There’s some definitive “do it, you won’t” energy here.
Which to be fair, it would look really bad for Boeing if this guy “committed suicide” too. To the point it might actually be safer to be the second guy.
There’s no way whoever ordered the hit the first time (assuming it really was an ordered hit … and it probably was) individually is going to want that heat.
It’s one of those things that “if one of your acquaintances dies, it’s plausible it really was an accident like you said. If people who hangout with you keep dropping … a lot more eyes are looking at you.”
It’s probably not a true “company” position to murder whistle blowers, but somebody presumably thought it was in their own best interest.
My biggest regret in life was working hard for an employer who didn’t care for me. I now work in public sector and know that I am making the world a better place, and that pleases me. I got out of the rat race and now have some level of comfort.
I’m glad to hear that you’re doing better. I’ve found that public sector can be more stressful in some domains, because of how overstretched services are nowadays, but like you say, at least you’re striving for more than just lining someone else’s pocket
I’m curious, you got anything light reading you can recommend to ease into the topic, please pm me. I’d appreciate, if it wasn’t another post which basically recites the content of another post, and so on - far too much out there these days)
Weapons availability and the mental health crisis. In countries without easy access to guns, mass killings are conducted with knives or cars (runovers). And in countries with socialized healthcare that includes mental health, mass killings don’t happen, at all, or very rarely if ever. Socioeconomic inequality is usually the third element, like in the fire triad, mix the three and you get mass shootings.
Availability of weapons mixed with infrastructure development that atomizes communities to the point that the only places some people can find any social activity is nihilistic message boards full of psychopaths that actively encourage terroristic attacks on society but in the oblique way that dodges accountability for it when someone actually goes and does it.
It’s simply too easy to grab a gun by anyone. Military grade equipment is available to pretty much anyone with a credit card. Then you combine that with a CONSTANT beating drum from people like Alex Jones talking about how much they want crush, destroy, kill their enemies and how corrupt everything is. Then also talking about how people need to rise up and do “something”. While also in the same breath telling people to go off their meds and how any sort of treatment for mental disorders is actually poison. Then pair that with the fact that there’s pretty much no public infrastructure around public health (thanks Reagan). That means if you are having some sort of mental break down, depression, whatever, if you can’t afford the $100s/$1000s of dollars to get regular psychiatric treatment you are basically just going to be untreated. There is also pretty much no safe place to recoup for someone in distress but not at risk of suicide. But even if there were, even if you could afford it, fascists and preachers know that mentally healthy people are harder to grift so they spend all their time demonizing the very help you’d need.
However, not everyone that does this is mentally unwell. Some are just hateful fascists that believe killing gets their hate filled messages into the world. It’s why it is irresponsible for any media outlet to publish the name or manifestos of these assholes. Having notorious killers encourages more notorious killers.
As to that first point, you know we had AR-15s in the 70s, right? (No one gave a shit. They weren’t “cool” until the Assault Weapons Ban. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well…)
You know guns were far easier to get back then? LOL, I got an old Mossberg 500 (think classic 12-gauge pump) that was branded Revelation. They sold those at Western Auto stores.
It was no thing to see a dude with a loaded gun rack in his pickup. Point being, access is not the thing that changed.
Current gun laws are pretty restricted compared to things that used to be allowed. The big one is mail order guns, you could just send a money order and get pretty much any semi-auto gun you wanted delivered to your house with no background check at all.
Full auto gums required a tax stamp since the 30s, and weren’t banned until 86.
As to that first point, you know we had AR-15s in the 70s, right?
The other 2 factors are important along with the internet. There may have been less legal barriers to getting an AR-15, that does not mean accomplishing such a task was easy to do. It’s not like there were AR-15 ads on TV or in newspapers (well, there may have been, but that would have been highly regional). It’s not like every city had an “AR-15” guy in the yellow pages. Legal access hasn’t changed, but general access has (particularly to assault rifles).
