260 Mass Shootings 160 Days, When Will it be Too Much?

[basketcase]

Fuck you second amendment

 

[Burning Man]

Fuck you second amendment

Now you're getting it!

 

[basketcase]

Now you're getting it!

Ya ... But punctuation is important. Fuck you second amendment.

 

[Burning Man]

It's interesting and a point that has been brought up often here. The idea of free speech (which is what would be limited here) is something we've mostly grown up with to be a given, a natural right if you will. But technology has extended the reach of an individual which changes the impact. It used to be a crazy guy in the town square screaming "the end is nigh" where his reach was maybe a few hundred people walking by. Now, we have internet forums dedicated to "Q" that can reach thousands if not millions of people and posing a very real threat to the stability of the USA.

Moreover, it used to be a bullied or marginalised kid would be exposed to bullying for 40 hrs a week at school. With social media and messaging, that can now be relentless 24/7 with the outcome potentially being catastrophic for that kid or those around them.

We joke that some people are too dumb to sue the internet, we also see people here getting irrationally angry over the thoughts/opinions expressed by an anonyms person and they should take a break. So yes, I actually do think some people should be restricted from having access. However, much like your concerns over a tyrannical government WRT guns, how and where do you set those limits and who decides. What if TFG was able to limit his detractors from publishing counter points to his narrative, where would the US be now? I also brush off the 2A argument about a tyrannical government too easily, but then reflect on events such as Tiananmen Square and more recent coups in Myanmar.

Maybe I'm a little too idealistic in that you do have to have some trust in the checks and balances of more developed nations rather than pontificate on the what if's of the emerging nations we typically associate with oppression. Jan 6th illustrated just how fragile my idealistic view point is, maybe I am too trusting...

Good post, thank you for replying. One of my repeated themes here when this subject always comes up is: Guns have also been something that Americans have grown up with too and considered a natural right and we never really thought about it as a Yes or No issue. It just is. Just like Free speech is in America as well as the rest of the world. Since guns have always been plentiful and actually were FAR easier to get in the past - despite deliberate lies to the contrary now - why are guns only now really a problem when it comes to both murder, mass killings and even suicide??? What's changed?

If you track back to when this trend really started in the US tracks back almost perfectly to the rise of the internet in the mid 90s and then accelerated as social media accelerated in use and popularity. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way that naive to think it's as simple as that. But it also tracks well against the increased funding and aggressive policing in the War on Drugs as well as the defunding of mental health in the US.

The oft asked question in rebuttal is: Other countries have the internet, social media and violent video games - so why don't they have the same murder and mass shooting rates? It's a fair question, but it's being deliberately disingenuous. America IS unique in that we do have the same internet and violent video games. But there is nowhere near the scale of drug use and drug related violence anywhere else in the first world nor the policing and incarceration to deal with it. Most other countries have reasonable health care systems that are able to deal with the mentally stressed and those on the verge of a mental break. The US is almost bereft of those lifelines. So it's a perfect storm of issues that is creating and perpetuating this problem we have today in the US that very few other countries have this confluence of issues hitting all at once.

But I maintain that the gunz were here first and they were rarely an issue until these other "perfect storm" events came together. So I would rather work to deal with what changed and address those, than to point to an inanimate object and ascribe all our societal ills to it rather than address the actual root causes of what is driving people to shoot up a school or shoot up a party of a rival gang. Otherwise we are treating symptoms only and never getting to the causal issues.

 

[Alan H]

For the thousandth goddamn time.
People die every day. Every fucking day, people die from guns. Every day. EVERY DAY. While you go on about coups and tyrranical government and the militia and what percent of the US Army will join the militia and every other hypothetical discussion about what has never happened and probably never will...
I'll say it again. PEOPLE DIE. That's not a fantasy. It's not a hypothesis. It's not gazing into some fucking political crystal ball of the future where militias buy time until the Argentinians come and rescue us.

PEOPLE DIE EVERY FUCKING DAY from guns in the USA.

Sure, it wasn't like that "back when". And sure, there were plenty of guns around. Nobody disagrees with this.
But NOW, Burning Man...right now. Today. This very hour...people are dying from gun accidents, homicides, suicides, mass shootings, all of which involve guns.

What happened? What changed between the wonderful halcyon days of our youth when every boy had a rifle in the rack in the back of his truck? Some horrible social norms, perceptions, values changed..."it's all because of divorce"...or "womens lib"... or "socialism"...or "not going to church" whatever the fuck it is. Nobody knows what it is. It took years and years and years...decades rreally for those changes to take place.

Hey, since you seem to forget easily, let me remind you again that people are dying from guns every day. EVERY DAY PEOPLE DIE.
That's a bad thing, yes? I mean, I HOPE you think it's a bad thing.
So we can spend years and years and years arguing over exactly what specific thing has caused the moral decay of America. We can spend years and billions of dollars and more years and then still more years implementing social programs to solve those problems, but

EVERY DAY PEOPLE DIE from gun shit in the USA.

