“Lisa, if I didn’t have this gun, the king of England could walk right in here and start pushing you around!”
It’s not as funny now that Charlie would do it if he could, with his grubby little hands.
At least there actually is a king of England now.
There hasn’t been a King of England since 1707.
The key to getting on with life is to have complete and utter disregard for the well-being of your children, family, friends, fellow countrymen and yourself.
“A man who has nothing to lose, has nothing to fear.”
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. - Benjamin Franklin.
What does he mean by liberty exactly? I feel like we’re well past that
:Looks at Trump MAGA slow motion facist take over of the government:
Are we really over that liberty thing?
Is liberty referring to freedom? Liberation from what? What is freedom? The jan 6 people were mostly getting social media washed into their behaviour. Admittedly someone has to be open to it before they can be primed but each step is necessary to achieve this kind of mania. My point is how much are we truely freely thinking when we’re constantly having our attention pulled to events that have carefully curated narratives already prepared for our consumption.
Well you have the freedom to buy into whichever flavor of propaganda you prefer. I don’t think there are too many alternatives flavors of propaganda offered to Chinese or Russian citizens…
Join your local radical (in a cool way 😎) militia if you’re actually worried.
Sort of. This is more like “A man who cares for nothing, has no reason to care.” These people have everything to lose they just don’t think it will happen to them personally
They want it to happen to the “other” groups to whom it’s “supposed to happen”
No, not really. Those things are unrelated. I care for the other people and am not the one doing these shootings. The claim otherwise is ridiculous
That lion is attacking those people but it’s not me doing it therefore by doing nothing to help or prevent it I’m showing them that I care about them.
What else can I do to stop it? The mental health crisis is caused by actions of bosses and politicians. I am neither and can’t stop child abuse or bad working conditions that may trigger these. I am not a shooter’s parent and tell them not to purchase a firearm
I don’t know and I probably shouldn’t be critical considering this. From what I can gather from your comment is that you do care. You can at least identify and admit there’s a problem so you’re miles ahead of a lot of people. Take steps for better work conditions and treatment when you can, not just for yourself but for your colleagues, help each other out, be kind, vote for good selfless people who care about those things you mentioned.
Yeah. I vote for people trying to fix these issues. I try to encourage responsibility with weapons. If I were queen of America I’d discuss with experts what the least restrictive means to prohibit these shootings are and work with them to solve it. But nobody is actually in charge here, we all are and none of us are. There is an incredible gun culture here to a degree that I really don’t think anyone but the Australians can relate to. They had a leader make the unpopular decision to get rid of the guns. Our leaders legally can’t. We can’t have a revolution to ban guns because we don’t have the support or the guns on our side. To change the law 2/3 of our states and our legislature have to agree to repeal one of our most culturally significant and politically relevant parts of our constitution. Meanwhile our lifetime appointed Supreme Court is striking down gun control laws
Not only that, but it’s the bill of rights, if you can take away the second amendment what’s to stop authoritarians from taking the first as well? Or modifying it to preclude certain religions from the establishment clause?
I see what you’re saying, but the 18th amendment would like a word. The whole point of the Bill of Rights is to be a living document that adjusts as time goes on. Preferably to make this a better country for everyone.
When was the last time Congress passed a new law, much less an amendment? They’re bought and sold by corporations to ensure that nothing, but the bare minimum to keep the government limping along, will ever get done
Gun control wouldn’t help. Banning marijuana and cocaine didn’t stop it and way more people like guns than those. It would also only serve the rich and disarming the working class would just lead to them losing rights hard fought for
It did in the UK. Not only did we ban guns, we also made carrying them a criminal offence. Nobody, not even crims, now casually carries guns around, because they know if they get stopped and searched, and the gun is found, they’re heading straight to the clink. So the only people that carry guns are (a) the few that have a genuine reason to, like airport security, and (b) crims carrying with intent, and the latter can get chucked into the clink directly with the gun carrying being direct proof of that intent.
But you go on believing gun control doesn’t solve these problems if you want. The evidence from everyone else that has tried it is that (a) it works and (b) we’re not going to throw our gun control out on the grounds of it being useless, because it isn’t. Of course it doesn’t solve the problem 110% and there are OCCASIONAL, SURPRISING news reports about a shooting, not the routine business it is in the USA.
And your comment about combatting the bourgeois is just ridiculous. they’ll just come after you with a bigger gun and more security than you can shake a stick at. Sure you might pop something off at one of them but the rest’ll blow your arse away in no time.
This argument is hardly worth having anyway. Once America decided guns were more important than kids’ lives the gun lobby won. When you’ve decided kids are more important than guns we can talk further.
