I’m sure Republicans look at this situation with the same level of concern as all the made up Democrat pedophile grooming they won’t stop ranting about.
Case in point: her husband exposed himself to two young women children while they were dating. She decided he was still marriage material. Absolute trash.
Huh. Have any of them considered a job? If the mom was capable of driving her child to another state to murder some people, I bet she could drive for uber or something. Or be a getaway driver for other criminals, idk.
According to the article his sister has been hospitalized and both her and their mother have a hard time getting work because of being associated with Kyle Rittenhouse. BTW the mother did not drive him that’s a fallacy
Ok then I retract the part about driving. But I have a hard time feeling sympathy for her being unable to get a job. She’s repeatedly defended him and said she stands by him, and she allowed her 17 year old to buy a gun he couldn’t legally have and to drive without a license. Being associated with him is her doing. I have a family member who was a teenage white supremacist piece of shit (who was thankfully stopped by the FBI before he killed anyone), and you can bet nobody thinks I’m associated with him because I make it very clear where I stand. If I said he was a good person and I’ll always support him, I wouldn’t be shocked if employers said nah.
Sure, but she’s also his mother, not a random family member. I’m not going to fault a mother for standing by their child, no matter what he did.
She didn’t let him buy anything, but she couldn’t make him get rid of it because it wasn’t in her house. It was locked up at a friend’s house in a different town.
She was also ill, poor, dyslexic, and a single parent dealing with a difficult child. She doesn’t seem to have much in her life but her children, I’m not going to condemn her for not banishing him from her life. It’s not an easy thing for a mother to do.
If that’s the case, it’s sad then that he apparently doesn’t seem willing to return the good will and unconditional support, if he’s refusing to help them with rent. Abandoning the one person who would always have your back…
I’m not going to fault a mother for standing by their child, no matter what he did.
You can stand by your child by always having room in your home for them. You can still condemn their action and say they might not know any better or something like that.
Yeah absolutely fuck Kyle Rittenhouse but Kyle lied to his mom that night about what he was up to, and the mom clearly had no intention of being a willing accomplice to murder.
Dude I really, really don’t like or support this dude but that’s not true. He didn’t keep it at her (his) house because he specifically knew she would not permit him to have it. She literally tried to parent, and he snuck around her by keeping it at a friend’s house.
Smear? Just pointing out she raised a piece of shit, encouraged shitty behavior, and she doesn’t deserve sympathy that her piece of shit son isn’t supporting his piece of shit mom.
When the children were small, Wendy and Mike worked various jobs, including machine operator, housekeeper, and cashier.
…
Wendy had become a certified nursing assistant, but she continued to struggle financially. The family was repeatedly evicted.
…
In 2018, shortly after another eviction, Wendy filed for bankruptcy. She developed a gastrointestinal bleed that required hospitalization, and Faith was also hospitalized, after an attempted overdose involving over-the-counter painkillers
Gotta love a conservative family that votes to undermine all the social services they’d need in situations like this. But they seem to be able to afford guns…
“Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party refers to a parody of regretful voters who vote for cruel and unjust policies (and politicians) and are then surprised when their own lives become worse as a result. It has been commonly used to parody regretful Brexit and Trump voters.”
A CNA does not earn money, it’s pretty much a minimum wage job. This person did not have the necessary intelligence or drive to attain their bachelors and become a full nurse–it’s as simple as that.
My sister in law, bless her, is really one of the angriest persons you will ever meet. She hates everything out there and the world is bad, blah blah blah. I asked her why she became a phlebotomist. She told me she wanted to be a nurse but could not pass English 101. Seriously.
I hate to defend Kyle’s mom, but man, shouldn’t a CNA or a phlebotomist be able to afford to survive in the area they work? In their case, I guess you reap what you sow.
Yea being a cna is tough and underpaid. My ex is one, takes a couple months of study and passing a test. I, with a highschool degree made 6 dollars more than her when her job was 3 times tougher. It’s criminal. She worked harder and longer hours in a dangerous place with people who could and would harras and harm her. The harrasment was mental, verbal, physical and sexual as well. Fuck boomers.
You remember businesses calling everyone who worked a low appreciation job heroes? CNAs got the shittiest end of the stick on that I think.
Giant banners calling you heroes greet you as you drive on the lot of the nursing home, and you look at them knowing you’re going to get physically shit on by the patients, and proverbially shit on by the higher level nurses, the administration that now works remote, the family of the patients, and of course the patients again as well. For $12/hr. And you’re extra short staffed because anyone that could find travel work did. Brutal shit for them.
Holy hell if you aren’t right. I recall her getting all of those things at her work too and a measly 40 cent raise lul. All those banners and pins and lanyards and little gift bags if tiny hand sanetizers and candy. I think she made like 16 here in cali at the time, I recall hearing there’s a laaw that was gonna be passed or already passed to get them up to like 20 or 21 at the minimum. Crazy to think that’s what mcDonald’s employees earn here now while plenty of cnas in other parts of the state earn less still.
On the Dollop podcast if you’ve ever heard of it, one of the hosts is named Gareth. Gareth points out in an episode that in American culture we only ever call “heroes” the people we deem ‘expendable’. I have been unable to find a counterexample to that claim ever since I heard it.
It’s no different than public school teachers, I suppose. It’s not a field you get into unless it calls you for some reason–you’re certainly not in it for the money.
We really need to reprioritize how we fund things around the world.
He did. The gun was never in her home, she couldn’t do anything about it. It was locked up at his friend’s house because his mother wouldn’t have permitted him to have it.
Yeah, but she’s related to him and loves him because he is her son, and we hate him, so obviously she should suffer too. Justice and empathy? Fuck that. We’re outraged and out for some suffering.
No, she should have social supports, education, a safety net, retirement and security. The exact things people like her piece of shit brother actively try to deny others all the time. Society tried to help this person.
Now on an individual level before I would ever help her, I’d want to know if she ever saw a cent of Kyle’s blood money.
If the mom was capable of driving her child to another state
She didn’t do that.
It’s really sad how many people are still so completely ignorant of even the simplest facts of that case. Whatever your ideology declared was the truth, you just swallowed, facts and truth be damned.
If a black guy knowingly strolled through a KKK meeting, without saying or doing anything other than walking, and defended himself if one of them attacked him, would you argue he gave up the right to defend himself?
If the guy went armed into a KKK meeting, it’s pretty obvious what he’s doing. I wouldn’t have a lot of sympathy for the KKK guys, because fuck them, but it’s pretty obvious at that point that the guy is playing vigilante.
It’s also worth noting that the first two people he shot were unarmed, and everyone who was in the vicinity thought he was an active shooter.
If the guy went armed into a KKK meeting, it’s pretty obvious what he’s doing.
Nope, this analogy fails, by implying that Rittenhouse was armed in a place where being armed is an unusual thing (ironically, one of his attackers was in possession of an illegal handgun, while Rittenhouse was perfectly allowed to be in possession of the rifle he had).
Kenosha is in an open carry state. There is a reason that although Rittenhouse was obviously and visibly armed with a long rifle, nobody reacted negatively to him arriving at the protest ‘area’. He walked around with that big rifle on his person for literal hours with nobody giving a shit.
It’s obvious you either don’t live in an open carry state, and/nor do you have the empathy to understand why it was no big deal for him to be there while visibly armed. His mere presence there while armed means nothing.
Again, the first person to react negatively to him at all was a psycho who literally screamed death threats and then tried to make good on them, in response to Rittenhouse extinguishing the flaming dumpster he was trying to wheel into a gas station (wanna take a few guesses why Rosenbaum was trying to move a large flaming object to such a specific place?).
You wanna argue that putting out a fire is provocation? lmao
It’s not bear season, and a hunter doesn’t have a hunting license. He takes his gun and drives out to bear country, and starts walking around bear dens waiting for a mother bear to attack him, then he shoots her and claims self defense.
Was he justified, or did he intentionally set up a scenario where the bear was likely to feel threatened and attack him, so he’d have an excuse to shoot her?
The fact that no one gave the slightest shit about Rittenhouse’s arrival or presence (regardless of the fact that he was visibly and obviously armed) until Rosenbaum freaked out on him for putting out Rosenbaum’s dumpster fire, makes that not really the best analogy, lol.
He did literally nothing that merited the aggression upon him. Your argument is literally identical, logically, to “she was asking for it by being dressed so provocatively”.
Your argument is literally identical, logically, to “she was asking for it by being dressed so provocatively”.
It’s literally identical, logically, to “She dressed provocatively, but was carrying a revolver, and walked into a bad part of town waiting for someone to come onto her so she could shoot them.” In which case I’d be making the same argument.
Look, I want to be clear: I’m not saying he deserved to get attacked. But I also don’t believe for a second that he traveled that far, to a protest where any logical person could have guessed they’d be seen as an aggressor, and walked around for as long as he did, and wasn’t hoping he’d draw some aggression so he could “defend himself”. It’s unfortunate that it happened, and I do believe he was defending himself, but I also fully believe that it went down exactly like he was hoping it would.
The fact that he’s been riding out his celebrity status among the far right since then, I feel, supports that theory.
He can be “not guilty” and still be a piece of shit.
“She dressed provocatively, but was carrying a revolver, and walked into a bad part of town waiting for someone to come onto her so she could shoot them.” In which case I’d be making the same argument.
I like how you subtly modified the obviously implied rape attempt to “come onto her”, lol.
You also left out running away at the first sign of aggression, and then only shooting after she’s chased down and has nowhere else to go, and the attacker, who screamed “I’m going to kill you” moments before, is now trying to wrestle the gun out of her hands.
Zero chance you’d be making the same argument in an actually equivalent situation, lmao, who do you think you’re kidding?
Man, you’re missing the whole point. I said it in pretty plain text before but I’ll say it again: I don’t believe he deserved to get attacked, and I believe he was defending himself. Clearly the person who attacked him were not justified in doing so. In the analogy you’re quoting, clearly the person attempting to rape the woman in question would not be justified in doing so, and she’d be justified in shooting him.
What matters, though, is intent. In that hypothetical, the woman put herself into that situation intentionally hoping she’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone. I firmly believe Rittenhouse did the exact same.
Do you also defend Westborough Baptist Church? Remember them? Group who would protest at soldier’s funerals, shout some really inflammatory shit with the intent of baiting the funeral-goers to attack them, then act like innocent victims and sue their attackers? Legally, they were in the right, too, but that doesn’t make them any less deplorable for doing it.
What matters, though, is intent. In that hypothetical, the woman put herself into that situation intentionally hoping she’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone. I firmly believe Rittenhouse did the exact same.
But the point is that there is literally no reason to believe that, if you’re actually being objective, and looking at the facts of the matter. He cleaned graffiti off a high school, then he showed up, he handed out water bottles, gave basic medical attention on request (literally walking around yelling “medic! friendly!”), and put out fires. He did nothing that any reasonable, objective person would conclude contributed the slightest bit toward ‘hoping he’d get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone’.
Firstly, everything started going south because of an event nobody could have predicted: a guy who set a fire earlier had it put out by Rittenhouse, and his response to that is literal homicidal rage (?!) (later, we learned that he had literally been released from a mental health facility for a suicide attempt…looking at all the evidence and in hindsight, I think it’s reasonable that Rosenbaum was actually trying to get himself killed in a manner similar to ‘murder by cop’, but I digress).
Secondly, if he was hoping to get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone, why didn’t he shoot Rosenbaum right when he started chasing him down? This was already after Rosenbaum had literally been screaming “I’m going to kill you”, so it’d be a very strong self-defense argument to put him down right there as he charged at Rittenhouse. But instead, he ran away, and continued to run away as Rosenbaum chased him. This course of action makes NO SENSE for someone who is ‘hoping he’d get attacked because he wanted to shoot someone’.
He also didn’t shoot when he got cornered and was no longer able to flee. At that point, Rosenbaum had not only threatened his life, but had chased him down, leaving NO question he was intending to make good on his threat. Rittenhouse could have very justifiably shot him dead then as well. But he didn’t.
Rittenhouse only fired when Rosenbaum had COMPLETELY closed the distance between them, and was LITERALLY trying to wrestle the gun of someone he had just threatened to kill, out of his arms. Objectively speaking, he did everything he could to keep the situation from escalating to the point of using his weapon.
His actions toward his other two attackers was similar–no aggression from him, and when he encountered aggression toward him, he didn’t ‘take advantage of the opportunity to shoot someone’–instead, he fled. Consistently. Every single person he shot had literally put him in a position where he had to choose to either protect his life, or forfeit it. And he never used his weapon a moment before he was in that position, all three times.
The argument that Rittenhouse was ‘hoping he’d get attacked because she wanted to shoot someone’ simply does not hold water.
First off, I want to be clear that I’m not the one down-voting you; I haven’t voted (up or down) anywhere in this thread, but it always makes me self-conscious when I’m having a disagreement with someone and the posts I’m replying to consistently have 1 downvote at the time I’m replying.
Rittenhouse was already breaking the law by having a firearm; he was 17 at the time and not legally old enough to possess one.
He claims he went to the protest “to protect businesses” if I recall, which seems reasonable on the surface, except that:
He was a staunch supporter of the ‘blue lives matter’ movement, a rally-attending Trump supporter, and otherwise very openly far-right leaning, and…
He was attending a protest populated primarily by far left-leaning individuals.
I’m not aware of him attending any other protests, since or prior, under this premise; if he was the good Samaritan he tries to make himself out to be, why did he choose this, and only this, protest to “protect businesses” at? Where was he during any non-politically-polarized national tragedy where his services could have been used?
Why did he feel the need to bring a gun in the first place?
You could argue that it’s “just in case” - which may make sense, except that he drove an awfully long way to a very specific protest with a very specific population that had already become very heated. If he felt he needed a gun “just in case”, a reasonable conclusion could be that he expected things to go south, and chose to go anyway.
He (to my knowledge) didn’t have any personal affiliation with any of the businesses there.
This is like me going down to the local Walmart with a gun to protect it against people protesting big box stores.
Since the incident, he’s used the fact that he went to a leftist protest and shot people and was acquitted to become a bit of a far-right celebrity, and he’s really milked that celebrity status:
His likeness has been used to sell memorabilia, including guns.
He’s been a guest of honor (or equivalent, I’m not sure what the term is) at GOP rallies.
He’s got at least some kind of association with the Proud Boys (though I’m not sure what the nature of that association is.)
If he was truly an innocent good Samaritan who was caught up in something unfortunate and regretted what happened, wouldn’t he be speaking out against any of this, rather than letting them hold him in high regard because of it?
He’s basically earned celebrity status because he shot people. And I realize it’s not his fault that people are doing that, but he’s playing right into it. Profiting off of it, even. That is not something a remorseful person does.
The result of all of this, in my eyes, is that he went to an awful lot of trouble to put himself in a situation where I feel a reasonable person would have believed they would end up in an altercation, and he made sure he had a rifle with him at the time. I will accept that he could have used it sooner than he did, but I, as someone who actively does not want to have to shoot someone, wouldn’t bring a gun to a Trump rally while publicizing that I was there to keep the peace and enforce local noise ordinances. That’d just be asking to get attacked. To be put in a situation where I’d need to use that gun.
Of course, if I was going to go to that rally, and I was hoping I’d have to shoot someone, I’d make damn sure I made it look like I had only the best possible intentions.
