6 ms·

I have become something of a statist over the years and I apparently annoy a whole lot of people, when I argue for not upsetting the status quo much further. Ne

I have become something of a statist over the years and I apparently annoy a whole lot of people, when I argue for not upsetting the status quo much further. Needless to say, this obviously is not a good thing if you share that perspective with me. This is actual political violence. And it has little to do with guns. If someone really wanted to get to the guy, one would. The issue is further societal deterioration in basic standards. Let me reiterate. Violence is not the answer for one reason and one reason only. Once it starts and everyone joins, it will be very, very hard to stop. edit: be

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Once it starts and everyone joins, it will very, very hard to stop More directly, when violence becomes a normalized means of politics, it doesn’t benefit the bourgeoisie.
- iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
  Cross, I know we interacted before. I sincerely hope you do not advocate that ends justify the means. "The bourgeoisie" as you call them, will be fine ( more resources at their disposal to ensure that happens ). They always are fine. You know who actually does suffer? Regular people.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > "The bourgeoisie" as you call them, will be fine I meant the bourgeoisie as in the middle class. A lot of idiots think rolling out guillotines will hurt the rich and help the poor. It won’t. It almost never has in the last millennium. If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - bilbo0s 1y ago
      If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House. I actually wish that were the case. The problem today is that we've scaled up the damage that a single attacker can do. I won't go too far into it, but think of it this way, what happens when someone wakes up to the fact that they can use autonomous ordinance (e.g. - Drones)? We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse. In retrospect, it's kind of obvious that it set us on a slippery slope.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse I remain a fan of bringing back the Athenian institution of ostracism. If more than a certain fraction of voters in an election write down the same person’s name, they’re banned from running for office or have to leave the country for N years. (And if they can’t or won’t do the latter, are placed under house arrest.)
    - silverquiet 1y ago
      I've always thought that the middle class were proles as well, or petit-bourgeoisie at best. I don't think you're wrong, but one thing that I've noticed in my time of thinking about and discussing societal problems in the US is that nothing ever really seems to help the poor anyway.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Haitian Revolution comes to mind of "the bourgeoisie" that were actually in country, basically got slaughtered, at least the white ones. If you frame it to include the ones even higher up on French soil, maybe not though.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Haitian Revolution comes to mind of "the bourgeoisie" that were actually in country Yes. The bourgeoisie don’t get away. The aristocracy do. If you work in tech, you’re part of the American bourgeoisie. If you have a college degree, you’re bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the middle class.
      - yuye 1y ago
        >If you work in tech, you’re part of the American bourgeoisie. If you have a college degree, you’re bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the middle class. What does the middle class even mean nowadays? By Marxist definition, the bourgeoisie are the business owners, the landlords. The class that owns the means of production. If you need a salary to survive, you're working class. A lot of people in tech are salaried employees. They might have some money in investments, but not enough to live off of. Many tech workers are just highly compensated members of the working class.
  - AngryData 1y ago
    Regular people suffer no matter what the problem is, they have always been the front line to blunt the effects of economic, political, or military tolls. The whole reason people resort to political violence is to inflate a problem so large that not even the "bourgeoisie" can completely shield themselves from it. If someone feels they are suffering or dead without doing anything, then suffering or dieing from actually taking action against your perceived oppressors seems like a decent option.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > not even the "bourgeoisie" can completely shield themselves from it The bourgeoisie can't. The aristocracy can. That's the point.
  - digitalbullshit 1y ago
    Hello. I witnessed racial and religious persecution. I can tell you my stories. But I always wonder what is the alternative when someone like me is attacked? Should I give my left cheek? Should I attempt to be a pacifist? People who are against violence by all means necessary are privileged because they never have to witness someone’s head roll down. So they don’t know how it feels to be the receiving end of suffering.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
      << People who are against violence by all means necessary are privileged I think you misunderstand the point. My argument is that each act of political violence ( especially on a national stage ) further degrades existing society. That ongoing degradation is a real problem and, yes, individual suffering is irrelevant to it, because, society is a greater good. You may say those say it are privileged, but to that I say that I like having working society. It keeps being us civil. I like it to stay that way. If you feel otherwise, please elaborate. It is possible, I am misunderstanding you.
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
It was actual political violence when MN state representative Melissa Hortman was killed. It was political violence when Gabby Giffords was shot. Actual political violence has been happening. We live in a politically violent time.
