“Man they’re getting really good at making lifelike mannequins”

-sizable amount of the electorate

"We will not stop until every one of the criminals that leaked these photos is behind bars"

Don't kid yourself.

What passes for "gun control" in most conversations is code for "dismantle 2A".

Enough of us see the bigger picture and prefer to act rationally, not emotionally. The existence, and usefulness, of a nation requires it.

In Response to Our Beach’s Increased Number of Shark Attacks, We Will Be Arming Lifeguards With Sharks of Their Own - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

I mean, I think The Onion still has the top spot with their hectoring satire (on this issue), but this isn't bad.

I'm OK with that. In fact, I think we should stop beating around the bush - the second amendment is an obsolete anachronism and should be repealed.

But how are we supposed to lead the world in...I'm sorry, I forget how guns get us ahead again. Are they a vital piece of capitalism? Are they why we lead the world in life expectancy? Are they a key to keeping the quality of our healthcare system in tip-top shape and affordable to all? Do they assist seniors? Do they teach our children? I know, they probably help us keep a scientific and technological edge over other countries. Fight obesity? I know - they are critical to infrastructure. Happiness and psychological well-being? That might be it, we all know how happy everyone in the US is.

(Nobody tell me, I'm sure I'll figure this out, how they give us the edge that keeps us on top.)

You know, I would probably be one of the last people on this board who could ever be characterized as anti-second amendment, but this video has to be the worst set of arguments I've ever heard against gun control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF77svkA4Ao

The answer, it appears, is to make schools more like prisons, because the real problem is that we've favored aesthetics over the safety of our kids. Because turning our schools into military camps, then Mad Maxing the buses and turning the bus stops into bunkers will make all of us feel safer and more free.

I'll remember that when we reach the point that I have to arm up just to leave the house and go to the grocery store. I'm sure I'll feel much more free knowing I can defend myself against any threats between here and there every two months when I go into town to stock up on supplies.

But most of all, I love the suggestion that the real root cause is the pharmaceuticals people are taking that make them crazy enough to shoot up schools...rather than the more logical conclusion that the lack of money for/attention to mental health in this country is part of the problem. If you stop giving mentally ill people their Big Pharma medications, of course they'll be more rational, right?

This is what happens when you mistake YouTubers for experts. (And yes, I'm also talking about you, Jordan Peterson.)

Any solution but the obvious solution.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Mass shootings are entertainment now in this country. People love to tune in to hear about the latest one. They get to argue with each other about guns and who the perpetrator represents. Even the police will jump in and release some cool bodycam footage when they aren't cowering in fear in the parking lot. It's our past time at this point and I think a sizable demographic does not want to see them end.

And it's not about "rights". The Heller case created a constitutional right out of thin air. It's not about safety either. We have the numbers to back that up too.

What this is about is marketing. Guns aren't something you throw in your drawer in case an intruder comes in anymore, they're a lifestyle. Men who feel weak and emasculated in life can buy one and feel a sense of strength. They can buy a bunch of cute accessories and gear too.

And targeting men's self-worth and masculinity is always a good tactic. It's why truck commercials show them driving up cliffs when most people are just using it for groceries. Why beer commercials feature hot women partying with the men who drink. If your product can make someone with low self-esteem feel better, they'll not only buy it, but rigorously defend it.

I also own a handgun. It sits in a safe drawer and that's it. I don't put it on my Christmas card and don't pose for photos on social media with it. It's treated like my vacuum or blender. A thing I own, not my personality.

This is so brilliant. You should submit it for an op ed in a major paper.

It also goes hand-in-hand with all the masculinity talk among conservatives, which comes out of the evangelical movement. It's not as direct as the "God sent Trump" thought process, but it's the same melding of religion and politics.

I think this gets to the heart of it. Society is becoming more socially liberal. People like me see it as good and as progress. People like Jon see it as a symptom of a society in decline. And I don't think that either of us could ever convince the other that he is wrong.

But I think that we both agree that it is happening.

For someone like me, it is easy. Continue to support what I see as progress.

But for someone who sees social liberalism as the destruction of American from within? It is a bit more complicated. If democracy does not give you the results you want? If trying to persuade people does not work? If you realize that standing on the sidelines means that the country you love will be unrecognizable in 20 years? Well, then maybe you consider more drastic measures. Maybe you see arming yourself as the last best hope. Maybe you are willing to shed blood to save America from itself.

And so you start to wear AR-15 pins in place of your American flags.

dola--not trying to call out Jon here. I'm actually trying to say that a lot of us here see right wing gun culture as cosplay. And I'm actually trying to take it a lot more seriously than that--because I get the impression that they do.

double dola--but if this comes off as a personal attack, then I fully apologize, because that is the opposite of my intent

The muscle-bound Jesus of so much evangelical fiction is a perfect avatar for this.