It’s not me, you’re literally the only one I’m actually having some sort of actual dialogue with.
Rittenhouse was already breaking the law by having a firearm; he was 17 at the time and not legally old enough to possess one.
Not true–Wisconsin state law allows minors to possess shotguns and rifles as long as they’re not short-barreled.
He was a staunch supporter of the ‘blue lives matter’ movement, a rally-attending Trump supporter, and otherwise very openly far-right leaning, and… He was attending a protest populated primarily by far left-leaning individuals.
And yet, he didn’t do a single second of counter-protesting, nor did he act to inhibit the protesters in any way–in fact, it was primarily protesters who received his handed out bottles of water and basic medical aid.
The only real argument you can make that he was antagonistic is if you argue that cleaning up after and putting out the fires of rioters (those not protesting, but just running around creating havoc and destruction) is antagonistic toward them–I guess it is, technically, but…I mean, come on. No way my conscience would let me fault someone for undoing rioters’ damage.
He is on record stating he supports BLM, for what it’s worth.
I’m not aware of him attending any other protests, since or prior, under this premise; if he was the good Samaritan he tries to make himself out to be, why did he choose this, and only this, protest to “protect businesses” at?
Because it’s his community, so it makes perfect sense he’s more compelled to take action in his own neighborhood. He has friends in Kenosha, his father lives there, he worked as a lifeguard there, etc… He had spent lots of time over the course of his life in that area, and had ties to it. If he had gone to one protest, and it deliberately WASN’T the one in Kenosha, that’s what would look potentially suspicious, imo.
Why did he feel the need to bring a gun in the first place? You could argue that it’s “just in case”
Seems pretty obvious that is the reason–he’s even on video while at the protest saying exactly that, “for my protection”.
which may make sense, except that he drove an awfully long way
Not really a long way at all (20 miles), especially not unusually long for him, who had made that exact trip countless times before. This was literally his regular commute to his lifeguard job, and spending time with his father, etc.
a reasonable conclusion could be that he expected things to go south, and chose to go anyway.
And if one isn’t starting out trying to find fault and looks at his actions objectively in hindsight, one could easily argue that the decision to deliberately put himself at potential risk in order to undo some of the damage and maybe prevent some damage, and help people, is selflessly altruistic.
He (to my knowledge) didn’t have any personal affiliation with any of the businesses there.
Well, owners of the Car Source denied accepting Kyle and Dominick Black’s offer to help protect their business, and one of them denied even knowing who Kyle was, and then text exchange between them, with Kyle offering to help out, surfaced, and the other owner literally had his picture taken with Kyle and the rest of his group, in front of the dealership. Kyle was obviously not randomly taking the liberty upon himself to spend time defending that place, nor was he unwanted there.
Since the incident, he’s used the fact that he went to a leftist protest and shot people and was acquitted to become a bit of a far-right celebrity,
All the left did was call him a white supremacist serial killer (as you can see, this continues to this day), even after all the facts came out. It’s no surprise he became amicable with the only people who weren’t doing that. Wouldn’t be nearly the first time such a thing has happened, sadly.
Still, this is beside the point–it doesn’t matter to me if he became, or always was, or whatever, someone with shitty views. All I’m talking about is what I know about, and that’s the facts of this case, and what we know (or should know, given how many people still get very basic, known facts wrong)–as far as notorious legal cases go, there are few with more hard evidence easily accessible to the public, so even a ‘random’ civilian can have 100% of the facts anyone else does.
I speak from a position of knowing the facts, and being frustrated that, even though the facts are so readily available, there are still so many people saying things the facts don’t agree with, and drawing conclusions that make zero sense in the face of said facts.
Not true–Wisconsin state law allows minors to possess shotguns and rifles as long as they’re not short-barreled.
Maybe I’m mis-remembering the details of the case, as this isn’t really something I’ve paid much attention to in the past, I don’t know, 3 years, but I’m fairly certain the person who obtained the gun for him was charged and convicted with some crime; is it a crime to give a gun to a minor but not for the minor to possess one? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Is it that it’s illegal in Illinois to possess one, but not in Wisconsin? My understanding was that the gun charges against Rittenhouse were dismissed basically on a technicality using language that was written to apply to hunting rifles and was being applied to a rifle clearly not intended for that purpose. Maybe that’s the short-barreled clause? I’m not sure of the specifics.
Seems pretty obvious that is the reason–he’s even on video while at the protest saying exactly that, “for my protection”.
And if one isn’t starting out trying to find fault and looks at his actions objectively in hindsight, one could easily argue that the decision to deliberately put himself at potential risk in order to undo some of the damage and maybe prevent some damage, and help people, is selflessly altruistic.
I don’t know what the local culture is like in Wisconsin, so some of my view might stem from trying to view it through the lens of my local community, but I know I, for one, am immediately on edge when I see someone walking around open-carrying a firearm in a public place. It doesn’t happen frequently, so maybe that’s part of it, but if I attended a protest or demonstration, particularly one that the police are antagonistic to, anyone - no matter what they’re doing - who is carrying a gun like that is, in my mind, making the situation worse just by their presence. If they’re a protester themselves, they’re just inviting police violence and if they’re not a protester, my perception would be that they’re doing it with the intent to intimidate. Maybe that’s an incorrect perception and I am willing to accept that, but I can’t imagine that there weren’t plenty of people there who share that perception.
What it really comes down to (again, in my mind) is that his decision to go there, into the middle of what was already basically a powder keg, carrying an AR-15 was, at the very least, incredibly poor judgement. Even if 90% of protesters saw him as helpful, all it’d take is one who didn’t to cause a problem.
There were people at these protests (speaking nationwide, I can’t speak to the one in Kenosha specifically) who were there just to cause trouble - looting, vandalizing, trying to paint the peaceful protesters in a poor light.
Not really a long way at all (20 miles),
Maybe ‘a long way’ was poor wording but the point I was trying to get at is that he doesn’t live there; it’s not like this was happening in his town.
Well, owners of the Car Source denied accepting Kyle and Dominick Black’s offer to help protect their business, and one of them denied even knowing who Kyle was, and then text exchange between them, with Kyle offering to help out, surfaced, and the other owner literally had his picture taken with Kyle and the rest of his group, in front of the dealership. Kyle was obviously not randomly taking the liberty upon himself to spend time defending that place, nor was he unwanted there.
I was only aware of the first part of this - that they denied knowing or wanting him there, so if the rest of this is true, I will concede this point.
Still, this is beside the point–it doesn’t matter to me if he became, or always was, or whatever, someone with shitty views.
It’s relevant (to me) because he holds views (and did before the protest, as far as I recall) that put him at odds with a lot of the protesters there. I’m not calling him a white supremacist (nor am I calling him not a white supremacist, I really don’t know what his views are on that topic, nor do I really care), and I’m certainly not calling him a serial killer. I think it’s pretty clear from the trial that he isn’t legally guilty. However, I do think he’s morally guilty because he put himself in a situation where, in my view, a reasonable person should have been able to foresee that something like this might happen. Then, afterwards, rather than condemning the glorification of it, he just went along with it, hook, line and sinker.
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for that last bit, I’d probably hold a different view, and…
All the left did was call him a white supremacist serial killer (as you can see, this continues to this day), even after all the facts came out. It’s no surprise he became amicable with the only people who weren’t doing that.
Maybe you’re right, and he’s a product of the circumstances, but he didn’t, and doesn’t (based on his behavior after the fact) seem particularly remorseful for what happened there. He’s going along with (at the very least) the glorification of his actions, and I cannot see him as anything but in the wrong as a result.
I will say that you make some compelling points and maybe my initial stance was too severe - that is to say, maybe he wasn’t literally looking for trouble, but he certainly wasn’t taking what I see as some very basic steps to avoid trouble.
All I’m talking about is what I know about, and that’s the facts of this case, and what we know (or should know, given how many people still get very basic, known facts wrong)–as far as notorious legal cases go, there are few with more hard evidence easily accessible to the public, so even a ‘random’ civilian can have 100% of the facts anyone else does.
The basic facts of the case were pretty widely misrepresented, by news outlets, never mind keyboard warriors on Twitter and Reddit; I don’t think it’s surprising at all that everyone’s perception of the details differ so greatly. The ACLU made a statement basically condemning him post-verdict, for one, and that was pretty widely reported on.
not reading this (fully) so ignore me if you already mentioned this, but the during the rittenhouse trial both charges against rittenhouse and the person that sold him the gun were dropped, rittenhouse i think specifically because of a loophole that made it “technically legal to own” and the person that sold him the gun, because reasons, i guess, i don’t remember.
More than likely persecution was focusing on the other charges and didnt want to spend time on these charges as they seemed rather inconsequential, as well as the fact that the other kid was out of state, and so iirc that was a separate case entirely.
regardless he should’ve been charged with at the very least, reckless endangerment. The fact that he wasn’t hit with that charge is an absolute fluke of legal work.
I can’t imagine that there weren’t plenty of people there who share that perception.
I myself also would be very nervous around someone being armed like that in public. But I don’t live in an open carry state, either, so it would be very out of place for me, as well.
That said, you don’t have to imagine. Just look at the facts of the matter:
He was obviously and visibly armed from the moment he showed up
There was no freakout over his arrival, nor over the extended period of time he was walking around doing things, obviously and visibly armed the entire time. There is plenty of video of him there while armed, and it’s clear he is not drawing any more attention than the average person in any of the footage up to the point where Rosenbaum put himself and Rittenhouse at the center of attention with his mad raving.
Given those facts, it is clear that Rittenhouse was not armed to an extent that those around him found more than mundane.
What it really comes down to (again, in my mind) is that his decision to go there, into the middle of what was already basically a powder keg, carrying an AR-15 was, at the very least, incredibly poor judgement. Even if 90% of protesters saw him as helpful, all it’d take is one who didn’t to cause a problem.
There were people at these protests (speaking nationwide, I can’t speak to the one in Kenosha specifically) who were there just to cause trouble - looting, vandalizing, trying to paint the peaceful protesters in a poor light.
Generally speaking, if someone goes to a dangerous place to try and improve the situation there to the best of their ability, despite the potential risks to their own safety, one would consider that courageous and admirable, not foolish. I’d say it’s very arguable that only pre-existing bias is preventing Rittenhouse from being perceived similarly, given that every single action he’s known to have taken in Kenosha that day was either morally neutral (I consider defending your life to be human nature, and not a moral or immoral act), or morally good (cleaning graffiti, extinguishing fires, handing out water bottles on request, giving basic medical aid to the extent he could from his lifeguard training).
Being as objective as possible, and going by the facts, what can one realistically argue that he did that was immoral on that day? This is a genuine question–I can’t find a single actual act that merits criticism, and I’ve found consistently that everyone criticizing his actions either straight-up gets facts about what he literally did incorrect, and bases their conclusion on that, or colors his decision to be there as malicious in and of itself (though, again, though obviously we can’t read his mind that day, the actions he took that day simply do not support that assumed malicious intent at all, quite the contrary in fact).
But that’s not even all of it–his most ardent supporters on the extreme right are getting it wrong ALSO, and do ridiculous things like claiming his shooting of people we later discovered were actually pretty shitty people was itself a morally good act, and completely ignore the things he did that day that actually WERE objectively morally good (graffiti cleaning et al, as mentioned above). This is ridiculous, and focusing completely in the wrong place–he didn’t ‘do the right thing’ by shooting people, he protected his life against a few crazy and violent individuals, and that’s obviously neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Although I will say, that one video did demonstrate that Rittenhouse’s trigger discipline is admirable (immediately after shooting Grosskreutz, his finger was off the trigger and around the guard, as he carefully got back up to his feet, and overall, he didn’t fire a single shot that struck anyone other than his intended target, no spray and pray, no wild shots, he used his weapon to the absolute minimal extent necessary to neutralize each of the people who tried to kill him)–if every cop’s in the US was as good as his, we’d probably have a lot fewer police scandals in this country.
the point I was trying to get at is that he doesn’t live there; it’s not like this was happening in his town.
But again, he had family and friends there–while he may not have lived there, I’d say it’s very fair to categorize Kenosha as part of ‘his community’, considering how many ties he has to it, and how he regularly spent time there.
It’s relevant (to me) because he holds views (and did before the protest, as far as I recall) that put him at odds with a lot of the protesters there.
I don’t really find that relevant though. Suppose we knew for a fact that he was a straight-up racist and/or adherent to all sorts of extreme right-wing political views. Let’s say he was literally the far-right stereotype.
The facts of the matter are still what they are–he took not a single action in Kenosha could be fairly/objectively described as an expression of such views–he did nothing that you could look at and say ‘oh, it’s because of view far-right political stance X that he decided to do this action Y’. He’s on video at one point saying he was there "to protect this business, and part of my job is there’s somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way.”
Hypothetically, if someone goes their whole life hating a certain race of people, but throughout their life, never actually mistreats anyone of that race, then the end result, as far as real-world consequences, is the same as if that person did not have those views.
Frankly, I don’t really care what his views are. I care about what he did.
he didn’t, and doesn’t (based on his behavior after the fact) seem particularly remorseful for what happened there.
I don’t think he should feel remorse. Remorse is for having done things wrong. I don’t think he could have handled the situations Rosenbaum et al put him in any better than he did. I literally can’t think of a course of action from the moment Rosenbaum began to charge at him that’s different from what he did, and also inarguably better/smarter.
But regret? He clearly regrets that things went down the way they did. The crying he did as he relived those events during the trial, that left-wing ideologues love to mock him for, and callously claim are crocodile tears, instead of a 17 year-old coming to grips with the kind of day’s events that would traumatize ANYONE for life, are a clear show of that. Frankly, just talking about this particular bit makes me feel disgusted all over again, at all of the things I saw and read around that time, on Reddit. People who pretend to be champions for mental health instantly abandon their supposed virtues because they’ve dehumanized Rittenhouse to such an extreme degree that they can’t even fathom that he is a normal human being who just might be traumatized by having to look death in the face not once, but THREE times in a day. It’s sickening…but I digress.
Now, after the fact, he has on at least one occasion I know of, poked fun at himself with that same infamous image of him weeping. But humor is a common coping mechanism, especially for young males in this country, who are scarcely allowed to deal with trauma in any other way without being criticized for it (see above). I would not look at things like that and conclude ‘oh, he actually just didn’t give a shit’ or anything like that. We also don’t know what things are like for him when he’s not in public view. Hell, he likely still has nightmares about that day…
The basic facts of the case were pretty widely misrepresented, by news outlets, never mind keyboard warriors on Twitter and Reddit;
That’s for sure–even post-verdict I saw Redditors claiming “Rittenhouse’s victims” were all black, and that it was a racially-motivated crime.
I don’t think it’s surprising at all that everyone’s perception of the details differ so greatly.
Maybe not surprising, but it’s all the more reason that it’s important to push back against misinformation, especially when it’s ideologically-driven. It deserves nothing less than relentless calling out, in my opinion.
I genuinely appreciate that you’ve actually been reading what I’m writing–much better than “fuck off fascist loser” and the like, which you will find in this thread, not too far from this comment chain.
The ACLU made a statement basically condemning him post-verdict, for one, and that was pretty widely reported on.