- noosphr 1y ago
  It was political violence when Trump was shot on stage too. I imagine that a lot of the political thuggarry we're seeing today is a direct result of him coming within an inch of having his brains blown out. No one comes that close to death without being fundamentally changed.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    The moment trump was shot (or whatever ricocheted and hit his face) and the picture was taken of him with the flag, I knew he had the election won. There was just no way for an opponent to top that photo op. Crookes basically handed the election to Trump.
    - koolba 1y ago
      > There was just no way for an opponent to top that photo op. Rising up with your fist clenched right after you were shot isn't something you train for either. That's a natural reaction from instinct. It's morbid curiosity to analyze it, but I don't think it would have had the same net effect if it was Harris.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Trump has spent decades in practical training to be media savvy.
      - bingabingabinga 1y ago
        [flagged]
s5300 1y ago
[dead]
cosmicgadget 1y ago
I wonder about the statistics of gun assassinations vs non-gun assasinations.
- Bender 1y ago
  I've tried to tease that apart and failed. All of the sites hosting statistics I could find count suicide and justifiable homicide as in self defense in the statistics as homicide. I wish I could find a trust worthy source that differentiates in a truly unbiased scientific manor.
  - cosmicgadget 1y ago
    Could start with high profile assassination attempts by non-state actors. Trump - gun x2, Kirk - gun, Reagan - gun, Kennedy - gun, Kennedy - gun, Abe (Japan) - gun, Abe (Union) - gun, Bush - shoe.
ikrenji 1y ago
this has everything to do with guns. the more guns in society the more gun violence there is. is not rocket science
- themafia 1y ago
  In the USA: There are more suicides than murders every year. The ratio is typically 2:1. The "deaths due to gun violence" statistic includes suicides. It's not exactly that plain and simple either.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    Access to guns makes suicide attempts much more likely to succeed. You're describing a related aspect of the same problem. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/do-states-with-easier-access-to-guns-have-more-suicide-deaths-by-firearm/ https://www.kff.org/mental-health/do-states-with-easier-acce... "Firearms are the most lethal method of suicide attempts, and about half of suicide attempts take place within 10 minutes of the current suicide thought, so having access to firearms is a suicide risk factor. The availability of firearms has been linked to suicides in a number of peer-reviewed studies. In one such study, researchers examined the association between firearm availability and suicide while also accounting for the potential confounding influence of state-level suicidal behaviors (as measured by suicide attempts). Researchers found that higher rates of gun ownership were associated with increased suicide by firearm deaths, but not with other types of suicide. Taking a look at suicide deaths starting from the date of a handgun purchase and comparing them to people who did not purchase handguns, another study found that people who purchased handguns were more likely to die from suicide by firearm than those who did not--with men 8 times more likely and women 35 times more likely compared to non-owners."
    - themafia 1y ago
      I would think addressing the reasons people commit suicide leads to a better society. I would think that simply removing a popular tool for them only hides a symptom of a broader problem. The other break in your statistic is people who own guns and commit suicide, and people who own guns and have a family member steal them to commit suicide. The later is far more common. Which suggests that part of the issue is unrestricted access to firearms by children in the home of a gun owning parent.
ToucanLoucan 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bell-cot 1y ago
  > Violence is very, very often the answer because power only understands greater power. Unfortunately, power's usual counter-move to that "answer" is a vastly-more-violent rebuttal. With minimal concern for "collateral damage", or other euphemisms for innocents being maimed and killed at scale.
- iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
  << Do I understand why it's happening? I think most of us understand the why. That part is not exactly a secret. Naturally, it does not help that the why is a list of multiple factors playing into it and most pick the favorites and I am sure each power center will spin this to their particular benefit further polarizing society. What I am really saying is: We should try to cool things down.
- cbeach 1y ago
  Violence didn’t bring us the weekend. The arch-capitalist Henry Ford created the precedent for the weekend because he wanted people to have leisure time to be able to use his cars.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > Violence didn’t bring us the weekend. Violence definitely happened in the US labor movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass Ford hardly invented the weekend, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#History "The present-day concept of the relatively longer "week-end" first arose in the industrial north of Britain in the early 19th century... In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a predecessor of today’s AFL-CIO, called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886, playing a crucial role in the push for a five-day workweek."
silverquiet 1y ago
> And it has little to do with guns. If someone really wanted to get to the guy, one would. Disclaimer that this is early and I may be wrong, but I read that he had a security detail (which seems rather likely). I doubt an attacker with a knife would have had success.
- joecool1029 1y ago
  They still get through and do damage. Salman Rushdie and Jair Bolsonaro come to mind on recent-ish high profile knife stabbings.
