General News Thread

[rxrx]

Guns themselves aren't even that much of an issue, it's certain kinds of guns. Handguns are dangerous because they can be easily concealed, and Assault rifles and other full auto guns mean you can shoot hundreds of bullets a minute. Get rid of those and you'll probably be able to cut gun violence down significantly, while still letting hunters keep their rifles. By doing so you'd also know who the crazy ones are, becasue you don't need a revolver to hunt deer, or need to shoot it 35 times in 4 seconds with an AK.

If I remember correctly, people need guns to keep away wild animals in some places right? Keeping hunter licenses and let them have guns sounds good, but in Japan, these hunters got sued because they need cops to approve them to shoot. Tough problems, and NRA will definitely stir up trouble.

[Twelveseal]

NRA may well be dying. GOA will remain, tho, as will the lobby in general. Tbf, there are some legitimate reasons to own weapons, even powerful ones. The problem is that there are too many guns here already, and most people won't voluntarily give them up. The very act of trying to restrict weapons always triggers people to stockpile weapons and ammo. Actually trying to take weapons from Americans who don't want to surrender them is asking for a secession movement and open violence between the owners and the police. Most jurisdictions have the sense not to try to enforce such laws, as the results would likely be... unpleasant.

[rxrx]

NRA may well be dying. GOA will remain, tho, as will the lobby in general. Tbf, there are some legitimate reasons to own weapons, even powerful ones. The problem is that there are too many guns here already, and most people won't voluntarily give them up. The very act of trying to restrict weapons always triggers people to stockpile weapons and ammo. Actually trying to take weapons from Americans who don't want to surrender them is asking for a secession movement and open violence between the owners and the police. Most jurisdictions have the sense not to try to enforce such laws, as the results would likely be... unpleasant.

I understand the logic here, but asking to demilitarizing the police, if I understand the term correctly will make the job suicidal. I don't trust humans enough for them to not abuse power, especially if there are not cops to enforce the laws. Unless the community ensure none of such abuse appear, but we all know that's bullshit.

[Zork Knight]

People don't like having their rights revoked, no matter how logical it is to do so.

[Mattias]

The reason some of those countries managed to restrict their cops in the first place is becasue the public got so outraged over gun violence they willingly gave them up. I think it took Australia a 10 person mass murder at a school in the 90's for them to get fed up. America still hasn't hit that point, and honestly if an entire Kindergarten class didn't do it, I doubt anything will.

[rxrx]

The reason some of those countries managed to restrict their cops in the first place is becasue the public got so outraged over gun violence they willingly gave them up. I think it took Australia a 10 person mass murder at a school in the 90's for them to get fed up. America still hasn't hit that point, and honestly if an entire Kindergarten class didn't do it, I doubt anything will.

America has shootings at school which killed double digit and does no shit to gun violence. Instead, people buy more guns to 'protect' themselves.

[Saiga]

The reason some of those countries managed to restrict their cops in the first place is becasue the public got so outraged over gun violence they willingly gave them up. I think it took Australia a 10 person mass murder at a school in the 90's for them to get fed up. America still hasn't hit that point, and honestly if an entire Kindergarten class didn't do it, I doubt anything will.

It was the Port Arthur massacre, 35 people killed at a tourist site that used to be an old prison. Haven't had any like it since.

[Twelveseal]

The closest analogy here would be the Las Vegas Concert Shooting... and yeah, we ain't changing. There's not enough trust in law enforcement to respond to crime and violence swiftly for the average gun-owner here to give their weapons up. And that's not accounting for the deeply rooted (and let's be honest, sometimes justified) belief that the Federal Government is itself a threat to the people. It doesn't exactly have a perfect track record, even if it's not the worst in that regard either.

[Deathhappens]

Guns themselves aren't even that much of an issue, it's certain kinds of guns. Handguns are dangerous because they can be easily concealed, and Assault rifles and other full auto guns mean you can shoot hundreds of bullets a minute. Get rid of those and you'll probably be able to cut gun violence down significantly, while still letting hunters keep their rifles. By doing so you'd also know who the crazy ones are, becasue you don't need a revolver to hunt deer, or need to shoot it 35 times in 4 seconds with an AK.

IIRC from my brief sojourns in /k/, full auto weapons ARE illegal in the US (and you need special permits for concealed carry as opposed to open). It's just that it's trivial to illegaly modify a weapon originally designed as an automatic but converted to semi-auto for civilian sale back to being an automatic. Then there's machine pistols like the Glock 18, some SMGs thst are legally sold as handguns...

