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All NRA and GOA members need to acknowledge the following facts . . .

CandiCame said:
I don't even really see veganism as an ethical alternative- there's a LOT that vegans have to answer for.
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I've heard the screams of the vegetables!

CandiCame said:
But other countries aren't the US. We're a culture that is socialized a specific way- a big part of the reason we see the same demographic for the majority of these crimes is because there's an underlying social issue causing it. When mass shooters are interviewed, they speak about their reasons, and it's never, "I loved guns". There are underlying issues with our society that have to do with nationalism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, racism, and sexism that need to be addressed. I think legislation to tighten gun control laws would be a band-aid. We have to address the underlying issues, just like we need to do with ethical farming.
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How would you go about doing that?
 
BotanyBoy said:
So again, what's wrong with it and why not?

All weapons are designed for war, a stick is a weapon of war.
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It's a matter of firepower. You wouldn't want civilians with tanks and artillery and flamethrowers and RPGs, would you?
 
Me and the oldest went and shot some guns today. Glock 17, 1911, kriss vector 45acp, evo scorpion, ar15 and a .50 cal. The kid is a good shot.
 
Kirkrapine said:
It's a matter of firepower.
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It is?

LOL....well elaborate on this, what is too much firepower?

Kirkrapine said:
You wouldn't want civilians with tanks and artillery and flamethrowers and RPGs, would you?
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They already have them, jet fighters too.

I have an M-203 grenade launcher on my M4....actual military weaponry and I'm planning on hunting down a Tommy gun just as soon as I'm out of California too.

Kirkrapine said:
What about nukes?
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No practical application as personal armament with WMD's.
 
bellisarius said:
What 'military' weapons are in the hands of civilians now?
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M4's, M2's, M249's, M203's, M9/92FS, M1911's, M60's.......I mean...there is a lot of shit out there bro.

Fuck I know a guy in Utah that has all that shit...he even got a fuckin MK19.
 
BotanyBoy said:
M4's, M2's, M249's, M203's, M9/92FS, M1911's, M60's.......I mean...there is a lot of shit out there bro.

Fuck I know a guy in Utah that has all that shit...he even got a fuckin MK19.
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See my link above. :) That was from this morning.
 
BotanyBoy said:
They already have them, jet fighters too.
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Who does? AFAIK, the "militias" only have rifles. Are corporations setting up their own armies now?! :eek:

BotanyBoy said:
I have an M-203 grenade launcher on my M4....actual military weaponry and I'm planning on hunting down a Tommy gun just as soon as I'm out of California too.
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Why?! What use will you ever have for those things?!

BotanyBoy said:
No practical application as personal armament with WMD's.
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Well, it's good to know you can be reasonable on some armament-related points.
 
BotanyBoy said:
M4's, M2's, M249's, M203's, M9/92FS, M1911's, M60's.......I mean...there is a lot of shit out there bro.

Fuck I know a guy in Utah that has all that shit...he even got a fuckin MK19.
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And he spends every second of his free time cleaning them.
 
Kirkrapine said:
I've heard the screams of the vegetables!



How would you go about doing that?
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It's not an easy solution, which is why I think people want to cry, "Just take the guns!" Because that's a good sound bite.

Really we need vast social change in the way that we treat a LOT of topics, and that takes years of dedication and hard work. I'm not a sociologist, I work with individuals, not populations, so I don't have an absolute answer for this. But there are people do study this that I would defer to.

For example, a LOT of mass shooters, when questioned, site xenophobia and racism- and we did see rises in this particular type of crime along the same time that we saw rises in membership of terrorist organizations along the alt-right. If we were to spend more resources enforcing the crimes already on the books, as I already mentioned, to stop these crimes before they start, that by itself would go a long way. The fact is, we're managing our resources poorly.

https://www.christianpicciolini.com/

Christian Picciolini is a former neo-Nazi who founded the group "Life After Hate", who writes, tours, speaks, and in general is a good person to go to to learn on this topic and I heartily recommend him. There are a lot of activists, but I like this guy in particular not because he has any special training, but because he can answer the question, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" with brutal honesty, and I think that's something that is generally missing from the conversation.

