fuck guns

[Macgregor]

what is the personal response, then, to white supremacist-motivated mass murder?

[big zorb]

Viewed as terrorism and state sanctioned violence on a relatively small scale with the goal of deterrence, the solution presents itself as resistance to change in your behavior while simultaneously addressing the root causes, which is why making it harder to get guns is so important because it further deters what is still statistically minuscule (albeit globally aberrant) chances of white supremacist terror. Arming oneself in retaliation functions much like invading Afghanistan in 2001. It just leads to more violence

what i am suggesting is that this nation is doomed beyond the point of being able to make it functionally harder to get guns

[draw]

I'll give you that, zorb

[dubs]

There are a lot options for solving the social problem of gun violence because the underlying causes are heterogeneous, some combination of drug legalization & increased funding/attention to mental health.

Genuinely curious to folks opinions on this -

wrt funding/attention to mental health as a valid response, do you think the increase in these types of blatant hate crime inspired mass shootings are a bit different than something like sandy hook or aurora?

[endless dave]

Maybe “mental health” is maybe a bit too reductive of a way to call it but there is absolutely something to be said to explore and treat the issue of these Internet poisoned white 20 year olds finding solace in places like 8chan

As a parallel, you can absolutely see places like incel forums where users are basically spiraling into depression and the people encourage forms of mental and physical self harm and catastrophic thinking

[Durham]

Yeah, there’s an explicit and coherent motivation behind these and it’s part and parcel of the ruling party in this country. Naturemorte is as usual right on the money comparing this to Duterte which I don’t think I’d read anywhere but makes so much sense

[dubs]

Maybe “mental health” is maybe a bit too reductive if a way to call it but there is absolutely something to be said to explore and treat the issue of these Internet poisoned white 20 year olds finding solace in places like 8chan

Yeah that I can agree with. I think we’re clearly dealing with two different beasts between mental health and being poisoned by internet shit holes and the latter seems way more difficult to find a solution to.

[big zorb]

you can't legislate the latter and it's going to get worse

[big zorb]

you could pass some legislation to deal with the very real national mental health crises in our country and theoretically you could pass gun legislation except that will never happen but how exactly are you going to stop the radicalization and increased violence of white supremacists within a government that fails to even fucking half-heartedly condemn it

[endless dave]

If you find value in and can’t move past fatalism around the issue, which makes some sense, fine, but to go back to the start of this conversation- buying and carrying a gun actively makes it worse so maybe we don’t have a good answer yet but there is absolutely a bad answer to the problem

[Durham]

mental health like all health in this country is too expensive and cumbersome to access for those who need it most. actually those that need it most are probably in jail going insane

between incarceration/mental health, access to guns, the cost of health care, the privatization and destruction of public education and its prohibitive cost after 12th grade—pretty much every social ill in this country is interlinked in this miasma of constant suffering, and has been comparatively eradicated in the oecd countries. the us is just a thunderdome with a great entertainment industry

[Bob511]

As I said to easy, i agree with you in theory bob, and my bad about the post at the top. But i do empathize with people who have concluded otherwise and honestly i wonder if there are actually other options or if we don't want to face the reality of no coming gun legislation and an increasingly mobilized white supremacist violent reality.

What gets to me about validating that conclusion is that the person who has concluded otherwise would still not just be wrong, but--even if the anxiety is undeniably real, and since we've all been culturally conditioned to equate firearms and agency, the specific situation you're talking about would almost certainly be well-intentioned--the price of that improved peace of mind (and that's the only predictable benefit that could come from it) would be paid (wholly or in part) by an increased chance of physical harm to those around them.

Even in the complete absence of any other options, the horrible status quo with more guns at its flashpoints is a worse option than the horrible status quo.

[Bob511]

Truly, I do think there's real harm in expressing "getting" (not just as a misguided emotional impulse) self-arming itself as protection against unpredictable violence, or the intermittent arguments for self-protection through gun ownership that have been popping up on the left of our politics, in a time where mandatory arming of school teachers is an option being pushed on that very same mythology. I really just don't think that's ground that should be granted an inch.

[endless dave]

I still get angry thinking about that article Kim Kelly wrote about how important it is for “the left” to arm themselves and for Vox of all places to publish it

[Durham]

I think zorb is making the reasonable deduction that if someone has to have the nth gun, better it be in my hands than in the right wing nutjob’s. but that’s a false choice as one can work toward a future without guns or at least fewer. But then that flies in the face of 500 years of history on this continent so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Bob511]

I think the formulation is more like "better that it be in my (or a co-worker's) hands and in the right-wing nutjob's, than just in the right-wing nutjob's."

But it's not better, and the fact that reasonable people can push aside all the evidence that it's not better really is dispiriting evidence of how poisoned all of our brains are about guns.