Bottom line is, yes, unless you disallow all weapons besides hunting rifles (like most countries do) you will run into problems. But since the "right to bear arms" is a part of the constitution, you'd need a constitutional reform to push that legislation through, and the gun lobby is so entrenched these days that even if you could shoulder the political cost you'd risk actually starting a small civil war.

- - - Updated - - -

The reason some of those countries managed to restrict their cops in the first place is becasue the public got so outraged over gun violence they willingly gave them up. I think it took Australia a 10 person mass murder at a school in the 90's for them to get fed up. America still hasn't hit that point, and honestly if an entire Kindergarten class didn't do it, I doubt anything will.

Most countries restricted civilian gun ownership to hunting weapons somewhere in the 1800's.

[Twelveseal]

I'm not sure how small a civil war it'd be, tbh. I live in a Southern state, but the idea of the "Slippery Slope," that the government will force the people to disarm through the law and then begin stripping away the rest of their civil rights, is pretty common here. There's probably a regional bias here, but considering population distribution and political demographics that map to them...

Population:


Versus politics:


And considering that mindset tracks closer to those Conservative red areas... that's a lot of potentially hostile territory.

[SpoonyViking]

Also, the police is very cozy-cozy with the assorted Far Right militias, so it's not as if they want to get in conflict with them.

[LegalLoliLover]

Also, the police is very cozy-cozy with the assorted Far Right militias, so it's not as if they want to get in conflict with them.

I just realized that the poem "First, they came for the communists" ignores the factor of whether or not the communists were attacking the poet to begin with.

[Twelveseal]

Let's not with the Niemoller quote.

@Spoony: No kidding. Especially in the rural regions. It honestly amazes me that QAnon has been declared a domestic terror threat partly because of it, since that's largely the same group.

[Deathhappens]

Also, the police is very cozy-cozy with the assorted Far Right militias, so it's not as if they want to get in conflict with them.

"The police" is neither one person nor a hivemind.

[Mattias]

Also, the police is very cozy-cozy with the assorted Far Right militias, so it's not as if they want to get in conflict with them.

I always thought the far right militia types were super against police because they had legal authority to enforce the laws?

[SpoonyViking]

I always thought the far right militia types were super against police because they had legal authority to enforce the laws?

Well, first you have the inherent dissonance in the discourse employed by such groups, in which they *state* they are anti-establishment, may even *believe* they're anti-establishment, but *act* in ways that are very much pro-establishment (such logical dissonance isn't anything new, by the way; you'll notice it plays a huge role in Ur-Fascistic propaganda, which states that somehow the Ur-Fascist group is intrinsecally stronger and superior to their enemies BUT ALSO oppressed by them and must thus fight back at all costs).

Secondly, you have to consider that a lot of the same people who would join those Far Right groups actually went on to join the police (for instance, both the DHS and the FBI have led investigations which concluded there were strong, active links between white supremacist groups and the police). Which only makes sense, really - law enforcement in the US has a long history of being closely tied to controlling Native Americans and rebellious slaves.

Even aside from all that, though, we'd only have to see the news from the last few months to see how the police is not-so-subtly sympathetic to those groups.

[Twelveseal]

There's also something of a revolving door there. Ex-military and retired law enforcement are considered desirable recruits to these movements because of their training, experience, connections, and insider knowledge. Much of the militia movement itself was founded by the same. Likewise, racial profiling practices and training are hardly undocumented within law enforcement at this point, even when dealing with PoC officers. Likewise the tendency for veterans of foreign "Adventures," to have a less than glowing opinion of the ethnicities that dominated their enemies.

There's really just a strong tendency to see the Federal Government as corrupt and authoritarian, while still tending towards being these things.

[AsGryffynn]

I always thought the far right militia types were super against police because they had legal authority to enforce the laws?

Right wingers and any armed forces are often in bed with each other literally anywhere on the world map, with some exceptions (communist countries, whose governments are far more right wing than they'd like to admit publicly).

In any event, a Civil War would look significantly less like the previous one and more like the one we had in Spain half a century+ ago: anything with a weapon will join forces and those in the opposing side (urbanites, left wingers) are going to start regretting not stocking up.

Never mind how foolish it would be to start a war over something more likely to be resolved with a simple coup/autocoup/shadow coup.

[Twelveseal]

There's more truth to this than I'd care to admit.

[asterism42]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...bestos-707642/