Anon learns about Material Conditions.
How come none of these nutcases ever go shoot a billionaire or two instead of random Innocents?
“Guy with shit circumstances decides to buy a gun and decides to go somewhere with the gun and decides to shoot undeserving people with the gun, it’s society’s fault”
Way to blame the victim anon. No, this was his decision. I know folks who have life shitting all over them and it doesn’t make them want to kill children and families.
It’s both. Even terrible people with something to lose are less likely to throw it all away.
If this guy makes $35k a year at dollar general, he probably doesn’t go on a murder spree.
But you could also just not be an asshole. Why go after random people instead of someone who actually helps cause the bullshit?
You’re right, we should be targeting the bourgeois, aristocrats and ultra rich with our killing sprees. What we need are eco terrorists, not senseless killings.
Fuck that. We don’t need terrorists at all.
the guy wants “good” terrorist he advocates while wiping the doritos off his desk and washing down his everclear with sugar free juice.
Both apply. Yes, he ultimately chose to do it. However society shaped and funneled him into that position. It’s not a binary decision between individual and systematic, both can apply. In this case, social systems failed and put a large number of people in a bad situation with an apparent easy way out. Almost all then chose not to go on a killing spree. Unfortunately, “almost all” is “all”. Some will make the bad choice, when put in that position.
As a society, we can’t change individual choices. What we can do however is change the framework those choices are made in. If we aim to put fewer people in that position, then fewer will make the wrong choice, and we will all be safer for it.
society isnt you or i society is the general way things are and yes society is the cause of shootings. mental health is a direct measure of society.
society fights tooth and nail to have guns be super easy to get.
society also fights tooth and nail to keep (mental) healthcare behind an impossible wall.
so now we are generating mentally ill people that have easy access to guns. multiply that by the internal bias and bigotry you were raised with and many millions of potential offenders. boom you have a shooting every freaking day.
yes the shooter is shitty and should be killed or in jail but society is at fault for the shooting even ever coming close to occuring.
You only said that some people have a lower threshold.
You guys are groomed in social=bad.
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The US can’t even do cheap healthcare. How the fuck is UBI ever going to happen?
By force
1,000 billionaires, 1 guillotine. That’s how.
As an engineer, I think if we add a larger load to the top of the blade then we can probably get away with the full 1000 without sharpening or swapping the edge out. Sharp edges have a lower force requirement but a blunt edge will still work with enough force.
If we need a test group I think the Sackler Family are an ideal target.
They will learn of our peaceful ways
In comparison to how complicated fixing our healthcare system will be, implementing a UBI will be dead simple. The only thing we need is the political will to do it.
I agree with UBI fully, but we ain’t got nothing on Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa was just the king. It’s like saying that everyone in America is rich because Jeff Bezos is rich.
Also, Mansa Musa’s wealth has been exaggerated a lot and the crashing economies while on pilgrimage thing is probably bunk.
Yup, I’m going to trust your source-less comment over my University professors
Did your professor teach you that “my professor disagrees!” is a compelling argument?
Syas the one rebuttling without any sources
I’m not even the same person. But more importantly, I’m not the one acting like asking for sources is a rebuttal when a) you haven’t brought any either, and b) this is an internet conversation, not an essay. If you really want to read up on what someone is saying, there are internet services that can be used to find more information to support or oppose what others say on the internet.
Mali only had an estimated 400 billion in treasury and it was a hereditary kingdom where only Mansa himself would have benefited directly. The United States treasury distributes 3 trillion across all federal agencies (some SUPPOSED to benefit citizens but y’know).
As for Ubi, there needs to be incentive to tie it to at least having a job or being on qualified unemployment or education. Know too many 18 year olds that would start cashing that just to stay at home and do nothing useful.
Im honestly tired of this argument.
Ive worked several jobs across my life time and if we paid people room and board to stay the fuck at home the world would be better for it.
Far from it but it’s your fantasy land, my dude. Antisocial freaks who don’t conceptualize the amount we need logistics and services can seethe on cope all day ig.
Automation and AI (it’s not true AI but it’s displacing workers all the same) and handling more and more logistics as time goes and the tech gets cheaper and better, there are less jobs that an 18 year old would qualify for.
Do you want someone doing that job that actually wants to work, or someone showing up and doing the bare minimum they can get away with to collect a check?
