shmups.system11.org

The narrative of the last shooting had some merit, but the biggest issue was ignored: it's time to do something about guns! We ignored the gun control issue almost entirely and focused on a separate issue.

Q: Why do we only talk about gun control when white people shoot white people?

I need to understand, because I don't.

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1 ... 4792421376
LMAO

Guess you can't roll 10's and 20's everytime :shrug:

WTF is he talking about?! Good gravy.

Mexican meth is spicier.

In the webnovel FFF- Trash Hero, the protagonist fails the hero exam on his uh, low moral and reputation scores, and is forced to retake it dozens of times. In exasperation the proctors try giving him a buddy, a typical newb examinee to learn from in one round. (And he does learn a nefarious trick from the guy: wiping out a wave of monsters proactively is terrible for your reputation. It's better to let them attack a city, let them kill a bunch of people, and then take action. So 1) The public actually acknowledges the threat and 2) They see you heroically stopping it. Very similar to our current Apocalypse and politics.)

Anyway, the newb appears in the hero-kidnapping circle beside the protagonist, and like many isekai MC's before him, chooses to adopt a new name when they ask who is, based on the hero of a mobile game he likes: "Call me Thor!"

The protagonist, an absolute sociopath of a man, is still utterly disgusted by this. "How could you throw away the precious name your loving parents gave you?!?!"

Renegade's video on Ted Cruz today reminded me Cruz did the same thing. Feel so bad for his dad.

More debt worry from the GOP pork party! The last GOP president to have a balanced budget was Richard Nixon. The last GOP president to exit with reduced debt was Nixon. Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

Because of the narrative. It's easier to get clicks from screaming "BAN ALL GUNS!!!" than "We have an issue in this country with people needing to turn to crime as a result of poverty."
It's not like a plurality of violence surrounding guns happens as a result of gang violence or anything. It's not like one way to reduce it is to provide an out to those that are economically disenfranchised communities so that the cycle is broken or anything.

Canada for example has very strict firearm laws (and only getting stricter) yet virtually all firearm related crime happens as a result of illegaly obtained firearms (most coming from the US). Legal firearm owners are not problems here.

Well we can be a little more granular than "gang violence." It's the illegal drug trade.

Go to any small claims court (outside the context of covid) and it'll be packed to the rafters with people who went into legal business deals where something went south and now they need to see a judge to sort shit out. Now shift that to a contraband business where you can't see a judge to arbitrate disputes, how do you do risky illegal business with reasonable reassurance that your business partners won't fuck you over? You cultivate a reputation as a scary violent motherfucker so they'll be too scared to try.

Remember, prohibition turned the US alcohol market into a blood-soaked mob affair.

Additional food for thought.

Yes. That's to be expected. The healthy supply of guns is the real problem. It's easy to have a robust black market next door to (or within) a prolific manufacturer and distributor.

I don't disagree, there's definitely deeper issues to gang violence and there is 100% more to it. My point was just that it's not fair to just blame firearms or lack of regulations on them. Many of the regulations in Canada for them I would call completely pointless to actual public safety. Does the US have problems with regulations? I'd say there's a few things that could be done as small preventative measures (such as needing to take a safety course for licensing and requiring firearms to be locked in safe or some secure room of there's minors in the house).
It's easy to point to an object (the symptom) and say that "we need to ban it to get rid of crime!" instead of addressing the actual disease.

Meh. Methinks you're both dug in and you have an agenda.

One of you likes to play with your gun, so you have a preplanned and completely predetermined agenda. The other loves to smoke/vape drugs, so you have an agenda.

I have no particular agenda and zero compassion for your hobbies. I don't care if drugs are available. I don't play with guns.

They could both disappear from the face of the planet tomorrow and I wouldn't bat an eye. The war on drugs has been a failure for a myriad of reasons, but using them doesn't provide any real benefits besides "it's funz for me and I likez it". Gun manufacturing is out of control and it's simple and obvious math; more guns per capita will increase general availability.

I give zero fucks. If you're bored, find something else to do.

I'll agree the patchwork marijuana laws need to addressed. We need to make up our minds. "Legalising" use without properly legalising manufacturing/production has encouraged and contributed the problems in South America (and especially near the southern US border). We have a "legal" demand for a product that is often imported from the black market. That's thick.

I don't know about the other guy in terms of agenda but I'm definitely invested in shooting sports (I'm in a university sport shooting club) so by that definition I guess I do have an agenda (Although it only goes insofar that those that know very little about the topic attempt to speak with authority on it).

In terms of drugs marijuana was legalized up here but we're losing something like $42 million dollars on it for several bureaucratic reasons and not being able to compete with the black market.
As a side note I personally find the whole each state operating as a mini country of it's own weird, federal laws make things so much simpler to deal with.
I'm personally against using marijuana but if you can use it responsibly (like people can use alcohol responsibly) I have no real issues with it.

Sometimes it's really annoying how this forum doesn't let you embed youtube clips.

Sorry about the detective work there, chief, but I've been straightedge my whole life. I didn't say anything about drugs having benefits either.

