Gun Preverts

Jesus I should know not to read comments sections on Facebook related to a new school shooting.

I can't wait until today's youth grows up and the next generation is like "school shootings? fuck that. that's the kind of shit that our parents did."

A friend of mine is visiting St. Louis, this weekend. Yesterday afternoon, he sent me this text message.

Dan wrote:My bro and I saw 3 dudes with assault rifles on their chest walking around downtown St. Louis. I asked if they had a permit, the dude replied "I have the 5th amendment and don't need one". I hate America

https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/699706718419345408

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/6/11608260/gun-baby-gender-sex-announcement-seriously-guns

Imagine how Trump would field this question.

Nick wrote:As far as 1st world nations go America has to be the most fucked up.

Don't go to Missouri

I don't understand how collection of human beings can be persuaded into thinking these sorts of measures R steps in the right direction. Like, truly I cannot fathom the ways in which their brains rationalize this as being good 4 anyone. Fuck Missouri is the simplest way I can state my feelings.

Dead link 4 me.

More states keep doing this. As if the problem in America is, not enough guns.

Not great news from Vegas to wake up to. Completely horrified to think of those people getting bullets shot down from 30 floors in the air.

One thing I do find frustrating is all news failing to call this guy a terrorist. Some on air saying he doesn't fit that profile. What the fuck.

my goodness

i don't know how to describe what i'm feeling right now, but it's well beyond infuriated

few things are more gross to me than the rush to 'otherize' mass murderers by calling them "unimaginably evil" or whatever other bullshit people feel the need to do to "make sense of things".

people are sick and society makes many of us sicker. we can't hope to end every senseless act of violence, but at the same time we share the collective responsibility of what happens.

this letter is never far from my mind on a day like today: https://www.instagram.com/p/Nj2EIyChUJ_Uo_Xzy4x3GJjRd12GHxx5sOthw0/

Nick wrote:news failing to call this guy a terrorist

One thing that always bothers me are the semantics arguments about "terrorism." If this guy was some mentally deranged loner who snapped and killed a bunch of people... then why would it be considered terrorism? Generally, terrorism is conducted with some sort of political aim, right? I think there's certainly a fucked up racial element going on, so from the "media hesitates to call white guy terrorist" angle, yeah, anger is understandable. But I'd say the same thing about the Pulse shooter. Weird self-loathing gay kid opens fire in a nightclub where he'd frequently been a patron, then claims allegiance to a terrorist organization that he'd never had communications with. ISIS obviously takes credit (as they already did for the most recent shooting) because it contributes to the illusion that these are planned terrorist operations... but more likely, they're just cases of extremely disturbed, mentally deranged loners snapping.

Obviously, authorities haven't had time to conduct a proper investigation yet, so who knows where this ends up going. I just think the rush to label anything and everything as terrorism is a shitty excuse to continue the never-ending war against it. It also contributes to the narrative ISIS/Al Qada are pushing.

Yeah I'm kinda at the point where I think we shouldn't call anything terrorism.

Anyway, was assuming we'd get a domestic violence connection with this guy at first but now I'm not so sure.

it's very jarring how neutral all the news reports are when the suspect is a white American man versus a suspect of any other demographic group. i see very little rush to judgement or over-the-top shit in initial reports.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-attack-stephen-paddock-trnd/index.html this article is astonishingly neutral.

it speaks to how thoroughly embedded bigotry is in the consciousness of this country that you can see such obvious differences in news coverage without a top down directive. these outlets all go out on their own and cover the story the way they see fit, YET they always follow this neat division where white American suspects receive caution and neutrality, and everyone else is followed with wild speculation.

I saw today that Lake County Republicans were auctioning firearms as a political fundraiser and I nearly threw up.

Asked during a press conference in Tokyo what policies he would support to tackle mass shootings in the US, the president said: “I think that mental health is a problem here. Based on preliminary reports, this was a very deranged individual with a lot of problems over a very long period of time.

“We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn’t a guns situation … we could go into it but it’s a little bit soon to go into it. Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse.

“This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very sad event … these are great people at a very, very sad event, but that’s the way I view it.”

He’s not wrong. 

Trump has no intention of doing anything about improving access to mental health.
Right or wrong.  It doesn't matter.

It's just some bullshit to try to get people to stop talking about guns.

He’s not wrong. 

I really don’t know if this came across as the “joke” I was going for or something very, very different from that.

I mean, obviously he hadn't even been briefed on the situation for more than a minute, or maybe he had and just wasn't listening or didn't remember. It should be outrageous (another word that's lost all meaning by now) that he could fucking diagnose someone he knows nothing about aside from the color of their skin, and even worse that no reporters would call him out on that. Like, what "problems" was this individual suspected of having? Who informed you that the shooter was mentally ill? What's your source of any of this? Etc. Just any acknowledgment, as  of the fact that DT doesn't actually know any of this and is just saying words that sound true, that's all it would take but they don't have it in them to ask.

The lesson of Las Vegas was that the idea of "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" was finally, forevermore, total bullshit, deranged and dangerous. The lesson of this past Sunday was, no, actually that's totally true, here's proof and it's everything you've ever dreamed of.

Undo, I really liked your joke

undo wrote:I mean, obviously he hadn't even been briefed on the situation for more than a minute, or maybe he had and just wasn't listening or didn't remember. It should be outrageous (another word that's lost all meaning by now) that he could fucking diagnose someone he knows nothing about aside from the color of their skin, and even worse that no reporters would call him out on that. Like, what "problems" was this individual suspected of having? Who informed you that the shooter was mentally ill? What's your source of any of this? Etc. Just any acknowledgment, as  of the fact that DT doesn't actually know any of this and is just saying words that sound true, that's all it would take but they don't have it in them to ask.

Yeah. The fact that this was the response out of reflex without any actual knowledge of who this guy even was should be the most damning thing, that these people aren't even trying. But now we're not even talking about it anymore, so.