Yeah, I changed to automatic registration after voters voted yes to voting. Now you have to explicitly state you don’t want to be registered if you don’t, and any drivers license or ID related paperwork automatically registers you or updates your registration as needed.
Weirdly, passing a bunch of voter equity legislation initiated by the voters shortly resulted in a change in legislative makeup that better represented voters, and is weirdly more in favor of voting rights.
Crazy how that works.
Speaking from experience, the former is extremely likely. Given the increase in sociopathic driving, I’ll not be riding on slabs again anytime soon. I really don’t want to get hit by another truck.
Every motorcycle driver I’ve ever encountered was a shitty driver. They all do dangerous shit for no reason beyond their thrills and act like complete dicks on the road.
Growing up weird and poor in a very conservative and arrogant part of the prairies, I was bullied relentlessly. The teachers never did anything unless it was me fighting back, to which it was suspension and I was a bad kid.
As high school came along, I grew more and more violent to the point I wasn’t a loser or a tough guy, but a snap case. The other kids thought I was edgy, the parents thought I was bound for prison, and the teachers probably had a beer when I dropped out.
My mom didn’t know what to do. And this was in a time where if your kid was in therapy, it’s was your failure as a parent. Combined with my disgust at the idea that I was what was broken, it was off the table. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I went for psychological help.
By then, I was so suicidal and gone that I wouldn’t be near ok until my late thirties. In my mid forties now, I look back and see myself as the potential shooter. I’m holding back my emotions right now, thinking of it. Fortunately, there were no guns at my disposal back, back then is how I feel looking back. I don’t know if I’d be able to hurt anyone like that, but I’d fuck myself up.
I lay a lot of blame on a system that allowed it to happen. In a community where open racism and homophobic views were the norm at the time, teachers were as judgmental as the students in some situations. Now maybe if I were white, it’d be easier, but even the broke white kids didn’t get any breaks. Especially from the teachers.
Look at me go, a meme has me fucked up thinking back and dumping online. But yeah, there it is.
I’d like to close by saying the town I grew up in is a far different place now. I’ve moved back and feel good here. I see teachers and bullies who don’t make eye contact, will not recognize me at all (which is my favorite) and the occasional happy to see you moments. I don’t communicate well in public these days, so it makes it ultra awkward, much like being in high school, talking to students you barely know.
I can relate somewhat though probably not to the same degree, I think sometimes people are just assholes. Which is why I do my best to just let my actions speak by just doing my best to help out.
Even if I get angry with my words, I’m usually very direct about what I’m upset about, what bothers me is the degree to which people are often passive aggressive in a way that forces you to respond differently from how you normally would to begin with.
What if, and hear me out on this one, the problem isn’t which “-ism” is prevalent. The real problem is that ANY form of power or society needs checks and balances. If those are missing or not enforced, then everything goes to shit. It’s a balancing act, not just a matter of black or white.
The whole point of Communism is to balance power away from the 1% and back to the masses. The fact that it is an “-ism” and has decades of propaganda demonozing it, doesnt make that any less true.
balance power away from the 1% and back to the masses
By installing a dictator...every time it's attempted...
Maybe not do that next time and try doing it from the bottom up instead of top-down🏴. It's much more work to convince people that this is a solution and have them help willingly instead of forcing them to go along with it. We tried the Marxist-Leninist way dozens of times, let's try the anarchist way. A capitalist boot or a communist boot on my neck makes no difference to me, it's still a boot on my neck.
That is a problem of how revolution works, not a problem of communism.
Create a power vaccuum, and those who had the most power will STILL have the most influence. Even if you literally killed all the old power, you would be immediately creating an authority structure with the legal authority of capital punishment, which many, MANY communists wouldn’t agree with.
The problem is horrible people exist, NOT the concept of communism. For every reason people shit on Communism, there are twenty valid reasons to shit on capitalism. Neither system works in the real world on its own. To pretend like capitalism is magical in comparison is literally failing to observe reality.
