Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

i have an unfortunate tendency towards apocalyptic thinking but it's hard not to see this as a side-effect of large parts of america just wholesale embracing nihilism in the face of the climate-related disaster coming down the pipe

i think you're giving people too much credit

I was gonna say.

tom it seems like you feel really strongly about violent video games. I agree that debating whether they should be banned is not the best use of our time, when clearly the most impactful thing we could do is gun control

i did say it was an unfortunate tendency tbf

They’re embracing nihilism for some reason. Or at lease an insane level of self pity that clouds their ability to see other people as fully human. Which is a kind of nihilism — thinking that you are all that matters.

Just want to clarify re: my own statements abt video games upthread that I am by no means suggesting they be banned! And I don't have an impression from those expressing the same concerns itt that they do, either.

The public policy answer to this is gun control + access to mental health care (along with other types of health care.) but something fucked up is happening on a cultural level when this is how 1,624 people choose to handle their despair

keep in mind that figure includes gang violence etc as long as it meets the 4+ people shot in one incident criterion

Gang violence is its own kind of nihilism, but that’s a good point.

I don’t think video games have much to do with this, honestly.

the thought i keep returning to, when people suggest that the answer to mass shootings is arming more people, is that i don't want to ever have to murder anyone, even in self-defence, and i'm sure i'm not alone in feeling that way

how have things gone so far wrong that mainstream thought can routinely include the idea that ordinary citizens should be ready at all times to murder other citizens in preference to making it more difficult for gun violence to occur at all

That's just the way things are in 1872.

There’s a thing where a lot of people tend to se their fellow humans as mostly enemies. Like, they feel surrounded by a hostile world. It’s mostly a right wing tendency but I think it transcends ideology and is an American thing.

i've posted this before but right after sandy hook i was home for the holidays and went to my dad's gym. parents' gyms could be a whole thread in itself, but i was in there changing and these three, for want of a better word, good ol' boys are in there changing. one of them's older, maybe in his 60s. i could see they weren't close friends, but knew each other in passing, from the locker room. and the old guy offers:

"you know how people are saying teachers ought to be armed now"

the two other guys cast a wary eye at him. "well i don't know about that"

the old guy's got a wicked twinkle in his eye and continues:
"i'd take it one step further"

"..."

"i'd arm the students!"

"you'd what now?"

the two other guys are not sure how they should react to this. is he joking? should they agree?

"i'd arm the students... but only students with a 4.0 grade point average would be eligible!"

loud guffaws all around. now they know he's joking. but he's not done...

"i was gonna write that in a letter to the newspaper" he says. the other guys ask him why he didn't.

"cause my wife said they'd probably print it!"

I was sure "arm the teachers" was some South Park reference. But I'm not surprised anymore there's swathes of people in the US that believe more firearms is the way to go tbh.

It will probably take the mass shooting equivalent of the Tet Offensive for anything to change. And by that point the country will be too far gone and we will be forced to withdraw.

My Aussie (by marriage) sister in law really wants her kids to spend a year in the US, so they're moving back for 2019-2020. My mother in law, minus much tact, was incredulous. Like, now, of all times, is when you want to move back to the US and send your kids to school here?

The latest bullshit push I've heard from the right is that the NRA isn't as big as a factor as people claim, because pro gun people are mobilized voters and the money the NRA raises and donates ultimately doesn't make that much of a direct difference. Yeah, but the NRA sure helps them mobilize and vote! This is yet another thing that can be put on the table in November. The NRA/GOP wants to kill your kids and will do everything in their power to stop you from protecting them.

there is something a little mysterious about the hold the nra has on congress given its size and budget relative to other pressure groups

arming faculty and students sounds like a great idea - in fact I'm sure the first responders would probably love it, arriving on scene and finding everyone shooting at one another

Can't wait to see what type of people flock to the teaching profession when open carry becomes an educational SOP. Nothing like learning algebra from a prepper in fatigues!

i'm sure every teacher in the us is perfectly mentally-balanced and adding guns to classrooms wouldn't ever end up with kids getting murdered by their teachers

How long before Trump exploits the failures of the FBI in this case?

