Jump to content

Active shooter thread


Hugo Stiglitz

Recommended Posts

8 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

when did i say hate speech wasn’t a problem at all?  when did i say guns had anything to do with paul pelosi?

you’re being willfully obtuse just to prove that guns aren’t the only problem in america, a claim that literally no person is making. 

whenever there’s a mass shooting, you don’t need to look any further than the guns. don’t overcomplicate things, it’s the consistent common thread here.

not mental health, not hate-speech, not right wing fuckery - guns. 

it’s like arguing universal healthcare. seems impossible in this country but other countries do it. other countries have strict gun laws, why can’t we?

other countries also have mental illness and hate-speech, but not daily mass shootings.  until you can convince me that (1) fixing the gun access problem is logistically impossible or (2) guns aren’t the root problem in gun violence, i will continue to “not get it”. 

sorry that bothers you. 

You’ve been consistent in your assertion that the gun problem is the only problem of concern here and consistently dismissive of the role hate speech plays in incitement to violence. Don’t pretend otherwise, we’ve all seen it. If you haven’t noticed how Trump has changed the climate with his non-stop hateful rhetoric of the ‘other,’ his adoption of the language of white supremacists (and more recently QAnon), and demonization of all who oppose him then I think you’ve just become numb to it because it’s a non-stop firehose of bullshit coming at us every day. And that’s the goal. But it hasn’t always been this way. This is new. And a lot of people are emulating him because they think since it worked for him, it will work for them and they’ll get clicks and donations and votes too. Hate’s an easy sell and social media tools like Facebook and Twitter provide the sellers with a platform to reach a huge market.

You're wrong about that “obtuse” comment but I’ll let it slide. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You’ve been consistent in your assertion that the gun problem is the only problem of concern here and consistently dismissive of the role hate speech plays in incitement to violence. Don’t pretend otherwise, we’ve all seen it. If you haven’t noticed how Trump has changed the climate with his non-stop hateful rhetoric of the ‘other,’ his adoption of the language of white supremacists (and more recently QAnon), and demonization of all who oppose him then I think you’ve just become numb to it because it’s a non-stop firehose of bullshit coming at us every day. And that’s the goal. But it hasn’t always been this way. This is new. And a lot of people are emulating him because they think since it worked for him, it will work for them and they’ll get clicks and donations and votes too. Hate’s an easy sell and social media tools like Facebook and Twitter provide the sellers with a platform to reach a huge market.

You're wrong about that “obtuse” comment but I’ll let it slide. 

Not to speak for HG, but I believe his point is that hate speech exists all over the world.  Yes, it is a problem that needs to be addressed, but currently the good ol' USA is the only country on the planet where you have a non-negligible chance of getting murdered while grocery shopping and there's a pretty obvious variable that can be used to explain that.

Edited by Chuckie Finster
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

TLDR; in the 80s, we had guns. We just didn’t view them as props, central to our identity, or tools to inflict our rage on society or the “other.”

This is the weirdest part to me. The fetishization of guns is deeply disturbing

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

not mental health, not hate-speech, not right wing fuckery - guns. 

it’s like arguing universal healthcare. seems impossible in this country but other countries do it.

Same fucking reason. The right wing and a few on the left won't let it happen. Not many people are going to be able to run on getting rid of guns. Almost any kind of guns. Beto did worse this time. Uvalde went 70% About? It's a non-starter. Yes, you are right. It's the guns. Now how do you propose to get rid of them? We had a law on the books that should have kept Aldrich from purchasing any firearm or materials to make bombs. If we want to include ammonium nitrate he'll have to use some other kind of fertilizer. 

But, sheriff didn't get a chance to ignore the law he swore to ignore because the kid got his records sealed and deals were done. Might have to fix that too.

It doesn't matter. Texas is going to have guns. Buzbee wants his tank. Sack wants his rifles. Beto is the most recent cautionary tale of what happens to a politician in Texas that even hints at more regulations.

How are we supposed to fix that?

Edited by cactusflinthead
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 there will ALWAYS be hateful messaging and terrible messengers.

Quote

you will never be able to get rid of hate speech.  it's been around for thousands of years.

Quote

there are thousands of problems in the country/world right now.