The rich and powerful constantly shit on political action because it IS effective. They do not enjoy going through the effort of retaining power through internal conflicts and ESPECIALLY not actual revolutions. Why would they EVER tell you the truth?
I’m certainly not advocating for toppling other countries’ governments, but honestly the fact that so many countries end up not being able to withstand the attacks from outside is kind of a mark against them.
Well, that’s the problem with bottom-up government, isn’t it? It is better in most ways, but the local empire will invade you at the first chance they get.
If I remember correctly, the fall of the Paris commune to a Franco-German alliance was what led the early Marxists to embrace a centralised system. Of course, that brings its own problems, as power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Rojava is doing exactly as I suggested. Spreading the power out. It's a rare bird among the many communist attempts. I was actually going to offer it up as an example.
The whole point of Communism is to balance power away from the 1% and back to the masses
But there needs to be some governing body that is responsible for determining how the power and wealth is distributed. Per the OP’s point: if the proper guardrails are not in place, control of that governing body will eventually shift towards a person or party who corrupts it for their own purposes. It doesn’t matter what the “point” of a system is, corrupt people will always attempt to take the wheel.
This was legitimately a problem after ww2 where the politically active communists were more heavily involved in the war and a bunch of the human infrastructure of (especially local)democracy got killed by nazis
The important part is it’s not an authoritarian running the show and calling it “communism” or " democracy" when the reality is it’s just a plain old oligarchy with a new title applied.
This is why Xi Jinping lives in a giant gilded castle and any negative thing said anywhere about him is censored, just like every other citizen. Everyone’s equal.
Just look at “balance power away from 1%” in China, Ruzzia or North Corea. Do you really like it? Or you just read books and not looking at real life examples?
The solution is either housing (ethical) or genocide (unethical).
Provision of housing for the poor can be achieved by means of social housing programs. These can exist in both communist and capitalist societies. E.g. the Netherlands is capitalist, but there is almost no homelessness thanks to its social housing program. The few homeless that are present are choosing this way of life and are therefore not part of problem.
Every iteration of gun control, with few exceptions, carves out exceptions for LEOs and Military. If you want this to stop a good start would be making these guys have to follow the laws the rest of us do, because if you campaign for more of the same from your lawmakers, I guarantee there will still be exceptions for the people who protect the rich.
None of them were using muzzle loaders. The death toll and injury count would have been drastically lower if it took roughly 30 seconds to a minute to reload the guns per shot.
Exceptions for active military can work because they are subject to the far more strict ucmj. Cops are a real problem though, they kill 1000 or so people every year with minimal consequence.
The ucmj being strict is worth little against someone taking up his guns and going rampage.
Why does anyone from the Police or Military need to own firearms privately? The only reason i could think of is training, but that is a responsibility of the employer, to give enough training to the cops and soldiers.
Being able to choose either of those myself is unarguably the freest. The real question is the conflicting rights. If the right to own guns is conflicting with the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness then we need to find a resolution. Legally speaking when two rights collide like this the they typically try and preserve as much of both rights as possible. Thats not what every gun control advocate wants though. Everyone has a different version of how it should shake out.
you should clarify what exactly you mean by ‘free’, cause as an outsider it just seems like you have the freedom to get indiscriminatly mowed down by high powered rifles owned by mentally ill spree shooters.
you should clarify what exactly you mean by ‘free’, cause as an outsider it just seems like you have the freedom to get indiscriminatly mowed down by high powered rifles owned by mentally ill spree shooters.
As an insider it seems like this too.
But to the guy you replied to it's most likely the freedom to have a gun which you never do those bad things with, while also plugging your ears regarding the reality that the same laws protecting your ability to have a gun and not do those bad things are enabling that endless stream of indiscriminate deaths by the folks who do those bad things.
And although I don't know him personally, he probably also deflects to mental health being the cause while continuing to vote for the party that both is responsible for our lack of mental health infrastructure and also refuses to consider restrictions on gun ownership.