I haven’t read this statement, I’m going to look it up real quick and quote bits I find ‘interesting’:
Kyle Rittenhouse’s conscious decision to take the lives of two people protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police <-- Oh, there’s a lie in the very first sentence, lol. At the very least, it’s confirmed that Rosenbaum was NOT protesting. He’d just been released that very day from a hospital after a suicide attempt, went to his 'girlfriend’s house, where he was turned away due to a restraining order against him (yeah…), and basically ended up in the mix in Kenosha by apparent coincidence. Witness testimony described him as “extremely aggressive”–one quick example before moving on.
Kyle Rittenhouse was a juvenile who traveled across state lines on a vigilante mission, was allowed by police to roam the streets of Kenosha with an assault rifle and ended up shooting three people and killing two. These are the simple, tragic facts. <-- Holy shit, lol. “Vigilante mission” is pure assumption, not a fact, the police allowed EVERYONE to “roam the streets”, so that’s meaningless to point out, and “ended up shooting three people and killing two” is technically a fact, but is a MASSIVE lie of omission to just say he “ended up” doing that, it completely ignores all of the other relevant events before, during, and after. The ACLU clearly had a narrative they went to great lengths to push, and were more than happy to ignore any inconvenient truth that might get in the way of that narrative.
Not trying to dredge this all up again or restart this conversation, but I thought you might like to know… I went and watched some of the videos and read some of the accounts you’ve referenced (none of which I’d seen previously), and I can safely say that you’ve at least in part changed my view on this insofar as it applies to his intentions that day. Thanks for taking the time to discuss it.
Okay, just going to finish up skimming the ACLU statement, which has already demonstrated itself to be shamelessly dishonest, and call it a night:
the protests that Rittenhouse took it upon himself to confront <-- Rittenhouse did zero counter-protesting, and did not inhibit any protester’s protesting in any way–ironically, the primary recipients of the water bottles and basic medical aid he dispensed were protesters. To frame him going to Kenosha as him deciding to ‘confront the protest’ is a shameless lie.
Oh, I guess there wasn’t that much more about Rittenhouse in there. Oh well, don’t feel like randomly truncating bits here and there in my previous comment to fit this in, so second comment it stays.
Thanks again for actually being open to new information, and actual discussion. An admirable and increasingly-rare trait these days.
If a black guy knowingly strolled through a KKK meeting, without saying or doing anything other than walking, and defended himself if one of them attacked him, would you argue he gave up the right to defend himself?
If a black guy went to a KKK meeting with a rifle and sat there provoking the KKK members, I’d argue he probably went there to stir up a fight. Not that I have any sympathy for KKK members or their actions.
I didn’t say he was armed, but fine, let’s have this hypothetical happen in an open carry state, same as the state where the Rittenhouse stuff happened. Meaning that, just like in Rittenhouse’s case, the fact that someone is openly armed is mundane and not a cause for concern in and of itself, at all.
and sat there provoking the KKK members
Rittenhouse provoked no one (the irony of implying he did is that he literally spent a good amount of time walking around shouting “medic! friendly!” while he was offering basic first aid to whoever wanted it, lol…pretty much the literal opposite of provocation), so your analogy becomes a false analogy, here.
Rittenhouse was, so that’s what my analogy is using too.
Meaning that, just like in Rittenhouse’s case, the fact that someone is openly armed is mundane and not a cause for concern in and of itself, at all.
Someone walking around openly armed is absolutely not mundane at all. If it’s police it’s a minor cause for concern, if it’s an untrained civilian who looks underage, it’s much greater cause for concern. If he’s walking around at a protest to supposedly “protect businesses”, he’s a clear and direct danger. What the law says doesn’t change what he can do with a weapon like that, and thus what threat he poses.
Rittenhouse provoked no one
You’re unaware of the basic facts of the case. Drone video clearly showed Rittenhouse pointing his weapon at people, repeatedly. This direct threat to others is what eventually provoked Rosenbaum into trying to take his gun off him. After Rittenhouse neutralised him by shooting his pelvis, he then decided to execute him on the spot, which was well beyond self-defense. He then shot two others who believed him to be an active shooter (and he demonstrated he was by killing one of them).
You can’t expect to go to a protest, heavily armed, pointing your gun at people and expect people to be all okiedokie about that. It’s a clear provocation.
Someone walking around openly armed is absolutely not mundane at all.
In Wisconsin (because it’s legal), and particularly on that day, in that area, it is demonstrably/provably so that it was considered mundane, evidenced by the fact that although Rittenhouse was openly and visibly armed with that long rifle the entire time he was there, he received nary a second glance from anyone, much less an overtly negative response, neither when he showed up, nor when he was walking around the crowd offering water and medical assistance, for hours.
Nobody gave a shit. You can’t look at all that video and act like he was this intimidating scary presence because he was armed, when it’s obvious ZERO people freaked out over it that day.
Ironically, even his ATTACKERS didn’t give a shit, and charged at and chased him despite being, literally, SEVERELY outgunned.
Drone video clearly showed Rittenhouse pointing his weapon at people, repeatedly.
Link the full video (so fullest possible context can be seen), with timestamp(s)
This direct threat to others is what eventually provoked Rosenbaum into trying to take his gun off him.
Oh, please, this is nonsense (and frankly digusting that you’re trying to turn Rosenbaum of all people, into this heroic figure, considering all we know about him both on that day, and prior to it):
"Ryan Balch, one of the armed men patrolling the streets of downtown Kenosha along with Rittenhouse, told the court that 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum had appeared “aggravated” that evening and had been seen shouting “fuck you” to various protesters in the crowd.
“Every time I encountered Joseph Rosenbaum, he was hyper-aggressive and acting out in a violent manner,” Balch testified. “He was always having to be restrained by someone.”
Another witness, Richie McGinniss, testified Thursday that Rosenbaum had chased Rittenhouse into the parking lot of a car dealership and lunged for Rittenhouse’s AR-15 rifle before the teenager opened fire.
Though both Balch and McGinniss had been called to testify by the prosecution, they each emphasized that Rosenbaum had appeared to pose a threat to Rittenhouse.
But Balch said that at one point that evening, prior to the shooting, Rosenbaum had clearly grown enraged with Balch, Rittenhouse, and a third armed member of their group.
Balch testified that the other member of his group had at one point prevented Rosenbaum from lighting something on fire. Rosenbaum then began shouting at Balch and Rittenhouse when Balch tried to calm him down, according to Balch.
“When I turned around, Rosenbaum was right there in front of my face, yelling and screaming,” Balch said. “I said, ‘Back up, chill, I don’t know what your problem is.’ He goes, ‘I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I’m going to fucking kill you.’”
When Binger asked Balch to clarify that Rosenbaum’s remarks were directed at both Balch and Rittenhouse, Balch responded, “The defendant was there, so yes.”
After Rittenhouse neutralised him by shooting his pelvis, he then decided to execute him on the spot, which was well beyond self-defense.
Oh, he decided that, did he? You know that forensics confirmed Rosenbaum had his hand on the barrel when these shots were fired, don’t you? As if Rittenhouse shot once, hit Rosenbaum in the groin, and Rosenbaum INSTANTLY stopped attacking him and backed off, and then enough time passes such that it would even be possible for Rittenhouse to think ‘hm, he’s not a threat anymore, but you know what, I’ve decided I want to kill him’ and THEN shot him dead.
What a pathetic straw grasp. Laughably absurd.
He then shot two others who believed him to be an active shooter (and he demonstrated he was by killing one of them).
I like how you left out that the first of the two only got shot AFTER nailing Rittenhouse in the head with a full swing of his skateboard, and that the third only got shot after HE tried to shoot Rittenhouse with his illegally-possessed (unlike Kyle’s rifle, ironic considering how many people still accuse him of having possessed it illegally) handgun, which was literally pointed at Rittenhouse’s head when Kyle pulled the trigger and shot his arm. The fact that Kyle’s reaction time was faster is the only reason Grosskreutz didn’t succeed in his attempted murder.
Very interesting that you happened to omit every single fact that contradicts the narrative you’re trying so desperately to construct.
Unfortunately for you and your precious narrative, I’m familiar with the facts, and see right through you.
when he was walking around the crowd offering water and medical assistance, for hours.
And he needed a rifle for that, did he? His stated purpose for being there was vigilantism. He literally said as such during the trial. He stated he was there to “protect property” and he brought a rifle to do so. Unless that was a water pistol, he was there intending to use lethal force.
Nobody gave a shit. You can’t look at all that video and act like he was this intimidating scary presence because he was armed, when it’s obvious ZERO people freaked out over it that day.
Yeah, except for the people that evidently did. And obviously you don’t need to immediately freak out if you see something not considered “mundane”.
digusting that you’re trying to turn Rosenbaum of all people, into this heroic figure
I’m literally not. Don’t put words into other people’s mouths. As stated by Rittenhouse himself, he came to Kenosha, armed, in order to at the very least intimidate the protestors/rioters (whatever tickles your fancy) there. Rosenbaum, who is not exactly a stable person, was not intimidated by these attempts. In a previous encounter, Rosenbaum threatened someone Rittenhouse was with at the time.
Instead of deescalating and leaving the scene, which Rittenhouse could have easily done, he decides to risk a confrontation and sticks around. When he runs into Rosenbaum again, something triggers Rosenbaum to chase him.
Oh, he decided that, did he? You know that forensics confirmed Rosenbaum had his hand on the barrel when these shots were fired, don’t you? As if Rittenhouse shot once, hit Rosenbaum in the groin, and Rosenbaum INSTANTLY stopped attacking him and backed off
Well the tooth fairy didn’t decide for him. I don’t need forensics to see on the video used in the trial that after being shot once, Rosenbaum falls over and graps the barrel briefly, after which Rittenhouse shoots and kills him. Oh, and this is after Rittenhouse decided to stop running, turn around and shoot him.
I like how you left out that the first of the two only got shot AFTER nailing Rittenhouse in the head with a full swing of his skateboard, and that the third only got shot after HE tried to shoot Rittenhouse
Some would call them heroic after they saw Rittenhouse kill someone and tried to neutralize the shooter.
The point is that Rittenhouse was uniquely able to prevent 2 deaths by simply not going on his vigilante-stint. He could have gone unarmed if he was only going to provide water and medical assistance, but that wasn’t why he went there. While the legality of his actions can be disputed, the morality of his actions is clear: what he did was deeply wrong, and he’s responsible for two people dead.
Oh look, you completely ignored being pressed to support your ridiculous ‘he was pointing his gun at people for no reason repeatedly, before anyone attacked him’ claim. You prove you’re just another narrative-clinging ideologue who will throw as much bullshit at the wall as possible, hoping something sticks or isn’t challenged.
You’re a waste of time.
The point is that Rittenhouse was uniquely able to prevent 2 deaths by simply not going
It was to steelman the other person’s argument, actually. My analogy involved a situation where it was MUCH more clear that the victim was deliberately entering known ‘hostile territory’ (black guy into a KKK meeting), than the Kenosha situation was (fact is, if it wasn’t for Rosenbaum going nuts and starting the domino effect, Rittenhouse would have gone home that day conflict-free–after all, he was there for hours BEFORE Rosenbaum freaked on him, with no incident at all). Race itself is not really a factor–‘person existing in a dangerous place’ is all I’m conveying. I didn’t “bring in race”.
He showed up to a riot with a gun, he knew what was going to happen. He put himself in a situation where deadly force would just be on be on the line of justifed.
Duty to retreat includes duty to not show up. It says so much that had the people he murdered not died and instead killed him they would be able to use the same defense he did. We are creating a last man standing justice system.
A provokes B. They fight. B is murdered. A claims self-defense
provokes B. They fight. A is murdered. B claims self-defense
What does it say that the argument works both ways? No other crime operates this way.
It says so much that had the people he murdered not died and instead killed him they would be able to use the same defense he did.
LMAO no they wouldn’t! They chased Rittenhouse down as he fled! No jury on Earth would consider what they did self-defense, you’re completely out of your mind.
He showed up to a riot with a gun, he knew what was going to happen.
‘She was walking around with a skimpy outfit, she knew what was going to happen.’
Victim blaming. Wisconsin is an open carry state.
What does it say that the argument works both ways?
Loaded question; it DOESN’T work both ways, especially not when there is only one aggressor.
LMAO no they wouldn’t! They chased Rittenhouse down as he fled! No jury on Earth would consider what they did self-defense, you’re completely out of your mind.
Personal attacks. And of course they chased down the guy waving a gun around.
She was walking around with a skimpy outfit, she knew what was going to happen.’
False analogy. Rape is never justified, stopping a gunman is.
Wisconsin is an open carry state.
What might technically be lawful is not always sensible.
Loaded question; it DOESN’T work both ways, especially not when there is only one aggressor.
Showing up to a riot with a gun is aggressive by its nature. Just like if I stood with a gun in front of your house at all hours.
attacking someone unprovoked just because they are armed, especially when legally so, is ALSO never justified
existing while armed is not intrinsically aggressive/provocative, no matter how much you insist it is. Rittenhouse did literally nothing that even remotely merited the murder attempted on him thrice that day.
Waving a gun around is intrinsically aggressive and provocative, no matter how much you insist that it isn’t. Rittenhouse did literally everything wrong that merited the disarming attempt on him thrice that day.
it should be noted that afaik, nobody has died from BLM protestors so a “fear of dying” in the encounter should indicate a deeply troubled mind. So a competent prosecuter could probably have convinced a jury that Kyle’s fears were largely irrational and could have probably stuck manslaughter charges on him.
After all, if you start marching around with a gun in front of your neighbor’s house then shoot him when he approaches you yelling to get off his sidewalk or whatever, its a bit insane, if not premeditated.
Did you read the rest of the thread? I already acknowledged that I was wrong about that part, but they’re saying they can’t get work because of him while still refusing to condemn him. The GoFundMe says he was “involved in a tragic shooting incident,” which is a pretty weasely way to say he killed people.
I also question that it really has anything to do with him. He’s certainly not having any issues making money, and there are a concerning number of people who consider him a hero, or at the very least aren’t bothered by what he did (see the comments on this post for a whole lot of evidence). Surely some of them are hiring.
He shouldn’t have gone there. Being there, being armed, there to protect property, was taken to be provocative by the people that were protesting cops shooting an unarmed man.
But the narrative that we got in the news wasn’t how things actually went down. The first person confronted him and tried to grab his rifle when he wasn’t threatening anyone. The second person that was shot had just chased Rittenhouse down and struck him with a skateboard. The third person was pointing a pistol at Rittenhouse when he was shot in the arm. Source.
Given that he was not directly threatening anyone there, it was a clear-cut case of self-defense. Yeah, I don’t like it that a shitty person walks away, but he walked because he wasn’t guilty of a crime in defending himself. Is he still a right-wing shitstain that’s supposedly too dumb to get into the military? Yeah. But self-defense is a right for everyone.
She didn’t drive him there. It’s been factually proven. Dudes a fucking murderer for sure, but his mom didn’t drive him to kill people. He did that shit on his own.
That’s bullshit. Just more laws that don’t apply to this traitor.
Trump undervalued his properties to the IRS and overvalued them to investors. And now the courts are allowing him to undervalue them so he doesn’t have to face the consequences of his fraud.