The ruling class can only be combated with weapons. Peace isn’t an option. Your claim about them blowing you away anyway is laughable. Have you never opened a history book? We tried to ban marijuana and guess what? It still is quite common. And guns are thousands of times more popular and supported than marijuana ever will be. Guns existing help kids lives. They allow a brighter future where they won’t be forced to work 14 hours a day. I’m more concerned with that than the tiny minuscule amount of people killed in mass shootings.
I agree but it’s also the closest thing to whatever has helped. When I set aside American exceptionalism and ask what has worked it seems that funding social services, opposing right wing radicalization, and banning guns are what worked in other countries. I would much rather start with the first two and I’m conflicted on the last because I’m aware of the importance of arming the oppressed, but it is hard to deny the effectiveness that other countries seem to have found in banning guns. There’s just so many mass shootings, it’s exhausting and it’s been happening since I was a kid and I’d just really like to get to the point where someone shooting up a school is a shocking act of evil instead of a routine one.
But it’s not a worthy trade off. Without guns the working class would have no way to combat the bourgeois. Not to mention that criminals would still have access to them. I’m not willing to hand over all of the working classs’ political power just for a little temporary safety
“Active Shooter”
It’s like reading about a hurricane. Almost a weather phenomenon.
There are far fewer hurricanes. You also get a couple days warning on most weather events. I take your point though, between waking up to seeing a related push message and seeing this meme I had forgotten about it.
At least it appears nobody died, only 5 injured.
At least four people were wounded, none critically, in a shooting at Morgan State University in Baltimore on Tuesday, according to authorities, who urged students to take shelter on the campus of the historically Black college.
No one dead, Americans won’t care.
They don’t care when someone does die either…
Some people actively get mad too when you mention that people died.
“Of course people died, here we go another fucking gun grab wrapped in a sob story. If all THOSE people had guns too it’d have never happened. This is what you get for being unprepared now stfu I’m shopping online for another AR. 🤷”
Any country where you need a gun in order to feel safe walking around is a shithole.
None of those gun nuts have ever been able to answer my basic question about their stated goal of everyone carrying at all times -
You’re at a public event, few hundred+ people in attendance,everybody (even just most) are packing. A gun goes off. Every “Good guy with a gun” turns toward the sound while pulling their guns. You now have 50-100+ (adjusted for crowd size) people with guns drawn. How do you know which of the 50-100+ people actually fired their gun?
Noone has ever had any answer other than “oH yOuD kNoW” which, call me crazy, doesn’t really answer the question.
Yeah it’s kind of wild to me the number of people that think teachers having guns is a good idea, that way teachers can get into a shootout with students that go crazy. Absolutely insane.
Does it actually make you feel safer? I think I would feel less safe every time I remember I have a gun on me because I may need to use it.
People have gone numb as an emotional safeguard. People have lives they’re trying to live, and if they fell to pieces every time someone got shot in this country they’d die of dehydration from all the crying.
There is so much death and cruelty in the world that if someone cares too much they are just bound to wind up depressed. It seems that the majority of people really only care about people that they are acquainted with, or if they witness the terrible thing in person. It’s just kind of built into human nature, otherwise we would be in a constant state of grief.
Things like mass shootings bother most empathetic people, in general. It’s just that life kind of has to go on, and all they can really do to try and change it is to vote for one of two lesser evils in some local or national election.
The problem is not really with the people. It’s with our crappy political system that is controlled by corporate lobbyists. The majority of US citizens don’t really seem to have a say. Source: Empathetic person with chronic depression.
Heck, the government doesn’t consider it a mass shooting unless there’s three people that died! How fucked up is that?
✅ hbcu
✅ no casualties
✅ Dispute “between two groups”
Had to Ctrl+f to even find it as a bullet point on the CNN front page…
Fuck you.
-An American
Well, to be fair, what they meant to say is “There is no way to prevent this while not changing gun law, state of mental healthcare, income inequality in economic classes, or criminal law and policing issues.” which is correct statement overall.
I mean i generally agree with your point and i know its a small detail but it kinda rubs me the wrong way when people always bring up mental health when talking about mass shootings. There isn’t much of a link between mental illness and violence despite common belief. And i have ptsd, bipolar and psychosis which are often associated with violence but i and nearly everyone else with these illnesses just these shooters as nazi assholes. I don’t believe you had any wrong intentions or anything and i believe that healthcare is a human right, but i thought i should clarify.
So you don’t think a lot of these mass shooters went with untreated and ignored mental illness which sprouted in to things worse than most people could ever understand and it was too late? It’s a huge issue that these people would show signs beforehand and nobody did anything about their mental health or bullying.
It is a huge problem that people with mental health issues go undiagnosed and untreated. It’s also very disingenuous the same people who want to blame mental health for all gun related violence will do absolutely nothing to provide care for people with mental health issues AND actively oppose providing care.
