Cops not being willing to defend you or your kids is another great reason to arm yourself.
“Final proof that more guns in you schools will not keep our kids safe” - wasn’t the problem that the guns weren’t in the school, rather they were standing in front of it?
I find that title to be wholly innaccurate.
There were also women on the force, so it was 376 boys and girls in blue sat around and let 19 kids and 2 teachers die.
Well, 375. There was that one asshole who shouted “Do you need our help?” to which a hiding child responded “Yes we need help!” and was subsequently shot by the gunman
That person actively caused a child to die.
Don’t forget the one cop that wanted to help but was held back and prevented from entering (I think his wife was a teacher or something)
Oh, and that other cop who was going to try to open the unlocked classroom door but was then told to go patrol the rest of the school
The only reason they even started evacuating was because one of them opened a classroom and saw it was full
A: Marvel saw fit to publish a comic book in which Frank Castle tells cops to stop using his logo. B: now that the guy with a Punisher lock screen has experienced loss, he may step up his war-on-crime game.
You give cops, let alone the general public too much credit in the Media Literacy department.
Ah yeah, that guy.
You couldn’t have picked a worse, cop apologist article to quote from.
I didn’t bother reading it. It’s an old story that most of us have heard and just needed a reminder of.
edit: also, i feel so confident in the truth of the story that a Pro Cop bias story will still make the cops look shitty because the hard facts are
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This guy choose to follow orders over “duty.”
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This guy choose to follow orders over saving innocent lives.
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This guy choose to follow orders over saving his wife’s life.
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LOL that always cracks me up.
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The punisher was a vigilante. He’s not a caricature someone charged with enforcing the law should look up to, but telling that they do.
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The Punisher regularly killed corrupt cops.
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He should’ve disobeyed orders and gone in and saved them.
Before anyone says that it’s easy to say they would have done while behind a keyboard, cops were preventing bystanders from going in to recuse the kids.
Their pronouns are cop/cops (or pig/pigs), so their gender should be irrelevant in this case.
“do you need help?”
“Nah we’re good, call back next week maybe”
What kind of idiotic ass fucking question was that?
Also that one guy was busy drinking water from the fountain
boys and girls in blue
How about we clarify that as: little boys and little girls in blue.
Altho TBF, women in blue are typically at the bottom of the chain, and almost certainly deserve the least amount of critique here, whilst the highest ranking dudes unquestionably deserve all the shit in the world for directly ordering their forces not to make any meaningful attempt.
And it was a civilian woman who ran in and got her kid. She would’ve died trying, if unsuccessful. More balls than any of the male officers. They should make her a statue.
Right on.
Now this is just personal anecdote-- but one thing I’ve always been pretty surprised by (as a person with fairly severe health issues, haha not sure how that totally influences thigns) is how, when there’s a local emergency, the adrenaline just hits me and I spring in to action (as much as I can) to help out.
Par example, three times now I’ve survived bad fires that way, and after comparing notes with an old friend over Uvalde, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both of us felt the same way-- that we wouldn’t have been able to look ourselves in the mirror if we hadn’t made our best attempt to save the kids.
Seriously, how do these BLUE people look at themselves in the mirror for either not doing their best that day, or on a national scale, for enabling this awful betrayal of public trust?
Because police in the US exist to protect the rich and their property, and to funnel “those people” into for-profit prisons. They don’t give two shits about you, your family, or anything except for their pensions.
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It’s referencing parents who wanted to go in themselves to save their own children. I can’t imagine how horrifying it must b to be stopped by police. Police are the worst
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Uvalde was the police knowing full fucking well how dangerous assault rifles, and guns in general are. They noped the fuck out when children were being murdered, because they were afraid.
Why are they so scared of guns? Do they think they were made to kill people or something?
tactical kosovan kids needed
Missing in the picture: a second track with no one tied on it.
That switch stops trolley
376 armed cowards keeping a bunch of parents from rescuing their kids… and what changed? nuthin.
so gross
Nothing changed because Uvalde immediately re-elected the same republiQan slate that put them there. After that tragedy. There should be no more question that it’s a cult.
Uvalde immediately re-elected the same republiQan slate that put them there
Sadly, the kids weren’t allowed to vote. Mature enough to get shot at. Not mature enough to select the police who stand idle while it happens.
Not yet, so the clock is ticking for Republicans to make government of the people, for the people, by the people perish from the earth.
If it helped, they then tried to sue/harass the families after being called out.
Wait that didn’t actually help at all
Here in Denmark a crazed man attacked the Fields shopping center with a couple of hunting rifles. The first time something like this happened in a very long time.
Danish armed police had a quick response time. Loads of dudes with in full body armour and MP-5s guarding every main exit while other guys went inside to clear out the civilians and hunt the shooter down.
The sniper equipped helicopter circling the shopping center spotted the shooter coming out of a service door and he subsequently got caught.
I think in total only 5 people died, which was from the short period when the guy started shooting.
All the right wing gun addicts from America were chest thumping and table banging, shouting all over social media that this somehow was an example that gun laws don’t work. However, considering this happened within a short period after the school shooting in America, all it truly did was make American police look like a bad joke.
As much as ACAB, I can admit that sometimes an armed response is necessary. It sounds like you danes have a well trained force, rather than some 6 week academy psychos with a hard-on for violence.
Cops aren’t really bastards in Denmark. Oh sure, you’ll find anti establishment types everywhere; there certainly is no love for the police in Christiania. However, the overall opinion of Danish citizens towards the police is positive. In Denmark people genuinely feel safer seeing a policeman on the street.
Police in Copenhagen are also friendly; unless they’re in the middle of something, you can, as a citizen or a tourist, walk up to one and ask them questions.
