Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

i blame nightline

just watching him and reading about him, it reminds me of a lot of previous psychopaths who buried everything under a veneer of dull respectability, one where the warning signs were just really, idk, boring. like a quick temper or certain secretive behaviors or being a bit controlling. like Dennis Rader or some other guys. and it brings to mind something that was said in Mindhunter about how psychopaths often don't think there's anything wrong with them and they never seek help, and of course implicit there is that if a psychopath wants to hide their true nature and accomplish something they've been marinating on for awhile, they'll be able to do it because often they come across just like this guy.

you see, it's a mental health issue folks

yeah the amount of effort that he put into essentially becoming a 'mirrors', that is, reflecting mundane behaviour so as not to be noticed *too much*...it's so disturbing to watch. like he knows that trying to be invisible over these days would draw attention. the point is to be doing 'normal' things so that he can carry out his awful massacre and control everything around him. like you just know that he is on those cameras because he wanted to be, and that he probably loved the idea that the entire hotel and its staff were basically his playthings, like he's playing a Sims game or something.

banality of evil right there.

that was the ap headline iirc

the parkland kids were in my old neighborhood bookstore / bistro tonight giving speeches, slam poetry, all the stuff. standing room only. group of a half dozen high schoolers huddled by the hardbacks helping each other rehearse a speech. gonna be a big day tomorrow.

damn, sorry to have missed that. tomorrow should be good.

I still support and would march with these kids were I in the States but Emma is otm here

These proposals are pretty awful. We need to (1) end military presences in school, (2) create point-of-production regulation, and (3) pass laws to create distributor liability for shootings. None of these are on this list. https://t.co/4T9jo2Rira

— Emma Caterine 🌹⚖️💸 (@EmmaCaterine) March 24, 2018

Deregulating mental health privacy laws is probably the worst proposal I’ve ever seen. Law enforcement are not competent to handle mental health issues. We need unarmed crisis response teams. https://t.co/4V8zopb2La

— Emma Caterine 🌹⚖️💸 (@EmmaCaterine) March 24, 2018

Yeah somebody needs to send these high school kids to a seminar on public policy before they can be allowed to talk to reporters

how dare these kids not have completely realized, ready to implement ideas.

when I was 17, the most initiative I could take was signing an email chain letter petition with my Juno mail account saying "Columbine shouldn't happen".

guys like I said I still support them but the mental-health snitching and more cops in schools proposals are actively bad

I agree, just feel like it's not really on them to come up with the ideas and they're at least trying. it'd be more helpful if the people who are actually tasked with solving these problems were actually doing it - so they didn't have to write something like this.

Agreed.

Chicago’s punitive stance on gun violations has contributed to high incarceration rates, particularly in low-income neighborhoods of color, according to a 2016 report from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. The students behind Good Kids Mad City say this approach contributes to a cycle of violence and poverty — and that it doesn't address why people feel the need to carry guns in the first place.

https://theoutline.com/post/3887/fighters-good-kids-mad-city-chicago?zd=1&zi=athc6fyv

eh i understand the pushback toward the most abusable by bad actors portions of their manifesto. especially given *waves arms wildly*

yeah I can absolutely see RWers cherrypicking the worst of the manifesto and saying they're honoring the memories of the fallen or whatever

the parkland kids are probably tough enough to take some good-faith criticism of their ideas. if we agree that they deserve this platform, then we should treat their ideas with the same respect and skepticism that we would an adult, imo

anyway I think the proposals are mostly fine, if very vague. I doubt adding more cops to schools will do much to protect kids. the mental health reporting thing has the potential to be quite dangerous, tho again it’s vague enough to arguably be reasonable. clearly there are some people who are a danger to themselves or others who should not own guns. there are already some laws in place to this effect; the idea that these could be expanded does not strike me as ridiculous on its face

also I think it’s probably important to keep in mind what the goal of these measures is. is it to reduce gun deaths (most of which are suicides) or is it to prevent mass shootings (which represent a tiny fraction of gun deaths)

I spent some time in Benton, KY, the site of the last major school shooting before Parkland. I found a much more conflicted and complicated conversation happening there about guns, gun violence, and what I came to think of as "gun fatalism." https://t.co/ZHML2x0O6d

— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) March 24, 2018

https://jezebel.com/gun-fatalism-is-reasonable-in-a-terrifying-country-1823489725

The crowds have been impressive today.

good posts kevin

I find the mental health one offensively bad but they're smart kids and I think people will be able to convey to them why it's bad

yah it's bad

it's great they're thinking in terms of public policy options, but is anyone looking to these high school kids to come up with realistic solutions? imo it's not about educating this kids about why some of their ideas are misguided, it's about taking the social momentum of their movement and pressure on lawmakers, such that it is, and fusing it with public policy ideas that have already been formed by generations of people studying this and arguing about it for the last 40 years.

i don't mean to diminish their capabilities as policy analysts, but in their position they are much better suited for things like shaming the NRA and marco rubio on national television

stuffy old gun violence analysts, in contrast, have historically been ineffective at shaming the NRA on national television

jfc

This @Reuters photo. pic.twitter.com/IcFnGBbx9r

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) March 24, 2018

lmao there are people on FOX talking about how suspicious it is that there were so many buses dropping off people

it's not the movement's job to have the answers. it's the movement's job to force the question.

there was a critical motif in the kids' speeches today that the politicians have to choose a side, and that those on the wrong side will be held accountable. i'm not sure anyone even said "universal background checks," let alone "let your shrink snitch on you."

