I wholeheartedly reject the Maine mass shooting is a product of gun manufacturers. Maine literally already has yellow flag laws where this guy should have been separated from his firearms when he was admitted to the psych hospital. The Maine mass shooting was a failure of the state and people do not want to accept that. The Sheriff that should have stepped in did not do so and THAT is unacceptable. I’m so over people using tragedies to prove their unrelated points. If gun manufacturers were really the problem we’d see millions of domestic murders based on the fact that there’s like 100 million more guns in circulation than there are citizens of the US.
At this point I’ll take 10% reduction over 0%. And I think I highlighted the weak point of Maine’s yellow flag law. There was literally a person who could have created distance between the person and his guns, and they didn’t. What would you like to have happen?
Arms manufacturers pushed more than 24 million assault weapons onto the American streets, one for every 10 adults, each designed with a single purpose — to kill lots of people as fast as possible
And there’s the very first problem, right there. The point of all arms is efficiency. Stone spear points were developed because they were more effective than flame-hardened wood. Atlatls were invented to throw spears farther than an arm. Swords were more effective than clubs. The first guns were more effective than bows. From the first matchlock rifles, we get wheel locks, then flint locks, and then percussion caps. By the time of the US Civil War, cartridges were being developed, and you had revolvers so that you could shoot more people without reloading. Winchester Repeating Arms Co. made the lever action rifle wildly popular because you could ‘load it in the morning and shoot all day’, and they were widely used by cavalry. When The Great War rolled around, we wanted even more effective arms, and switched to bolt action rifles with five and ten round magazines loaded far more powerful bullets than existed in the era of black-powder lever action rifles. When WWII rolled around, we started using autoloading rifles with stripper clips–the venerable M1 Garand–because bolt actions were just too slow to load and fire. By Vietnam, we’d switched to the detachable box magazine fed M14, only to discover that a full-power battle rifle cartridge in a wooden-stocked machine gun in the jungle was not a winning combination, and adopted a military version of the AR-15 with it’s plastic stock and lightweight 5.56mm cartridge. Since the 1960s, the AR-15 has changed very, very little; the rifle of the 60’s is still nearly identical 80 years later.
All weapons in human history have been designed to kill as many things as quickly as possible. All tools are refined to get better at their job over time. The car that I drive now is far, far more efficient than straw sandals, a horse, or even the first cars. It is less efficient than the mass transit systems that are used in many large cities.
With all the guns around in US I am genuenly surprised that most of these shooters just go on random killing sprees instead of political assasinations. In japan a DYI gun was enough to kill former prime minister Shinzo Abe so would think country so divided as United states would have far more of these cases.
Guess the people on top truly are untouchable at least for most of the time.
Most people like their politician. When they are polled about Congress and rate it unsatisfactory, it’s because they want all of Congress to be like their rep (or exactly their rep’s opposite, if they’re a minority voter in the area).
It’s a lot easier to assassinate your local rep than it is to shoot a senator from West Virginia or whatever, so the impulse to kill them is lower. Add in their significantly greater security and you can see how this lessons the odds of attempted assassinations.
They may like their politician but that still leaves out a lot of the congress who they may dislike and target with their radicalized outrage.
But yeah the fact that these people are protected by greater (armed) security the chance for failure is far greater.
But still quite surprised how little actions or lack of have backfired on people in power.
Guess things will need to get way worse for more shit to start piling on their backyards.
I don’t disagree, I was just offering my best explanation. With the way rhetoric is accelerating, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more political violence as 2024 approaches.
Also likely that it just comes in waves - bigger cycles will mean a higher chance at crazy.
Yall seem to have forgot that the right to bear arms as originally written, was also the responsibility to bear arms. They didn’t have cops. The real root of all these mass shootings is nobody shoots back, all you fuckers are supposed to be armed.
Okay, you are on the street when you hear a gun shot and see a man go down. You draw your gun and look for the shooter. You see a crowd of people who have also drawn their guns. Which one do you shoot?
