I figured it was a “Hey, Joe” reference, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking about there being an incident. — Noah Te Stroete

An incident... which occurred whilst he was designing a bird costume for camouflage? :brow:

I'm pretty sure he was just trying to be funny. (Emphasis on the "trying" part).

An incident... which occurred whilst he was designing a bird costume for camouflage? :brow: — S

Yes, I guessed that was part of the joke.

Emphasis on the "trying" part). — S

Hey, cut me some slack. I'm traumatized.

"Few crimes are more harshly forbidden in the Old Testament than sacrifice to the god Moloch (for which see Leviticus 18.21, 20.1-5). The sacrifice referred to was of living children consumed in the fires of offering to Moloch...The gun is our Moloch." — Maw

Occurences of mass shootings, USA, Y 2000 - present



Rest assured, the perpertrator of the next atrocity is already stocking up, practicing with video games, and getting ready to act. It's a pathology deeply embedded in the American psyche.

'The shooting came days before the National Rifle Association annual convention was set to begin in Houston. [Governor Greg] Abbott and both of Texas’ US senators were among elected Republican officials scheduled to speak speaker at a leadership forum sponsored by the NRA’s lobbying arm this Friday.

Abbott has campaigned on gun rights.

In 2015, he wrote on Twitter that he was “embarrassed” that Texas had fallen behind California in gun sales. “Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” he wrote.'

There is no American gun control debate. The debate is settled. It is settled on the side of being totally OK with murdering children, regularly. The rest is performance.

The problem of gun-related morbidity and mortality needs to be looked at from a different angle; better or not, you decide.

I have a feeling that we're, for good reasons of course, hyperfocused...on guns (they kinda jump out at us, hard to ignore guns and what they can do).

I recommend we change tack and put motives for using weapons, guns included in the spotlight. You know, try and solve the real problem - why do people wanna kill each other?

Or maybe the US should ask the other countries to the left which seem to have it all figured out.

:grimace:

Few crimes are more harshly forbidden in the Old Testament than sacrifice to the god Moloch (for which see Leviticus 18.21, 20.1-5). The sacrifice referred to was of living children consumed in the fires of offering to Moloch...The gun is our Moloch."
— Maw — Maw

In Gun We Rust.

There is no American gun control debate. The debate is settled. It is settled on the side of being totally OK with murdering children, regularly. The rest is performance. — Streetlight

Fuck. :shade:

Good call! Why not just ask someone who's already solved the problem?

Guns have a very high lethality index i.e. if you use 'em, death is guaranteed except in some rarest of rare circumstances. This means guns will top the list of non-illness-related causes of death.

Here's food for thought: The police and the armed forces are equipped with a wide range of guns. Who's done a study on how many lives an armed officer or soldier has saved?

the US should ask the other countries to the left which seem to have it all figured out. — Mr Bee

What happened in the aftermath of the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania, 1996, is often referenced by gun control advocates in the USA. The then-Prime Minister of Australia, announced a gun amnesty and immediate tightening of gun possession and licensing laws (see story).

Tim Fischer was leader of the National Party and Howard’s deputy prime minister in the Coalition government, charged with persuading sceptical country voters to support, or at least accept, reforms. “Port Arthur was our Sandy Hook,” he said. “Port Arthur we acted on. The USA is not prepared to act on their tragedies.”

But the Australian electorate is a very different beast to the American. There's no constitutional right to bear arms, and there's no history of gunslingers and gun glorification that the US has. We're also a more compliant society, generally - witness the very large uptake of mask-wearing and vaccination against COVID in Austriala, while defiance of same became a cause célèbre amongst US libertarians.

Overall, I think many Americans have a highly distorted idea of the meaning of freedom and civil liberty, and one that is very dangerous.

The police and the armed forces are equipped with a wide range of guns. Who's done a study on how many lives an armed officer or soldier has saved? — Agent Smith

One I did read some years back, completely busted the myth of the 'good guy with a gun' that the wretched NRA frequently talks up. Their propaganda is, if more citizens own guns, then they're more likely to be able to shoot/disable/kill the psychotic mass-murderers before they can inflict havoc.

I can't remember all the detail, but the study showed that the number of 'righteous shootings' by armed citizens in the prevention of a crime was (I think) in the single or very low double digits for a given year - maybe 10 or 12 - compared to tens of thousands of suicides, murders, and accidents causing death using guns.

The hopelessness comes from the fact that, even if by some total fluke the US drastically tightened gun sales, there are already more guns than citizens in the US (121:100) :angry: I really do think it's a lost cause. Politicians will gnash their teeth, 'thoughts and prayers' will be offered, but then it will be business as usual until next time - which is never far away.

Danke for clearing that up for me. I'm a buffoon it seems, talking outta my hat like that.

Anyway, here's an interesting thought:

It's permissible to sell guns only for defense.

People buy and use guns for offense.

Something's gone horribly wrong, oui?

Offense is the best defense?

It's basically MAD (mutually assured destruction) being played out at a smaller scale, with conventional weapons. Throws into question the rationale/justification for nuclear weapons!

It's a truly vicious circle - more guns breeding more fear, spuring more guns. And the NRA circles, feeding off the corpses like the vultures they are.

It's a truly vicious circle - more guns breeding more fear, spuring more guns. And the NRA circles, feeding off the corpses like the vultures they are. — Wayfarer

If I fight for the sale of tobacco (chewing, smoking them), wouldn't I put myself in hot water?

Here's some interesting statistics: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

Only about 53% thinks the rules should be stricter but then if asked about specific policy (more extensive background checks, barring guns to mentally ill) for some issues there's broad bipartisan support (85% and 90%) and (70% and 92%). Laws have been passed and presidents elected in the US with less popular support.

