THE POLICE PROBLEM

A big caveat to this is that of the millions who feel they're doing "OK," millions of them are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. Only ~40% of Americans can cover a $1000 emergency, for example.

I've started calling it a wealthcare system.

So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad

I mean, I’m only in my 30’s and I know four people who have been shot. Two were robberies, one was a seemingly random act of violence, and the fourth was due to a domestic dispute. Three are still alive, but that fourth died in his girlfriend’s arms before paramedics arrived. It happened a decade ago, and she still has night terrors from it. And this is in a nice suburb, not someplace full of gangs.

I never worried about anyone having a gun in my life at least not realistically so. I mean I live in pretty safe place. All the bad ppl left 15 years ago for the USA, Britain and so. We are the nation of religious, sometimes toxic hobbits. Worst is social ostracism as that can be really bad in the smaller places if you didn’t vote same as others or you dated same gender. Or didn’t go to the church…

I wish everyone could be a nation of hobbits, that’s like ideal in my eyes

Point is when I hear about knife fights in UK I am like wow brrrr.

Biggest bad news lately in my capital was that some poor woman got sexually assaulted and died a month or three ago while returning from some party at 5 AM sunday which was very shocking. It really was the most disturbing thing.

Everyone is very anti immigrant here though. Even the pro Democratic/leftish Party just legalized shooting at the border to immigrants (in case of aggression). Kinda crazy. I think at this point they simply wouldn’t get elected at all if they were pro immigration. One single, very left party pro immigration has 6% of votes.

It seems that this change in narrative of the pro eu pro democrats helped them win over alt rights but like ya know it’s all super complicated morally. I guess almost 100% of people don’t want (Arabic) immigrants and it is long sailed ship.

I am very conflicted about all it internally. I am not blind what happens when you let culturally and socially distant immigrants en masse but I don’t want those people to suffer either. I don’t blame them for trying to get where is much better place to live but I also don’t want to sacrifice myself for it…

It’s super huge problem and we all gonna have some blood on our hands I reckon if we don’t already have…

Also I remember there being lots of drunk homeless people once long ago but I haven’t seen one in such miserable state at least in a long while. Just realised it now. Long ago I was semi afraid to go to the liquor store because of all the types consuming high powered drinks. Harmless still but it definitely changed. For whatever reason. I hope it is for the good reasons and not the bad ones.

Overall I think we are moving into interesting direction though slowly and a bit bloody at times considering the borders. they are only going to get worse and most have uncanny ability to forget about such things immediately when they accidentally hear about them. We all prefer to pretend it’s all cool and distant or whatever. I myself prefer not to dig into the horrors that must happen there uh

Any person in the U.S. that has interacted with a police officer has been threatened with gun violence. It's implicit in that 9mm they carry on their hip.

But yes, I know people who have been shot, shot at, and had weapons drawn on them too. By actors other than the state.

I'm in Canada and don't know anyone I can say for sure has been affected by gun violence or threats of it. I've personally been in a situation where I was trying to make small talk with a wannabe gangster and apparently asking about jobs can be dangerous I guess when they make money from mostly illegal shit and he threatened me until my friend came over and convinced him I'm not an under cover cop. But even that threat was a, "what if I had a piece" rather than "I'm going to shoot you".

I only ever saw or shot bb guns until in my 30s when I did some target shooting in my friend's back yard. He kept his guns all locked up when he wasn't using them, ammo locked separately. Partially for the obvious safety reasons (even though he lived alone), partially because a part of the license is that police are allowed to come and inspect how you are storing your guns. I don't know how often this is used in practice (don't think my friend ever had it happen), but it's a sign that the legal state of guns is very different across the border.

I can't even think of any robberies using violence or threats of violence I have first hand or second hand knowledge of. Theft, yes, but like the "car was left unlocked and someone noticed" or "someone picked an easy to pick lock". That last one happened to me, I figured out who it was and just told him to stop coming around and I'd leave it alone and I never saw the guy again. It might have been a bit dangerous if I wanted satisfaction from the situation, but I think there might have been an equal chance he would have just accepted the L and paid be back for the weed he stole.

