The logic required to connect cause with effect is nearing extinction in the human species, and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis. A risk well-worth taking, I might add.
I dunno. Suppose I ride my bicycle down to the bar, drink 14 shots of tequila and a 6 pack of cheap bear, then start to ride home, and crash into a ditch. Now who's fault was that crash? It's the bicycle's fault, obviously!
How widespread this is, I don't know, but the link cites Pennsylvania as an example of a state where if a bartender lets you get sh*tfaced and then you proceed to ride your bike into a ditch and crack your skull, you could come after the bartender for damages caused entirely by your own stupidity.
Sweden too, but you (the drinker) wouldn't get any damages in your example.
Instead, you would lose your driver's license (for your car) for riding a bike while drunk, the logic being that anyone mature enough to have a license should know better. Also, the pub could lose it's license to serve alcohol, and it's license to have late opening hours (we have licenses and certificates for things you wouldn't believe - 12 different ones for chainsaws f.e.).
In fact, in Stockholm, the pub can lose it's license if it allows its patrons to be "too merry", especially if they are singing at the table. Or if they allow a patron who ordered at the bar to carry their beers to their table. Or if a minor is found on the premises, no matter if the staff or owner was aware. Or...
I guess personal responsibility is a hate crime nowadays. No wonder our polish cousins (our real royal houses shares origin - King Vasa I) just shakes their heads at us the way you about a friend who's slipping into dementia.
Or the bar tender’s fault… or the booze manufacturer, whoever dug the ditch, the cycle manufacturer for not fitting safety equipment, worse! making bikes with only two wheels and so inherently unstable - well we could put together a long list.
Since WWII responsibility for everything has gradually been moved from the individual to the State. During the last two years the presumption by the political class was that individuals could not take responsibility for themselves and granny, and the masses didn’t want the responsibility and presumed the State would take responsibility - an opportunity too good to miss to consolidate total empowerment of the State over the individual and centralise economic planning and control - the Socialist and Fascist Dream.
The alcohol would be the reason, which is why you are breaking the law when driving under influence. But the US will not make it an offence to carry an assault weapon in the street, yet it is a tool far more deadly that your bicycle.
You are not a serious person. The answer is concealed carry..even in schools. Gun free zones are magnets for crazy people who want to kill people. Kinda like chicago
Here's how we can know that gun-free zones are idiotic, and that those who advocate for gun-free zones as a means of safety are dishonest aholes:
NO anti-gunner who advocates for gun-free zones posts prominent signs around their homes alerting the world to the absence of guns in their homes.
But that's EXACTLY what they do with gun-free zones in hospitals, schools, certain workplaces, movie theaters (see: Aurora, CO), post offices, the list is long. They make THOSE soft targets public knowledge, but they DON'T tell the world that their own homes are soft targets.
Given that some 98% of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, one could almost think that those that continue to implement them don't really have the welfare of children, or anyone else for that matter, in mind, but do so for some other, unstated reason.
But that would, of course, be a conspiracy theory.
the goal is not safety, the goal is to reimage society and culture to bring about the rational, planned, regimented world where everything is done efficiently. this is supposed to avoid conflict arising from competition for limited resources and services. Your rights to do what you want and refuse to obey impede this New Eden, and so it becomes important to remove your ability to resist.
The next time some demented leftist (redundant?) starts babbling about GFZs, ask he/she/it/that exactly what sort of additional "common sense" gun control could have prevented the murder of 276 children in Chicago in 2021.
Chicago is teeming with your fellow 2nd Amendment Enthusiasts, teeming! Practicing self defense everyday, like whenever someone disses their sneakers. Give us some support, it's the gun-topia that you want!
By assault, I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time. Try killing 21 people with a baseball bat or a hammer in a matter of minutes. The fact they are more deadly than a bicycle is neither here nor there because none of them were used in the US mass killings of the past 12 months.
How are you proposing to prevent psychopaths using assault rifles, their weapon of choice, to commit mass murder? What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?
What's "rapid-fire"? Automatic? Automatic firearms haven't been available to the general public for decades.
Or is "one trigger pull per shot" rapid fire? In that case, are you saying firearms should only be bolt-action or slower? Or two trigger pulls per shot? Kinda like double-clicking a mouse?
At what velocity is a projectile's "high velocity" sufficient to render its firearm an "assault weapon"?
"Quick reload" as opposed to, what, going in the direction of how muskets are reloaded? With magazines, you cannot avoid "quick reloads". So are you calling for the abolition of magazines?
"Easy to carry" defines pistols, which are easy to conceal (which makes them easy to carry). Are you saying that ALL pistols (because all are concealable and easy to carry) are "assault weapons"?
Most people who throw around the term "assault weapon" are referring to rifles, in particular ARs. A rifle is not as "easy to carry weapon" inasmuch as it's very visible.
What, exactly would you like to ban in the way of "assault weapons"?
You ask, What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for "this" kind of weapon (what you refer to as an assault rifle)? The answer is found in the plain language of the Second Amendment, which is found in the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. The answer is also found in the 250 million dead, unarmed citizens of communist and totalitarian countries last century.
As for psychopaths' weapon of choice, the Virginia Tech killer "killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols." No "assault rifle".
The Ft. Hood killer "fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others" using two handguns. No "assault rifle".
At the Aurora, CO movie theater "twelve people were killed" by a shooter using a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol (2 of 3 weapons of choice NOT "assault rifles").
The weapons used in the Columbine shooting included an Intratec TEC-9 Mini, Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun, 99 explosives, and four knives. Most of the weapons of choice were NOT "assault rifles".
26 dead at Sandy Hook, killed by a madman wielding a rifle, a pistol, and a bolt-action (e.g. NOT rapid-fire and NOT quick reload) rifle. Just 1 of the 3 was an "assault rifle".
49 dead at the Pulse nightclub using a rifle and a pistol. So only 1 of 2 were the alleged "weapon of choice" of psychopaths to commit mass murder.
Your mistaken perception that psychopaths' weapon of choice to commit mass murder is an "assault rifle" is the byproduct of something, I don't know what, maybe too great a reliance on the alphabet legacy media. Whatever the reason, the facts don't support your perception.
As for the hammer and baseball bat comparison, you are the one whose reference point was a "tool more deadly than a bicycle." I was only observing that many things - legal things - are more deadly than a bicycle, so your comparison was inapt.
"I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time."
Can you really be so ignorant of modern firearms that you don't know this describes pretty much every sidearm and rifle produced in the last century?
And what, exactly, is your proposal for preventing psychopaths from using anything *other* than "assault rifles" - you know, like planes, trains and automobiles, say - to commit mass murder?
Edged weapons can do amazing amounts of damage to a lot of people fast, too. Problem in Japan, China, India. Today's assault rifle is tomorrow's police patrol carbine. My assault rifle is because I might need it, I can hunt and I can run off/run down threats with it, I can deal with some things at a distance. May I never need it. For me it's like keeping a fire extinguisher handy. Handguns are the weapons of choice for most mass murders, because rifles have their own issues in close quarters. Ramos would have preferred handgun, but his age and access was rifle. I'm still wondering who gave him the $, it may have been the grandparents. Preventing psychopaths is the normies being armed. Next to that, fathers, social cohesion, properly operating "systems," treatment, accountability, family, police and authority figures with moral fiber. That police chief is a lazy leftie pro Beto anti-gun narcissist (open sources). Most disasters have the rule of 3 involved, 3 things that fail. Airliners, massive pileups, shootings, fires, etc. Look at surveillance, 2 cops watched Ramos go by. Chief didn't take his hand radio. Door not locked. Actually many failures, opportunities and judgments not made.
No, Dear LM, the person drinking the alcohol is the reason. How quickly we look to deflect.
How foolish to compare alcohol, a mind altering, intoxicating, drug to a rifle.
Maybe better to compare that drug, or any other, to a doctrine, or a psychosis, or a "ism" or anything that warps a mind. A handful of radicals, with warped minds, and a little bit of aeronautics training did not need your dreaded "assault weapon" to kill over 3,000 people in one morning.
A totalitarian government, unchecked by an armed citizenry with "assault rifles" did not need anything other than a warped mind to murder millions of people. In multiple countries, mind you, so please don't claim it was a one-off, never to be seen again phenomenon. Unchecked, it is ubiquitous; it is destiny.
Yet, here you stand, claiming my scary looking black rifle that in your civilized mind just can't be continenced is the reason for the latest horror.
It is not. It is the very protection against it. And, I carry it, and other weapons, daily, because your silly laws outlawing violence are nonsensical.
But cars kill far more people per year than guns, yet nearly everyone in this country owns, leases, or at least has a license to drive one. People routinely violate laws against driving under the influence, but no matter how many lethal drunk driving accidents you pass on the highway, you'll never hear someone say "we need to ban these assault weapons from our streets."
Or, some locales, stone cold sober. In some U.S. States it's legal to openly carry a firearm most places. In most, probably not. In my State (FL) we are not open carry, but curiously, a loaded handgun in the glove box is legal (with exceptions, of course, don't try it on school property.) You don't even need a concealed weapon permit, although those are readily available. Yet in many States, that gun in the glove compartment might be a felony.
Like, your sister in laws party 30 miles away, with the sheet cake, and you brought her that extra lawn mower, for sure you would have walked there and back if you didn't have the Ram tough Ram pickup with the semi. Inarguable!
This is as good a place to give my psychology lesson. 🧐 I'd like to point out some facts that are all too easily forgotten:
[Late edit: I realized I made a HUGE error here. See if you can spot it. I will reveal it at the end (Item "Epilogue").]