Paul McCartney is marching in Central Park. “One of my best friends was killed by gun violence right around here.” #imagine

— Ann Killion (@annkillion) March 24, 2018

Yes thank you hoos

Oh good sir Paul makes it about himself 👏👏👏

oh come on you grump

I find Paul to be kind of annoying but that is cool and not the worst answer

^I'm assuming someone asked him why he was there and he was not just repeating this line through a bullhorn

Delaney Tarr approves

Found out after the march today that @PaulMcCartney was marching with us, starting chants for John. To say that means so much to me is an understatement. My hero, fighting for the loss of his friend, an icon. Incredible.

— Delaney Tarr (@delaneytarr) March 25, 2018

it's not the movement's job to have the answers. it's the movement's job to force the question.

HOOS the movement is pretty ruthless on its own when anybody on the inside gets the answer wrong ime

Your experience is inarguable, but I think hoos was explicitly disagreeing with that approach by defining a better way.

oh my god

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/24/us/march-threw-up-on-stage/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/24/us/march-for-our-lives-emma-gonzalez/index.html

Yeah, both of those were amazing to watch live.

These kids. <3

I stayed home so my wife and daughter could go, but their account was glowing.

Trying to imagine having one's first public speaking gig be in front of basically a million+ people and NOT throwing up, frankly.

HOOS the movement is pretty ruthless on its own when anybody on the inside gets the answer wrong ime

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, March 25, 2018 2:16 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for sure, and i think the tweets simon posted make that point handily--as aimless suggested i happen to think that approach is a misuse of energy, and that the guardian made the wrong call in calling the students into the policy lion's den.

I think that’s a little harsh on “the movement” because as much in-fighting as there is, there are common understandings and coalitions that bring people that aren’t _living politics in their blood_ not just to the ballot box but to marches like today. I think of all my friends marching, only a few have a bunch of aggro ideas about what the puritanically right stances are, and they’re still marching hand in hand with people who just want movement on the issue.

Having well-defined stances is important and you should always be a little critical of your chosen officials when they stray, but it’s all nuanced. For gun violence, I think there are definite experts and few people are going to bang on rhetorical hard-line stances if we see real movement in policy, even not ideal. Anything would be great at this point.

Trying to imagine having one's first public speaking gig be in front of basically a million+ people and NOT throwing up, frankly.

i felt anxious enough on her behalf just watching it to throw up tbh

A friend on FB:

We should be able to hold multiple truths at the same time. One, that the young people today had more nuance and courage in professing obvious differences and pledging solidarity - authentically - than mostly all adults with the hot takes. Can you imagine if being called out to identify your privilege was met with the humility that we have witnessed from these young folks today, not self-flagellating despair among adult activists? I don’t know, because I honestly haven’t witnessed it. I am sure there was a lot that went on behind the scenes, but to an outsider, it seemed like genuine learning.

Second, the gigantic rift between liberal white led gun reform orgs and black led gun violence orgs is decades old, and the former have an obvious leg up to influence post-Parkland policy directives because racism is real and opportunism is rampant. Nothing from the students’ Guardian policy manifesto editorial (which is mostly bad!) is any different from what mainstream GVP orgs have been advocating for, for years. These are the same orgs that responded to Pulse with No Fly No Buy. Their politics are no surprise. Why anyone expects the Neera Tanden variety of Dems to come around to the greater truth is still a mystery to me.

In summary, the policy world is a ruthless battlefield and we cannot expect young people to write the solutions for a radical new world within the month (or be prepared to challenge bad policy with better one) when we’ve been barely hanging on ourselves. They are fortunate to have met kids that deal with this every single day in New Orleans and DC and Chicago - all we should hope for is that their relationships are lasting and transformative, and surpass the strength of *all* the vultures.

Follow some amazing folks at Community Justice Reform Coalition to start - and give the kids a chance.

re mccartney, the march also went right by the dakota

and to be fair he was approached by a reporter, not like he tweeted it or shouted it from a bullhorn. It does come off a bit gauche, but that's Paul. didn't know about the chants. w/e

I cried looking at photos of the march & signs last night. This is the most encouraging thing to happen in America since Obama was elected 10 years ago imo.