Gunshots heard as St. Louis mayor holds press conference about gun violence

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/11/01/gunshots-heard-as-st-louis-mayor-holds-press-conference-about-gun-violence.html

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Ha. Classic America!

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Oh, hey Quinton Lucas was there. Wish it was for better reasons :confused:

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America 2021:

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I checked, it was a good guy with a gun, no worries. /s

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In the neighbourhood where people know what gunshots sound like, no one bats an eye at an actual gunshot.

In neighbourhoods where people don’t know what gunshots sound like every single firework and slamming door and heavy equipment noise immediately gets a dozen posts on social media with people wringing their hands and wailing about gunshots.

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Yup. Gunshots have a distinctively sharp sound. Every Independence Day or New Years Day evening it’s the same thing: “OK, that was a firecracker… and that was a pack of firecrackers… and that’s some idiot emptying the magazine on a handgun.”
Some nights, I’m glad I live in a brick flat.

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That sounded pretty darn close.

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can confirm. my local NextDoor is rife with “Gunshots?” posts every week, and every single time i am certain it turns out to be fireworks. the ONE time i heard something and i said to my husband, “whoa – now THAT was gunshots!” and he said “yep, that definitely was a gun,” did anyone post on NextDoor about it? WELL OF COURSE NOT, lol

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Yep, more of a crack/pop than a boom. I think my apt neighbor was fond of doing a short string of shots every few months, as I’d hear them in the middle of the night (usually just as I was about to fall asleep) . There is a wooded creek area behind us to fire into. :confused: It hasn’t happened since they moved earlier this year.

That and someone somewhere likes to light off some really loud fireworks at random times at night. Pretty large boom, like an M-80 or something similar. I guess cheap entertainment?

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oh you can absolutely tell the difference with enough exposure to both sounds. it’s not daily here, but certainly once or twice a month. up here on the 7th floor we just hope people are aiming straight across from each other and not popping rounds into the air.

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thank you for including this.

almost every news organization, and it seems every city council, is treating this as a local crime issue rather than a national issue

people are playing it off as - well such and such a city defunded cops, so of course crime is going up. when really it’s a national phenomenon and - to my mind - tied directly to the pandemic

lots of young men were jobless and school-less last year, and that always leads to more violence. especially when guns are handy. my guess is we’re probably still seeing some of that, plus some acts of retaliation, plus a shift in “acceptable” behavior

get rid of the guns. get jobs and activities going. please don’t add more cops. that’s literally adding fire to fire

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