What are you thinking? (Part 2)

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I don't think I'll ever get my head around the whole gun culture thing. Seems really alien to me.

CT: work is going to be insane this week. As much as I enjoy my job, and all the variety that comes with it, I am going to be wrecked by the time I get home tonight. We have a homeless family staying with us during the day time at work and they're lovely - the four kids are insanely energetic though. So I don't think I'm going to get much actual work done until they are housed by the council.

Still, I'd rather play trains, cook meals and counsel people than stare at spreadsheets and answer the phone...it's invoicing week and I'll do anything to get out of that.
 
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I am only really interested in guns in games. In real life, it is not for me. But I think there would be a certain amount of pleasure in going to a gun range and shooting at a target. Sounds therapeutic. But most of the pro-gun people I know in real life are real quacks and honestly, they are the people I would trust the least with any sort of weapon. But I am sure that does not represent every gun owner.

My father in law has a couple of fun crossbows I have had success hitting targets with. Always a ton of fun to do.
 
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UniqTeas said:
I am only really interested in guns in games. In real life, it is not for me. But I think there would be a certain amount of pleasure in going to a gun range and shooting at a target. Sounds therapeutic. But most of the pro-gun people I know in real life are real quacks and honestly, they are the people I would trust the least with any sort of weapon. But I am sure that does not represent every gun owner.

My father in law has a couple of fun crossbows I have had success hitting targets with. Always a ton of fun to do.
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I have an interest in all kinds of weapons. My grandpa was a Viet Nam vet and taught my brother and I both how to shoot when we were pretty young. I have taken Concealed Carry courses, although with Constitutional Carry now a thing in my state it's kinda redundant, but yea. I have amature and professional firearms training. I very much enjoy shooting my bow but I've taken time away from that since I got pregnant. I also like knives and swords haha. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any knife/sword weilding classes or the like. Just like anything else in life though, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
 
UniqTeas said:
But most of the pro-gun people I know in real life are real quacks and honestly, they are the people I would trust the least with any sort of weapon.
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Unfortunately this does have some truth to it, and makes it hard for people like me who have an interest in firearms and ballistics charts and field data, but does not consider myself one of those people, the nut jobs who see the 2nd amendment as some sort of reactionary tool against a modern world. Perhaps more intelligent and patriotic people will recapture the spirit of the 2nd amendment, perhaps not. I would be quite disappointed if it came down to the banning of firearms, but probably not kick up too much of a fuss.

There are definitely a few good firearms Youtubers around that I watch pretty regularly, but the vast majority of them...yeah. If you want good videos you're gonna have to dig through a whole lot of the "Stop the lefties and socialist scum from disarming the white man!1" crowd to find them.
 
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I think if I lived in a society where guns were the norm, I'd understand the whole thing more. I've only ever shot bows and rifles at ranges, and I'm dreadful at all of it, although I'm pretty good with a Nerf gun...

I suppose I just find the idea that some supermarkets in America sell guns and ammo rather bizarre. I'm sure there's far more to it than how they portray it in the media, but the idea you can grab milk, bread and a firearm at the same place is just...wow.

All that being said, Trump seemed to be of the opinion that all UK residents spend their time knifing each other, so the media has quite a bit to answer for...
 
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Angel said:
All that being said, Trump seemed to be of the opinion that all UK residents spend their time knifing each other, so the media has quite a bit to answer for...
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I've never been to the U.K., but I have seen that particular opinion floating around even before Trump showed up to the scene, Australia as well. "We don't need guns we just stab each other instead" are comments I've seen quite often in the past.

People just have a habit of taking isolated incidents and blowing them out of proportion. Drunk driving is another one. Shall we ban cars? Liquor? (We tried the latter and it did not work out so well).

There are no easy solutions and gun related deaths doesn't even hit the top 10 causes of death in the U.S., but there appears to be quite a major psychological repercussion when gun related deaths do occur, and that is almost certainly due to the fact that it ventures very deep into the political territory. The more political an issue is, the more shockwaves it causes when it occurs, regardless of the factual data of the actual incident in proportion to other incidents. I think everyone across the spectrum would agree that a high cholesterol, sodium, alcohol, and nicotine diet would generate a very high risk of a heart disease related death, yet when such a death occurs it doesn't generate a peep, even though it is the leading cause of death in the U.S.

It's especially tough for me because I'm on the political left but am also pro gun, so I don't really have much of home in the current political climate, and actually do think that the witch hunts against guns and ammo among liberals are just that....superficial witch hunts. I also did read somewhere that if you go further left than the Democrats, pro gun viewpoints are not uncommon, so there's that.
 
MellowYellow said:
There are no easy solutions and gun related deaths doesn't even hit the top 10 causes of death in the U.S., but there appears to be quite a major psychological repercussion when gun related deaths do occur, and that is almost certainly due to the fact that it ventures very deep into the political territory. The more political an issue is, the more shockwaves it causes when it occurs, regardless of the factual data of the actual incident in proportion to other incidents. I think everyone across the spectrum would agree that a high cholesterol, sodium, alcohol, and nicotine diet would generate a very high risk of a heart disease related death, yet when such a death occurs it doesn't generate a peep, even though it is the leading cause of death in the U.S.
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This is an argument I see a lot that doesn't really make sense to me. Eating yourself to death and killing people with guns aren't comparable. I've seen this same logic applied to COVID numerous times as well as an excuse not to take any precautions.

