Here we go again…
As an outsider it seems absolutely weird that the US as a country seems to have accepted people getting shot by other regular people daily as normal.
Oprah Winfrey once said, everybody gets a gun, you get a gun, you get a gun, we all get a gun.
😔
Actual regular people haven’t accepted it as normal. Fascists in our country continue to hamstring any efforts to fix the situation because they want the rest of us to keep being reminded that the fascists can and will murder us at will. Standard issue stochastic terrorism.
What else is there to do but accept it? It isn’t like our politicians have the will to do anything about it. Peaceful protest falls on deaf ears. The gun crazies would gladly die in a blaze of glory rather than be disarmed. The country is awash in guns and ammunition. So please do tell, oh wise outsider, what the hell a normal person is supposed to do about it?
Peaceful protests? There are less peaceful protests for gun control than shootings. Maybe start there.
But I agree the US seems beyond screwed in that regard. NRA is too powerful, the two party system is stuck on the far right and society is divided into extremist views by propaganda and social media.
So maybe leave the country? That’s what I’d do I think.
There are fewer protests these days because people are catching on that they don’t accomplish dick. As to leaving, people have families. Not just their immediate family but think aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s not trivial to leave all that behind and move somewhere where you know no one and have no support structure, and maybe you don’t even speak the language. And to even consider it, you’ve got to have the time and money to expend on moving, and your destination country has to agree to let you in. It’s not a simple undertaking.
It’s not simple at all, I absolutely agree. And leaving family behind sucks. On the other hand I know several people who left Europe and moved to Australia and Canada for example. It can work even though it won’t be easy for everyone involved. But if the alternative is having my kids get shot at school I’d still try. Plus all the social security that’s missing in the US would probably make other countries more attractive to me too.
That’s fair. I’d probably be a lot more motivated to leave if I had kids to think about.
You shouldn’t be surprised. It’s caused by the same bad actors who are responsible for most of the ways in which the US is an outlier vs its so-called peer democracies.
The guys was committed for two weeks and had threatened to shoot up a national guard base. They had the information to act on and take away his guns and they didn’t because they didn’t need to. This is even more fucked because it was probably avoidable.
There are no red flag laws in Maine. There was no legal way to take his guns even if they thought that was necessary. Also, the christofacist supreme court is set to strike down laws that prevent people convicted domestic violence from owning guns, which will chip away at the legality of red flag laws everywhere. Happy Thursday everyone!
If he was a reservist, I’m pretty sure his commander could’ve ordered him to surrender his weapons.
And the bar under the UCMJ to do deal with a suicidal/homicidal troop is way lower than what it is for a civilian.
He was a weapons instructor
So?
Almost all mass shootings were avoidable if that government really cared about solving this problem
They do care, just not as much as they care about those sweet NRA and Colt checks 😩
Fuck Reagan. He created this shithole of a situation and ruined this country. I’m happy he died of Alzheimers and simply pray he was terrified and miserable in the last moments of his life.
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Reagan wrote the second amendment?
On the off chance this question was asked in earnest:
The typical deflection from the US right is that the real problem is that we need to put more effort into addressing mental health. (and IMO there is some truth to that)
However, Reagan ® dismantled funding for our mental health infrastructure and was responsible for the closing of many mental health treatment centers, and Republicans since then have (to my knowledge) voted against every effort to resurrect it.
They won’t support restrictions on gun ownership because they say the problem is mental health, but they won’t support spending on mental health either. (Most likely because they seem to oppose anything that would actually help people who suffer.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980
https://sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html
This last one is a ddg search - you can just pick which article you want to read about Republicans voting against mental health funding.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=republicans+vote+against+mental+health+funding
The 2a doesn’t, or didn’t until 2010, make reasonable gun control outside government legislation.
It was a sharp shift to the constitution first in 2008 at the federal level and then applied to the states under the doctrine of incorporation in 2010.
Gun nuts like to pretend it is some eternal constant, or more likely most of them simply don’t know the law here and are just parroting the gun lobby take on things, but it’s a straightforward fact that the individualized right to own guns didn’t even really exist until 2008 and the near complete inability to pass any gun laws didn’t exist until 2010.
