How does the World view America these days?

[zero]

4 minutes ago, J3FF3R00 said:

I have an 18 month old and have occasionally had the thought while out in public enjoying our time “what if someone started shooting right now? What would I do? Could we hide somewhere? I’ll probably just have to throw myself on top of the baby and sacrifice myself, if I’m fast/lucky enough.”

When I have that thought I always have 2 following thoughts: (1) don’t worry, you’re probably just being paranoid (2) thinking I’m paranoid is putting me and my child in danger and this is perfectly normal to wonder what my options are in a far too common scenario. This is just life in our country… specifically thanks to right wingers. It doesn’t have to be this way. 

you're not alone in thinking that this could this happen anywhere, any time, out in public. I have done so as well, not often, but I've thought that same thing. (side note - most psychologists would agree that a large percent of the public experience some form of "hero" thinking when it comes to those scenarios. thinking like I would protect my kid, then go stop the dude, or similar. but realistically the duck and cover or run approach is the behavior the majority of people take.)

so much stuff is wrong in this country, and feels like it's only getting worse. human behavior has drifted pretty far away from the old school politeness / decency / altruistic / do unto others model. mix a decline in human decency in with the American ego, and voila, we have a nation packed with self-centered, arrogant, belligerent, gun-loving, uncaring assholes. I largely blame technology for this human behavior shift, but am not unabomber crazy enough to start attacking people over it.

then we get to mental health issues, which again, could be fueled by technological advances the human species is not equipped to handle. like we started as hunter/gathers way back when living in packs, now we sit in front of fucking screens all day that tell us what to do. that's why people have to go on runs or the gym to feel better, because humans need physical activity to keep the mind in tact.

then there's social media, which indoctrinates kids into thinking their online persona has more value than their IRL one, which is totally messed up. mental health issues + crazy detailed high definition 1st person shooters are also probably not a good combo. but you can't stop those, I get it.

so pick your poison. society as a whole is on a downward trajectory. kali yuga blah blah blah, we're in the worst yuga. it's all good though. just roll with the punches, go with the flow of the universe. something will come around and set the place straight. if that means wiping out most of humanity, then so be it. I don't think this will happen like tomorrow, and will hopefully be long gone by the time it happens. 

ramble ramble ramble. sorry dudes. this one definitely hits hard. it's sickening that these kids got killed like that, and we all (I think) feel yet again so powerless to stop it from happening over and over again.

 

[joshuatxuk]

4 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

it's the small arms manufacturers, as a part of military industrial complex that is controlling the government. riding on the Manifest Destiny crusade from the past, now it's about personal liberty and fucking amendments. but in reality is brain washing people so they keep buying guns. the entire culture is riddled with it. similarly to tea culture for the british - it's a part of national identity at this point. because markets and consumers.

One of the paradoxical aspects of guns in the U.S. is that law enforcement was playing catch-up until the 1990s. Before a string in shootouts most police were armed with revolvers, shotguns, and bolt action rifles if they had special sniper units. After 9/11 when the government funding coffer was unleashed cops all the way down to local rural levels have actually managed to arm themselves better than the typical US infantryman was in Iraq in 2003.

Modern gun manufacturing has shifted a lot in just the last 10 years, from a purely sincere sporting, hunting, and hobby point of view it's a golden age. The AR isn't popular because it's this grotesque killing machine but because it's literally the most affordable and effective and all-around firearm for people who want a primary gun. From an outside perspective it's also this accelerated hellscape of toxicity, cringe, and reactionary rhetoric and iconography that has been commodified and normalized like no other past time. Cops and select military forces aren't getting surplus rifles anymore, they are directly buying stuff from niche makers who then sell the same stuff to civilians.

There's a pretty good Behind The Bastards episode about how different the 90s were, when there was more of a divide between hunting and sporting gun owners and the right-wing nutters. That latter camp was once pushed back on by mainstream Republicans, now they are catered to. Guns in the U.S. used to be a de facto staple of anyone who had a farm or ranch and/or needed to hunt to subsidize their income or literally feed their families. That shifted in the 20th century when most acquired cars, started living in cities and suburbs and large towns with municipal services, roads, etc. By the 1980s and 1990s though militia and other far-right folks were the ones largely arming themselves with semi-auto rifles and they steered the NRA to politicize heavily and double-down even as mass shootings occurred. That's created this understandable divide between these toxic deluded gun owners and non-gun owners confounded by this complete lack of sensible ownership and regulation. 