Bullshit indeed, but there is not one thing you or I or anyone in this country can do about it. Trump has us all over a barrel, and we're all his puppets, and there is no way forward but to accept his will no matter what else happens. We must start to see him not as a traitor, but as a savior, for who else but a savior could escape so many serious charges.
Well I'm no longer going to be leaving the US, though that was my first plan. Instead I'd gladly stay and watch it burn to the ground around me when trump gets re-elected (and note, it's not even in doubt anymore - he WILL get re-elected).
According to polls published in USA TODAY and on NBC Nightly News, there's a 75% chance Trump actually will be re-elected. People hate him, but see him as the only one who can pull us out of rising inflation.
Hey asswipe you can shove your sick opinions back up your cunty asshole, I don't care about your feedback, and your views have ZERO meaning to anyone ya stupid piece of utter scum.
Yep. I’m almost 50 and have tried my best to help those around me see a better way. I’ve always voted. I did my part, but half the country still wants this shit. So, my wife and I are retiring early, peacing out, and letting ya’ll figure it out for yourselves. Good luck!
It is an option that requires more work and sacrifice than most people are willing to endure. We prioritized saving over consumerism, fixing things over buying new, not having kids, etc. I grew up poor, had no help from my parents (or anyone), and was able to make it. However, a lot has changed since I started to make it even more difficult for people.
US is fucked, but also, what is your comment? It reads like three comments in a trenchcoat pretending to be a real comment…
“Yeah, we called Europe and we said, ‘one European house please, ASAP!’. And then we bought two airplane tickets to Europe - ‘just drop us off in Europe’ we said”
Wtf are you talking about? You start by saying yes there are two justice systems, one for rich and one for poor, then end with we should see this fucking failure of justice as an anointing of a savior?
You can either join the savior and his salvation or be one of those he tramples down into the dust. There won't be any other options.
Not that I'm a huge fan of having to bow down to this POS who I don't particularly like, but it's either that or be eradicated completely. Join or die, my friend - that's the choice you now have to make. There is no other.
If you don't think we're already in Neo-Nazi Germany, open your eyes and look around. Here in Utah, we aren't even allowed to use the internet anymore or to talk in schools about racism or diversity. In fact the Governor just declared immigrants "poisonous scum" and said America was built by white people ordained by God to enslave the rest of humanity. And he said native americans are scumbags.
That's the world I live in every day here, and it's only getting even more restrictive, prohibitive, and full of hate every second of the day.
Well, as a German, I can only point out the parallels between today’s situation and the Nazis’ seizure of power in the Weimar Republic - and urgently warn: don’t do as the Germans did in 1933, be courageous and do everything you can to save what’s left of your democracy. I realize, of course, that the USA has long been a de facto plutocracy in which the population often loses out, but at least there are still certain freedoms. In a fascist autocracy like Nazi Germany was, there are no freedoms whatsoever: Political dissidents, intellectuals and dissenters were systematically and mercilessly persecuted, tortured and ultimately killed - millions fell victim to this inhumane regime.
Despite everything, things are not yet that bad in the USA, but the foundations are being laid. And the political climate in the USA is also frighteningly similar to the situation before the Nazis seized power in Germany: openly fascist rhetoric, a large section of the population that wants a strong leader and turns a blind eye to what that means, many disillusioned people who have already given up in frustration with economic hardship and the failure of politics and, above all, greedy opportunists in business and politics who will literally walk over dead bodies for personal gain (…).
Unfortunately, the fascists are also on the rise again in Germany. That’s why many Germans are taking to the streets to protest against the far right - if only because they want to show and feel that they are not alone in rejecting the inhuman ideology of the fascists.
So in short: please don’t give up yet, but do all you can against the rise of fascism in your country. It is not yet the end of democracy in the USA, but the danger is imminent - a fascist autocracy could very well mean a terror regime that America has never known before. Don’t let that happen!
Isn't he? Everyone here in Utah kisses trump's ass daily and our conservative legislatures are constantly reminded us that trump is the Angel Moroni come back to earth, the literal second coming of christ himself, who will solve all of our problems 100 percent.
Do people really not appreciate simple trolling around here anymore? Everyone’s acting like they think this is serious, and that’s the most disturbing part.
I remember, many years ago before the first time he ran, I read he and his buddy lawyer giuliany were neck deep in shit and Stormy also had a solid case. I was like “that’s it. now he goes to jail.” but lo and behold, here we are and he’s free and running again.
Maybe it’s true what people say: Flying is like falling and missing the ground. (I think it’s based on something Douglas Adams wrote.)
Was that when he was referenced something like “Co-Conspirator #1 who went on to lead a successful campaign to become president of the United States”?
I remember that too and thinking “oh shit, he’s fucked now!” But nope. Our political system is so broken that he really is above the law and consequences. Not sure why we went through with the whole American Revolution thing just to end up in a place where there are figurative kings held to a different standard than the rest of us peasants.
We really need a law that says when you tell the IRS what your property is worth they are allowed to buy it at that price; if they later find out you represented it at a higher value to others.
Eh. This was a pretty political trial. “Over valued his holdings” oh probably a little, but value of real estate isn’t fixed. The bank reps would have to be completely incompetent or maybe they agreed with the valuations.
This could very well indicate resentment of Twitter employees, they were told to change name to X, they tried and it didn’t work, so they did nothing else.
I am very good friends with a trans women who I worked with for a number of years. She is seriously considering leaving the US because of this bullshit. So yes, please vote for Biden.
Also, I hope you son is doing well! It’s a hell of a process.
My best friend is trans and he’s considering doing the same. It’s so bullshit that he has to leave an entire life behind because the conservatwats are so hateful.
It’s slightly comforting to think that after they’ve forced every group out of the country with their hatred and vitriol, they’ll eventually start eating themselves.
I want to leave the US but I honestly don’t know how. I have no idea if I have any skills that’d let me get hired by a non-us company, which is kinda what’s necessary to immigrate to another country, right?
there’s also the idea that you go to a college, possibly a community college, and then transfer to an out of country college for the degree, which I have heard is a great way to be able to live in a country, acclimate, and work from there
The idea that we cannot have real change without some for of revolution, so we should make things go to their extreme, and cause some kind of cultural revolution.
Those are just nihilist. Actual anarchist generally aren’t the fuck shit up kind. Those are generally angsty young teens with very little understanding.
You are however 100% right about lemmy.ml. hexbear and Lemmygrad. They are all Marxist leninist. Which was an ill-conceived transitory authoritarian style anti communist government that was supposed to facilitate the build up to and transition to communism. But not communist itself. Which has failed everywhere it’s ever been tried. Much like capitalism if you go by it’s stated goals and ideals.
They love to blather on and on and on about communism and how great and wonderful it would be. And it would be. But everything they do is actually in opposition to it so they are very much fake/ performatory communists.
To be politely pedantic, while I agree generally, in the defense of nihilists, not all of them want to actively burn it down. They just don’t care and nothing matters. It’s the unique combination of anger and anti-establishment that makes the type of person we are talking about. And if they care enough to burn it down, I’d argue they can’t be a nihilist by definition.
That’s absolutely a fair assessment. My biggest issue was the way anarchism is most commonly misrepresented and used. Of which I absolutely used to be one of those people. So it’s not a dig at anyone in particular. Just trying to help us be a little more accurate in things. But you’re absolutely correct to point out that that isn’t all nihilists either.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about anarchism in general for sure. Much like the term “Liberal,” as every so-called-communist likes to point out to me. Political ideologies are ridiculous in general, as no one actually agrees 100% with any single idea. Why we can’t all agree to stop hating each other, I dunno haha.
I hate that “Marxism-Leninism” refers to the brand of communism and socialism that Stalin practiced. It should be called “Stalinism”. From the little I know about Marx and Lenin is that Marx had some good ideas and while Lenin had some bad policies, he also had a genuine interest in trying to do what was best for Russia. Meanwhile Stalin let millions starve.
Also Marxist-Leninism is doomed to fail imo. I believe that in order for socialism to truly succeed, you must ensure that the world’s leading countries practice socialism; or at least ensure that your country is capable of fulfilling every step in the supply chain for any given good for now and the future, either by itself or via allies. Attempting to do it on your own like Marxist-Leninism suggests, is a road to failure because capitalism will attempt to starve you (and likely succeed at doing so).
Capitalism is inherently opposed to socialism because the true end game of capitalism is for an individual, or group of individuals, to own everything. However, they can’t own everything if a country’s culture is opposed to that form of selfishness. Additionally, the capitalist’s peasants might get funny ideas if they see a country based on mutual goodwill succeeding. Stalin played right into the hands of capitalists. He deserves to have the inherently flawed and doomed-to-fail ideology named after him.
Fuck, I barely got any sleep last night and I can’t tell if I’m being coherent or not. Additionally, now I have a conspiracy theory that this was all intentional. Tying a form of socialism that was oppressive and doomed to fail to Marx and Lenin was an intentional move by capitalists to conflate Stalin’s garbage with a legitimate desire and attempt to create a better world. By doing so, you create the belief that even Lenin and Marx supported oppression and that oppression is therefore inherently a part of socialism and communism. As such, by calling themselves Marxist-Leninists, they are falling into a trap created by capitalists to defame such ideologies like communism and socialism.
Also I wanted to make a comment about how capitalism is like economic heroin or something: extremely enticing and addictive; but I’ve got no clue where to put it.
It’s fair to call it stalinism / maoism etc. And I also dislike associating Marx that closely with them. The Marx parts of Marxism are pretty tough to have issue with. Engles, Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc are where a lot of the backward reductive and damaging stuff comes from. But it’s about hitting them where they live. And these days they identify as ML.
And yeah I agree. Despite making wildly flawed ideology I absolutely believe Engels and Lenin had good intentions. And despite all of them, including Stalin. Russia absolutely had successes. I can’t say it was enough to out weigh the failures. Similar things can be said about China too. Though xi jinping will mark the end of all that.
The last bit, I don’t think I can go in for. If it was capitalists calling them ML and them calling themselves something else then perhaps. But it’s what they largely self identify as. The thing to remember however, is that it’s the ideas that are important. Not necessarily the names. Would Marx want to be associated with future systems based on his concepts? Sure. Would he not want it implemented without his name. That I doubt.
No, it’s people who think accelerating the country into a hyper capitalist fascist hellhole will lead to the accelerated collapse of the capitalist system. Then revolution will bring the promised land to them. Of course they don’t realize that collapse isn’t necessarily guaranteed.
Hey not everyone from ml is a dipshit. Some of us just stumbled into ml because it was a stable and popular instance when we joined.
Hexbear on the other hand? I don’t think you would just accidentally join that place, at least not without getting banned the first time you say something against their pro fascist hive mind.
I’ve been a trans woman for 10 years and an immigrant for much longer. This is one of the worst existential threats I’ve faced. I have had to sit down and discuss serious contingency plans with my partner if he wins because there is no chance I’m sticking around.
I just want to exist dammit. I’m tired of being persecuted for simply existing.
People don’t realize (and some people just outright refuse to admit) that we are in the middle of a genocide of trans people. Trump will make that so much worse.
I wish your son, my daughter’s best friend who is trans, and all the other trans people in this country the best life. That won’t happen if Trump gets in.
We need unions for many reasons, but an employer offering optional housing onsite really isn't one of them. It's not like it's required to rent from Google to work there.
These days, that’s cheaper than a lot of places rent for and you get free maid service. Fucking Google might have accidentally stumbled upon something helpful. And $99 a night is not profitable for the sort of hotel their employees would actually want to stay in, so they still lose!
This is only a temporary promotion. Tge price is not going to stay at $99/night, and it’s not an alternative to rent, but in addition to it. This is not permanent housing, they’re fucking hotel rooms.
Bernie: Here’s a bill that will help literally everyone. People waste less of their lives at work, and productivity goes up massively for the corporate overlords. There is no downside here for anyone.
Unfortunately that’s a fairly naive take that fails to consider how most people work in the US- hourly employees would be fucked by this.
Retail, service, anyone whose not already working 9-5 office jobs; the reality is that they won’t loose pay, but they will loose hours. And you can bet your ass that companies won’t pay more to make up for it.
Yup. These “free market” folks conveniently forget that competition is bolstered when there’s a floor. An impartial referee to call balls, strikes, and fouls. A set of rules everyone has to play by, or they don’t get to play at all.
First off, it needs to be noted that the only mechanism to do that on so large a scale is to increase the minimum wage.
Which is how they did it in ‘38 when the work week went to 44, and in ‘40 when it when to what it is today.
The problem is that company are absolutely going to pass that off to customers (aka, the workers… ultimately.) and so really all you’ve done, effectively, is put far more people onto minimum wage.
Anyone who was above that mimimim? Gets the shaft.
And people who now are on minimum? Working two jobs to pay for everything (like most people in the bottom quarter are already doing anyhow,) so they don’t really see reduced hours anyway.
It’s well meaning and it’d be nice, but it needs to be done differently. Unions are strong now. Stronger than they have been since I’ve been working. Join a union. Make the change yourself; eventually it’ll get normalized without the above problems. (Also, better wages, healthcare, workplace safety and everything else Unions get you.)(don’t tell my boss’s boss that. He’s still buthurt from negotiating a new contract.)
Chances are they’ll pass on the costs, increase the price, anyhow, shrink products, and raise prices even more, and then blame the last three on the first.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted. How would the government mandate a pay raise across the board? The government only has the federal minimum wage lever to play with. Somehow the law would have to say: all hourly workers must be paid 25% more. Would companies just increase prices by 25%?
Now, I’m all for reducing the work week to 32 hours. I’m tired of spending most of the week working and only having to 2 free days (of which one is usually spent doing home chores). But I’m genuinely curious about how this would be implemented without causing massive inflation.
I agree, it has little to do with it. I was just addressing the idea that the federal minimum wage being the only lever to play would not have a massive positive effect on a huge percentage of workers.
The AFL-CIO, which is only demanding a $15/hour minimum wage says that if it kept up with inflation, it would be $24/hour.
Based on that, the bare minimum someone working full-time should be making is a little less than $50,000 a year. And if the government used that ‘only lever to play,’ and it would still be less than the $68k that is needed to ‘live comfortably.’
ive been reading a few things by the AFL-CIO, older stuff, I’d pay attention, though. (And 24 sounds about right.)
I was chatting with the union’s negotiator (technically the enemy, but, whatever. We have a good relationship for that.) now that the new contract is ratified; he’s disappointed because he thought they could get more.
I’m glad the bigwig negotiated they sent out fucked it up every which way. Got my people a much deserved pay raise and stuff.
Seriously, corporations are freaking scared of unions just now. I hope this momentum lasts.
And you’d be wrong. Companies would still be paying them at whatever rate they were paid at. Most jobs don’t come with specifically guaranteed hours, however.
It’s a technicality, yes, but it’s also a very important distinction. They’re not losing pay. They’re losing hours. The consequence is the same; but short of minimum wage increases; there’s no mechanism for the US Government to dictate wages to individual companies. Particularly when they were never party to that contract in the first place.
If you are correct, then the bill won’t work, because it won’t have the support of all the hourly workers.
I’m assuming that Bernie and Co are smart enough to realize that, so they would make sure any bill that they wrote would cover that scenario that you’re describing, and not just waste all of our time.