1. The media almost never presents an accurate picture of reality. Even if there were no editorial, ideological or other bias (and let me assure you, there are, big time!) and only straight factual reporting of news items happened, it would STILL be inaccurate. Why? Simple! Because it's nearly only the bad news. What about the good news? No headline or bulletin ever reported "100,000 passenger jets landed safely today." The same principle applies to most of the other lurid press you consume.
2. Primarily due to editorial choices (a form of "cherry picking," if you like) the news consumer is fed carefully curated items generally shaped to fit a certain agenda. Yes, it's been a bad month for mass shootings in the USA, two so far by troubled 18-year-olds. One white, the other Mexican, who will be called "white," of course. (By the way: that's an important point too: the government has been inconsistent in categorizing "Hispanic." White or not? Depends on the year/locale reporting.)
3. Regardless of one's beliefs, if one can set one's ideology aside, it's possible to look up boring government statistics. These will often present a dramatically different picture of what the "average" is. It is true that most killings in the USA are by firearm, this is at variance with nations with strict gun control. What is less well known is that roughly 60% of gun deaths are suicides. Of the remaining 40%, about 80% of it is young black and brown men shooting each other. Whites and everybody else (yes, that includes this Month's insane teenage killers) all fit into that 20%.
4. Historical/Social interest: while not as readily available, one thing I've found interesting is the dramatic rise in crime, especially violent crime, since the mid-20th century. In America, Blacks have been rightly blamed (or equivalently, victimized) by such crime for as long as records have been kept. What's not widely known is that crime is many multiples of what it was in more peaceful times, such as 1945. And arguing against those who blame race/genetics as a factor, consider that Blacks have seen dramatic increases in dysfunction (crime and other indices of problem behavior) over the same time period. That could not be explained by biology. Thus the environment would seem a prime suspect.
5. (Demographic interest) Are Blacks the most crime or violence prone? In the USA perhaps, but let's look at international rankings. Far and away the leader in homicide is El Salvador, which if one reads about its demographics, has virtually zero African descended population. Like most of Central America, it is dominant mestizo (European, mostly Spanish, mix with indigenous tribes.)
Violent as we are, USA is ranked #55 at 5.3 per 100,000. In contrast, the UK is #124, with a homicide rate less than 1/3 of ours. Most Western European nations seem to fit that pattern. Curiously, Russia is much more violent than us, and I suspect, the most violent majority "white" nation.
I've researched these items before, yet today's exercise opened my eyes a bit. Apparently the link between race and crime is not quite as hard and fast as some would claim.
If there is any lesson to this long-winded post, please make it this one: The media usually is full of lies. At best, it is presenting you a tiny, biased sampling of "truth." Often their objective is to manipulate; don't let them do this to you. If a topic is really of importance to you, often you can do some simple investigation and find a clearer approach to the truth, one that is often dramatically at odds with what the media would have you believe.
Epilogue: After I had posted the above essay, I realized I had made a fundamental mistake. Recall where I said in several places that one should not accept the media without question? A fundamental rule of sages back when they spoke or at least wrote Latin was "In omnibus dubitandum." It means, approximately "Everything should be doubted." Well, I confess I made a huge error above. Did you spot it? Simple: my statistics. Just how reliable are those sources? Well, the short answer is of course "I can't be sure, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt their accuracy." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here I was guilty of the very same sin that I routinely jump on Gato and anyone else (usually when the cite Covid-19 statistics.) The nugget of wisdom, of course is that the statistics are often extremely flawed. But they're often all we have to work with.
What follows is probably by no means complete, but will give you an idea of the problems of relying on government data. Remember those FBI crime statistics? Well they are culled from (probably) thousands of different agencies in fifty States and even more territories. Reporting is voluntary. How do we know consistent standards were used? Now wrap your mind around those international statistics. We have all the same issues we'd have domestically, but even worse. Every American jurisdiction has varying laws on what constitutes a homicide. For example, if a person is legally killed, whether by law enforcement or a private citizen (justifiable homicide), should it be counted in the homicide statistics? Its a judgment call. There's no disputing a killing had occurred, but it's distinguished by being legal. Except in the case of a shooting war, we can probably assume that legal deaths are a tiny fraction of the total. But it's a confounder. So would be wartime. Now consider that there are about two hundred different nations in the world, each with differing legal systems. Sometimes differing enormously. In one nation (say) dueling might be legal, so any deaths resulting from that aren't included. Or maybe they are in another. How about survival time? If a person is wounded in Nation A but doesn't die within a week, he may not be considered a murder victim, even if he dies the next week of his affliction. Do you see the problem? We potentially have each nation, or even each State and city's police department, using inconsistent standards of reporting. As with the ever-changing Covid-19 testing and reporting "standards," this may be an innocent factor in studying (say) gunshot victims over long time periods, even in the same nation. For example, isn't it likely that medical science is far better today at saving gunshot victims than fifty, or even ten years ago? A gunshot victim is more likley to survive today, probably. This obviously will skew deaths one way or the other, making those from decades past worse, and today's perhaps better. In this case, a better metric would be to compare total victims shot, whether they lived or died.
The real world is at times a very complicated place, and as the old saying goes, when you ASSUME you often make an ASS out of U and ME.
Please pardon the length of this essay; perhaps I need my own Substack!
I think the racial comparisons are a red herring. There are too many other conflating factors which vary from country to country and influence inter-racial relations within countries to ever get a clear signal, even if there is any real difference. There are much more data to support environmental triggers.
For example, increases in lead levels as measured in preschoolers (due to ubiquitous use of leaded gasoline) in the US over the second half of the 20th century correlate very closely with crime rates if you add 20 years (https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif). So, it looks like those preschoolers whose lead levels peaked in the late 60s, early 70s, may have grown up to be responsible for the high crimes of the late 80s, early 90s. I haven't looked at this in-depth but since lead has been shown to correlate with increased aggression among individuals studied, it's plausible that it might apply on the population level.
With regard to the more recent phenomenon of mass shootings, many people have speculated that they may be triggered by psychiatric drugs being given to teenage boys, specifically certain types of SSRIs and certain ADHD drugs, which have, in clinical studies, been associated with increased rates of homocidal and suicidal ideation in a statistically significant portion of the population, especailly among boys aged 15-24. (See https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/antidepressants-are-the-root-cause?utm_source=email&s=r#details and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0051hkjB9po for in-depth discussions; the latter includes a review of the cited clinical data).
Funny story.. Some years ago, I was living overseas in a country with VERY strict gun control. Like zero private guns anywhere.
One day the news came from America of yet another mass shooting.
But on that same day the local news covered a local mass stabbing.
It had a pretty good backstory - young lovers who wanted to get married, but the girl's family wasn't having any of that. End of the story was, a young man sliced up an entire family dinner party with his machete - like a dozen people - before being shot by the coppers.
The coincidence of those two events happening at the same time really put things in perspective for me.
Whatever small benefit to safety may (or may not) be gained by disarming the common people, it is in no way worth the de facto loss of popular sovereignty that entails.
They have slaughtered people (bodies, etc.). Souls can't be slaughtered. I've seen that word "soul" or "souls" used many times over the years for being killed, but always thought it not the right word to use.
From a theological standpoint, you are of course correct, but I find that using it in this way, as it has been in common parlance for quite some time, adds a dimension of seriousness, and is thus more likely to sway the reader than other terms.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - when the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees.
However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
~ Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567 (9th Circuit 2003)
Just clarifying that guns aren’t made to kill people. They are a tool, just like a knife or anything else that can be wielded by evil people or anyone else, and they can be used to defend the vulnerable from the psychopathic, the weak from the strong, the citizen from the tyrant. The only reason tyranny hasn’t gotten further along in America is 2A, and every people that has ever given up that right to its government has come to regret that decision bitterly.
Oh Susanna, in the last 30 days, I have used my guns to kill a fox (5.56 AR-15 "assault weapon" style rifle at about 150 yards, a really good shot, by the way,) a really large snake I didn't want around, because my daughters get weird about that (12 gauge semi-auto shotgun with a 18" barrel,) and an aged animal that needed to be culled (.45 cal pistol at very close range, an emotionally draining task.) Three different guns, by the way, each with a different reach and effect. Not a single one made "specifically to kill people." Each, exactly what I need for the task at hand.
But, in that same 30 days, I've conceal carried a .45 caliber SA XDS2 with laser, a Kimber 9mm, and a Bersa .380 with Crimson Trace laser grip. My intent was to be able to kill anything trying to kill me. Say, a mass shooter.
It's a tool. Like the axe I've used in the same period, the 8 lb sledge I've used in the same period, and the Ram 2500 truck I use every day.
What other God given right are you willing to give away because you don't like how someone misuses it? Free speech? Free religion?
They're made specifically to kill people, if used by the wrong people, in the wrong way. Say a government.
Andvknifings every nite in london ..not to mention violent breaking and enterings. By population the uk is now the most dangerous country in the world.
That's based on a manifestly false premise: "if guns weren't around"
It's the same false premise at the root of the nuclear disarmament movement, the notion that nukes would disappear if everyone got rid of their nukes (because NOT everyone would get rid of them, just as there will never be a situation where "guns aren't around").
I mean, you even concede this in the construct of your comment. You don't say that there would be NO mass shootings if guns weren't around, you say there'd be less of them if guns weren't around.
But if guns aren't around - if there are no guns - how would there be ANY mass shootings?
Furthermore, if guns were only possessed by government and bad guys, how do you know the carnage would be less? Bad guys knowing there are no good guys with guns are far more incentivized to commit gun crimes, and far more able to succeed.
On April 19th, 1993, heavily armed agents of the Federal government burned 76 people alive in Waco Texas.
The victims included 25 children and 2 pregnant women.