What’s really funny is that the 12g built off the AR frame doesn’t actually qualify for the “assault weapon” description, so said AR-15 style assault shotgun is a greenlight.
They characterize semi-automatic shotguns like they’re this brand new, evil gun lobby invention, thought up to sell to crazed lunatics who can’t get their kicks just shooting regular bullets into school children any more
Meanwhile, people have been shooting ducks with the Browning Auto-5 since literally the year 1900, and it only stopped production in 1998
But that’s made of wood and doesn’t have the shoulder thing that goes up, so it’s not scary
Dismissing someone’s argument over semantics is trivial objection that doesn’t engage in the actual argument. You understand perfectly well what the argument is, and that it’s addressing a different issue than categories of armament.
Plus, declaring your opponent an “incompetent fool” to dismiss their argument is a bonus ad hominem fallacy.
It is not semantics. People honestly don’t know what defines an assault rifle vs a semi auto. Also looking incompetent isn’t me saying that to dismiss their argument it is them simply looking like they don’t know what they’re talking about and thus their own actions make them able to be disregarded.
You really don’t understand logical fallacies or how they work it seems.
Well I will agree that one of us does not have a grasp on logical fallacies.
People do not NEED to know the textbook definition of an assault rifle to know that a weapon designed for maximum carnage should be regulated. You also don’t NEED to hear an accurate reference to a specific weapon to understand their argument. You know what they mean.
By outright dismissing them because they haven’t defined a term to your satisfaction, you are not engaging in good faith.
If you really were interested in discussion, you would respond to establish a standard definition and then, based on that definition, provide your counter argument.
Would an attacher be any less credible if they murdered people with a handgun rather than a rifle ? what is the point you’re trying to make ? don’t people still die ? is the ammo type really relevant here ?
People who don’t like the term “assault rifle” think it basically means “scary-looking rifle” rather than “particularly deadly rifle”. In New York state law, for example,
Assault weapon means a semiautomatic rifle that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least one of the following characteristics: (1) a folding or telescoping stock; (2) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; (3) a thumbhole stock; (4) a second handgrip or protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (5) a bayonet mount; (6) a flash suppressor or muzzle break or muzzle compensator or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor or muzzle break or muzzle compensator; or (7) a grenade launcher.”
So a semiauto rifle in .223 Remington with a wooden stock is a “varmit hunting rifle”, but simply giving it a black folding stock makes it an “assault rifle”.
Honestly, things like NYS’s limits on magazine size makes more sense to me than banning telescoping stocks or a second pistol grip.
For god’s sake, the SFAR and the AR platform ARE NOT ASSAULT RIFLES. It’s so hard to take any writer seriously when they can’t even get the fucking basics straight.
Let me start by saying I may be more liberal but I grew up in WV so I’ve been around guns all my life. I like shooting them, but not necessarily hunting because I can buy all the food I need. But I could do it in a heartbeat if I was hungry.
To me the best way to address stuff like this is to educate people. I’m sure you know but not everyone does is that the AR is AR-15 stands for ArmaLite Rifle. Most people just assume the AR means assault rifle or automatic rifle. Now the AR-15 does use the 7.62×51mm NATO round which was and still is primarily used for war, i.e. killing things. This round is verify similar to a .308 Winchester, and its slight longer cousin, the .30-06, or as any deer hunter would call it a 30 ought 6. Now I guarantee you’d never hear of a .30-06 being described as an assault rifle. But guess what, the .30-06 was designed specifically as a military round.
So as my debate couch told me in high school, it all comes back to definitions. How do you define assault rifle? And I ain’t touching that one 😀
Assault rifles have selectable full auto. It’s not a complicated definition. The caliber is irrelevant because a side effect of developing an effective deer round is developing an effective human round, white tail and humans are roughly the same size.