Really, to move away from a culture of violence means to combat the forces within ourselves that lead to violence, and it's difficult to do that on a group scale. You really have to work with people one-on-one to answer the question, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Before you let it get that bad.

If someone opens fire on a gay nightclub, the problem is not that they had a gun- the problem is that we let the homophobia get that out of hand and let him post on facebook, or make threatening phone calls, or post racist hate-speech (in this particular example the shooter chose a gay-Hispanic event), and at every step in that line before the violence began- no one did anything. The vast majority of these crimes can be avoided.

Something else that a lot of people are advocating for involve ways to fight toxic masculinity. Another group that we see a lot of violence, particularly mass shooting violence, is a group that has a lot of names, that I've not done a lot of research on, but that I do see keep popping up. I've heard it called "the manosphere", the "red pill", and "incels", but there are a lot of names. That group keeps getting kicked off of various places online where they start to form, because of how violent they are, and how off-the-wall their worldview is. They get it into their heads via groupthink that a lot of things that just plain don't exist do- and then they act on those fantasies. Again, this is an issue like the alt-right, where we really need someone to be honest and forthcoming about the way these people think, so that it can be combated, and people are doing great work in that area, but unfortunately, I'm not aware of anyone who got out and then was able to become an activist like we have with the alt-right.

The overall bullet point is that these aren't isolated incidents- they're not lone "crazy" gunmen who lost their minds, snapped, and decided to murder people. They're normally part of a group that is a circle of negative groupthink that creates a "reality" where these attacks would make sense, would be justified. to address that, we need to know how domestic terrorism works- how these groups convince their members that these actions are ok.

I think a big part of that would be funding sociologists to study this, and making domestic terrorism a top priority in law enforcement. Right now we spend a lot of time, money, and training on international terrorism, and things that aren't significant threats in the way domestic terrorism is.

If we look at the statistics, we know what demographic we need to focus our efforts on, and that's a decent jumping-off point. As I already mentioned, only about 1% of mass shooters have any kind of neurodivergency- so we're not looking at crazy people. So it pisses me off, as both a crazy person and someone who would rather not be shot- to see this focus on "mental illness" after every mass shooting. Passing laws that restrict gun sales among the mentally ill will do absolutely jack shit, because we're not the ones doing this, we're the ones getting shot. Focusing on that aspect isn't going to work.

When we look at the data, we can see that the vast majority of mass shooters are men- only about 2% of shooters are women. We also know that most violent crime is purported by, and experienced by, men. That is, we know that men are more likely to be both aggressors and victims of violence. We don't see a gendered gap in violent crime like that outside the US. There's something about the way American men specifically are socialized that makes us violent- and that can be a hard pill to swallow. I'll tell you the truth- I used to fight. I don't think of myself as a violent person, but I know I COULD be, I know I HAVE been. I've never shot anyone, but I know that if I HAD to, I COULD. The way that you speak, it makes me think that you maybe couldn't. And the thing about this in particular, is that psychologists knew this was a thing before the mass shooting epidemic began- there was already a name for it in psychological circles, "Toxic Masculinity".

This term applies to a specific set of circumstances wherein cultural expectations are toxic for men- in our case, there's a lot to it, but we see this toxicity more among men who feel that they need to adhere to traditional gender rolls, or force others to adhere to them. We see that as early as middle school, our boys are pressured by outside forces to stunt their emotional development. You're not taught healthy emotion-focused socio-coping mechanisms during concrete development in the same way that little girls are, and because of that, perfectly healthy people start exhibiting behaviors that we only see in other countries in people with emotio-social developmental disorders. The only way to really change this is to get every parent in the country to agree to change the way we raise our sons- to be held accountable and to do better. We have to give our boys the same tools we give our girls if we want to see results. We have to teach them to express their emotions in a healthy way, to talk to their peers, to cry, to write, to channel it into art- the problem isn't that you're angry, the problem is that you solve anger through violence.

