#us gun culture

[contemplatingoutlander]

Great point, Mrs. Betty Bowers. Unfortunately, logic seems to elude Second Amendment fanatics.🔫🤦🏻‍♀️

Mrs. Betty Bowers@BettyBowers When was the last time you heard a Republican say, "Fentanyl doesn't kill, people who take it do"?| Or "Anthrax doesn't kill, people who mail it do"? #BanAssaultWeaponsNow

[callese]

[canadianabroadvery]

[countesspetofi]

I know I'm always banging on about the US Republican Party's commitment to abolishing public education. But I just made a mental connection today that never occurred to me before.

By blocking any attempt at gun reform, the Republican Party continues to make our public schools more and more dangerous. There could easily come a point where parents will be so afraid to send their children to school that they won't protest too much when the schools are no longer there.

[earhartsease]

[tw suicide mention]

back in 2000 we, a brit, visited the US for three weeks, and while we were visiting friends in NH we read a newspaper item about a local senator whose 17 year old son had ended his own life, and the senator was trying to get laws changed to make the manufacturers of acne medication put prominently on their packaging that this medication may cause suicidal thoughts - and right at the end of the item it mentioned, sort of in passing, that the kid used his father's gun

to which he had access

and it really brought home to us how in many parts of the US, having a gun around is just as normal as having a rake in the garden shed

and we thought about this kid who just wanted to get rid of his acne and how the medication is potentially lethal (and people don't think "potentially lethal" when it's not a physical side-effect) and then so are guns and they're just there

sorry, we just saw a post about Texas gun culture and this all rose up again

[uncarving-the-block]

Boy I sure do love living in America and hearing automatic gunfire from the crappy neighborhood across the river from me from time to time.

[cock-holliday]

I used to be extremely pro-gun-control for this exact reason, and it was a difficult hurdle to acknowledge that my ideas were simply out of touch with reality. Who wouldn’t look at mass shootings and think “we have got to get rid of guns” when this country has slaughter after slaughter? Unfortunately, proposed solutions either won’t be enacted, or if enacted, will make things worse.

Gun culture in the US is pretty fucked, but measures to limit guns will never impact the people who pose the biggest threat, and instead limit the ways people can defend themselves, not just with a gun, but in legal scenarios.

For example, legislature to limit gun ownership by making costs higher and imposing fines means that wealthy individuals will be able to retain guns, while poorer Americans cannot. The idea that the hick Trump supporter in a trailer is the only face of white supremacist violence and not predominantly wealthier suburbanites has done such damage to the idea of who is a threat. The idea that poor folks in trailers are all Trumpy racists and not predominately minorities is also a problem. The vast majority of Capitol stormers were able to pay for expensive hotels, and expensive gear. Raising the cost of weaponry and protective equipment means those same goons can still buy them, and poor minorities cannot. 

We still have problems with chuds roaming around Black neighborhoods after demos and the thing that has kept people safe is being able to show in force against attackers. Bans via cost will not help and will just create a divide in who can maintain weapons.

So let’s look at banning certain types or restricting what you can purchase. Despite the fact that people writing legislature have no idea what they hell they’re talking about when it comes to guns, they will never try to ban the types of equipment cops use. Allowing police to maintain heavy weaponry is dangerous, and means as long as someone is a cop or in proximity to a cop, they get access to these weapons. Bad again.

So limiting to what you can use for hunting, how about that? The problem with heavily regulating hunting gear is how it is used to police Native hunters on their own land. The other problem with bans based on specific type is police can use this as a pretext for arrests or killing. Saying a gun someone had was an illegal type, whether it was or not, or planting an illegal type of gun on someone then becomes justification for violence and death. Bad again.

Okay, we get out of the nitty gritty and just ban all guns. Just take all of the guns away. Every single one. Who do you think will carry out that order? Do we really want police raids? Cops showing up in force to collect guns? Responding to tips from neighbors and busting down doors? And do we want the cops to have a complete monopoly on weapons? Fuck knows they won’t get caught up in bans.

And suppose all guns disappeared with a finger snap. No guns for citizens. Proximity to cops comes in again. You’re a cop? You have a gun. Know a cop? You have access. Money comes into play again. The US is a major exporter of illegal guns. Gun-running between states isn’t hard when there are no hard borders. 3D-printing guns is a whole market now in and of itself. If you have money and resources you will still have guns.

Bans in theory make sense. Bans in practice make things worse. It’s hard to not feel hopeless with information like this, especially when the actual solutions are not popular with the government.

If a shooting is a case of mental health struggles, then expand mental health services. But they won’t. When shootings are cases of white supremacist violence, the solution is to fight against it. But they won’t. Or they’ll expand definitions of terrorism which meansssss MORE POLICE! Expanding definitions of domestic terrorism means increased police powers. More police is bad, expanding of police powers is bad

Any gun control measures that do not include addressing white supremacy and de-arming police means that cops and white supremacists just get a monopoly on guns, when they are the main perpetrators of gun violence to begin with.

Please be aware of this as talks of bans and gun control resurface, and we have the same tired discussions over and over.

You do not have to be pro gun. You can hate guns. You can never want to touch one. And you can still acknowledge that bans will never be as simple as targeting the actual threats, and will instead be used to do more harm than good. 

