The American mass shooting thread

[story]

Is that going to be enough though?

Not in my view, no. Because the balance of power lies very fi.

To be honest, I've been considering a move somewhere else. I see things going really dark in the US and the rise of a Christo-fascist state, similar to the Confederacy, and run by the same people. Since I have an elderly parent to care for, I won't be doing that in the near future so I may just have to find a place to hole up in for the duration.

Yes, I think this is increasing everywhere.

And unlike krtek a houby I don’t think the well meaning resistance will make any headway at all against the prevailing storm.

I think people will hunker down, retreat and dig in, stay safe as well they can. The schism will open further, the breach between those who would support a theoretical Christi-fascist state and those who despise the move towards it is opening fast and I can’t see how that wound can be closed now.

One of the problems is that the American tendency to pioneer, live off the land, escape and retreat from the state, that essential characteristic is common to both sides (it’s one of the foundation stones of the nation) and so both sides will be resorting to this, in some form or another. How do hunkered down and separatist communities ever find common ground?

one way or another, it’s going to get worse for a while yet, I fear.

I give thanks to my dead dad that he got us out in time, in time for us kids to build community and roots outside America.

I think of you whenever I think of these things, and that’s the truth Yuwipi Woman .

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Didn't the Confederacy seek to secede from the Union rather than take it over?

As for Presidents, well you've shot a few of them...

I was pointing out that their political structure was a Christian-based Fascist state. Everyone has their place--white men, women, children, slaves. Any effort to buck that God-ordained system was an offense against God and state.

 

[story]

You'll need a Civil War first.

This IS the civil war.
War no longer looks like it did.

 

[8ball]

This IS the civil war.
War no longer looks like it did.

Tell that to Ukraine.

 

[story]

Tell that to Ukraine.

It’s not a fucking competition.

 

[story]

Tell that to Ukraine.

How about
war is evolving.

some wars, are starting to look different to old fashioned trad wars.

 

[spring-peeper]

 

[chandlerp]

As someone once wisely said, "If it wasn't for the fact they speak English, we'd have fuck all to do with them"

To paraphrase Trump, "a shithole country"

 

[JimW]

View attachment 324060

Though China did have a spate of stabbings at primary schools, some pretty lethal and even now the security guards will have a big prong thing to restrain potential attackers (old fella at my daughter's school does). Slightly different demographic of perpetrator (often older) but similarly driven by wider social factors.

 

[Humberto]

How about
war is evolving.

some wars, are starting to look different to old fashioned trad wars.

True. e.g. War on Drugs. It's become its own reason for existing.

 

[frogwoman]

View attachment 324060

Russia's had more than 1 and I don't trust the Chinese numbers tbh.

 

[Ax^]

Didn't the Confederacy seek to secede from the Union rather than take it over?

As for Presidents, well you've shot a few of them... gun availability isn't all downsides.

they only appear to shot the good ones


I mean they only winged Regan

 

[frogwoman]

POC would be safer with fewer guns in the community.

I agree and tbh I often disagree with these leftists on other stuff but there's still the problem of if you ban Guns there's the problem that a lot of the most dangerous people are not going to want to give them up. Just banning them is not going to make people who are convincedthat tax is theft and the democrats are satanists hand them in. And IIRC gun laws have been used against the black panthers etc în the past. I can totally understand why people in the US who don't agree with the gun lobby at all are buying them to protect themselves, even though I disagree with it and think it's sad it's even considered as an option.

There was a podcast I listened to recently about a couple who got into white supremacist conspiracies and in a belief that taxation was a sin culminating in an armed standoff with the authorities, if that's the case how are you even gonna begin to get them to give up their guns.

The Standoff (Ed & Elaine Brown). Episode: 80: The Standoff — Swindled | A true crime podcast about white-collar criminals, con artists, and corporate evil. . Media: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirec...phone.fm/ADL6302781572.mp3?updated=1653241326 . -- Sent from Podcast Republic.