Police do carry pistols in Denmark, but someone just starting their career in law enforcement isn’t immediately given a gun until they’ve had a good job record and proper training for a few years. The amount of paperwork a cop has to go through for even suggesting they’ll pull their gun is staggering.
It isn’t any more complicated than that ACAB is an obvious
US-centricexaggeration and that there are police forces out there that doesn’t suffer from the same systemic problems that according* to American media is pandemic in their country.
It’s exactly because our police are a cult that we need armed citizens.
Yup. That’s why you never see public police brutality in the US. Couldn’t get away with that with all the armed citizens around.
Oh wait, you just film it and post in on tiktok instead.
Guess the guns are just for looking cool in walmart and shooting kids at schools afterall.
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Has there ever been someone armed that has stopped police abuse? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case like that.
The black panthers routinely showed up armed and arguably had that effect. Ironically, this then led to more gun control laws being put in place.
One example: on May 30, 2020 in Minneapolis, during the protests after George Floyd killing, some police were driving around the streets in an unmarked van, shooting at pedestrians at random without stopping. They later claimed they were shooting rubber bullets to “encourage” people to obey the curfew order. Of course, if you are the one being shot at in a drive by from a mystery van, you have no time to determine what kind of bullets are being fired… One pedestrian shot back! There is a video of it.
The guy was immediately arrested, miraculously without being shot to death in the process, and put on trial, but acquitted due to justifiable self-defense. The police did not drive around shooting randomly any more after that though. I see the guy even won a $1.5M lawsuit against the police now!
Nice job on actually finding an example. And it is a great one. I really don’t want to diminish that.
But it feels like a rare case and I’m not a proof of concept.
Especially since the guy could have easily been killed
During the summer BLM protests, police were using excessive force constantly, shooting people in the head with rubber bullets/beanbags, beating people nearly to death, gassing everything… it was pure hatred from the thin blue line.
When protesters were calmly walking wearing their rifles, police were mysteriously real polite. Funny that.
When protesters were calmly walking wearing their rifles, police were mysteriously real polite. Funny that.
I see your point. But isn’t that entire situation really fucked up? If that was a regular thing that’s just civil war battle waiting to happen. This can’t be the solution to the police problem.
You think the solution is to bend over and take it?
A lone individual is just going to get themselves killed, and probably cause the police to arm themselves even more. Which would be extremely counter productive.
I’d also like to add that you don’t need fun to stop police brutality, and yet nobody is willing to stop it. Mostly because you’re just going to end up being the one police brutalitied in addition to the other guy.
I’m sure they don’t like publishing results that aren’t good for their goals.
Removed, rule 1. You were fine without the ad hominem attack.
Its not. No one needs armed citizen. All it leads to are the hundreds of shootings in your country. You need trained police and strict gun laws. Get rid of privately owned guns and the cops wont be scared everyone has a gun somewhere.
Yeah, it seems to me it’s vicious circle. The American cops are super trigger happy because they think everyone has a gun which makes people trust the police less which makes the police more twitchy…
The lack of training and accountability is a major thing too though. I’m not discounting that.
Do you have “naturally dangerous” areas in your country? I’m a gun-control-but-not-ban Progressive, and my reasoning is that most of the towns I’ve lived have had wildlife issues that are only reasonable resolved by firearms. Our coyote breeds attack large pets, small children, and (rarely) adults. We are a free-range-chicken state (chickens must be allowed to run free). My last road, coyotes ran rampant hospitalizing my next door neighbors 100lb+ lab (he was huge). It’s not safe to be out alone or in your woods at certain times of year. Not to mention the occasional black bear who usually runs away but sometimes charges… A coyote charged my wife once and her german shepherd fortunately scared it off without bloodshed.
In the last town I lived, we didn’t have police, only mutual aid contracts. The mutual-aid department didn’t have animal control. Their standard answer to a dangerous predator running amok was “shoot it”.
Now… I firmly believe our police is way over-financed, and think the last thing we need is MORE police officers. ACAB and all that jazz. Being honest, I have little respect for police in general, if marginally more than some on my side. So assuming you have areas likes that, how do you resolve it? The last answer I was given was “everyone should move to cities”. Needless to say, I was not amused.
I’d love to be convinced that zero-guns-allowed-for-nonhunters at the national level is physically possible in the US, but I just can’t.
How about zero guns in populated areas? How about getting serious about consequences for harm caused by unsecured weapons? How about limited gun types to what is useful for expected scenarios? How about requiring a reason to own? How about fewer places to get them? How about more expensive ammo? How about just an order of magnitude less?
And yes, for the love of god, require the cops in your area to have training, skills, mental health.
How about zero guns in populated areas?
I’ve argued for that before, differentiation of regions. It went over like a fart in church with literally everyone. The gun control crowd seem to think “rednecks will figure it out or should move to the city”, and the gun rights crowd thinks “cities are more dangerous than the country”. I’ve seen knife restrictions in big cities, so firearm restrictions seem more reasonable. Many countries require guns to be locked in cases instead of worn on the person. In cities, that seems pretty reasonable.
How about getting serious about consequences for harm caused by unsecured weapons?
I’ve always fought for that. But this isn’t “no guns at all”, which is what I was asking about. Most of your suggestions are not “no guns at all” and seem worthy of discussion.
How about limited gun types to what is useful for expected scenarios?
For me, this is a nonstarter. If someone is at their house and dealing with a coyote attacking family or pets, a semiautomatic rifle is the best tool. If they are using their firearm preventatively, that would be a shotgun. If they need a firearm while travelling and not hunting or anything, semi-automatic pistol. I just named basically every kind of gun somebody wants to ban. Well, that and guns that look especially scary, which I think is stupid. We already limit the guns types to what is useful, and I’ll be the first to fight for keeping machineguns out of civilian hands.
I’m also all about banning things like bump stocks, of course. But being honest, many safety accessories people suggest banning aren’t contributors to gun violence.