The 2a was reinterpreted very recently. Before 2008 it wasn’t well defined and most assumed the bit about militias had something to do with it. Scalia basically is the one who decided to edit out that part of the constitution by calling it a preamble, which is extremely against the fundamental principles of constitutional interpretation which is to assume every word was written for a reason.
And for the record I like guns and am for gun policies that allow sane and healthy adults to have guns.
I have been to a lot of gun shows in my day and for all I know, what you wrote might be the modern legal argument or whatever as far as libs on the joke of our SCOTUS; but I can personally vouch for the absolutely confirmed existence of insane “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” gun libertarians, sov cits, white supremacy, tree of liberty watered with the blood of the patriot, cult compound guys since at least the 70s, and undoubtedly before that, and I’ve seen the typewritten manifestos to prove it.
If anything the 2A guys are WAY more moderate than they used to be. The old guard of rednecks before my time all had a bunch of basically illegal shit that was grandfathered into being quasi legal, not because it was a good idea, but because the ATF didn’t feel like losing all their field agents.
Could not disagree more with what you said. Reagan doing a heel turn on his nut job electorate and dramatically restricting gun rights as governor because of the black panthers is def peak radicalized shit for libertarians working their way into a more coherent political systems theory, though.
I didn’t say anything about Reagan. If you are saying “Fuck Reagan” then we don’t disagree about anything important so far as Reagan is concerned.
As for it not being a legal right in the USA that’s a straightforward fact. It was DC vs. Heller, a 2008 case where a Washington DC law was found to be unconstitutional which is the first case where such a law restricting access to handguns was found to be unconstitutional. There were plenty such laws prior to 2008 that survived legal challenges which is what proves the legal right to own a gun didn’t exist prior. But in 2008 the Supreme Court stated the law was unconstitutional at the federal level (DC being a federal district) establishing an individualized right to guns for the first time.
And it was in 2010 that this was extended to additionally restrict the law making power of states, in addition to the federal government, since by default the constitution is understood to restrict the federal government and not the states, but the poorly defined legal doctrine of “incorporation” basically says some bits are applied to restrict states as well.
In the sense of having an individualized legal right to own a gun, prior to 2008 it didn’t exist.
As for ruby ridge types saying shall not be infringed sure, I’m sure many of them advocated the maximalist interpretation way back when that the courts later adopted in 2008, but up until at least the late 90s the idea that weapons could be regulated wasn’t even controversial and the maximalist position could then be called mostly fringe and was only just beginning to emerge as a position a suit wearing serious legal professional would advocate. Bill Clinton banned a bunch of them in 1994 and no one really blinked an eye at the constitutionality of it and the federal assault weapon ban of 1994 survived legal challenges that it definitely would not have survived after 2008 and DC vs. Heller.
The NRA became a lot more activist in the 80s and 90s and really it was their activism that pushed the once-fringe idea that the constitution required largely unrestricted access to weapons into the mainstream.
Which requires editing out an entire sentence by calling it a prefatory clause, a preamble, which flies in the face of the fundamentals of constitutional interpretation which requires the assumption that each word was written for a reason.
I think we live in very different worlds. People absolutely lost their shit over Clinton’s bans.
Legal interpretation doesn’t always match up to what people see as their right and how aggressively they will enforce that right until the courts catch up to where they are. You’re saying it happened with guns and we all just saw it happen with the religious extremists that run this country and abortion.
Unfortunately, this the correct way to view the legal system, as a means to an end that can be lobbied or bullied into getting what you want. Even more unfortunately, liberals view it as inviolable holy scripture handed down by God that must be honored regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Seeing it as your right, having an expectation that it should be a right, isn’t the same as being a legal right though.
You could have said you disagreed with the court but unless you’re sitting on that court you can disagree all you want and it actually just doesn’t mean anything in terms of changing the reality that it’s not up to you what legal rights are or how the constitution is interpreted because that’s what the Supreme Court is for - and it says so in the constitution.