And the jobs that do actually have need of peiple? Well now they can do their part to attract those with the skill and knowledge to do them rather than rely on a revovling door of people just showing up because someone told them they had to.
You must never have worked in logistics. There are so many jobs that automation cannot do at this moment and won’t for a very long time.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about then because everything from truck drivers and trains to warehouse workers are being primed to be replaced by automated or AI networked machines. There are very few jobs in that sector not up to be replaced by a machine and most of those are things that require a masters degree in engineering or mathematics and statistics.
Pretty much everything that would be considered an entry level job someone with a high school diploma or GED would have a chance of getting isn’t going to be around 10-15 years from now, and those that are will have a high level of competition that anyone not overqualified simply doesn’t qualify against anyone else needing a job. What jobs can’t be entirely automated or done by a machine are going to have more potential applicants than the company could ever hope to employ, let alone need to.
So yeah, TL;DR if we started UBI now with no strings attached and let people without a desire to work, you’re not going to see a drop in productivity or services. The only places that might feel the hurt are the places that exploit that young adults without college degrees willing to work a job for 3-9 months before quitting and finding a new job.
It’s not “universal” if you start tying it to stuff. There are many cases where people cannot work (recessions, disabilities, need to care for family members, etc). The incentive to work would still naturally be there (to get more than “basic” income). Also, everyone wants a purpose, even if you may not see it as useful; it is a human need.
Why can’t someone cash in on UBI and do nothing? No one chose to be born here, to be alive, I am perfectly happy working and paying taxes to help people do nothing if that’s what they want. Enough people want to do useful things that society is perfectly able to accommodate a good number of people doing nothing. Maybe that is also incentivized by nearly all the work available to a young person being bullshit that is degrading and pays very little.
Because then all you are is unironically a cancerous growth within society like the morbidly obese and unemployment abusers. To participate within society you sign and agree with the contractual terms. Nothing in this world is free of resource and labor, thereby nothing can be given without getting. It’s the basic core of a finite resource, be it time or material. The idea that “enough people have ambition that we can support the lazy to fuck off until they die” is so unequivocally revolting.
‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat’ applies to the same principle of a UBI. If you wish not to assist in continuing our society further and assist in the services needed to operate, then you deserve nothing and should be left behind. Work on improving the conditions afforded workers and the work available, rather than incentiving actual mongrel degeneracy.
We are already being robbed every day, all profits of the working people are being funneled to the rich. Whatever amount this average teenager could waste by not working is completely insignificant compared to the trillions spent on speculation, weapons, political manipulation, and other billions of dollars spent on things that make all of our lives worse. How much money do you think a trillion dollars is? We are being tricked every day. There are billionaires that sit on their ass and do less than any lazy average person, and make thousands while doing it.
Current populist rhetoric using half truths is all this is. Yes there are reasons to be upset at our current situation, but the easy out of “muh billionaires” is so lackadaisical and falsified as a straw man for the stock market, politicians, and evil people who are actually an issue.
Lazy people are exactly the reason why shit is so bad as is. Look at any period of history pre-80s and you’ll find a group of unified citizens actually doing something about their issue and making the government fear them using the necessary violence (the only language these fuckers understand as it removes their control through ‘civility’). Now you say you want to give rise to a new class that happily takes their state mandated paycheck and then sits on their ass to not question why things aren’t getting any better. Yeah no, it fucking disgusts me, this philosophy.
Yeah it’s not just ‘the billionaires’ that’s obviously a short hand for the greater issue. You hear about those people because they made differences, but throughout history most people are just as lazy as they are now. Sitting down and not working itself is a form of rebelling against this fucking bullshit that wants us to do something all the time. Fuck that, for what? I want to make the government fear the people that want to sit and do nothing. Because what the fuck is life for. What are you living for?
I don’t remember signing shit before I was born. Lemme see that contract.
You benefit from the resource and labor collectivized to ensure you don’t have to eat rotten food every night, sleep outside and die of exposure, or die in a bloody war against your will. It is a miracle you’re even allowed to live considering how rough all of human history has been, and to ensure that keeps going while you benefit from it, you agree to assist in maintenance.