Regardless, my advocacy is first just starting with laws I think most everyone can agree with, red flag laws. Take away or don’t allow the purchase of guns by a domestic abusers or someone with a history of violence. Heck, you could even put a time limit on that stuff like “within the last 7 years”.
A ton of these cases are fairly young men (<20). So it would be enough to say “hey, if you are under 25 and your school teachers say ‘Do not let this kid in particular have a gun’” then you don’t get a gun until you turn 25. Or even an outright ban on ownership for people less than 25 (though that’d be much less popular).
too many scared assholes who love their guns more than anything else.. highly sensitive momma's boys in love with their guns, always ready to lose their shit..
The aliens are a hoax, but there’s some other neat stuff. Graffiti from nazi POWs at one point, whatever the museums got going on, underground tunnels that totally don’t lead to underground hangers, etc.
And if there had been an error that charged people more rather than made gas free, it would have required a multiple-year-long class action lawsuit to resolve whereupon affected individuals would have received a few cents in compensation and a few lawyers would have come away much richer.
Yeah if it turned out my local gas station had been shorting 5% of every gallon for the past 3 years, I wouldn’t be getting back anything close to what they stole from me.
Sure this lady fucked up and took way too much free gas, but i have zero sympathy for the gas station.
I think he was expecting the benzos to wear off before parents had any chance to inspect their kids. They showed up too early, and the effects of the benzos would have been quite evident, and he’d be in a fuckload of trouble. Which is exactly what’s happening.
I’m more surprised he wasn’t shot while breaking into cars in a town called rifle. I’m sure she’d be totally fine with it if he was, right? Or is that only minorities that deserve death for theft?
Yes. Right wingers say that kind of thing earnestly all the time. Don’t expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt when you start in with ‘white replacement’ rhetoric.
I get where you are coming from. I was speaking of demographic shifts that have been projected for years.
Oh and just like reddit, anyone who wants to use a little brain power could take 2 seconds and peruse my comment history. Nothing I’ve ever said would have me confused with a maggat.
Ah yes. Downvote legit conversation. This is how lemmy ends up looking like reddit or twitter. Lots of people will just stop contributing to the convo if this community as a whole isn’t capable of adult discourse.
Oh and unlike reddit, we can see who downvotes what on lemmy. Maybe I’ll start calling out the assholes as a way to kill time when I am bored.
You seem like an alright person. Just a recommendation, now is a pretty good time for self reflection. Your comment didn’t sound at all sarcastic and there’s no reason for anyone to check your history. Just mark it with /s next time so we know.
There seem to be a lot of geographic locations named Rifle around there, but it looks like the name originated at Rifle Creek which got its name from someone finding a rifle along its banks in the 19th century. If Wikipedia can be believed, that is.
I think people often misunderstand “family values” from redneck trash families. They’re not hypocrites, generally, in this. Teenagers being trashy happens regardless of parents political leanings, the real hypocrisy would be if they went to the abortion clinic. They usually don’t. It’d be a lot smarter, but then they’d have to change their views when confronted with the consequences, and that’s horribly hypocritical. Person should maybe really think things through before it’s convenenient.
I do not understand how a parent can be so irresponsible as to leave a gun easily accessible in a house with children. Kids are really really resourceful. Its bit like keeping a hyper intelligent racoon inside with a drive to kill itself through curiosity. Guy definitely deserves charges
Man how fucked is this timeline that I had to scratch my head a bit over whether this was a sincere response or a caricature of a particular US demographic?
The sad thing is, in this timeline it isn’t out of place among the whackadoo things they’ve said.
The hillbillies think Taylor Swift is part of a conspiracy to prevent electing their chosen dictator of all things. That’s where they are now. It isn’t like what you wrote is too far ahead on the road of crazy; more like it’s barely visible on the rearview.