Doesn't it make sense to STOP THE FUCKING KILLING?
and THEN worry about the intractable problems that nobody can define and solve to get us back to those rosy days when fuckheads didn't shoot up schools.

Oh.
Wait.
I can hear you now. Must have weapons because of freedom and tyrranical government and Mao and Stalin and ooogieboogieman might, maybe show up someday and gosh The Militia.


And meanwhile, EVERY FUCKING DAY another twenty people die.

 

[Alan H]

There were 45,000 firearms-linked deaths in the USA in 2021. That's 866 a week. 124 a day.
Every day in this country, 124 people die from fire-arms linked shit. That's roughly the same as the number of Ukrainian soldiers who die on the front lines, every day.
Every hour, 5-6 people die a gun-enabled death in the USA. In the time it took you to write yet another post about tyranny, The Militia That Will Save Us, and postulate about what percentage of US Army types will honor their oath...

Someone died from a gun.

And you want to let that just go on, so we can debate further about the social causes of change in the USA and then try to spend more on

"Mental Health"
Or who the fuck knows what, because what? YOU know what caused the destruction of whatever-it-was that changed in the USA that made this place a gun-killers hell? No, you don't know. Nobody knows, everybody has their pet guess. It will take YEARS to solve those problems if they can even be solved. Meanwhile, for every week that we carefully and thoroughly debate the issues, call on the brightest minds to provide insight, chatter on about how terrible it all is, fight in congress about funding yadda yadda yadda yadda....

Another 866 people die.

I'm really sick of reading about the fucking Militia protecting us from some hypothetical never-never-land boogieman while kids die every fucking day.

 

[bowman81]

Good post, thank you for replying. One of my repeated themes here when this subject always comes up is: Guns have also been something that Americans have grown up with too and considered a natural right and we never really thought about it as a Yes or No issue.

This is probably different for me, but my father (70) would disagree. He grew up with guns. He had cadets at school and enough guns, ammo and mortors to wage a small war. He often carried his rifle through Melbourne city and on trams (albeit in uniform) without issue there was never really a question. They were far easier to get here too with minimal to no license or registration, pick up a rifle and ammo at the local kmart.

It just is. Just like Free speech is in America as well as the rest of the world. Since guns have always been plentiful and actually were FAR easier to get in the past - despite deliberate lies to the contrary now - why are guns only now really a problem when it comes to both murder, mass killings and even suicide??? What's changed?

I believe lots has changed, the bigger our population grows the less connected we are with others. In a small village theft is incredibly rare because it's difficult to steal from people you know and are connected with (unless you're a psychopath), as the cities grow it becomes easy to steal or assault people not known to you.

I also think being so much more connected now we hear about the problems that previously we didn't. This thread here is the prime example, most of the incidents we talk about wouldn't come across our news screens, but now we get almost instant access to the story via multiple sources.

If you track back to when this trend really started in the US tracks back almost perfectly to the rise of the internet in the mid 90s and then accelerated as social media accelerated in use and popularity. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way that naive to think it's as simple as that. But it also tracks well against the increased funding and aggressive policing in the War on Drugs as well as the defunding of mental health in the US.

The oft asked question in rebuttal is: Other countries have the internet, social media and violent video games - so why don't they have the same murder and mass shooting rates? It's a fair question, but it's being deliberately disingenuous. America IS unique in that we do have the same internet and violent video games. But there is nowhere near the scale of drug use and drug related violence anywhere else in the first world nor the policing and incarceration to deal with it. Most other countries have reasonable health care systems that are able to deal with the mentally stressed and those on the verge of a mental break. The US is almost bereft of those lifelines. So it's a perfect storm of issues that is creating and perpetuating this problem we have today in the US that very few other countries have this confluence of issues hitting all at once.

But I maintain that the gunz were here first and they were rarely an issue until these other "perfect storm" events came together. So I would rather work to deal with what changed and address those, than to point to an inanimate object and ascribe all our societal ills to it rather than address the actual root causes of what is driving people to shoot up a school or shoot up a party of a rival gang. Otherwise we are treating symptoms only and never getting to the causal issues.

I don't disagree with some of your perspectives but while you work towards the world that you want, you've got to deal with the world that you have. The relatively easy access to guns, means those that are disenfranchised for what ever reason can wreak havoc with little effort. The bandaid to that is to remove access to them until you can address the disenfranchised portions of society. That means social programs so people aren't bankrupted by a medical condition or having to work three jobs totalling 80 hrs a week just to make rent and food meaning there's no time to raise their child to be a member of society. I feel I'm getting into get off my lawn old man territory here but I think you get my point.