How about fewer places to get them?
Are you suggesting the Federal government step in? In my state, they’re fairly difficult to get. Should the Fed try to mimic our laws and policies? That doesn’t really seem to be the problem to me, though. If people want firearms and they’re legal to purchase, they’ll get them whether there’s 1 store in their county or Walmart sells them.
How about more expensive ammo?
That seems worth discussing. I have some concerns; unless there’s a firing range exception, it means gun owners will have less experience and comfort with their firearm. A person with a gun and no regular practice/training is like a dull knife. It sounds less dangerous for all of 5 seconds before it leads to some accidental tragedy. I’m actually a believer in requiring con-ed including target-shooting for someone who wants to own a gun. A gun that shoots its target can be horrible. A gun that misses its target IS horrible.
How about just an order of magnitude less?
An order of magnitude less what? Less ammo? How does that reduce gun violence? A magnitude fewer guns? How do you intend to execute on that? I do think there’s way too many guns in the US. And I think a lot of people own guns that shouldn’t, regardless of the gun. I’m a strong believer in background check and psych check to own a gun.
And yes, for the love of god, require the cops in your area to have training, skills, mental health.
We don’t have many of those (cops in our area). And unlike the conservatives out there, I kinda like to keep it that way. My not liking cops is why I do like access to firearms. They’re simply not qualified or trustworthy in many real-world cases where a firearm solves a problem without ever being pointed at a human being.
the gun rights crowd thinks “cities are more dangerous than the country”.
Maybe we focus too much on the concerns of relatively few gun owners and too little on the victims. Bringing a weapon into a city creates more risk for more innocent victims, and that’s not ok. Even for people who believe they’re a “good guy with a gun”, the reality is they’re making things worse
But this isn’t “no guns at all”, which is what I was asking about.
This has to be part of it. Anti-regulation people will always claim gun control can’t work because of the huge number of guns already there, legal or not. But you can make things better than before, you can make more serious consequences even for illegal weapons
I’m also all about banning things like bump stocks, of course. But being honest, many safety accessories people suggest banning aren’t contributors to gun violence.
But a lot of those accessories make mass shootings easier. While one innocent victim getting shot is a tragedy, it’s not as bad as 4 or 20, or any larger number. A bump stock makes it easier to shoot faster, a larger magazine makes it easier to shoot more. Both make it harder for a potential additional victim to find an escape.
Are you suggesting the Federal government step in? In my state, they’re fairly difficult to get.
It has to. In my state guns are also harder to get and that’s reflected in much lower gun ownership. However there’s only so much you can do at a state level when someone can visit a Walmart over the border. My state also has regulations on alcohol, where they limit the number of store that can sell. Why is alcohol more regulated than deadly weapons?
How about more expensive ammo? unless there’s a firing range exception, it means gun owners will have less experience and comfort with their firearm.
True, but there’s a vast quantity of illegal guns already out there, and you can’t control illegal sales. You can make those more expensive to use, and maybe some won’t
A magnitude fewer guns? How do you intend to execute on that?
That’s a damn good question, but you can’t give up without trying. This really turns into a long term issue: are current controls increasing the number out there or decreasing them? iF we make new guns harder to get in fewer places more expensive to use and with more serious consequences for recklessly endangering people, maybe that reduces the number of weapons continually added. Maybe that will make a difference over time
We don’t have many of those (cops in our area). And unlike the conservatives out there, I kinda like to keep it that way.
I understand the urge and there are certainly good reasons, yet I don’t think the statistics really bear that out. For all the news about police shootings, the vast majority never do. For all the news about police brutality and racism, almost all are normal people trying to do their best. At least some police environments seem to bring out the worst in people rather than the best. That’s what needs to change.
Of the people I know who are cops, I would definitely trust them to help. We can change things to encourage those people, encourage professionalism, ensure they can use tools other than their weapon , ensure they are mentally healthy enough to handle the responsibility. Yes, I definitely blame unions but maybe differently than some: I do actually like that police unions stand up for the rights of accused officers, if justice is upheld. But where’s the outrage for the damage a bad cop does to the entire profession? But I never hear about a focus on professionalism and safety like other unions do. Where is the police union on encouraging training, professional development, workshops on judgement and de escalation? Where is the focus on better serving your “customers”? Police can become a trusted authority that improve public safety, and that will help more people than “every one for themselves”
Do you think a cop is any more a “good guy with a gun”?
Maybe we focus too much on the concerns of relatively few gun owners and too little on the victims. Bringing a weapon into a city creates more risk for more innocent victims, and that’s not ok
I tend to agree with this. I really wonder what kind of regulations could be put into place and enforced without abuse by police (who ignore guns on their friends’ hips but use it as an opportunity to take out minorities accused of being in gangs)
This has to be part of it.
“Nobody in the entire country having any gun for any reason” is a necessary part of any form of gun control? I don’t think I agree with that as it seems a bit hyperbolic. Or am I misunderstanding your context?
But a lot of those accessories make mass shootings easier. While one innocent victim getting shot is a tragedy, it’s not as bad as 4 or 20, or any larger number
Heat compensators make mass-shootings easiers? Recoil compensators? What they do is make collateral (or self-) damage harder. I DON’T understand the bills that come after heat compensators one bit, but I also struggle to see how recoil compensators are problem-contributors. If someone were shooting up my building, as terrible as that would be, I’d prefer they had a recoil compensator. They would be less likely to hit more people, while not actually being more likely to hit their target.
It has to. In my state guns are also harder to get and that’s reflected in much lower gun ownership
When I’m in a “police abuse of power” group and see people looking to drastically increase police power (and/or federal police power, since I live in a fairly left-leaning state as it is) I get scared regardless of the topic. You also point to alcohol - but I think that analogy fails because there’s somewhat limited federal regulation on sale of alcohol as long as you’re not selling to minors. My (again, “liberal”) state lets towns assign liquor licenses basically as they see fit, and you can buy alcohol on almost every street corner.
