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?
That sounds absolutely bonkers but then I’m originally from Aus.
I’m from rural Iowa, I was taught how to assemble, fire, and clean a muzzleloader rifle before I was taught how to drive.
Nevin73 wrote:Apparently the person in custody is 14 years old. So now I would really like to hear the story as to how a 14 y/o got firearms. I'm hoping the parents are held accountable (if appropriate).
That’s about the age I started having firearms gifted for birthdays & christmas, and I had minimally-supervised access to my father’s guns years before that.
I don’t know what the shooter’s background is like but a 14 year old with guns isn’t crazy in much of the US (I mean, it is crazy, it’s just not unusual).
I get it, especially from areas where hunting is big. But perhaps we shouldn't normalize parents giving kids access to devices whose sole purpose is to kill and start punishing such behavior. Kids can still be taught to shoot and hunt without having unrestricted access to firearms.
Someone posed on their Facebook page a family photo of the teacher killed - with his wife and two kids....They don't know this guy, they are just posting "emotion porn".
Atras wrote:The second amendment was folly at the time they wrote it, and it's a cruel joke now.
To be fair, the first revolver wasn't invented until the early 1800s. When the Constitution was written, "guns" were weapons that you only had one shot with and then had to reload by hand.
The idea is still pretty silly. "Hey everyone! We promise to never take away your killing machines." is a damn stupid promise to make.
But the founding fathers should have also used clearer language to differentiate between personal ownership of weapons or weapons used within a militia.
I honestly don't know how much more clearly they could have said it:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
That's the literal text. There's no sane way any court could read that as "everyone, everywhere should have as many guns as they want", but this is America (f*ck yeah!). The text has all the parts that make the whole idea less stupid: well-regulated; militia; but it's still stupid.
Someone I have known for a long time and actually care about recently said to me that "the occasional deaths of children is a small price to pay for America being the gold standard for personal freedom".
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
Someone I have known for a long time and actually care about recently said to me that "the occasional deaths of children is a small price to pay for America being the gold standard for personal freedom".
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
Trick him into thinking his kids are dead? See how much freedom is worth to him then.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of dipsh*ts.
The idea is still pretty silly. "Hey everyone! We promise to never take away your killing machines." is a damn stupid promise to make.
I actually think it is quite appropriate for the time. The colonists were constantly being shoved around by the British. Having guns was the only viable way to stop them.
They also didn't worry that much about say cannons becuase for example if farmer Bob in Kentucky rebelled it would take weeks to get cannons mobilized and moved into position to take his farm away. It wasn't really logistically possible.
It was possible to get soldiers with guns on site and those guns were no better than the guns Bob had - so it was a good deterrent.
The fact is that modern weapons and warfare have changed so much that Bob having a gun is useless if the feds decided to send a missile from 100 milies away with laser guided precision to kill Bob.
So the idea that Bob simply must be able to have a gun is stupid today - it doesn't prevent government tyranny but 200 years ago it did.
Atras wrote:The idea is still pretty silly. "Hey everyone! We promise to never take away your killing machines." is a damn stupid promise to make.
I actually think it is quite appropriate for the time. The colonists were constantly being shoved around by the British. Having guns was the only viable way to stop them.
...
It was possible to get soldiers with guns on site and those guns were no better than the guns Bob had - so it was a good deterrent.
I understand the reasoning behind it. It's a lot like the actual 3rd Amendment, the British would just tell people they were housing some soldiers now, which is kind of messed up, so they made a promise not to do that (without the process of law). I just think it's crazy that the 'solution' to government potentially pushing people around was 'kill the person who gets sent to do the job'. That has to be insane to most people, right?
The fact is that modern weapons and warfare have changed so much that Bob having a gun is useless if the feds decided to send a missile from 100 milies away with laser guided precision to kill Bob.
Someone I have known for a long time and actually care about recently said to me that "the occasional deaths of children is a small price to pay for America being the gold standard for personal freedom".
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
Demonstrate your personal freedom by handing his kid a loaded weapon and teach them to point it at him or themself?
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
There is nothing you can do about him. Except vote and keep spreading information.
Someone I have known for a long time and actually care about recently said to me that "the occasional deaths of children is a small price to pay for America being the gold standard for personal freedom".
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
Whenever some org does one of those global personal freedom rankings doesn’t the US usually not even make the top 10?
Ah yes, the gold standard of being freer than countries that are literal war zones but not too free like those dirty countries where going to the hospital won’t put you in insurmountable debt for the rest of your life.
farley3k wrote:Atras wrote:The idea is still pretty silly. "Hey everyone! We promise to never take away your killing machines." is a damn stupid promise to make.