But most civilians can’t get full auto in the first place. And having fired full auto on several occasions they are damn near useless anyway. It’s a waste of ammo because they absolutely suck at being accurate because of the recoil and muzzle jump. Burst fire is a different story.
So anyways, if most civilians can’t get full auto, then most can’t get an assault rifle. The definition isn’t complicated, and the writer I’m sure knows that too.
Now the AR-15 does use the 7.62×51mm NATO round which was and still is primarily used for war, i.e. killing things.
Uh. No. No, it does not.
The AR-15 uses (primarily) the 5.56x45mm NATO bullet, although you can also use .300Blk, 7.62x39mm, and a whole bunch of other intermediate cartridges by swapping out your barrel, bolt, and possibly buffer spring/weights.
The AR-10 uses the 7.62x51mm NATO (e.g., .308 Win) cartridge. (And also the 6.5 Creedmoor.) 99% of the time, .308 and 7.62x51mm are interchangeable, much like 5.56x45mm NATO and .223 Rem.
.223 and 5.56 are a little different, but it’s mostly in case capacity and o/a cartridge length. Once can be higher pressure than the other, but I can’t recall which without consulting one of my reloading manuals. In almost all situations, they’re interchangeable. You can get into some other differences with o/a length when you’re talking about hand loading for bolt-action v. semi-auto, but that’s more of a specialty difference rather than a general purpose difference.
FWIW, the AR-10 came first, because Eugene Stoner was trying to directly compete with the M-14. It really didn’t go anywhere at the time, and it’s only become somewhat popular in the last 20 years or so. And it’s still not popular because 7.62x51mm is significantly more expensive to shoot than 5.56. But a 6.5CM AR-10 can be incredibly accurate to a very long range; it makes a great longer range hunting rifle.
It’s simple, gun companies in America want to be as rich as they can be. If they have to do things like take time to evaluate who should be allowed to buy weapons or how long it should take before an individual receives them, they make less money than they would have. So instead, they make sure the time from wanting a gun and getting a gun is as little as possible.
The claim is further that going through someone’s mental history, or being disclosed details of treatment would be violative of HIPPA laws. I say, when you’re about to give someone a weapon that is basically designed for nothing else but killing humans, maybe you look into past treatment if someone saw a doctor because he was having dreams of killing every school child. Ask the question of the health professional first, and if it meets the criteria when you get more details.
That’s what is even taught in business school in germany at least. First goal of every company is maximizing profits and to attach your whole thinking around it.
So by this logic, do we start blaming the cutlery industry for people making the choice to not put down the fork? This article is written entirely by someone who has no idea how living in a low income area feels. Fucking reeks of privilege.
That’s an idiot argument. Wtf does “put down the fork” even mean? Wielding a fork has hardly ever been of significance in a person’s actions. You can’t compare just anything.
The day forks are used to pick locks and mug folks, sure… I’ll blame the cutlery industry.
That means blaming the cutlery problem for obesity, or blaming the food industry for making garbage food, rather than addressing why people are opting for fast food more than good food, dealing with food deserts, and so on. It blaming the tool for the result.
You realize knives fall under cutlery, right? Additionally people get mugged with the threat of a hammer to the head, so we banning hammers next too? Also, criminals breathe oxygen, so you want everyone to stop breathing oxygen cause the criminals breathe oxygen too?
Right, but even if we banned hammers and guns, people would still 3d print them or buy them on the black market. The VAST majority of gun violence is conducted by people who ALREADY should not own weapons according to the laws on the books and bought them from a gun show/black market unregistered.
This is a clear problem of enforcement, not legislation.
The latest mass shooting was conducted by a man who LITERALLY stated weeks prior that he heard voices in his head. Weeks. This is reminiscent of more than 95% of other mass shooters.