That at least I think came astroturfed from the billionaire think tanks who’ve been throwing anything they can at the wall to try to discredit Swift, who’s dangerous because she encourages voting. They know there’s nothing to really attack her on (except on stuff like using a jet too much and having expensive tickets, but those things can’t be criticized from the right), so they’re just barfing out anything they can.
A not guilty plea was entered Monday on behalf of Tolbert, who also faces one count each of felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and four counts of felony firearm, Potbury said.
He said Tolbert is barred from possessing firearms and ammunition because he has multiple firearms-related felony convictions and drug-related convictions.
This guy is already not a winner. I was going to make a comment like “even with improper storage putting him in prison is going to hurt the family more than what’s already happened”, but given his record, going back to prison might be a net benefit for society. Hopefully any other kids in this family will have someone to take better care of them.
First of all, I agree with you that guns should be locked up if there’s going to be kids/morons around them. I want to add that there’s also a responsibility if you have both guns and children in your house that you should be teaching the children not to touch them (this is probably a good idea even if you don’t have guns and live in the USA). DO NOT TOUCH THE GUNS was drilled into me and my siblings for longer than I can remember. My grandfather kept a rack of long guns in the back bedroom of their house where we would sometimes play as kids and none of use ever even looked at them for more than a few seconds without somebody being like “don’t touch those”. I do consider that to be irresponsible as fuck but my point is education would certainly help prevent injuries if a kid did happen to get access to a gun.
I mean I completely agree with you and that is definitely a rule in my house however if a parent can’t be bothered to lock up their gun I’m not entirely sure they’re going to bother teaching their kid not to touch the gun.
The farther you get from America, the more woefully absurd it sounds. But, right in the middle of America, it’s a very different place.
And at this point in time, gun fetishism has gone meta-static and is afflicting many different states.
And it’s not the possession of guns alone: I’ve seen the exposé where Switzerland’s gun culture is compared, and questions are asked about how they can have one gun per adult and still suffer an almost non-existent rate of accidents and murders. A lot of it resembles the 1950s where kids would be part of a school .22 target rifle team, store their guns and ammo on the premises and still no one got hurt.
I really think it’s the worship of guns, where Meal Team 6 tries to emulate cowboys of old, and fails on every level.
Honestly I just think it’s irresponsible people. No proof but I have a hunch that Americans tend to be more laid-back with things like firearms than people in Switzerland might be. We used to be more careful but we got far too comfortable with them.
I’m American and I can confirm. All the people I know who are really into guns treat them like toys. They may spout off the “3 rules” but it pretty much stops there. The whole attitude they have is just gross to me and so different from how I was raised to treat firearms.
I mean you can make the same argument about items like a bow and arrow, crossbows, and swords. There are valid reasons to have weapons in the house however they should be locked up so that they aren’t accessible normally.
Target practice. Inherited heirlooms. Defense while camping. People find them cool. People keep guns for the same reason people keep swords. I understand that it is a tool designed for killing but at the end of the day it is still a tool. Don’t get me wrong I’m still all for gun control but I do understand why people would want to keep a gun in their home. You don’t have to agree with it but you shouldn’t punish people who responsibly own firearms.
That’s the problem. I don’t think it’s possible to be responsible and own a firearm.
I wouldn’t keep a tiger in my house. I don’t care if dad bequeathed it to me, or I totally have a lock on the door, or it’s ok, I’ve done a tiger training course. Why invite the risk? Because I really fucking like tigers? Fuck everyone else, I like tigers.
Okay that’s interesting thought. See the difference in your example is that a tiger is a sentient being but you have no control over. If I got bequeathed a tiger I probably surrender that too. A gun is a tool which is easily contained. What’s the difference between keeping a firearm and a sword or a bow and arrow when there are also tools initially designed to kill/maime?
The control in both these examples comes from the human. Who should be smart enough not to keep weapons or tigers in a house. That decision is available to everyone. Unless your intention is to maim or kill. Then it makes sense.