All that comes from the exploitation of the human population. If everyone was out to better the world we would be leagues further than where we are now. But a handful of people do and spend everything they can to stay in power.
Even if we overlooked all the exploitation that happened, where we are now thanks to everyone in human history, we don’t need to work like we have in the past. Everything can be automated and everyone happier. But then the rich and powerful wouldn’t get to be rich and powerful
“You should be grateful serving your betters. Kneel like a good peasant, and I’ll let you have a chicken bone to eat.”
You should be happy serving your community and benefiting society. Live for something greater than yourself.
You can serve your community and benefit society without making the rich richer.
You need to get rid of your “work or die” mentality. Not everyone needs to work. Only those who want more than what the UBI gives them should work.
The world literally is work or die. God I would love to see any of you people try to exist before modern amenities allowed you freedom. You are morally obligated to assist in keeping this going
If people don’t have to worry with the stress of just surviving the month, they’ll want to do more with their life and get more. People will always want a bigger house, nicer car, faster PC, there’ll always be the motivation to find work, and when they have the freedom and ability to achive that, they’ll go do it. It’s one of the ways we can utilise our greedy nature in a positive way.
What UBI will do is make it so the average person isn’t at the mercy of minium wage jobs that will go nowhere, just to not die on the street. An effective slave.
The US government isn’t trillions in debt and just using money like it’s non existent? News to me
Do you not understand the concept that we don’t just pay our debt back immediately. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/
Still debt. Still less than the 400 billion that Musa had
Also what you posted straight up said we’ve collected 4.4 trillion and spent 6.1 trillion
That’s… Not how anything works. I’m sure Bezos is far more in debt than you are and yet his spending capability dwarfs you.
What a shitty argument. Lol your so dumb
Dont glamourize mass murderers.Dont even publish their names, publish the names of the victims.
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…with ready access to guns.
So much commentary here focusing on societal ills, but even in other countries with lots of poverty and shit social services they don’t have individuals committing random mass murders like us because they don’t have a collection of high capacity personal arms. There’s plenty of people in other countries that have commonality with his life, yet they don’t commit mass murder. Yeah, shootings do happen elsewhere…but not like in the US, and the difference is access to firearms.
I hate the argument people make sometimes, “Anything can be a weapon, I could go around stabbing people with a pencil if I really wanted to. Even if you banned guns, it wouldn’t matter.” Yeah, except you can’t kill dozens of people within a few minutes with a pencil. We’ve got huge problems with economic disparity, a quiet epidemic of mental health disorders with little means to help the people that need it, coupled with ridiculously easy access to high-powered firearms in our country. There will never be enough “good people with guns” to protect the world. We need to reduce access to gun ownership to prevent mentally unbalanced people from having such powerful weapons at their disposal for when they eventually snap (since they’ll never have access to treatment), but that’s just a pipe dream at this point in time in America.
I had believed in the good guy with a gun idea until a citizen trying to stop a shooter by shooting back got himself shot by the police. Then I imagined myself in the position of the police in that scenario. It’s not neat and tidy. It gets worse as I imagine more people getting involved with their own firearms.
In a small space where everyone can see everyone, the aggressor is clear. I think of the guy who tried to rob a gun store. Everyone there hears what he said and sees how he’s acting. As soon as someone walks in without seeing the situation unfold, it becomes messy really fast.
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“Any is too many” - obviously we don’t want anyone murdered, but good luck doing anything to completely stop that. People kill for any number of reasons, it’s happened since the beginning of time. Someone says something under his breath and gets killed waiting in a fast food line by somebody they’ve never met before. A jealous ex-lover shows up at a party and stabs their ex to death. A calculating spouse poisons their SO to collect insurance money. A soldier sees someone wearing the enemy uniform and shoots. Someone goes off the deep end and shoots up a music festival and kills 58 people in a matter of minutes. A troubled teen goes into a school and kills dozens of kindergarteners in their classrooms. All those are tragedies and seemingly daily occurrences, but the low-hanging fruit here is quantity. Saving more people in less amount of time is better. Utopia can wait, people need helped now.
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One of the problems with arguments made by gun control opponents is that they concoct these ridiculous all-or-nothing scenarios. Like, we obviously can’t enact any sort of solution unless it’s a Magic Bullet that universally solves every problem ever that humanity has ever faced. If a solution doesn’t solve world hunger, prevent accidental overdoses, car accidents, acid showers, lightning strikes, or cure cancer, then obviously it’s doomed to failure.