This after a 51 day siege where the Feds terrorized them with tanks, attack helicopters and various forms of psychological warfare.
The government investigation into the government's actions found no fault with any government actions, and the only people prosecuted were those who escaped being shot or incinerated.
This atrocity was the direct result of gun control laws.
This is the reality of the government violating the 2nd Amendment.
This is a question that you can answer scientifically. The only way to do this is to look at the empirical evidence.
And the evidence is crystal clear that there is no relation between how armed a population is and the number of mass shootings. Slice it by country, by state, or whatever you want.
True. But unfortunately, only double blind random controlled placebo studies will do anymore...
You know, like how the Surgisphere Lancet published fraudulent randomized peer reviewed controlled placebo study...which took out any empirical data on HCQ, just like Fauci wanted....
Yes, yes, now you are onto something. Stay with that. The bicycle is at fault. Keep shoveling all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy.
Agreed. I live in Canada where there are not many guns. Some people do mass stabbings but it is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than a mass shooting so you can’t kill as many people all at once.
But the *government* can, once the people are disarmed. History has shown this over and over and over. Tens and hundreds of millions of deaths later, how is this lesson still not learned?
"...and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis."
...and then there are still some among us with no fucks to give about what other people think, or whether they feel safer in their bubble because they ostracize us... that's kinda like the trash taking itself to the kerb...
We're rapidly returning to the demon-haunted world Sagan warned us about, which is right where they want us. People scared of demons can be talked into anything, especially a permanent aristocracy "protecting" them from said demons.
Yes, we do "risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis" for the best of reasons: to try to head off the collective psychosis.
I suspect that the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives and are not on display for us to enjoy the sport of generalizing to ascertain the intelligence or the stupidity of the rest.
“the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives”—and lazily failing to take ownership of their own knowledge is what has caused them to fall under mass formation and sleepwalk the planet into a totalitarian technocratic dystopia that they will only awaken to after it’s too late, if ever.
Shaking off the hypnosis and recognizing that they have entrusted their lives to sociopathic tyrants is the only way they will have a chance of achieving the simple pleasure of “trying to live their lives,” but right now, choosing to remain in that state of subjugation to tyranny is the definition of stupidity according to Bonhoeffer (https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/).
You’re right, SCA. I don’t know you well enough to make that accusation, so I apologize. From the limited exchanges I’ve had with you, however, you have demonstrated a resistance to learning about both menticide and mass formation while defending the hypnotized for simply “trying to live their lives,” which is exactly what the Good Germans did while the Nazis went about their merry business because there weren’t enough Badass Germans (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/are-you-a-good-german-or-a-badass) to stop them.
It's pretty easy to ascertain the intelligence or stupidity of the population by doing nothing more than watching their "leaders". The "leadership" is a mirror of the population.
This is just crying for a grievance studies hoax paper a la Lindsay, Pluckrose, Boghossian. "A Multi-pronged Approach? The Fork as a Psychological Tool of Capitalist Food Distribution Systems and the Framework of Fat Shaming"
There is an argument thread on Alex Berenson's substack post today about [religious] "evil" causing these problems which reminds me of this. By not honing in on the shooter, we are missing the cause. The cause is a deranged mental state, most likely caused by what these children are given over many years while their brains are developing --in food, water, injections and medication. And let's not forget marijuana as Berenson also points out (he has written a book about this) and which was a factor in the Texas shooter case.
These shootings didn't happen 50 years ago because kids weren't as mentally ill back then. They weren't inhaling pesticide and poison soaked pot (its not the pot your mom used to smoke and the Texas shooter was a chronic pot smoker). They weren't as mentally ill because we weren't feeding them chemicals and hormone disrupting ingredients through their food and water or injecting them with 72 shots of poison by the time they are 13.
Yeah, I'm not so sure that is behind what is happening now. I don't disagree that our society is broken, but a lot of that was forced upon us, such as consumerism, "medication" and the infiltration of our food sources by corporate interests. The people in power, at the very least use us like punching bags to make a profit. Believing in God and having family values wouldn't put a dent in this phenomenon. It's just to easy to say "evil" is the problem here or create a circular argument that always comes back to "godlessness." People, esp. the ones in power (and not the ones you see on tv), are actually the problem. They've always been around--the difference is that now they have the funding and resources to wreak havoc on a global scale.
No one can "force" consumerism on you. It's your money, it's your decision to spend your money as you see fit. If you fell into keeping up with the Jonses consumerism, I'm sorry to say, but it's all on you. --- If you have kids you can teach them this same lesson. --- Other than that, I mostly agree with you.
Yes and no. It's "cultural." When you are inundated with advertisements from the time you are born and you are surrounded by mostly idiots who buy into that whole scene, it can be hard to decline, much less be aware of what's happening. I would not consider myself a big consumer and yet I find myself ordering from Amazon at LEAST twice a month. I pay for the privilege to do it too. I am aware and still personally find it hard to opt out completely.
You bring a salient and relevant point ... consumerism and much of our other "isms" are sunk deep into the culture. A couple of my friends, who buy anything as long as it's new and trendy, think I am a bumpkin for not sinking my hard-earned moolah into the latest thang. Kind of like women's fashion has always been: brainwashing with glitter.
i find the "mentally ill" explanation a tautology. ie, "only mentally ill people would do that." it would be interesting to find a study of shooters. I've seen a few but too often these people end up dead. did this guy show signs before? yes, if you call cross-dressing a mental illness. but psychopathic-killer sick?, we will see. frankly, I think shooting has been normalized via tv, movies, video games over the past 50-60 years. you put together anger, frustration, low self worth and it yields someone who will begin to fantasize about killing (and likely ending their own life in the process). they become a hero in their own mind--call it a type of hypnosis or "radicalization". there seems to be a kind of glory seeking, revenge taking, "fuck it all" mindset. and the person has been trained how to do it by media. esp if shooters are sub-25 YO males whose forebrain is not fully developed. I am not sure they are diagnosable beforehand. (that's just my musing on the issue.)
Well, mental illness is certainly on a continuum. I think you have to be on that scale somewhere to kill 20+ children. That's not normal anger. I won't get into the cross-dressing thing here but I think we have to admit, there is a "glitch" somewhere with that.
i agree. but the real issue is would that slot on the continuum show up during a rifle purchase or a background check? if the person has been seeing psychiatrist/psychologist, perhaps. but I think by ethical requirement a dangerous person must be reported by a therapist. so my concern is that "mental illness' is ex post facto. the trick is to determine this beforehand. and that is difficult and has its own issues re using psychiatry as a tool against our political enemies. bottom line: I seen no answer. confiscation simply allows only the criminal element to have arms (and law enforcement). how many die in that that scenario? you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
yup--impossible solution, like the homelessness crisis. Until you pass laws trampling basic human rights (which I am NOT advocating), we're stuck. That's why these events are such great fodder for "just take away all the guns!"
ty for clarification. this seems to make it even more difficult to ident homicide candidates before hand. fwiw-this conversation has gotten me curious so I am going to read various scholarly articles on mass shooters traits, demographics, "profiles". it is interesting even if simple answers aren't available.
The sheer number of these people, increasing by the thousands every year, will absolutely negate the possibility of "social programs" being the answer.
I haven't seen anything about the cross dressing. I have seen that he was violent and abusive with most everybody and had been bullied forever by other students, because he had a lisp.
One issue is many people in the army and government positions are psychopathic yet they sell the most weapons and kill the most people.
So when the same people say they care about gun violence and attack the guns opposed to the mental condition from games like GTA then you know its an agenda
just read a 2016 report summarizing the family conditions of 56 shooters by Peter Langman. Ten, 18% had intact family settings. some were off the charts dysfunctional. my plan: federal background checks for potential parents.
60 years ago then? Before GMO, Monsanto, screens and before about 10,000 other additives were engineered. Plus we had injections but less than half of what these kids are getting now. Everyone was more accountable to everyone else, to be sure. It's not slacking off on Jesus that has caused this level of fucked-up-ness in kids.
The decline in religion has been ongoing. You can't have faith in a political party but the effort to replace a higher law has been ongoing. Morality is not relative.
Even the teachers that hadn't been in WWII kept discipline in the classroom. Now, they, like the parents, want to be the kid's friend, be cool, etc. No one is the adult anymore.
I'm certain someone would find another weapon with which to rape. A broken bottle, say, or a knife, or a hammer, or a...well, you get my drift. It's likely their goal, but it won't fix the problem.
You dumbasses who are happy to have been American for the last two years rather than Canadian or Australian but oppose an armed citizenry better wise up and remember the one single difference between your country and theirs.
Wow. This simple post sure brought out the people who truly believe in American liberty and the bill of rights...and those that don't. Commenters I used to have respect for because of their rational thinking skills have just shown their true colors. I don't pick and choose the liberties that people should have given to them by their creator even if I think that some people shouldn't have them. True liberty means allowing others to have their liberty, even if we vehemently disagree with what they do with that liberty and even if what they do has disastrous consequences. Having liberty doesn't cause these disasters. In most cases out of control government control and interference does. We have already seen what is being done to free speech. Haven't we learned anything? If just one liberty is taken away for what may seem like a good reason at the time, the rest of them fall as well. Have we already forgotten the last two years of utter tyranny on this planet? Keep justifying taking away liberty because of fear and what we experienced over the last two years will seem like the good old days. We need to wise up. And fast.
Well said Rob. I too am really disappointed by some of the myopic comments from individuals I previously respected, especially those with competing newsletters.
Unless the mass shooter is a leftist. Then the "gun" does the shooting, like a "vehicle" automatically runs into street dancers. These inanimate objects are animate!