This is just flat out dumb, none of my firearms have ever been used for violence. They’re in a safe, and not loaded, and all my ammo is in another part of the house. Just because you can’t fathom how it’s possible to be safe with something that’s dangerous, doesn’t mean they’re automatically dangerous by themselves. Do you lock up your kitchen knives? Or make sure your matches are separate from the box they come in?
I own a farm for one, I hunt, I carry daily, it’s a right that should be exercised, I shoot competitively because it’s fun, I collect them as well, and I love mechanical things.
And way more of us on the left are armed than you think, and more of us daily are becoming armed. I personally have gotten 4 of my left leaning friends to become firearm owners.
Do you mean geographically or are you asking for examples?
Either way it really has nothing to do with the question of why someone would keep a gun in their home. There are people in the suburbs who hunt and there are suburbs that you can’t rely on police for protection. I grew up in one where home invasions and robberies were common.
I don’t understand a parent that can plead not guilty after his daughter shoots herself with his gun. Like, whose fault is it, if not his? Just take responsibility for it.
I wouldn’t focus on his plea. He’s likely doing this on the advice of his lawyer to secure plea deal. Initial charges always very harsh and this is a pretty common tactic in American court. It’s like companies who won’t say “you’re sorry” because it opens them up to liability.
It doesn’t take much to understand it. He’s from Flint. If you know the area, there’s a lot of reciprocal violence. He has previous offenses. It’s hard to get out. He probably knows plenty of people who’ve had loaded guns around their kids and nothing ever happened.
Yes, he deserves the charges, but like, this isn’t some gentrified place. As a society, we really aren’t helping folks in depressed urban areas to get better lives either.
They didn't imagine the gun. The girlfriend confirms that she picked up her gun and went to the door. If the police are there and banging on the door, you don't pick up a gun and walk to the door in America.
The cops were responding to a call about a break-in and when they asked for someone to come to the door they showed up with a gun. The cops aren't going to sit there and wait for the person to start shooting at them. How disconnected do you have to be to think when the cops are banging on the door that it's a good idea to grab a gun and rock up to the door with absolutely no warning?
Did she at any point identify herself to the police? Did she yell out 'I'm the home owner and I have a gun'?
She might get a payout, but very unlikely that anything will happen to the cops given the situation.
The right to bear arms is a lot like the right to free speech. It protects your right to do it, it doesn't protect you from the consequences.
No, she did not defy the laws of time and space and announce that she had a gun or that she was a homeowner in the tiny space of time between getting off the couch and getting shot by police who tell her to drop the gun and don’t give her the time to drop it.
it doesn’t protect you from the consequences.
Consequences like police telling you to drop a gun and then shooting you the second the last syllable enters their mouth? Because, again, I’m not sure why you’re expecting her to defy the laws of time and space.
Also, why on Earth you think identifying yourself and saying you have a gun would help her when they didn’t help Philando Castile, I don’t know. Feel free to explain it. Because Castile said it in the middle of the day where the cops could clearly see what was going on and he was still murdered. Sorry, not murdered, treated fairly by the cops. His very fair treatment for complying with everything the police asked of him and telling them he had a gun.
I don’t even think that’s relevant. She was inside her home. The gun was her property. She had it legally. She should not have to announce that she is holding her legal property inside her own home, even if it is a gun.
They broke a window to get into their place and a short time later someone showed up and banged on the door claiming to be police. There is also a giant window right there she could look out and see it's the police. Try to project less.
Funny that you keep ignoring the whole part where the police started shooting either right in the middle or just after telling her to drop her weapon, giving her no time to drop her weapon.
I'm not ignoring that part. You're ignoring the part where she could have clearly identified the police through the window and realized that in today's climate it might not have been a good idea to carry a gun towards the police.
You should consult ChatGPT before using terms you aren’t familiar with. Shit, a quick Google search could have showed you what projection actually is, and isn’t.
Makes you think, maybe if they’d dumped those mags at a range instead of into someone’s home, they could use fewer bullets overall. Then again, if they were properly trained, they would have actually killed this woman.