Or even attempting to do ANYTHING at all about the problem is just the first step in jack-booted Government thugs kicking down you front door, dragging your grandmother out, raping her in the street and then shooting your kids and your dogs… for reasons. OR, we can’t talk about gun control solutions because obviously we’ll start illegalizing knives, acid (?), and cars next, just like they’ve done in all the countries of the world that have gun control, like those hellholes in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada. OR, if anybody anywhere dies from a shooting after enacting gun control legislation, then obviously it was a failure and a waste of time, why did we even bother?
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In the UK knife crime is a big issue for those in poverty or those in struggling cities. Having access to weapons of course increases risks of people dying ot those weapons, but removing guns isn’t going to just convince everyone trying to lash out to just lie down and suffer in silence.
I don’t live in a contry with civilan access to guns, and I don’t live in a situation where I feel the need to protect myself with weapons, so I’m not gonna stake a claim in the gun control debate. But if you ban every weapon ever conceivable, without addressing why people are becoming violent to begin with, people will just result to using their own hands (or perhaps more realistically, going above the legal means. Like with Shinzo Abe’s assassination).
At least with a knife, you can’t mow down a room full of people. Here in the U.S. dozens of people can be killed in a short time by a single person due to guns. We give them out like candy.
Both access to guns (force multiplier) and the underlying issue (poverty, lack of social mobility, etc) need to be addressed.
Well, yeah. I’ll take your word on the issue of US gun control.
However, if we want to tackle both these issues it’s probably a bad habit to redirect the conversation to gun control when we are talking about the motivations a situations that are generating the violent outbursts to begin with, since gun control gets a hell of alot more talk anyway, while societal issues keep getting pushed away from the collective spotlight, and are usally coming from underprivileged postions that stuggle to get a word in to begin with.
I agree, which is why I usually bring up both when it makes sense to do so.
I wasn’t aware candy required going through a background check and being a legal adult.
I guess I’ve been trick or treating in the wrong neighborhoods…
ok, kill as many people as he did with a knife.
Right, let’s keep pretending it’s about the weapon over actual program solving.
It is about the weapon. If someone wanted to inflict a lot of damage, they would use bombs. That has happened several times in the past but doesn’t compare to the number of mass shootings. Why? Because guns are simply just plentiful and easy to get, and too many apologetics keep allowing them to be plentiful. It really is that simple. Yes it doesn’t fix society’s underlying issues but that is a MUCH harder problem to solve than simply getting rid of (as many) guns (as possible), or at least not just allow so mamy people to own them willy nilly.
The goal is to drastically reduce the number of innocent lives being taken ASAP, not to argue about weapons or social ills or all of this other nonsense.
Because guns are simply just plentiful and easy to get, and too many apologetics keep allowing them to be plentiful.
You seem to be close to a moment of understanding here but not quite getting it. You seem to recognize that there are other tools available to affect such disastrous outcomes we’d be doing nothing to address, but to also pretend that there’s no indication nor chance anyone would use any of these other tools.
You seem to recognize the futility of the whack-a-mole game while recognizing its existence.
Yes it doesn’t fix society’s underlying issues but that is a MUCH harder problem to solve than simply getting rid of (as many) guns (as possible), or at least not just allow so mamy people to own them willy nilly.
It really isn’t. How much effort do you believe will be required to bring about an amendment to the constitution of the United States?
How much less effort will be required to bring about simple legislative changes? By simple comparison of the two vectors of change, one of them is unquestionably easier than the other. Spoiler: It isn’t undoing the 2nd amendment.
Interestingly enough, you seem to double-down on the previous recognition the problem - pressures toward mass violence - would be left unaddressed but with the vast majority of options for mass harm still very much present and ignored.
The goal is to drastically reduce the number of innocent lives being taken ASAP, not to argue about weapons or social ills or all of this other nonsense.
Which is more effective: A change which is quite impossible to bring about, or a change which can be brought about with some difficulty and compromise?
Which is more effective: A change which removes one of unbounded options to bring about a given end, or a change which reduces the count of people seeking to bring about a given end with any tool available?
We both know you know the answer.