It's the whole gun debate thing again and shrilled by idiots who know nothing about guns - why not ban knives, or fists, or boots or cars. Up here in the Once Great White North Emperor Blackface's Gun Minions are busy concocting up ways to eventually disarm folk with any type of gun and for any reason, be it hunting, farming or sport. A disarmed population is an unprotected population ye see. And that's after the idiots admit that legally held guns are responsible for a fraction of a % of gun crime.... but hey, why let solid facts get in the way of crappy policy!
Strange how just a couple months ago the “hero” Zylensky” told the world he needed ammo and not a ride, and was cheered along with his citizens for wanting weapons. But now our leaders want to remove our guns. Funny, how that works.
School shootings. I am sorry but this needs to be said.
1. Normal people have no interest in killing children, especailly ones they do not know, especially in large numbers.
2. In my view, only people subject to mind control (please investigate Sirhan Sirhan or read about US intelligence agency attempts to create mind controlled assassins beginning in the 1950s) or people taking certain drugs are even capable of carrying out such an act.
3. School shootings are the most provocative and effective way to initiate a change in gun laws, which means taking away the guns from some or all of the people who privately own them.
4. The large number of American gun owners pose a daunting challenge to the globalists who wish to control them. Police and military will not be willing to enter the homes of gun owners to remove their guns or for other purposes.
5. Few Europeans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders own guns, and it is believed by many that the imposition of much harsher lockdowns on the citizens of these nations, compared to the US, was enabled by this fact.
6. There have been shortages of guns and ammunition in the US since the onset of the pandemic. Whether this is due to supply-demand, including increased purchases by the federal government, or to other market forces, is not clear.
7. There has been very little exploration into the past history of those who committed mass murders in the US in recent years, especially in schools. I want to know if any or all of these mass murderers may have been enrolled in black mind control projects.
8. I want a full accounting of the mind control programs paid for with taxpayer dollars in the US and elsewhere.
9. I want an investigation into the many thousands of self-reported "targeted individuals" (TIs) who complain of voices beamed into their heads and other forms of what can only be termed torture.
10. I want an investigation into the implants some of these people claim were introduced into their bodies.
11. We are being attacked in many perverse ways, and we must open our eyes, pull our power back, or the attacks will continue and will destroy us.
Individualists have two really empowering things on our ideological side - guns and electronic devices. Gun, because they empower the individual against the deranged mob. They've got to think twice about knocking on our door to arrest us. The devices, because they empower us to thumb our nose at annoying collectivism and make solitude mentally engaging, destroying the old boredom that compelled us to reluctantly seek out group activities.
We have to be somewhat sober about the devices. As much as we love them, they're quite addictive and can lead to dangerous levels of social isolation, especially among kids. This is a real problem. I've said on here before, I believe there's a connection between the madness we're seeing in the world and devices addiction, which is trapping people in hyper-individualistic solitary confinement. It's driving collectivists, particularly elites, insane as they can't connect the dots. They just know something is terribly wrong. The inner ideologue is screaming. The conscious mind feels it acutely, but can't see it and therefore can't address it. In the meantime they're surrendering to the ideological madman and embracing any madness that brings some measure of ideological satisfaction, even if harmful. This is a dire situation, and the devices are the hidden culprit. Dare we say anything about these little miracles of blissful individualism?
I first noticed this several years ago when I still commuted on public transportation. No one speaking, or reading a book or anything else besides their thumb-capturers. Anyone reading a (paper) book would often exchange a sly and grateful smile with me, if I were to look up from my own (paper) book long enough to catch their eye.
Agree BUT I have PERSONALLY seen a person go COMPLETELY crazy and homicidal from an SSRI/SSRI-enhancing herb (St John's Wort/5-HTP). Some/most of them have black box warnings for a reason (the drugs, not the herbs, but it happens with both).
ANH-USA has researched dozens of the most high-profile cases of violent crimes over the last few decades. We found that in just under half of the cases (eleven out of twenty-three), the perpetrator was documented to be taking, or had recently stopped taking, some form of antidepressant or antipsychotic medication.
I agree with you. The person pulling the trigger is responsible.
Violence, especially gun violence, is glorified and glamorized in media and video games. Even the so-called super hero movies are filled with killing. I don't have a gun. I don't like guns. I don't get it. I never have. But I do understand the need for the 2A, especially in the past two years.
We have a problem in our culture. We can't begin to solve it until we acknowledge it.
Violence as entertainment should be thoroughly disavowed by society.
The logic required to connect cause with effect is nearing extinction in the human species, and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis. A risk well-worth taking, I might add.
Blaming inanimate objects for animate actions is a common symptom of the mental disorder known as leftism.
They really do seem to believe that there is no objective reality.
I dunno. Suppose I ride my bicycle down to the bar, drink 14 shots of tequila and a 6 pack of cheap bear, then start to ride home, and crash into a ditch. Now who's fault was that crash? It's the bicycle's fault, obviously!
Secondarily, the ditch's.
But never yours.
And we must sue the bicycle manufacturers into oblivion. Or at least as far away as, limited to the elite.
It's the bartenders fault. They didn't stop you from drinking into inebriation.
You may be joking, but there are states where you could make that assertion, and you'd win:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dram_shop_rule
How widespread this is, I don't know, but the link cites Pennsylvania as an example of a state where if a bartender lets you get sh*tfaced and then you proceed to ride your bike into a ditch and crack your skull, you could come after the bartender for damages caused entirely by your own stupidity.
Sweden too, but you (the drinker) wouldn't get any damages in your example.
Instead, you would lose your driver's license (for your car) for riding a bike while drunk, the logic being that anyone mature enough to have a license should know better. Also, the pub could lose it's license to serve alcohol, and it's license to have late opening hours (we have licenses and certificates for things you wouldn't believe - 12 different ones for chainsaws f.e.).
In fact, in Stockholm, the pub can lose it's license if it allows its patrons to be "too merry", especially if they are singing at the table. Or if they allow a patron who ordered at the bar to carry their beers to their table. Or if a minor is found on the premises, no matter if the staff or owner was aware. Or...
I guess personal responsibility is a hate crime nowadays. No wonder our polish cousins (our real royal houses shares origin - King Vasa I) just shakes their heads at us the way you about a friend who's slipping into dementia.
Wow - thank God I don't live in Sweden! It sounds grim and cheerless.
I was joking and said it, because I know of those court cases. Massachusetts had their share of them as well.
And in Australia!
I thought of that as well. NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES!
But of course it is, comrade, but only if you are not white.
Yeah! after all, Cars don't go places, people do!
Or the bar tender’s fault… or the booze manufacturer, whoever dug the ditch, the cycle manufacturer for not fitting safety equipment, worse! making bikes with only two wheels and so inherently unstable - well we could put together a long list.
Great! Spread the responsibility that way the individual has none. It’s just like the government and pseudo government bureaucracy.
Since WWII responsibility for everything has gradually been moved from the individual to the State. During the last two years the presumption by the political class was that individuals could not take responsibility for themselves and granny, and the masses didn’t want the responsibility and presumed the State would take responsibility - an opportunity too good to miss to consolidate total empowerment of the State over the individual and centralise economic planning and control - the Socialist and Fascist Dream.
Exactly.
Or the ditch.
Based on that, I just might reconsider my position. : )
The alcohol would be the reason, which is why you are breaking the law when driving under influence. But the US will not make it an offence to carry an assault weapon in the street, yet it is a tool far more deadly that your bicycle.
You are not a serious person. The answer is concealed carry..even in schools. Gun free zones are magnets for crazy people who want to kill people. Kinda like chicago
> Gun free zones
Don't call them that. Call them what they really are:
Victim Disarmament Zones.
(h/t: Vin Suprynowicz)
Here's how we can know that gun-free zones are idiotic, and that those who advocate for gun-free zones as a means of safety are dishonest aholes:
NO anti-gunner who advocates for gun-free zones posts prominent signs around their homes alerting the world to the absence of guns in their homes.
But that's EXACTLY what they do with gun-free zones in hospitals, schools, certain workplaces, movie theaters (see: Aurora, CO), post offices, the list is long. They make THOSE soft targets public knowledge, but they DON'T tell the world that their own homes are soft targets.
Given that some 98% of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, one could almost think that those that continue to implement them don't really have the welfare of children, or anyone else for that matter, in mind, but do so for some other, unstated reason.
But that would, of course, be a conspiracy theory.
Well, those asinine rainbow "Love is Love, Science is Real", blah blah blah signs are a good proxy.
Just so.
This anti-2A lot have it completely ass-backwards.
They should all read John R. Lott Jr's *More Guns Less Crime* and stop making fools of themselves.
the goal is not safety, the goal is to reimage society and culture to bring about the rational, planned, regimented world where everything is done efficiently. this is supposed to avoid conflict arising from competition for limited resources and services. Your rights to do what you want and refuse to obey impede this New Eden, and so it becomes important to remove your ability to resist.
Chicago.
The next time some demented leftist (redundant?) starts babbling about GFZs, ask he/she/it/that exactly what sort of additional "common sense" gun control could have prevented the murder of 276 children in Chicago in 2021.
Chicago is teeming with your fellow 2nd Amendment Enthusiasts, teeming! Practicing self defense everyday, like whenever someone disses their sneakers. Give us some support, it's the gun-topia that you want!
Well, don't get too draconian. Open carry would be okay, too.
What do you mean when you say "assault" weapon? Specifically asking about the term "assault".
A hammer, a baseball bat, they're tools "far more deadly" than a bicycle. But the US doesn't make it an offense to carry those in the street, either.
