It’s not unique to America, it happens in Canada, albeit with less startling frequency. But it happens, and will likely happen more often as income of the former oil middle class decreases and as white supremacist rallies continue to grow.
Give a man the means to enact revenge against people he sees as depriving him of his once-held wealth, and he’ll give you corpses and misery. It happened in Boulder. It happened in Moncton.
Shit like this happens in Japan, China, France, India, The UK - but with fewer casualties because it turns out knives have terrible range.
Not a lot of drive-by spearings in the Roman Empire.
well the American right are going to have a fun week: Newsweek’s Jenni Fink reports that Ahmad Alissa has been named as the Boulder Supermarket Shooter.
America, where any asshat can get a gun, but kids can’t get an education or clean water.
Not rhetorical: Is there something about the AR-15 that is uniquely deadly? Is its presence causative or corollary? Would these shooters simply have a different weapon of choice if it was banned - or is there something particularly violence inspiring about the AR-15?
For context, I’m a second amendment supporter that hates gun culture and thinks it’s gross.
And I do think there is perhaps something uniquely bad about the AR-15. Most second amendment supporters like myself will rant and rave about how stupid non “gun people” are in thinking a gun is bad just because it looks especially dangerous. But I disagree. I think these black military style guns are part of the problem - even if they operate exactly the same as a wooden stocked hunting rifle. It’s part of a violence obsessed culture - the magazines and images encourage their use against humans and make it “rock em sock em” cool 
to so many disturbed people.
For example, my favorite rifle is the Tikka T3x arctic - this is what Canadian rangers use. It’s just as capable of taking a human life as any of the more militaristic appearing rifles - but there is something about its appearance that calls to mind a whole different mindset, set of values, and associations than an AR-15.
The obsession with ‘tactical’ and ‘military-style’ weapons is its own problem separate from the abilities of the firearm. The aesthetic matters, the culture matters. That said, while I want people to retain the right to own firearms, I wholeheartedly endorse the need for better background checks and better PREVENTATIVE mental healthcare in this country. While the left charges ahead with a focus on self-care and mental health, the right is being left behind.The marketing of mental healthcare to the rural right will look totally different than it does to the urban left. I’m not saying this is a solution - just part of the discussion.
And if your reaction to these continued events is that guns need to be banned outright or that legislation needs to be super strict about the type of guns a person can own - I respectfully disagree - but completely understand that reaction.
I also think it should be harder to get a drivers license - we need tougher vetting in many dangerous areas - but I don’t think forbidding is the right answer although again - I totally get that response.
If only we could figure out some kind of pattern with regards to weapons! /s
I thought they executed Saddam
Perhaps a first step would be legislation that mandates all firearms outside a museum to be painted pink. That wouldn’t interfere with ownership. It would also allow the public and law enforcement a bit of a heads up when a highly visible weapon is seen. And make it easy to identify non-compliance.
Is the AR-15 “uniquely deadly?” No. Is it particularly problematic and prevelant, yes.
First, it’s a powerful semi-automatic rifle, purpose-designed to kill a lot of large mammals in a short period of time without a lot of skill on the user’s part, that the vast majority of Americans don’t need to carry or own and would find no realistic or legitimate occasion to use. But second, it’s marketed as (with the various colours/patterns – not just black or camo – and configurations and accessories) and mass-produced as something that any American could and should own. In that, the AR-15 represents everything that people who take firearms seriously like you or I* loathe about American gun culture.
[* As noted above, I strongly disagree with your and American conservatism’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. That so many people buy into the so-called “originalist” interpretation without question is a big part of the problem.]
It’s simply the best marketed such weapon and, as noted above, the most frequently used in recent years. So both, in a toxic feedback loop.
Yes, they’d just go on to the next most popular semi-automatic rifle – all of which should be banned for civilian sale except to licensed industrial users (mainly ranchers and farmers and some bonded security guards).