[big zorb]

Truly, I do think there's real harm in expressing "getting" (not just as a misguided emotional impulse) self-arming itself as protection against unpredictable violence, or the intermittent arguments for self-protection through gun ownership that have been popping up on the left of our politics, in a time where mandatory arming of school teachers is an option being pushed on that very same mythology. I really just don't think that's ground that should be granted an inch.

I think this is totally fair. But I do think a lot of people itt are willfully denying the reality of our moment and wishing for changes that are running opposite to the flow of play.

[big zorb]

I feel like--and I recognize the irony given it is often the inverse--i am talking about the reality and other people itt are arguing ideologically (which I get). But the reality is this: the white supremacists have guns, they feel emboldened to use them, and the government has made it clear they do not intend to do anything about this. What is to be done, given those facts?

People aren't going to be convinced by the "well I don't know, but don't get a gun!" argument for too long if they keep seeing shootings with no real response.

[came to wreck]

Which gun should we all get, zorb?

[big zorb]

Yeah that's what I was arguing!

[Paul]

Zorb, out of curiosity do you live in an area that allows concealed carry? Bringing a gun in to work every day seems like such an unrealistic and uncomfortable option. I suppose you leave it locked up in a desk at your workplace but then the chances of you being able to use it in an emergency situation are drastically reduced.

There's a reason so few shootings are prevented by "good" gun owners. I think that synagogue shooting had a person with a gun and maybe one other earlier this year.

[Paul]

Of course NRA members would use my argument against me and say everyone should be carrying at all times to create the safest possible environment but then reactionary shootings would go through the roof.

[Bob511]

I feel like--and I recognize the irony given it is often the inverse--i am talking about the reality and other people itt are arguing ideologically

People are arguing that, if you take a gun into work Monday in order to protect yourself against the possibility of reactionary violence, the reality is you're going to do nothing but feel better about protecting yourself while making yourself and everyone around you (probably marginally, but still demonstrably) less safe, so do just about anything other than that, and dissuade just about anyone else you can to not do it either.

[big zorb]

I feel like--and I recognize the irony given it is often the inverse--i am talking about the reality and other people itt are arguing ideologically

People are arguing that, if you take a gun into work Monday in order to protect yourself against the possibility of reactionary violence, the reality is you're going to do nothing but feel better about protecting yourself while making yourself and everyone around you (probably marginally, but still demonstrably) less safe, so do just about anything other than that, and dissuade just about anyone else you can to not do it either.

Is this honestly your answer to the white supremacists have guns, they are using them to commit slaughter, and the government has no interest in halting that? Because that seems a lot more fatalistic, really and truly.

[big zorb]

Also bob fwiw I have dissuaded some of our security team (as far as I know).

But I dunno if I am correct in doing so as much as afraid of accepting what that might mean.

[endless dave]

Who is saying “well I don’t know” though, zorb

There is work being done to put gun restrictions in place and prevent deregulation, mostly at the state level, but still. Fuck Trump but even his DOJ banned bump stocks. And there are organizations that help pull people out of violent far right groups (that could do more with administration and more Congress people who agree with their effectiveness). The current FBI very publicly has stated the right wing and white supremacist violence threat in the country

There isn’t be enough done of course but to say nothing is being done and so we’re only left with self arming is just not true

[big zorb]

Zorb, out of curiosity do you live in an area that allows concealed carry? Bringing a gun in to work every day seems like such an unrealistic and uncomfortable option. I suppose you leave it locked up in a desk at your workplace but then the chances of you being able to use it in an emergency situation are drastically reduced.

There's a reason so few shootings are prevented by "good" gun owners. I think that synagogue shooting had a person with a gun and maybe one other earlier this year.

Yeah CC is legal here. I kind of assume many people here are.

[endless dave]

Also bob fwiw I have dissuaded some of our security team (as far as I know).

But I dunno if I am correct in doing so as much as afraid of accepting what that might mean.

To say again that more guns will statistically mean the person or those they know will more likely be the target of those guns, there’s also the very real possibility that the presence of a gun will escalate a non-violent and non-lethal altercation into one

[big zorb]

Also bob fwiw I have dissuaded some of our security team (as far as I know).

But I dunno if I am correct in doing so as much as afraid of accepting what that might mean.

To say again that more guns will statistically mean the person or those they know will more likely be the target of those guns, there’s also the very real possibility that the presence of a gun will escalate a non-violent and non-lethal altercation into one

Sure, but I don't think you're being very empathetic as to why people who are being targeted by death threats are less than rationally processing the situation or may have a different perspective than you (although I dunno your life or anything so apologies if I am assuming you are in a different position than you are)

[Frank]