[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

But yet, you point out that the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are white men and it's all "that's sexism/racism against white males!"

Not a mass shooting, but who cares really

Texas A&M-Texarkana baseball player struck by stray bullet

So, this guy was deported four times and incarcerated for DUI and still had no problem at all getting an AR15.

There is something seriously wrong with this country.

Every public statement from a Republican needs a content warning.

This might sound tongue in cheek but if I consider the language of 2A and if it was given its broadest purposive construction i.e. citizens have the right to bear arms and specifically for a well regulated militia (funny the word "regulated" appears in the text but gun proponents oppose any regulation of arms) then how does the US view freestanding militias owning the various apparatuses to conduct a combined arms operation?

I mean, well regulated means Murica FK yeah levels of shock and awe, does it not?

Yet you don't hear of citizens driving Abrams or flying Chinooks to deliver freedom on home soil.

And therein lies the idiocy of it.

Militias don't conduct combined arms operations.

Why?

Because it costs a fortune to keep aircraft flying and tanks operational. Ain't no militias got the wallet for that.

Militias were a useful military component literally hundreds of years ago. They are not today. So taking the 2A at is word is about as wise as taking medical advice from Thomas Jefferson.

According to Elie Mystal's Allow Me to Retort, the original purpose of 2A was to prevent the northern states from taking away the guns that the south used to put down slave rebellions and hunt down escaped slaves. It was a compromise to get other things into the bill of rights. F*ck anything written to appease slave owners.

Mixolyde wrote:

According to Elie Mystal's Allow Me to Retort, the original purpose of 2A was to prevent the northern states from taking away the guns that the south used to put down slave rebellions and hunt down escaped slaves. It was a compromise to get other things into the bill of rights. F*ck anything written to appease slave owners.

Carol Anderson's "The Second" is a great book on the subject of the history leading to the second amendment. Sadly, these histories are somehow ignored when it comes to these interpretations Bruen has established as binding. Funny that...

I'll add it to the list. Elie Mystal's book is short and a pretty easy read even for non-lawyers. Highly recommended.

Originalism for thee but not for me

The NRA spokesperson that murdered five members of a family has been captured in Cut and Shoot, Texas. There is a city called Cut and Shoot...in Texas. I guess that is on brand.

Just came here to express sadness that this thread exists at all ...

Eight dead and seven wounded at a freaking outlet mall. Texas is broken.

OG_slinger wrote:

Eight dead and seven wounded at a freaking outlet mall. Texas is broken.

The whole country is broken.

So Texas can't even make it a week. More thoughts and prayers from Abbot?

Hmmm maybe they'll make it even easier to get guns, maybe hand them out for free.

CNN Opinion: When the answer could be a bullet, no one will ask the question

CNN wrote:

The entirety of our culture now seems increasingly like the Wild West, where the answer to “could you please stop doing that?” or even just “could you help me?” might turn out to be a bullet.

...

But when the response to asking someone not to shoot an AR-15 at 11 at night, near other people’s houses, while a baby is sleeping, might be mass murder? I’m not sure how we move forward from that. And the torrent of events isn’t slowing: literally, as I am writing these words, I’ve learned of more: A fatal shooting in Colorado following an altercation between two Tesla owners at an electric-vehicle charging station. It was just a week ago when one neighbor allegedly killed another for complaining about the noise of a leaf blower.

Then there were the people who weren’t even braving what they thought might be an argument: Ralph Yarl, shot in Missouri for knocking on the wrong door. Two cheerleaders in Texas, shot after mistaking a stranger’s car for their own. Kaylin Gillis, fatally shot when the car she was riding in made a wrong turn into an upstate New York driveway. Six-year-old Kinsley White, shot along with her parents in North Carolina after her basketball rolled into a neighbor’s yard. Waldes Thomas Jr. and Diamond Darville, teenagers shot at in Florida after trying to deliver Instacart groceries to the wrong address.

One of the effects of this heartbreaking series of events will be to further quash any citizen instinct to reach out when in need of basic assistance, to put forth a hand in attempted connection with another person, or to speak up for others. If you think this is an exaggeration, consider another recent headline: the slaying of pastor Anthony Watts, a Good Samaritan in Mississippi.