[tyree-toes]

U.S. Youth Attitudes on Guns Report | Southern Poverty Law Center

Thought I'd put this here for those who are interested.

[yeoldenews]

A mother's word for word transcription of the imaginary phone call her four-year-old made to Santa Claus in 1911.

(source: The Harbor Beach Times, December 22, 1911.)

Through some outrageous case of serendipity I found a recording of another phone call this same child made 60 years later. Though I have to say his choice of conversational partner is a definite downgrade from the first call.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Serbians handed in thousands of guns in the first three days of an amnesty aimed at disarming the country following two mass killings last week, including one targeting schoolchildren.

Almost 6,000 unregistered weapons, 300,000 rounds of ammunition, and 470 pieces of mines and explosive devices have been voluntarily surrendered nationwide since Monday, the country’s interior ministry said Thursday in an Instagram post promoting the measure.

President Aleksandar Vucic announced a suite of gun-control measures on May 5, pledging to “carry out an almost total disarmament of Serbia.”

“We must make a decision to confront this evil,” he said. On May 3, a seventh-grader was taken into custody after a mass killing at Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Belgrade, in which eight children and a security guard died. The following night, eight died in a mass killing when a shooter fired from a car in Mladenovac municipality, south of the capital. [...] The gun amnesty runs from May 8 to June 8, and allows unregistered weapons to be turned in without consequence. Those handing in weapons do not have to show identification or explain the weapons’ provenance, authorities said. Owners of illegal guns can also call police to collect them from an address without repercussions.

Additional gun-control policies that Serbia committed to this month include a two-year moratorium on new permits for small firearms and hunting weapons and a review of all existing weapons permits within three months. The government said it would introduce amendments to tighten conditions for keeping and carrying small firearms aimed at reducing the legally-held number by 20 percent; institute checks on those holding weapons permits, including medical, psychiatric and drug tests; and increase penalties for weapons offenses.

Australia, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Argentina have run similar amnesty programs to reduce firearms. [emphasis added]

Sadly, the gun worshipping part of the U.S. population is completely incapable of doing something as humane and caring as this.

They love guns more than the lives of school children.

It is as simple as that.

Once again, America must appear to the world no longer as a shining beacon on a hill, but as a culture completely out of control as it slowly marches in lockstep--led by the gun lobby and GOP--towards self-destruction.

[edited]

[callese]

[canadianabroadvery]

on and on year in and year out

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[knight-says-rollout]

Thinking ab how there’s a sort of wing-speak thing for both wings and doorwings

It’s heavily rooted in body language so I’m positive there’s similarities but fliers and praxians are Definitely socialized differently. Plus the hinges, weights, and attachment angles are different! So in certain ways they Can’t move the same

There’s definitely stuff that has different motions but mean the same thing, like for example wings fluttering would be the same as doorwings bouncing, because doorwings Can’t flutter

But what about the motions they share? A lot of outside factors influence the tone or meaning a gesture can have, and I think the detail wingspeak has would just amplify that, so with the different backgrounds a lot of the same motions probably have different meanings

Are the differences read as accents are? Like a flier from altihex looking at a praxian and the wing language translates like someone speaking with a super thick accent? The message comes across but the details are lost in translation

Or would that apply more between a flier from altihex and another from vos? While a grounder from praxis is speaking a whole different language?

How does that come into play after Vos and Praxis fall. Did it fuel the fire? “They’re all Decepticons/Autobots, they’re Bad, they don’t even use their wings/doors properly”

Idk man I feel like this is potential that Everyone is underusing, if we as a fandom are making it function as a language I demand nuance, I demand variation

[weaponizedhorse]

I saw this meme the other day, that was like

A;"Do you think we should make 2a more clear?" B:"It says 'Shall Not Be Infringed' how much clearer can we get?"

Then a comment that said something like "When people asked Thomas Jefferson if they could buy cannons he said 'What am I your king? Do whatever you want'"

I have an honest question that I want to have a dialogue about. Cause I have been thinking about this for days and I need answers (Sorry this gets long but I ask you to read it if you are a staunch 2a person and give feedback)

How come people always ignore the "For the purposes of well regulated Militia" part?

How many children have to die before "well regulated" starts to matter? You would think it'd be one or like 10 but it's not. Since Columbine 169 children have died in school shootings so it's not that number either. Every time a school shooting happens the number of children you are hypothetically okay with dying gets a little higher. That's not counting the people who are killed in regular mass shootings, gang violence, who are injured, children and parents who are now traumatized for life. Just. Dead kids.

So my question to all the "Shall Not Be Infringed In Any Way" people is how many dead children is too many dead children to you personally? If it was your child would you change your mind then? Really honestly take a minute to think about it. If your child went to school and never came home (God forbid I pray that never happens), which is what these 169 children's parents experienced, would you still not put any effort into making sure no parent went through that again? Or is there no number too high? 10,000 children? 20k?

We are seeing more and more mass shooting committed with guns the guy got legally. No one (we'll probably someone but you get what I mean) wants to take away all guns. You can still have everything but this one specific type of gun.

So what's your number? Because the leading cause of death for children and teens in the US is gun violence and the number is only going up.

[news4dzhozhar]