Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

idk if there's really any notable linkage between actual acts of violence and playing of violent video games : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308081057.htm

I just think it's foolish not to acknowledge that there are definitely some noted negative impacts with overexposure to them.

he says as he has often played them ^

mass shootings are way up since the early 1980s

mass shootings have increased while overall violence/homicide has decreased. something like we have more than a third of the planet's mass shootings since 1966 despite having just 5% of the world's population.

John Brown-style, the next one needs to happen at NRA HQ

Seriously.

and the end result would still probably be camps for people with certain ethnic names

but I'll feel better, and revel in the lamentations of their women.

Look, I've been spraying "Fuck the GOP NRA death culture" everywhere I can, today. So long as gun nuts still get laid and are employable, what difference do I make.

Gun nut isn't a protected class. I've lost touch with my own mother because her companion is a sociopathic gun nut. Were I in a position to do so, I'd fire those with NRA bumperstickers.

But then I spend time with family and friends who endlessly watch police procedurals, where every problem is solved by gun violence. This shit is pervasive, and cultural boycotts against it are long overdue.

― Acanthonus armatus (Sanpaku), Wednesday, February 14, 2018 6:07 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's something really wrong w/a culture where we all sort of intrinsically have knowledge of guns and how to use them and we all fetishize them despite the fact that for most of us our exposure to them is minimal.

hell I've never even held one, other than one time on stage

boycott every fucking politician who paves the way for this kind of massacre and ignores the repercussions

[though it's as effective and meaningful as a facebook post, following neanderthal's lead with a dn seems an entirely reasonable step btw]

When I wrote this headline, I had no idea it would be applied to the high school a mile from my house. https://t.co/Vm1jCaiugo

— Jason Roeder (@jasonroeder) February 15, 2018

Instead of acknowledging Rivera’s argument, Hannity said we need to “get away from” the “same, predictable, frankly insane, and intellectually lightweight” debates about guns and get back to the important issue plaguing America: school security.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/geraldo-rivera-unleashes-gun-control-rant-on-hannity-this-is-a-national-emergency?ref=home

People play violent video games all over the world. Frequent mass shootings are a problem unique to the USA

^^ ding ding ding

that said I'm not letting my boys play FPS in my house ever

Florida Senator Marco Rubio tweeted that the shooting was "designed & executed to maximize loss of life".

But he said that it was too soon to debate whether tighter gun laws could have stopped it.

"You should know the facts of that incident before you run out and prescribe some law that you claim could have prevented it," he told Fox News.

It's always "too soon", isn't it

After the last shooting is before the next one. We should be in a permanent state of prayer and never question gun culture or laws.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWCRt-SVwAI94IX.jpg

the NRA don't half pay some fucking buck to keep the laissez faire gun-control clique on side.

gotta speculate to accumulate

wtf with people itt talking about video games?!??!

come on nobody's blaming video games to the exclusion of semiautomatic weapon availability, or suggesting the two issues are even remotely comparable. But it doesn't make you Tipper Gore to entertain the idea that maybe it's not helpful that some kids spend the entire day every day after school pretending to murder people

But the kids that would do something like this would very likely find that kind of stimuli elsewhere if video games didn't exist. This shit has nothing to do with video games.

This came out about a month ago: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/research/no-evidence-to-link-violence-and-video-games/

People who have a hazy distinction between playing a violent video game and committing acts of violence probably shouldn't be playing violent video games. I wish parents and educators were better across the board at instilling empathy and critical thinking skills in children, and I wish there were better mental health resources in this country. I've committed endless acts of video game carnage and have been in one fight ever when I was like twelve years old. The problem is not video games, it's the fact that we have not confiscated every gun in the US and thrown them into a volcano. As a nation, we are not psychologically fit for the weight of that responsibility.

I bet most kids at a very, very young age know at least the fundamental pantomime of shooting, how to hold and point a gun, the way people carry weapons in TV shows and movies, and so on. That can't help. Guns are of course what facilitate the worst outcomes, and what make this such an American epidemic, but it's got something to do with video games, and portrayals of violence in pop culture in general, I'm just not sure what or what to do about it. Which is why the focus should stay on guns, not art or entertainment. Ironically, it's probably easier to ban or limit art and entertainment than guns, and gun people probably prefer it that way. Either way, limiting guns will not happen in this country, any more than we will get universal healthcare. We know or at least deeply suspect the solutions we need, but it just won't happen because Americans are by and large stupid/uneducated, contrarian, reactionary, self-defeating, hateful, hurtful, intellectually incurious and so on. We've had our shot. Now it's all just part of our slow, tragic decline as a nation.

OK buddy

We’re never gonna medal in the luge either I just know it

Also I heard they sell video games and movies in Europe. They even make them

perhaps the fucking annual increase in total guns in America has something to do with the goddamn rise in mass shooting https://www.atf.gov/file/89561/download

it's really simple and we all know it

Controlling the spread of ideological viruses such as this one would be a decent start as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_jkPhrddc

*Curbing rather. Control mostly goes the other way, alas.

