@rbreich
As an Anarcho-Communist I don't support gun control. Due to my mistrust in hierarchical authorities and my belief in decentralized power structures, I believe that an armed populace is better equipped to resist coercion and oppression, and thus can more easily foster a more egalitarian society. I believe individual access to firearms aligns with the principles of self governance and collective autonomy.
@Christo@rbreich
I believe gun ownership is necessary for empowering the populace against potential oppressive structures and for self-defense. I also believe that addressing the root causes of gun violence, such as socio-economic inequality, is more crucial than imposing gun control measures, which disproportionately affects marginalized communities without addressing the systemic issues that cause gun violence.
@Christo@rbreich I believe the elimination of mass shootings can be achieved by dealing with amd eliminating the systematic issues that cause them to occur without depriving people of their means of defense.
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich what use is a vehicle if you don't know how to use it? How dangerous is a alcoholic behind a wheel? Guns is more dangerous then vehicles and require more personal responsibility. Regulations weed out the people are are a danger to themselves and others.
@chaosrsa@rbreich
Instead of regulations, a more effective solution would be to focus on the causes of gun violence and creating a society where peoples' needs are met, thereby reducing the desperation that leads to violence. Strict gun regulations disproportionately impact marginalized groups of people, perpetuating existing inequalities among society.
@jawarajabbi@chaosrsa@rbreich
Are you proposing Horseshoe Theory? Because that theory is completely untrue. Horseshoe Theory oversimplifies political ideologies. It falsely equates extreme left and right positions while ignoring their many, many nuanced differences. A radically decentralized, classless society (ie an Anarcho-Communist society) would be completely different than the kind of societies that ideologies from both authoritarian left and right-wing systems would create.
Well them's fancy words but, with respect to guns, when you are arguing against gun regulations you are indistinguishable from a card-carrying NRA radical in the American political context. Your distinct justifications are immaterial to the kid hiding in a school closet.
Even if you take all the guns out of the equation, the United States is still a much more violent place than many other so-called "developed" nations.
We have a violent CULTURE. We glorify violence as the ultimate way to solve problems. We have the largest military on earth, a police force that in its own right is one of the largest militaries in the world, and right now the people we'd trust to forcibly remove weapons from the entire populace, are the same people forking over heaps of bombs and fighter jets like candy to dictatorships all over the world. The money we've just spent sponsoring genocide could have instead given us all healthcare and drastically reduced poverty.
Any talk of gun control is a sick joke, and rank hypocrisy, when it's coming from war profiteers telling everyone, "do as we say, not as we do".
"Gun control" is an obscene phrase to hear from the same people who refuse to call for a CEASEFIRE.
And just look at these threads. Whenever anyone tries to talk about the deep systemic, cultural changes a society can make to address the root causes of violence, the very CONCEPT of conflict resolution seems so worthless to most people the very suggestion draws derisive laughter and mockery.
What do you mean, eliminating poverty and finding legitimate ways to address grievances can prevent violence? What, you're going to TALK to people to solve problems? Everyone knows the only real solution to violence is MORE DOMINANT VIOLENCE, right? That's the root assumption here, as fundamental and unquestioned as a deep religious belief. We don't even know how to resolve conflict. That's the core of our entire fucking problem. THAT is the sickness, a corruption that runs so much deeper and causes so much more damage than any individual mental illnesses ever could.
@violetmadder@jawarajabbi@chaosrsa@rbreich The comments in this thread are unfortunately all too common whenever I make a post about anything even slightly controversial. If I make a post talking about the existence of gun violence and how it's bad them everyone loves it, but if I then go on to propose a solution to gun violence that doesn't match the mainstream solution, then suddenly all those people start sounding like the furthest-to-the-right right wingers.
And meanwhile, the blue MAGA crowd is hyperventilating frantically about how the GOP is about to go full Hitler on us-- but in the same breath support authoritarian policies to disarm everyone except the gestapo any Republican administration would obviously inherit. When rightwingers suggest the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, liberals jeer in disgust... then turn right around and vote for expanding the budgets and surveillance powers of their favorite good guys with guns. No grasp of irony at all.
I mean, you guys are so cute, really. You look around the long history of human society and say to yourselves "what if people were capable of doing and being better to each other?" I mean, sure wouldn't that be nice? But that's not on the table. At all. Never has been, never will be. #AnarchismIsSilly
Oh. Okay. I guess we should just go back to cannibalizing each other in the streets, we're just kidding ourselves here the whole idea of civilization or peace is just silly, and humans are heartless feinds incapable of cooperation, which is why we totally wiped ourselves out hundreds of thousands of years ago... wait....
A FEW humans are fucked up to the point they totally lack empathy or conscience and they're willing to destroy most life on earth for a buck. Trouble is, they're the ones with the most power right now.
Most of us are better than that. We can do better than this, if we stop idolizing monsters, stop supporting them, and stop aspiring to their lifestyles. They've established the dominant cultural hegemony through genocide and propaganda, and we need to believe in something better or we may as well just lay down and die.
So, you can point and laugh some more, or you can find something more constructive to do.
@jawarajabbi@violetmadder@Radical_EgoCom@chaosrsa@rbreich take your own comment seriously and actually look at the long history of human society. The facts don't support your conclusions at all. People lived together successfully without violent hierarchical control for hundreds of thousands of years before that became impossible with the capitalist conquest of the world over the last five hundred.
The proposed solutions you scoff at are much more in line with the history of our species than your idea that gun violence by unauthorized killers can be controlled with gun violence by authorized killers.
Exactly. Most "history" was written by genocidal imperialists (after the advent of writing, at that). We definitely shouldn't take their word for everything.
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich it’s adorable that you think a rifle will be an adequate defense against a military with tanks, drone, and missiles.