By assault, I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time. Try killing 21 people with a baseball bat or a hammer in a matter of minutes. The fact they are more deadly than a bicycle is neither here nor there because none of them were used in the US mass killings of the past 12 months.
How are you proposing to prevent psychopaths using assault rifles, their weapon of choice, to commit mass murder? What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?
What's "rapid-fire"? Automatic? Automatic firearms haven't been available to the general public for decades.
Or is "one trigger pull per shot" rapid fire? In that case, are you saying firearms should only be bolt-action or slower? Or two trigger pulls per shot? Kinda like double-clicking a mouse?
At what velocity is a projectile's "high velocity" sufficient to render its firearm an "assault weapon"?
"Quick reload" as opposed to, what, going in the direction of how muskets are reloaded? With magazines, you cannot avoid "quick reloads". So are you calling for the abolition of magazines?
"Easy to carry" defines pistols, which are easy to conceal (which makes them easy to carry). Are you saying that ALL pistols (because all are concealable and easy to carry) are "assault weapons"?
Most people who throw around the term "assault weapon" are referring to rifles, in particular ARs. A rifle is not as "easy to carry weapon" inasmuch as it's very visible.
What, exactly would you like to ban in the way of "assault weapons"?
You ask, What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for "this" kind of weapon (what you refer to as an assault rifle)? The answer is found in the plain language of the Second Amendment, which is found in the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. The answer is also found in the 250 million dead, unarmed citizens of communist and totalitarian countries last century.
As for psychopaths' weapon of choice, the Virginia Tech killer "killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols." No "assault rifle".
The Ft. Hood killer "fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others" using two handguns. No "assault rifle".
At the Aurora, CO movie theater "twelve people were killed" by a shooter using a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol (2 of 3 weapons of choice NOT "assault rifles").
The weapons used in the Columbine shooting included an Intratec TEC-9 Mini, Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun, 99 explosives, and four knives. Most of the weapons of choice were NOT "assault rifles".
26 dead at Sandy Hook, killed by a madman wielding a rifle, a pistol, and a bolt-action (e.g. NOT rapid-fire and NOT quick reload) rifle. Just 1 of the 3 was an "assault rifle".
49 dead at the Pulse nightclub using a rifle and a pistol. So only 1 of 2 were the alleged "weapon of choice" of psychopaths to commit mass murder.
Your mistaken perception that psychopaths' weapon of choice to commit mass murder is an "assault rifle" is the byproduct of something, I don't know what, maybe too great a reliance on the alphabet legacy media. Whatever the reason, the facts don't support your perception.
As for the hammer and baseball bat comparison, you are the one whose reference point was a "tool more deadly than a bicycle." I was only observing that many things - legal things - are more deadly than a bicycle, so your comparison was inapt.
"I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time."
Can you really be so ignorant of modern firearms that you don't know this describes pretty much every sidearm and rifle produced in the last century?
And what, exactly, is your proposal for preventing psychopaths from using anything *other* than "assault rifles" - you know, like planes, trains and automobiles, say - to commit mass murder?
Do tell.
Edged weapons can do amazing amounts of damage to a lot of people fast, too. Problem in Japan, China, India. Today's assault rifle is tomorrow's police patrol carbine. My assault rifle is because I might need it, I can hunt and I can run off/run down threats with it, I can deal with some things at a distance. May I never need it. For me it's like keeping a fire extinguisher handy. Handguns are the weapons of choice for most mass murders, because rifles have their own issues in close quarters. Ramos would have preferred handgun, but his age and access was rifle. I'm still wondering who gave him the $, it may have been the grandparents. Preventing psychopaths is the normies being armed. Next to that, fathers, social cohesion, properly operating "systems," treatment, accountability, family, police and authority figures with moral fiber. That police chief is a lazy leftie pro Beto anti-gun narcissist (open sources). Most disasters have the rule of 3 involved, 3 things that fail. Airliners, massive pileups, shootings, fires, etc. Look at surveillance, 2 cops watched Ramos go by. Chief didn't take his hand radio. Door not locked. Actually many failures, opportunities and judgments not made.
No, Dear LM, the person drinking the alcohol is the reason. How quickly we look to deflect.
How foolish to compare alcohol, a mind altering, intoxicating, drug to a rifle.
Maybe better to compare that drug, or any other, to a doctrine, or a psychosis, or a "ism" or anything that warps a mind. A handful of radicals, with warped minds, and a little bit of aeronautics training did not need your dreaded "assault weapon" to kill over 3,000 people in one morning.
A totalitarian government, unchecked by an armed citizenry with "assault rifles" did not need anything other than a warped mind to murder millions of people. In multiple countries, mind you, so please don't claim it was a one-off, never to be seen again phenomenon. Unchecked, it is ubiquitous; it is destiny.
Yet, here you stand, claiming my scary looking black rifle that in your civilized mind just can't be continenced is the reason for the latest horror.
It is not. It is the very protection against it. And, I carry it, and other weapons, daily, because your silly laws outlawing violence are nonsensical.
Outlaw evil, why don't you.
Ah, sweet confusion. Screwtape would be most delighted.
But cars kill far more people per year than guns, yet nearly everyone in this country owns, leases, or at least has a license to drive one. People routinely violate laws against driving under the influence, but no matter how many lethal drunk driving accidents you pass on the highway, you'll never hear someone say "we need to ban these assault weapons from our streets."
It is, however, illegal in many places to carry a firearm while under the influence.
Or, some locales, stone cold sober. In some U.S. States it's legal to openly carry a firearm most places. In most, probably not. In my State (FL) we are not open carry, but curiously, a loaded handgun in the glove box is legal (with exceptions, of course, don't try it on school property.) You don't even need a concealed weapon permit, although those are readily available. Yet in many States, that gun in the glove compartment might be a felony.
Like, name one time ever someone took a car for a trip, that they wouldn't a walked there and back!
Like, your sister in laws party 30 miles away, with the sheet cake, and you brought her that extra lawn mower, for sure you would have walked there and back if you didn't have the Ram tough Ram pickup with the semi. Inarguable!
This is as good a place to give my psychology lesson. 🧐 I'd like to point out some facts that are all too easily forgotten:
[Late edit: I realized I made a HUGE error here. See if you can spot it. I will reveal it at the end (Item "Epilogue").]
1. The media almost never presents an accurate picture of reality. Even if there were no editorial, ideological or other bias (and let me assure you, there are, big time!) and only straight factual reporting of news items happened, it would STILL be inaccurate. Why? Simple! Because it's nearly only the bad news. What about the good news? No headline or bulletin ever reported "100,000 passenger jets landed safely today." The same principle applies to most of the other lurid press you consume.
2. Primarily due to editorial choices (a form of "cherry picking," if you like) the news consumer is fed carefully curated items generally shaped to fit a certain agenda. Yes, it's been a bad month for mass shootings in the USA, two so far by troubled 18-year-olds. One white, the other Mexican, who will be called "white," of course. (By the way: that's an important point too: the government has been inconsistent in categorizing "Hispanic." White or not? Depends on the year/locale reporting.)
3. Regardless of one's beliefs, if one can set one's ideology aside, it's possible to look up boring government statistics. These will often present a dramatically different picture of what the "average" is. It is true that most killings in the USA are by firearm, this is at variance with nations with strict gun control. What is less well known is that roughly 60% of gun deaths are suicides. Of the remaining 40%, about 80% of it is young black and brown men shooting each other. Whites and everybody else (yes, that includes this Month's insane teenage killers) all fit into that 20%.
[source]
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
4. Historical/Social interest: while not as readily available, one thing I've found interesting is the dramatic rise in crime, especially violent crime, since the mid-20th century. In America, Blacks have been rightly blamed (or equivalently, victimized) by such crime for as long as records have been kept. What's not widely known is that crime is many multiples of what it was in more peaceful times, such as 1945. And arguing against those who blame race/genetics as a factor, consider that Blacks have seen dramatic increases in dysfunction (crime and other indices of problem behavior) over the same time period. That could not be explained by biology. Thus the environment would seem a prime suspect.
5. (Demographic interest) Are Blacks the most crime or violence prone? In the USA perhaps, but let's look at international rankings. Far and away the leader in homicide is El Salvador, which if one reads about its demographics, has virtually zero African descended population. Like most of Central America, it is dominant mestizo (European, mostly Spanish, mix with indigenous tribes.)
[source]
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings
Violent as we are, USA is ranked #55 at 5.3 per 100,000. In contrast, the UK is #124, with a homicide rate less than 1/3 of ours. Most Western European nations seem to fit that pattern. Curiously, Russia is much more violent than us, and I suspect, the most violent majority "white" nation.
I've researched these items before, yet today's exercise opened my eyes a bit. Apparently the link between race and crime is not quite as hard and fast as some would claim.
If there is any lesson to this long-winded post, please make it this one: The media usually is full of lies. At best, it is presenting you a tiny, biased sampling of "truth." Often their objective is to manipulate; don't let them do this to you. If a topic is really of importance to you, often you can do some simple investigation and find a clearer approach to the truth, one that is often dramatically at odds with what the media would have you believe.
Epilogue: After I had posted the above essay, I realized I had made a fundamental mistake. Recall where I said in several places that one should not accept the media without question? A fundamental rule of sages back when they spoke or at least wrote Latin was "In omnibus dubitandum." It means, approximately "Everything should be doubted." Well, I confess I made a huge error above. Did you spot it? Simple: my statistics. Just how reliable are those sources? Well, the short answer is of course "I can't be sure, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt their accuracy." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here I was guilty of the very same sin that I routinely jump on Gato and anyone else (usually when the cite Covid-19 statistics.) The nugget of wisdom, of course is that the statistics are often extremely flawed. But they're often all we have to work with.