That’s why I believe the part of the article I quoted earlier is factual, and covers what you’re speaking about.
Bernie is still the only politician I have donated to but to be fair to Biden, bussing was met with violent protests and even black activists criticized it for weakening black communities. There were good reasons to be against that method without being against desegregation.
There were good reasons to be against that method without being against desegregation.
That’s not a fact, it’s an opinion.
One that Biden hasn’t been able to rationalize to Dem voters for decades.
If you want to try, give it a shot. I legitimately believe you might do a better job at it than Biden.
But you’re gonna have to do more than say there was “good reasons” besides people of Bidens age being completely ignorant of psychology.
School busing sped up integration by decades, and when kids grow up in multiracial environments it changes their ingroup determination to not just be “people who look like me”.
We can only change that at a very young age, but it sticks with you for life. Even with busing, the effects were decades away.
If we didn’t have busing, generations of people would have suffered.
So if you and Biden want to argue with that, you’re going to have to put in a lot of effort to throw the last 30 years of psychology
It’s not my opinion. It is the opinion of many black civil rights activists at the time. They argued that spreading out the kids would weaken the ties to the black community. They wanted to make black schools better rather than move kids. They argued that strengthening the black community would be the most effective way to pursue civil rights. Given that black children still get inferior education to whites and black communities are impoverished, they might have been right.
Black leaders were mixed on the practice. Activist Jesse Jackson, NAACP officials and U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm were among those who supported busing efforts and policies. But many Black nationalists argued that focus should instead be placed on strengthening schools in Black communities.
A February 1981 Gallup Poll found 60 percent of Black Americans were in favor of busing, while 30 percent were opposed to it. Among white people surveyed, 17 percent favored busing, and 78 percent were against it.
“It ain’t the bus, it’s us,’’ Jackson told The New York Times in 1981. ‘’Busing is absolutely a code word for desegregation. The forces that have historically been in charge of segregation are now being asked to be in charge of desegregation.’”
So Biden wasnt against school desegregation because he agreed with white supremacists…
You think it was because he agreed with Black supremacists so it’s fine.
Fucking ridiculous man, but if you can’t just take the L this has definitely been worth a block., doesn’t even matter at this point if you’re trolling or legitimately incapable of understanding this shit.
Slow it down there Thanos, just because you can’t personally see a solution to our current predicament doesn’t mean that genocide is the solution. Do you honestly believe that would fix things? Are you a comic book villain?
You decrie brainwashing by the media and assume that you are unaffected, but you are clearly and dangerously mislead into losing all hope for a better world. The latest shift in climate disinformation is away from denialism and towards doomerism, and you seem to have fallen for it hard.
It is not too late. There are attainable solutions. Political change is possible, perhaps even inevitable. There will be consequences for what has already been done, but we can survive them and we will. What might not survive are the institutions that got us to this point, but we can build a better world in their absence. Don’t lose hope, that’s what the oligarchs want.
I know it’s hard to sympathize with those who refused to see reason and allowed the powers that be to bring us to the point of crisis, but it’s important to remember that they too are victims.
I agree with you on almost every point, but I don’t believe we have enough time left to sort it out without removing the obstacles to democratic change - idiot conservatives. I agree that they’re victims too, but this isn’t about grace or forgiveness. This is about problem solving. I don’t think we can achieve any kind of lasting solution as long as there is a significant portion of the American population that want to see other people suffer.
If we citizens don’t apply the pressure, nothing will happen.
And if your cynical about doing that, try it anyway, just as an experiment, to see what happens. Hell, even make a YouTube video about your experience doing so, for content.
Just say "Please let my representative know that I am in favor of the Bernie Sanders bill (Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act) for a 32 hour work week."
It’s just a phone call. A 32 hour work week is worth a single phone call, right?
Maybe be the change you want to see in the world instead of bitching, then.
edit: go ahead and keep downvoting me, when the right does finally manage a coup they’ll be the only ones with any guns you stupid motherfuckers. For now, the 2nd amendment is your right – you want to forgo it until they take it away from you (and only you), be my guest.
I’m pro-gun but anti-2A precisely because of fuckers like you who insist we can’t do anything about this stuff because 2A so we just have to live with mass shootings.
Nope if 2A is standing in the way of sensible regulation, then get rid of it. Then I’ll fight for reasonable laws around gun ownership. 2A is the problem.
Bingo, license (no test just who you are where you live like a DL) register (every firearm) and own a fucking tank of you want, I don’t care. The biggest issue is you can pretty easily get ahold of one without anyone knowing you have one so the thought someone could get away is much more pervasive.
Not from the US but isn’t it like that US Citizens do not have to register their current place of living? If true I think they could get a grip of the gun madness by fixing that problem.
They could couple permission for buying guns and ammo to have the buyer have a registered residency and showing their ID which would be checked against a federal database which logs the amount of guns and ammo bought.
If a buyer is reaching some tresholds they’d have to ask for a permit and give some convincing reasons why they need them. Especially when they want to buy AR’s or other heavy weaponry.
When set in effect, every US citizen has to register their current weapons. After a grace period, owning unregistered weapons and getting caught will get the buyer a ban for owning weapons and having to re-apply for permissions after some time. Getting caught multilple times is a perma ban.
Every US citizen should have the right to buy guns and ammo to protect themselves even if they don’t have a permanent residency. Those could be allowed to buy a handgun, also logged in the federal DB with their ID or SSN.
Everyone who wants a permit to buy guns needs to complete a training from a state agency.
That long-ass plan for a better world would see the first major roadblock with the refusal to register their residency by at least 50% of the US-population, right? And it could also be that many left leaning, dems or libertarians would give that idea a hard pass.
So yeah…probably every part of this plan collides with the US idea of individual freedom. Take a look at Switzerland maybe.
That’s the idea. Not on ammo though, reloading is better for the environment so let’s not impede that.
No. That’s a search, you can’t do that in the United States.
That’s the idea.
That’s the idea.
Nope. You have to offer incentives to businesses so they want to make people do it or they won’t sell it, then it’s a business meeting a business decision not the government imposing it’s will. I mean it still is but most people over here are not huge on critical thinking.
Probably, so you incentiveize it. Again then it’s people sneaking a couple dollars from the government, not the government imposing it’s will.
Not really, people are just dumb and there’s a lot of money involved in keeping it controversial. You can literally watch profits of the big ammo manufacturers rise and fall every 4 -8 years they’re not going to let that go easily.
Sensible regulations would be rubber bullets for newly minted firearms owners. Keep it empty, but if the day comes that you think about going on a mass shooting spree, you’ll probably change your mind when you remember that you’ll be loading rubber bullets and have to explain yourself after you’ve shot someone.
The point here is that civilians aren’t going to defeat the US military, full stop. Whether sane people have guns or fascists have guns, only the military matters
Might wanna check the actual combat statistics there bud. Shit Vietnam was also a professional, well-supplied army with a decade of combat experience against the French and massive infrastructure advantages.
This is home turf, not foreign soil that’s attempting to be occupied peacefully. Plus, you’d have 50% of a country, give or take, readily willing to turn you in or attack you themselves, and 0 logistics infrastructure.
It’s amazing to me this take is still common with people when it’s so easily laughed at.
If you wanna go hide in the woods with your buddies, you can do that without trying to overthrow the government.
I was responding to your previous point that a standing military is all that matters against an occupied civilian force. I don’t think that really bears up to scrutiny in historical terms.
Also, I don’t know where you got off thinking I’m trying to LARP as a militia member, but nice strawman with absolutely zero background to support that conclusion…
It’s fine. I know there’s a lot of heightened emotions and frustrations in this thread already, so I probably should have just used my better judgement by saying nothing. I knew what you meant with your initial statement, which I also generally agree with.
In hindsight, I think I was expressing my own personal frustration with the US involvement in those two conflicts which ultimately just lead to more dead civilians and US service members rather than approximating anything close to resolution of a justifiable conflict. Add that to the current situation unfolding in the Middle East, and I was just hip firing some stupid quippy retort where it wasn’t needed. So, again, my bad.
We absolutely had the military capability to wipe Vietnam and Afghanistan off the goddamn map and delete their populations and wildlife from existence if ordered to do so. The politicians back home said no, and made us withdraw. We have thousands of nuclear reentry vehicles standing ready, and we are trained to set condition 1SQ when ordered, no questions asked, without knowing the target package. I challenge you to survive a hundred Hiroshimas per warhead, times several thousand.
See my other comments below. I’m not looking to have an argument about nuclear war with a nuclear submariner. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail and whatnot.
I think the more important point is that people form militias to protect themselves, and carrying a weapon means considering bad thoughts and being aware of them, the same way that an ex drug user or addict practicing abstinence consistently needs to exert a degree of self discipline.
If you ask me, owning a gun just makes violent assholes have a shorter fuse. Think about it, have you ever carried a stick or a knife and thought that carrying it meant something? Now you can be more assertive, but the risk of accidentally shooting people or just flying off the handle and shooting someone suddenly becomes a real risk.
A great test would be to give recent licensed gun owners three rubber bullets to use. When you get around to firing it after losing your shit you’ll know that you really lost your cool.
Military has equally as many progressives, moderates and centrists who absolutely will not tolerate these people. Source: I’m a submariner who works with nuclear weapons. You try something nutty, we can and will put your face into the concrete, no matter your political affiliation. Basics of the Personnel Reliability Program, the Command Managed Equal Opportunity Program, and Nuclear Weapons Security.
…Support for Trump, among other politicians. As shown by the video, Card liked tweets from high-profile conservative figures such as Donald Trump Jnr., Tucker Carlson, Dinesh D’Souza. He also engaged with publications from former house speakers Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan, as per the video.
I think that’s the same error in judgement that leads the vast majority of motorists to believe their driving skills are above average. Forgot what it’s called.
Which is the key problem. Everyone is a “responsible gun owner” and “good guy with a gun”… until sometimes they suddenly aren’t anymore. At which point your protection is what was person able to keep under normal circumstances aka what they had in their possession on the moment they had a mental snap.
Was it a semi-auto shoot as fast as your finger pulls rifle with potentially hundreds of rounds in quick swap magazines or do they have a manual action hunting rifle or shotgun with fixed magazine, that need to be manually reloaded.
Do they have a pistol with again potentially hundreds of rounds of quick reload ammunition or don’t or maybe a target pistol with fixed magazine.
That is why places around the world have magazine and type restrictions, since they exactly know “checking backgrounds isn’t fool proof and now amount of background checking helps again sudden newly emerging situation after the checks have been done”.
Sure that 5 round moose hunting rifle will absolutely wreck say those 5 people, but one can’t exactly run amock shooting around endlessly with moose rifle. Damage limitation. 5 dead people is better situation, than 22 dead people. As cold calculating as that is.
There was a study published from data from the last like… 10 years, I believe, that show that people with guns are more likely to run away, and people WITHOUT guns, are more likely to jump in and try to stop the shooter.
So ya. These good guys with guns are just pussies that never actually use them for good.
Ya. I live in Canada, and I’ve never felt the need to own a gun. We have a TON of hunting guns here, but I think the fact we don’t allow open carry, changes the thought process of gun owners here, and we don’t see them as weapons to point at other people. They are more so seen as a tool for a hobby, like a fishing rod is used for fishing.
And honestly, if you avoid Toronto, violence in general is really low. Toronto is just… special.
This guy is exactly the kind of person that the GOP considers a “good guy with a gun”. He is a mentally ill veteran firearms instructor. Sounds like a boilerplate Trump supporter. Exactly who they want to have more guns.
It’s even worse, GOP would want this guy to be an elementary school teacher as a “solution” to the school shootings. Broken, selfish, heartless cowards
The real question is, of those ≈35 cases where an armed civilian stopped a shooter, how many did the cops then shoot the “good guy with a gun?” I know it’s happened, and I think at least twice.
Mass shootings themselves are a rounding number, rounding numbers are what we’re discussing. Also helps that they almost always choose gun free zones “for no reason” instead of “gun guaranteed zones.” Almost like they don’t want armed people shooting at them.
And one or two, but just because the cops make an error, doesn’t mean the person was wrong to save all those people. That’s also why you’re told to put the gun away once you’ve secured the situation, and you’re supposed to give a visual description of the shooter when you call it in. You really think it’s better to just let people cause whatever harm they want to than for them to stop the violent attacker? Even if it’s just a guy with a knife who can “only kill less people than a guy with a gun,” “if it even stops just one” right?
I’m guessing you think that mental illness is the root cause and also that you don’t think a dime should go towards a universal healthcare plan that includes caring for the mentally ill.
Actually you are the one work the false equivalency.
You know why your comparison is idiotic? Because it is comparing a mountain (gun violence) to a mole hill (vehicular homicide). If what you said was at all accurate, people would be using those methods significantly more often in other developed countries. Guess what? They don’t. They are used at basically the same rates as here in the US. The major difference is that those countries have much guns per capita.
So again stop pretending like the comparison is even close to a good one or that you have some sort of gotcha.
Japan and South Korea, for instances, are certainly not known for their great mental health. Guess what they don’t have? No constant mass shootings, no trucks being used to mow people down, no constant fertilizer bombs.
Considering the same group of people who fights gun control legislation tooth and nail is also very much responsible for the lack of mental health services (and general sorry state of health care) in our country, it sounds to me like you don't really want to solve the gun problem nor the mental health problem you predictably deflect to.
And yes, I'm assuming you are a Republican. If you aren't, try not acting like one and folks won't make that mistake.
R 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.)
Reagan undercuts funding on mental health, resulting in the closure of mental health institutions nationwide:
It’s also like saying cancer is not the only way you can die and pointing to something like syphilis also killing people. Sure they both kill people but one kills way more people and is much less avoidable.
The mass shootings are the symptom of a larger mental health problem. Here in Canada where we have much more gun control we recently memorialized one of our most deadly attacks, The Toronto van attack which killed 11 and wounded 15 (some critically). How is gun control going to help the fact that some people out there want to kill as many lives as possible?
Are you pointing to a single incident from 5 years ago as evidence that non-gun mass murders are common in Canada? Do you think that when gun control is enacted, all the people that would have committed murder via gun would instead commit as much murder using improvised weapons? If so, can you show any data that bears this out?
Even though other methods of murder can be devised, restricting access to the easiest, fastest method is effective in reducing murder.
Canada also has a health care system where mentally ill folks can get help.
Canada is also less population dense and only has roughly 1/10th of the US population.
Even though other methods of murder can be devised, restricting access to the easiest, fastest method is effective in reducing murder.
The per-capita rate while a useful tool is not going to compare the effects of mass shootings. You’re more than likely talking about handguns in this context which are responsible for a lot more deaths overall than AR-style rifles.
Switzerland has lots of guns but not mass shootings, and has a much lower murder rate. Finland similarly has lots of guns but not mass shootings.
The bigger issue is that half of the US government doesn’t want to fund mental health programs, red flag laws, etc. There are some models we could follow other than “ban guns” or “ban assault rifles” … but dealing with rampant mental health issues would help a lot. It’s just a shame the Republicans will parrot “mental health” but then not vote for bills that will actually do anything to improve mental health.
I hate this about lemmy. It looks like youve been banned/deleted/something from the thread. So now all your comments and all replies have disappeared from the conversation.