Since I moved to Idaho I understand the non-crazies gun culture a little more. There is a value distinct from whatever it is that compels people to show off their guns on Christmas cards. It's a value that's always been a part of their rural lives, even in a non political way, so an "attack on guns" can feel like a broader attack on them as people. And attack that people are using child deaths to wage against them, and to blame them personally for to try to win that battle. And when you're around guns more, especially when guns are present somewhere for non-political reasons, but just as the normal way of things, they really do start to feel a lot more normal, like tools.

I bought my first gun out here, really just to shoot pumpkins in the desert with friends, but also as a small hedge against emergencies. I'm in employee in a very visible public agency that makes people mad, but more than that, COVID and living with a grocery store manager made pretty clear to me that we're about 3-4 weeks or less of grocery trucks stopping deliveries for whatever reason before our society becomes a lot more dangerous, even if just temporarily. But I'd happily give it up if that particular semi-automatic handgun became illegal (and I'm pretty sure it is illegal in California due to the magazine capacity).

I still contend that much of the "culture war" is a byproduct of capitalism and democracy. Companies are geared to sell their products to 18-35 year olds. The strongest voting block are older people who are not the target demographic.

So you have a group of people who are mad that products and services are not made for them any longer. Instead of accepting that, they create conspiracy theories of secret cabals set to destroy the fabric of America. It's a weird sense of narcissism, but you have a lot of people feeding into it for political gain.


That's good marketing, though. If I see a 60-year-old in a Hot Topic shirt, skinny jeans, and driving a sports car, I assume that's someone having a mid-life crisis. He sees it as him being much cooler than the rest of us.

This is the best post you've ever written. I agree with everything here.

I was thinking back at the first one I was aware of, Columbine and read through this...never knew most of this.

They all turn a blind eye...

Columbine High School massacre - Wikipedia

I'd rather see it consumed by the fire of a thousand suns than go much further down the path it's been sliding down. If it can't be "saved from itself", I'd prefer it cease to exist completely. I believe that should be adequate to answer any questions about "what extent" my feelings extend.

Astute observers would have noticed that while I was solidly pro-Trump (if for nothing else than the entertainment value) I was not on the whole "make it great again" train. I don't actually believe that's possible, such is the state it's reached. I'd be happy to be wrong about that but I'm not holding my breath for it. I quote de Maistre quite often, particularly to/at those of my own political leanings.

Do you seriously believe that all gun purchasers are just emasculated men?

dola -- I absolutely did not take it that way in the slightest. You were operating in a pretty straightforward manner afaic and I tried to respond with the same almost ... dispassionate? ... fashion.

Stuff is what it is, ya know? There are situations where highly divergent aims cannot be mutually satisfied. I'm not entirely sure why people get uncomfortable about that, it's just reality. We can peacefully agree that the situation exists without it being personal afaic. We good here afaic.

didn't you listen to omar epps and tupac? guns = power = Juice. They got the juice and show it off

triple dola

No one said all gun owners are emasculated men. There are people who own a gun for home protection or to hunt. But it's clear from the marketing used by the industry that emasculated, scared men are a demographic they want to heavily target.

It's important to understand who the people are that are driving the gun rhetoric in this country (whether you agree with them or not). It's not about home protection as they tell you, it's about a tool that they can build their personality around and feel empowered with.

Cool. Tone can be so tricky online, so I always get nervous about being misunderstood when I am addressing someone directly about a potentially charged matter.

It's the empowered part. And it's the intimidation -- the Punisher/skulls/gun stickers, the DTOM (and other) flags, the loud, behemoth trucks, the camo, all that. Part of it is culture, part of it is intimidation. I mean, who wouldn't be intimidated by something that can rip a hole through you?

What I don't get is how they might feel intimidated by the imagery coming back at them. How are pride flags, pronouns, men in dresses wearing comical amounts of makeup scary? Maybe on an existential level, but physically there is no threat of harm.

I mean, tell me that for many that 2A doesn't boil down to "I have the right, and the power, to kill you if I so choose."

The GOP is pretty open that they think they should be able to kill cops if the government makes decisions they don't like.

The ease of getting guns in America is so bad, that it's destabilizing surrounding countries. It's so bad in Northern Mexico that the drug dealers are so well armed, that the government of Mexico can't really go in, and the only real, real solution there is for the US to use it's own guns and go in and fight people with our guns to create some sort of no mans land, which will never happen in a thousand years.

Mark my words. It's only a matter of time before guns are used by American Militia (aka Warlords) to attempt to control parts of the US. Unless the US is willing to deal with this shit in a real and effective manner, the country will continue to destabilize over the rest of my lifetime.

Let me take a crack at this, because I'm treating it as a legitimate question.

Fair warning: nobody has to like my response, all I'd ask is that you treat it as what it is: an attempt to give a legitimate answer to (what I perceive as) a fair enough question.

In my whole life, 56 years worth, I've never lost a minute of sleep about guns. I've lost a fair bit of sleep over the disintegration of common sense, of efforts to normalize batshit crazy behavior, of living in a world steadily going mad.

(I wouldn't explain this bit in this particularly way honestly, but I'm trying to address the actual wording of your post with this) There are considerably worse harms than those that can be done to one person, many of us believe we're watching as a nation descends into madness that is not recoverable. That's some scary shit indeed.