A legal right is a constructed and formal concept. A legal right simply does not exist unless the courts say it does even if you strongly feel it should exist. That’s what I’m saying.
And since 2008 that legal right has existed but before then it simply didn’t.
And I’m not a liberal man. I’m not even anti-guns.
I am a progressive and you probably view the terms progressive and liberal as synonyms but they aren’t.
In fact youre the one who is appealing to an idealism here, and in that sense you’re more of a liberal than I am even if I’m closer to them in the sense or being a progressive. You’re pointing to a right existing in some almost metaphysical sense, ie you’re saying that because people felt it should be a right you’re saying it in some sense existed. Which is liberal idealism.
Look, we probably aren’t actually very far in terms of what we think sensible gun policy should be since I think if you’re in Montana or whatever then yeah sure a rifle makes a lot of sense and can be a lot of fun and you pointed to the more modern and moderate 2a types which probably places you actually not far from me in terms of what we would agree sensible gun laws could be.
What I said is that the legal right to own a gun was created in 2008 and that is a straightforward fact. It’s DC vs. Heller. 2008. Look it up if you want to. Going on about how some people really felt it should be a right before then doesn’t change that, and it is also a fact that if you were to ask a mainstream legal scholar in the 80s or early to mid 90s you would have to look into some pretty partisan political camps to find someone who would have advocated the current interpretation that was established recently in 2008.
But of course since the late 90s and certainly in the late 2000s you can find a lot of them. That’s also a fact.
I’m not sharing my opinions, I’m sharing the perspective of the culture I grew up in
but it’s a straightforward fact that the individualized right to own guns didn’t even really exist until 2008 and the near complete inability to pass any gun laws didn’t exist until 2010.
Huh… Then I wonder how my family had their guns in the 80’s in one of the most restrictive states.
Man I must be misremembering half of my gun collection that’s older than I am that were passed down to me…
I totally don’t have the purchase documents for most of them either… some 1970’s in there too…
/s
Holy shit the amount of historical retconning you’d have to do in your head to make up the shit you just did.
The Second Amendment is possibly one of the most frequently and wilfully misinterpreted pieces of writing in the history of humanity. Right next to the bible.
Every iteration of gun control, with few exceptions, carves out exceptions for LEOs and Military. If you want this to stop a good start would be making these guys have to follow the laws the rest of us do, because if you campaign for more of the same from your lawmakers, I guarantee there will still be exceptions for the people who protect the rich.
I’m not aware of any federal exemptions to gun laws for military/ex-military citizens.
The only ones I’ve seen relate to state gun law in e.g. AZ, where if military/ex-military want a conceal carry permit, the training requirement is waived. You still have to submit an application with fingerprints and everything to DPS. (Which is kinda moot anyway, since AZ citizens who can federally own a firearm can also open/conceal carry.)
Illinois recent AWB has carveouts for police.
https://dd214direct.com/veteran-need-guncc-permit/ has some additional details, but largely agrees with you; some states also lower the age requirement for veterans.
Louisiana recently passed a law allowing vets to concealed carry without a license https://www.audacy.com/wwl/news/local/concealed-carry-law-could-be-model-for-other-states , but this definitely seems like the exception and not the rule
Imagine if the cops had to make do with muzzle loaders like in Disco Elysium.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout
Then you end up with the criminals, 12 cops, and 8 civilians dead.
None of them were using muzzle loaders. The death toll and injury count would have been drastically lower if it took roughly 30 seconds to a minute to reload the guns per shot.
It wasn’t the cops that shot civilians, take 30 seconds to skim the page.
Excerpt from the US version of the Prayer of the Lord: “… and give us today our daily
breadmass shooting …”My Aunt and Uncle live there. I heard the news at around 11pm. Called her up to make sure they were ok. They are scared in there home with doors locked.
Yeah I mean its Maine , its not that common those things happened over there. Thanks god your family is okay!
But “facts don’t care about your feelings” or something like that…
Hmmm, so all of those “well regulated militia means the national guard, the only people who should have guns are the cops and the national guard because they’re the only ones responsible enough” people are going to finally admit that cops and weekend warriors aren’t actually all that special and the training they recieve doesn’t make them good people it only makes them more effective should they decide to be bad people?