What follows is probably by no means complete, but will give you an idea of the problems of relying on government data. Remember those FBI crime statistics? Well they are culled from (probably) thousands of different agencies in fifty States and even more territories. Reporting is voluntary. How do we know consistent standards were used? Now wrap your mind around those international statistics. We have all the same issues we'd have domestically, but even worse. Every American jurisdiction has varying laws on what constitutes a homicide. For example, if a person is legally killed, whether by law enforcement or a private citizen (justifiable homicide), should it be counted in the homicide statistics? Its a judgment call. There's no disputing a killing had occurred, but it's distinguished by being legal. Except in the case of a shooting war, we can probably assume that legal deaths are a tiny fraction of the total. But it's a confounder. So would be wartime. Now consider that there are about two hundred different nations in the world, each with differing legal systems. Sometimes differing enormously. In one nation (say) dueling might be legal, so any deaths resulting from that aren't included. Or maybe they are in another. How about survival time? If a person is wounded in Nation A but doesn't die within a week, he may not be considered a murder victim, even if he dies the next week of his affliction. Do you see the problem? We potentially have each nation, or even each State and city's police department, using inconsistent standards of reporting. As with the ever-changing Covid-19 testing and reporting "standards," this may be an innocent factor in studying (say) gunshot victims over long time periods, even in the same nation. For example, isn't it likely that medical science is far better today at saving gunshot victims than fifty, or even ten years ago? A gunshot victim is more likley to survive today, probably. This obviously will skew deaths one way or the other, making those from decades past worse, and today's perhaps better. In this case, a better metric would be to compare total victims shot, whether they lived or died.
The real world is at times a very complicated place, and as the old saying goes, when you ASSUME you often make an ASS out of U and ME.
Please pardon the length of this essay; perhaps I need my own Substack!
You are just my sort of shrink.
I think the racial comparisons are a red herring. There are too many other conflating factors which vary from country to country and influence inter-racial relations within countries to ever get a clear signal, even if there is any real difference. There are much more data to support environmental triggers.
For example, increases in lead levels as measured in preschoolers (due to ubiquitous use of leaded gasoline) in the US over the second half of the 20th century correlate very closely with crime rates if you add 20 years (https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif). So, it looks like those preschoolers whose lead levels peaked in the late 60s, early 70s, may have grown up to be responsible for the high crimes of the late 80s, early 90s. I haven't looked at this in-depth but since lead has been shown to correlate with increased aggression among individuals studied, it's plausible that it might apply on the population level.
With regard to the more recent phenomenon of mass shootings, many people have speculated that they may be triggered by psychiatric drugs being given to teenage boys, specifically certain types of SSRIs and certain ADHD drugs, which have, in clinical studies, been associated with increased rates of homocidal and suicidal ideation in a statistically significant portion of the population, especailly among boys aged 15-24. (See https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/antidepressants-are-the-root-cause?utm_source=email&s=r#details and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0051hkjB9po for in-depth discussions; the latter includes a review of the cited clinical data).
I think I've come to the conclusion that leftism is a Church of Satan, or more nicely said, atheistic collectivism.
Or make that, universal atheistic collectivism, encompassing the totality of all things.
"Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas... for it is the assertion of a universal negative."
~ G. K. Chesterton
Like quote very much!!!
They also believe that you have no free will because of, well… science: https://youtu.be/zpU_e3jh_FY
It’s the same with these shots. No cause and effect even considered by the brain washed masses. It’s like 2 + 2 = elephants. 🤷♀️
😆👍
Soon to be deprecated by the Ministry of Truth...
Come on. Guns don’t cause mass shootings but they’d be less of them if guns weren’t around
Funny story.. Some years ago, I was living overseas in a country with VERY strict gun control. Like zero private guns anywhere.
One day the news came from America of yet another mass shooting.
But on that same day the local news covered a local mass stabbing.
It had a pretty good backstory - young lovers who wanted to get married, but the girl's family wasn't having any of that. End of the story was, a young man sliced up an entire family dinner party with his machete - like a dozen people - before being shot by the coppers.
The coincidence of those two events happening at the same time really put things in perspective for me.
Whatever small benefit to safety may (or may not) be gained by disarming the common people, it is in no way worth the de facto loss of popular sovereignty that entails.
We had a mass slicing at my sleepy hometown Reading Berkshire a couple years ago.
The answer to such things in the U.K. is ... "BAN POINTY OBJECTS".
And?
There would be less automotive fatalities if cars weren't around.
Perhaps "we" should ban them.
The tyrants would love that. Ask Australia.
By far the greatest perpetrators of violence are governments.
In the last century, they've collectively slaughtered at least 250 million souls, most of whom were their own citizens.
The USG alone has murdered some 20 million since WWII.
If people were really serious about preventing violence, they would disarm the State.
💯💯
Don't forget the deaths of 6.25 million people worldwide due to Covid and lack of early treatment, and deaths after the "safe and effective"vaccine!
They have slaughtered people (bodies, etc.). Souls can't be slaughtered. I've seen that word "soul" or "souls" used many times over the years for being killed, but always thought it not the right word to use.
From a theological standpoint, you are of course correct, but I find that using it in this way, as it has been in common parlance for quite some time, adds a dimension of seriousness, and is thus more likely to sway the reader than other terms.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - when the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees.
However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
~ Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567 (9th Circuit 2003)
I'm aware of it.
All back to horse and buggy. Beware, a few days ago a horse and buggy rammed into a car !
Cars are not specifically made to kill people.
Neither are tools of defense.
Eh?
Just clarifying that guns aren’t made to kill people. They are a tool, just like a knife or anything else that can be wielded by evil people or anyone else, and they can be used to defend the vulnerable from the psychopathic, the weak from the strong, the citizen from the tyrant. The only reason tyranny hasn’t gotten further along in America is 2A, and every people that has ever given up that right to its government has come to regret that decision bitterly.
Oh Susanna, in the last 30 days, I have used my guns to kill a fox (5.56 AR-15 "assault weapon" style rifle at about 150 yards, a really good shot, by the way,) a really large snake I didn't want around, because my daughters get weird about that (12 gauge semi-auto shotgun with a 18" barrel,) and an aged animal that needed to be culled (.45 cal pistol at very close range, an emotionally draining task.) Three different guns, by the way, each with a different reach and effect. Not a single one made "specifically to kill people." Each, exactly what I need for the task at hand.
But, in that same 30 days, I've conceal carried a .45 caliber SA XDS2 with laser, a Kimber 9mm, and a Bersa .380 with Crimson Trace laser grip. My intent was to be able to kill anything trying to kill me. Say, a mass shooter.
It's a tool. Like the axe I've used in the same period, the 8 lb sledge I've used in the same period, and the Ram 2500 truck I use every day.
What other God given right are you willing to give away because you don't like how someone misuses it? Free speech? Free religion?
They're made specifically to kill people, if used by the wrong people, in the wrong way. Say a government.
Best to leave those in the hands of our trusted government. Surely only good things will will come of it.
Nor are hunting rifles. Or anti-vehicle mines. Or kitchen knifes. Or...
You might want to take a look at South American history. The Aztecs did just fine with stone weapons.
Indeed. Doesn't make the case that we shouldn't prevent people from having high-powered killing weapons.
Even if that were true, and it's not, so what?
Wut?
Even if that were true, and it's not, so what?
And a lot more knife stabbings and truck massacres.
Case in point, London.
We've got about ten guns in the UK and still manage gun massacres. The latest in Plymouth a couple of years ago.
Andvknifings every nite in london ..not to mention violent breaking and enterings. By population the uk is now the most dangerous country in the world.
That's based on a manifestly false premise: "if guns weren't around"
It's the same false premise at the root of the nuclear disarmament movement, the notion that nukes would disappear if everyone got rid of their nukes (because NOT everyone would get rid of them, just as there will never be a situation where "guns aren't around").
I mean, you even concede this in the construct of your comment. You don't say that there would be NO mass shootings if guns weren't around, you say there'd be less of them if guns weren't around.
But if guns aren't around - if there are no guns - how would there be ANY mass shootings?
Furthermore, if guns were only possessed by government and bad guys, how do you know the carnage would be less? Bad guys knowing there are no good guys with guns are far more incentivized to commit gun crimes, and far more able to succeed.
On April 19th, 1993, heavily armed agents of the Federal government burned 76 people alive in Waco Texas.
The victims included 25 children and 2 pregnant women.
This after a 51 day siege where the Feds terrorized them with tanks, attack helicopters and various forms of psychological warfare.
The government investigation into the government's actions found no fault with any government actions, and the only people prosecuted were those who escaped being shot or incinerated.
This atrocity was the direct result of gun control laws.
This is the reality of the government violating the 2nd Amendment.
But it was OK, because they were DANGEROUS EXTREMISTS.
Case in point: Chicago USA
Ongoing violence does not arouse a headline nor empower the elites with passionate argument to further enslave the common man.
Exactly wrong. The more concealed carry the less shootings of any kind
Right. In England, they don't have mass shootings. Instead, they have beheadings, acid attacks, and pedophile gangs.
Have you seen the number of knife crimes in UK?
This is a question that you can answer scientifically. The only way to do this is to look at the empirical evidence.
And the evidence is crystal clear that there is no relation between how armed a population is and the number of mass shootings. Slice it by country, by state, or whatever you want.
True. But unfortunately, only double blind random controlled placebo studies will do anymore...
You know, like how the Surgisphere Lancet published fraudulent randomized peer reviewed controlled placebo study...which took out any empirical data on HCQ, just like Fauci wanted....
Less mass shootings, more mass "something-else."
Indeed. In the UK, the crime of choice is currently stabbings.