For efficacy, you bring up “when someone can visit a Walmart over the border”. This doesn’t seem workable to me. It’s not that there’s a Walmart in the next state, it’s that you can buy a gun in the next state without training, a background check, or any other validation. I’d actually use this as an example of the “throw paint at the wall and hope” form of legislating my side does on gun control that we will not do on any other topic. We KNOW what will work. We can’t get what will work to pass, so we spend months talking about other things that both won’t pass and won’t be effective. What will work is to stop the wrong people from buying guns by making them show they’re not the wrong person before they do.
True, but there’s a vast quantity of illegal guns already out there, and you can’t control illegal sales. You can make those more expensive to use, and maybe some won’t
How much more expensive? Are we talking $20/bullet? That won’t stop violent crimes or most mass-shootings. Are you talking $200/bullet? That’s going to prevent legal gun owners from actually knowing how to use their gun. Remember, far more people die from gun accidents and suicides than homicides. Raising the price of the bullet is unlikely to decrease homicides, will not affect suicides, and is likely to increase gun accidents drastically.
A homicide takes just one bullet. Practice and training takes thousands. The increase of price will disproportionally affect the desire to be a responsible gun owner over the reduction of gun violence altogether. If anything, increase the price of guns while offering waivers for a first gun of someone who has been background-checked and lives in certain “right to farm”-style communities.
Side 2 of this. A lot of people make their own ammo. Not exactly hard. It’s currently more expensive than buying ammo, but home-made bullets are not unlikely if that changes. They ARE more likely to do spectacularly bad things in general. And then you could try to regulate the powder (only ammo-specific ingredient), but any criminal and many DIYers could make their own powder with readily available ingredients.
I understand the urge and there are certainly good reasons, yet I don’t think the statistics really bear that out. For all the news about police shootings, the vast majority never do
I’ll leave police accountability questions to everyone else in this group that I am sure will come running to my aid. That said, how do you suggest small towns without a police force budget for police? Let’s say you live in a town that has had zero gun violence in the last decade and has not found the need for a police force (I did for several years!). Now you seem to be suggesting they budget out salaries for enough officers to replace all the people who use firearms to protect their farms from wildlife. What would be a reasonable response time for those police if an animal starts wreaking havok and killing pets/livestock? When I lived in that town, the Fire (only local service) response time was still 15 minutes.
Not a “gun rights” point, but I’ll make it. Police are a hammer. They do a few things VERY well. But no matter their training, they will always be inferior at everything else. In the US (and many other countries), we use police for those other things anyway. With all due respect, in no reality is an armed man with a gun the right first person to de-escalate a verbal domestic dispute. Paramedics deal with situations that start and/or become more volitile than police on a regular basis, and most refuse to carry a firearm even if they are allowed.
NZ has strict gun controls but guns are allowed for pest control and hunting. There’s a lot of room between that kind of control and “everyone has an AR15 and a concealed firearm without a licence”.
The person I was responding to was talking about 100% total gun bans. Just want to make sure you realize this. Nothing you said disagrees with my take on gun control. If you intended to agree, that’s cool (but rare online ;) )
Looking at this wiki page, NZ seems to have the same kind of gun laws my home state has, with a fairly similar ownership rate (and it looks like NZ averages 5 guns per owner?). As a general rule, I wouldn’t use the term “strict gun controls” if a country’s laws match any US state. We get a little crazy here with our Second Amendment.
There’s a lot of room between that kind of control and “everyone has an AR15 and a concealed firearm without a licence”.
100%, except I’m not sure why everyone is so obsessed with AR-15s. People keep trying to ban them in the US while deadlier weapons get a pass. And concealed carry is sorta funny. In my state, all carry is concealed carry because open carry scares non-gun-owners. You can basically have your gun license challenged in my state if you open carry because it can be used to argue you’re not in the right mind to own a gun if you carry openly knowing it’ll scare people.
Sorry, just assumed you were arguing a stricter line on gun control. My fault for not being more careful. I agree with you about
What about countries that do have strict gun laws and only relatively recently started having shootings? What changed between then and now across the West?
Which countries are those? Countries with strict gun laws have less gun violence.
And yet gun violence is growing across Europe despite few if any changes to gun law.
No, it isn’t. Gun violence is down a cross Europe except for in Sweden: https://www.idunn.no/doi/10.18261/njc.25.1.4
Thats not possible in the US. There are more guns than people here, and gun culture is too engrained in.
Nothings impossible
No one needs armed citizen.
You’ll learn the error of your ways. There’s no such thing as end of history, and all absolutes, including this one, are tried one after another again and again.
That said, American police is crap.
Go train the police then. Let me know if they listen to you. Let me know if it goes fairly. Afterwards face reality. This isn’t Europe. We already have a police force cult and nobody is stopping them without force. Maybe you’d be right if you were starting a brand new country somewhere without displacing any natives and kept a strong border to stop smugglers.
What does getting into a shootout with police solve?
That many fewer police. Works best if I can leave behind my reasons.
You do know that there isn’t a finite number of police and if you kill a few, they will hire more, right?
Maybe we’ll be left with an essence of what used to be if we dilute the crowd enough.
If everyone kept killing cops and suddenly nobody would want to be a cop.
I also liked my bosses idea. Strap a paintball gun to a drone. Then every time a cop pulls someone over in this notorious speed trap you start shouting the cop with paintballs and fly away. Maybe then they’d find something more productive to do.
Please stop fedposting.
The perfect recipe for lots of unnecessary violence.
“unnecessary”
Necessary violence. You think they’re just gonna pack up and leave with an “oh right we’re the bad guys. I can totally see that now.”?