This argument would make more sense if this free society wasn’t the same society that would jail me for years for wanting to occasionally do some cocaine. As it stands, this is not a free society and this argument isn’t one.
That’s where the gun culture comes in. America has none, they just have guns and no protective, strict culture of do’s and don’ts around them. Not everything has to be restricted by law if a society decides that there are still rules. We have a social rule that when we sneeze or cough we put something in front of our mouth. It is not a law, but it is a healthy social rule that is helpful; everyone accepts that they are not free to sneeze in other people’s faces. You need either gun laws or gun culture, Switzerland chose more culture, Germany more law, both work. America chose … more guns and the “freedom” to shoot them in other people’s faces. That’s stupid and dangerous.
Not so fun fact cops were invented to prevent people like us from stealing crates in the harbor 200 years ago. They used to be just upper class people who patrolled the port. They didn’t always exist, so it’s just as possible for them to cease to exist. A society without goons in blue is possible. Cops protect the owners of the country. Why can’t we commoners set up our own force to protect us the regular people?
What’s unsurprising is how strictly gun control is implemented on US military bases and navy ships.
If you live in barracks on-base and own a personal gun, if often has to be stored in the base’s firearm storage. The only people who can walk around armed are MPs or people on their way to/from authorized training. Even if you have a concealed carry permit for the state the base is in, you can’t conceal carry in the base. If you’re on your way to the base’s firing range and stop to get gas at the base’s gas station, you can’t leave your gun in your car while you go into the convenience store at the gas station unless your car is locked in your trunk. Often even a paintball gun has to be stored in the base armory.
Keep in mind these aren’t rules for random civilians. These are the rules for people who have already had to pass extensive firearms training courses.
It’s pretty insane that random untrained civilians have far fewer restrictions on guns than members of the military on a military base.
I understand why it seems strange that the Military has stricter regulations on weapons than civilians but honestly thats a good thing to me. Not saying the level of rules on civilians is fine the way it is, however soldiers are quite literally tools of and representative of the US government, what they do, the US government does, or at the very least is accountable for. Often times what they are doing they are doing to citizens (or soldiers) of other countries as well. A random US citizen doesn’t represent the government, but an active soldier is very much representetive of theirs. From the governments POV its like self preservation.
Aside from all that, it’s just sane to lock down weapons.
The military knows how dangerous they are, so they don’t let people on military bases just wander around with them. They’re carefully controlled. It’s just insanity that outside the walls the rules are less strict.
The lack of laws around weapon storage are wild. As a part of gun culture I can tell you in the US the gun culture around you is going to determine how safe the area is from guns, and in no small part due to storage habbits that somehow come down to the culture rather than the law. When I see divisions between red and blue state gun crime, it makes intament sense to me having seen how gun culture is in each place. Even the conservatives in liberal areas are generally more careful with weapons than the conservatives in area where they are the majority. Advertising is another problem that imo is a massive contribution to the negative aspects of US gun culture. Not many outside of the culture would see this but if you go to a web site that sells gun accessories and buy something, just wait for the bonkers catalogue they send you in the mail later. For me it looked like a mall ninjas paradise, with just enough inflammatory marketing to not be punished for it, and if we can’t reign that in as well I fear all we will be doing is chnging what type of gun the next shooting will be done with.
Extensive firearms training is a bit of a stretch. Yes combat jobs get plenty of range time, but many only get a basic refreshers as needed (before deployment)
But yes military bases are pretty strict compared to outside the fence
I’m not aware of any federal exemptions to gun laws for military/ex-military citizens.
The only ones I’ve seen relate to state gun law in e.g. AZ, where if military/ex-military want a conceal carry permit, the training requirement is waived. You still have to submit an application with fingerprints and everything to DPS. (Which is kinda moot anyway, since AZ citizens who can federally own a firearm can also open/conceal carry.)