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    Obviously attacks happen even without guns. But it is harder to kill someone without a gun, and harder to kill multiple people or from a distance without one. Guns aren't as generally useful as knives. So it makes little sense to have 1.2 guns per person, or really any private gun possession. The price of mass murders, shooter drills, and firearm accidents aren't worth what marginal benefits guns may bring.
treis 1y ago
Believe it or not 4 out of the last 30 Presidents were assassinated, an additional 3 were shot, and a few more were shot at or otherwise survived attempts. There's a long history of political violence in the US (and the world). We've been in a bit of a lull of late but what we're experiencing today is not all that abnormal.
- nilamo 1y ago
  Why is your sample size 75% of US history? 30 presidents is a huge number to start with.
- tick_tock_tick 1y ago
  I mean the sitting president was shot on the campaign trail.
dogweather 1y ago
Yes - makes me think of the assassination of Shinzo Abe. The gunman made his own gun, in a country with ultra-strict gun laws. The Unabomber made his own bombs. The Seattle mall Islamist knife attacker refused to stay down after being shot multiple times. My takeaway: political terrorists are particularly motivated. Secondly, gun laws slow them down but don't stop them.
- Braxton1980 1y ago
  Why does a law have to be 100% to be considered worth having?
  - josephcsible 1y ago
    It doesn't need to be 100% effective, but it needs to be effective enough to make up for the downsides.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - yostrovs 1y ago
        [flagged]
      - christophilus 1y ago
        I don’t doubt you’ve heard someone argue that, but I never have. I’ve always heard it as a right to defense, generally as in a right to defend yourself from oppressive authorities. I never took that to mean assassinations as much as militia actions against militaries. You can argue whether or not that is an effective approach to securing freedom, but that’s the argument I’m most familiar with.
        pjc50 1y ago
        More of a distinction without a difference. Once you get to that situation, you've legitimized murder; now we see what that looks like. "Militia" action against "military"? Neither side will bother with the scruples of waiting for the enemy to put on a uniform and pick up a weapon. It will be death squads vs car bombs.
jmyeet 1y ago
[flagged]
- iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
  << This country has soundly rejected any form of sensible gun control. Hmm. Do you know why? Having seen the basic pattern of action of anti-gun people, I have come to realization that nothing is ever enough. They will just keep pushing for more stuff regardless of 'wins' they score. Granted, some of it is various organizations and they really don't want to say 'mission accomplished'. Still, my point remains. I no longer really accept any changes to status quo.
  - jmyeet 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      I think though joked about, one of the most telling things about the NRA is their absolute militancy about gun rights... when it suits them. As you pointed out. And as also evidenced by things like "From my cold, dead hands! ... unless you're at an NRA convention, in which case please use these lockers or leave your gun at home, and walk through this metal detector, please."
  - Tade0 1y ago
    > I no longer really accept any changes to status quo. How about, at the very least, making it mandatory to report firearm theft? IIRC currently only 15 states actually have such a requirement. I'm not American and for a long time I could not understand why American fiction, be it books or movies, assumes guns are available even in a zombie apocalypse. That is until I learned the above fact. The fact that one can steal a gun and have no one report that makes firearms essentially a natural resource in the US.
- throwmeaway222 1y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 1y ago
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parl_match 1y ago
[flagged]
- iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
  << A reason that the left has been less violent is that there's a general ideological belief in taking on systems instead of people. I think you are mistaken in thinking that 'left' ( quotation, because while I want to keep the identifier for clarity's sake, I think it does not properly reflect US political spectrum ) is not violent or that somehow their violence is lower in percentage. The reason I am hesitatant to go for that discussion is because it has a good chance of derailing the conversation. Can we just agree this is a bad thing for now instead?
  - bmicraft 1y ago
    > I think you are mistaken in thinking that 'left' [...] somehow their violence is lower in percentage I don't know about the US, but I've certainly seen stats from mostly center sources support that claim for my country
  - parl_match 1y ago
    > is not violent nobody is saying that > or that somehow their violence is lower in percentage it is _substantially_ lower
- JacobThreeThree 1y ago
  >Despite the constant braying of right-leaning people, left-wing violence is a tiny fraction of domestic terrorism compared to the right. Only if you buy into the various biased studies that are conducted by those who sympathize with the left.
mring33621 1y ago
[flagged]
digitalbullshit 1y ago
[flagged]
mhitza 1y ago
I'm of the strong opinion that statism is the way of corrupting any ideological revolution. From communism, to democracy. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion as to why letting the status quo be is a good thing. The path society is on is clearly towards a cyberpunk distopia, than anything that would unburden and improve the human existance of the many.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Once it starts and everyone joins, it will very, very hard to stop More directly, when violence becomes a normalized means of politics, it doesn’t benefit the bourgeoisie.

iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
Cross, I know we interacted before. I sincerely hope you do not advocate that ends justify the means. "The bourgeoisie" as you call them, will be fine ( more resources at their disposal to ensure that happens ). They always are fine. You know who actually does suffer? Regular people.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > "The bourgeoisie" as you call them, will be fine I meant the bourgeoisie as in the middle class. A lot of idiots think rolling out guillotines will hurt the rich and help the poor. It won’t. It almost never has in the last millennium. If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - bilbo0s 1y ago
    If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House. I actually wish that were the case. The problem today is that we've scaled up the damage that a single attacker can do. I won't go too far into it, but think of it this way, what happens when someone wakes up to the fact that they can use autonomous ordinance (e.g. - Drones)? We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse. In retrospect, it's kind of obvious that it set us on a slippery slope.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse I remain a fan of bringing back the Athenian institution of ostracism. If more than a certain fraction of voters in an election write down the same person’s name, they’re banned from running for office or have to leave the country for N years. (And if they can’t or won’t do the latter, are placed under house arrest.)
  - silverquiet 1y ago
    I've always thought that the middle class were proles as well, or petit-bourgeoisie at best. I don't think you're wrong, but one thing that I've noticed in my time of thinking about and discussing societal problems in the US is that nothing ever really seems to help the poor anyway.
- mothballed 1y ago
  Haitian Revolution comes to mind of "the bourgeoisie" that were actually in country, basically got slaughtered, at least the white ones. If you frame it to include the ones even higher up on French soil, maybe not though.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Haitian Revolution comes to mind of "the bourgeoisie" that were actually in country Yes. The bourgeoisie don’t get away. The aristocracy do. If you work in tech, you’re part of the American bourgeoisie. If you have a college degree, you’re bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the middle class.
    - yuye 1y ago
      >If you work in tech, you’re part of the American bourgeoisie. If you have a college degree, you’re bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the middle class. What does the middle class even mean nowadays? By Marxist definition, the bourgeoisie are the business owners, the landlords. The class that owns the means of production. If you need a salary to survive, you're working class. A lot of people in tech are salaried employees. They might have some money in investments, but not enough to live off of. Many tech workers are just highly compensated members of the working class.
- AngryData 1y ago
  Regular people suffer no matter what the problem is, they have always been the front line to blunt the effects of economic, political, or military tolls. The whole reason people resort to political violence is to inflate a problem so large that not even the "bourgeoisie" can completely shield themselves from it. If someone feels they are suffering or dead without doing anything, then suffering or dieing from actually taking action against your perceived oppressors seems like a decent option.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > not even the "bourgeoisie" can completely shield themselves from it The bourgeoisie can't. The aristocracy can. That's the point.
- digitalbullshit 1y ago
  Hello. I witnessed racial and religious persecution. I can tell you my stories. But I always wonder what is the alternative when someone like me is attacked? Should I give my left cheek? Should I attempt to be a pacifist? People who are against violence by all means necessary are privileged because they never have to witness someone’s head roll down. So they don’t know how it feels to be the receiving end of suffering.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
    << People who are against violence by all means necessary are privileged I think you misunderstand the point. My argument is that each act of political violence ( especially on a national stage ) further degrades existing society. That ongoing degradation is a real problem and, yes, individual suffering is irrelevant to it, because, society is a greater good. You may say those say it are privileged, but to that I say that I like having working society. It keeps being us civil. I like it to stay that way. If you feel otherwise, please elaborate. It is possible, I am misunderstanding you.