Yes, yes, now you are onto something. Stay with that. The bicycle is at fault. Keep shoveling all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy.
that's silly.
Agreed. I live in Canada where there are not many guns. Some people do mass stabbings but it is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than a mass shooting so you can’t kill as many people all at once.
And it sure is a lot easier and takes a lot less time to impose tyranny all at once.
• “Letter to Justin Trudeau” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-justin-trudeau)
• “Profiles in Courage: The Canadian Truckers” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage-the-canadian)
The Stockholm Syndrome is strong in this one.
"...so you can't kill as many people all at once"
But the *government* can, once the people are disarmed. History has shown this over and over and over. Tens and hundreds of millions of deaths later, how is this lesson still not learned?
Mmmm, I see. Now do the Nice truck attack.
Per capita, Canada is one of the top countries for privately owned firearms. #7 in the world if you believe Wikipedia.
I never believe wikipedia
"...and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis."
...and then there are still some among us with no fucks to give about what other people think, or whether they feel safer in their bubble because they ostracize us... that's kinda like the trash taking itself to the kerb...
Absolutely worth taking!
We're rapidly returning to the demon-haunted world Sagan warned us about, which is right where they want us. People scared of demons can be talked into anything, especially a permanent aristocracy "protecting" them from said demons.
Yes, we do "risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis" for the best of reasons: to try to head off the collective psychosis.
I suspect that the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives and are not on display for us to enjoy the sport of generalizing to ascertain the intelligence or the stupidity of the rest.
“the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives”—and lazily failing to take ownership of their own knowledge is what has caused them to fall under mass formation and sleepwalk the planet into a totalitarian technocratic dystopia that they will only awaken to after it’s too late, if ever.
Shaking off the hypnosis and recognizing that they have entrusted their lives to sociopathic tyrants is the only way they will have a chance of achieving the simple pleasure of “trying to live their lives,” but right now, choosing to remain in that state of subjugation to tyranny is the definition of stupidity according to Bonhoeffer (https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/).
God bless you margaret anna alice
You're sure fond of jargon, ain't ya?
You’re sure fond of tyranny, ain’t ya?
Wanna back that statement up?
You’re right, SCA. I don’t know you well enough to make that accusation, so I apologize. From the limited exchanges I’ve had with you, however, you have demonstrated a resistance to learning about both menticide and mass formation while defending the hypnotized for simply “trying to live their lives,” which is exactly what the Good Germans did while the Nazis went about their merry business because there weren’t enough Badass Germans (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/are-you-a-good-german-or-a-badass) to stop them.
I guess that was a lot easier than refuting the points.
It's pretty easy to ascertain the intelligence or stupidity of the population by doing nothing more than watching their "leaders". The "leadership" is a mirror of the population.
Regarding C A U S E and E F F E C T,
Margaret Anna Alice, study my messages :
#################################
Forwarded Message :
My below post is found in here :
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-friends-sorry-to-announce-a/comment/6843593?s=r
#################################
JungianINTPMay 29
Dr. Naomi Wolf,
Re: In Search of Root Causes
Forwarded Message :
Dear BearingArms Editor,
Regarding “Troubling Questions” :
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/05/27/uvalde-police-n58779
There exists a failure in
CRITICAL Analyses because
leadership FAILS to search
for ROOT Causes, as I’ve done
in my below letter to WND
editor, Joseph Farah. -Rick :
— The Great Debasement ( my term )
Explains How We Got to Here : —
Dear Joseph Farah,
This analyst blames
dumb-as-box-of-bent-nails
C O N S E R V A T I V E S,
especially emasculated,
don’t-understand-J E S U S
evangelical Christians ( they
await America’s destruction !,
as prelude/necessary for the
Second Coming ! ? ).
Badly Bullied White
Kid Gets Revenge
in Texas ? :
Root Causes :
PORN, DIVORCE, Violent Videos, SSRI Drugs,
and a total absence of TEN Commandments
and PRAYER in the public square and
in schools.
Blame the American Communist
Lawyers Union ( ACLU ), which began its
assaults on good, White, Christian, Civilized
Society by shutting down S A N I T A R I -
U M S across the U.S. - throughout the Sixties
and Seventies - and removed Ten Command-
ments and school prayer thereafter( they
A R E the Marxian SOCIAL / CULTURAL
engineers—ushering in decay via their sex-/
violence-drenched Hollywood movies,
( violence and sex in VIDEOS and Music—and
having control of major news/book/magazine
publishing venues ).
Blame that bad aspect of an
otherwise moral TRIBE,
which bad and corrupt few
in there can’t be called out in
any way/fashion without being
charged an anti-Semite/bigot.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin may
be the most COURAGEOUS
among all TRIBE members—
to write a truth-telling report
about that bad segment of his
Tribe ( linked by Rense dot
Com, below ) :
Forwarded Message :
Christian Kruse,
It has been a multi-front war
against the Christian/meritorious
/virtuous/constitutional WEST for
many decades!, by masked Com-
munists embedded EVERYWHERE
( and in our State Department ),
and called, “The Deep State.”
Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin,
had written a powerful, truth-telling
warning ( study this to its very end,
or miss his pointed/shocking charge ) :
http://www.rense.com/general62/deb.htm
-Rick
####################
####################
The fork does not cause obesity.
Most obese people would be obese even if forks did not exist.
i had a pie chart on that but someone ate it
😂🤣 Thank-you for the laugh!
im sure theres a sausage fingers joke in here somewhere too
I want to give you 5 likes on that Ray
As a fat man, I can confirm this statement.
too funny!
This is just crying for a grievance studies hoax paper a la Lindsay, Pluckrose, Boghossian. "A Multi-pronged Approach? The Fork as a Psychological Tool of Capitalist Food Distribution Systems and the Framework of Fat Shaming"
The Chopstix Solution: the Fork as nonsustainable weapon of intersectional Euro-Hegemony, Chauvinism and non-horizontally challenged Privilege.
(OK, I tried:)
Epic title for a paper 😂
Ok, but the invention of the Spork changed all that. Ban sporks, straws, and big gulps.
Not forks? spoons? steak knives? (I hear steak knives are verboten in some parts....)
Tell that to Stacey Abrams.
I'm not so sure that the fork doesn't cause obesity. Chopsticks-wielding Asians tend not to be obese. :)
There is an argument thread on Alex Berenson's substack post today about [religious] "evil" causing these problems which reminds me of this. By not honing in on the shooter, we are missing the cause. The cause is a deranged mental state, most likely caused by what these children are given over many years while their brains are developing --in food, water, injections and medication. And let's not forget marijuana as Berenson also points out (he has written a book about this) and which was a factor in the Texas shooter case.
These shootings didn't happen 50 years ago because kids weren't as mentally ill back then. They weren't inhaling pesticide and poison soaked pot (its not the pot your mom used to smoke and the Texas shooter was a chronic pot smoker). They weren't as mentally ill because we weren't feeding them chemicals and hormone disrupting ingredients through their food and water or injecting them with 72 shots of poison by the time they are 13.
America turned away from God and thus began the collapse. The meds make things worse, but the underlying problem stems from our broken society.
Yeah, I'm not so sure that is behind what is happening now. I don't disagree that our society is broken, but a lot of that was forced upon us, such as consumerism, "medication" and the infiltration of our food sources by corporate interests. The people in power, at the very least use us like punching bags to make a profit. Believing in God and having family values wouldn't put a dent in this phenomenon. It's just to easy to say "evil" is the problem here or create a circular argument that always comes back to "godlessness." People, esp. the ones in power (and not the ones you see on tv), are actually the problem. They've always been around--the difference is that now they have the funding and resources to wreak havoc on a global scale.
No one can "force" consumerism on you. It's your money, it's your decision to spend your money as you see fit. If you fell into keeping up with the Jonses consumerism, I'm sorry to say, but it's all on you. --- If you have kids you can teach them this same lesson. --- Other than that, I mostly agree with you.
Yes and no. It's "cultural." When you are inundated with advertisements from the time you are born and you are surrounded by mostly idiots who buy into that whole scene, it can be hard to decline, much less be aware of what's happening. I would not consider myself a big consumer and yet I find myself ordering from Amazon at LEAST twice a month. I pay for the privilege to do it too. I am aware and still personally find it hard to opt out completely.
You bring a salient and relevant point ... consumerism and much of our other "isms" are sunk deep into the culture. A couple of my friends, who buy anything as long as it's new and trendy, think I am a bumpkin for not sinking my hard-earned moolah into the latest thang. Kind of like women's fashion has always been: brainwashing with glitter.
Preach Brother
i find the "mentally ill" explanation a tautology. ie, "only mentally ill people would do that." it would be interesting to find a study of shooters. I've seen a few but too often these people end up dead. did this guy show signs before? yes, if you call cross-dressing a mental illness. but psychopathic-killer sick?, we will see. frankly, I think shooting has been normalized via tv, movies, video games over the past 50-60 years. you put together anger, frustration, low self worth and it yields someone who will begin to fantasize about killing (and likely ending their own life in the process). they become a hero in their own mind--call it a type of hypnosis or "radicalization". there seems to be a kind of glory seeking, revenge taking, "fuck it all" mindset. and the person has been trained how to do it by media. esp if shooters are sub-25 YO males whose forebrain is not fully developed. I am not sure they are diagnosable beforehand. (that's just my musing on the issue.)