 

[NoXion]

POC would be safer with fewer guns in the community.

Including the police?

 

[8ball]

Including the police?

Yes, they’d be safer too.

 

[Ax^]

jesus and i joke about more guns being the answer

49.7 million guns in private hands in china btw

 

[frogwoman]

It’s not a fucking competition.

I'd say it's not there yet but it's a lot more likely than it was a few years ago. Idris2002 did some good posts on this a few years back

 

[frogwoman]

IIRC Idris was saying that some scholars of Civil war had noted (pre Trump) that the way that various political groups discussed each other in the US was reminiscent of the way such groups referred to each other in the prelude to civil wars in developing countries.

 

[frogwoman]

Like even a few US liberals I follow (as opposed to leftists etc) are talking about the need for arming themselves and the idea these people want to destroy our way of life etc, it's not as confined to 'the John Brown gun club' or whatever any more. I still think a civil war is unlikely but it's...not impossible

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

IIRC Idris was saying that some scholars of Civil war had noted (pre Trump) that the way that various political groups discussed each other in the US was reminiscent of the way such groups referred to each other in the prelude to civil wars in developing countries.

I have read that pedophile scares were a tool the Nazis used to get rid of political opponents. Accusations of pedophilia are easy to level, difficult to disprove, and emotionally charged. That's certainly something we're seeing with Q-anon.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Like even a few US liberals I follow (as opposed to leftists etc) are talking about the need for arming themselves and the idea these people want to destroy our way of life etc, it's not as confined to 'the John Brown gun club' or whatever any more. I still think a civil war is unlikely but it's...not impossible

I don't see a hot civil war either, but it is becoming more possible. What I see is a long slide into authoritarianism, where it is difficult to find a good place to get a foothold to fight. Much of this is funded and directed by oligarchic forces that the average person just doesn't have the resources or access to counter.

 

[8ball]

Like even a few US liberals I follow (as opposed to leftists etc) are talking about the need for arming themselves and the idea these people want to destroy our way of life etc, it's not as confined to 'the John Brown gun club' or whatever any more. I still think a civil war is unlikely but it's...not impossible

Take it you mean "liberals you wouldn't normally expect this from". Liberals in the US generally have been quite diverse in their views and personal practices re: personal firearms.

 

[spanglechick]

I can’t see a way back for America. The polarisation between normal people with recognisable values in a 21st century western democracy, and the other half, who are terrifying and wilfully stupid (unrelated to their education)… is surely unsustainable. It’s going to fall apart. It will be very ugly.

The nationalist exceptionalism that the usa has: product of being so rich and powerful while so young in national terms - undermines every appeal to reason. School shootings, healthcare, abortion rights, BLM… ask any difficult questions about why other places think so very differently, and make life better as a result - and the shutters come down. Because the USA cannot be wrong. The amendments to the constitution cannot be fallible or outdated.

And while the polarised national identity deepens, the hate and violence and fear multiplies.

It feels like all this <gestures> is just going to get worse and worse.

 

[Ax^]

being irish all i can say is although the freedom of our nation was secured at the end of a gun within the last one hunderd years
and we still have troubles with that time frame

and still have issue with gun violence in my native north dublin and other places with the republic

at least as a whole nation we did not fall in love with firearms

could of easily gone the other way, would not like to see the alternate reality where ireland followed the Usa Model
due to the dysphoria and the 3rd president

 

[story]

I think it’s too late now for any meaningful changes on the gun problem in the US.

This fault is now too complex, too enmeshed and too fundamental for it to change.
The issue, the fault, the flaw is now so thoroughly a part of the the American character that it mirrors that in the individuals who throw these gun tantrums.

I think that if anything concrete had been achieved after Sandy Hook (which anyway was legislatively impossible because of the ways in which Obama was politically hamstrung) we might have gotten on the right track.

Similarly, Parkland could theoretically have engendered some kind of grass roots movement, if only because the naïvety and irrepressible determination of the kids might have pushed down some barriers. But again, it was impossible in practical reality.

