4 ms·

You don't need to ban them, though. Isn't that the actual lesson at the end of _Bowling For Columbine_? That Canada has a huge number of guns and isn't so fucke

You don't need to ban them, though. Isn't that the actual lesson at the end of _Bowling For Columbine_? That Canada has a huge number of guns and isn't so fucked up? What you need to do is undermine the culture of machismo and trollishness around guns: Start with "anyone who poses with guns in their family Christmas photo is to be treated as if they will use them on your family or their own kids without a moment's hesitation for their own gain". (Like, if you get a Christmas card from a family with guns in their photo, why would you consider that anything other than a threatening communication? It clearly is.) Move on to "anyone who has more usable guns than they can hold in their hands is probably a broken person and maybe you should consider keeping your distance". Move on to "anyone who owns a bump stock is insane or compensating for a tiny penis", and "anyone who doesn't keep their guns in a gun safe is not safe to be around at all". Move on to "open carry does not mean ostentatious carry". Start thinking about whether open carry is, in fact, a necessary conclusion of the right to bear arms. Move on to fucking investigating NRA corruption properly. Don't just point it out. Move on to humiliating politicians who take gun lobby money. Don't just point it out as if it's some form of conflict of interest or a sign they won't be serious about gun crime. Laugh at them. Call them spineless cowards. Humiliate them for their craven foolishness. Aim for a process that preserves the right to bear arms but makes gun nuts seem as untrustworthy and dangerous as it turns out they so often are. And if you are a gun owner and you believe guns should be treated with caution and respect, and you know someone who doesn't, tell them in no uncertain terms, and if you ever see them get violent, tell the police of your concerns. Make gun obsession weird again.

sudobash1 10mo ago
> Start with "anyone who poses with guns in their family Christmas photo is to be treated as if they will use them on your family or their own kids without a moment's hesitation for their own gain". That seems hyperbolic to me. I don't understand liking "tactical" Christmas decor, but I know some people who do. In my experience, this kind of hyperbole tends to increase polarization around an idea instead of leading to any consensus.
- exasperaited 10mo ago
  Polarization is the point. It is time to reclaim the idea that gun ownership is at best an unfortunate necessity and gun fandom is creepy shit.
Empact 10mo ago
You act like guns some weird anachronism, but from my perch, it seems that the need for civilized people to maintain firearms is increasing, not decreasing. Consider that we have a documented justice system in many places that is repeatedly releasing violent criminals onto the streets, such that they are going on to set people on fire on the train, knife innocents on the subway, swinging and hitting elderly women with nail-embedded boards on the sidewalk. Note these crimes happened despite their lack of firearms. Should we not have guns to defend ourselves from these barbarians? If the justice system were perfect, and crime rates far lower, then firearms would be less necessary, but never unnecessary, because civilization in a local phenomenon, and it only takes one barbarian to disrupt civilized order for the peaceful people of the world. It takes one civilized person with a gun to restore order. In many places in the west, immigration policy has given rise to rape gangs in England, gangs that bomb in Sweden, etc. Should these peaceful people not have guns to defend themselves from these barbarians?
- thunderfork 10mo ago
  "I need my guns to defend myself from the (((barbarian hordes)))" is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads the rest of the planet treats gun nuts like the nuts they are. Unfortunately for the US, the US valorizes this particular psychosis
  - Empact 10mo ago
    In my world, a civilized person is one who upholds peaceable society, and a barbarian is one who uses force to upend that society. They're not hordes, but they are barbarians.
    - thunderfork 10mo ago
      And the gun owners desperately fantasizing about finally encountering a situation that will allow them to live out their Falling Down fantasies are..? The civilized people? If you encounter a failing justice system and your response isn't "let's fix the causes" but instead "thankfully I believe in convenient self-service executions", you aren't upholding peaceable society, and I suspect that a peaceable society isn't what you'd prefer.
eudamoniac 10mo ago
Othering conservatives? That's sure to work this time!
- exasperaited 10mo ago
  Othering gun fetishists. By the time the opportunity arises to actually do anything about it, a whole load of "conservatives" will be furiously denying that they ever were. In some cases to tribunals and commissions. Nobody should give the slightest respect or deference to those ideals if invoked by anyone who supported the Republican party after "very fine people on both sides". There is nothing "conservative" about 99% of people who claim the label, and there's nothing moral about their position. They can either organise with the gun fetishists or take the opportunity to separate from them. But there's no reason to suggest that conservatism in its true form has anything to do with looney gun fetishists who pose with guns in Christmas cards. All of this can be done without changing the fundamental right to bear or own guns.
  - eudamoniac 10mo ago
    I voted Trump three times. He won. America disagrees with you. Most Republicans own guns. It's time to accept that your shaming tactics deployed over the last decade don't work. Our 'side' is more than happy to have yours stop coming to Christmas. You even fittingly repeat the "fine people" hoax, lol.
    - exasperaited 10mo ago
      Oh dear.
    - CamperBob2 10mo ago
      This Trump? https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/4773281 https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-take...
      - eudamoniac 10mo ago

