Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

I'll just never make peace with the fact that millions of people in this steaming cesspit of a country have decided 100% that dead kids are an acceptable price to pay so Nervous Nestor can cosplay a fucking soldier to pick up his footlong at Subway.

all these politicians going "it's a mental health issue, killers gonna kill" need to hurl themselves directly into the sun as quickly as possible. like haven't you all spent the last 3 years actively trying to get as many people killed by COVID as possible? an experiment which actually worked, as America, the richest country on the planet, somehow wound up with by far the highest death rate per capita of any major nation?

they don't see it as an acceptable price to pay or a tradeoff, they see it as the optimal outcome for keeping people living in fear

Not to become too philosophical, but:

christians, jews, muslims, sikhs, marxist humanists, psychoanalysts, existentialists, poets and others have their own ideas of how one can find meaning and even joy in life even though life is filled with pain. fucking hamlet was able to reconcile himself to the tragic nature of existence by the end of act 5. perhaps struggling with these questions, this deep mystery, is itself a fulfilling way to spend one's time, even if one never reaches a state of something like faith

The "uniquely American thing" about it is that at most of our history, you know you'll be hated by most people you also hated but loved and even worshipped as a hero by a sick subset of the population. Win-win

Look at how many people cheered Loughner shooting Gabrielle Giffords or the Planned Parenthood "no more dead babies" shooter. You get to become a Messiah to some people.

Right now conservatives imagine that we are cheering this particular shooting since Christians died, as if we'd be happy that young elementary school children were violently shot to death.

I'll just never make peace with the fact that millions of people in this steaming cesspit of a country have decided 100% that dead kids are an acceptable price to pay so Nervous Nestor can cosplay a fucking soldier to pick up his footlong at Subway.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

beautifully put

Family Guy is of course terrible now but one bit that actually summed the death cult up welll was one of them accidentally shoots Charlton Heston and apologizes and as he's dying he says "it's ok, it's your right as an American citizennnn..."

My mother this morning said "if it were their kids, we'd hear a different tune", but we wouldn't. They're ok selling out their own kids, even themselves, for guns

if it were their kids the teachers would all have AR-15s by now

you're right, that IS the only concession they're willing to make - arming teachers

(nevermind how many teachers have accidentally discharged weapons on campus)

unless they're queer teachers. of course, us queers have no business teaching kids at all. we're all terrorist groomers, apparently.

yeah are they really doing the "teachers should have guns" thing this time? seems like a big swerve from "teachers shouldn't pick books"

I think I've said it before, but can't help but think back to the teacher I had in high school who used to whip erasers at kids and once threw a chair at a another kid in anger. Definitely a good idea to give that guy an AR-15.

Well don’t worry if a teacher shoots some students we can just start arming the kids

I've posted this before, but this happened at my high school: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-11-25-9311250178-story.html

holy shit, how had I not heard that one before?

High school football coaches are fucking insane. One of the main reasons I quit after one season (beyond the fact that I wasn't that good anyway) was our sociopathic coach who, among other charming traits, would tape pictures of Charles Manson's infamous crazy eyes photo to the front of our lockers for "motivation".

He was trying to motivate you to take drugs, hang out with young women and commit murder?

it isn't as if counseling is fixing a fucking transmission on a car

Neanderthal otm here. "Get therapy" can be fine advice but not all therapy is equally helpful, not all therapists are equally good, and not all people go into therapy with an open mind and willingess to change.

Also frogbs bringing truth:

I think about Lauren Boebert (whose own district had a mass shooting not that long ago) filming herself doing cartwheels down the hall of the Capitol 2 days ago. at least during the Dubya era they tried to put on a caring face. now they're just straight up saying "can't do anything about it, sorry, stop bothering me". Not just saying they don't care but straight up rubbing it in your face. Yes they are uniquely evil but also - millions and millions of Americans are voting for these people. They put TRUMP signs on their lawns year round.

Can we bookmark that for the next time somebody says both parties are the same, Democrats are no better, etc. etc.?

xp O wait, here comes tabes to say something pretty much like that, never mind

i know i'm being a woodpecker here, but i don't think both parties are the same. i think both parties are making things worse rather than making them better.

Ok but why vote for the lesser of two evils?

Because it's... LESS. EVIL. Duh.