Guns have been a long gradual facet of American history and culture that has shifted and ebbed and flowed in a lot of complicated way, and I say this not as some cop out because part of the violence and struggle among the maligned, discriminated, and poor citizens was at times leveled out by guns being accessible those who were oppressed. The aspects of the labor movement and the civil rights movement in the U.S. is full of incidents where armed workers and armed minorities pushed back enough to survive. It's why historically gun laws targeted minorities and the working poor first. The first open-carry bans in the US were made by Ronald Reagan because the Black Panthers began patrolling their own neighborhoods. It's no coincidence that the NRA and GOP wingnuts never bring up public and subsidized marksman ship and safety programs - they don't want everyone to own a gun responsibly, they just want their peers on the right to. 

It's really grim right now. Gun laws aren't going to happen and even if they did they hypothetically they'd had zero impact on the elephant in the room: the fascists are armed, the complicit cops are armed, and the swaths of people who probably should be armed - moderate, liberal, and leftist Americans trying to salvage this country to have things like basic rights, healthcare, public works, social services, etc. are the only ones actively pushing regulation. Regulation that historically has only made it harder for poor people and minorities to legally own and carry guns, especially in cities where cops have more or less and free pass to use them when and where they want. Where it has been implemented it's clunky and arbitrary and inefficient (CA, NY, etc.) There are at least 300 million firearms in this country and no way they will be regulated or responsibly dealt with until this country implodes into some Syrian or Balkan like scenario or systematically shifts to a progressive socialized state. The state of Ukraine as Russia invaded when civilians were arming up to protect themselves - that could very well be the average American soon. God forbid and things break and fascists start to implement martial law and breakaway states and go after groups of people they hate, the cops and military are not going to be there to protect the vulnerable. The solution is not gun laws, the solution is undoing and replacing this capitalist neo-liberal about to turn fascist government the U.S. is currently governed by.

[joshuatxuk]

Also I should note that as much as the right-wing and self-claimed "apolitical" firearms people are the ones who are obsessively protective of the 2A and shout out the growing minority of diverse and moderate to left gun owners there's another frustrating aspect of this: Hollywood and mainstream media loves guns. They love the the way they look, they love them as part of the rah rah American ass kicking and de facto military propaganda, and to an absurd level most films use and handle them in ways defying anything close to realism and safe and proper handling. The really tragic and godawful flashpoint that obsession lead to someone getting killed on a film set in New Mexico, and it happened because they hired a non-union unprofessional prop master to save money. I'm not pointing this out as some kind of gotcha about liberals or something, just another facet in how contradictory this county is about a subject and detached and/or numb people are when it comes to the reality of violence.

[prdctvsm]

[zero]

2 hours ago, joshuatxuk said:

One of the paradoxical aspects of guns in the U.S. is that law enforcement was playing catch-up until the 1990s. Before a string in shootouts most police were armed with revolvers, shotguns, and bolt action rifles if they had special sniper units. After 9/11 when the government funding coffer was unleashed cops all the way down to local rural levels have actually managed to arm themselves better than the typical US infantryman was in Iraq in 2003.

don't forget this event:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Quote

The shootout contributed to motivating the arming of rank-and-file police officers in Los Angeles and nationwide with semi-automatic rifles.^[28][29]

The ineffectiveness of the standard small-caliber police pistols and shotguns in penetrating the robbers' body armor led to a trend in the United States toward arming selected police patrol officers, not just SWAT teams, with heavier firepower such as semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles. SWAT teams, whose close quarters battle weaponry usually consisted of submachine guns that fired pistol cartridges such as the Heckler & Koch MP5, began supplementing them with AR-15 rifles and carbines.^[15]

Seven months after the incident, the Department of Defense gave 600 surplus M16 rifles to the LAPD, which were issued to each patrol sergeant;^[44] LAPD patrol vehicles now carry AR-15s as standard issue, with bullet-resistant Kevlar plating in their doors as well.^[45] Also as a result of this incident LAPD authorized its officers to carry .45 ACP caliber semi-automatic pistols as duty sidearms, specifically the Smith & Wesson Models 4506 and 4566. Prior to 1997, only LAPD SWAT officers were authorized to carry .45 ACP caliber pistols, specifically the M1911A1 .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol.^[46]

 

[ignatius]

[Rubin Farr]

54 minutes ago, zero said:

don't forget this event:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

 

remember Neil McNaughly?