What an awful situation, where it’s literally better for officers to be worse marksmen
The cops aren’t going to sit there and wait for the person to start shooting at them.
That’s what they do in countries where non-criminals aren’t afraid of the police, and they seem to do much better both in terms of staying safe and keeping the citizens safe.
They specifically shot her because she came to the door with a gun. She could see them just as easily as they could see her. If she had time to pick up her gun and walk across the room she had time to yell out to them that she was the home owner. She also had time to see them and realize that approaching the cops with a firearm might not be the best idea.
You have a choice. You can be right and dead. Or you can be alive and sort it out later.
I never said that she deserved to be shot or that the cops were justified. I only explained why they shot her and why they're likely not to face any consequences for this. I gave no personal judgement. Here is the problem with people like you, you have absolutely no ability for nuance. Anyone who doesn't immediately cheerlead everything you say 100% must mean that they're 100% against you and should be attacked.
it's funny because your behaviour embodies what you claim you're raging against.
They didn’t imagine the gun. The girlfriend confirms that she picked up her gun and went to the door. If the police are there and banging on the door, you don’t pick up a gun and walk to the door in America.
Sure sounds like you’re justifying what they did to me.
I gave no personal judgement.
That’s ridiculous. This entire time, you’ve been judging her actions.
Also, it’s pretty funny that you are complaining about being accused of judging people and then end your post by judging me.
I'm not justifying, I'm giving helpful advice for anyone, like yourself, who struggles to grasp the realities of the world outside of your sheltered basement. It's pretty clear from this conversation that you have no real world experience at all, and I'd like you to be prepared for that eventual day when you do decide to go out there and see what's actually going on.
Saying 'They shot her because she was carrying a gun' isn't justifying it, it's explaining why they shot her. There is no judgement there about it being wrong or right, it's an explanation of cause and effect.
That’s ridiculous. This entire time, you’ve been judging her actions.
Again no. I've been explaining the consequences of her actions. Let's try another example since you clearly have a bee in your bonnet over gun rights,
Person A mouths off at Person B who then punches Person A in the face.
You come in carrying on about freedom of speech and I point out 'Well the whole reason B punched A in the face is because they mouthed off'. This is not a justification, or a declaration that they were right for doing so. it's an explanation of what happened and why it happened. If you don't want to get punch in the face, don't mouth off. Pretty simple. Doesn't mean you deserve to get punch in the face, but mouth off certainly carries that risk.
She didn't deserve to get shot, but in 2024 carrying a gun towards the police is a great way to get shot. She certainly had a right to carry the gun, but rights and entitlement doesn't stop bullets.
It's very likely that if she'd not picked up the gun she wouldn't have been shot and she would have explained she forgot her keys and everyone would have gone on with their night. I'm perfectly within my rights to walk down the street at 3 am with a bag of cash waving it around and yelling at the top of my lungs how much cash I have and how it would be a shame if someone stole it. Do you think people would have a lot of sympathy for me if someone jumped me and stole the cash? How many people do you think would say 'what a dumbass' for doing that?
This brings us back to nuance. We can call out poor choices and warn people against repeating that behaviour while still thinking what happened to them is bad and unjust.
Are you capable or parsing what you actually read?
Let's try another example since you clearly have a bee in your bonnet over gun rights,
Person A mouths off at Person B who then punches Person A in the face.
You come in carrying on about freedom of speech
This is called an example because you're clearly too wound up over gun rights, I thought I'd give you another example of a similar situation to see if you'd be capable of taking a step back and looking at something objectively. Thanks for answering that question though.
You’re lying again! And gaslighting! You said that I came in here talking about freedom of speech. That is a lie. You did. I never said anything once about freedom of speech.
yes it's very clear that that is your position. You blame me because you failed to read the words in front of you. Here we see you trying to gaslight the blame onto me like it's my fault your reading comprehension failed. The hypocrisy and projection is really telling.
