this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (4 children)

They want you dead. It's time to return this sentiment.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Normalizing political violence will inevitably, and possibly literally, blow up in your face.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We are not going to sit here and watch people get killed for no reason just for nothing to happen to the terrorists in return. As terrorists, they deserve to be treated as terrorists. A hundred years ago killing Nazis after the liberation of Germany was the right thing to do, but now it's supposed to be wrong?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The dude who shot her was killed by the police. What more were you thinking should have been done to him?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what are you recommending? It sounds like you're recommending pre-emptive violence towards people with no crime, no trial, no jury. That is likely to end badly. It's also likely to be used as an excuse to kill people who aren't involves in hate in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All i am saying is that if someone were to kill one of those terrorists, they wouldn't get my pity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What do you define as "one of those terrorists"? Any person who is a conservative, or any person who has already murdered someone for being gay? Or somewhere in the middle?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

If we acted the same way it would reinforce their agenda. My comment blew up.

Update/Edit: if you think killing people is the answer to solving the world's problems then you are a fucking premtitive shitty human being and are a part of the problem.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No action will also reinforce their agenda

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah hence why when the Nazis invaded Europe we never invaded them back, because that would have just reinforced the Nazi agenda.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (6 children)

No it wouldn't, you are helping their agenda by discouraging the left from taking up arms.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're not allowed to get strapped up like a larping moron in every western country in the world that isn't the US.

The US would be doing a lot better if they stopped pretending like they were the only country in the world that's ever tried to solve a problem. Owning guns just increases the chance that you or a family member will commit suicide or a murder suicide.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

Honestly, the gun culture is way too entrenched among the right wing for something like that to be viable and any attempt at meaningful gun legislation will ignite the civil war I'm talking about.

The right wing is open and emphatic about their willingness to wage war with the government to be able to keep their weapons. And they are serious. There's enough of them that they could give our military a good run for its money.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No they wouldn't. Our military doesn't even need to respond most of the time, just the cops, and when they do these jackasses are so poorly trained and organized, The National Guard doesn't even get to play with their big toys.

Source: lefty (in both ways) Navy Veteran, and there are way more of us than the braying jackasses want to admit

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lately I've been thinking that if congress got shot up as often as schools did, we would have sane gun control with bipartisan support

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That's basically how it's been, only with a very racist bent. Gun control only really became a thing once Black people started arming themselves.

I agree with you that once people start popping off politicians that we'll see real change on the matter. And then the right wing will be signaled to fight once they see mass disarmament programs begin, and it'll be downhill from there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Gun control only really became a thing once Black people started arming themselves.

Negative. Gun Control in the United States predates the founding of the country and it was both racist and classist from the very outset. As documented in that link Gun Control laws have been around for over 200 years and were instituted against Blacks but also against the Irish, the Chinese, and Native Americans.

Your comment is based on The Mulford Act, a stupid and racist piece of California legislation passed with bi-partisan effort and signed by then Governor Ronald Reagan in response to publicly armed Black Panthers. It wasn't even close the first serious gun control law to get passed.

For instance Mulford was modeled on The Sullivan Act enacted by New York State in 1911. It intentionally targeted Italian immigrants, another distinct minority at the time.

This country has ALWAYS enacted Gun Control in response to racial and class elements.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay, fair, my bad. You're right.

Also holy shit, why would any reasonable person support stupid shit like gun control in that light?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Also holy shit, why would any reasonable person support stupid shit like gun control in that light?

In yesterday's society it was to protect the wealth and position of the Upper and Middle classes. In today's society it's because it seems like an obvious response to things like Mass Shootings and Gun Crime. The hidden in plain sight truth though is that modern day Gun Control proposals are doing the same thing as yesterday's Gun Control proposals because if you have enough money they will not apply to you.

Pass a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban? No problem for the wealthy, they'll just drop $20,000 on a pre-ban machine gun that can be legally transferred to them. Pass a Federal "Red Flag" law? They don't care as they know it'll never be enforced against them; their connections, money, and lawyers will see to it. Federal UBC? Again, no worries as their connections, money, and lawyers all make sure they won't be impacted. Remove the 2nd Amendment and ban the private ownership of firearms? No worries, the bodyguards surrounding them and their families will still be armed, just like they are everywhere else in the world.

What makes it even more stupid is that no direct causal link between the number of guns in circulation and the amount of "Gun Crime", however you define that, has ever been shown. In fact the data shows something very different than the reality most people believe in.

The household ownership rate has been bouncing around the low to mid 40s since 1972.. The population of the US grew from 240M in 1972 to 322M in 2014 too, so that 40% household ownership rate includes an addition 80 Million people.

The number of NICS (Federal Background Checks) in the United States quadrupled from 10 Million per year to 40 Million per year between 1998 and 2020.

Meanwhile Intentional Homicide fell from it's high of 9.82 in 1991 to 4.4 in 2014, a decrease of 50%. Gun Crime specifically peaked in 1993 and then declined by 49% over the next 20 years.

In short US Citizens bought a SHIT ton of guns starting in the 90s and tens of millions of new owners were added as our population grew...all while both Violent and Gun Crime continued to drop. We have a problem for sure, but it ain't the number of guns in circulation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always thought the drop on violent crime was because of the ban on leaded gasoline.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a good theory and one that I bought into as well but the statistics should have stayed down if that was the cause. Since they didn't there must have been another factor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think they jumped back up because of the lockdowns

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately Violent and Firearm Crime statistics started climbing again in 2015. The pandemic may have played a role but it cannot be the cause.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

🤔 So what happened in the mid to late '10's to cause it? Maybe it was the rise of Trump.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Already happened a few times. Gca 68 was after Kennedy and 86 was after reagan.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

History has shown time and time again that pacifism cannot defeat conservatism. Conservatives see pacifism as an invitation to attack.

They do no rely on our actions to advance their agenda of hate. Conservatives will advance their agenda of hate with or without our input. They can only be stopped by force.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I dunno. I've thought, for quite some time, that we'll lose because the only way to combat the far-right is to stoop to their levels and we, naturally, are to ethical to do so. I'm increasingly on the side of see-a-nazi-punch-a-nazi, although I'm horrified by violence and probably wouldn't have the courage to do so.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

If you are unable to fight, then prepare yourself in other ways. Teach your family how to help fighters who are injured, how to evac people who need help and how to escape/survive a conservative attack (such as an active shooter).

Even if you are not a fighter, there is a ton you can do to help those who will fight.

At minimum, teach your children why we don't do business with or engage in personal relationships with conservatives. Together we can maginalize hate by marginalizing haters.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It seems unlikely that this would have any political effect, let alone a negative one. Perpetual gun violence is an unremarkable feature of life in the United States.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There are times violence is necessary, with Nazi Germany being the classic example.

That said, most of the time, even for many times where violence might be "right" it's still a strategic error. It's much harder to build than destroy and any "successful" deployment of violence requires physical and institutional/relational rebuilding.

Violence can make it harder to attract supporters to your cause. It gives your opponents the feeling of moral justification in also exercising violence. In a full on conflict, it reduces the ability of key supporters (the young, elderly, disabled, many women) from contributing to the struggle compared with non violent action

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