Of course, the only solution then is escalation. You can make it, all it costs is are a few good people. Right?
I’ll literally take the fall myself. I don’t want to live in these conditions.
Cults are small. The police are much more dangerous than a cult. Don’t be afraid to use harsher terms against them, they’re a religion!
Eyyy
Cop cult bad! Gun cult good! Ugg has spoken!
Cops have a lower frequency of good people than the sum of everyone else. Wanna know what makes the difference? Cops are specifically people who sought out that power. This also applies to politicians, judges, and HOA board members.
Are all those poor black kids in the US military evil, too, then?
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Romania, the country that’s not even shengen yet (meaning you can’t cross the border without being checked by customs, EXACTLY BECAUSE it’s fucked)? Lol, you really showed Denmark xD
Also saying America is doing “better” at combating crime is only true if you want to compare yourself to war torn counties. The US has a comparable amount of people in prison to China. COMPARABLE to a country where you get arrested for looking the wrong way. Yes, China has more prisoners, but it also has 4 times the population! America is failing spectacularly at keeping its monopoly of violence as a state. When a civilian shooting happens in the rest of the 1st and 2nd world it’s a tragedy that shakes the country, meanwhile in America half the population feels nothing, because it happens so often.
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Yeah, because america has no far right problem. Oh wait. Your fascists have been an inspiration for our fascists. America is a failed state and people like you want to keep it that way.
European right is still left of the US.
Stop embarrassing yourself 🤣 what’s next, polar bears in Sicily?
Europe likes to shit on the US because of people like you making excuses and letting problems in America continue being problems.
Tell me you know nothing about Europe, the EU or the Schengen area without stating so verbatim.
Holy shit, I thought it was double digits. How did they get 376 to show up without any of them roid raging their way into doing something other than dicking around?
How did they get 376 to show up without any of them roid raging their way into doing something other than dicking around?
Some of them tried and were actively prevented from doing it by other Officers. The whole situation is actually worse than most people realize.
There’s no way that’d ever be justifiable, but what’s their excuse?
Probably something about free school lunches or litter boxes.
The fucking litter boxes. Was that meme planted so we could identify which of our friends and neighbors went off the deep end?
It seriously stresses me out how many people in my community have taken that seriously. In my own family, even. It is indeed one of the many possible indications of someone to whom I don’t want to give my time.
Nooooo my cousin’s friend in Memphis told her it was true!
I’m no conspiracist, but… If I were a malicious—perhaps foreign—power and I saw how well that kind of fake news spread and how much staying power it had, despite it being totally far-fetched, and yet easily-verifiable, I’d be absolutely fucking giddy.
It would be the surest sign that I could now spread any bit of disinformation, particularly anything not easily-verifiable, and absolutely tear the country apart.
They are, and have been doing that leading up to, and during Trump’s presidency.
It really speaks to the issue of how many people get their news: secondhand from their family members who read a story (or listened to fox “news”), misunderstood some of it, then injected further biases while getting some of the facts wrong (purposefully or accidentally).
From one report, they didn’t know who was in charge because there were State and local units. So they did nothing while some in charge waited to hear who should be giving the orders. At least that’s how I remember it.
Right because that can all be excused away with “policy issues” that leave nobody actually accountable and spits in the face of common sense. “I didn’t try to take down the shooter because I didn’t have anyone to tell me that’s why we were there in the first place”
You’re talking about people who worship authority. Critical thinkers and independent personalities are not welcomed or tolerated in law enforcement or the military. These people literally need to be told what to think, and what to do.
I’m not saying that it was a good excuse, just that it was used.
IIRC, they even had a shooter drill prior to the massacre, but that obviously didn’t help.
Sounds to me like the shooter was in charge.
100%, all the cops did was prevent parents from rescuing their children and give the shooter time to kill
It would have made the coward cops look bad
They knew exactly what a .223 round does to the human body.
Because it’s a group of narcissists. They were too worried about themselves. None of them had the courage to say “I’m willing to not go home tonight so these kids can.”
Actually I’d bet that a bunch said that, but didn’t actually do anything about it.
This is what pisses me off the most. 376, and you can’t storm the room? 376? And you refuse to trade one for any of those children who needed protecting? These are supposedly the hard calculations they have to make and they all unilaterally chose themselves? Enforcers will always be useless to anybody but the property owners. They aren’t actually here to protect anybody. They should have made the call, and traded 20 of themselves so those kids didn’t have to die. Thats the hard call we expect these “hard asses” to make.
I can’t remember the study but basically the bystander effect is a thing. The more people there are in a group, the more likely it is that no one will do anything because everyone will assume that someone else will do something.
This isn’t to excuse officers because they are specifically trained that they are that someone. The fact that they were held back from entering is willful, malicious, and negligent.
The fact that the officers actually complied instead of disobeying orders especially when seconds turned to minutes, is cowardice.
And a reminder that I believe the police chief and mayor of the town was reelected by the town.
They analyzed the trolley problem, they chose to sacrifice the few for the many.
A coward is not the same thing as a narcissist.
One can be both, however.
Non-peaceful demonstrators
I scoff every time a cop on a TV show is like “I joined the force to save lives and make a difference” because it’s painfully obvious that this is pretty much never the case in reality.
They joined the force because it has the best job security next to CEOs in the US.
I feel like CEOs are more like football coaches in terms of job security. As long as they keep winning, just about no form of misconduct can dislodge them. Stop winning though, and the hot seat can become very uncomfortable.
But they make so much money and get huge golden parachutes so they have more money than they would need for the rest of their lives, and yet they still are able to get other CEO jobs. It’s a little club and once you’re in, you’re in.
Well they negotiate for those golden parachutes in their contracts precisely because of the hot seat effect.