 

[ignatius]

worthless cops. 

cops initially said the shooter was wearing armor but turns out they waited outside for backup and while the shooter was in there shooting people.  apparently were 3 cops on the scene soon after the shooter arrived. they got a call about him before he got to the school so go there pretty quickly.. but then waited and made up a story for the press. 

[Nebraska]

 

that was back in the day when LA was still the bank robbery capital of the world. not sure if that's the case today

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

[ignatius]

 

[Nebraska]

ted cruz knows what he's talking about. the reason you don't hear about school shooting in other countries is coz there is only ever 1 entrance into and out of an elementary school and there's always an armed sniper just waiting to take anyone out who even so much as thinks of shooting the place up

[luke viia]

Fire Marshals:

I assume Cruz would also remove all windows and air ducts. Safety first, you know. 

[Nebraska]

^^^ remember abbot (in an attempt to destantis his political career) signed a bill that doesn't require texans to carry a gun "without a permit or gun safety training", so you know his NRA check is ready (and so is lion ted's). if he's a business man (and i'm sure he is) he's already called this guy and asked him to adjust his "contribution" for inflation

meanwhile uncle joe would like to have a word with whoever is running this shit show

[joshuatxuk]

17 hours ago, ignatius said:

worthless cops. 

cops initially said the shooter was wearing armor but turns out they waited outside for backup and while the shooter was in there shooting people.  apparently were 3 cops on the scene soon after the shooter arrived. they got a call about him before he got to the school so go there pretty quickly.. but then waited and made up a story for the press. 

This is the most painfully clear example of why we need to defund cops and give teachers pay raises. The decades of this "I AM THE SHEEPDOG" killology bullshit training with LE has literally given us wannabe spec op cops who will gladly use an AR-15 at some bewildered citizen but refuse to engage with an actual killer slaughtering children. 

[ignatius]

41 minutes ago, joshuatxuk said:

This is the most painfully clear example of why we need to defund cops and give teachers pay raises. The decades of this "I AM THE SHEEPDOG" killology bullshit training with LE has literally given us wannabe spec op cops who will gladly use an AR-15 at some bewildered citizen but refuse to engage with an actual killer slaughtering children. 

one parent was briefly arrested and let go. he was yelling at the cops to go inside and they were waiting and started doing crowd control on all the parents who were there. as soon as they let the guy go he ran, jumped the fence and went into the school and got his kids. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by ignatius

[Nebraska]

moscow mitch going through the motions of looking like he's trying to get something done, while at the same time, not doing something

[ignatius]

 

[exitonly]

I'm not sure what's hard to understand. The only way for Americans to be free is for all of us to hide in an enclosed facility guarded by heavily armed police. Seems obvious in retrospect.

[ignatius]

2 minutes ago, nikisoko said:

I'm not sure what's hard to understand. The only way for Americans to be free is for all of us to hide in an enclosed facility guarded by heavily armed police. Seems obvious in retrospect.

[usagi]

bunch of useless cocksuckers.

[chenGOD]

1 hour ago, usagi said:

bunch of useless cocksuckers.

Succinct and accurate. 

[usagi]

I mean, no disrespect to anyone who enjoys sucking cock.

[beerwolf]

Cocksucker Cruz was immediately on the news saying it’s not the guns in America that’s the problem it’s the fact this kid was able to walk freely into the school through an open door. What!!? 

I can presume the man is religious. How does he sleep at night? He’s either insane or evil. Suck the Devils cock!
 

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by beerwolf

[zero]

58 minutes ago, beerwolf said:

Cocksucker Cruz was immediately on the news saying it’s not the guns in America that’s the problem it’s the fact this kid was able to walk freely into the school through an open door. What!!? 

exactly! blame the open door for this whole thing! had the door not been open, then the shooter wouldn't have done it!

it is all just such a sad, pathetic joke that we have to listen to fucking idiots like lyin Ted, hot wheels Abbott, or turtle man Mitch, try and weasel their way out of accepting the fact that they all support getting more guns in the hands of the public, and are too chicken shit to do anything to try and curb this sort of thing happening again. I don't know how this country can avoid heading toward a full scale revolution in the next few years, especially if that orange guy comes back around. so sick of these idiot politicians giving lip service and showing zero accountability.  

[whosebrian]