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Lol, gl with that. In the meantime other people are still allowed to set more reasonable and feasible goalposts.
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Right, like bringing about constitutional amendments requiring a majority of states and Congresspeople instead of a change which simply requires a majority of Congresspeople.
So much more feasible.
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If only there were other factors which could impact the highlighted systemic issues… perhaps Canada’s notable single-payer healthcare system, social safety nets, etc. impacting the desperation and providing help?
That not the point. Ideally we just wouldn’t have people doing this to begin with, right?
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He typed It poorly, but I think his point was: Try to kill 30 children in a school with a knife.
If the person wants to kill, they will kill, but a gun (a big gun even) will make this task, orders of magnitude easier.
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The point isn’t If it’s bad or not, of course it’s all bad.
But If I had to notify 30 families of their deceased parents over 1 family, the choice is obvious.
You are right the guns won’t shoot anyone by themselves, but they’re very much an easy access to whoever wants to mass kill people.
Trying to solve people’s heads is a long term effort, and taking away guns is a short term bandaid. The thing is people are dying Now, you need to save people now, while simultaneously trying to solve the root problem.
If you’re thinking only talking to people Now, will help anyone, we’re in for many more kill streaks
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try reading before commenting next time, i find it helps me not look like a fucktard
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what the fuck is this incoherent pile of sludge
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Yeah, you treat the symptom, but in an effective way. It’s called mass shooting, because so many people die, when guns are involved. You do not have this, if there is someone trying the same with a knife. Banning guns is a band aid during the time necessary to fix the underlying problem.
It’s also impossible given the state of partisan gridlock and the constitutional amendment necessary.
Fortunately, actually solving problems here is far simpler than asinine bans.
There will still be kids slipping through. They also say it themselves:
Too often in politics it becomes an either-or proposition. Gun control or mental health. Our research says that none of these solutions is perfect on its own. We have to do multiple things at one time and put them together as a comprehensive package. People have to be comfortable with complexity and that’s not always easy.
There will still be kids slipping through. They also say it themselves:
Indeed.
So, what’s more effective?
Reducing the scope of those seeking to commit such atrocities to a small fraction of those now, or hoping for improvement via symptom whack-a-mole?
If you want to ban guns you need to ban metals and CNCs, will buying a CNC require a gun license and a clear criminal record?
Always the extremes with you, trying to make everything zero sum or a binary choice. There’s no room for reason and moderation if your go-to is pounding the table with the nuclear option every time.
I’m saying, if you prohibit somebody from buying a gun, I’d they’re really dedicated they can easily build it themselves. Do you ban steel because 0.0001% of the population could bypass gun restrictions?
Keep trying bro. Again, the hyperbole. There is no perfect solution. No, you don’t enact absurd bans. But you don’t make perfect the enemy of good enough by saying an imperfect solution isn’t an acceptable solution. I’m not interested in discussing your CNC or steel hyperbole.
But muh well regulated militia!
We can’t have gun control - guns aren’t the problem - people are.
Oh good - you support the creation of strong social safety nets, and free access to mental health care, right?
…
You support the creation of strong social safety nets, and free access to mental health care, right?
Had me nodding in agreement until that last line.
Cruz’s Crime is not “100% society’s fault.” Cruz literally and figuratively pulled that trigger. At best maybe a 50:50, but to completely absolve Cruz of any wrongdoing is asinine.
I don’t think that the blame assigned is in the literal sense I think it is in the philosophical sense.
Meaning the chain of events that led here had many MANY interruption points where society could have prevented this from escalating. There is no 1 person to blame for this entire thing, it’s a shared societal burden.
It’s essentially the Swiss Cheese Model for society and social outbursts.
Edit: I’m not saying what happened wasn’t wrong, I’m saying is that we can prevent this shit, and we keep failing over and over.
What I find weird about this is how unbalanced people assign blame. A white young male mass shooter: absolutely society’s fault.
When anybody else does something bad, the internet is much less forgiving.
Take an incredibly tame example as comparison: Amber Heard. The internet hates that person, although her life was shit and she isn’t even a murderer. I’ve never ever seen someone say it’s society’s fault that she acted like a douche.
Or take another mass shooter: Andrew Bing, who was a young black man and killed 6. You don’t have people on communities like 4chan, Lemmy and Reddit falling all over themselves blaming society and discussing his tragic life.
