of sense and can be a lot of fun and you pointed to the more modern and moderate 2a types which probably places you actually not far from me in terms of what we would agree sensible gun laws could be.
What I said is that the legal right to own a gun was created in 2008 and that is a straightforward fact. It’s DC vs. Heller. 2008. Look it up if you want to. Going on about how some people really felt it should be a right before then doesn’t change that, and it is also a fact that if you were to ask a mainstream legal scholar in the 80s or early to mid 90s you would have to look into some pretty partisan political camps to find someone who would have advocated the current interpretation that was established recently in 2008.
But of course since the late 90s and certainly in the late 2000s you can find a lot of them. That’s also a fact.
On the off chance this question was asked in earnest:
The typical deflection from the US right is that the real problem is that we need to put more effort into addressing mental health. (and IMO there is some truth to that)
However, Reagan (R) dismantled funding for our mental health infrastructure and was responsible for the closing of many mental health treatment centers, and Republicans since then have (to my knowledge) voted against every effort to resurrect it.
They won't support restrictions on gun ownership because they say the problem is mental health, but they won't support spending on mental health either. (Most likely because they seem to oppose anything that would actually help people who suffer.)
The system is fucked and lacks funding, oh well let’s throw it out. Regan was okay with this because he, and almost all politicians, don’t have to live amidst it. I’m not a fan of electing people who say “it doesn’t work and it doesn’t have a chance of working so let’s not do anything about it”.
There are plenty of examples of systems that work, if ours doesn’t work then I expect elected officials to do something about it, not spit into the wind.
Dismissing the issue as saying all mental health institutions were shit back then and he got rid of them for good reasons is just as bad as saying mass shooters issue is mental health not guns. You’re hiding behind the obvious solutions. Manage the amount of access to guns, especially for people with mental health problems. Put funding, work, policies, mandates into those mental institutions, don’t just fucking get rid of them who the fuck is that gonna help in the end?
Hmmm, so all of those “well regulated militia means the national guard, the only people who should have guns are the cops and the national guard because they’re the only ones responsible enough” people are going to finally admit that cops and weekend warriors aren’t actually all that special and the training they recieve doesn’t make them good people it only makes them more effective should they decide to be bad people?
Why? No one, zero people, who join the military or the police, do so without the intention of using force over others. These aren’t good people, I’m not going to concern myself with what category of shitty to put them under.
Maybe they should differ. I think that anyone who hasn’t proven themselves a danger to others should be able to own one, even people with PTSD which shouldn’t be stigmatized simply because some people with it do violent things. Most people with PTSD do not.
Unfortunately a fact that few are willing to recognize is that if you have been homeless in the US for more than 4 weeks there is a very high (like high 90s percent) chance that you have PTSD. It’s not just the military, though us vets certainly have it as well. I’ll also wager that anyone that has spent any amount of time in our jails also has PTSD. The point I’m making is that despite the common person thinking that PTSD is just exclusive to the military, it is in fact, not.
I haven’t actually looked into it, but I would wager that globally we have better than 6 billion people walking around with some form of PTSD.
That and survivors of rape, assault (sexual or otherwise,) b&e, the list of potential causes is a mile long. I’d wager your wager is not at all unreasonable.
I have seen no indication that he had left the service, every report I have seen thus far has indicated that he was an active member of the US Army reserve serving as Sergeant First Class assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiments in Saco, Maine.
People who say that actually want a complete and total ban on guns, but acknowledge the constitution says what it says and amendments are literally impossible in today’s political climate.
Also, one could argue a “well regulated” militia wouldn’t send guns home with its members. It could be kept at a central facility.
I know they do, I was actually specifically calling that out, as they always say “nuh uh” when you point out that they do in fact want a total ban on self defense.
One could argue anything, doesn’t make them actually correct. “The militia” is defined “as all able bodied males age 17-45,” not as “the national guard, which is a military branch not a militia.” As such, this argument says to me that “all able bodied males age 17-45” should be able to own guns and nobody else, no women, nobody in a wheelchair or with anything that would disqualify one medically from service like colorblindness, etc. Of course, that is ridiculous, but that’s why I prefer the “actually knows english” approach to that particular argument.
It’s still not necessary to qualify it that way. “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” stands on its own with the preceding sentence explaining Why.
Regardless of semantics, the Supreme Court has confirmed individual rights to bear arms in triplicate and that matter is settled.
We really need to get them to review Harlow V Fitzgerald, and present them with the full text of section 1983 with the 16 missing words, as the 1871 Congress passed that law.
Well the case I referenced occurred in 1982, but I think it was mainly because no one took the time to look at the Congressional Record, and compare it to the text in the Federal Register.
That’s an interesting idea. Maybe in situations like this, the governor should activate the militia to hunt this guy down. Allow the community to protect itself instead of relying only on the cops. Lots of things could go wrong, but still, it could show the intent of the 2a.
In a sense this is already in effect to the degree that is…necessary, or maybe the word I should use is “appropriate.” If anyone who is carrying arms runs into this guy, knows what he looks like and gets a positive ID, and knows what he’s done, while it isn’t 100% legal to draw on him unless he’s presenting an active threat (i.e he has a gun out), no DA in the country would charge you with brandishing. Then from there you say freeze, he reaches for his gun, shit happens.