Meanwhile, "we should be careful about having a reflexive reaction" (some asshole in a position of power) because God knows reacting to bad shit is stupid. Nobody in the world ever does that. Nobody sells shares when a company makes a loss because it will become clear that that company "was at risk" and someone somewhere should've noticed that before it actually happened but we won't create a system allowing people to notice this earlier because we should be careful to not have a reflexive reaction.

You can’t kill a classroom full of schoolchildren with chewing tobacco, although the subtlety of the argument might elude you.

You can’t kill a classroom full of schoolchildren with chewing tobacco, although the subtlety of the argument might elude you. — Wayfarer

:snicker: I'm not known for subtleties, they remain an enigma to me. However, in my humble opinion, killing with tobacco is what I would call subtle as hell. The fact that we allow tobacco companies to do their business in the face of respiratory illness and cancer epidemics is something worth pondering upon, oui?

I misunderstood you, but it’s a rather tortuous analogy, let’s leave it.

I misunderstood you, but it’s a rather tortuous analogy, let’s leave it — Wayfarer

No problemo! Communication gap is a documented malady of communication.

The Condom Principle

Better to have it (condom/gun) and not need it than to need it and not have it.

It appears that many of our maladies, at an individual and at a social level, are effects of some rather "useful" heuristics. The double-edged sword was, in my humble opinion, invented and designed for amateur swordsmen/women.

When mass shootings occur, somehow the debate is always about gun control and never about why kids are massacring kids.

It's not normal, obviously. I would be wondering what kind of rot has seeped into society that's causing it.

When mass shootings occur, somehow the debate is always about gun control and never about why kids are massacring kids.

It's not normal, obviously. I would be wondering what kind of rot has seeped into society that's causing it. — Tzeentch

And so we should.

Meanwhile, let's ban guns right now everywhere whilst we work that out.

The former task should be easier and provide immediate safety. The latter much harder and might not even work.

Meanwhile, let's ban guns right now everywhere whilst we work that out. — Isaac

Given the last and the current US presidents, and the recent propensity in the US and the world towards authoritarianism, I'd say keep the second amendment right where it is.

There is no American gun control debate. — Streetlight

There's never a real debate, here, when there's money to be made. Thus far, the more guns, the more money. That may change when we each begin to make our own cheap versions, though I suppose there will always be a market for high-quality firearms, like there is for high-quality booze. By that time, though, gun control won't be a possibility.

When mass shootings occur, somehow the debate is always about gun control and never about why kids are massacring kids. — Tzeentch

It can be about both. 1) fix whatever it is that makes people want to shoot people, and 2) make it harder for people who want to shoot people to shoot people by making it harder for them to get guns.

Given the last and the current US presidents, and the recent propensity in the US and the world towards authoritarianism, I'd say keep the second amendment right where it is. — Tzeentch

I can't for the life of me think why. I don't see how the two things are in the least bit related. If some government went barmy and demanded something of me I didn't want to give it, the government is going to win, hands down every time, my .22 hunting rifle is no match for fully armed AFOs, let alone the army. Even some of the arsenals that our lunatic American cousins amass in their garden sheds will be no match for the even better armed (and equally reckless) police force. Has there ever, even once in history, been a case where someone has refused to obey some law and the police have gone "we'll leave it, he's got a gun"?

If ever we (the people) needed to rebel against our government we'd need at least some portion of the army on our side (as we always have). Quite frankly the adolescent nutjobs with more bullets than braincells are exactly the people I'd rather stayed home during any actual revolution lest they fuck it up for everyone by forgetting which bit of the grenade to throw and which to hold on to.

There's absolutely no justification for having any less stringent gun laws on the basis of untrustworthy governments. The two issues are not even tangentially related, let alone one being a solution to the other.

Given the last and the current US presidents, and the recent propensity in the US and the world towards authoritarianism, I'd say keep the second amendment right where it is. — Tzeentch

Civilians with guns are not going to stop the US military, there have been a number of militia uprisings within the US in the last two decades and they have all been handily defeated by federal forces. This is just role-playing fantasy.

Civilians with guns are not going to stop the US military, there have been a number of militia uprisings within the US in the last two decades and they have all been handily defeated by federal forces. This is just role-playing fantasy. — Maw

The last group of people I would trust with our democracy are the gun nuts.

As far as I can tell, it's not about "taking our guns away" (common slogan), but about regulation.
Especially for weapons that are for killing humans.
Maybe I've misunderstood the suggested legislation?

A comment on this graphic you posted:



One thing I noticed about myself today was something of a change in how I received this. It's an image I've seen before, and I think I've even posted it here in a debate a while ago. When I did, I commented on it much like you did: a kind of 'look, everyone else can do this, why can't the US?'. It's also what seems to be the predominant reaction wherever I've seen that graphic used. But my reaction today is quite different. It's simply: of course the US can't do any different. This graph is not proof that things can be different. It's proof that things can't. That enormous, murderous gap shows that the US is much too invested in whatever the hell it is, to do otherwise.

If that is so, then one needs to really have a good hard look at oneself when one's reaction to this graph is: 'look, things can be different, see'. Because that reaction is an attempt at mastery, of falling back upon a superior knowledge, something that, in the midst of all the terror, acts as a panacea. I think this is a mistake. There is no panacea. That graph needs to be taken literally and seriously. Not: things can be otherwise. But: things cannot be otherwise. That graph should offer no consolation. It should offer only more horror. And the question to answer is why that is the case. Because short of demanding the impossible - which is what, ultimately, needs to be done - that graphic only shows that US has in fact earned, rightfully, its place at the top-right of that chart.

There ought to be nothing in that graphic that offers any hope. Only the complete absence of it. And until that is confronted, nothing will change. That graphic should not function as a darkly snarky "gotchya" - which is how I used to treat it.