And because they weren’t too smart, as per the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
They didn’t specify “which lives” or “what differences”. We can make some guesses, but I don’t think we’d like their answers.
Yeah but it doesn’t sound as good like, “I joined the force to get away with beating my wife after pissing my Punisher logo boxers at work.”
What’s the point of all that military gear they’re wasting tax payer money on then? Fascist cosplay?
It’s to use on protesters, not on actual crime.
Yeah. Shooter was not pregnant enough.
Arm ALL THE PREGNANT MOTHERS! If you Preggnant You Get a FREE FIREARM WITH UNLIMITED BULLETS !
:-D
This has a very borderlands vibe to it.
That makes sense. Those protesters are scary and can hurt a police officer’s feelings. Its protester <-> police.
Where a school, there’s so many little kid bodies that can take bullets to protect our blue heroes.
If they are actually fascists then it isn’t cosplay though.
That’s for unarmed minorities that get out of line.
They will be using all that firepower to keep “certain people” from getting to vote.
It makes their pussies wet.
Why does female anatomy always get used as an insult? It’s a prime example of toxic masculinity and patriarchy that non-male genitalia are so reviled as to be an insult against others.
Nobody ever uses “dick” as an insult.
You use whatever is gonna make the target mad as an insult. It’s why bad mouth little kids will go after your mom or say removed in comms. It’s the low hanging fruit. They don’t care about your mom and they’re not likely to be racist either. It’s about attention.
it’s only an insult to people who think dick size = status. try telling someone who’s butthurt about being called a pussy that it’s not an insult lol
Because they’re the type who think they’re alpha males, and that particular insult is incredibly insulting to them.
Too bad the shooter wasn’t black. The cops weren’t trained for this.
This is a cop problem, not a gun problem. All the guns were working, including the shooter’s. The cops saw fit to take their lunch hour instead of working.
Just saw a video. Hahaha, I’m gonna stop being capitalist cattle and switch to crime.
If your Mafia family is organized as a worker co-op, is it praxis?
But I’m not Italian!
Why not?
They won’t let me be Italian.
This is a cop problem, not a gun problem. All the guns were working, including the shooter’s. The cops saw fit to take their lunch hour instead of working.
This. Specifically it’s a “police do not have a duty to protect” problem, that stems from a series of court cases going back to at least the 80s.
I think it’s a problem that cops are just hired employees rather than anything more significant than that.
I mean, if it were up to me they would be paid better, required to insure both individually and at a department level against damages to civilian persons and property, and subject to much stricter civilian scrutiny.
They would keep qualified immunity, but with much tighter reigns on the “qualified” part. Immunity only when necessary, with civilian oversight as to when that is. We would toss out the thing where police are not liable for damages done by them, they would be responsible for and expected to insure against it.
The insurance thing is two tiered for a.similar reason - if the damage is deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by civilian oversight then it would be on the city and the city’s insurance to pay for it, if not then on the officer and the officer’s insurance. This eventually prices bad (but not quite criminally bad) officers out of the job.
Are you a doctor?
No, but malpractice insurance was exactly what I was thinking about as a model.
Really enraging to have all those Punisher logos juxtaposed with their cowering and pants pissing.
Uvalde is majority-minority. If cops went in, more kids probably would’ve died.
That’s tongue-in-cheek gallows humor but sadly not too far off from reality.
I get what you’re alluding to, but actually the cops yelled out that they were there and for any children hiding to come out (obviously well before they’d neutralized the shooter) and the kids who responded and came out of their hiding places were shot dead because the cops were too cowardly (or busy checking their Facebook feed based on video evidence) to actually protect these innocent 5-10 year olds. I have a child in that age range and my blood starts boiling even discussing this topic.
Let us not forget that these wannabe police even arrested parents who were willing to rush into danger to protect their children. That’s all they were good for on this day.
The guy that was checking his phone…his wife was one of the teachers in the school that died.
I think if anything, that cop deserves a little slack.
I don’t really get what you’re saying.
That most people there are minorities, and cops don’t do well around them.
I’m not sure any of them are more interested in being crucified than shot.
If we’re playing “what if”, my made up story is that they rushed in with 300 cops and nobody died.
But the reality is they did NOTHING.
I recall a conservative news segment where the “jounalist” and “expert” had discussed that the kids should have rushed the shooter and overwhelmed him. Doesn’t matter they were 6-7 they should have stepped up and stopped it all.
Meanwhile, the actual people gained to do that wouldn’t, despite overwhelming numbers
“Hey kid, it’s up to you to stop another acute manifestation of the US’ problem with guns”
So grow up and make harsher gun laws?
I think that’s actually one of the few ways that could work out well.
Gaslighting or, pardon the pun, disarming what actually could be done in government to prevent this from happening in the future is despicable. It’s epitomizes the modern understanding of the US Republican party. The government can’t fix anything: it’s the citizens’ responsibility for systemic problems.
Conservatives, what the hell happened
More like it’s yet more proof that you cannot rely on the police to protect you.
Yeah none of those guns were actually “in the school” because thin blue line means
copscowards above anyone else. They won’t risk their lives for you.The Supreme Court ruled like a decade ago that cops DO NOT have a constitutional right to protect you. A cop can literally watch you get stabbed to death in the streets, and they are not obligated to help or stop it. Let that sink in.
That should be obvious based on the fact that they only respond to crimes that have already occurred. By their own nature, they’re completely reactionary.
Cop’s first priority is themselves. If it’s convenient, they might help others.
Cops refuse to show up on my methhead neighbors - they have weapons. But when my (then) husband wanted to evict my little unarmed 5’3” butt from the house I’d lived in for the past seven years, after physically beating me to the point I wasn’t really cogent, they sent a whole riot squad to pick me up.