 

[animeproblem]

^Brilliant, and with that all shootie Jeff's arguments are skewered like a bug in an insect display case.







And with a tit for tat re your handle, Don H.

 

[ShortForBob]

Another slaughter of children narrowly averted.
One wonders how often this happens.

Quick-thinking staffers save camp children from suspected gunman in Texas

No children or staff were harmed after counselors at an athletic complex in Texas ushered kids to safety after a man entered the facility with a gun.

abcnews.go.com

Quick-thinking staffers save camp children from suspected gunman in Texas​

The suspected gunman was shot and killed by police within 10 minutes.
Police shot and killed a suspect Monday morning after he entered an athletic complex where summer camp was taking place in Duncanville, Texas, allegedly armed with a handgun, authorities said.

No children were harmed after camp staffers ushered them to safety when the man entered the building.

Police exchanged gunfire with the suspect at the Duncanville Fieldhouse within minutes of arriving at the scene, Duncanville Mayor Barry Gordon said, according to ABC Dallas affiliate WFAA.


The summer camp for 4- to 14-year-olds has an average attendance of more than 250 campers and staff, the Duncanville Police Department said in a statement.
A camp counselor confronted the suspected gunman in the lobby of the indoor sports and fitness center.

Upon hearing the gunshots in the lobby, staff members moved the kids to a safe area and locked the doors, preventing the suspected gunman from getting inside, Duncanville Assistant Police Chief Matthew Stogner said.

"[He] did fire one round inside the classroom where there were children inside," Stogner said. "Fortunately, no one was injured."

 

[Not for nothing]

There were 45,000 firearms-linked deaths in the USA in 2021. That's 866 a week. 124 a day.
Every day in this country, 124 people die from fire-arms linked shit. That's roughly the same as the number of Ukrainian soldiers who die on the front lines, every day.
Every hour, 5-6 people die a gun-enabled death in the USA. In the time it took you to write yet another post about tyranny, The Militia That Will Save Us, and postulate about what percentage of US Army types will honor their oath...

Someone died from a gun.

And you want to let that just go on, so we can debate further about the social causes of change in the USA and then try to spend more on

"Mental Health"
Or who the fuck knows what, because what? YOU know what caused the destruction of whatever-it-was that changed in the USA that made this place a gun-killers hell? No, you don't know. Nobody knows, everybody has their pet guess. It will take YEARS to solve those problems if they can even be solved. Meanwhile, for every week that we carefully and thoroughly debate the issues, call on the brightest minds to provide insight, chatter on about how terrible it all is, fight in congress about funding yadda yadda yadda yadda....

Another 866 people die.

I'm really sick of reading about the fucking Militia protecting us from some hypothetical never-never-land boogieman while kids die every fucking day.

just as a frame of reference In the Vietnam War over 10+ years 58,000 US service man died. So tell me this country not at war when as many Americans shoot each other in a year as did in a long WAR That is really fucked up

Fun fact: Mass shootings like the horrific attack that killed 19 children and 2 teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, or the murder of 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York the week prior, are all too common in the US. There have been 214 mass shootings—defined by Gun Violence Archive as one in which at least 4 people were shot—in the US within the first 145 days of the year. These types of tragedies feel unique to America, where there are more civilian-owned guns than people.

 

[Blue Crab]

I'm really sick of reading about the fucking Militia protecting us from some hypothetical never-never-land boogieman while kids die every fucking day.

The two ways to change all this are spelled out clearly in the Constitution. Bitching on the internet is not one of them unfortunately: "Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments to the document. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress, through a joint resolution passed by a two-thirds vote, or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two-thirds of the state legislatures."

Think big but act close to home. What seems possible, maybe, is getting the populace behind an amendment to the 5th to state that national referendums be allowed.

 

[basketcase]

Fuck you second amendment.

 

[Not for nothing]

The two ways to change all this are spelled out clearly in the Constitution. Bitching on the internet is not one of them unfortunately: "Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments to the document. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress, through a joint resolution passed by a two-thirds vote, or by a convention called by Congress in response to applications from two-thirds of the state legislatures."

Think big but act close to home. What seems possible, maybe, is getting the populace behind an amendment to the 5th to state that national referendums be allowed.

I agree with you!
But being an old Boomer, Vietnam Vet, who has not shot a gun since I left there, it's time for the next generation to step to the plate and fight the war without guns, it will a hard battle fight against how big money is bribing our government to sell killing over a peaceful country, we've become a 3rd world country. funny how many countries pay for free healthcare, and we pay for guns/killing each other.

 

[SloopJonB]

Events of the past few years have put the lie to the gun bullshit about defence from a tyrant.

If there was any validity to the concept, why were TFG and his fascist thug cohorts not dealt with by "The Militia"?