I actually think it is quite appropriate for the time. The colonists were constantly being shoved around by the British. Having guns was the only viable way to stop them.
...
It was possible to get soldiers with guns on site and those guns were no better than the guns Bob had - so it was a good deterrent.I understand the reasoning behind it. It's a lot like the actual 3rd Amendment, the British would just tell people they were housing some soldiers now, which is kind of messed up, so they made a promise not to do that (without the process of law). I just think it's crazy that the 'solution' to government potentially pushing people around was 'kill the person who gets sent to do the job'. That has to be insane to most people, right?
I need to find the exact episode but NPR put out a good podcast on how the whole 2nd Amendment ended up such a mess. Basically the Southern states were afraid that if there was a Haiti style mass revolt, then the Northern states might block the deployment of federal troops. So Southerners wanted unlimited weapons rights and Northerners didn’t, but the compromise would be regulating guns at the local level. Hence the whole “militia” clause. It’s a good deep dive and I’m sure I’m not doing justice to all the nuance.
Shooter’s father charged. He bought his son the AR15 months after he was investigated for threatening to shoot up the school.
Someone I have known for a long time and actually care about recently said to me that "the occasional deaths of children is a small price to pay for America being the gold standard for personal freedom".
I honestly don't know what to do about him.
I don't think there's anything you could possibly do or say. The person is genuinely in a death cult.
PHOENIX (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life” and argued the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
Vance said he doesn’t like the idea of his own kids going to a school with hardened security, “but that’s increasingly the reality that we live in.”
Anything but the obvious answer.
The Vice-Presidential candidate of the richest, most poweful nation in the world saying that we cannot protect our children from gun violence, so instead we should send them to school like they did for kids in Afghanistan before the Taliban retook power.
Just tacitly admitting that piles of dead schoolchildren are, as Paleo's friend said, an acceptable sacrifice for the Second Amendment. Moloch would be unsettled.
I am increasingly convinced that school shootings are the deal republicans made with the old gods in the cabin in the woods.
I think the big clarification missing in Vance’s comments is, “[school shootings] happen in states with both lax and strict by US standards gun laws”. According to the rest of the civilized world, even the strictest US state gun laws are ridonkulously permissive.
I think the big clarification missing in Vance’s comments is, “[school shootings] happen in states with both lax and strict by US standards gun laws”. According to the rest of the civilized world, even the strictest US state gun laws are ridonkulously permissive.
And it embarrassingly ignores that states have open borders. Without national regulation, state restrictions don't do much.
Chumpy_McChump wrote:I think the big clarification missing in Vance’s comments is, “[school shootings] happen in states with both lax and strict by US standards gun laws”. According to the rest of the civilized world, even the strictest US state gun laws are ridonkulously permissive.
And it embarrassingly ignores that states have open borders. Without national regulation, state restrictions don't do much.
I remember when I was a kid, you couldn't buy fireworks in my home state (WV). But my uncle would always vacation in South Carolina and would somehow always have a ton of fireworks for the 4th.
Seems relevant.
Take a look at the border between Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula; it’s lined with cannabis shops. Recreational cannabis is illegal in Wisconsin.
Like so may issues there is a grain of truth in his statements which is why they can twist their brains to accept it.
His statement "if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.” is kind of true - you can't stop a person who is willing to kills others. But strong gun laws could make it a lot harder for them to kill scores of people.
But that little bit of truth - we can't stop everyone who wants to do harm gives them psychological cover for doing nothing.
Chumpy_McChump wrote:I think the big clarification missing in Vance’s comments is, “[school shootings] happen in states with both lax and strict by US standards gun laws”. According to the rest of the civilized world, even the strictest US state gun laws are ridonkulously permissive.
And it embarrassingly ignores that states have open borders. Without national regulation, state restrictions don't do much.
Fear not, they're working on that. Can't have red state residents crossing state lines to access health care!
I should've expected that the Bluechecks on Twitter would one again run with their "the mass shooter was trans" narrative, which appears to based on him having dyed hair (and them being odious liars, obviously), but I was still kinda surprised.
The shooter's transphobic, not trans. VP Cheney is voting for VP Harris. Abe Lincoln is bi. What next for Republicans? Ronald Reagan rooted against Notre Dame football? Ike smoked weed in the Oval Office? Ulysses S. Grant tended the Rose Garden in the nude?
Not a mass shooting, but the perfect example of a good guy with a gun doesn't exiiiiiis--
Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Stines has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a Kentucky District Judge Kevin Mullins, who was killed in his chambers on Thursday, according to police.
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