Well, they would be scared to deal with armed tweakers, and then they would have to arrest them and file a bunch of paperwork, show up in court, yada yada yada.
Evicting you was just a fun thing to do that presented zero risk and had minimal paperwork.
It’s crazy that police enjoy the massive public support they do. People are dumb, and police shows on tv do a number on dumb people.
From all my internet lurking I discovered that America is a country almost beyond redemption, or at least some states.
I always wonder if it is really that bad or am I just hearing the usual ‘my country bad’ talk like anyone does but the news point to the first one basically every time. I can only assume it is mostly true and sympathise.
As someone who lives in middle eu capital city and has proverbial 4 houses it is all quite mind blowing. I feel like I live in completely different reality and I am grateful for it every day.
It’s however very painful to hear all you just plain suffering. Maybe that’s why my mind goes ‘it’s probably exaggerated’ it can’t be that bad can it be?
It’s a strange contrast living in the US sometimes. My personal life is pleasant and I work to keep it that way. I like where I work and I see multiple good doctors on a regular basis. But I’ve had plenty of my own troubles over the past 5 years too.
…but I also have eyes. I see the same crazy shit you do, and furthermore I have enough personal acquaintances to know that the crazies we both read about are fully serious and indoctrinated.
So, I wouldn’t say that the suffering is exaggerated, just that it isn’t ubiquitous. It’s a big place. Millions are doing OK while millions of others are getting beat down by life.
A big caveat to this is that of the millions who feel they’re doing “OK,” millions of them are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. Only ~40% of Americans can cover a $1000 emergency, for example.
Yeah, a lot of people are misled or just used to the shittiness. And as I’m sure we’re all aware, a big chunk of the population has been continued to think that the people taking advantage of them are some kind of heroes worthy of worship.
In some states, it really is that bad.
And every insane and cruel story you hear about our heathcare system is true too.
I’ve started calling it a wealthcare system.
wealthcare system
Accurate assessment
car wealthcare system
“If it bleeds, it leads”. Yes, we have some things that are just not right, and sometimes horrible tragedies, more often than a modern country should. But if we keep talking about it, it may seem even worse than it is. Like you, most of us haven’t been impacted by school shootings, but yeah
The US is the size of Europe. And good stuff doesn’t hit the news very often.
There are clearly bad things that need fixing, but the badness varies from state to state and you’re probably getting a distorted picture regardless.
So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad, but then i thought about the fact that if you answer no to that that would probably be weird to me. Sure I’m rarely in such a position, but from time to time yeah I have to watch myself because I know crazy people who have guns or I know I’m pissing off an armed and violent person by doing something like helping their dv victim escape. The idea that guns wouldn’t be involved in such situations is more foreign to me than initially expected.
So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad
I mean, I’m only in my 30’s and I know four people who have been shot. Two were robberies, one was a seemingly random act of violence, and the fourth was due to a domestic dispute. Three are still alive, but that fourth died in his girlfriend’s arms before paramedics arrived. It happened a decade ago, and she still has night terrors from it. And this is in a nice suburb, not someplace full of gangs.
I never worried about anyone having a gun in my life at least not realistically so. I mean I live in pretty safe place. All the bad ppl left 15 years ago for the USA, Britain and so. We are the nation of religious, sometimes toxic hobbits. Worst is social ostracism as that can be really bad in the smaller places if you didn’t vote same as others or you dated same gender. Or didn’t go to the church…
I wish everyone could be a nation of hobbits, that’s like ideal in my eyes
Point is when I hear about knife fights in UK I am like wow brrrr.
Biggest bad news lately in my capital was that some poor woman got sexually assaulted and died a month or three ago while returning from some party at 5 AM sunday which was very shocking. It really was the most disturbing thing.
Everyone is very anti immigrant here though. Even the pro Democratic/leftish Party just legalized shooting at the border to immigrants (in case of aggression). Kinda crazy. I think at this point they simply wouldn’t get elected at all if they were pro immigration. One single, very left party pro immigration has 6% of votes.
It seems that this change in narrative of the pro eu pro democrats helped them win over alt rights but like ya know it’s all super complicated morally. I guess almost 100% of people don’t want (Arabic) immigrants and it is long sailed ship.
I am very conflicted about all it internally. I am not blind what happens when you let culturally and socially distant immigrants en masse but I don’t want those people to suffer either. I don’t blame them for trying to get where is much better place to live but I also don’t want to sacrifice myself for it…
It’s super huge problem and we all gonna have some blood on our hands I reckon if we don’t already have…
Also I remember there being lots of drunk homeless people once long ago but I haven’t seen one in such miserable state at least in a long while. Just realised it now. Long ago I was semi afraid to go to the liquor store because of all the types consuming high powered drinks. Harmless still but it definitely changed. For whatever reason. I hope it is for the good reasons and not the bad ones.
Overall I think we are moving into interesting direction though slowly and a bit bloody at times considering the borders. they are only going to get worse and most have uncanny ability to forget about such things immediately when they accidentally hear about them. We all prefer to pretend it’s all cool and distant or whatever. I myself prefer not to dig into the horrors that must happen there uh
Any person in the U.S. that has interacted with a police officer has been threatened with gun violence. It’s implicit in that 9mm they carry on their hip.
But yes, I know people who have been shot, shot at, and had weapons drawn on them too. By actors other than the state.
Well yes. I was asking the Europeans. As an American gunshots are a part of life
I’m in Canada and don’t know anyone I can say for sure has been affected by gun violence or threats of it. I’ve personally been in a situation where I was trying to make small talk with a wannabe gangster and apparently asking about jobs can be dangerous I guess when they make money from mostly illegal shit and he threatened me until my friend came over and convinced him I’m not an under cover cop. But even that threat was a, “what if I had a piece” rather than “I’m going to shoot you”.