 

[Ishmael]

Events of the past few years have put the lie to the gun bullshit about defence from a tyrant.

If there was any validity to the concept, why were TFG and his fascist thug cohorts not dealt with by "The Militia"?

Because "The Militia" were in fact just more fascist thug cohorts.

 

[Danceswithoctopus]

I never once attempted to say that part of it was "fact". ofc it's speculative. I stated facts using the stats then drew a conclusion based on those data. But its a fucking pretty good educated guess that connects the obvious dots. So again, what is YOUR theory of why 18-19 your old adults "kids" account for more than half of all child murders? Here is your chance to show how smart you are

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff . . . Don’t confuse my motives with your motives. I have no need to “show how smart” I am. That’s your fixation.

I also have no interest in chasing your goalposts. I said my piece, pointing out that the “facts” you were selecting were incomplete. You tried to insult me, then tried moving the goalposts, and regardless of your assertion you presented your speculations as fact.

I didn’t address your conclusion, simplistic as it was. I pointed out that your argument was not factual, but speculative. There isn’t nearly enough information in this thread to support or refute said conclusion, but there are also myriad alternative explanations for the apparent phenomenon you raise (whether true or not) and IMHO no final conclusions can be drawn responsibly from the limited data presented here, let alone the data presented by you alone. (You are aware, of course, that a correlation can be shown between the population of storks and the number of births in a given area. I suspect you wouldn’t draw the conclusion that storks are responsible for babies. But that’s the risk of using limited data.)

If you (or anyone else) want to assert that your speculations are fact, or if you try to narrow the argument to only your set of selected facts without considering a larger picture, I do consider it worthwhile to call bullshit.

You go on and tout your intellectual prowess. That’s how you get your jollies, it’s not how I get mine.

If it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy: You are smarter than I am, Jeff. I bow to and am humbled by your dizzying intellect.

 

[Blue Crab]

If there was any validity to the concept, why were TFG and his fascist thug cohorts not dealt with by "The Militia"?

I think this was how and what the militia aka protestors thought they were doing... righting a stolen election wrong. Lack of leadership left them hanging out to dry but we've heard about at least the one van in nearby VA with a weapons cache presumably for an occupation. My guess is the insurrectors were as surprised as all of us viewers were that it was that easy and so underprotected, and of course were helped along by our constitutional peaceful assembly rights. If a handful had been packing ARs or had then delivered to them ... whole different outcome with militiamen with ARs fighting police with sidearms. Uvalde redux times a bunch.

I suspect TFG really did consider martial law ... to protect and back up the insurrectors. With everyone surrounding him imploring him to stop the attack ... maybe we dodged a bigger bullet than we thought, and maybe even owe Ivanka and others a thank you. Not turncoat McCarthy but saner heads.

 

[MauiPunter]

Forget arming the teachers. You are going about this all wrong. Just arm all the kids. Problem solved.

 

[Alan H]

"militia" my ass. Here's your fucking "Militia".
"The Militia" is going to save us when the boogieman comes? BULLSHIT. "The Militia" took an active part in BACKING the fucking boogieman on January 6th. People think that "The Militia" are wise, mature, disciplined, under-oath, and invulnerable to manipulation? Somehow God and the Founding Fathers have endowed "the Militia" with infallible wisdom? Sure doesn't fucking look like it!

And since I wrote those posts up there, what...eight hours ago? Yeah, another 40 people died. And so it goes, day after day after day after day.

 

[Alan H]

Quick! Must distract! Must post more bullshit. You need a meme! ...something with Mao's picture on it might be good.
Oh and call for more funding for "Mental Health"...'cause you know, this toddler was obviously crazy.

Toddler fatally shoots baby brother after picking up unsecured gun

"I just want to take this moment to plead with parents and guardians all over to not allow your firearms to be accessible to anyone in the house," said Houston's assistant police chief.

www.nbcnews.com

and this one

5-year-old Kentucky boy fatally shoots 2-year-old sister | CNN

A Kentucky boy accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said.

www.cnn.com

and this one

4-year-old boy fatally shoots little brother by accident

A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot his little brother in their Virginia home on Tuesday, a report said. Tyson Aponte, 2, was fatally shot in the chest by his older brother who thought the firearm w…

nypost.com

This is where you scream...SOCIALISM!!!...or "Womens Lib!"...or "Nobody loves God any more!"...or "Nuclear Family"....or .. "Violent movies and video games!".... or "The Internet!".... (pick your favorite two!) but oh no...Jesus Fucking Christ, no, the ONE factor common to every single incident can't possibly be an issue, at all. Because...

Boogieman! Tyranny! The Constitution! The oath! It didn't used to be this way! and the hallowed solution to the Final Problem - THE MILITIA!
Pardon me while I fucking VOMIT.