None of this is an accident. A number of well-documented, decades-long campaigns have created a populace that’s stewing in anger and comfortable dehumanizing other people. And armed to the teeth.

We joke but that’s the GOP’s literal solution. Get more guns in the street so the “good guys” can stop all these mass shootings.

That’s what happens when the good guys don’t carry guns. /s

@megynkelly wrote:

Serious q for gun control advocates: you’ve failed to effect change. Pls face it. You can’t do it, thx to the 2A. We’re all well aware you don’t like that fact, but fact it is. What’s next? Must we just stay here sad, concerned, lamenting? Could we possibly talk OTHER SOLUTIONS?

Mental health interventions (smthg real, not the BS we now do), greater willingness to lock ppl up (w/protocols in place for civil libs) who are deemed to be threats, fortification of soft targets, coordination of media response to not lionize shooters, etc.

Not really even sure how to have the conversation with these people. The solution is obvious. Serbia had one of these incidents and figured out the solution within 48 hours.

Sarajevo was still in living memory.

America won't stop until it becomes Sarajevo.

I guess we need to add Serbia to the list of countries that pussied out on the 2nd Amendment after just one American style mass murder event.  It's like they have never heard of thoughts and prayers or something.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

Sarajevo was still in living memory.

America won't stop until it becomes Sarajevo.

There's too much money to be made from culture wars for it to ever stop. The enduring legacy of the Roberts court will be the naked corruption allowing the backslide into American Fascism for the sake of Republican power.

Burn it all down.

Prederick wrote:
@megynkelly wrote:

Serious q for gun control advocates: you’ve failed to effect change. Pls face it. You can’t do it, thx to the 2A. We’re all well aware you don’t like that fact, but fact it is. What’s next? Must we just stay here sad, concerned, lamenting? Could we possibly talk OTHER SOLUTIONS?

Mental health interventions (smthg real, not the BS we now do), greater willingness to lock ppl up (w/protocols in place for civil libs) who are deemed to be threats, fortification of soft targets, coordination of media response to not lionize shooters, etc.

Not really even sure how to have the conversation with these people. The solution is obvious. Serbia had one of these incidents and figured out the solution within 48 hours.

There isn't a way to talk to them because what she says is a lie. The right votes against mental health spending, the work against removing guns from people who are deemed threats, they refuse to allow gun free zones, and goodness knows media hypes they hell out of shooters.

So her statement is a lie and there is no point in talking to liars who won't work for change.

Looks like our Texas mall shooter was a neo nazi. Because why wouldn't he be?

Fun watching conservatives online pretend that Latino people cannot be Neo-nazis/white supremacists.

Paleocon wrote:

Looks like our Texas mall shooter was a neo nazi. Because why wouldn't he be?

But wait, there's more. From CNN's live updates feed:

Garcia self-identified in some posts as an “incel,” a term that the Anti-Defamation League defines as “heterosexual men who blame women and society for their lack of romantic success.” Some posts were sexist and expressed anger toward women.

Mauricio Garcia, the suspected Texas mall shooter, was terminated after three months in the army and did not complete basic training, according to an army spokesperson.

...

A US defense official said Garcia was separated because of a mental health condition. Garcia received a mental health evaluation before his separation, the official said.

Multiple weapons owned by the Allen outlet mall shooting suspect, including the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack, were purchased legally, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Most of the weapons were purchased by private sellers, which is legal in Texas and means the suspect, Mauricio Garcia, did not go through a background check.

Multiple warning signs, but allowed to own and purchase multiple guns over time anyway. But, hey, we don't need to check his background because we're in Texas. What could go wrong?

(Spoiler: What happened. What happened is what could go wrong.)

Yeah, it's not a "maybe" or anything, dude was a full-blown neo-nazi.

He'd basically been announcing his plans for months beforehand.

The Free Speech response of the truth-tellers on Elon's Twitter has broadly been outright lies and misinformation, other, stupider lies and trolling.

One of the usual ridiculous claims that often comes up is that whichever shooting just happened where it really looks like a right wing a-hole did it, is that it was a false flag or psyop mission.

Has this ever actually been true? There are so many instances I can't search through them all.