I think I said this before, but in case I didn’t: I agree that the mental health side of this equation is also critical. That doesn’t change the fact that the gun control side of the equation is a major factor. Also, if you’re going to cherry pick Switzerland stats, then don’t forget to also look at their gun control laws, which are much stronger than the US (and it appears Canada, although I’m less sure there). You seem to want to cherry pick data to show that it’s all mental health and guns aren’t a significant part of the problem. Good luck with that.
I don’t think it was me, but the other person who was acting like a jerk… Which is unfortunate.
I suspect we agree on more than we disagree here, I’m just sick of people who “can’t vote for Democrats because they want to take my guns.”
I also can’t dismiss maybe there are some benefits to having a well armed population.
I don’t expect to ever hit 0, maybe you do. But, I think we should be able to do much better than several public places shot up by someone who’s out of their mind per year. The fastest way towards that to me is effectively universal health care, research, appropriate treatment, and maybe even investment in some new technology/unexplored mitigation strategy.
That’s not the point at all. The point is that there are mentally ill people who want to kill and they’ll find a way. We’ve got a record number of people that are seemingly in this category as of late.
In prior decades mass shootings like this were not issues like they are today, the first AR-15s were available in the late 1950s. You can find “mass shootings” going back into the start of the 20th century, but they’re not the same mass shootings we’re seeing today. They’re much more targeted violence.
Now… It’s “I’m going to kill you because you’re at Walmart(?)”
Keep in mind the US has roughly 10x the population. If we want to do an apples oranges comparison of the two countries … that’s potentially 10 van incidents in the US in place of mass shootings.
But that’s not a fair comparison either because Canada has an accessible health care system.
If your argument is we need to address mental health, I'm not going to argue with you there. But guess which party in the US is described by all four of these bullet points:
gutted our mental health infrastructure
Consistently votes down legislation to fund investment in mental health infrastructure
Consistently opposes any measures to implement Red Flag laws or other attempts to make it harder to own guns
Consistently deflects to mental health being the problem whenever we have more people die
While they are refusing to budge on either of the two middle bullet points, people are just dying.
So I have little sympathy for folks who defend guns with the premise that mental health is the real problem. Fine, let's say it is, doesn't matter because you are preventing us as a nation from addressing either of those issues.
I have voted a pretty much straight blue ticket in all elections since 2016. I also have friends that guns are a very important issue for though, and I don’t think the Democratic party is getting anywhere being the “party out to get the guns.”
It’s not really the same… There are people that like guns for a variety of reasons and 99% of them will never take a life. Their only reason for existing isn’t to go on a murderous rampage.
This was the example where I just said “you know what, banning guns isn’t going to fix it”
Another person replied about an attack with a van in Canada.
I think we genuinely need to treat this as a mental health crisis, but like for real. Not the Republican “thoughts and prayers” mental health crisis, but a real thought out use of resources to figure out why so regularly we have people in our society that want to kill a bunch of random people.
We should also do more background checks and close loopholes, even though that wouldn’t have helped here.
It would have helped here. This guy was previously committed for mental health issues. That should have required him to give his guns to a friend or whoever for safe keeping.
If I cut my hand I use a bandaid. Guess you just bleed?
There is no single cause or single solution. Calling for one is too say the problem is unsolvable. Gun control is part of the solution if not all of it.
There is no single cause or single solution. Calling for one is too say the problem is unsolvable. Gun control is part of the solution if not all of it.
No, you’re absolutely right. As soon as we repeal the 2nd, outlaw and confiscate all the guns, all shootings will immediately stop and never ever happen again. It’s simple really.
There is no single cause or single solution. Calling for one is too say the problem is unsolvable. Gun control is part of the solution if not all of it.
If those were just as deadly and easy, people would be using them. A fertilizer bomb can easily kill the person making it and the spread of a truck is significantly slower and more obvious than a bullet.
You are correct that there are multiple ways to kill people. But the other methods are not as likely to kill and are harder to operate effectively. There is no comparison so stop acting like there is one.
Are you this dumb? Seriously? If you intent is to kill someone, it is significantly easier to do with a gun than with a fucking truck. If you miss with a truck, you think you can just ask the people to wait a bit while you back up and try to hit them again? How many hours do you think you can get in with one truck vs with one gun? You miss with a gun, it is easy to fire again.
As for a fertilizer bomb, it is not like the Anarchist Cookbook makes it out to be. Lots of people die while making explosives. Many die trying to set them off. How many people die purchasing a gun? How many people die using a gun compared to the number of bullets expended from guns. Going to guess the death ratio is a hell of a lot lower than fertilizer bombs.
You know that nobody has ever claimed it’s the only way a nutjob would kill people
But for whatever reason, it’s vastly more common to murder.people with a gun than with a truck or fertilizer bomb.
Coincidentally trucks are licensed, registered, and highly regulated. And while I’m sure you can get around it, the sale of ingredients that can be used in bombs are generally tracked/regulated as well.
What a stupid fucking argument. Gun violence is a sheer numbers game. The ease of access and use of firearms is a massive problem, and when you combine that with the serious socio-economic/political problems in this country that is how you end up with this on-going violence.
Yeah, there are other ways for people to commit violence such as the examples you provided, but they aren’t used at the same scale or with the same frequency. Why? Well, partly because building a bomb is a lot more complicated than buying a gun. Does it still happen? Yes, but again with FAR less frequency.
Your argument that because there are other ways to commit violence that we should not do anything to combat gun violence is just so tired and misguided. We should do something where we can to combat problems that we know how to deal with. It isn’t a fucking mystery how you limit gun violence. You need to limit the number of guns.
Look at smoking as an example. Everyone knows that smoking causes cancer now. There are still people who choose to smoke, but it has become much less prominent thanks to social enforcement of not smoking in public places among other things. It took a generation, but millions of lives have been saved thanks to the slow roll of common sense limitations and restrictions on tobacco products.
Quit using these fallacious arguments, and just say what you really mean:
“I don’t personally care about people who die to gun violence because my personal desire to continue owning guns supercedes the need for any common sense gun reforms.”
Second of all, I only put the words there that you were too disingenuous to utter yourself because you would rather use fallacious arguments than to own your position outright.
argue against the ones I’m actually saying you stupid shit.
I did that too, but you didn’t want to engage with that. I think that says a lot about the quality (or lack there of) in your arguments.
Do you think shooting up a public place is the action of a rational, sane individual?
No.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this country’s healthcare system, especially it’s mental healthcare, could maybe use some improvement?
Yes.
Do you think that the rights of innocent, sane individuals should be violated just because someone else unrelated to them committed a crime?
This is a bad argument. I never said “ban guns” because I know that is never going to happen in this country. However, I am also aware there are other ways to combat the problem like mandatory registration, increasing the age to buy firearms, better red flag laws, and many other enforcement options.
I’m sorry you don’t like the truth, but the truth is that our existing regulations would work just fine if we actually had a functioning healthcare system that could, I dunno, maybe help these people before they go off the deep end. Crazy, I know.
Two things can need improvement at the same time. We can have better gun laws, and better healthcare. They are not mutually exclusive. Only knuckle-dragging half-wits think these problems aren’t interrelated, and therefore a multi-pronged approach to solving them would obviously be necessary.
Then again, maybe you’d prefer another Oklahoma City instead.
More fallacious argumentation from you. What a surprise. This doesn’t even justify engaging with.
These are really great ideas. If only we had manditory registration, a high age restriction for guns (why not 35? That’s the same age you have to be president right?), and really strong red flag laws (seems like we need to take the guns from people in the military, they don’t seem to be fit to have guns), there’s a chance this shooting wouldn’t have happened.
What gun control would stop this? 95% of our violence via guns is from handguns. 85+% is drug and gang related, 2/3rds is suicides. Shootings like this are a rounding error in the 40k a year deaths, and when compared to the police killing 1k~ a year (yes 1 in 40 of those 40k is from the police) shootings like this aren’t an issue. They just get views because they cause more carnage. An AWB and background checks won’t stop this. Our society is breaking down and it’s not the firearms that are the root cause.
I think the point you seemed to have missed is that building a fertilizer bomb is not as simple as obtaining a gun in many places in the US. There are no specific fertilizer bomb stores. There are no fertilizer bomb “shows”. They cannot be reused, you would have to build a new one every time…unlike a gun. They are illegal everywhere because they are bombs, and and every time you make a new one, you risk blowing yourself up first…which is a great feature!
Running a truck into a crowd, I mean sure, but I doubt you’d take out, say, 20 (just going off of what the current number of dead is in Maine), or 60 (Las Vegas) people. The Boston bombing “only” killed 3 people, so yeah sure I guess I’d prefer a relatively few people to take the time to make one and, assuming they didn’t fuck up, sure, I guess some innocent people could die here and there. It would suck, but I like trying to minimize easily preventable deaths. People escape from prison, too, but most don’t, and so we don’t just throw our hands up and say “oh well, guess we won’t investigate” every time that happens.
And I guess you could run a truck into an elementary school classroom somehow and manage to mow down 19 kids, but I really doubt it. I don’t have anything to compare that to, unlike…well yeah there’s been a lot of those in schools to look at over the past 20 or so years, so pick one.
It’s interesting that you bring up McVeigh, not too long ago I finished the book “Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism” by Jeffrey Toobin. It’s fantastic, highly recommend.
While he did have numerous weapons, his major beef was with the federal government, and it took him years to become as radicalized as he did. There were also other factors, like him failing out of a military special forces class, so he went awhile between jobs and sleeping at friends’ places just to make ends meet. And he was upset over Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Eventually he was able to convince Terry Nichols to help him, but quite a few told him to get lost before Nichols agreed. But he definitely already had plenty of guns if he had wanted to do something before OKC (spoiler alert, he is a “person of interest” in at least one, an infant), but he didn’t. He wanted to make a statement. And we haven’t seen anything on that scale other than 9/11 and maybe Boston (if you count straight up terrorism). So yeah, let’s do it. Seems like we already have people who want to make enough of a statement that they make bombs and kill people, in addition to all of the guns in this country.
I’d be cool with making at least one of those options much less accessible.
I’m genuinely sorry that you’re so stupid and afraid. Having poor education, no good role models and lack of support from friends and family is a pretty devastating combination. Maybe as you get older you’ll grow out of being the way you are.
You’re in denial. Stop being in denial. Seriously.
There’s a reason why you can’t buy bombs in the bomb store. These things are professionally designed to explode and kill as many people as possible.
Yet, you can go and buy an AR-15 or worse in a gun store. A weapon professionally designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible.
This is an almost entirely American problem. It’s not like the US is more mentally ill than every other developed country in the world. What distinguishes the US is the easy access to weapons. Take the tools of these killings away.
It doesn’t matter. Not what you say or how many people get slaughtered because of their powertripping fantasies.
The last time I argued with these folks, it was on r/Europe I think. Besides the rabid antics their arguments were…interesting? My favourite was „Imagine needing another man to protect your home“. Some time later one of them, a young English man, even became famous. By killing his mother and a couple of others. And of course it was a super incel with a multitude of mental health issues.
The point I’m trying to make is, they don’t care. Or at the very least they are deluded to a point that they don’t see what damage it does.
“The weapon believed to have been used in the attack was a sniper rifle with .308 caliber bullets, and it was purchased legally this year, officials said.”
“Maine court records show that a man named Robert Card who was born on the same date as the person of interest was charged with speeding in 2001 and 2002. No other criminal records were listed in the state’s electronic court records system or in several other public records databases.”
But also:
“It added that law enforcement said Card ‘recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.’
The bulletin said Card was reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer and then released. NBC News has not been able to independently verify the bulletin’s statements about Card’s history.”
In previous incidents, people committed to mental health facilities didn’t have it turn up on their background check unless it was ordered by a judge. That needs to change.
I’m seeing varying reports that he was also convicted of domestic abuse, but this link shows no such charges.
10 million were tortured and shoved into ovens and gas chambers in Germany. That blood is on the hands of gun control supporters.
86 people were murdered and 434 injured with a rental truck in Nice, France. More than any other mass shooting in history. The tools are not the problem. Indiscriminate murder is incredibly easy and will remain so regardless of what laws you pass. The only thing you take away is the ability for individuals to defend themselves.
Guns have been an American pastime for as long as America has been around and yet only in the last ~30 years did we begin to see a rise in crimes of this type.
This guy was former military and it sounds like he was hallucinating. Better mental healthcare could have prevented this tragedy. Along with I’m sure a myriad of other, more difficult solutions.
A truck is not designed specifically to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible. Most firearms are. This type of firearm certainly is.
You can’t sit in a hotel room in Las Vegas, hundreds of yards from a crowd, and kill 60 people and wound more than 400 with a truck or a knife. Very different tools.
And I really don’t care about your gun “pastime” or “rights.” I care about getting my kids safely home from school and how having 5-year-olds do active shooter drills. Insanity.
A truck is not designed specifically to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible. Most firearms are. This type of firearm certainly is.
And yet it does the job all the same. That’s the whole point.
And I really don’t care about your gun “pastime” or “rights.”
I’m sure it was intentional but you missed the point.
Did you even read my comment? Try throwing that truck from a hotel room in Vegas and see how many people it kills. It does not do the same job and it’s not designed to do the same job.
I don’t agree with Helen, but their point stands. The truck did complete the intended action of executing the 84 people all the same. That being said, there are more stop gaps for a reckless driver (bollards are everywhere in the US). Stopping someone with a loaded trigger is a lot harder. I think the France situation was exceptional and not a standard road rage incident/attack. What would need to happen to have a fair assessment is compare the per capita fatality from road rage incidents to armed attacks.
It happened in Berlin at the Breitscheidplatz in 2016 on a christmas fair too where 12 people were murdered by an islamist with a truck. Since these events I feel I’ve seen a lot more concrete roadblocks capable to stop trucks here in populated areas in european cities.
One: No armed militia is going to stop the US 7bn dollar military apparatus on home territory. Don’t bring up Vietnam. Don’t bring up Afghanistan. If you think gravy seals navy is anything compared to the Viet Cong you are deluded.
Two: using the France terrorist road vehicle attack as a counter is disingenuous use of stats/numbers. You can’t compare a singular attack to the average gun based attacks in the US. What you would do -if you really cared to compare them- is take the average per capita road rage incident or vehicle based murders and compare them to the gun related mass shootings / deaths. You can control for many factors too (time frames, region, age, etc). Something about guns being readily available makes them more likely to be used. We have millions of people driving and only so many intentional terrorist attacks using vehicles.
One: No armed militia is going to stop the US 7bn dollar military apparatus on home territory.
It’s a tired argument I’m not interested in taking up again, but the answer is yes, they can. The military didn’t drop bombs on Waco.
You can’t compare a singular attack to the average gun based attacks in the US.
I didn’t. I compared it to every mass shooting in the history of the country. The moral of the story (since you missed it) is that you can ban guns and it won’t stop people from just using something else when they want to hurt large groups of random people.
Something about guns being readily available makes them more likely to be used.
Which is precisely why “gun deaths” and “gun violence” is a terrible metric. Even if you could theoretically take them all away, they’d just use something else (like a rental truck). Notice a theme here?