It does come off a lot as if the average person online, has a much easier time to sympathise with some people. And in consequence they give these people much more leeway than others.
I completely agree. However, if we’re talking about solutions, blaming someone like this doesn’t get us anywhere, and it certainly won’t prevent another similar tragedy.
The people interested in actually solving this problem aren’t wasting their time on the motives of the shooters. They are all aberrations, but when the number of aberrations starts rising, that tells you there’s a problem in the system, and treating the symptoms won’t make it go away.
It will prevent a similar tragedy by blaming him because that involves locking him up so he can’t do it again.
You’re missing the point when people say it won’t solve future issues. Yes, lock the perpetrator up (ignoring the issues with the penal system in the first place), that’s a no brainier. But locking up that person and placing all the blame at their feet doesn’t do anything for the other people in very similar situations.
Then we’re in complete agreement. I think perhaps I’m not the one missing points here.
The person you were talking to was making a broader societal point. Placing the blame for this whole situation, which is the fruit of many of the failings of society, just enacted through a single man, and saying we’re good 'cause that boogeyman is dead or in prison does NOTHING to address the root causes, the actual problems. That’s the point you’re missing.
I understand exactly what they were trying to say.
Unlike them, I’m not making a broader point, I’m not in a larger discussion of societal reform. Attempting to shift this conversation to that is a fault. If you scroll through this thread I’ve been extremely consistently saying that Cruz bares responsibility for his actions and condemning him does serve a vital, albeit very disheartening, purpose for all of us.
If you think about it from my perspective it seems that the only purpose of talking about the faults of society in the context of my statements would be to detract from Cruz’s guilt, which as I stated previously is asinine.
You’re painting a false dichotomy, though. Both of these things can be true at the same time, and in fact are. It does everyone more good to accept that yes, Cruz did a bad thing and should be held accountable, and to accept that, yes, society at large has a hand to play in this.
the child who is not embraced by its village will burn it down just to feel its warmth
I mean yeah society has a role to play in this but there are millions of.people who are in or have gone through this same situation without murdering a bunch of people
If 1 in a million people will go on a killing spree, when driven to rock bottom, then you would expect to have a few, if you drive millions of people to that position.
Victorian England introduced various social safety nets not primarily out of goodness, but out of cost. It was actually cheaper to just feed the starving, rather than stopping them stealing for food, and punishing them afterwards. The fact it improved the lives of the downtrodden was just a convenient positive.
I think this post intends to convey that society has done those people dirty too and that we shouldn’t wait until those “millions of people who are in…this same situation” turn into shooters before doing something.
Assigning blame does nothing. It’d be great if potential murders would stop and think “hey maybe murder is wrong. Maybe other people have solver similar problems without murdering anyone!” But that’s not going to happen.
And yet those ppl are now dead. So advocating for any position other than the one which removes the possibility of people making the choice to kill others is to support those deaths. Which is to say to support the status quo in the USA is to support the deaths of these people.
No. You’ve just described the life of most people on Earth outside of American suburbia. Most of us don’t mass murder with machine guns.
That only happens in America because you’ve chosen to elect people who make sure crazy people can exercise your Constitutional right to carry machine guns and stand your ground when King Charles comes on your property or you carry your emotional support machine guns to a protest. That’s not “society’s” fault. It’s every single Republican MAGA protect the second amendment voter.
You’ve just described the life of most people on Earth outside of American suburbia.
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
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most people on Earth outside of American suburbia
Inside. You mean inside of American suburbia, the depressing, isolating, boring American suburbia. People in the first world outside of America have social nets and help from the society if they’re on the downswing. People in first world go to therapist when they feel bad about circumstances of their lives, not into sporting shop to buy a gun.
But you’re completely right, the situation when people can go to a random shop and buy a gun is fucking insane.you can’t acquire an automatic weapon, or “machine gun”, in the US without either an FFL, or buying an expensive as fuck and extremely rare automatic gun from pre-1986. You might see firearms with fire rates similar to automatic weapons as a result of illegal modifications, like that of the bump stock, but there are also less reversible modifications someone might end up doing. Anyways that’s more like a theoretical, really stupid correction for me to make, because it’s kind of up in the air as to whether or not automatic weapons would even be more effective if you wanted to kill a lot of people, as military doctrine generally employs them (full auto) as suppression or cover fire, making active zones of danger which enemies can’t pass through or fire from, rather than for the use of killing people. Though, the military doesn’t really tend to kill large unarmed groups of people, or, they prefer to do that with drone strikes, anyways. You don’t really care about any of that, though, probably.