Quote

when i say it's the guns, it doesn't mean i'm saying we don't have a hate-speech problem, or an anti-semitism problem, or an anti-lbtq+ problem.

Quote

there's a bunch of problems in the world

all from the past 48 hours ^

33 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You’ve been consistent in your assertion that the gun problem is the only problem of concern here

ok.

we are somehow conditioned in this country to look past the gun problem to try and address other, "more-fixable" problems.  this didn't happen by accident.  i will agree with you on almost everything you've said (others too).  we have a bunch of problems in this country (so oddly familiar) and there are several contributing factors when it comes to why someone decides to pick up a gun and ends somebody's life (or multiple lives).

but every single act of gun violence has at the root of it, a gun.  this is because access to guns is not regulated enough or at all.  this is a problem that's so nuanced and complex that every other advanced nation on earth has cracked it.  that onion article is popular for a reason.  it's constantly relevant and it shows the unique problem our country has gotten ourselves into and kept ourselves into.

and yes, whenever people ignore the root problem, i will say they're being obtuse.  there are a lot of problems that demand solutions.  personally i think we should start at the top, vs starting with contributing factors that have shown to be a problem for the history of mankind and have not been solved in other countries at any point in human existence.

a few years ago when this thread was getting bumped every day, i said my piece and stated quite plainly that i am against guns, that a civilized society does not need them to function properly, and that i wasn't the ideal person to engage in this debate because i admittedly was unwilling to get into a "rational" discussion about guns.  i buried the lede.  i crumbed the play.  i admitted it.  and i left this thread only to get bombarded with pm's about home security, hunting licenses and where that money goes, and family traditions and how we will always have guns and blah blah.

i'm happy to leave this thread again.  it's become clear that legislators aren't the only ones unwilling to confront the elephant in the room.  if only we changed the furniture around, maybe he'd stop breaking the couch.  i sincerely hope we figure out how to fix people, since fixing the gun laws clearly is a bridge too far.  maybe i can move in with jim jefferies, i bet he has great blow.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

I hate that this thread stays at the top of the forum. 

Most people in in red states in this country believe that a solid few tens of thousand people dying every year (maybe a few more if they are school children) due to guns is a small price to pay for a fucking free for all in terms of gun ownership.

 

 

  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll ask it again.
How do we accomplish this?

I thought it was quite clear by now: we don’t.
Any and all attempts at truly doing so are a non-starter due to the wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA that is the GQP. It’s over, it’s done. We are only going to get MORE saturation of guns, not less.
  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Satchel said:

Shit gets real when we consider how many times we’ve walked in to company break rooms with every expectation that we would walk out.

Do we do that anymore? Have an expectation that we will walk out?

was travelling this holiday and my family and I walked into a restaurant in New Mexico and instead of anticipating a great meal, my first thought after looking at the layout, lack of windows, and only one apparent exit was : “this is a shooting gallery”

this is our country. This is who we are. We expect something awful could happen. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Not to speak for HG, but I believe his point is that hate speech exists all over the world.  Yes, it is a problem that needs to be addressed, but currently the good ol' USA is the only country on the planet where you have a non-negligible chance of getting murdered while grocery shopping.

Nobody is disputing that the U.S. has a unique problem with gun violence because we have more guns in peoples’ hands than anyone else does. How many times does that need to be said? (And I get called obtuse.)

To dismiss the effects of the toxic rhetoric of certain people by saying ‘Oh, well, hate speech is everywhere’ is denying the current reality. Some of what happens here, like a politician wanting to throw his political enemies in jail, claiming the elections are rigged, inciting his or her followers to violence, suggesting that maybe the “2nd Amendment people” could stop his opponent from appointing justices to the Supreme Court, only happens in third world countries. Yeah, you could say that happens everywhere, but it doesn’t happen here, not until recently.

Yeah, there’s always been hate speech in this country, but Klansmen used to wear hoods. Now they’re out in the open. They’re saying out loud that they think Trump is their messenger. The DHS has recognized that “White supremacists and other far-right-wing extremists are the most significant domestic terrorism threat facing the United States.” The military has acknowledged the importance of identifying those factions within their ranks. We have a former Army general in Mike Flynn allying with right-wing, white supremacist militias like the Proud Boys and openly calling for a coup. They already attempted one. They oppose any form of gun control because those are the weapons they’ll use to overthrow democracy and they’ll use hate speech to marshal followers to their cause.