Yes. The theme is your inability to understand stats. If cars, which are more readily available than guns are able to cause more damage every shooter would go for that but reality is guns are easier. Sure, if they’re determined they will find a way, but people tend to go for the easiest path. Deterrents tend to slow the process as studies have shown. That’s why looking at stats is so useful for understanding circumstances and deterrents. That’s if you really wanted to have an unbiased honest conversation.
Waco is not serving your argument. Firstly, the military was not involved. Second, we’re talking 4 ATF agents lost compared to 76 adults. Soooo…I don’t see the relevance. The Xbox gravy seals is not going to live up to it’s expectations. Shit, is proud boys the best example of the 2a crowd because they look like they can’t run a mile either (that’s must my opinion though, maybe the photos are deceiving).
…what stats? You mean stats of the most successful mass murders? I think that belongs to trucks and planes.
If cars, which are more readily available than guns are able to cause more damage every shooter would go for that but reality is guns are easier.
Guns are just what they see on TV. Lots of people use cars, bombs or whatever else. In the case of France they didn’t have guns, but it obviously didn’t stop them.
Waco is not serving your argument. Firstly, the military was not involved.
Uuuuhhh but that WAS my argument…
Second, we’re talking 4 ATF agents lost compared to 76 adults
It doesn’t matter. No one is keeping score. The point is they stood up for themselves and gave the ATF a fuckin’ helluva time. Wanna take a poll on how many armed citizens there are vs. ATF agents? Or even the entirety of the US military?
Yea the military was never involved. So it has nothing to do with my initial point. Buck and Chuck are not taking down the US army. I don’t know why we got sidetracked with it.
WACO negotiations took 53 days, but MOVE was given a day to leave before two bombs were dropped in the middle of rowhouses in Philadelphia 😂 arming yourself to discourage the government works way better when the government is already favorable to your cause.
I believe the point they are making is that “sure guns are the easiest path until you ban guns, then something else (seemingly cars is suggested) would become the easiest path and therefore would be ‘switched to’ by those wishing to cause violence, as their violent ideation was not dealt with merely the tool was, so now the tool has changed.”
I.e, most people hammer in nails with a hammer becuse it’s the easiest path, but if you ban hammers and I need this nail in this wood, I guess I’ll use the back of my wrench. Sure, it isn’t as good but it’ll work just fine. I wouldn’t say “oh well nothing can be built, guess I won’t build shit,” if I’m significantly determined to get that nail in I’ll do everything in my power to do so including using tools not exactly meant for the job but that’ll work.
One could make the argument that “at least it takes me longer to build the thing,” or “you’ll be able to build less things,” but that is only true assuming I downgrade to a wrench. I could make my own hammer easily, or I could upgrade to a nail gun (in this analogy I guess that’d be a pressure cooker and some nails Boston Marathon style.)
They do not seem to be saying “cars are more effective than guns,” imo, though it seems to be taken that way by (possibly you and) others in this thread.
The research shows that deterrents work. The more there are in place, the less likely the acts are going to be committed. That’s why gun owners have such a high success rate with suicide. It’s much easier. You can all keep insisting that the attackers will switch to the next best thing but if that was the case, every other country in the world would have an equal amount of murder sprees, just committed by cars instead? Reality shows that mass killings in developed countries happen predominantly in the US. Why is that?
Sure, suicide is easier with guns, but Japan demonstrates quite well that they are hardly a prerequisite. Guns are banned in Japan and so, to the other commenter’s point, they find another way to achieve their goals. Guns aren’t even statistically the most effective, drinking on train tracks is (or doing fentanyl on the train tracks, hit ya with the 2x.)
You can all keep insisting that the attackers will switch to the next best thing but if that was the case, every other country in the world would have an equal amount of murder sprees, just committed by cars instead?
Sure if you don’t account for any other differences between countries like mental health or other social services, or culture, or anything. Unfortunately in reality it is rarely that black and white, there are other differences.
The studies I refer to use local groups for control and not other nations. It is worthwhile looking up the studies.
Absolutely there is more nuance, I was responding to the person that brought up the Paris truck attack. All things combined, the deterrents are what seem to have the most effect.
Sure, but deterrents also have to be effective. Simply banning assault rifles for instance will just transfer it to the already-more-often-used handguns. Background checks are already a thing, unfortunately the Gov won’t give gun owners access to NICs for private sales (though they’ve been begging for decades, and that would help), but the people who pull these shootings are always some shit like this where they should have kept him IVC’d (which federally, legally, disqualifies him from firearms ownership and he should have had them confiscated and the IVC reported to NICs, already all laws people just didn’t do their job), or steal the guns from someone, or just are able to squeak through with a clean background. And some things like mental health checks are already a thing with the IVC but tbh I think things like “no guns for people with PTSD” sounds pretty fucked up even if that would help, people with PTSD have rights too.
I agree. I firmly believe something like universal background checks and closing the private sales loophole would be a step in the right direction. Again, these aren’t intended to be perfect solutions, they are just meant to slow it down. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of progress.
Suicide is definitely faster with guns. I wouldn’t call it easier. You can take yourself out quietly, cleanly and peacefully with stuff you can buy over the counter at any pharmacy on the planet.
No, before you ask, I won’t post specifics here on how to do it. If you are considering ending your life, please get help. If you are in a country that allows for medical euthanasia, please work with them rather than take your life on your own.
That’s cute. Hamas is armed to the teeth and well organized. How’s it going for them? It’s not even the US military but the IDF. I’d really like to see Derrick put down his Xbox controller and get to it.
True. That’s why we shouldn’t compare US suicidality to cultures that are quite different and use similar cultures for control when evaluating stats. For instance, I wouldn’t look at the success rates of building a Starbucks in Mogadishu to long island. They are too different.
The “nazi gun control supported the holocaust” argument has been debunked
No, it hasn’t. Several people have provided their opinions on the matter. Certainly biased opinions. It can’t be “debunked” with anything less than a time machine and a militia the size that would make the NRA blush.
Frtuermore, gun control supporters of today are not the same as NAZI gun control supporters - who disarmed Jews.
Doesn’t matter if they’re the same or not. Only thing that matters is whether the people are disarmed. Regimes change.
The fucking 1% of Germans who were jewish, who were forcefully disarmed were not going to avoid getting genocided by remaining armed or trying to purchase more arms.
“… It is preposterous to argue that the possession of firearms would have enabled them to mount resistance against a systematic program of persecution implemented by a modern bureaucracy, enforced by a well-armed police state, and either supported or tolerated by the majority of the German population.” - Alan E. Steinweis, NYT Source
Your arguments so far are that people saying this are obviously biased. If we assume those persecuted could have gained firearms, armed themselves and formed a highly organized militia - all while facing road blocks at each and every turn - do you really think this militia could have kept a genocide from occurring?
Yup, you’re right, because millions of people have owned guns legally for hundreds of years, it’s their fault and blood is on their hands for this mass shooting.
Your past failure to learn from these continued atrocities is your complicity. Your current preference to protect the tools of violence over lives is your complicity. Your future vote to keep the status quo even as history repeats itself is your complicity.
Yup my failure to learn is my complicity, it’s all my fault. You sure know a lot about me. I’m going to need a few to come up with a better reply though, I’ve been coughing up straw all day.
Guns three hundred years ago were only slightly more dangerous than a guy with a rock and a mean your mama so fat joke. It isn’t hundreds of years it’s like 150 years.
I’d rather be shot with a modern hollow point today with modern medicine than shot with ball ammo and get the medical care from 300 years ago, but that’s just me.
Yes it is literally just you. You are the only person on earth gaming out situations where you have a choice between getting shot 300 years ago or shot today.
Literally not even remotely relevant to what the conversation was but go off.
I’d also rather get hit with a semi truck today with modern medicine than get run over by a horse and carriage in 1840.
But I don’t see what that has to do with the fact that a semi truck traveling at max speed can level a small building vs a carriage just kinda flattening it’s own horses on impact.
Agreed, but we haven’t been enforcing red flag laws consistently since people start bitching about “mah rites” whenever you try to disarm someone threatening to kill their ex-GF.
Most of these laws, and most of the historic gun control in the US, is really intended to be used to keep guns from the “wrong sort” of people, and that means leftists and brown people generally. Crazy white guys were never the target of any prior firearms legislation or enforcement mechanism. That’s really the core of the problem here.
The referenced law isn’t “red flag laws,” those are something else in which simply reporting “my roomate or ex said bad things, proof? No why would I need that, take the guns first due process second, you heard Trump!”
Problem is, people do have rights, and as such before you can violate them you have to actually have a reason, like “them being involuntarily commited for hearing vioces and expressing homicidal ideation.”
Red flag laws are written in such a way that your roomate can call them on you because he’s mad you ate the last Oreo™, so the cops come and take your right to own guns after a secret hearing you weren’t invited to, but it’s ok because you will have the almost impossible opportunity to prove “nuh uh” in court 1 year after the date of arbitrary confiscation, unfortunately by then the cops may have already “destroyed” (read: stolen) the property they’re now supposed to return so even if you do win that case: Oh well, no punishment for the cops, they can shoot innocent people with impunity, you think they’ll get talked to for theft?
Of course that gets pushback, just like any other bad idea Trump supported (albeit from a different group in this case). Most people are however fine with the law we already have that could have prevented this, problem is people need to do their goddamn job and should have taken his shit/input his commital to NICs.
Can you find any precedent of someone getting red-flagged for something as simple as taking the last Oreo? From what I understand, there is a burden of proof on red-flag laws, it usually takes a judge to issue the order to confiscate. Cops are not given unilateral power to disarm someone without any procedure.
I like how you say this…
Problem is, people do have rights, and as such before you can violate them you have to actually have a reason…
…And then immediately say this…
like “them being involuntarily commited for hearing vioces and expressing homicidal ideation.”
Literally, involuntary committing someone is a violation of their rights, but it is an violation that is well established by law. Just like say…taking away someone’s guns for a period of time while they are openly threatening people and displaying extreme anti-social behavior
At the moment, they are only a thing in a few states and I’m not sure how often they’re used even there. In some states like Florida it does require some proof, but in my state, while the proposed law got close but was not passed, in addition to everything I said above the complaintant was protected from being charged with perjory in the event it was found out they lied in the inital case.
Of course, the complaintant never could have told the judge “he took the last oreo,” if that is what you mean, they would be required to lie, but tbh a secret hearing you’re not invited to is easy for them to lie at so long as the burden of proof is as low as “he said…”
but it is an violation that is well established by law.
And reasonable. Broadening that to allow anyone who knows you to go to a judge in a secret hearing and say “he bad” with no other proof and bam 1yr without the right to self defense if you ever get it back all because he said she said is “unreasonable.” It is also not well established by law considering all the laws are pretty new and all different in every state that has implimented them VS federal law that is reported (well supposed to be, they need to do their job) into NICs since like '96, and also requires a more “standard” burden of proof.
I mean be real, if the red flag laws didn’t have a lower burden of proof than involuntary commitment, what would be the point of them existing? We already have IVCs, which have the added bonus of at least some caliber of mental health professional, if the burden of proof is the same the only difference is instead of attempting to actually get the person help all you do is temporarily take their guns …until they buy more (legally or otherwise), make one, or stab someone, the danger is still there and hasn’t been helped at all, with the IVC they show up in the national database instead of the just California database, with the red flag laws the cops show up and leave you alone with the angry, if disarmed, person, with IVCs they are forced into a facility, allowing someone time to escape, or time for the person to cool off with the ativan and doctors. I mean, the only reason for them is “I’m right.” The question is “is that good or bad.”
I’m firmly on the side of “it’s bad, innocent until proven guilty is good.”
openly threatening people and displaying extreme anti-social behavior
You mean things that can get you IVC’d? So IVC, red flag laws are often built for abuse, you don’t need them unless you intend to abuse it, and if they’re not built to abuse they are functionally the same as an IVC just “less good anyway.”
People don’t get their guns taken away after literally threatening to kill people and getting institutionalized and you are worried about it happening over Oreos? How about we START with the self-identified violent maniacs and then worry about the oreo scenario?
Well, if it is really about enforcing the existing laws to you, then the current laws should be fine even though you agree with me they should be enforced. How about START with the current laws and then worry about the red flag laws?
The 5th Circuit Court (with at least one judge appointed by Trump) has ruled that removing the guns from a violent domestic abuser violates his rights: texastribune.org/…/guns-domestic-abuse-second-ame…
Someone once told me, be careful of your thoughts for your thoughts may affect your words, be careful of your words because your words may come to become your actions, be careful of your actions for your actions may reflect on your character.
If you ask me, owning a firearm and making violent threats don’t necessarily mean actions, but I agree that there’s a definitive correlation. I guess that I still believe that the action itself is the most honest and serious commitment to something a person can express.
I think the fundamental issues with guns is that they SUBSTANTIALLY shorten the time and effort to put thoughts into action. Thinking “man, i want to kill everyone here.” is a pretty abstract thought, until you actually have the means to kill everyone there right at hand.
Your past failure to learn from these continued atrocities is your complicity. Your current preference to protect the tools of violence over lives is your complicity. Your future vote to keep the status quo even as history repeats itself is your complicity.
On the contrary. I believe the tools of violence are the only things that will allow us to protect lives.
Gun control has historically been used as a tool to oppress further those who resist oppression. You can see it today, every murder by the police is defended with “they reached for my gun” or “they had a gun”. The gun control laws you want will be enforced by the police and they will be enforced selectively against minorities. The atrocities you reference are almost universally committed by right wing straight white men. I can assure you no gun control will stop them from acquiring firearms.
There is an explicit example of this in Israel today. The settlers are allowed and encouraged to possess firearms while the Palestinians are explicitly disallowed.
It’s ahistoric to say that gun control will save lives. This country only implemented gun control when indigenous and black people began carrying firearms in self defense. Many black men concealed carried pistols to defend against lynchings which is how we have concealed carry restrictions. Because it became illegal to conceal carry, the lynchings continued. Atrocities continue.
While I appreciate your effort to sound informed, you’re wrong.
The US is the only developed country in the world with a serious gun violence issue and it’s also the only developed country where firearms are flooding the streets.
The US is not more mentally ill than other developed countries. The difference is access to weapons. You can choose to live in denial about that, because you prioritize your weapons over lives, but, like I said, that makes you complicit.
I don’t think you read my comment. I didn’t mention mental illness. And I explained how access to firearms will not be restricted to those who commit the violence.
I would prefer to live in a country with no guns but that is not the reality we live in. And it will not be the reality no matter how many laws get pressed. They will be selectively enforced by a fascist police force.
In Colorado, there is a magazine capacity limit of 15 rounds. The police choose not to enforce this. You can walk into any gun store and buy a drum magazine holding 150 rounds. In a metropolitan area with probably the most horrific mass shootings. The only time it will ever be a crime is when the police murder a brown person with a magazine holding more than 15 rounds.
I understand you want to live in a safe community and don’t want to read news about mass shooters every week. I think you should accept this and act accordingly, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. The people who hold power do not care and laws they would implement would not stop the violence and would disenfranchise vulnerable communities.
I appreciate your honesty and perspective from where you sit. But this is also exactly why things never change and we experienced massacre after massacre. That “it can’t be done” attitude. It can be done if you vote for people who want to do something about this. The reality is that, in general, Republicans don’t want anything to change, so they will never get my vote. Whenever I can, I vote for candidates who want to press a full repeal of the 2nd amendment. No guns = no gun violence.