As in so many other areas of American life, conservatives are actively choosing – both in their personal decisions and in those they elect – to be left behind when it comes to mental healthcare. It isn’t something that should be “marketed” by for-profit insurers at all, but since it is of course private corporations looking to save a buck aren’t going to waste money selling services to people who are told by their political and religious leaders and family elders that therapy like that is for “weaklings” and those of “bad moral character”.
The only therapy these “strict-father” types seem to find acceptable is coercive pseudo-scientific forms like “gay conversion therapy” aimed at imposing conformity.
The AR-15 and related firearms aren’t just uniquely dangerous because they look like scary military weapons. The AR-15 is a scary military weapon. It is a civilian variant of the M16 rifle carried by U.S. soldiers since 1964.
That rifle and others like it were designed for the sole purpose of killing human beings as efficiently as possible. Taking away the full-auto feature doesn’t appreciably change that. Even in combat situations soldiers usually default to semi-automatic mode.
Road to nowhere…
“The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the future of gun control in the Senate. The House passed two bills earlier this month that tackled who can buy a gun and how to close loopholes on background checks. We’ve said it before and will say it again: the votes are not there in the Senate to pass the House bills. The votes are not there to pass an assault weapons ban. The votes are not there to limit the number of magazines. The major difference between what Republicans are willing to do on background checks and what Democrats are willing to do on background checks is that most members agree that if you are going to go and buy a gun from a licensed firearm dealer or at a gun show, you should have a background check. What they don’t agree on and have struggled to agree on in the past is whether when you sell a gun to a family member or friend or privately transfer a gun, do you have to run a background check? That’s why a failed 2013 bill to expand background checks on gun sales from West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey was a big deal. It struck a compromise. But, Manchin-Toomey isn’t the bill that Democrats are talking about bringing up for a vote.
Right now, Schumer has pledged to bring the House’s background check bill to the floor. It required background checks on everything. It was universal. That does not have the votes.” Via CNN
we’ll get to see soon about the second line of your image. the released name of the shooter is:
ahmad al aliwi alissa
i know a dozen folks who own ar-15s or similarly configured weapons. all of them, with one exception, are hunters. the exception is a competition shooter who is also a collector. of the hunters exactly zero use the ar-15 for hunting. although a properly scoped and sighted m16 could be used at hunting distances by a skilled shooter, there are numerous rifles much better suited to the task. my unscoped 1957 edition winchester model 94 lever action rifle i inherited from my father comes to mind.
the people i know who own it use it for very expensive “plinking” expeditions deep within sandpits and hollows on their own property. they are expensive and deadly toys unless they are in the hands of someone intent on killing people quickly.
eta–the information about the rifle i hunt with.
With the exception of “Spray and Pray,” which is a terrible strategy anyway, there is not much significant difference in rate of fire between semi- and full auto, and a huge difference in accuracy. Hell, a pump shotgun can manage a similar rate of fire very briefly. The difference is the tacti-cool factor inherent in the AR-15 platform and the customer that it is marketed to. It is a terrible hunting rifle unless you are hunting humans. Period.
Appreciate the responses - just a note on the “marketing” part - I didn’t mean marketed by providers or even healthcare organizations. Even though these are super annoying to me - I was thinking more-so of devices like the Instagram infographic style intra-community messaging that broadcasts and amplifies these types of ideas on social media among members of the same community.
For many people that could potentially be caught up the whirlpool of internet forum gun-culture that amplifies negative outlooks - it would take this style of community messaging to make an impact.
In my imagination, this would be through displacement not negation of these interests. Focusing on healthier ways to interact with guns that isn’t obsessive - perhaps memes that take that interest and gently push those interests toward enjoying the outdoors or engineering or maker culture - or a huge variety of positives that have some marginal overlap.
I really don’t know though - it’s a steep hill. And the more I talk and think about it, the more I think strict legislation is the most direct route to deal with it. It’s exhausting and impossible feeling to actually address the root causes.
Worth a look: McSweeney’s take on regulating ‘big iron’ illustrates the absurdity of the “more guns / good guy” line.