I only ever saw or shot bb guns until in my 30s when I did some target shooting in my friend’s back yard. He kept his guns all locked up when he wasn’t using them, ammo locked separately. Partially for the obvious safety reasons (even though he lived alone), partially because a part of the license is that police are allowed to come and inspect how you are storing your guns. I don’t know how often this is used in practice (don’t think my friend ever had it happen), but it’s a sign that the legal state of guns is very different across the border.
I can’t even think of any robberies using violence or threats of violence I have first hand or second hand knowledge of. Theft, yes, but like the “car was left unlocked and someone noticed” or “someone picked an easy to pick lock”. That last one happened to me, I figured out who it was and just told him to stop coming around and I’d leave it alone and I never saw the guy again. It might have been a bit dangerous if I wanted satisfaction from the situation, but I think there might have been an equal chance he would have just accepted the L and paid be back for the weed he stole.
Pistols require a seperate license that is much harder to get. For rifles and shotguns, you can get a license as a hunter, recreational shooter, or collector (amateur is fine but you do need to get your hunter license first before you can use it to justify a gun license). There was a gun registry but the conservatives scrapped that the last time they were in power.
For pistols, they are limited to certain professions such as police officer, military (I assume), or professional hunter/trappers who work in bear territory and aren’t necessarily carrying a rifle or shotgun ready to go if suddenly confronted by a bear. I believe there’s certain self-defense scenarios that allow them (like a proven threat that is difficult to neutralize, like with connections to organised crime).
It’s gotta be extreme because carrying anything for self-defense is generally illegal. Like if you have a pocket knife you use to open packages, that’s ok, but if you carry that same knife for self-defense purposes, it’s an illegal weapon. Some knives like switchblades or butterfly knives that can be deployed with one hand are always illegal.
I think this is a bit much, because knives that don’t fold are ok and IMO the question should be more about what scenarios one thinks it is ok to defend themselves with a weapon than having had that consideration at all. That said, the situations where someone might think a weapon is called for but isn’t are probably more common that situations where one is necessary to defend oneself. But I digress.
The pretty much ban on pistols I think is what makes the difference. In some states, the risky part of carrying a pistol is about if you use it or if you specifically shouldn’t have one (felony or something). In Canada, just carrying it runs the risk of losing it and catching charges, which means that situations where someone would use a hidden pistol in the moment are more likely to have a cool down period while they go get their gun and might realize that it’s not worth it or might not be able to find their victim again afterwards.
There is some gang activity but I think even that is way more chill here and any violence is probably more related to score settling than turf control. I get the impression that the cops are more chill about non-violent stuff here, so that could play into the equation in that the risk differential is higher if violence is involved. Or I could be wrong about that because I’m not a minority (but I suspect it’s because police violence is investigated (and not just by themselves) and dealt with more consistently here, and the lower likelihood of getting randomly shot probably allows them to be more at ease).
Yes I do. In fact the couple was held at gunpoint by 2 men who robbed them, and then felt up his wife in front of hime with gun barrels in their faces.
Cowards who hide behind a gun
From all my internet lurking I discovered that America is a country almost beyond redemption, or at least some states
If America is a sum of its states, they are beyond redemption.
If the world is a sum of its countries, we are all beyond redemption.
Imho the whole system is broken and until everyone (worldwide) starts aligning then the world is lost. We aren’t there yet.
I used to think a major global catastrophe will fix the system, like world war, or a hostile alien invasion. Then covid happened and we’re back to square one in the aftermath, if not worse. I realised there’s no fixing it. In my opinion, it’s not that we aren’t there yet, it’s that we will never be ‘there’. Having said that, when I say never I speak about our lives or that of our grandchildren, perhaps a few more generations. If humanity survives a few more centuries after that, if not millenia, who knows what could happen.
For some it’s an nightmare for some it’s just Tuesday.
For the Tuesday folk that doesn’t mean they should sit idly and let it happen or even actively encourage it, but that appears to be what they think they’re entitled to.
I’m curious how perfect the country you live in is.
It is 8/10 where I live Public transport, edu, health, weather a bit too hot in summer because of city lacking green area but I have this small property 30 km away from city with just pure green everywhere and I smoke joints there and paint in summer.
My flat is barely liveable in summer without AC as it is on the attic.
People are peaceful mostly they just value not drawing attention to themselves and generally you can go alone at night with no problems. Only slightly worse as woman. Probably 50/50 if visibly trans - not sure but I’d wager it would be suprisingly rare considering how religious some ppl are. They will just tell you to fear Jesus or smh or maybe laugh or comment but most likely won’t do anything. Still if there is anyone that should be cautious it’s visibly trans ppl at night but then at night it’s harder to clock a trans woman so that’s that. I guess if you dressed like drag queen and went to the darkest places at night there would be 50/50 chance of some unpleasant or maybe dangerous situation but those bad places aren’t as many here as there were in the past.
Nearest bad place near me got renovated and while we were drinking there extensively late at night in the past, we got tickets for our shitty ways. Most dangerous places seemingly disappeared as the drinkers disappeared and places got revamped.
I guess now that I am on the other end of the stick that’s just pure win instead of „god there’s no more place to drink and make chaos in this neighbourhood, the end is near”
Ok cool. You just described a vast amount of places in the US.
Yay so that’s cool, not all that bad huh?
From social media one sees the USA as a terrible, terrible place. I once even wanted to visit but after all I have read I no longer harboured that idea.
Also I hate guns nowadays even though I liked them once but like I really hate that kind of culture
I live in Arizona, one of the more trigger-happy states (we allow concealed carry without a permit) but I haven’t been personally affected by any gun violence in 20 years. There was a shooting on the edge of my neighborhood a few weeks ago, but I didn’t hear about it until days later, just happened to see a news story. It was some sort of party situation, the people knew each other, not random.