People who say that actually want a complete and total ban on guns, but acknowledge the constitution says what it says and amendments are literally impossible in today’s political climate.
Also, one could argue a “well regulated” militia wouldn’t send guns home with its members. It could be kept at a central facility.
I know they do, I was actually specifically calling that out, as they always say “nuh uh” when you point out that they do in fact want a total ban on self defense.
One could argue anything, doesn’t make them actually correct. “The militia” is defined “as all able bodied males age 17-45,” not as “the national guard, which is a military branch not a militia.” As such, this argument says to me that “all able bodied males age 17-45” should be able to own guns and nobody else, no women, nobody in a wheelchair or with anything that would disqualify one medically from service like colorblindness, etc. Of course, that is ridiculous, but that’s why I prefer the “actually knows english” approach to that particular argument.
It’s still not necessary to qualify it that way. “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” stands on its own with the preceding sentence explaining Why.
Regardless of semantics, the Supreme Court has confirmed individual rights to bear arms in triplicate and that matter is settled.
Nothing is settled with this supreme court.
OK well go tell them about that and see what they have to say about it.
We really need to get them to review Harlow V Fitzgerald, and present them with the full text of section 1983 with the 16 missing words, as the 1871 Congress passed that law.
Wtf. I just googled that. How has that been allowed to continue foe a hund and fifty fucking years?? Jesus H. Christ.
I don’t know much about that, but if that would get rid of qualified immunity for police then I concur.
Agree 100%.
That’s an interesting idea. Maybe in situations like this, the governor should activate the militia to hunt this guy down. Allow the community to protect itself instead of relying only on the cops. Lots of things could go wrong, but still, it could show the intent of the 2a.
That’s like, horror movie levels of scary.
In a sense this is already in effect to the degree that is…necessary, or maybe the word I should use is “appropriate.” If anyone who is carrying arms runs into this guy, knows what he looks like and gets a positive ID, and knows what he’s done, while it isn’t 100% legal to draw on him unless he’s presenting an active threat (i.e he has a gun out), no DA in the country would charge you with brandishing. Then from there you say freeze, he reaches for his gun, shit happens.
The problem with deputizing the entire county for a manhunt though is giving people real authority can have some ill effects, and is pretty much guaranteeing mob justice to become a norm again. I’d say we’re at the happy medium of “nobody will question you if you do find him, but I’m not going to imbue you with the authority of the state per se.”
Maybe you should differ between those people in active service and ex-soldiers with PTSD and mental issues that makes them hear voices…
Maybe they should differ. I think that anyone who hasn’t proven themselves a danger to others should be able to own one, even people with PTSD which shouldn’t be stigmatized simply because some people with it do violent things. Most people with PTSD do not.
Unfortunately a fact that few are willing to recognize is that if you have been homeless in the US for more than 4 weeks there is a very high (like high 90s percent) chance that you have PTSD. It’s not just the military, though us vets certainly have it as well. I’ll also wager that anyone that has spent any amount of time in our jails also has PTSD. The point I’m making is that despite the common person thinking that PTSD is just exclusive to the military, it is in fact, not.
I haven’t actually looked into it, but I would wager that globally we have better than 6 billion people walking around with some form of PTSD.
That and survivors of rape, assault (sexual or otherwise,) b&e, the list of potential causes is a mile long. I’d wager your wager is not at all unreasonable.
I have seen no indication that he had left the service, every report I have seen thus far has indicated that he was an active member of the US Army reserve serving as Sergeant First Class assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiments in Saco, Maine.
Why? No one, zero people, who join the military or the police, do so without the intention of using force over others. These aren’t good people, I’m not going to concern myself with what category of shitty to put them under.
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Yes. Do you think that Nazis who weren’t soldiers were good?
Yes… Because Germany held a conscription and many Nazi soldiers weren’t Nazi idealists… but rather in the military by force with threat against family. My Great Uncle died on a train transporting Jews because he was advocating for them. A Nazi officer killed him.