Pistols require a seperate license that is much harder to get. For rifles and shotguns, you can get a license as a hunter, recreational shooter, or collector (amateur is fine but you do need to get your hunter license first before you can use it to justify a gun license). There was a gun registry but the conservatives scrapped that the last time they were in power.

For pistols, they are limited to certain professions such as police officer, military (I assume), or professional hunter/trappers who work in bear territory and aren't necessarily carrying a rifle or shotgun ready to go if suddenly confronted by a bear. I believe there's certain self-defense scenarios that allow them (like a proven threat that is difficult to neutralize, like with connections to organised crime).

It's gotta be extreme because carrying anything for self-defense is generally illegal. Like if you have a pocket knife you use to open packages, that's ok, but if you carry that same knife for self-defense purposes, it's an illegal weapon. Some knives like switchblades or butterfly knives that can be deployed with one hand are always illegal.

I think this is a bit much, because knives that don't fold are ok and IMO the question should be more about what scenarios one thinks it is ok to defend themselves with a weapon than having had that consideration at all. That said, the situations where someone might think a weapon is called for but isn't are probably more common that situations where one is necessary to defend oneself. But I digress.

The pretty much ban on pistols I think is what makes the difference. In some states, the risky part of carrying a pistol is about if you use it or if you specifically shouldn't have one (felony or something). In Canada, just carrying it runs the risk of losing it and catching charges, which means that situations where someone would use a hidden pistol in the moment are more likely to have a cool down period while they go get their gun and might realize that it's not worth it or might not be able to find their victim again afterwards.

There is some gang activity but I think even that is way more chill here and any violence is probably more related to score settling than turf control. I get the impression that the cops are more chill about non-violent stuff here, so that could play into the equation in that the risk differential is higher if violence is involved. Or I could be wrong about that because I'm not a minority (but I suspect it's because police violence is investigated (and not just by themselves) and dealt with more consistently here, and the lower likelihood of getting randomly shot probably allows them to be more at ease).

Yes I do. In fact the couple was held at gunpoint by 2 men who robbed them, and then felt up his wife in front of hime with gun barrels in their faces.

Cowards who hide behind a gun

I used to think a major global catastrophe will fix the system, like world war, or a hostile alien invasion. Then covid happened and we're back to square one in the aftermath, if not worse. I realised there's no fixing it. In my opinion, it's not that we aren't there yet, it's that we will never be 'there'. Having said that, when I say never I speak about our lives or that of our grandchildren, perhaps a few more generations. If humanity survives a few more centuries after that, if not millenia, who knows what could happen.

It is 8/10 where I live Public transport, edu, health, weather a bit too hot in summer because of city lacking green area but I have this small property 30 km away from city with just pure green everywhere and I smoke joints there and paint in summer.

My flat is barely liveable in summer without AC as it is on the attic.

People are peaceful mostly they just value not drawing attention to themselves and generally you can go alone at night with no problems. Only slightly worse as woman. Probably 50/50 if visibly trans - not sure but I’d wager it would be suprisingly rare considering how religious some ppl are. They will just tell you to fear Jesus or smh or maybe laugh or comment but most likely won’t do anything. Still if there is anyone that should be cautious it’s visibly trans ppl at night but then at night it’s harder to clock a trans woman so that’s that. I guess if you dressed like drag queen and went to the darkest places at night there would be 50/50 chance of some unpleasant or maybe dangerous situation but those bad places aren’t as many here as there were in the past.

Nearest bad place near me got renovated and while we were drinking there extensively late at night in the past, we got tickets for our shitty ways. Most dangerous places seemingly disappeared as the drinkers disappeared and places got revamped.

I guess now that I am on the other end of the stick that’s just pure win instead of „god there’s no more place to drink and make chaos in this neighbourhood, the end is near”