Despite all of that, if mental health was truly the main driving force behind mass shootings you would expect a higher rate of violence among the documented populous of people with mental health issues. That alone isn’t conclusive of anything but when you do look at the data and it shows the exact opposite you have to question the original hypothesis.
Maybe, not generalizing all mental health to be the cause for people to be violent, would be a place to start? Possibly. Are there specific disorders that contribute whether or not someone is capable of violent acts? Who knows but I can guarantee to you the people pointing the finger at mental health do not care, in the slightest, to find out.
It is a huge problem that people with mental health issues go undiagnosed and untreated. It’s also very disingenuous the same people who want to blame mental health for all gun related violence will do absolutely nothing to provide care for people with mental health issues AND actively oppose providing care.
Truly. It’s sickening seeing Americans advocate even harder for gun laws while completely ignoring the mental health or bullying scenarios that cause these…
I don’t accept their premise that gun proponents oppose health care. I think that is true of Republicans in general, but while I would concede that Republicans are better for gun rights, I do not accept that they are actually “pro gun”.
Trump was certainly not pro-gun. He supported broad gun control before he was a presidential candidate. As president, he infamously called for taking guns first, due process later.
Previous Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney promoted and signed a state-level gun ban into law; Romney was certainly not pro-gun. Most Republican lawmakers are wishy-washy at best on guns. They pay lip service to the second amendment, and then fail to support any pro-gun issues whatsoever.
The greatest measure sought by pro-gun advocates is national reciprocity - 50-state recognition of any state’s concealed carry license. Republicans do not support that measure.
The Firearm Owners Protection Act adopted a uniform set of transport rules for people engaged in interstate travel. So, even if a gun was prohibited in a specific state, a traveler could possess that gun while passing through the state. Gun proponents offered an update to FOPA to allow traveling licensees to carry on the interstate if they were legal at their origin and destination. This would be a compromise to the desired 50-state reciprocity; Republicans refused to advance it.
Another big one was the Hearing Protection Act, which would have delisted silencers from the national firearm registey, and re-regulated them in the same way as pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Republicans refused to support it.
Republicans are better on guns than Democrats, but Republicans are still pretty terrible on anything gun proponents actually want.
Republican opposition to universal health care is yet another way that Republicans fail gun owners, who regularly call for such measures.
Despite all of that, if mental health was truly the main driving force behind mass shootings you would expect a higher rate of violence among the documented populous of people with mental health issues.
There is. There is no question that mental illness strongly correlates with a propensity for violence.
From the source:
A meta-analysis of 204 studies of psychosis as a risk factor for violence reported that “compared with individuals with no mental disorders, people with psychosis seem to be at a substantially elevated risk for violence.” Psychosis “was significantly associated with a 49%–68% increase in the odds of violence.”
A review of 22 studies published between 1990 and 2004 “concluded that major mental disorders, per se, especially schizophrenia, even without alcohol or drug abuse, are indeed associated with higher risks for interpersonal violence.” Major mental disorders were said to account for between 5% and 15% of community violence.
Among 3,743 individuals with bipolar disorder, 8.4% committed violent crimes compared to 3.5% of the general population in Sweden.
A 2014 study in Israel identified 3,187 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. They committed four times more violent crimes compared to the general population, and this difference was even more pronounced among women.
A 10-year follow-up of 1,056 severely mentally ill patients discharged from mental hospitals in Sweden in 1986 reported that “of those who were 40 years old or younger at the time of discharge, nearly 40% had a criminal record as compared to less than 10% of the general public.” Furthermore, “the most frequently occurring crimes are violent crimes.”
The best study used the Danish psychiatric case register, covering the whole country, and convictions for criminal offenses. Between 1978 and 1990, 6.7% of males and 0.9% of females with “major mental disorders” (psychoses) were convicted of a violent crime (“all offenses involving interpersonal aggression or a threat thereof”) compared with 1.5% of males and 0.1% of females among individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis.
A Swedish study examined the criminal records of all individuals born in Stockholm in 1953 and still living in the city 30 years later. Men and women with severe mental illness were 4.2 times (men) and 27.5 times (women) more likely to have been convicted of a violent crime compared to individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis.
I think you source is valid, I think your point is relevant but at the same time your leaving out some important details.
To start you say
There is no question that mental illness strongly correlates with a propensity for violence.
While that’s true, it’s is misleading going all the way back to my original post. The article you linked goes through great lengths to specify ‘severe mental illness.’ In most cases schizophrenia. Also, the article states in the studies cited that it it’s usually untreated schizophrenia coupled with substance abuse.
Caution: the person I was responding to is your typical troll.
Also, the article states in the studies cited that it it’s usually untreated schizophrenia coupled with substance abuse.