Card — who, according to his relatives, had been drinking heavily in the lead-up to last week’s mass shooting in Lewiston — had become so paranoid that people were calling him a pedophile that he’d talked about wanting to hire a lawyer. The Maine National Guard, too, had become so concerned about the US Army reservist that it had urged local authorities to carry out a welfare check because fellow soldiers feared Card would “snap and commit a mass shooting.” Card’s son and his ex-wife had also flagged their concerns about his deteriorating mental health to the local sheriff’s office back in May, an initial incident report shows.
The military and the civilian oversight failed to get this man mental help or restrict his access to firearms while he was lamenting the need to kill people because of the voices in his head and we have the audacity to stand here and blame legal gun owners, the majority of which do in fact follow standard gun safety and etiquette, for crimes committed by people who shouldn’t have access to weapons in the first place.
We pay an exorbitant amount in taxes every single day to have these services and personnel do their fucking jobs and all this ‘blame the gun manufacturers’ is pushed by police unions in order to prevent people from properly pointing out the absolute FAILURES of these departments and officers to actually follow up on tips and issues in the community.
Big irony that these criminals can access weapons from the legal market by gun shops and shows that don’t follow the laws as they stand or directly off a black market arms dealer, maybe two points of contact off from the original manufacturers.
So, if these individuals who shouldn’t have guns can have guns as the laws stand now, what difference is a whole-sale ban going to make?
This is a clear enforcement failure across the entire united states and adding more laws on people who already follow them just incites them against the issue instead of having everyone focus on the crux of the problem which is cost of living, access to healthcare and failure of regulatory oversight on a vast majority of official systems, from policing the streets from violent crimes to regulatory frameworks around the financial services sector, all of the enforcement bodies are understaffed, underpaid, overworked, and abused with intent to push them from the job and rotate personnel to younger/less experienced personnel to allow further lowering of pay and increase of workload which allows larger companies and firms to skirt the rules for fines because these regulatory bodies don’t have the personnel to complete serious investigations of the largest players, so the largest players just get fined for their behaviour and continue to abuse the loopholes and system. Specifically in this case, because of a lack of oversight from the FTC, several companies supply the black market with weapons through merchants of death
We wanna see this industry change? We need to annul police unions and force a national training standard. Every cop goes to the same training facility and learns to be a professional cop, no exceptions, and is then sent back to their local community to work with them. If they do not live in the community, they do not police the community.
Additionally, every individual should be able to access healthcare. We pay way too much in taxes to not have every man, woman and child covered by FULL RANGE medical care. There is no reason in which universal health care should not exist in the USA (aside from the ridiculous number of people who could collapse the system under their obesity, the public would need to begin to care for themselves more so they don’t overburden the systems unnecessarily).
The cost of living situation would change overnight if corporations and investors were barred from owning more than 5 residential properties.
It’s a social issue not a gun issue. Shitty parents, shitty economics, shitty education and a shitty social structure are what makes America a higher crime nation in general and a higher gun crime nation specifically.
Sure, just not with the same access and instead other crimes are more prolific and arguably more heinous. How many cases of acid attacks happen in the us every year adjusted to population? Now how many for say India or for instance England.
Nah different. Acid attacks are most normally done towards women as a form of punishment. Not intended to kill.
Obviously violence will happen. But why are you ever arguing to make the violence easier?
If there was one item you could remove from society that truthfully they don’t need, and acid attacks wouldn’t happen. Wouldn’t you do that? Especially since acid attacks are so awful?
Bro, you offered a theoretical and I turned it on you. That doesn’t make me a moron and honestly responding in such a way kinda makes it seem like you can’t support your argument so instead you lash out.
You’ve gone off the edge sir, regain your composure and we can try this again if you’d like but random insults and general asshole behavior ain’t finna do it bud.
this is a practical solution, this is a practical conversation. using a theoretical about the parallel you (foolish) brought up doesn’t change that shit especially when you dive into this comparison chemicals and substances are banned and illegal and that does make it harder to obtain and harm people with.
using a metaphor doesn’t make a conversation metaphorical buddy.
guns should be banned or at least so heavily regulated moreso than now and your stupid little acid angle ain’t the meat you think it is kiddo
I didn’t bring up a theoretical you did… I made a comparison Or arguably a metaphor.