Let's try another example since you clearly have a bee in your bonnet over gun rights,
Followed up by:
Person A mouths off at Person B who then punches Person A in the face.
At what point did you struggle to realize I'm not talking about the article? Was it the point where I said 'let's try another example' or the point where I described a made up situation that had nothing to do with what happened in the article?
if you struggle this hard to follow basic discussions you might want to take a step back and have a long hard think about how you feel about a lot of issues. It's clear you have a comprehension issue and it's very likely that your opinions and positions are formed on clear misunderstandings.
I'm assuming you didn't answer that because answering it would show that you're either completely clueless or lying.
Personal responsibility is a bitch. Try it out sometime. I'm not responsible for your inability to follow and understand basic words. That's on you. Maybe stop blaming others for all your failings.
I have no idea why you feel you have to be so hostile to strangers. Do you do this with strangers when you’re in the same room with them? Insult them and berate them? I doubt it.
If that’s what you really meant from the start and if you know that people struggle with nuance then why didn’t you say what you just said instead of insulting people?
Last year, there was a story on here about a homeowner who blasted a drunk college kid through the door of the house because the drunk kid thought it was his own house, and broke the window to unlock the door. And the homeowner faced no charges because it was self-defense. I lamented that this is the America we live in, where people just start blasting without trying anything else first, like turning on the porch light, or calling out. I got down-voted to hell by all the people who said they’d do the same to protect their families.
What if it’d been the cops at the wrong house instead of a drunk college student?
To be fair, they did see a gun and it was after a break in, and they loudly yelled they were the Sherrifs department, with an open window nearby.
The sheriff’s may not have made a correct choice, but if I were in their shoes shoes while standing outside the only exit after yelling I was a cop at an apartment that was just broken into and saw a person going up to the door without turning the lights on with gun in hand I would sure as heck be thinking this person is about to start shooting their way past us.
She didn’t point it at them… they weren’t in danger. People are allowed to have guns in their own home… she did nothing wrong.
Given how these types of encounters keep working out, if I feel in danger when I see a cop with a gun coming to my house do I get to shoot him and say I felt threatened? If the cops did nothing wrong why can’t I do the same because clearly we are in danger when cops come to our house.
I really used to think highly of the Hugo Awards. Now I just see them as an empty scheme to make rich people richer. The Hugo awards should not be taken seriously at this point.
No awards should if they’re connected to industry insiders.
I’m legitimately flabbergasted every single year by the sheer number of people who think shit like the Oscars or the Emmy’s mean anything given the degree of bullshit that goes on behind the scenes, and some of it out in the open.
They’re industry circle jerks for marketing and giving favors to friends. It’s insane we give them any credit at all. But if the Game Awards have proven anything, it’s that the only thing you need to make an award show “legitimate” is a lot of money to market it enough year after year.
It’s amazing how often people are told, en masse, to like something or give it credence simply because it’s being marketed as something that they should like or trust, and they just sort of go along with it. Of course, if it didn’t work, the advertising/marketing industry wouldn’t be as big as it is…
It’s all that warrior training bullshit. De-escalation is not prioritized, instead they are told anyone might be out to kill them, so they have to be ready to murder them first.
Did you see the body cam video released a couple of days ago of the Florida cop who went completely berserk when he heard an acorn hit his car? Definitely overly dramatic…
Having a gun on your person while opening the door is not brandishing. Also, there are countless other examples of people getting shot by the police simply for possessing a weapon.
There is also zero reason to believe that this man was aware the people at his house were police.
You do not have to wave or aim it in a threatening manner for it to be brandishing. It doesn’t even have to be in your hand. Stop looking up legal definitions on Merriam Webster.
Oh my God, is there no end to the mental gymnastics? What do you think someone’s intention is when they open the door with a gun in their hand? Were they using it as a fucking door handle?
Seriously dude, it’s okay to be wrong sometimes. Just give it up.
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