The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Estebonrober]

So apparently the 21-year old nutjob put a screed on ***** hours before shooting up a packed Wal-Mart.

Here is the manifesto for anyone who can stomach reading it.
*Snip*

Since it happened in Texas, death penalty is guaranteed.

Ugh, so sick and senseless.


**Edit**
Mmm, that's a good point Arwon, I'll snip it.

Beat me to it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"But other than this he was a fine person."

 

[abradley]

My prayers are for the victims of the crime.

 

[Farm Boy]

Don't worry though, in the right wing echo chamber it has already been identified as "planned and executed by Democrats to push their evil gun control agenda."

<looks at thread>

People feedback on each other. It's borne of loyalty.

There ya go.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

<looks at thread>

People feedback on each other. It's borne of loyalty.

There ya go.

Loyalty that requires a massive suspension of reality isn't really helpful.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh lord yes it is.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh lord yes it is.

How are D'ump's loyalists grasping at absurd straws helpful?

 

[abradley]

To everybody; how can we stop these slaughters?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

<looks at thread>

People feedback on each other. It's borne of loyalty.

There ya go.

The Republican party is enabling and leading people down the same road this shooter went down, to deny it is to deny reality.

For years the GOP has tacitly claimed immigrants are overwhelming white America and this is the response.

Sick of seeing people bend over backwards in an attempt to defend a party that has cultivated this environment and reaps the political benefits but refuses to accept any responsibility for what it has enabled.

Others can continue to give them the benefit of the doubt but know this; their hands are also stained and they should be ashamed od their moral failings.

 

[Arwon]

A good starting point would be something along the lines of:

• Firearms reform ie stringent licensing and registration including rights to inspect storage etc by the registrars, and removing destructive weapons (anything that fires many bullets easily) from civilian availability completely.
  
  
• Media and political figures to stop all the racist and white supremacist fearmongering and other rhetoric and stop legitimising this stuff. A really notable thing about guys like the Christchurch shooter and this dude is how much the "manifesto" blends far right conspiracy theory with exactly the sort of stuff you hear from pundits working for the Murdoch and similar press, and figures at the rightward fringes of mainstream political parties. That level of visibility has to be amplifying the normalisation of some pretty grotesque ideas like "shadowy cosmopolitans destroying the white race by promoting immigration". Eg, earlier today Trump retweeted Katie Hopkins, a fascist bigot with a mainstream media audience, going on about "Londonistan" which is literally the same idea as what's been behind multiple shooters' massacres. That's the president of the United States helping to popularise and legitmise inherently hateful invasion narratives with a very big implied "do something about it" message.
  
  Those mainstreamish groups with audiences and, in theory, a sense of responsibility, need to be showing a lot of introspection. It's certainly about language and about what ideas and conspiracy theories they choose to amplify, but it's even down to boring things things like comments section moderation and political party membership criteria.
  
  
• Security and police start treating white supremacist, fascist, racist, far right and nativist groups and individuals with a fraction of the scrutiny they direct towards Muslim reactionaries, especially with a focus on locuses of online radicalisation.

We're talking about individually unpredictable but collectively predictable acts of violence motivated by white supremacist conspiracy theories. Right now there's a bunch of angry young men who are worked up enough over racist paranoia and far right poltiics to think shooting a bunch of people will help them fix the things they're angry about. Policy responses need to reduce the frequency and probability that said young white men are radicalised in the first place, or emboldened and equipped to perpetrate mass violence after being radicalised.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

A good starting point would be something along the lines of:

• Firearms reform ie stringent licensing and registration including rights to inspect storage etc by the registrars, and removing destructive weapons (anything that fires many bullets easily) from civilian availability completely.
  
  
• Media and political figures to stop all the racist and white supremacist fearmongering and other rhetoric and stop legitimising this stuff. A really notable thing about guys like the Christchurch shooter and this dude is how much the "manifesto" blends far right conspiracy theory with exactly the sort of stuff you hear from pundits working for the Murdoch and similar press, and figures at the rightward fringes of mainstream political parties. That level of visibility has to be amplifying the normalisation of some pretty grotesque ideas like "shadowy cosmopolitans destroying the white race by promoting immigration". Those mainstreamish groups with audiences and, in theory, a sense of responsibility, need to be showing a lot of introspection - that's certainly about language and about what they choose to amplify, but it's even down to things like comments section moderation.
  
  
• Security and police start treating white supremacist, fascist, racist, far right and nativist groups and individuals with a fraction of the scrutiny they direct towards Muslim reactionaries, especially with a focus on locuses of online radicalisation.

We're talking about individually unpredictable but collectively predictable acts of violence motivated by white supremacist conspiracy theories. Right now there's a bunch of angry young men who are worked up enough over racist paranoia and far right poltiics to think shooting a bunch of people will help them fix the things they're angry about. Policy responses need to reduce the frequency and probability that said young white men are radicalised in the first place, or emboldened and equipped to perpetrate mass violence after being radicalised.

The political benefits outweigh the human cost for the GOP, Conservatives, Republican base etc whatever form these enablers take, that's the honest truth.

Until society starts to shame these people, starts to remind them daily of the blood they have on their hands, no matter how dry, no matter how thin it may be, nothing will change. We have a man who is supportive of white supremecy in the White House.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, the question was what would stop it, not whether that was likely to eventuate

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Yeah, the question was what would stop it, not whether that was likely to eventuate

Apologies man, just so frustrated with what's happening.

There's another shooting, this time in Daytona, Ohio.

Edit:

The El Paso shooter was apprehended alive.

Why? The mind boggles.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, unfortunately it's going to keep happening for a while. There's easy means available (particularity in the US, but rapid-fire guns can be gotten in some other places too). There's a very feverish pipeline between the mainstream hard right's rhetoric, and violent white supremacist conspiracy mongering, which is going to keep pumping out these individual hero terrorists.

The lines have become very very blurry. The committed fascists are infiltrating mainstream parties to a certain extent, a bunch of conspiracy theories like the "South African farmer genocide" and "cultural marxism" slip directly from the far right into conservative parties of government and into figures in the mainstream media. Fascists in suits are given uncritical airtime to spout their stuff in the name of balance or just because certain pundits and others basically agree with them. It's a new world.

Honestly in the face of mainstream rhetorical irresponsibility and security state indifference, the best weapon currently is probably actually all the doxxing, harrassment, no platforming, intelligence gathering and documentation of the far right by activists. When authorities actually want to act, there's a reasonable trail there for them on who to track and who to try to shut down.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

True, unfortunately there are still people, on this very forum, who think Antifa is more of an existential threat than white supremecists, the latter have an actual body count, the former do not.

 

[Gorbles]

Besh wishes from over the pond. I know it doesn't mean a lot, but effing hell. I just don't have anything else right now.

 

[mitsho]

So this is terrorism, right? Not a crime anymore. These acts have a clear ideology behind them and are trying to achieve a political will.

 

[Arwon]

Very terrorism, yes. Mass violence motivated by ideology to impact on politics, part of a decentralised but coherent movement of such.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Very terrorism, yes. Mass violence motivated by ideology to impact on politics, part of a decentralised but coherent movement of such.

Enabled, spread and supported (up until the actual acts are committed) by the GOP, Conservative movement, Right Wing Media, Trump etc.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Very terrorism, yes. Mass violence motivated by ideology to impact on politics, part of a decentralised but coherent movement of such.

Decentralized but coherent, just like Al Qaeda. What are the president going to bomb now?