Hey you got it, it’s certainly closer to a metaphor than a theoretical as there are in fact more acid attacks in India than the US and honestly more than most other countries.
You mean the thing I advocate for and told you about exactly one comment ago?
Lol we’re on the same page, don’t be so angry you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Correct sir, not only that but I can link you to Nazi and Japanese experiments on the subject of you’ve the stomach for it and the mods don’t hammer me for nsflogwb.
You're obviously not willing to check facts, or you would have seen that I am not a "sir," merely by checking my profile. So forgive me for not believing someone's "promise" that they have Nazi propaganda (of all things) to back up their claims.
(Psst... Nazi experiments were never legit and never used actual Scientific Method. So quoting them doesn't do any good, anyway.)
I bet Elon misses you back on the Dead Bird site. You should go back and hang out with your buddies there.
Is it even proportionally at the same level? Are you claiming that, adjusted to per capita, acid attacks in India are on par with mass shootings in the U.S.? And if so, are there mass acid attacks on schools at the rate of mass shootings in U.S. schools?
No I’m saying the human monster will use whatever is available. When guns are less available other crimes are more likely, and gun crime persists anyway. For India specifically they have about a third of the gun crime the US has.
Available guns can make it more easy, but we also sometimes see other forms, like explosives, poison, etc. I live in a country where guns are heavily restricted and that obviously helps, but it’s just the tip of t iceberg. Bullying, extremism, hate speech, stress, medical care, therapy. Those are more important IMO
Exactly, if a country is filled with rocks there will be more rock related deaths but a country that is filled with rocks but is effectively governed and educated will have fewer.
I imagine people are going to claim me to be against gun control but that isn’t true, I’m for reasonable gun control. License, register educate and own a tank for all I fuckin care, a big part of the issue is they’re less controlled than my what 3000lb Honda Civic that could run through a crowd at 100+ and do the same damage. Most people aren’t going to use their car as a weapon because it’s attached to them, the same would apply to guns.
Tell that to the 40k+ people who are killed every year in the USA from basically negligent people driving (large portion of that being alcohol related). My guns have never taken anyone’s life, and the odds of them doing so is so damn small, that I’d probably win the lottery before they’re used against another human.
Tell that to the 40k+ people who are killed every year in the USA from basically negligent people driving
Drunk driving and our terrible drinking culture is an entirely different crisis altogether. I don’t understand why you’re trying to draw parallels here (no matter how weak)? Both are bad things.
My guns have never taken anyone’s life
Neither have mine but I don’t have my head so far in the sand to not understand that guns are designed to kill things.
Cool…to use the car on public roads…you can also transport them across state lines with no issue.
I can buy a car with cash, from private hands, across state lines, have it shipped directly to me, and I don’t have to insure it nor do I need a license for it…also can buy one at any age.
So trying to compare gun ownership with owning a car is naive.
I mean, I absolutely can. I own track cars, no insurance on them, no license for them, not registered and I trailer them to the tracks. I can also drive them here on my property, I’ve got a old military jeep that isn’t road legal and use it driving around here all the time.
I don’t offer pole-lease a lot of operating room emotionally in the US.
But I do think that pole-leasing in the US must feel different to lots of other places.
Just so many freaking guns with all types of people. And it makes even a traffic stop just as dangerous as going to a domestic dispute or an armed robbery. Fucking guns.
That is not at all true. Being a cop in the US rarely crosses the line into the top ten most dangerous professions. The top ten most dangerous professions include being a fisherman, being a garbage colllector, being a professional driver, things like that. And just for some more fun, the danger levels of these jobs are radically skewed.
Here’s a report on job related fatalities in the US. I’m not sure why fishermen aren’t included in this particular one as they normally top these lists, but it says they selected from about 250 professions so they might have just been excluded.