thinkingtoilet 1y ago

It was actual political violence when MN state representative Melissa Hortman was killed. It was political violence when Gabby Giffords was shot. Actual political violence has been happening. We live in a politically violent time.

noosphr 1y ago
It was political violence when Trump was shot on stage too. I imagine that a lot of the political thuggarry we're seeing today is a direct result of him coming within an inch of having his brains blown out. No one comes that close to death without being fundamentally changed.
- mothballed 1y ago
  The moment trump was shot (or whatever ricocheted and hit his face) and the picture was taken of him with the flag, I knew he had the election won. There was just no way for an opponent to top that photo op. Crookes basically handed the election to Trump.
  - koolba 1y ago
    > There was just no way for an opponent to top that photo op. Rising up with your fist clenched right after you were shot isn't something you train for either. That's a natural reaction from instinct. It's morbid curiosity to analyze it, but I don't think it would have had the same net effect if it was Harris.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Trump has spent decades in practical training to be media savvy.
    - bingabingabinga 1y ago
      [flagged]

s5300 1y ago

[dead]

cosmicgadget 1y ago

I wonder about the statistics of gun assassinations vs non-gun assasinations.

Bender 1y ago
I've tried to tease that apart and failed. All of the sites hosting statistics I could find count suicide and justifiable homicide as in self defense in the statistics as homicide. I wish I could find a trust worthy source that differentiates in a truly unbiased scientific manor.
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  Could start with high profile assassination attempts by non-state actors. Trump - gun x2, Kirk - gun, Reagan - gun, Kennedy - gun, Kennedy - gun, Abe (Japan) - gun, Abe (Union) - gun, Bush - shoe.

ikrenji 1y ago

this has everything to do with guns. the more guns in society the more gun violence there is. is not rocket science

themafia 1y ago
In the USA: There are more suicides than murders every year. The ratio is typically 2:1. The "deaths due to gun violence" statistic includes suicides. It's not exactly that plain and simple either.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  Access to guns makes suicide attempts much more likely to succeed. You're describing a related aspect of the same problem. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/do-states-with-easier-access-to-guns-have-more-suicide-deaths-by-firearm/ https://www.kff.org/mental-health/do-states-with-easier-acce... "Firearms are the most lethal method of suicide attempts, and about half of suicide attempts take place within 10 minutes of the current suicide thought, so having access to firearms is a suicide risk factor. The availability of firearms has been linked to suicides in a number of peer-reviewed studies. In one such study, researchers examined the association between firearm availability and suicide while also accounting for the potential confounding influence of state-level suicidal behaviors (as measured by suicide attempts). Researchers found that higher rates of gun ownership were associated with increased suicide by firearm deaths, but not with other types of suicide. Taking a look at suicide deaths starting from the date of a handgun purchase and comparing them to people who did not purchase handguns, another study found that people who purchased handguns were more likely to die from suicide by firearm than those who did not--with men 8 times more likely and women 35 times more likely compared to non-owners."
  - themafia 1y ago
    I would think addressing the reasons people commit suicide leads to a better society. I would think that simply removing a popular tool for them only hides a symptom of a broader problem. The other break in your statistic is people who own guns and commit suicide, and people who own guns and have a family member steal them to commit suicide. The later is far more common. Which suggests that part of the issue is unrestricted access to firearms by children in the home of a gun owning parent.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 1y ago
> Violence is very, very often the answer because power only understands greater power. Unfortunately, power's usual counter-move to that "answer" is a vastly-more-violent rebuttal. With minimal concern for "collateral damage", or other euphemisms for innocents being maimed and killed at scale.
iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
<< Do I understand why it's happening? I think most of us understand the why. That part is not exactly a secret. Naturally, it does not help that the why is a list of multiple factors playing into it and most pick the favorites and I am sure each power center will spin this to their particular benefit further polarizing society. What I am really saying is: We should try to cool things down.
cbeach 1y ago
Violence didn’t bring us the weekend. The arch-capitalist Henry Ford created the precedent for the weekend because he wanted people to have leisure time to be able to use his cars.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Violence didn’t bring us the weekend. Violence definitely happened in the US labor movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass Ford hardly invented the weekend, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#History "The present-day concept of the relatively longer "week-end" first arose in the industrial north of Britain in the early 19th century... In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a predecessor of today’s AFL-CIO, called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886, playing a crucial role in the push for a five-day workweek."

silverquiet 1y ago

> And it has little to do with guns. If someone really wanted to get to the guy, one would. Disclaimer that this is early and I may be wrong, but I read that he had a security detail (which seems rather likely). I doubt an attacker with a knife would have had success.