Fuck Reagan. He created this shithole of a situation and ruined this country. I’m happy he died of Alzheimers and simply pray he was terrified and miserable in the last moments of his life.
Reagan dismantled the mental health institutions which were commonly abusive to patients and featured no objective pathway to release for those committed. They were basically prisons for the mentally ill and undesirable that hadn’t already committed crimes. They did successfully isolate a handful of truly dangerous people though.
The second amendment isn’t what is causing mass shootings. Mass shootings are a recent and regional phenomenon that haven’t existed (or been incredibly rare) in many instances with just as many guns
The 2a doesn’t, or didn’t until 2010, make reasonable gun control outside government legislation.
It was a sharp shift to the constitution first in 2008 at the federal level and then applied to the states under the doctrine of incorporation in 2010.
Gun nuts like to pretend it is some eternal constant, or more likely most of them simply don’t know the law here and are just parroting the gun lobby take on things, but it’s a straightforward fact that the individualized right to own guns didn’t even really exist until 2008 and the near complete inability to pass any gun laws didn’t exist until 2010.
The 2a was reinterpreted very recently. Before 2008 it wasn’t well defined and most assumed the bit about militias had something to do with it. Scalia basically is the one who decided to edit out that part of the constitution by calling it a preamble, which is extremely against the fundamental principles of constitutional interpretation which is to assume every word was written for a reason.
And for the record I like guns and am for gun policies that allow sane and healthy adults to have guns.
I have been to a lot of gun shows in my day and for all I know, what you wrote might be the modern legal argument or whatever as far as libs on the joke of our SCOTUS; but I can personally vouch for the absolutely confirmed existence of insane “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” gun libertarians, sov cits, white supremacy, tree of liberty watered with the blood of the patriot, cult compound guys since at least the 70s, and undoubtedly before that, and I’ve seen the typewritten manifestos to prove it.
If anything the 2A guys are WAY more moderate than they used to be. The old guard of rednecks before my time all had a bunch of basically illegal shit that was grandfathered into being quasi legal, not because it was a good idea, but because the ATF didn’t feel like losing all their field agents.
Could not disagree more with what you said. Reagan doing a heel turn on his nut job electorate and dramatically restricting gun rights as governor because of the black panthers is def peak radicalized shit for libertarians working their way into a more coherent political systems theory, though.
I didn’t say anything about Reagan. If you are saying “Fuck Reagan” then we don’t disagree about anything important so far as Reagan is concerned.
As for it not being a legal right in the USA that’s a straightforward fact. It was DC vs. Heller, a 2008 case where a Washington DC law was found to be unconstitutional which is the first case where such a law restricting access to handguns was found to be unconstitutional. There were plenty such laws prior to 2008 that survived legal challenges which is what proves the legal right to own a gun didn’t exist prior. But in 2008 the Supreme Court stated the law was unconstitutional at the federal level (DC being a federal district) establishing an individualized right to guns for the first time.
And it was in 2010 that this was extended to additionally restrict the law making power of states, in addition to the federal government, since by default the constitution is understood to restrict the federal government and not the states, but the poorly defined legal doctrine of “incorporation” basically says some bits are applied to restrict states as well.
In the sense of having an individualized legal right to own a gun, prior to 2008 it didn’t exist.
As for ruby ridge types saying shall not be infringed sure, I’m sure many of them advocated the maximalist interpretation way back when that the courts later adopted in 2008, but up until at least the late 90s the idea that weapons could be regulated wasn’t even controversial and the maximalist position could then be called mostly fringe and was only just beginning to emerge as a position a suit wearing serious legal professional would advocate. Bill Clinton banned a bunch of them in 1994 and no one really blinked an eye at the constitutionality of it and the federal assault weapon ban of 1994 survived legal challenges that it definitely would not have survived after 2008 and DC vs. Heller.
The NRA became a lot more activist in the 80s and 90s and really it was their activism that pushed the once-fringe idea that the constitution required largely unrestricted access to weapons into the mainstream.