I would also like to posit that probably america has a unique combination of factors which spurn on violence. Insane amounts of wealth disparity, probably only comparable to some places in the middle east, if that, but also a sense of entitlement towards middle class living, aka the “american dream”, which creates a kind of scorn and spite in the american mind when that middle class ideal is denied, or revealed as false. The way that these ideologies work is that they say that X is entitled to middle class living, that they deserve it, but that Y minority or Y oppressed group is in the way.
Also, these mass shootings, mass shootings of this specific type, tend to be relatively rare. Or at least, not as big of a problem as the media would have you believe, relative to: the vast majority of firearm violence, which primarily happens with handguns, and is related to gang violence (this category includes shootings by the police). Which is quite obviously related to poverty, and the protection of drugs as a high-value good that obviously can’t be protected by the actual government. So you see a local monopoly of force evolve taking advantage of the poor in order to bring themselves to a more economically workable position, yadda yadda, I’m sure you’ve heard that story before. And then on top of that you have handgun suicide comprising somewhere between half and a third of all gun deaths (I can’t quite remember).
All that considered, in combination with a lack of political will to get rid of guns, for somewhere around half the population, I’d probably make the prescription that you would see a better drop in violence from the legalization, or decriminalization, of drugs, universal mental healthcare, rectifying economic inequality, and of course, “common sense” gun laws, which would probably mostly apply to screenings for mental illness, primarily depression, but also conspiratorial thinking. The latter there, “common sense” gun laws, I think is agreeable to the majority of the population.
Damn, life looking pretty grim homes. King Charles?!
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Not really sure what matters in this context.
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Ok. Not that anybody asked.
You may want to adjust your term “assault rifles” to “scary black rifles.”
Assault rifles are a type of machine gun, to be an assault rifle it must have select fire, semi and full/burst.
The second wasn’t drafted only for protection, but also for government oversight.
Nobody outside of the USA gives a shit about the distinction.
Most of us in the US also don’t give a shit about the gun pedants and their attempts to disrupt the conversation again like they always do
The “sad” fact is that most people outside of the US don’t know the difference, because outside of perhaps a hunting store, or rarely seeing armed police in airports/during police incidents, most people have never seen a gun.
Also everybody living outside USA is dirt poor woth zero prospects and low IQ apparently.
There are also millions of people with intellectual challenges and horrid childhoods who do NOT go out and murder people.
People react differently to being abused by people and society for years and years, until they have every last ounce of hope drained from them.
Yes but it doesn’t mean it’s excusable or justifiable to murder innocent people.
No the deciding factor is to decide at some point that others are supposedly at fault for your problems and that they deserve to be hurt for it.
100% this is such a bad strawman.
Okay, let me try this.
- Mother smoked and did drugs when pregnant with me
- Born with autism, mild cerebral palsy, medical issues
- Mom heavily neglected and abused me
- Lived in many foster, adoptive homes, boarding schools, went to many schools and extreme right-wing churches
- In all of them, was either physically, emotionally, or sexually abused
- Abandoned as adult
- Joined USAF, medical discharge out of tech school when they realized their mistake
- Lived in homeless shelters and then adult foster care
- My name online is usually some form of the word “orphan”
So what am I doing? Well, I’m poor and on disability and I’ve struggled to manage my emotions, and I’ve had to grow like anybody. But I’m an ex-Christian theist, empathetic liberal, and have never done any crime. I spent a lot of years in social programs and with social workers. I live in an apartment now with two best friends. I’m writing a science fantasy novel I hope to change the world with, sharing a lot of what I experienced and what I learned. I wrote a symphonic rock and power ballad soundtrack for it.
“The Solemn Dream” Blurb:
After a very unhappy childhood, “Solemn” dies at 25 and wakes up in the space-age afterlife of Heleia, where everyone’s home planet is chosen by the seraphs— demigod social workers and keepers of the peace— based on that person’s emotional and ethical maturity. Here, Solemn chooses to become a young child again, hoping to heal and to finally find a loving family.