The problem with deputizing the entire county for a manhunt though is giving people real authority can have some ill effects, and is pretty much guaranteeing mob justice to become a norm again. I’d say we’re at the happy medium of “nobody will question you if you do find him, but I’m not going to imbue you with the authority of the state per se.”
My Aunt and Uncle live there. I heard the news at around 11pm. Called her up to make sure they were ok. They are scared in there home with doors locked.
The United States of America is the best/easiest place in the world to own guns. It’s the only place you can get a gun at a convenience store. In fact, in most states, a background check isn’t required unless you’re buying from a federally licensed firearm dealer.
The above is a copypaste, but it gets the point across perfectly. It’s vey easy to get a gun in the USA, unlike in many other countries.
Mass shootings happen everywhere. Most mass shootings happen with illegal firearms, and finally, tons of saves happen because good people own firearms.
Cool story, crypto-bro. Lemme guess, you fancy yourself a real "alpha-male" too, right?
I do hope you face exactly what they faced, but without guns. Maybe when your wife or sister gets raped in front of you, you’ll learn why sticking a gun up your butt is a good idea.
Mm k there psycho, I hope violence befalls you and yours as well.
The US has more than 4x as many homicides overall with almost 90% of those being gun related. US could save a lot of people if they weren’t so intent on their little murder toys.
I see you don’t know how to read sources. That explains a lot, hehe! I guess it explains why you haven’t posted any of your own. Clearly we are done here.
I may or may not know where to get illegal firearms, but would’ve done something very drastic ages ago already if I could simply go get a gun within 3 days legally.
Only because the friends that would get me to an illegal one know my mental health well enough to not give it to me. No grocery store background check would find any of that.
What’s funny is that when you talk about illegal firearms in other countries, they must likely came from the USA (or in Canada’s case, they definitely came from there).
You shouldn’t be surprised. It’s caused by the same bad actors who are responsible for most of the ways in which the US is an outlier vs its so-called peer democracies.
Actual regular people haven’t accepted it as normal. Fascists in our country continue to hamstring any efforts to fix the situation because they want the rest of us to keep being reminded that the fascists can and will murder us at will. Standard issue stochastic terrorism.
As an American, I think the moment I said “which one” when asked if I had heard about the mass shooting in wherever it was I can’t even remember now, that was when I realized how fucked our gun policies are.
What else is there to do but accept it? It isn’t like our politicians have the will to do anything about it. Peaceful protest falls on deaf ears. The gun crazies would gladly die in a blaze of glory rather than be disarmed. The country is awash in guns and ammunition. So please do tell, oh wise outsider, what the hell a normal person is supposed to do about it?
Peaceful protests? There are less peaceful protests for gun control than shootings. Maybe start there.
But I agree the US seems beyond screwed in that regard. NRA is too powerful, the two party system is stuck on the far right and society is divided into extremist views by propaganda and social media.
So maybe leave the country? That’s what I’d do I think.
And pray tell, what would so called gun control do besides strength the oppressor cops? The people would lose any power they have if the corrupt cops were the only ones with weapons.
There are fewer protests these days because people are catching on that they don’t accomplish dick. As to leaving, people have families. Not just their immediate family but think aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s not trivial to leave all that behind and move somewhere where you know no one and have no support structure, and maybe you don’t even speak the language. And to even consider it, you’ve got to have the time and money to expend on moving, and your destination country has to agree to let you in. It’s not a simple undertaking.
It’s not simple at all, I absolutely agree. And leaving family behind sucks. On the other hand I know several people who left Europe and moved to Australia and Canada for example. It can work even though it won’t be easy for everyone involved. But if the alternative is having my kids get shot at school I’d still try. Plus all the social security that’s missing in the US would probably make other countries more attractive to me too.
The alternative of having your kids shot is incredibly rare. If you wanted to complain about danger for your kids in the US, I would critique the crazy danger of cars and driving here rather than these absolutely rare school shootings
Thisthisthis. I have kids, I’m not at all worried about them getting shot, sure it’s “possible” but it’s just so improbable that it’s not something I even think about. But holy shit, the way people drive in my neighborhood, I’ll be a nervous wreck when my kids start walking or biking to the park by themselves…
My kids’ school recently had an active shooter drill like we used to do fire drills when I was a kid. They said they all had hiding spots to go to and they thought it was pretty scary. They’re in elementary school. It’s definitely not normal that instead of doing something about the guns we have to teach kids to hide from gunmen because that’s just a legit possibility now.
My friend’s daughter is in elementary school and an active shooter came into the school. Nobody died, but later he bought her a bulletproof backpack designed for AR-15 rounds (223). But the backpack was so heavy she couldn’t carry books in it. So instead he opted for handgun rounds protection, which isn’t ideal but it’s something.
Who could have guessed a schizophrenic with unfettered access to high-powered firearms and a massive dose of right-wing idiocy would cause such things as a mass shooting and a night of terror?
schizophrenic access to high-powered firearms massive dose of right-wing idiocy
Two of those things dramatically increase the chance of violence, and schizophrenia ain’t one of them. Let’s not perpetuate myths that mentally ill people are inherently prone to violence because they’re not.
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