There are so many guns in the US right now that it’s ridiculous. Gun control here would be great… If it were done a hundred years ago. I’m not saying I’m against common sense laws, but like… Pandoras box is open here.
There are 120 firearms for every 100 civilians that live in the U.S. We have 46% of the total worldwide statistic for civilian ownership. The US makes up only a meager 331.9 million out of 7.89 billion people worldwide. That means 4.2% of the world owns 46% of the guns… And those people are all American.
On top of this, some of the most heinous shootings in US history were performed with illegally obtained weapons. Columbine is one of the examples most will recognize.
I’m not leading up to anything here, I just wanted to educate everyone on how fucked we are.
I’m not leading up to anything here, I just wanted to educate everyone on how fucked we are.
Definitely, but your argument is unfortunately what keeps us from ever doing anything about it. Thinking that it can’t be done is just not good enough.
Honestly. the naming scheme is not a problem for me. What is a problem is that they took away the option to have Tesla cars make fart noises to warn pedestrians that the otherwise quite quiet cars are coming.
When I was using that failed platform Reddit, I got permabanned from a Elon Musk sub because the mods read some anti-Musk comments I made IN OTHER SUBS. Talk about a clusterfuck. Hey hey ho ho, Phony Starck has got to go!!!
The catch is that Tesla has a bunch of problems that might cause the company to be in serious trouble soon, and if musk leaves before the company starts tanking then we’ll have to hear endless bullshit from people about how musk was so great that he single handedly was what kept the company going.
If the company really tanks even after saving 56 billion dollars that they could spend on literally anything else to improve their products, maybe they shouldn’t be a company anymore.
Whilst Elon was playing dumbass with that cyber truck monstrosity that can only be sold in a select few countries because it’s so fucking dangerous, Tesla lost the entire headstart it had. It has a very limited set of older models for sale that only really are interesting for people with money. Meanwhile China is here now with loads of cheap EV cars. Then there are fraud investigations that will turn bad as musk has for years been promising lies. See Theranos for an example on how that would work.
I could go on for a long time, but suffice to say, Tesla will be bankrupt within 3 years and so will musk.
That’s my exact point. Tesla’s house of cards is about to fall and if elon leaves before it happens then idiots will say it crashed because he left, rather than the truth which is that he’s the one who put it in that position of an inevitable fall. Though in 3 years i don’t think it’ll go bankrupt, it’ll just be much worse off
Musk being at the helm is 50% of the reason a lot of people won’t even consider buying a Tesla. Boneheaded engineering decisions he dumped on the engineers are the other 50%. Replacing the hype with decent cars would be a win for everybody not named Musk.
The reason he’s able to make this ask and not immediately be laughed out of the room is that Tesla’s value is massively inflated based largely on the personality cult surrounding Musk himself. If Tesla starts being valued as a car company rather than a speculative tech company with a “genius” leader at the help (quotes doing a lot of work there) , the stock price will be a fraction of what it is now.
That’s what shareholders stand to lose, and it’s why Musk has any leverage to make this ridiculous ask in the first place.
Two weeks before the crash, she allegedly threatened to crash her vehicle when she was driving with Russo because she was upset over a disagreement they had. Russo called his mother and asked to be picked up, and a friend ended up retrieving him. In a phone call with Russo, the friend allegedly overheard Shirilla say, “I will crash this car right now,” prosecutors said in court documents.
This isn’t a drunk driver, or a thrillseeker, this is someone with murderous intent.
There are cases of mutual murderer/suicide pacts where there’s shared responsibility and actions taken by each party but that wouldn’t have been possible when she was the only one in control of the car. Even if the boyfriend was suicidal, and there’s no reason to think he was from this article, the other passenger clearly wasn’t. IANAL either but I think that’s what the above comment was trying to get at.
Have suicidal ideation is in no way, shape or form the same as being the perpetrator of a murder-suicide. Neither is being suicidal a lead-in to becoming a murderer.
No there may be a small chance of collateral damage, such as this case. But suicidal thinking does not make you think of killing others. You’re clearly lucky enough to have never had suicidal ideation, but it never comes near the kind of thoughts that want to kill others
As such, it is clear that suicides tend to have high levels of aggressive–destructive impulsive behaviours, generally referred to as impulsive–aggressive behaviours. These have been operationally defined in suicide studies as a tendency to react with animosity or overt hostility without consideration to possible consequences, when piqued or under stress.
Did you read anything else in that paper…? The words around that statement? Even the abstract?
Or did you google what you wanted to see and post the result, because that paper is not about people harming others whilst attempting suicide. It is barely tangentially about that.
(it’s about the impact of aggressive-impulsive tendencies on the suicide…r themselves)
They went to the store, sober, and bought a handle of vodka (1.75 liters) consumed the vast majority, and drove around.
He wanted to die in a head on collision. Selfish fuck.
I don’t have a problem with people having the freedom to decide enough is enough, but don’t harm others in the process, at least more so than the death would cause. Especially innocent unrelated people.
Honestly, it’s very very similar. AFAICT she was trying to punish him. It has all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. And an all too common outcome.
I recently read that a 70mph accident is considered “unsurvivable.” Regrettably I don’t recall the source. Because people survive accidents that happen on 70mph speed limit highways all the time, I assume two things. 1. That the accident has to happen AT 70mph. And that 2, most people are able to slow down or perhaps the vehicle hits something first, glancing blow, that sort of thing, which brings the speed down, making it more survivable. So yeah, I think that makes 100mph suicide/murder.
crash testing is done between 35 and 40 mph. At those speeds the car is usually undrivable after the test. Over that speed you risk damage to very expensive test equipment.
In most US jurisdictions if you're "just" trying to commit a felony, like purposely crashing your car at 100+ MPH (160+ KPH) to cause grievous bodily harm to others, and someone dies as a result that's automatically elevated to murder.
It’ll depend on the jurisdiction. But ‘intent’ for murder does not mean “pre-planned”. Heat of the moment intention to do serious harm is enough for a murder conviction in the UK (and, I believe, the US).
In this case, the prosecution accused her of pre-planning as well as intent, and the jury agreed with one or both arguments.
Russo, the judge, delivered a scalding description of the case before she read out the verdict, saying Shirilla had a “mission” she executed with “precision” that fateful day — and “the mission was death.”
“The [crash] video clearly shows the purpose and intent of the defendant. She chose a course of death and destruction that day,” Russo said.
“She morphs from a responsible driver to literal hell on wheels as she makes her way down the street,” Russo said, saying Shirilla made a calculated decision to drive that morning, when not many people would be around, on an obscure route she did not routinely take.
Prosecutor Michael O’Malley told NBC affiliate WKYC of Cleveland that the crash video was damning, saying, “The intent was obvious upon seeing that video that there was only one goal.”
She murdered two people with the intent to at least cause significant harm. That’s enough on the state she was in, thank God. She deserves life in prison.
Contrary to popular belief, people suffering from mental health issues are more likely to be the victim than perpetrator of violent crimes, more than their healthy counterpart. www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/…/full
I agree 100 percent this is a child with some kind of inability to understand the consequences of her actions she should be placed in a care facility until she demonstrates the ability to make proper decision making ability
They were hoping for a hung jury so that Trump could turn to his sea of morons and once again claim “tOtAl ExOnErAtioN!!!”. Now they are forced to play the “witch hunt cuz judge doesn’t like me and his daughter is making money off this for democrats, and also it’s a biden witchhunt”. It sucks to play that card and they really didn’t want to have to lean on that alone.
A better headline would be what she said in response:
“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them,” she said. “Now that the new Republican Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”
Dems have shown demonstrated absurdly good communication skills, but somehow, it’s never really shown given proper attention. Like, seriously, just watch this clip show of young Dems destroying Republicans last week: youtu.be/v6VZIjBLcyU?si=H9TuL2aRF9PM0vpY
That’s because of 2 main factors: (1) They are almost all owned by large corporations - yes, even the “left learning ones” - and corporate ownership always imparts a right wing bias simply because the people in charge are wealthy and want to only get richer (it’s basic self-interest); and (2) Right-wingers “take the bait” faster and more widely, which translates to more views, more ad revenue, etc. (see #1).
“All corporations are inherently right wing… I mean, unless it’s like a worker cooperative run exclusively by sternum piercing bisexuals, but no, all corporations are inherently right wing at least in an economic sense.” -Hassan Piker (Turkish-American Twitch Steamer and Political Commentator)
Well, then give them a house majority and a veto proof Senate majority. The last time they had that (for a whole 72 days), they immediatly passed Obamacare.
Oh, and did I mention that every time the minimum wage was raised, it was done by Democrats (21 times) or because dems forced this as a concession from republicans (2 times)?
Yet, in an odd twist of history, it was Newt Gingrich, one of the most conservative speakers of the House, who laid out the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act as early as 1993.
Well that’s great, good for him. I mean that seriously. He also wrote a novel about the Civil War. Guess what that blueprint and his novel have in common?
I had an idea for reusable rockets when I was six. Where’s my royalty check?
That’s not great. It shows that Obama and the Dems are actually conservatives that want to prevent universal healthcare. If you read the article that is the main reason Gingrich came up with this in the first place.
The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican - Obama
Fucking THIS, people. You can moan all you want about the Dems not getting stuff done, but unless you acknowledge that, oh wait, they actually DO when they have a majority that ALLOWS them to do it, you’re just adding to the static. Politicians still have to work within the political system they’re a part of.
Exactly what part of that do you consider to have the sole purpose of hurting someone’s feelings? Cause that’s what catty means. I think it was damn good for a Congress who’s been hamstrung by gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisment, and voter apathy. You want those things to come to pass? Get Republicans out of office.
Ah sorry man, that’s a result of my limited vocabulary as an ESL. I meant to say that Dems have demonstrated great communication skills, but it does not receive adequate attention because those snippets are rarely broadcasted on TV, mentioned in articles or shared on social media.
I mean homeboy kicked her like a bad habit in the first day, it’s not like it was weeks of a grueling ordeal. Dude straight up dgaf and I’m here for it. “Oh, that nuisance still has an office here? Gone. Next?” Man’s coming in hot like Ari Gold.
Dems don’t have the same expansive network of propaganda machinery backing them up no matter what like Republicans do. Don’t get me wrong dems are still wholeheartedly a capitalist political party but they aren’t working the shaft and fondling the balls of the capitalist class nearly as much as the republican party is and it show in the ability to get messaging out.
There’s no money in signal boosting democrats, even the more establishment ones. Wait for Manchen to say something self-serving about corporations, then you’ll hear about it.
“I regret using Dolly as the example for the point I was making in the article,” she told Yahoo! Entertainment Saturday. “As I wrote in the piece, I love her and think she does some incredible things for the world. We all make poor choices in how to frame things sometimes. This was one of those moments for me! Dolly is one of the few people who is beloved by all and who loves all. The world is lucky to have her.”
You don’t get to pretend that it was an error in framing your message. You meant what you said and the only thing you regret is the backlash. You picked on an angel and everyone else rightfully gave you shit for it.
That’s the convenience of Christianity. Commit a sin, ask Jesus for forgiveness, get forgiven automatically just because you asked, commit another sin, the process repeats until you die.
I immediately get my guard up when I learn that about someone. Never trust a person that can assuage their conscience with 10 seconds of talking to their bed.
The piece, titled “There’s Nothing Loving About Dolly Parton’s False Gospel,” […]
“Parton’s version of love, which includes condoning immoral sexual behavior (‘be who you are,’ she’s said), is unaligned with God’s vision for humanity,” Andersen writes.
This is not a “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I just framed it wrong.” This person meant exactly what she said.
They don’t even follow their own religion. Christianity is about being nice and kind to people. Which seems somewhat incompatible with these peoples world views. Of course it was also incompatible with the whole religious crusade thing, so perhaps it’s not surprising that they still think like this.
It’s generally the atheists who know more about their religion than the religious.
If all or even most of Christianity’s followers were actually kind, generous people, it would be harder to criticize, but it’s so blatantly just another hateful cult like the rest of them.
I’m an atheist, but I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic high school. People like this honestly amaze me. If there’s one message that’s repeated over and over in the new testament, it’s “love everyone, regardless of anything about them, and treat them with kindness.” People like this are somehow unashamed to say “Loving everyone is wrong because it condones sinful behavior.” And so many will nod their heads with that.
I’m happy to see that when they use a person like Dolly, who actually lives the values, as an example of what they mean, people will say “Hey, wait a minute…”
The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh, boy–they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.
It’s only an apology as far as ‘I regret the blowback’. essentially they are only sorry to themself for doing a dumb dumb. Not to Dolly. And not to LBGTQ
Anyone else notice how often the party who won’t shut the fuck up about “personal responsibility” whenever social services and such are discussed accepts absolutely zero “personal responsibility” when they are the ones who need to display some?
It seems to be a universal across countries and cultures. Those who spend their entire time telling everyone else how to behave are never able to behave themselves. Perhaps it’s simply that everyone with any brains isn’t stupid enough to say that sort of thing. At least in a public forum.
“We appreciate your candor and willingness to see the truth outed. As such, we hope your family will join you on a lovely vacation, with a complimentary flight on a 737 max.”
Just saying, I bet Boeings lied more about things that caused humans to die than the friend of the family has so if its he said she said, I think she’s got the superior credibility. She just doesn’t have superior profits.
The push to write in Biden on the ballot didn’t go completely smoothly. The weekend before New Hampshire’s primary, thousands of voters in the state received robocalls that used deep faked audio of the president in an attempt to dissuade them from turning out.
Whatever your thoughts on electoral politics are, this shit right here is such a terrifying prospect for the future…
The average voter went to public school, which is directly manipulated by the entire ruling elite to keep them in power and feed the war machine. Education has very little to do with any of that.
It sounds like they’re talking exclusively from the front of the mouth. I used to talk like that when I was trying to conceal a tongue ring. I wonder why that is?
Linguistics nerd stuff below: American English is spoken from the front of the mouth compared to lots of other languages (not this far forward, but still). I wonder if AI voices speaking Arabic would move Arabic forward by the same amount, all the way to the front, or further back (no human anatomy restrictions on AI voices).
Basically, I wonder if this is a consistent artifact of AI voices or whether AI is just exaggerating unique features of a language.
Edit: I found this, which sounds natural enough that I wouldn’t have thought anything of it (aside from the cuts and the actual things said), had I not been watching out for front of the mouth talk
Judge Doom is what happens when you bip around in history like a hare-brained child with no regard for multi-universal consequences and the strain it takes on the squishy human psyche. Apparently, the loss of his dearest Clara and their children was enough to make the ol’ Doc snap right to his core.
That’s the fucked up part: they’ll be decried as ”lone wolves”, and, as such, no care will be given in investigation nor pursuit. Each and every time. Nor to the aggregate effect of the countless “love wolves” who are never pursued, nor the fascist, terrorist packs they will obviously, inevitably form because they were ignored, alone, fed a diet of Trump and YouTube, and Alex jones, and Xitter…
That, misinformation/propaganda, scam calls, etc. Shits gonna get wild real quick here soon, and I don’t think we as a species are remotely prepared for it.
It already has. But unfortunately the news is not in the business of reporting the news. It is in the business of advertising and engagement. And sensationalist/bad News drives engagement.
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