In any case, the list starts with loggers at over 100 per 100k and airline pilots at over 50 per 100k. Scroll down past farmers, delivery drivers, construction workers, landscapers, and mechanics, and eventually you’ll find police at position 22, with 14 per 100k. These numbers remain pretty constant year to year, with the exception of Covid related fatalities.
The problem is that there is a specific school of training for police that amps up their perception of danger far above what reality actually shows. They escalate encounters which increases both the chance of themselves bringing injured and very much the chance that the person they encounter will be injured or killed.
Considering guns didn’t protect either Breonna Taylor or Philando Castile and not a single cop was killed in either incident, is it really more dangerous to be a cop in America?
There’s no need to be rhetorical. We know what schools have been targeted by mass murderers and whose children were killed.
For example, the Ulvade shooter used semi-automatic rifles that were purchased from for-profit company Daniel Defense, founded by Marty Daniel, whose children have never been mutilated beyond recognition
Maybe we should hope for a few shootings on expensive boarding schools, then? What a time we live in when you’re Actually wondering if you should wish for a bunch of kids dying gruesome deaths to make things better…
Unfortunately, beyond just being immoral, the trauma wouldn’t “teach” them a thing anyway.
More than likely, they’d double down on their rhetoric and claim its because there wasn’t enough guns and abusive manipulation. Best case scenario, they’d demand some of those tuition fees went towards turning their school (and only their school) into a bulletproof fortress.
If they actually started regretting their actions, they’d just be gagged and buried by their peers.
We can already see this in action – record numbers of teenagers are blowing their brains out with their daddy’s “keep my family safe” guns.
So where are the gun owners publicly pleading with other gun owners to properly secure their firearms? Where are the people haunted by the memory of teaching their child how to load and fire the round that killed them as they patted themselves on the back for being a “responsible gun owner”.
They either don’t care about their dead kid (unlikely, even for the real pieces of shit), don’t acknowledge their role in enabling their suicide or simply don’t have a space to talk about it without being attacked.
I can’t actually tell if that’s meant to be satire, but I doubt the people upvoting you can either. So just to be safe…
Congratulations, you’ve fallen for the same idiot hero fantasies as the right-wing gun cultists have. The gun lobby wrote a version of them just for you and you swallowed it without a single critical thought.
Do you know who is going to win when you and the MAGA morons face off with your cool guns?
Whoever is the biggest piece of shit, just like always.
No thankfully, since CCW holders are statistically more accurate, fire less shots in encounters, and commit less crime than the US police (by convictions), who barely even get convicted due to qualified immunity which CCW holders don’t have.
Probably because CCW often requires getting a permit that demands actual knowledge of safe handling, storage, de-escalation and demonstrated ability to hit a target, in some kind of half-assed approximation of functional gun laws (which I guess is why the pro-gun community opposes CCW permits).
Of course, that doesn’t stop them from routinely executing their partners or any nearby cashiers when they lose control of their emotions, leaving their guns in public toilets or arming criminals by leaving handguns in sock drawers and gloveboxes.
And unlike police reforms, they also have zero positive, measurable impact on crime rates, so they’re really asking a lot from society in return for intervening in 3% of mass shootings (and always after people have been killed already).
You’re right, the multiple white supremacist militia groups that have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their attempt to overthrow the government at the behest of the previous president trying to desperately cling to power is just a boogeyman created by the gun lobby
If you think it’s the gun lobbyists who’re making the right wing extremists look like violent, dangerous fascists, you really really have not been paying attention
I really enjoyed this comment. Not because it was in any way insightful or entertaining, but because you couldn’t actually create a logical link from my comment to your own, but you were so desperate to push exactly the propaganda I was talking about that you went ahead and posted it anyway.
You’re right, the multiple white supremacist militia groups that have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their attempt to overthrow the government at the behest of the previous president trying to desperately cling to power is just a boogeyman created by the gun lobby
Yet here you are, leaping to the defense of the companies (and laws they’ve written) that sell those groups all the semi-automatic weapons their black little hearts desire.