Yeah, both school shootings and turmpism seem like "outward projection of intense internal negativity" and self-loathing...

Every time I see Steve Bannon I just think that guy really hates himself and wants to see the world burn... he may have more ambition and resources, and be thinking on a grander scale, but at root it's the same motivation as any school shooter...

Ok but why vote for the lesser of two evils?

Because it's... LESS. EVIL. Duh.

― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin)

it's really not worth my trouble to engage with you on this topic any further. you do you boo.

love to have words put in my mouth

regardless of the broader q, I don't know if gun control is the best issue to get excited about what a difference a D makes

a D doesn't make nearly as much as a difference as people tend to think, i got rid of mine and honestly it was nbd

XD

the endless loop continues

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/active-shooter-louisville/?id=98470141

this is literally fucking insane... kill the citizens, spare the AR-15:

The mayor of Louisville has said Kentucky law would make him a criminal if he destroys the assault-style rifle used by a gunman in Monday’s killing of five bank employees in his city... The killer’s rifle was confiscated after police shot him dead, and Kentucky law requires officers to send it to state police officials to sell at auction.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/11/louisville-shooting-assault-style-rifle

I mean, is it really all that insane? This country has demonstrated time and time and time again that guns are worth more than human lives, so it was perhaps inevitable it would be codified into law.

I am not aware of any other culture that fetishizes guns in the way that U.S. culture does.

I mean, is it really all that insane?

IDK, here in California they mostly do gun buybacks - not auctions of weapons that have been used in a massacre
What kind of psycho would want to own something like that? (eh, that's a rhetorical question)

the fact that several Congressmen were proudly wearing AR-15 pins and lobbying to make it "the official gun of the United States" felt particularly psychotic. that would feel insane even in a country whose citizens weren't routinely being slaughtered by it.

Any gun that's confiscated by police (whether or not it's been used in a crime) should be melted down. Period.

xpost - Fwiw, Andy, I wasn't pushing back at you, it most definitely is insane and the thought that someone out there would be willing to bid on that gun makes me physically sick, I just am so fucking exasperated at this country's total willingness to sacrifice itself at the altar of gun ownership.

stuff like the pins & official gun status feels like we're in an on-the-nose ep of Star Trek, where they visit a planet with a laughably hyperfocused and allegorical culture

Jon, I totally got your point and I agree - there are legions of kooks who prefer the status quo of near-weekly gun massacres to anything like sensible regulations

"Here Bobby, hold this one! It was used to mow down five innocent people just last year, so you know it's a real killin' machine! Ain't that somethin else?"

xxp "Bones, did you leave your phaser on that planet?"

the important thing to remember about conservatives is that they are perpetually terrified, they honestly believe crime is up every single year and they think every authority figure wants to harvest the blood of their children. their entire belief system revolves around half the country being under the spell of Satan. I dunno, maybe right wing media does have a small little role in all this

I assume that when drugs are confiscated they are similarly put back on the streets? I mean, waste not want not, right?

I mean I'm sure we're headed to a moment when a gun confiscated after one massacre is then sold at auction and used in another massacre. Anyone know where St*ph*n P*dd*ck's stash is these days?

I’m sure republicans bid on these guns to remind themselves of the evil they cause.

I assume that when drugs are confiscated they are similarly put back on the streets?

https://i.redd.it/a6atn1h0nbwz.jpg

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/16/us/dadeville-alabama-mass-shooting/index.html

Sweet 16 birthday party, 4 dead, 20+ injured

We're at the point where people may be afraid to hold celebrations in public because "it puts everyone I love in one place at the same time, what if there's a shooting?"

That this was a 16th birthday shows there's no end to the cruelty of the gunpidemic

"Violent crime has no place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge," the governor added.

The governor is a strong supporter of second amendment rights - the right to keep and bear arms - and last year signed legislation abolishing the requirement in Alabama to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public.

And another... one a week now, pretty much

Man arrested in Maine shootings that left four dead and three wounded

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/19/maine-shootings-bowdoin-highway

more like one a day

Checks out, this year is 109 days old:

The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit watchdog, defines a mass shooting as any shooting in which “four or more [people are] shot or killed, not including the shooter”. It has counted 165 such incidents in the US this year.