joecool1029 1y ago
They still get through and do damage. Salman Rushdie and Jair Bolsonaro come to mind on recent-ish high profile knife stabbings.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  Obviously attacks happen even without guns. But it is harder to kill someone without a gun, and harder to kill multiple people or from a distance without one. Guns aren't as generally useful as knives. So it makes little sense to have 1.2 guns per person, or really any private gun possession. The price of mass murders, shooter drills, and firearm accidents aren't worth what marginal benefits guns may bring.

treis 1y ago

Believe it or not 4 out of the last 30 Presidents were assassinated, an additional 3 were shot, and a few more were shot at or otherwise survived attempts. There's a long history of political violence in the US (and the world). We've been in a bit of a lull of late but what we're experiencing today is not all that abnormal.

nilamo 1y ago
Why is your sample size 75% of US history? 30 presidents is a huge number to start with.
tick_tock_tick 1y ago
I mean the sitting president was shot on the campaign trail.

dogweather 1y ago

Yes - makes me think of the assassination of Shinzo Abe. The gunman made his own gun, in a country with ultra-strict gun laws. The Unabomber made his own bombs. The Seattle mall Islamist knife attacker refused to stay down after being shot multiple times. My takeaway: political terrorists are particularly motivated. Secondly, gun laws slow them down but don't stop them.

Braxton1980 1y ago
Why does a law have to be 100% to be considered worth having?
- josephcsible 1y ago
  It doesn't need to be 100% effective, but it needs to be effective enough to make up for the downsides.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - yostrovs 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - christophilus 1y ago
      I don’t doubt you’ve heard someone argue that, but I never have. I’ve always heard it as a right to defense, generally as in a right to defend yourself from oppressive authorities. I never took that to mean assassinations as much as militia actions against militaries. You can argue whether or not that is an effective approach to securing freedom, but that’s the argument I’m most familiar with.
      - pjc50 1y ago
        More of a distinction without a difference. Once you get to that situation, you've legitimized murder; now we see what that looks like. "Militia" action against "military"? Neither side will bother with the scruples of waiting for the enemy to put on a uniform and pick up a weapon. It will be death squads vs car bombs.

jmyeet 1y ago

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iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
<< This country has soundly rejected any form of sensible gun control. Hmm. Do you know why? Having seen the basic pattern of action of anti-gun people, I have come to realization that nothing is ever enough. They will just keep pushing for more stuff regardless of 'wins' they score. Granted, some of it is various organizations and they really don't want to say 'mission accomplished'. Still, my point remains. I no longer really accept any changes to status quo.
- jmyeet 1y ago
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  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    I think though joked about, one of the most telling things about the NRA is their absolute militancy about gun rights... when it suits them. As you pointed out. And as also evidenced by things like "From my cold, dead hands! ... unless you're at an NRA convention, in which case please use these lockers or leave your gun at home, and walk through this metal detector, please."
- Tade0 1y ago
  > I no longer really accept any changes to status quo. How about, at the very least, making it mandatory to report firearm theft? IIRC currently only 15 states actually have such a requirement. I'm not American and for a long time I could not understand why American fiction, be it books or movies, assumes guns are available even in a zombie apocalypse. That is until I learned the above fact. The fact that one can steal a gun and have no one report that makes firearms essentially a natural resource in the US.
throwmeaway222 1y ago
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parl_match 1y ago

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iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
<< A reason that the left has been less violent is that there's a general ideological belief in taking on systems instead of people. I think you are mistaken in thinking that 'left' ( quotation, because while I want to keep the identifier for clarity's sake, I think it does not properly reflect US political spectrum ) is not violent or that somehow their violence is lower in percentage. The reason I am hesitatant to go for that discussion is because it has a good chance of derailing the conversation. Can we just agree this is a bad thing for now instead?
- bmicraft 1y ago
  > I think you are mistaken in thinking that 'left' [...] somehow their violence is lower in percentage I don't know about the US, but I've certainly seen stats from mostly center sources support that claim for my country
- parl_match 1y ago
  > is not violent nobody is saying that > or that somehow their violence is lower in percentage it is _substantially_ lower
JacobThreeThree 1y ago
>Despite the constant braying of right-leaning people, left-wing violence is a tiny fraction of domestic terrorism compared to the right. Only if you buy into the various biased studies that are conducted by those who sympathize with the left.

mring33621 1y ago

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digitalbullshit 1y ago

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mhitza 1y ago

I'm of the strong opinion that statism is the way of corrupting any ideological revolution. From communism, to democracy. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion as to why letting the status quo be is a good thing. The path society is on is clearly towards a cyberpunk distopia, than anything that would unburden and improve the human existance of the many.