One nazi less?

[giblets]

At least I just "dumped on them" and didn't murder anyone.You're doing your own dumping, hypocrite.

You're a hypocrite, hypocrite.

[giblets]

This argument is frustrating to me (on the national level, not just here) because it seems so transparently one in which neither is actually all that interested in solving the problem. It's merely a proxy for the gun control fight, and everybody is interested in it primarily as a proxy for the gun control fight, so it follows an extremely tiresome and predictable script, and nobody learns anything, and the end result is a vast display of public onanism. With dead kids.

GUNS ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE. They are too embedded into American culture, they have too many legitimate uses, the 2A has centuries of legal momentum, there are too many of them to confiscate, the country is too evenly divided, and at this point the eight billionth attempt to point sanctimoniously at dead schoolkids while issuing frequently-incoherent demands ("assault rifle" is not a meaningful category, for example, most mass shootings don't involve anything to which that label could conceivably apply--and Charlie Kirk was quite expertly killed with a bolt-action rifle) is not going to meet noticeably more success than the seven billionth. It's merely an excuse for grandstanding, here and everywhere else. The problem will not be solved in this way.

Want to actually address this? Well, school shootings weren't that common in, say, the 80s, despite firearms being perfectly common back then as well. Just went over Wikipedia's list of pre-2000 school shootings, and the deadliest school shooting in that decade killed six. It lists all of 79 for the decade, most of which might have killed one person--many caused only injuries--and scanning it, most of these are not deliberate terror-campaigns but "a kid got in an argument and shot his classmate" stuff. When Columbine happened back in '99, it was a huge deal, vastly worse than anything that had come before, and the two perpetrators got intense media attention for months, as have many shooters since. An obvious counter to try would be to try to more broadly normalize--as in a cultural norm, not a law--news outlets not publicizing the names or motivations of school shooters. Nobody across the political spectrum has anything to lose, in terms of rights or interests, from trying this. I've seen it done some places, but not nearly enough to matter. Would Damnatio Memoriae work? I don't know, because it's never been tried!

The gun control angle, despite being obviously and preposterously impractical, is too easy and useful as a political club, and any other suggestion gets drowned out or shouted down as an attempt to divert from what is obviously the only real solution. (nb right-wing solutions of arming overwhelmingly-progressive teachers or militarizing schools are only slightly less impractical and likewise stink of culture war football--but you're all lefties) "They don't even care about the dead kids!" To all evidence, neither do you. They're not going to the funerals because you'd just use it to point to their supposed cold-blooded hypocrisy, and they don't feel like listening to a lecture, same as anybody else. So STFU. Geez.

Yes, repealing the 1st amendment is probably more realistic than repealing the 2nd amendment.

[Elok]

as in a cultural norm, not a law

[SlowwHand]

You're a hypocrite, hypocrite.

Ah, the old "ì know you are, but what am I" argument.

[giblets]

Ah, the old "ì know you are, but what am I" argument.

It's a classic in political debates and schoolyard fights

[Geronimo]

A lot of people came to Kirk's memorial. That is a heartfelt act for many to attend, and there will be other motivations mixed in for some.

I would like to understand why the same is not organised for children killed by gun violence (e.g Presidential attendance, etc). What is it about the circumstances of Charlie's death that is driving this? Dare I say it's actually about politics and the exploitation of grief?

I suppose because when someone is killed for their speech they feel that as a member of the population who will also be targeted for such speech that they owe it to everybody to not be cowed by violence. Their failure to attend the funerals of children murdered by people using weapons their policies make dramatically easier to get interests me no more than people who support open borders failing to attend the funeral of someone killed by an illegal immigrant.

I support much higher levels of gun control in the US (and related to my comparison I also support far higher levels of legal immigration to the US) and even I am a little offended by your apparently disingenuous rhetoric here.

[Lorizael]

~2/3 of gun deaths in America are suicides usually involving handguns. ~1/3 are some variety of domestic dispute, gang violence, cops, etc. The remaining ~0/3 are from mass shootings, including school shootings. Death by suicide is not easy, and a good deal of evidence indicates that when firearms are not available, both successful suicides and suicide attempts go down. It is not actually completely impractical to limit the availability of handguns, or even just the ease and speed with which they can be acquired. There are real benefits to be gained in reducing gun violence by focusing our attention on, surprise surprise, where most gun deaths occur.

[Dauphin]

I suppose because when someone is killed for their speech they feel that as a member of the population who will also be targeted for such speech that they owe it to everybody to not be cowed by violence. Their failure to attend the funerals of children murdered by people using weapons their policies make dramatically easier to get interests me no more than people who support open borders failing to attend the funeral of someone killed by an illegal immigrant.

I support much higher levels of gun control in the US (and related to my comparison I also support far higher levels of legal immigration to the US) and even I am a little offended by your apparently disingenuous rhetoric here.

You appear to be saying they attended the event because they felt they and their politics were attacked, that they don't want to do anything of meaning about gun deaths of children because it's an inconvenient outcome of their political choices, and that their thoughts and prayers response is simply waving the whole thing away.

How is that different to my initial point, that the difference in approach is political on the part of MAGA leadership.

[Aeson]

Their failure to attend the funerals of children murdered by people using weapons their policies make dramatically easier to get interests me no more than people who support open borders failing to attend the funeral of someone killed by an illegal immigrant.

The analog would be attending the funeral of someone who supported open borders and accepted that their policy would result in an acceptable amount of deaths, and was killed by an immigrant ... while not doing so for any of the other victims.

Equally not attending anyone's funeral is not hypocritical.

(Also, statistically the murder rate goes down with increased immigration. So statistically you're less likely to be murdered if immigration increases.)

[dannubis]

100 times this.

[-Jrabbit]

Observation: Charlie Kirk's assassination is literally the first school shooting that, hmm, we'll call them the right, actually seems to care about.

[N35t0r]

Incidentally, it's really 'fun' to see all of the people worried about political violence and decrying the left's collective 'celebration' of Charlie Kirk's death, and then individually contrast it to their reaction to the assassination of the two politicians in Minnesota some months ago.

And I only say fun because I do not live in the US.

[-Jrabbit]

It's gone from worrisome to depressing.