Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

There aren't any European countries that are awash with guns in comparison to the USA, not even Serbia.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Monday, May 22, 2023 9:48 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

im talking Sweden. True, nowhere near as many (21 guns per 100 people) but still, all those IKEA instruction and still no daily mass shootings.

They prefer killing themselves over killing other people over there.

xpost 21 guns per 100 people vs. 120 guns per 100 people is a HUGE difference

also their licensing requirements are far far more restrictive than the US

https://www.lifeinsweden.net/sweden-gun-laws/#:~:text=Please%20note%20that%20it%20is,transporting%20process%20when%20transporting%20guns.

They prefer killing themselves over killing other people over there.

Swedes may dispute this - they claim to be just more honest in reporting about suicides, rather than actual higher rates. The US has had a lot of 'accidental deaths' while someone was 'cleaning their gun' etc.

xpost 21 guns per 100 people vs. 120 guns per 100 people is a HUGE difference

HUGE enough to cover the variation in murder rate by gun?

or what, exactly, are you arguing here?

What are you arguing? That if the average number of guns was the same Americans would still be killing more people because we are violent savages?

there was a story in the wsj about this just yesterday. Sweden had 62 gun murders last year (population ~10.5M), which the article said was 1/6 the US rate. so...~1/6 the number of guns as the US, 1/6 the number of murders? it also said that rate is 30x (!) London's.

link to the article

xp im asking what you're arguing.

you're on a very strange run of posts itt imo

What are you arguing? That if the average number of guns was the same Americans would still be killing more people because we are violent savages?

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, May 23, 2023 12:37 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes

And why wouldn't you be? You're fed a solid diet of highly individualized, us versus them (but really me versus everyone), fear and resentment from day nought. You are taught to treat your country like a beloved sports team even though that team, your government, is literally killing and bankrupting millions of their own citizens and somehow making you think its another citizen or group of citizens fault. We all know this but no one will ever do anything about it because no-one seems to understand the govt works for us, we dont work for them. Above all, in good times and bad, one must stand behind the team.

funny thing about american exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally shitty.

and you could be exceptionally great

sunny otm

There it is

Americans have the murder gene

I can’t tell who is being serious here anymore.

i can't either but we are veering towards "the irishman has a natural tendency to drink and violence due to their skull shape" areas

No, that's the Scots.

I suppose pulling it into % gun ownership and overall shootings was a poor start away from mass shootings which like it or not is pretty inarguably something associated strongly as a modern american phenomenon

Might have something to do with all the guns here. I dunno.

we all have the murder gene.

Heavy amount of firearms + high social inequality + lack of social connection + slowly cascading collapse of infrastructure both civil and physical

all contribute. But also a deliberate prevention of any ability or process to try to address this stuff, too.

The Wild West never really ended..

We're even back to shooting wolves again.

murder gene

Ahem

https://people.com/thmb/IJLqJz3GkGR2_HCQVKcoxA22sg8=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(644x309:646x311)/gene-simmons-kiss-091922-4d67183a82c44ee6963b22a9e2f74cdc.jpg

Xpost Jesus you can just delegate us holmes

*relegate

lol but i fuckin hate a missed landing on a decent pun

And why wouldn't you be? You're fed a solid diet of highly individualized, us versus them (but really me versus everyone), fear and resentment from day nought. You are taught to treat your country like a beloved sports team even though that team, your government, is literally killing and bankrupting millions of their own citizens and somehow making you think its another citizen or group of citizens fault. We all know this but no one will ever do anything about it because no-one seems to understand the govt works for us, we dont work for them. Above all, in good times and bad, one must stand behind the team.

― But who are we doing it versus? (sunny successor), Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Nothing that exceptional about this. Throughout Europe there are nationalist movements. Groups are demonised by politicians to divert attention from actual problems. Sweden has recently elected hard right politicians. Sweden might not be as unequal as parts of America but it has poor people in it. Migrants are demonised.

If you regulate gun use and reduce its use you get these shootings down. But in the US it might be too late for that.

It’s sort of funny that the person suggesting an enormous country with a large and diverse population is filled entirely with amoral gun-toting lunatics has the user ID initials of “SS,” cuz the whole suggestion is fucking ludicrous and fascistic. Anyone who believes that kind of rhetoric has been lost to a bankrupt and hopeless vision that also isn’t borne out on the ground.

its funny that a point made by someone with table twice in their username isnt something that could bear any weight

ok now someone do me

tell me why what i said doesn’t bear any weight but the ridiculousness of ss’s post does.

“this entire country is filled with bloodthirsty idiots” that is fucking absurdly reductive and insulting.

tbh i expected at least an attempt to do something with my username

2/10 and only that because tbf its in irish

ok now someone do me

― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac)

It's funny that a person whose first three letters of his name come from the protagonist of The Beastmaster

thats better

Seeing as this discussion now has people suggesting the US has a "murder gene", I'll chime in, years later, once again, and probably get shouted-at about it, with what I personally think is The Main Difference Between the USA and everywhere else, and the biggest contributing factor to all of this: CCW and open carry.

To be clear, I was mocking the psychoanalyzing of Americans

The national narrative surrounding Chicago is of course overblown, but maybe not as overblown as I'd like. One of our local middle schools a mile away went on lockdown just as school let out yesterday because there were shots fired outside.

It doesn't take many maggots on my steak for me to consider it "filled with maggots."

Refrigerate your meats dude

Now is not the time

As a reasonable starting point, let's assume that the maggotty-ness of any given steak is explained 50% by exposure to flies, and 50% by the genetics of the cow.

The Taco Bell Curve

Refrigerate your meats dude

― Every post of mine is an expression of eternity (Boring, Maryland)

Uhh, Oh yeah.

https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-florida-beach-shooting-93dda56246a69d8913f35349c52d83c5

Question to parents: how prevalent are toy guns still?

I was reflecting earlier on how fucked up it was that, growing up in the '90s, toy guns were still prevalent and relatively uncontroversial (except among parents deemed crunchy granola types). I never thought about it at the time, but it's wild how the first thing kids are taught to associate guns with are playthings--and later on, deadly force. I had cowboy revolvers that used caps, a mini-Tommy gun that made noise, water guns... and those aren't even counting less realistic gun toys like laser blasters or Nerf. (Not trying to make a correlation, just reflecting on how I never questioned this bizarre thing until now.)

There are still lots of water pistols/rifles and Nerf guns, but they are all brightly colored so they can't be mistaken for real guns by the pigs.

My now almost 15 year old son grew up playing with nerf guns, but I don't remember ever seeing any toy gun which even remotely looks like a real gun.