As an American, you have the right to an unhealthy diet and if it kills you, you aren't harming anyone. Just like you have the right to bear arms, except when children and groups of people are being sprayed with bullets, it's a real problem, just as spreading a deadly virus is.

I don't understand why some Americans think it takes extinction for something to be considered a real issue by bringing up numbers and other causes of deaths as bigger issues "nobody cares about" like if anyone should be dying in the first place at someone else's hands.

I get there are a lot of responsible gun owners, but then I always see stories of a child either killing themselves or their sibling because they had access to a firearm that some "responsible" gun owner left somewhere they didn't think their kid could reach.

As someone who once lived with an irresponsible gun owner who would often have the gun pointed at them for fun, I wouldn't say I'm anti-gun, I'm just anti-idiots having access to guns.

Oh, and Barry Burton is a piece of sh*t.
 
Turo602 said:
As an American, you have the right to an unhealthy diet and if it kills you, you aren't harming anyone.
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There's a nuance here. When you buy unhealthy substances like junk food and cigarettes, you are generating a profit for the company that sells them and in turn can spend more on advertising which could entice more people to buy said bad products which in turn could cause more deaths among the citizenry, and that is fundamentally one of the many issues with the capitalistic market structure of society.

But because it doesn't make a loud bang and leave a mess, these subtle but far more effective and numerous killers who deceitfully operate in the shadows hatching schemes to make money at the risk of your health are given a free pass. Yes, gun manufacturers are also part of the cogwheels of Western marketization, but I will go out on a limb and say that the people who die from firearm related deaths is not nearly as numerous as other causes. They just have a more profound psychological impact when they do occur because reasons.

One could also make an argument that capitalism is to blame for shooting sprees aside from mental health issues, as economic stress from underpaid workers could potentially push people to their breaking point.

People have a habit of going after symptoms and convenient scapegoats rather than root causes.
 
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MellowYellow said:
There's a nuance here. When you buy unhealthy substances like junk food and cigarettes, you are generating a profit for the company that sells them and in turn can spend more on advertising which could entice more people to buy said bad products which in turn could cause more deaths among the citizenry, and that is fundamentally one of the many issues with the capitalistic market structure of society.

But because it doesn't make a loud bang and leave a mess, these subtle but far more effective and numerous killers who deceitfully operate in the shadows hatching schemes to make money at the risk of your health are given a free pass.
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Except they aren't? Hospitals, doctors, nutritionists, gyms, and personal trainers exist for a reason. Fast food chains have even made changes to their menus, portion sizes, and ingredients over the years as well. There are tons of dietary and exercise programs that exist because heart disease and obesity is a real issue.

Whether it's been effective or not doesn't really matter, because this is all irrelevant to gun violence and simply shifting the blame to corporations for why people make poor lifestyle choices, which is no different than blaming video games for making people violent.

No one is to blame for an individual's poor choices than the individual themselves. But the key difference between gun violence and heart disease is that no one is killing anyone else with cheeseburgers and cigarettes. These problems are not the same and the statistics don't make any of these less of a real issue than the other.

One is a quick and easy method of taking multiple lives, the other is overconsumption, which applies to more than just food and affects no one else but the individual who chooses to engage in that lifestyle over a long period of time.

Expecting people to target the root of an issue is unrealistic and the very reason we have laws to begin with. But that's a far greater discussion that doesn't really matter to the problem at hand as you can dissect pretty much anything by increasing the scope and moving further away from an issue.
 
An expert on the matter who is neutral on gun control (aka an independent source, which are often the best when discussing heated partisan issues) can hopefully shed light on the matter.



TLDW version:

1) Guns are embedded deeply into American culture, they were used to both hunt down Native Americans and keep slavery intact.

2) More gun regulations would have very little in no impact on stopping gun violence and mass shootings.

3) 62%+ of mass shootings are due to mental health issues from individuals with prior history of mental health episodes, and the underlying motive is to make themselves feel more significant in the world.

4) Banning guns would make these individuals turn to arson or bombs instead of using firearms.

5) Criminals, street gangs etc. acquire their guns illegally and cheaply and are in a whole different league than mass shooters, and banning legal purchase of guns would not affect their criminal activity whatsoever.

6) If anti-gun activists want to make progress, they have to work extremely slowly, proposals like "banning assault weapons" outright risks backfiring because it causes the pro gun crowd to get angry and respond aggressively

7) "Red Flag" gun laws where the police can confiscate your guns outright if they have reasonable cause that the person is a threat to society or themselves are implemented in two states, Indiana and Connecticut. Only the latter has shown positive results and several potential suicides have been averted after police decided to intervene and got them the proper mental health treatment in time.
 
Got myself a VPN, and am being more careful about personal information posted online overall these days. The last thing I want to do is attract negative attention to myself from the wrongs types of people, of any type, especially as internal issues in the U.S. in particular are bound to get heated up again.
 
I had an anatomy ultrasound yesterday and we are having a girl. She looks a lot like me from what I was able to see of her face in the ultrasound and weight and organ development is all on track. We had a quad screen blood test as well for chromosomal disorders, of which the odds are so low they didn't register in the tests. So everything is looking good so far.
 
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