Which requires editing out an entire sentence by calling it a prefatory clause, a preamble, which flies in the face of the fundamentals of constitutional interpretation which requires the assumption that each word was written for a reason.
I think we live in very different worlds. People absolutely lost their shit over Clinton’s bans.
Legal interpretation doesn’t always match up to what people see as their right and how aggressively they will enforce that right until the courts catch up to where they are. You’re saying it happened with guns and we all just saw it happen with the religious extremists that run this country and abortion.
Unfortunately, this the correct way to view the legal system, as a means to an end that can be lobbied or bullied into getting what you want. Even more unfortunately, liberals view it as inviolable holy scripture handed down by God that must be honored regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Seeing it as your right, having an expectation that it should be a right, isn’t the same as being a legal right though.
You could have said you disagreed with the court but unless you’re sitting on that court you can disagree all you want and it actually just doesn’t mean anything in terms of changing the reality that it’s not up to you what legal rights are or how the constitution is interpreted because that’s what the Supreme Court is for - and it says so in the constitution.
A legal right is a constructed and formal concept. A legal right simply does not exist unless the courts say it does even if you strongly feel it should exist. That’s what I’m saying.
And since 2008 that legal right has existed but before then it simply didn’t.
And I’m not a liberal man. I’m not even anti-guns.
I am a progressive and you probably view the terms progressive and liberal as synonyms but they aren’t.
In fact youre the one who is appealing to an idealism here, and in that sense you’re more of a liberal than I am even if I’m closer to them in the sense or being a progressive. You’re pointing to a right existing in some almost metaphysical sense, ie you’re saying that because people felt it should be a right you’re saying it in some sense existed. Which is liberal idealism.
Look, we probably aren’t actually very far in terms of what we think sensible gun policy should be since I think if you’re in Montana or whatever then yeah sure a rifle makes a lot of sense and can be a lot of fun and you pointed to the more modern and moderate 2a types which probably places you actually not far from me in terms of what we would agree sensible gun laws could be.
What I said is that the legal right to own a gun was created in 2008 and that is a straightforward fact. It’s DC vs. Heller. 2008. Look it up if you want to. Going on about how some people really felt it should be a right before then doesn’t change that, and it is also a fact that if you were to ask a mainstream legal scholar in the 80s or early to mid 90s you would have to look into some pretty partisan political camps to find someone who would have advocated the current interpretation that was established recently in 2008.
But of course since the late 90s and certainly in the late 2000s you can find a lot of them. That’s also a fact.
On the off chance this question was asked in earnest:
The typical deflection from the US right is that the real problem is that we need to put more effort into addressing mental health. (and IMO there is some truth to that)
However, Reagan (R) dismantled funding for our mental health infrastructure and was responsible for the closing of many mental health treatment centers, and Republicans since then have (to my knowledge) voted against every effort to resurrect it.
They won't support restrictions on gun ownership because they say the problem is mental health, but they won't support spending on mental health either. (Most likely because they seem to oppose anything that would actually help people who suffer.)
The system is fucked and lacks funding, oh well let’s throw it out. Regan was okay with this because he, and almost all politicians, don’t have to live amidst it. I’m not a fan of electing people who say “it doesn’t work and it doesn’t have a chance of working so let’s not do anything about it”.
There are plenty of examples of systems that work, if ours doesn’t work then I expect elected officials to do something about it, not spit into the wind.
Dismissing the issue as saying all mental health institutions were shit back then and he got rid of them for good reasons is just as bad as saying mass shooters issue is mental health not guns. You’re hiding behind the obvious solutions. Manage the amount of access to guns, especially for people with mental health problems. Put funding, work, policies, mandates into those mental institutions, don’t just fucking get rid of them who the fuck is that gonna help in the end?
The Second Amendment is possibly one of the most frequently and wilfully misinterpreted pieces of writing in the history of humanity. Right next to the bible.