There is an interesting fact somewhere that states the % of mass shooters who were on antidepressants… it’s over 75% if I recall it correctly…
Well, mental illness is certainly on a continuum. I think you have to be on that scale somewhere to kill 20+ children. That's not normal anger. I won't get into the cross-dressing thing here but I think we have to admit, there is a "glitch" somewhere with that.
i agree. but the real issue is would that slot on the continuum show up during a rifle purchase or a background check? if the person has been seeing psychiatrist/psychologist, perhaps. but I think by ethical requirement a dangerous person must be reported by a therapist. so my concern is that "mental illness' is ex post facto. the trick is to determine this beforehand. and that is difficult and has its own issues re using psychiatry as a tool against our political enemies. bottom line: I seen no answer. confiscation simply allows only the criminal element to have arms (and law enforcement). how many die in that that scenario? you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
yup--impossible solution, like the homelessness crisis. Until you pass laws trampling basic human rights (which I am NOT advocating), we're stuck. That's why these events are such great fodder for "just take away all the guns!"
ty for clarification. this seems to make it even more difficult to ident homicide candidates before hand. fwiw-this conversation has gotten me curious so I am going to read various scholarly articles on mass shooters traits, demographics, "profiles". it is interesting even if simple answers aren't available.
The sheer number of these people, increasing by the thousands every year, will absolutely negate the possibility of "social programs" being the answer.
I haven't seen anything about the cross dressing. I have seen that he was violent and abusive with most everybody and had been bullied forever by other students, because he had a lisp.
https://brownstone.org/articles/school-closings-and-violent-youth-a-potential-link/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
All true but if they are mentally I’ll don’t give them access to guns!
One issue is many people in the army and government positions are psychopathic yet they sell the most weapons and kill the most people.
So when the same people say they care about gun violence and attack the guns opposed to the mental condition from games like GTA then you know its an agenda
I can't disagree with that, but by focusing on the guns, we miss the bigger problem.
https://brownstone.org/articles/school-closings-and-violent-youth-a-potential-link/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
just read a 2016 report summarizing the family conditions of 56 shooters by Peter Langman. Ten, 18% had intact family settings. some were off the charts dysfunctional. my plan: federal background checks for potential parents.
60 years ago then? Before GMO, Monsanto, screens and before about 10,000 other additives were engineered. Plus we had injections but less than half of what these kids are getting now. Everyone was more accountable to everyone else, to be sure. It's not slacking off on Jesus that has caused this level of fucked-up-ness in kids.
The decline in religion has been ongoing. You can't have faith in a political party but the effort to replace a higher law has been ongoing. Morality is not relative.
Even the teachers that hadn't been in WWII kept discipline in the classroom. Now, they, like the parents, want to be the kid's friend, be cool, etc. No one is the adult anymore.
Amen, you ole bandit.
Witty Twitter repartee:
“How many deaths would have
to occur by gun for you as a
gun owner to change your
stance and give up your gun?”
“How many rapes have to occur
before you cut off your dick?”
Yes, all male babies (XY chromosomes) should have their penis' removed at birth to prevent rape. That'll fix that problem for sure.
I'm certain someone would find another weapon with which to rape. A broken bottle, say, or a knife, or a hammer, or a...well, you get my drift. It's likely their goal, but it won't fix the problem.
Same for guns
.youd have huge increase in knife and other crimes..just as deadly
almost. they are saying someone else should have the right/responsibility to cut it off.
Love that. Keeping
You dumbasses who are happy to have been American for the last two years rather than Canadian or Australian but oppose an armed citizenry better wise up and remember the one single difference between your country and theirs.
And there was ole Robert Francis grandstanding at the press conference today, predictable f'ing loon that he is.
Amen.
Wow. This simple post sure brought out the people who truly believe in American liberty and the bill of rights...and those that don't. Commenters I used to have respect for because of their rational thinking skills have just shown their true colors. I don't pick and choose the liberties that people should have given to them by their creator even if I think that some people shouldn't have them. True liberty means allowing others to have their liberty, even if we vehemently disagree with what they do with that liberty and even if what they do has disastrous consequences. Having liberty doesn't cause these disasters. In most cases out of control government control and interference does. We have already seen what is being done to free speech. Haven't we learned anything? If just one liberty is taken away for what may seem like a good reason at the time, the rest of them fall as well. Have we already forgotten the last two years of utter tyranny on this planet? Keep justifying taking away liberty because of fear and what we experienced over the last two years will seem like the good old days. We need to wise up. And fast.
Well said Rob. I too am really disappointed by some of the myopic comments from individuals I previously respected, especially those with competing newsletters.
The West falls if Americans give up their guns. It's the last domino.
Unless the mass shooter is a leftist. Then the "gun" does the shooting, like a "vehicle" automatically runs into street dancers. These inanimate objects are animate!
all life is precious.
when they want my guns because some nut case shoots up a school they use the precious lives of the victims,
but insist on abortion
all life is precious, including in utero.
i conclude they want to disarm me to take my liberty!
It's the whole gun debate thing again and shrilled by idiots who know nothing about guns - why not ban knives, or fists, or boots or cars. Up here in the Once Great White North Emperor Blackface's Gun Minions are busy concocting up ways to eventually disarm folk with any type of gun and for any reason, be it hunting, farming or sport. A disarmed population is an unprotected population ye see. And that's after the idiots admit that legally held guns are responsible for a fraction of a % of gun crime.... but hey, why let solid facts get in the way of crappy policy!
Strange how just a couple months ago the “hero” Zylensky” told the world he needed ammo and not a ride, and was cheered along with his citizens for wanting weapons. But now our leaders want to remove our guns. Funny, how that works.
No way, brosef - the cause of both rape and mass shootings is _obviously_ Climate Change.
Comment of the day award
Yes. Dr Meryl Nass says -
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2022/05/school-shootings-i-am-sorry-but-this.html
School shootings. I am sorry but this needs to be said.
1. Normal people have no interest in killing children, especailly ones they do not know, especially in large numbers.
2. In my view, only people subject to mind control (please investigate Sirhan Sirhan or read about US intelligence agency attempts to create mind controlled assassins beginning in the 1950s) or people taking certain drugs are even capable of carrying out such an act.
3. School shootings are the most provocative and effective way to initiate a change in gun laws, which means taking away the guns from some or all of the people who privately own them.
4. The large number of American gun owners pose a daunting challenge to the globalists who wish to control them. Police and military will not be willing to enter the homes of gun owners to remove their guns or for other purposes.
5. Few Europeans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders own guns, and it is believed by many that the imposition of much harsher lockdowns on the citizens of these nations, compared to the US, was enabled by this fact.
6. There have been shortages of guns and ammunition in the US since the onset of the pandemic. Whether this is due to supply-demand, including increased purchases by the federal government, or to other market forces, is not clear.
7. There has been very little exploration into the past history of those who committed mass murders in the US in recent years, especially in schools. I want to know if any or all of these mass murderers may have been enrolled in black mind control projects.
8. I want a full accounting of the mind control programs paid for with taxpayer dollars in the US and elsewhere.
9. I want an investigation into the many thousands of self-reported "targeted individuals" (TIs) who complain of voices beamed into their heads and other forms of what can only be termed torture.
10. I want an investigation into the implants some of these people claim were introduced into their bodies.
11. We are being attacked in many perverse ways, and we must open our eyes, pull our power back, or the attacks will continue and will destroy us.
Individualists have two really empowering things on our ideological side - guns and electronic devices. Gun, because they empower the individual against the deranged mob. They've got to think twice about knocking on our door to arrest us. The devices, because they empower us to thumb our nose at annoying collectivism and make solitude mentally engaging, destroying the old boredom that compelled us to reluctantly seek out group activities.
We have to be somewhat sober about the devices. As much as we love them, they're quite addictive and can lead to dangerous levels of social isolation, especially among kids. This is a real problem. I've said on here before, I believe there's a connection between the madness we're seeing in the world and devices addiction, which is trapping people in hyper-individualistic solitary confinement. It's driving collectivists, particularly elites, insane as they can't connect the dots. They just know something is terribly wrong. The inner ideologue is screaming. The conscious mind feels it acutely, but can't see it and therefore can't address it. In the meantime they're surrendering to the ideological madman and embracing any madness that brings some measure of ideological satisfaction, even if harmful. This is a dire situation, and the devices are the hidden culprit. Dare we say anything about these little miracles of blissful individualism?
I agree. Just watch a group of friends together. They don't talk or even look at each other, they just look at their phones. It's sad.
I first noticed this several years ago when I still commuted on public transportation. No one speaking, or reading a book or anything else besides their thumb-capturers. Anyone reading a (paper) book would often exchange a sly and grateful smile with me, if I were to look up from my own (paper) book long enough to catch their eye.
Books....ahhhhhh. I love books. (My Aunt was a librarian. 🤗)
Agree BUT I have PERSONALLY seen a person go COMPLETELY crazy and homicidal from an SSRI/SSRI-enhancing herb (St John's Wort/5-HTP). Some/most of them have black box warnings for a reason (the drugs, not the herbs, but it happens with both).
ANH-USA has researched dozens of the most high-profile cases of violent crimes over the last few decades. We found that in just under half of the cases (eleven out of twenty-three), the perpetrator was documented to be taking, or had recently stopped taking, some form of antidepressant or antipsychotic medication.
https://brutalproof.net/2015/09/ssris-homicidal-suicidal-ideations-or-ideas/
Exactly.
I agree with you. The person pulling the trigger is responsible.
Violence, especially gun violence, is glorified and glamorized in media and video games. Even the so-called super hero movies are filled with killing. I don't have a gun. I don't like guns. I don't get it. I never have. But I do understand the need for the 2A, especially in the past two years.
We have a problem in our culture. We can't begin to solve it until we acknowledge it.
Violence as entertainment should be thoroughly disavowed by society.
Ah , cunning kitty…. Don't you know that humans have WAY less common sense than cats???
The obvious often confuses them.