Universal healthcare would go along way toward addressing the “untreated” part of your criticism.
Mental illness means a lot of things catch up with me later and I will link some research that show amoung all cases of mental illness violence is less likely.
Ok. Let’s run with that for a moment: mentally ill people commit less violence than mentally stable people. If that is the case, then “therapy” should increase rates of violence. If your thesis is correct, we should not treat mental illness, because doing so will increase violence.
Surely, you are not arguing for that absurdity. Surely, you agree that among those mentally ill people who do commit acts of violence, effective treatment should reduce the rate of such violence. Universal healthcare, then, addresses violence by providing broader access to such treatment.
Troll bait.
Im not doubting that bullying isn’t involved (i mean its kinda a stereotype that its always the bullied quiet kids who shoot schools, but it happens) but mental illness symptoms no matter how severe don’t really cause you to plot and attempt a school shooting. I mean maybe antisocial personality disorder could cause it but i’ve never heard of such a case.
No, of course not… but they can cause things like disassociation, hallucinations, paranoia and loss of ones value in life. I’d hate to think anybody meant that mental illness inherently means you have a high chance of being a school shooter, because I bet 95%+ of people with mental illness would never wish harm on others and only their selves
The gun crowd bring it up only to do nothing about it anyway. It’s just something to blame, they don’t want to fund healthcare, education, research and welfare, and lose their scapegoat.
You do have a fair point on problem of association. I don’t think diagnosed mental condition have significant prediction power either. Instead, I believe that occasional mental healthcare counselling on people who we find to be normal will be the one that improve this situation.
That title is what the Onion (a satirical/parody news site) uses every time there is a major mass shooting in America.
“We’ve tried nothin’ and we’re all out of ideas!”
For those that don’t know the reference, this is traditionally posted each and every time a mass shooting happens in FreedomLand.
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668
it’s also weird to have traditions about it
It’s weirder that there’s a phenomenon that happens particularly in one nation that claims nothing can be done about the phenomenon.
well everything about american politics makes sense when you consider that the US constitution is just a bad basis for a country
the government just shutting down on a semi-regular basis for example. That’s very disfunctional and not normal
That’s the onion. It’s a satirical website.
I’ve never heard anyone say this… Is there a quote I missed? Was it a conservative asshole?
At this point I’m not whether sure I should be angry, cry, or laugh while crying.
I hear a bunch of N thing needs to happen, but the question is will that N solution help. The question to ask is, has someone run a study on N solution, and if so what’s the next best solution. Gather data like where are the things of interest happening e.g. region of city. Make shore that N solution does not try to fix a symptom and disregard a source problem. Is N thing is symptom there can be many sources which have different solutions.
Like climate change, this mostly is not an intellectual question. Good answers in theory don’t matter if you have a reactionary political establishment that refuses to implement it.
Like for climate change bad solutions exist and if people are pushing back you should listen, a solution maby it’s not good anoth maby we are spending time getting bad solutions to work when we should work on find new solutions.
Like for climate change, waiting and doing nothing when we already have a wealth of research on the subject will do much more damage than even the worse solutions that the data still supports [rather than moronic, unsupported solutions like giant ice machines].
Like for climate change, the pushback is mainly based on people being paid to push back and the astroturfing funded by the same people in a litany of campaigns that have gone on for decades. People disagreeing do not, by the very fact of being “people disagreeing”, have a valid point, and usually they do not in the context of these subjects.
Give me ten pitfalls for green tech.
I’m sorry?
Every piece of tech has trade-offs list ten for green tech.
Why ten? How many does “lithium batteries are made with a substantial amount lithium” count for?
Beyond that, I’m not just some bullshit technocrat, I don’t believe that “innovating your way out of the apocalypse” is almost ever possible. Yeah, we should move away from car-centric infrastructure, which could be conflated for arguing for “green tech” because, compared to cars, trains, bikes, scooters, etc. are green tech, but overwhelmingly my suggestions are policy-side because stopping the destruction of the earth is not a sci-fi pipe dream, it is a materially feasible goal and has been for as long as capitalists have been destroying it.
Obviously there’s a solution! Give underpaid and abused teachers guns and ask them to shoot a teenager with zero followup on mental health for the teacher!
/S
Genuinely makes me sick how many people have said this to me, that teachers just need to be armed
When I had two fellow teachers tell me (not at the same time, like a week apart) that they agreed and wanted their rights respected so they could carry at work, well, I figured it was about time for me to bow out of the profession.
You can take a look at regulations in other countries. They work. Everywhere. There’s no need to ask questions, everything was already answered all over the world.
“‘No Way To Improve This Somewhat Without Excessive Studies And Data Gathering,’ Says Apologist For The Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”