You’re not talking about “Nazis” here… You’re talking about ALL SOLDIERS and equating them ALL to Nazis.
So you can fuck right off.
All the same in my eyes.
Exactly the mentality that the Nazis themselves had. You’re no better.
This timeline is a bad one. We need father time to make the old in power fade away so we can attempt to fix what the worst generation has broken.
I feel like there is a limitless supply of the people you are waiting to fade away.
We just need to help those people fade a little faster then.
Those positions of power exist to serve a function in the machinery of capital, which means that even the best-intentioned people filling them only have the ability to act in it’s (and their) immediate interests. Unfortunately the system isn’t fundamentally broken, it’s excelling beyond all initial expectations-at what it’s actually designed for. Things are now breaking down because the various contradictions and feedback loops of it’s destructive economic methods are piling up, like a huge lobster suffocating under the weight of it’s shell.
said every young generation since the dawn of civilization
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It was in the news in the UK a few years ago that a doctor visited the US to see some of his family that lived there, and while he was asleep in bed a stray bullet hit him and he died. Obviously I’m sure these things are unlikely but it’s still kind of scary. That and I find the idea of walking around and having deranged psychos all around me potentially having a gun and them being able to pull it out and end my life at any moment kind of… unpleasant.
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Okay I guess. I personally like just being able to live my life without almost getting shot every couple of hours. I have a friend who basically sounds exactly like you and lives in Texas, he also told me that he hears gunshots around him like multiple times a day. Forgive me but that doesn’t sound particularly appealing.
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I think that depends where you go. I live in BC but go to Washington all the time and it feels pretty much just as safe.
Eh, it’s safer now than it was 30 years ago, your odds of actually running into anyone with a gun are extremely low.
I love how people are mad that you’re right. The only technicality I’d add is that concealed carry is a thing, so you likely walk past people carrying without knowing it, but that’s the whole point of concealed carry in the first place.
Mass shooting events like this are a social problem that ends up being very complex when you start to actually try and figure out why they happen and how to prevent them. There is no short answer, but Angry White Men by Michael Kimmel is a good place to start.
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This community if half the posts weren’t political soapboxing:
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This motherfucker is slowly making his way toward my home and children. Last sighting is 35 min away or so.
I don’t have a gun and I regret that choice right now. I wouldn’t wish this feeling of helplessness and terror on anyone.
This is always a mental health issue at its core.
Humor me and pick up a copy of Susan Faludis book “stiffed”
This is the 90s all over again. Fuck.
Where was this?
Lewiston Maine. The (formerly) safest state in the union.
Dudes Twitter likes were Trump Jr, tucker Carlson and all kinds of other MAGAt fodder. Also one of two retweets mentioned mass murder.
You don’t need a gun. Just call the police. They’ll take care of you.
🤣
You think the police will come and take care of you because you feel scared when there’s an active shooter on the loose?
Ridiculous.
Oh, I don’t. I’ll protect myself. Where I live the police are about fifteen minutes away. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Where I live the police are about fifteen minutes away.
I live in a densely populated area… They’re still 15 minutes away.
This is some obvious pro gun propaganda.
Honestly I can’t imagine these are a real person’s thoughts.
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The United States of America is the best/easiest place in the world to own guns. It’s the only place you can get a gun at a convenience store. In fact, in most states, a background check isn’t required unless you’re buying from a federally licensed firearm dealer.
The above is a copypaste, but it gets the point across perfectly. It’s vey easy to get a gun in the USA, unlike in many other countries.
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If Americans weren’t buying them, they wouldn’t be coming here.
The same concept applies for illegal immigrants, too. If republicans weren’t hiring them, they wouldn’t be crossing the border.
I may or may not know where to get illegal firearms, but would’ve done something very drastic ages ago already if I could simply go get a gun within 3 days legally.
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No because I can’t get a gun in a grocery store within 3 days.
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Only because the friends that would get me to an illegal one know my mental health well enough to not give it to me. No grocery store background check would find any of that.
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Why argue and say stupid things when there are statistics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate?wprov=sfla1
Looks like gun violence isn’t in fact happening everywhere.