I wonder who is the most grateful for your service?
The gun lobby members banking record profits even as mass shootings, domestic homicides and impulse murders surge?
The Republicans who have been enjoying $16 million a year in open bribes ever since Sandy Hook doubled them, plus a small army of single-issue voters who will tolerate any amount of bigotry, stupidity, oppression and exploitation as long as gun safety remains optional?
Or the minorities who are told “If you don’t want to be murdered then buy more guns and carry them with you everywhere and be ready to kill another person at any moment”, like that’s an existence aspired to by anybody except bloodthirsty gun-owners (and one that isn’t a requirement in any other wealthy, progressive country with functional gun laws)?
Nobody outside of a deeply stupid, easily manipulated and heavily astroturfed pocket of social media believes you’re helping anybody besides extremists, greedy psychopaths and yourself.
You won’t go down in history with the likes of climate change deniers, you’ll go down in history with the people who claimed that “I only want what’s best for black people and that’s actually being enslaved by white men”.
I wrote a bit of a response to this, but I honestly can’t really be bothered, I’m sure your waxing poetic will save you from the wall if they take power though
But you’re going to shoot them all with your cool guns if they try right?
You’re just waiting for the perfect moment that for some reason – despite you openly acknowledging the danger of them – isn’t now nor when there were high profile state executions of unarmed minorities nor any other time in the last decade.
Or is the idea that they’re supposed to be intimidated? Because with America far closer to the brink of fascism than comparable countries with gun control, it looks like it was nothing more than yet another slice of unfit-shifting pro-gun bullshit.
But you’re going to shoot them all with your cool guns if they try right?
That’s the idea, and hopefully anyone else who believes in things like democracy and civil rights.
At the end of the day, ideals will only look good on our epitaph (if we’re even allowed one in this scenario), might makes right, and if you also care about those sorts of things, you better damn well make sure your side’s got more of it.
You’re just waiting for the perfect moment that for some reason – despite you openly acknowledging the danger of them – isn’t now nor when there were high profile state executions of unarmed minorities nor any other time in the last decade.
Because (despite the Republican’s best efforts) we still nominally live in a democracy governed by the rule of law, and our institutions, while definitely damaged as of late, are still intact
A democracy will naturally have some turbulent periods, but as long as it’s still actually a democracy, things are always recoverable non-violently through one of the first three boxes (soap box, ballot box, jury box). It’s only once it’s clear that we live in a democracy no longer that the fourth box comes out (the ammo box), and even then, the last stopgap before all out civil war would be the civilian leadership of the military and the top officers + soldiers who serve choosing a side.
Or is the idea that they’re supposed to be intimidated? Because with America far closer to the brink of fascism than comparable countries with gun control, it looks like it was nothing more than yet another slice of unfit-shifting pro-gun bullshit.
Honestly who in their right mind would be intimidated by the Democrats? Fascists don’t care about peaceful protests and Rolling Stone articles, they only know violence, and we can’t make the mistake of not being ready and willing to speak their language. America is clearly very politically sick, I honestly think it’s incredibly silly to some how blame that solely on gun lobbying of all things.
Ultimately if you’re not prepared to kill and die for your (and other’s) rights, you don’t have rights, you have privileges granted to you by those who are
You can laugh it up while those privileges are stripped away should your side lose the fight, but if you’re willing to risk that (and in fact, seemingly push to actively weaken your side), then more power to you, I guess
You’ve done nothing and you’ll do nothing. You’re living in the exact hero fantasy you were so offended by. Meanwhile, actual people die at the hands of the actual fascists you’ve enabled.
But even if we take your pinkie promise seriously, what exactly are you going to offer in return for all these deaths? “Have gun”?
You promote gun laws that don’t even require gun owners to observe basic gun safety, let alone competency. How many of them would even understand orders, let alone follow them? How many of them know how to fly a drone, despite it clearly being far more useful? How many know how to give medical care in a field?