We have politicians and preachers and cable news personalities spreading the message that members of the LGBTQ community are a threat to our children and to our country. Thanks to QAnon it’s become fashionable to accuse anyone you don’t like of being a pedophile. Just calling them a socialist, while not having gone completely out of style, isn’t enough anymore. We have those on the right who are quick to say that they think it’s acceptable to use violence in order to achieve their political goals.

There is an extant threat in this country, a white supremacist, Christofascist movement that uses hate speech to demonize its enemies and direct violence against them. Yeah, guns are a huge problem and they’d be a problem even if we got rid of the haters bent on overturning democracy and installing a fascist state with Christianity as the official religion and straight white people enjoying a position of privilege. But guns are a tool and the problem with too many guns is exacerbated by a movement of ideas, ideas that motivate people to commit violence against those they perceive as a threat to them. They’re coming to replace us! To take our jobs! To corrupt our children! To kill our god! We have to do something or our whole world will be gone!

The hate speech dominating our discourse today and inciting people to violence is a tool of the anti-democratic movement on the right, the one that resembles the rise of European fascism in the 30’s and other anti-democratic movements today like the ones in Turkey and Hungary. It’s a means to differentiate “us” from “them” and define some “other” as the reason for all our problems and a threat to our very way of life. One could argue that the movement is a bigger issue than the problem with too many guns and the resulting gun violence. At the very least, however, it shouldn’t be dismissed, excused, or ignored because “hate speech is everywhere.” This is different. This is new. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, mchookem said:

i don't even know what any of you guys are arguing about lol, y'all basically agree we have too many guns and too many hate trolls with microphones and there's not a damn thing we can do about either...

 

 

tenor (3).gif

tried-nothing.gif

59 minutes ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Most people in in red states in this country believe that a solid few tens of thousand people dying every year (maybe a few more if they are school children) due to guns is a small price to pay for a fucking free for all in terms of gun ownership.

 

 

#uvalderesidentswhovotedR

  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Life can be a fucking bitch. True.
Even in America where we have it better than most other places on the planet. Also true.
Life can also be very unfair. Also very much true.
A sexy woman can post a picture of her in her underwear ( no nudity) and rake in thousands of dollars from fat lonely losers on only fans while guys like the shooter scratch and claw for a meager 1000 bucks every 2 weeks from a company whose run by spoiled children. What in the absolute fuck? Stop and think about what you wrote here. The sexualization of women from birth onwards that completely encircles every part of their lives, that becomes a measure of 'her' worth to society and how that is completely and totally irrelevant to a shooting at a Walmart...by a male. Had you omitted the first part of your sentence, well, I get and sympathize with rage against the machine, but don't start with this shit. Fuck that.
 
 

Good lord, thank you.

What fucking nonsense.

I’m beginning to believe we need a moratorium on men until we figure out what the fuck is wrong with them.
  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, G650 said:

This is the weirdest part to me. The fetishization of guns is deeply disturbing

My BIL gave my sister a gun for Xmas several years ago. She has never in her life had any interest in guns let alone fired one. They live in a rural area with no crime problem. I mean, I guess this good Christian woman still lives in fear because a stranger’s car broke down on the road outside her place one time and he came to her door. She saw his truck out on the road with the hood raised. She refused to answer the door. He went to a neighbor’s house and got whatever assistance he needed and after a time both he and his vehicle were gone. No neighbors were harmed. I don’t know where she stores her gun or how much time she’s spent learning how to use it. But I doubt that if that guy had broken into her house seeking to do her harm if she would’ve been very effective at retrieving it and using it to defend herself. I think she owns it as a symbol of her political identity. She’s now a gun-totin’ Republican.