If he hasn't already done it, of course.

he's already said the fbi rank and file are good people though so i'm sure he wouldn't ever contradict himself like that

lol @ the thought of a teacher pulling a gun on a student texting in class though

those were the good old days, when dinners came hot out of the oven

if you want a vision of the future, imagine someone with a gun pointing at it someone else with a gun - forever

america, the only nation on earth with a perpetual 320-million-person mexican standoff

I've always found the Far West to be a better metonymy for the US than, say, 'Yankees'.

I also hear that 'Texas' is now slang for 'crazy' in Norway.

Took you long enough, Norway.

probably too busy enjoying the fruits of socialism to look askance at the states

america, the only nation on earth with a perpetual 320-million-person mexican standoff

― albondigas con gas (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 16 February 2018 14:16 (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did u have to

i don't have to do anything on ilx tbf

i don't think i'll ever know true satisfaction until i'm using my trophy skull of Wayne LaPierre as a urinal

i started tearing up at this

Scariest part of it all was knowing my little brother was right above me and not knowing if I would ever see him again. I’ve never really treated him the way he deserved. Not anymore. Seeing his face outside of school was the most relief I had ever felt. My prayers to all. pic.twitter.com/Iq8CHVNXd0

— Uncle Sam Zeif (@SzZeif) February 15, 2018

'are the cops here
my teacher died'

;_;

aw god that's horrible

'my teacher died' is like a punch in the gut

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0-12/27867253_10103208451436598_2478885300314606738_n.jpg?oh=cfd20921511a9cd13f21e4b6eb232717&oe=5A89FF77

omg

There was an angry dad I heard interviewed who had been texting with his daughter, who was hiding in the closet. And then the phone connection went dead and he did not see her again until he discovered her outside the school, safe and sound. Per protocol, I guess the teachers told everybody to turn off their phones, so that noises and light won't attract attention.

One of the many sad outcomes of this happening again and again is that even my kids, who are 10 and 13, know this now happens all the time, that it is just a part of life. My older one, who is about to enter high school, was reading about it on the news, and was aware enough to know that this shooting was worse than usual. The bery idea that there even is a "usual" ...

I honestly don't know how anyone is meant to instill in kids today a sense of safety or meaning or purpose or...Christ, empathy? Honesty? It's utterly heartbreaking.

It feels like kids increasingly have little opportunity to just be kids, to not have to worry about the shit they're going to have to spend the rest of their lives worrying about. Who even knows what kind of long-term mental health toll that's going to take.

Yeah, I tried asking my 13-year-old about, hoping to have a discussion about it or something. He was just impassive about it: "Oh that thing in Florida? Yeah, you think it could never happen to you, but it could happen to you. *shrugs*"

xps

yea I said to my wife yesterday "good thing our kids are in day care, no one's going to shoot up a day care" and then realized someone's totally going to shoot up a day care in the next few years

After Newtown my kids' elementary school sent out an email announcing that there would be an assembly the next morning to discuss the shooting w/ kids. My younger daughter was in kindergarten at the time and we pushed back hard on that. Obv if they came to us w/ questions we wouldn't hide the truth from them, but there's nothing to be gained from spending time on it at that age. No way to explain it, no way to make sense of it. Fortunately the school thought better of it and cancelled the assembly.

They are 11 and 15 now, this is the first one I've really spend time talking w/ them about it at any length, watching the reports on tv etc.

Shitty times.

fuck those brother texts upthread are just devastating

here's a list of massacres in the UK. there are about thirty. going back to 61 AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Great_Britain

the first massacre i heard about growing up was the one in San Ysidro, and it seemed surreal and completely out of left field, like a one-off. A guy walking into a place and killing 20+ people he didn't know for no reason? It didn't even register as a possibility to me as a kid. and then there wasn't really another one until the Luby's massacre, and i had a similar reaction. it didn't feel like a trend it felt like lightning striking twice.

i'll never understand it. every single one of these stories has a timeline on wikipedia and i get PTSD just reading about them, so i don't anymore. Port Arthur gave me a nightmare the night after I read the wiki.

"gun control doesn't work because criminals don't care about the law by definition - they will find a way to get guns if they want them"

vs

"our current laws are more than adequate, we just need to enforce them"

both of these things can't be true simultaneously, but you hear them trotted out by gun nuts every time, sometimes within the same conversation