Holy fuck.
I can’t even.
Queue the “This isn’t the right time” people and the “mental health isn’t treated properly” and “Not all gun owners” and all that.
I’ll say this: The only purpose of a gun is violence. It’s what they do. It’s what they enable. Chekhov’s gun applies to real life too.
So when I hear the “most gun owners” arguments come out, I can’t help but think about the “most police officers” parallel- that cops that don’t stop bad cops are just as guilty. Gun owners who don’t push to better regulate (etc etc) guns are just as guilty here.
The Governor just said the suspect may have been a “disgruntled employee”.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Agreed. The scary thing is nothing will change from this. People will get outraged and demand changes, but the next shiny thing that pops up will distract everyone and then it’s business as usual.
This is horrendous. Weirdly, though, my first thought on reading this story elsewhere was “Would the governor be making comments about this shooting if it wasn’t a pretty young white girl?” Probably, because it actually happened live on the news… But still… an interesting reaction.
I just walked outside— I had to —after reading this news. My neighbor was on his porch, resting in a chair, looking at his smartphone. When I came out, we instinctively made eye contact. I looked away first. After a couple seconds, I heard him ask: “What’s wrong?”
Knowledge of an event like this is apparently very hard to hide on one’s face.
Well it’s true. The problem is that most isn’t good enough.
[quote=“nothingfuture, post:2, topic:64549”]
Queue the “This isn’t the right time” people and the “mental health isn’t treated properly” and “Not all gun owners” and all that.
[/quote]Two of those things are completely true, but they also do not apply any reason to the topic of gun regulation. Then there is the entirely defeatist “you can’t stop crazy people” which is basically just saying we shouldn’t even try to solve anything.
Also, the initial comments I heard basically said the shooter must be black and that America has been lost to “degenerates”. So there’s that.
Right. I like to remind people that most people who have access to Anthrax culture or dynamite don’t do bad things with those either, but that’s not an argument for selling them over the counter to any schlub off the street.
I can’t imagine the pain the families of the reporter and cameraman are going through right now. And the trauma of seeing it happen must be stinging a lot of people right now. I can’t even…
I don’t think that’s weird, and I appreciate the thought. Activists insist on saying “Black lives matter” not because they think that other lives matter less, but because they know that in white American minds and emotions, black life doesn’t matter as much as white life. Many white people will feel a more visceral response to that video then they have or would if the victims had been black. Because of the ongoing power of racial designations emphasized precisely in order to justify the dominance of one group over others, white people find it more difficult to empathize with black victims than with white ones. I encourage white people to think about how this video makes them feel, and to be honest about how and why the countless videos of unarmed black people being gunned down make them feel differently.
More importantly (for gun fans) you;d think they’d want to better regulate their hobby, because at this rate someone else will do it for them and I have a feeling it’ll hit them a lot harder than it needs to.
I know it’s defeatist but it’s a difficult problem to solve in the states, for many reasons. Even if all firearms were outlawed tomorrow the supply would be just as rich for decades.
That said I don’t think illegal access = access. I could buy a gun here, hell anywhere, but there’s a BIG difference between paying black-market prices for something from a gangster than buying it at wallmart. I get the impression many of the people involved in high-profile shootings in the US simply wouldn’t have bothered if it were that much hassle. It’s the ease of access that makes it such an attractive option.
So the guy filmed the shooting and posted it on twitter…
What guy? Link?
Account suspended.
Yeah, it had two ~30s videos of him pointing the gun and then the last one is the start of the shooting. Horrifying stuff I hope remains hidden and not posted on the news everywhere.
He made a few posts about Alison Parker being racist and Adam Ward turning him in to HR before posting the videos.
Bryce_williams? According to Gawker, “The suspect has been identified as Vester Lee Flanagan, a former employee of the station.”