I had a friend who was a Rush Limbaugh-listening, Trump-supporting Republican diehard. He became aware of the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and expressed an interest in reading it. I happened to have an extra copy so I gave him one. It’s a long book. The paperback copy I gave him is 1,084 pages long. He couldn’t get through it. So he went out and bought a gun. He probably wouldn’t describe it that way. You might accuse me of committing the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. But I have no doubt that both his effort to read Atlas Shrugged and his purchase of a gun were done because those were things he thought a good little Republican should do and I told him so. He lived in Upper Arlington, a wealthy suburb near campus. I’ve had dozens of friends and a few girlfriends from there over the years and never once in over three decades have I ever heard of any Arlingtonians experiencing a home invasion or needing a gun to defend themselves. For some people the gun is much more a symbol of their identity than it is a weapon to be used for their protection.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, cactusflinthead said:

I'll ask it again.

How do we accomplish this?

we evolve. 

it will be ugly at first, then people will get used to it, like smoking inside or seatbelts. this isn’t some pilot program - every other country already does this shit. 

the voting blocs are changing with gen z. boomers are dying and young people turn 18 every day. get 60 senators in, overhaul the court, ditch the filibuster, expand to 52 states. there are several ways to go, and no, it will not happen overnight. 

now ask yourself if that is more plausible than controlling how people are allowed to think. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't like guns. But I carry one around because in this climate it's just too risky not to do so. America is returning to it's wild west roots but with exponentially larger population. 

Just like every other problem if you want a solution you have to address the source. Obviously the two main sources are mental health and health care in general as well as lack of gun control. 

In both cases it's legislation passed and legislation blocked by primarily Republican politicians that prevents the solution from being realized. Therefore, the only way to push forward is to target Republican politicians. It's come to that grim situation because the polarization is too strong and the gulf between sides is too wide. The only way to get change in America anymore is to physically target those who block it and inflict as much damage on them as it takes for them to make changes out of self preservation. 

It's over. We've all lost. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

when did i say hate speech wasn’t a problem at all?  when did i say guns had anything to do with paul pelosi?

you’re being willfully obtuse just to prove that guns aren’t the only problem in america, a claim that literally no person is making. 

whenever there’s a mass shooting, you don’t need to look any further than the guns. don’t overcomplicate things, it’s the consistent common thread here.

not mental health, not hate-speech, not right wing fuckery - guns. 

it’s like arguing universal healthcare. seems impossible in this country but other countries do it. other countries have strict gun laws, why can’t we?

other countries also have mental illness and hate-speech, but not daily mass shootings.  until you can convince me that (1) fixing the gun access problem is logistically impossible or (2) guns aren’t the root problem in gun violence, i will continue to “not get it”. 

sorry that bothers you. 

I won’t get it either.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, TexEx15 said:

 



This dude --- no kidding ----- was on a TV show called Intevention in 2009. Reason? He was a porn actor and mixed martial artist who had developed a severe addiction to porn and meth. He appeared in such films as "I Wanna Get Titty Fucked"  and "Latina Slut Academy."


https://heavy.com/news/aaron-brink-anderson-lee-aldrich-father-dad/

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:



This dude --- no kidding ----- was on a TV show called Intevention in 2009. Reason? He was a porn actor and mixed martial artist who had developed a severe addiction to porn and meth. He appeared in such films as "I Wanna Get Titty Fucked"  and "Latina Slut Academy."


https://heavy.com/news/aaron-brink-anderson-lee-aldrich-father-dad/

the-dude-lebowski.gif

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, yoladu said:

Do we do that anymore? Have an expectation that we will walk out?

was travelling this holiday and my family and I walked into a restaurant in New Mexico and instead of anticipating a great meal, my first thought after looking at the layout, lack of windows, and only one apparent exit was : “this is a shooting gallery”

this is our country. This is who we are. We expect something awful could happen. 

And we're doing it to ourselves.  Not some outsiders doing it like 9/11.  

6 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

we evolve. 

it will be ugly at first, then people will get used to it, like smoking inside or seatbelts. this isn’t some pilot program - every other country already does this shit. 

the voting blocs are changing with gen z. boomers are dying and young people turn 18 every day. get 60 senators in, overhaul the court, ditch the filibuster, expand to 52 states. there are several ways to go, and no, it will not happen overnight. 

now ask yourself if that is more plausible than controlling how people are allowed to think. 

overturn Citizens United.  They did it to Roe, nothing is sacred, apparently.   Enact campaign reform.

3 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Despicable, deplorable, demonic.

Dumb.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...