I want to reiterate- these are people with perfectly normal functioning amygdalas. They are not mentally ill. They were just raised in such a way that we would EXPECT this behavior to manifest because they were not given the tools to cope with normal human emotions.

Continuing the breakdown of the demographics, we see that the vast majority of these shooters are racially and ethnically white, and that many of them who could be considered to have one or more ethnicity more strongly identify with their white ethnicity. There's an intersection between this strong ethnic and racial identity and the membership that we see in hate groups- that is the more you tie your sense of self to your "whiteness", the more likely you are to display the traits associated with those groups, like racism and xenophobia. Several causational theories have arisen about this link, but I'm going to talk about the one that makes the most sense to me.

"Defaulting" is the name of this theory, and I like it because it makes a lot of sense, and it holds up when we perform cross-regional sociology studies, which I think is important. Basically, it ties into history. Historically, in the US, "white" has been a "default" race- that is, there are no cultural ties that unite white people in the same way other racial groups can be united. Many African Americans are united via a shared history wherein they can't trace their original culture because those records were deleted during chattle slavery. Many Asian Americans are united through a shared past of immigration. Many hispanic-Americans can trace their cultural heritage to Latin America. But white Americans, more than any other group, have no shared historical or cultural past with each other to pull from. We see these issues with other ethnicities as well, but not to the extent we see them with white Americans. Some are immigrants, some have been here since colonial times, some arrived as indentured servants, some were raised in ghettos, some came to the US as European Jewish immigrants fleeing prosecution from Nazis, some were Nazis who arrived after the war as criminals to be charged, etc. When you have no shared culture, yet you long for an underlying ethnic idenity- the only thing you can cling to is that you are the "default"- that is, you must "default" to white, because you only know what you aren't. You know that you aren't black, or native, or hispanic or asian, etc. Because othering is a mindset that leads to dehumanization, you can begin to see yourself as distinctly different from those "other" groups, rather than being able to take pride in your own ethnicity, because you don't have pride in a culture, only that you AREN'T part of some "other" culture. Then, you begin to see the "default" American culture as your own and lay ownership to it, and see anyone else as an outsider who is trying to "steal" it. It's easy to see how this mindset could lead to violence.

Fighting that underlying cause involves getting people to see themselves as multi-faceted, so that they do have things to be proud of other than what they aren't. The more aspects of self you have to pull from, the less likely you are to base your self-identity on a single aspect. If you don't base your self-identity strongly on your race, it's far more difficult to be recruited by a terrorist organization when the only real thing they have to offer you is based on your race and longing to understand your ethnicity.

To give an example, let's say you're a white guy who is also a dad. You now have two identity aspects- "white" and "father". If your "father" aspect is more important than your "white" aspect, you see yourself represented more among dads- that is, you're more likely to do "dad" things than "white" things- to join PTAs, to host playdates, to have BBQs for your kids' classmates and their parents. Let's say that you're also a hunter- so now you see yourself represented among "whites" "dads" and "hunters". You go hunting on the weekend with a group of friends who share your interests, then you have to get back on Monday because you know you have to get the kids ready for school. Now say that you're "white" "dad" "hunter" "avid book enthusiast". You go hunting, you have to get back to take your kids to school, you have a podcast episode you want to record about the latest book you read. Do you see how as you keep adding aspects of self you just run out of shits to give about nonsense? And how by doing that you guard yourself against being the kind of person who could be taken in by groupthink? Because you're not just a member of ONE group, you're a member of MANY groups- and if you get kicked out of one group for not putting up with nonsense, you don't lose your sense of self, you just bitch about that group to your friends in the other group. Like if you're this guy and you get kicked out of your book club, during your next dad BBQ you're standing there with Stan (Haliey's Dad) going, "And then they said not to come back! Can you believe that shit?" And Stan is there to support you- you have several social support networks.