I keep moving further and further left politically, and the saying that "once you go far enough left you get your guns back!" is very true. If not for mental health risks I would own one by now.

I do still believe in most sensible gun control measures though, and I believe that gun control centered around mass shootings, and our conversations around mass shootings are extremely flawed. We obviously have a severe problem that no one else in the world has and protecting children should be a priority in our country in every way, but an unbelievable number of gun deaths are related to suicides and domestic violence and there are huge driver's of reform and common sense laws that we should have a conversation around that would help to lower those numbers and that would hopefully cause even a small culture shift around guns in America that could have a positive impact on mass shootings in an indirect way.

That's not a knock on any of the discussion here, of course when something tragic like this happens we all look at how and why it happened and if anything could have prevented it. But a national discussion and reform around guns could IMO happen in a more measured way and not as a reaction to any one event, or event series of events.

I guess then I would ask what the common sense is. Is it common sense for my child to dress all pretty, marry a man, conform to gender and sexual norms (which were put in place long ago, it could be argued as a means of control) against what the fiber of their being tells them they should do? I'm not convinced that does make sense.

(And how far back do we go with this? It wasn't "common sense" for a woman to have a credit card. Or "common sense" for a woman to be able to work. Or "common sense" for members of different races (colors; "races" is a construction) to intermarry. For members of different religions to intermarry. For different races/religions to coesxist. Or common sense for one person to own another. (By commerce, marriage, whatever.))

Other than losing sleep how has your life been adversely effected by these harms you claim? By all accounts you have a steady job, you're healthy (not sure how :p ) you eat out every meal, you go to high school football games and concerts, and you have a great kid who is on the path to being hugely successful.

I have relatives in other countries. People definitely think we are a nation descending into madness. Because of the mass shootings and the fact we do nothing about it. That is a very real threat. Every one of us likely knows someone who has been effected by gun violence. How many of us know someone who was effected negatively by a pride flag or drag queens reading books to school children?

I just can not understand your take. It's like complaining the chardonnay isn't quite cold enough in first class.

dola- I hope I didn't come off as combative, not my intention.

I would complain about a fly in my chardonnay
and about a free ride when i'm already there
and that good advice that I just didn't take
who would've thought...it figures

ChatGPT haiku

First class complaints,
Chardonnay not cold, oh please,
Entitled mindset.

I just wanted to throw another one kudo (kudos?) out there: I genuinely appreciate both the dispassion and candor when you try to answer these honestly. We vehemently disagree but you treat these like honest questions looking for honest answers and that helps me understand better.

SI

Hmmm. A possible motive. Don't see it on MSM yet so consider the source.

Audrey Hale counseled by Nashville pastor whose daughter she killed

There is definitely a disconnect in how people understand common sense. Like in this case:

Common sense from this shooting to me says we should make it harder for people with mental health issues to access guns, and easier for them to receive expert help.
Common sense from others say it should be easier for everybody to have any gun they want immediately, and there is just nothing we can do to help people with mental illness.

on the other hand i read a thing that said the principal (that was killed ) was VERY big on active shooter drills and instructions...and everyone followed her plans about locking doors and hiding in the rooms they were supposed to. The only people killed were those caught in the halls or in open areas. I would agree with this because otherwise it would have been a much higher...uh...well you know

So I think killing the daughter was just dumb luck if that's what she wanted to do. But the motive for it to be THAT school...is more likely. At least it was probably just the one on her mind. Aaaaand it was important to her that she knew the layout of the school and whtether it had any security.

There is also this little ditty. John Perry, confessed child molester, would have been active in the school at the same time the shooter was there. Even after he was forced to resign, he continued to work with the church, even had "troubled teens" live with him in his house. He was also the ghost writer for Mike Huckaby's and Judge Roy Moore's books.

Attention Required! | Cloudflare


Thanks SI, real sincerely.

Lord knows, I'm not immune to getting (over)heated on various topics and won't pretend otherwise but I have tried when possible over the years to detach and provide legit answers to what I perceive as legit questions.

I ain't expecting to convert anybody lol, I just see more good than harm in occasionally providing a better understanding. That may not always work either but I believe it's at least worth the effort.

Mind if I claim the a position closer to the middle for a change?

If government is going to fund everything under the sun and then some (whether that's appropriate is a Constitutional argument for another time & place) I've steadily increased my support for increasing the priority of mental health care, particularly in-patient.

Alas, the rub would be figuring out what does/doesn't constitute a mental health patient ... cause me & you would definitely be submitting an almost entirely different list of patients for treatment. #detailsALWAYSthefndetails

I agree that we would disagree on some of the people who should be patience, but I think we would both agree an many. The sad thing is I see many voters on the right say that this should be done, but then the politicians stand in the way of actually doing it.

Treat guns like the GOP wants to treat abortion pills. Problem solved.

Treat guns like medical Marijuana
Must buy a card for 250 every year

Nvm

The War on Guns will surely end as well as the War on Drugs did.