Jessi Vargas is a forever-19 bully who lives on Nemesis, the planet for those who don’t care that they’re harmful. Sick of being surrounded by terrible people, she prepares to leave the planet— even though she may not be worthy.
Lu Montsely is a kind and patient humanitarian who hides a terrible past. After a century of effort, she is almost ready to ascend to the utopian world of Themis to join her loving husband. Lu mentors Solemn and Jessi as her final test, and— along with their wise and humorous helper android Iota— they form a small family on Eleos.
But many do not believe that criminals deserve second chances. When the seraphs discover mass-produced weapons, they need the aid of Solemn’s new family to investigate. Solemn soon finds themselves the recipient of powerful abilities that give them a unique role in the growing conflict. And before long, Solemn and family are not only fighting to become happier, kinder, and greater— but also for the fate of the entire Helian afterlife.
…I don’t think that having lived through shit means you need to be a shit person. Sure, some misfortunate people are going to have personalities that push them towards being shit people, but… those people were likely going to be shit people anyway, unless people guided them a little more carefully.
That’s all nice but not everybody is you and I don’t think we can reasonably expect every single person to be you. This is actually pretty close to the “homeless people just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps” mentality.
You can absolutely reasonably expect people to not go on a murder spree, no matter their situation.
Reality disagrees.
No it’s not? Not being a shithead is a completely different expectation from becoming financially stable?
Are you even thankful for the socialized support you got? Where do you think you would be right now without disability payments? Or your friends? Do you think you’d be equally mentally healthy right now?
…I wouldn’t have started doing crime, or shooting people?
The people dismissing this somewhat miss the bigger picture, that statistically this had to happen because there are so many like him there.
Though I’m not sure why this guy calls the act ‘fantastic’, I doubt even the shooter thought what he did was fantastic, unless I’m out of the loop…
Notorious (as a subgroup of famous) would have been a better word choice. They got the point across reasonably well otherwise, however.
I think by fantastic the 4channer meant “newsworthy”, or “that really affects people’s lives”. The chances of someone with that kind of background doing something fantastic in a good sense is really small
Fantastic could mean unusual or extraordinary.
Or following through on a fantasy.
In this context I read fantastic in a morally indifferent sense, as in it set him apart from others and allowed him to leave an impression on the world, albeit a hugely harmful one.
Problematic is that some people try to frame it as if his problems were the cause and reason for his actions. While obviously the point where people turn into mass shooters is when they decide to hate and blame (a specific group of) other people for it.
There is far from enough help for people who are struggling, but to prevent mass shootings the media probably shouldn’t talk about them this much and we need to look at people much closer who turn their hatred outwards.
Fantastic has the word fantasy as its root, but the meaning has shifted and that usage has fallen out of favor a bit. The same happened to terrific, which is an even greater oddity, terror being the root. The act was both fantastic and terrific but not in the most common contemporary usage of those words.
Mixed feelings on this.
Yes, I think he was dealt a very bad hand and that undoubtedly played a factor in why he but what he did but At the end of the day Cruz still choose to do what he did. That’s why I don’t like the “100% society’s fault” no, a person still made a choice. We can recognise what kind of dysfunctional people society can create while also not absolving them either.
Just adding cause I know someone will misinterprete my comment if I don’t. Yes I think gun laws in the US are in dire need of being reformed and that the US desperately needs to improve its safety nets but at the end of the day we need to acknowledge personal agency in these situations as well.
Nooooo! We can’t help people who are in a shit situation in life, that’s communism …because rightwingers said so! And that’s baaaad …b-because it just is okay?
Tax money should only go towards private corporations that don’t make our lifes better! This person was a bad person, and I can’t stomach thinking my tax money could have gone towards getting them the help they needed and completely averting the horrible things they did! My tax is much better going to the military industrial complex so we can help bomb kids even better!
I for one think it’s billaint that western societies are set up to regularlly leave people behind with no way to escape their situation! And when these poeple act up instead of just sitting around to die a slow painful, but conveniently quiet death, we should act like their motivations are completely incompressible! Because we all know hte alternative is to change a society that we have thrived in, and then we might not thrive as much!