I can assure you that a whistling sound would be the last thing you would hear
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich We've got an armed population. I don't see any progress towards an egalitarian society. And your arguments are exactly the same as the Libertarian right except they all would probably be for gun control if they believed as you do that it would create a truly egalitarian society.
@cherold@rbreich
But the issue isn't the presence of armed individuals, the issue is the socioeconomic and political structures in place that cause gun violence. True progress towards in egalitarian society requires dismantling hierarchies, redistributing wealth, and empowering communities, rather than focusing solely on the presence or absence of firearms.
@Radical_EgoCom All evidence suggests that the cause of gun violence is easy access to guns. The right can blame video games or mental illness, you can blame socioeconomic issues, but all countries have mental illness and some level of economic inequality - some even more so than the US - and yet our level of gun violence vastly eclipses theirs.
@cherold Socioeconomics issues and mental health are clearly the cause of most, if not all, of gun violence, and dealing with those issues, unlike how American society barely deals with them now, would drastically decrease the amount of gun violence, much more than regulations. Also, you're being extremely dishonest and disrespectful by comparing the right blaming gun violence on games to me correctly blaming socioeconomic problems; it's actually disgusting.
@Radical_EgoCom it's disgusting that you refuse to acknowledge you're playing exactly the same bs games as the right and then refusing to even cop to it.
@cherold Your last three replies are very clear to me; that's not the issue. The issue is that I made a response to your previous reply and you still haven't made any kind of argument against my position.
@Radical_EgoCom I responded to your aggression. But if you mean the line, "Socioeconomics issues and mental health are clearly the cause of most, if not all, of gun violence" then what evidence do you have for that which contradicts the overwhelming evidence, seen in country after country, that the most effective way to stop gun violence is to limit access to guns? You seem no more inclined to answer this question than the right.
If guns were the only issue, then there would be a lot more violence and it would be way more spread out. Instead you have a high proportion of conservative and/or violent men.
Focusing on that blinds us from all the other issues the US has been facing this past 20 years. Poverty exploded, the government actively acted against its population and fascist rhetoric is being banalised.
The problem ain't #guns, but #ViolenceCulture, since there are way more [illegal] guns per capita in Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, Croatia and Germany than the USA.
Otherwise we'd see similar numbers [adjusted per guns & capita] around the globe - but we don't [and no, suicides don't count!]...
@cherold@Radical_EgoCom
I think laws for gun control / limitation is an interesting tool to limit gun violence.
But it's not the only one.
For instance in the Nordic countries, many people have rifles. But there is not much gun violence, it's not like in the US.
The other interesting tools to limit gun violence are fair sharing of wealth, education, social justice in general.
Also, promoting a culture that doesn't value violence.
But honestly I don't know how you can take back the guns 1/
@cherold@Radical_EgoCom
in a country where there are soooo many guns.
It's very difficult.
(not to speak of the lobbying of the NRA, but just, HOW you do it, I mean, shall we make the police go "ding dong, hi, we're the police, please, give us your gun, thanx, goodbye" 😅)
(sorry for my broken English, I have excuses, I'm French)
@sxpert@Radical_EgoCom@cherold
ooooouuuuh I see
some kind of special brigades, sneaking into the houses to steal the guns, all dressed in camouflage or black clothes, and we should call them?
"bang patrol" or something like that?
@scudery All progress is very difficult. Ending slavery was very difficult, and I'm sure at one point people thought it was impossible, and when we did it we got a big war and even then slavery continued in other ways (i.e. chain gangs) in the U.S. for decades.
Major societal/political changes don't happen easily or quickly, but they do happen.
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich Individual gun ownership does not necessarily imply an armed populace. An army or a militia is not just a bunch of armed people. They need to be organised first and foremost. Guns are just tools, owning one doesnt make you a resistance fighter.
@livinghell@rbreich I believe there needs to be an organized militia to fight against enemies, but I believe this militia should not function on the same principles of hierarchy and coercion as statist militaries, but should function in a decentralized non-hierarchal manner.
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich Nevertheless, people need to be on the same page to begin with for any of this to be possible. ıf people are willing and organised, they will use any means necessary. But individuals having a gun at their home doesn't necessarily make it more likely that they will be closer to be part of a libertarian milita. Banning guns for all would be terrible. But advocating that it is good that randos having ak's in their back packs in todays society is also wrong.
@Radical_EgoCom@rbreich The US has the most heavily armed population around. Many of the gun people support Trump, a wannabe dictator. What we have gotten is daily mass shootings by people who never should have had access to firearms. It also lets criminals access arms. In San Francisco, gangs loot stores as the employees stand by, afraid that if they interfere, they will be shot. Having reasonable gun regulations is never a perfect answer. But it is better than the alternative.
@BertL@rbreich Mass shootings and criminal access to firearms in the US stem from systemic issues, not just the presence of guns. Giving economic and social equality to everyone would tackle the root causes of gun violence, like poverty and social inequality. Addressing these issues is more effective and far easier than attempting to confiscate the vast number of guns in America, making it a practical and impactful approach compared to relying on gun regulations.
@Radical_EgoCom@BertL@rbreich how about doing both at the same time ?
You shouldn’t need guns in a pacified society where everyone has enough to live in a decent way
@sxpert@rbreich@BertL Gun control doesn't help would-be victims of gun violence like Democrats like to believe; it only puts already marginalized groups of people in more danger than they're already in. It's the same thing that happened with the war on drugs in the 80's or prohibition in the 20's, which only gave criminals more advantage over society.
Anybody who's spent any time at protests lately has watched the cops basically high-five their neonazi buddies. But we're expected to trust those same people to come to the rescue if a pack of fascists are trying to lynch our neighbors?
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