Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/30/mass-shooting-at-unc-charlotte.html
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I hope the death toll doesn’t rise (which isn’t much, but beats “thoughts and prayers”). Obligatory before our ammosexuals arrive to tell us yet again that there’s “No Way to Prevent This”:
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Fuck.
Also obligs:
SMGDH
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this is happening so frequently now i’m almost surprised that no one i know has been the victim of a mass shooting.
hrm. even as i type that i realize a friend’s friend was in the aurora movie theater. this is all a morbid line of thought but id be curious what the average degree of separation level is now. and how low it needs to go before we start fixing this !#@$.
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Your tags say “Chapel Hill,” which is a totally different campus.
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There should be a dedicated segment for this on the news every night, as with the weather.
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For anyone interested in tracking these things (and it’s a really sad commentary on living in the U.S.A.):
That list seems more up to date in real time than this:
(which may be due to the editing and updating protocols at wikipedia)
To be clear, here is the kind of company we Americans keep (hey Israel? hey Switzerland? I thought for sure I’d see these countries on this chart but ok BBC):
source:
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Hell, this is the weather. It’s raining lead, more at 6.
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Don’t worry! You’re still many, many times more likely to get killed or injured in a “regular” shooting! Don’t you feel better?
Also, rather than the several dozen serial killers believed to be operating uncaptured in the US, recent analysis suggests the numbers are probably more like several thousand. Sleep well!
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While we’re on the subject, whats the proper response to the ignoramus argument “When guns are criminalized, only the criminals will have guns”? Ie, how do you prove that “No, criminals don’t have infinite, effortless supply of illegal weapons.” I guess one could say, “How many Thompson submachine guns and M67 fragmentation grenades do we see on the streets?”
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Probably the same response as that to many other of their stupid arguments: look at the statistics from every other Western OECD country where reasonable gun control legislation is in place.
That’s solid, too. Thanks.
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I guess. It’s just so exhausting being on reddit. There are so many fucking idiots there. (It’s impossible to know their facial hair status for sure, but I know they have hair growth on their necks.)
After they mimic Jeff Goldblum with “criminals will always find a way,” they often circle back to “I’M a good person. I’M not committing any mass shootings.” (Like gun regulation is a personal accusation.)
I think I tried that once and guy came back with a wall of pre-prepared text/links, “proving” that the US situation is “completely normal” when looked at per-capita.
The other thing they like to do is point out that mass killers in, say, Japan, utilize knives. And their argument is “What are you gonna do? Ban knives?” No, we’re not going to ban knives, nor pointy sticks, nor rocks.
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Note that in Australia, while black market weapons do still exist, they are insanely expensive and difficult to acquire. And hence very rarely used.
A black market pistol over here goes for $10,000+.
And we didn’t even have to ban guns to do it; just regulate them.
You can still get legal guns in Australia; it’s just that you’re restricted to the types of guns that are sensible for the task you’re putting them to, and you need to pass a proper training course and background check. They’re tools, not toys.
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Even accepting that, I’m willing to bet that at least a third of them saying that aren’t storing and maintaining their weapons safely.
Yeah, they tend to Gish Gallop and obfuscate because the stats are not their friends. I had someone take the opposite tack in response and say that per-capita comparisons don’t matter. It was pathetic.
Nor are they “collectibles” (at least, not ones that can still be fired). Too many people treat deadly firearms as if they’re baseball cards or action figures.
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In this one particular thread I recall, the NRA-guy posting his Wall of Text was (pathetically) getting agreeing nods from the other li’l redditors. Their logic seemed to be “Hey, if you cant refute his Breitbart links point for point, he looks to win this one…” (I just didnt feel like spending 90 minutes of my life, slogging through his 20 corrupt links.)
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I think what really swung it in Australia was that the push for gun control was coming from the nominally right-wing, but confusingly-named Liberal party. If it had been a Labor government you can bet the opposition would have dug their heels in and turned it into an ongoing identity politics issue.
I know this graph marks the inflection points with shootings that occurred around those times, but I think the 2008-2012 decline in support for gun control more neatly lines up with the period that Obama was in the White House:
So let’s just hope the next person to try regulating guns in America is an old white guy…
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Checked on Breitbart (always fun to see how fast the false-flag accusations come out). No luck this time. But did see that the “reporter” who wrote the short article is this ghastly person:
See, a mass shooting is a “second amendment” subject. It’s always the survival of the guns that is most important.
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I think an easy response is “yeah, exactly. And because they are criminals, we can arrest them, instead of letting them walk around in the street with their guns, murdering people”.
Criminalized gun ownership means anyone walking around with a gun is a criminal looking for a criminal act, and can then be removed from society (where there is no place for these weapons).
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Coworker’s mom was in the crowd in Vegas…
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