If you wanted to help people, you’d already be doing it. Instead you sit on the internet while minorities are killed and fascists gain power and tell people “Don’t worry, if it gets too bad I’ll shoot it”.
“People who are pro-democracy being armed are enabling fascists, only the government (which as we’ve established is dangerously close to being controlled by fascists) should be armed, just give them a full monopoly on violence already!”
I can’t tell if this is a troll account or some sort of bad attempt by a right wing plant, because surely nobody could argue this in good faith
Off you go then, time to shoot the government. The state is executing civilians in the street, imprisoning minorities to use as slaves, funnelling billions of dollars into an oppressive war that mostly kills children and there’s a fascist running for office.
I’m sure once you’ve been gunned down and your crush has finished sobbing over your body and your boss has given a speech about how they never truly appreciated you, America’s fascists will surrender the power they have and America will become a democracy to rival… All the other democracies that don’t casually arm criminals, wife beaters and suicidal children.
Until then, you’re a grown man telling people your hero fantasies with all the credibility of a child saying they’re in the Avengers. Being pro-democracy isn’t a requirement for buying a gun and you’ve killed exactly zero fascists.
Just openly stating your double standard isn’t likely to be a winning strategy.
You’re adamant that your guns are the solution to problems that are happening right now, but I know for a fact that all you’ve done is talk about them on the internet, because if you followed through on any of it you’d be on the news (and also dead).
But apparently, you’re a hero anyway.
I’m adamant that gun control is the solution to problems that are happening right now. You’re guessing that all I’ve done is talk about them on the internet, because you don’t have any of the information you’d need to know for sure.
But apparently, all I’m doing is bitching.
I guess when you live in a fantasy world, you can pretend the good guys are the ones that insist they have the solution, do nothing to enact it yet still work tirelessly to block any alternatives.
I WISH they were our neighbors. They are out of towners who come here purely to stir up trouble, AND, in many cases, they’re actively working WITH the police. So it’s not like you can expect the cops to do anything.
Now THIS is attitude all the super left anti gunners on Lemmy should have !!
We are waaaay psst the point of even trying to get rid of guns. You might as well leverage their existence agaisnt the ones who already picked them up and swole violence/allegiances to that traitor.
That American liberals focus on rifles in regards to gun violence more than 1/20 as much as they do handguns or 1.75x as much as the president's recommended shotgun, nevermind the fervor for AWBs, betray the lack of concern and understanding of the issues truly driving America's culture of violence beyond "big ones are scarier".
All compounded by their laws' universal exemptions for police current and former, on-and-off-the-clock demonstrating no fear of arming the most violent among us as long as they swear fealty to minority oppression and dissident suppression in the name of maintaining capital's status quo, sleeping sound assuming those barrels won't turn inwards towards them. Hell, that the fight against gun violence now includes banning armor to protect oneself from it shows how important it is that we be obliged to let them indulge.
The body armor regulations are the real WTF for me. It’s just a bold faced admission that they (i.e. the police and government) don’t like the notion that maybe the police can’t just roll up and kill you whenever they want.
The other reiteration I’ll add to your point about police exemptions is (in case anyone missed the “former”) that most of these bans and gun regulations not only exempt the police, they also exempt retired policemen. So if these guys are off the force, why do they need machine guns, switchblades, big magazines, > .50 caliber, etc., etc., etc., exactly?
It's the same reason the FAA has such stringent safety regulations for aircraft, while tens of thousands of people die in traffic accidents every year: Mass shootings are huge amounts of death and also rare, compared to crimes of passion or suicides by gun.
The problem is that to solve any of these problems will involve two things that Republicans hate: Providing social services and confiscating guns from people who shouldn't have them. Both of those are far less likely to pass than a simple ban on a small subset of guns.
So until Republicans put up or shut up about "it's mental health" nothing will get done.
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