I’m only saying that we need to work on the process in which folks can no longer feel it necessary to go out and harm others over some misguided beliefs, thinking “I need to buy a gun.”
This ties directly into reasons for attacking BLM protesters, interfering with school board meetings, etc.
Guns are the tool in which they can reinforce their oppression. Fewer, smaller guns is good. No guns would be better. But the best thing is working on our young men by socializing them and teaching them how to deal with their conflicting beliefs and anger so they don’t want to oppress others.
Still, as we all know, this is a huge kettle of fish to fry.
that doesn’t really explain why attacks like this are so particularly american. beyond just the scale of harm, the intention of harm seems fundamentally different.
my armchair sense is that - similar to suicidal ideation, where the existence of guns can exacerbate a suicidal mental state - there is probably a mass shooting ideation that takes root when it seems a possible action
a person who has the thought “boy id like to hurt people” takes a very different road if they know they can hurt - and even kill - than someone who knows they can’t
our tools influence our choices. and it seems reasonable to believe that tools designed for mass murderer don’t just enable it, they encourage it
it’s not like there’s this number of knife or bomb attacks in canada just because they don’t have the guns. the thought process is inevitably just different
and we could telegraph that to them by banning the guns. as long as we don’t, we’re saying that using violence to solve problems is blessed by this society
This assumes a fantasy version of America where “the people” of all political persuasions would agree that the government needs to be overthrown. This isn’t going to happen.
How would he feel if it is the left who want to violently overthrow the government?
Elections are the way to guage the views of the people on changing the government.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Supremacists call themselves Christians, but use edited versions of the Bible. They’ve got a long history of weaponizing ignorance to gain and manipulate their followers, or to control and oppress others. They have no problem burning the source material, either - that goes along with discouraging people from reading.
(from ST:TOS “The Omega Glory”)
And yet 15 years after the US government was born George Washington sent 13,000+ troops annihilate 600 rebels who thought the federal government had become too tyrannical with whiskey taxes.
The “right to rebellion” crowd are literally the dumbest among us.
Oh my, indeed!
Did you call Zeldon? Inquiring minds want to know.
Also, does it really count as a “board” if there is only one board member?
Some people have the strangest hobbies.
i don’t know. i cringe a little inside when i hear talk of “it’s our culture’s fault”
i really don’t think america is particularly hateful in our nature. i think we’re differently empowered. and it’s that empowerment which results in different outcomes
maybe this depends on definitions of “culture.” the right would say that it means wokeness or video games are killing america. the left would say it’s white supremacy. while the latter is obviously true, the definition of supremacy and racism ( and the patriarchy ) go beyond attitude and beliefs: prejudice can’t be racism without power and institutional support
so to me, at least. “culture” is beliefs. that in this… simile?.. is the level of prejudice. every country has that. what we’ve done is turned it into racism by giving it institutional support
we will probably never root out prejudice. we can however root out the structures that give it dominance.
i feel like the same goes for gun violence. the violence is deeply human and everywhere. the guns are just items, and they’re mainly just here
Honestly, probably not. The gun conversation in America is increasingly driven by the No Compromise movement, who literally believe everyone should get bombs, missiles, tanks, whatever they want. They get points for internal consistency in their beliefs, I guess, but shudder
See the podcast No Compromise for a deep dive into this movement, which had basically replaced the NRA as the mouthpiece for the issue.
And if America had just waited a few more years, the British empire was on the way down and they would have said “yah, sure, do your thing” as they (more or less) did with Canada and Australia. Although, it could have also gone the way of India I guess, where they left but basically burned the place down on their way out. Still, I often wonder if the character of America would be more like Canada if they had taken a softer touch on their independence, or if it went how it had to because the arrow of causality points the other way. In other words, it was gonna be violent because America needed it to be.
Well, more than just a few years. War of 1812 and all. But I generally agree with everything but that last statement. For all the rabble-rousing of many of the Founding Fathers, the adults in the room (Adams, Franklin, etc) didn’t want war with Britain and actively worked towards a negotiated separation.