Yeah I had an agenda in posting. How the hell does someone compose an internet post without an intention to communicate a point? Typing Tourettes?

This very thread has had discussion of "gang violence" in the past started with a very ugly agenda in mind, and I wanted to preempt any of that by shifting the focus from the character of the individuals involved to the systemic incentives motivating the violence in the first place.

But congratulations on having no agenda and being above it all. The way you insert yourself into conversations with zen-like detachment is very impressive. It tells me you're the adult in this particular room!

Nah. Most of the "legalise it" people have one agenda: get high. That's all there is to it. If you're an outlier, so be it.

Like the hacky sack and rasta cap kid that hands out "hemp" flyers. The flyer says I can get great clothes and paper. That kid just wants to get stoned. It's not about saving the planet. It's not about crime. It's not about clothes. It's not about paper. It's about sitting on your ass and getting stoned.

Let's not be disingenuous.

I read "gangs" in your discussion as a dog whistle for black/hispanic men. It doesn't actually have jack shit to do with drugs. It's a way to say "bad black/hispanic guy". "Gangs" is always a loaded word. It is rarely used without a ton of loaded and unspoken negative meaning. In your gun discussion, it's a dog whistle. (I didn't picture white kids snapping their fingers in white t-shirts.)

I acknowledged the disconnect of legalising weed without a good legal supply chain. That does encourage organised crime (yes, that's how you phrase it). So, I agree. But, that's not the real cause of gun violence problems.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Captain Obvious!

And, if we want to have an honest conversation about organised crime, here's a clip from A Bronx Tale. I'm not here to debate the play or film. The story behind the scene is important, because it's inspired by a real conversation the author had in New York as a child. It drives home the point. This is street smarts in a few sentences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHO18vFc8o

He's got a point.

If you're reading into gangs as a "dog whistle for black/hispanic men" then I seriously have no clue how you talk to anyone without making negative assumptions about everything they have to say.
(Really shows that even with Mischief Maker attempting to prevent the conversation from touching race you somehow managed to shoehorn it in anyway...)

I mentioned gangs because statistically speaking 62% of firearm deaths in Canada in the year 2016 were "gang related" as opposed to 36.7% which were "non-gang related" (and 4% (literally 4 instances) of that 36.7% that involved someone that was licensed to have the firearm). The only one shoving in ANYTHING race related is you.
Nobody's saying that all organized crime has just to do with gangs or drugs (heck, there was an illegal casino being run here in a residence not too far from where I live from which they discovered a bunch of weapons in).

You can't pick and choose pleasant parts of subjects and pretend other factors don't exist. Avoiding mentioning it doesn't make it go away. Also, I don't see how chiming in on American gun control based on Canada makes sense.

America has four times the guns per capita, ten times the population, seven times the population density of Canada, and 21 times the poverty rate. All of that and Americans have the worst health care outcomes of any developed western nation. And, the "bad" doesn't break evenly across the population. It disproportionately affects people based on race.

So, you're welcome to tell me about your experience in Canada, but don't quote me and pretend it has anything to do with America's issues.

The heart of your argument is bullocks. You're trying to tell me we can have all the guns we want, because only bad guys shoot people with illegal guns. I don't buy it. More guns per capita makes them easier to get and increases the opportunity for people to get one. I'm the lefty Rand Paul warns you about. I do want to take the guns away.

I guess Alabamans like shitting in bags.

Yeah...

I saw a statistic that $12.15/hr can get you a 1 bedroom apartment in Bumfuck Nowhere, Alabama and with Amazon paying $15/hr they probably didn't want to risk it. Amazon is exactly the kind of company that would retaliate, and there's a possibility that's the best paying job in the area.

$15/hr in a non-flyover state and they may as well give you a cardboard box so you have something to sleep in and keep you dry.

Hard to say how much of it is them voting against their own interests, or if they think this is the best they can get.

If I lived in Alabama though my first priority would be buying a one way ticket elsewhere. That's the kind of place that traps people in a cycle of regressive politics and poverty.

There is the self-selecting aspect that people who won't lick the boot are doing something else with their lives, even if it means living in a gutter or being forever alone. As Amazon's official twitter feed remarked, "if our employees didn't like peeing in bottles, they wouldn't work here."

For those of you interested on the progress of the Dick Cheney immortality serum, well, stuff is happening. This emerging prospective change in society doesn't have even a fraction as much hype as a video game or movie (lol again at NO MAN'S SKY, spore, black n' white..), which is about what I've come to expect from humans. Back in 2016 people used to joke that "Sanders/Trump Will Make Anime Real", stolen from the 2012 joke that "Ron Paul Will Make Anime Real." Reducing the number of uggos in the world by over 80%... now that would be something that would actually "make anime real", in a partial sense.

An exchange I once read went "lol why would you want to live forever?" and a response was like "you only feel that way because life is bad and lame. If life was cool and good, then you wouldn't want to die."

So, we'll have immortal overlords but no gasoline in the future. What the kids these days call "a mixed bag".

Of poop.

Hope springs eternal?