Either way, limiting guns will not happen in this country, any more than we will get universal healthcare. We know or at least deeply suspect the solutions we need, but it just won't happen because Americans are by and large stupid/uneducated, contrarian, reactionary, self-defeating, hateful, hurtful, intellectually incurious and so on. We've had our shot. Now it's all just part of our slow, tragic decline as a nation.

honestly might as well be taken from the manifesto left by a mass shooter

Fortunately, I am not a psychopath.

I don't think video games make people violent, but they might make violent people more agitated. I don't know. I do know that when people work out they listen to or play music that pumps them up, right? So it has some sort of effect. And when people go to shows, you don't see pits at, I dunno, the 1975, you see them at punk and metal shows. Reducing depictions of smoking in media seems to have had an effect of reduction of smoking. The pervasiveness of porn appears to have a negative effect on the psychology of at least some viewers. These things are all around us, in every country, and while I don't think they have a binary effect, I think they do have a detrimental effect on some people. Which is why, again, the focus should remain on guns and limiting them, and making sure people who need help get treatment. I just heard the FL shooter had been living with his friend's family because his mom died a month or so ago and he had no place to go. That would be rough for most people.

But the NRA and their supporters don't want to help people. And I don't think any progress will be made in my lifetime.

Obviously I am just blathering, because what else can we do at this point? Just talk. If the murder of small children in Connecticut couldn't do anything, if a guy gunning down strangers in a movie theater couldn't do anything, if Columbine couldn't do anything ... the best we've gotten have been active shooter drills in schools, even as the NRA pushes to allow guns in the classroom.

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

so what is he blaming the students here? just STFU and watch your shows

I also watch hella amounts of horror movies and have never chainsawed anyone apart. As have millions of people who do not chainsaw people apart. Entertainment is not the problem.

fyi mr president someone with the same name as the shooter was reported to the fbi as a potential threat and he still managed to murder 17 people

Everything was done that should have been done, except he was given access to fucking guns. Which, like the Newtown shooter, he apparently claimed to have therapeutic effects.

xpost Entertainment is not a problem *for you*. Because you are also not a psychopath.

what else can we do at this point? Just talk.

Join a left-wing org, help push for elected reps who will *actually* work to push back against the gun lobby's influence over politics. Literally nothing short of that will work but there's plenty you can do besides talk.

A coalition to repeal the Second Amendment is a good start too.

I do many of those things and have done many of those things. It really doesn't make a difference, sorry. I live in a historically blue state with two good Senators, in a city that actively tried to restrict guns, and in the case of Chicago (and my local village) they lost in the courts. So now everywhere from the library to the elementary schools have "no guns" signs on the door. Because the legal default is "yes guns." That's just so fucking depressing. There are clear preferences in this country for solutions: for universal health care, for gun control, for DACA, etc. And it just doesn't happen and can't imagine happening any time soon. I feel we've had so, so many chances, and we've thrown them all away. It's inexcusable.

xpost Entertainment is not a problem *for you*. Because you are also not a psychopath.

The whole “but media is where they get the ideas from” argument is as stupid as “the eye is too complicated to happen by chance so there must be a god” argument. I’d go so far as to say it’s simple projection by people too boring to have their own ideas so they just assume that’s how everyone else works too.

I guess Jack the Ripper must have had some kind of fucked up video collection eh?

We have a kid in our neighborhood who was a regular problem, often lashing out in violence at other kids at the park or at school. A few years ago he punched my kid in the face while they were walking home from middle school. We called the police, so that there might be some kind of official record (we knew that a lot of the incidents with him had not been reported to anybody) and intervention or whatever. I also called their principal and talked with her. She couldn't discuss it much for privacy reasons, but she let me know that she was familiar with the kid's behavior and that they had been working with the family to help him. I hope whatever they've got going for him works. I'm fucking terrified that it won't.

those "no guns" signs on my school's doors have faded and now they look like a gun with a faint gray line going through them. i might show my students the frontline doc about the NRA tonight.
worth showing to anyone who will watch
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/gunned-down/

In terms of demands, repealing the Second Amendment would certainly be nice but seems like it might be a hard sell in terms of broad coalition-building (for a variety of reasons). any or all of the five principles outlined in the Emma Caterine piece I linked to before the jump would be an excellent campaign for DSA to take up nationally the way they have with M4A.

I don’t know how many chances you think we’ve had, either. The party that is bankrolled by the firearms industry has had control of the legislature and the highest court for the vast majority of the last four decades.

xxxp, he posted crossly

"You should know the facts of that incident before you run out and prescribe some law that you claim could have prevented it," he told Fox News.

just lmao at any Republican saying this with a straight face

like that Trump tweet...didn't Trump himself roll back a regulation preventing mentally ill people from buying guns?