I have a LOT more to say about this but I've been typing for a long time. The bullet point is that this is a complicated issue that will take real, long-term solutions that are also multifaceted and complicated. It's not something that is as easy as, "take away all the guns".

Again, I'm not saying that if you could somehow magically destroy every gun in the world it wouldn't make it more difficult to commit mass shootings. But if we don't address the underlying causes of this kind of violence as a society, these folks have proven that they can figure out how to make bombs and shit.

Further reading: I will preface this by saying that some of these require a paid subscription and I get mine through work, so if you can't read it, that's on me. I'm not super sure where to get peer-reviewed articles for free, but google scholar might have them? Honestly, like I said, I already feel like I spent too much time on a forum post and this is meant as a jumping-off point.


https://psyarxiv.com/c9uvw
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/17/gun-violence-masculinity-216321
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/oct/06/newsweek/are-white-males-responsible-more-mass-shootings-an/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
https://psmag.com/news/how-science-can-combat-the-alt-right
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882688/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/magazine/white-people-are-noticing-something-new-their-own-whiteness.html
http://jroan.com/HtIBWhite.pdf
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20105
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5172/hesr.2010.19.4.409
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20098
http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2007-00915-004
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20099
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2016.1120490?journalCode=rfms20
 
Kirkrapine said:
It's a matter of firepower. You wouldn't want civilians with tanks and artillery and flamethrowers and RPGs, would you?
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I'm not understanding why this is self-evident. I think that's a big part of our disconnect. I don't have a natural, instinctive trust in the military. I'm not being a smart-ass, and I feel like you think I am. I genuinely don't understand the difference here. Why is it ok for a government-backed military force to have something, but it's not ok for a civilian to have it if the civilian has proven themselves responsible through an agreed-upon series of regulations? Why are we supposed to trust that the military can handle these kinds of things?

You have to understand that for a lot of people, the issue really is that they don't trust the government, or big corporations, or anything that wields power over them. "They get it but you don't," is genuinely not a self-evident truth for a lot of people. Have you ever heard of the "Prepper" segment of the population?
 
CandiCame said:
I'm not understanding why this is self-evident. I think that's a big part of our disconnect. I don't have a natural, instinctive trust in the military. I'm not being a smart-ass, and I feel like you think I am. I genuinely don't understand the difference here. Why is it ok for a government-backed military force to have something, but it's not ok for a civilian to have it if the civilian has proven themselves responsible through an agreed-upon series of regulations? Why are we supposed to trust that the military can handle these kinds of things?

You have to understand that for a lot of people, the issue really is that they don't trust the government, or big corporations, or anything that wields power over them. "They get it but you don't," is genuinely not a self-evident truth for a lot of people. Have you ever heard of the "Prepper" segment of the population?
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I don't often respond to you, or agree with you for that matter, but you've hit on an essential truth here. Governments are not to be trusted...........ever. Power corrupts. The holding of firearms in civilian hands is the last bulwark against government overreach. The 'big government' crowd argues that the powers that be can order the military into action against the population. True, they can issue that order but history has shown that the results are more often than not not quite as they envisioned. More often than not it has resulted in the collapse of the government that issued the order.
 
bellisarius said:
I don't often respond to you, or agree with you for that matter, but you've hit on an essential truth here. Governments are not to be trusted...........ever. Power corrupts. The holding of firearms in civilian hands is the last bulwark against government overreach. The 'big government' crowd argues that the powers that be can order the military into action against the population. True, they can issue that order but history has shown that the results are more often than not not quite as they envisioned. More often than not it has resulted in the collapse of the government that issued the order.
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That's literally the point of the second amendment!
 
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