But now, as from today, I suspect they’ll fall into resignation, just accept this being a normal and normalised part of American life. It’s already commonplace. How do you reverse that juggernaut in the face of capitalist inertia?

Just listened to some Americans being interviewed. And they are indeed saying things like ” it’s getting to be normal…. It never surprises me anymore… Well, what can we do I suppose…”

They are becoming inured.

Learned helplessness, which is almost impossible to overturn without radical intervention.

 

[Pickman's model]

being irish all i can say is although the freedom of our nation was secured at the end of a gun within the last one hunderd years
and we still have troubles with that time frame

and still have issue with gun violence in my native north dublin and other places with the republic

at least as a whole nation we did not fall in love with firearms

could of easily gone the other way, would not like to see the alternate reality where ireland followed the Usa Model
due to the dysphoria and the 3rd president

I really can't see this alternate reality you propose, can't see an alternative in which the British, had they won the tan war, or the free staters would have allowed guns to become as easily available as the United States.

 

[agricola]

I agree and tbh I often disagree with these leftists on other stuff but there's still the problem of if you ban Guns there's the problem that a lot of the most dangerous people are not going to want to give them up. Just banning them is not going to make people who are convincedthat tax is theft and the democrats are satanists hand them in. And IIRC gun laws have been used against the black panthers etc în the past. I can totally understand why people in the US who don't agree with the gun lobby at all are buying them to protect themselves, even though I disagree with it and think it's sad it's even considered as an option.

There was a podcast I listened to recently about a couple who got into white supremacist conspiracies and in a belief that taxation was a sin culminating in an armed standoff with the authorities, if that's the case how are you even gonna begin to get them to give up their guns.

The Standoff (Ed & Elaine Brown). Episode: 80: The Standoff — Swindled | A true crime podcast about white-collar criminals, con artists, and corporate evil. . Media: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirec...phone.fm/ADL6302781572.mp3?updated=1653241326 . -- Sent from Podcast Republic.

Indeed, and I think that is one of the big reasons why the proposed incrementalism of the gun control lobby (closing loopholes, enhanced background checks, partial bans on certain types of certain guns / gun parts) has been such a failure - the political chat that always accompanies a horror like this only ever sells more guns. Eventually the chat goes away (usually because it either fails to become law or does become law but fails to solve things) and the next horror occurs, at which the same people say the same things and the other same people buy more guns and ammo, and so on and so forth.

The only argument that will (at least in the current circumstances) stand a chance of reducing the number of these tragedies in the long term is to interpret the 2A in terms of something like Switzerland; ie: every adult can be a part of the militia (organized at the county or state level), the militia has to be organized and trained to common federal standards (part of "well regulated") and that every participating adult can keep at home a certain number of a certain type of firearm in certain calibres (the other part of "well regulated").

Issue the guns and ammo as well (rather than sell them) and you'd put a big dent in the firearms industry, reducing it to the state arsenal level again and closing loads of gun shops. That would then lead to a gradual decline in the number of non-standard privately held firearms, a decline which could be sped up with buybacks and amnesties. It would take decades and there would still be mass killings, but I think the trend would be downwards over time.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Learned helplessness, which is almost impossible to overturn without radical intervention.

It's not the first time I've heard that phrase this week. Our political system is so unresponsive to the needs of the majority of its citizens that they've all but abandoned any thought of approaching lawmakers. I figured out a while ago that most of them exist only to run interference between the oligarchic class and the rest of us rabble. And, some of them actually are oligarchs themselves, such as our Gov. Ricketts. Instead of referring to them as "the 1%", we should just call them what they are--oligarchs.

 

[Ax^]

I really can't see this alternate reality you propose, can't see an alternative in which the British, had they won the tan war, or the free staters would have allowed guns to become as easily available as the United States.

depends on who you spoke to about the time and the feeling toward the actions in the north at the time,

i suppose

 

[A380]