Anything and everything that politicians propose to protect children, I am automatically against. It doesn’t matter how good it sounds, if they say anything about protecting children, I’m opposed to it.
This is because they know that ‘protect children’ are magic words that let them get away with almost anything, and that’s genuinely about the only time they say that anyway. Basically nothing the government does is actually to protect children.
We had a recreational marijuana referendum in my state and the opposition signs said, “Save the Children.” From what? I have no idea. Unsurprisingly, the vote failed.
Of course, it really helped that the state legislature sued to halt the referendum on grounds of improper procedure which caused the referendum to be put on the ballot as a special election instead of the mid-terms ballot. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, by the way.
The shit some people will do to stop other people from having a good time.
Sometimes the best memes are made by those who are furthest away from the subject matter. I’m over here with the 9¢ green tea bags from Wegman’s though.
Tbf, military grade just means the minimum viable quality for military gear to work. It isn’t super strong or quality material. It’s a buzz word that sounds good but is actually quite shit lol
When reporters asked (Alan) Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, ‘The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.’
There was a war movie and in one scene they were handing out gear to the troops and one guy was like “Is there anything good?” or something along those lines and someone responded “It’s from the Army, NOPE!” And to this day whenever I think about it I chuckle a bit.
I know this is just a meme and all but I don’t think that holding the opinion stated in the title of this post is going to do anyone any better. Yes, there are some dumbasses who you shouldn’t engage with but saying this about the entire ‘right’ will lead to nothing but further polarisation of opinions in the community, which I think everyone can agree is not a good outcome.
Mark Twain once said · “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.". Unfortunatly, I think we’ve reach a point where discussions is mostly useless. Recently, I had a discussion with someone trying to convince me that most young adults are now trans (lol). I told him I teach at college and Univ level, and have not yet seen a single trans person, over the hundred of young adults I had in my classes. I had to cut the conversation short after 10 minutes of him explaining to me why I’m wrong because he watch dozens of yt video that confirms he is right, even if he never step foot in a university.
I disagree. It’s best that we systemically and socially deplatform and disenfranchise the right. They have no place in a conversation that’s interested in progress and human rights, and they only seek to derail such conversations.
The only effective tool against fascists is exclusion.
I understand where you are coming from. It is true that there is a pretty vocal and decently sized part of the right which became completely fascist and extremist. However I believe, as a person that has opinions from around the whole spectrum, that not all of them are like that. We should try to get along with the ones that are still sane. There are also people of the left that went haywire, but that doesn’t mean we should generalize. The right has an extremely big issue, you are right, I just don’t think this will help. It’ll actually contribute to fascists being able to propagate the hate against the left. I wouldn’t say I identify with the version of the right we know today completely, but I certainly could be considered to be in that part of the spectrum. I consider myself to be respectful of other views, as long as they are not extremist or mean to hurt others. That is why it hurts me to see what some are doing to the word “right” with their Nazi ideologies. I would like to finish off clarifying that I am not one of those extremist conservatives or however you wanna call them, and that I’m writing this with the best of intentions possible. Lemmy is a great platform, way more tolerant than reddit, but sometimes its users make mistakes like these and fall into the trap of fascists. This is just my opinion, and I will be happy to hear other points of view.
The right has only 2 sorts. The people who would end democracy and usher in a dark age of fascism and violence and those who would empower them. The ones that seem sane are also your enemies just less obviously offensive. They wont stab you themselves but they will hold you down for the fellow that will.
Okay, find me a right winger who would vote against capital. I know there are some Republicans who would unionize, some who might even appreciate a few regulations. Certainly many who have a bit of compassion for the homeless. I don’t know that I’ve met a right winger who questions the power of people who have money. That there is a ‘job creator’.
Found the guy without kids. Each switch is hell for 3-7 days, regardless of age. I like to know it's coming way ahead of time so I can start adjusting their schedules to limit the damage.
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