sudobash1 10mo ago

> Start with "anyone who poses with guns in their family Christmas photo is to be treated as if they will use them on your family or their own kids without a moment's hesitation for their own gain". That seems hyperbolic to me. I don't understand liking "tactical" Christmas decor, but I know some people who do. In my experience, this kind of hyperbole tends to increase polarization around an idea instead of leading to any consensus.

exasperaited 10mo ago
Polarization is the point. It is time to reclaim the idea that gun ownership is at best an unfortunate necessity and gun fandom is creepy shit.

Empact 10mo ago

You act like guns some weird anachronism, but from my perch, it seems that the need for civilized people to maintain firearms is increasing, not decreasing. Consider that we have a documented justice system in many places that is repeatedly releasing violent criminals onto the streets, such that they are going on to set people on fire on the train, knife innocents on the subway, swinging and hitting elderly women with nail-embedded boards on the sidewalk. Note these crimes happened despite their lack of firearms. Should we not have guns to defend ourselves from these barbarians? If the justice system were perfect, and crime rates far lower, then firearms would be less necessary, but never unnecessary, because civilization in a local phenomenon, and it only takes one barbarian to disrupt civilized order for the peaceful people of the world. It takes one civilized person with a gun to restore order. In many places in the west, immigration policy has given rise to rape gangs in England, gangs that bomb in Sweden, etc. Should these peaceful people not have guns to defend themselves from these barbarians?

thunderfork 10mo ago
"I need my guns to defend myself from the (((barbarian hordes)))" is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads the rest of the planet treats gun nuts like the nuts they are. Unfortunately for the US, the US valorizes this particular psychosis
- Empact 10mo ago
  In my world, a civilized person is one who upholds peaceable society, and a barbarian is one who uses force to upend that society. They're not hordes, but they are barbarians.
  - thunderfork 10mo ago
    And the gun owners desperately fantasizing about finally encountering a situation that will allow them to live out their Falling Down fantasies are..? The civilized people? If you encounter a failing justice system and your response isn't "let's fix the causes" but instead "thankfully I believe in convenient self-service executions", you aren't upholding peaceable society, and I suspect that a peaceable society isn't what you'd prefer.

eudamoniac 10mo ago

Othering conservatives? That's sure to work this time!

exasperaited 10mo ago
Othering gun fetishists. By the time the opportunity arises to actually do anything about it, a whole load of "conservatives" will be furiously denying that they ever were. In some cases to tribunals and commissions. Nobody should give the slightest respect or deference to those ideals if invoked by anyone who supported the Republican party after "very fine people on both sides". There is nothing "conservative" about 99% of people who claim the label, and there's nothing moral about their position. They can either organise with the gun fetishists or take the opportunity to separate from them. But there's no reason to suggest that conservatism in its true form has anything to do with looney gun fetishists who pose with guns in Christmas cards. All of this can be done without changing the fundamental right to bear or own guns.
- eudamoniac 10mo ago
  I voted Trump three times. He won. America disagrees with you. Most Republicans own guns. It's time to accept that your shaming tactics deployed over the last decade don't work. Our 'side' is more than happy to have yours stop coming to Christmas. You even fittingly repeat the "fine people" hoax, lol.
  - exasperaited 10mo ago
    Oh dear.
  - CamperBob2 10mo ago
    This Trump? https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/4773281 https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-take...
    - eudamoniac 10mo ago