#gun rights are human rights

[bleghcourse]

You people would do well to develop some ideological and ethical consistency, but you'd rather act like partisan morons about everything.

No, you are the asshole if you call yourself a "libertarian," but foam at the mouth when anyone mentions transgender people. The statement "I don't care about what adults do to their bodies, leave kids alone" is a steaming pile of horseshit, and an appeal to one of the oldest political "arguments" in American history. You want to legislate people's identities out of existence, and you think nothing of using children to push your narrative nor betraying your "principles" to create a nanny state.

I'm going to call you an authoritarian if you support gun control. An AR-15 is not a weapon of war. The AR-15 has never seen a single combat situation outside of use by the ATF (it's ACAB until it's federal cops, amirite?) against private citizens because the federal government has a bonner for murdering its own people. The only "common sense" gun control I support is baring people who can't tell semi-auto from full-auto from writing firearms policy forever. No AK-47, no opinion.

I could go on, but I'd wasting my time trying to enumerate the many ways neither side of the aisle has any real integrity, not the rank-and-file party registered voters and certainly not the baboons we send to congress. All of you hate freedom and worship ideologies that will, if taken to their logical conclusions, leave you shot in the back of the head, in some unmarked ditch in the woods.

This obsession with right vs. left is so frustrating because it's all ultimately a meaningless grift that you're not only happy to uphold but proud to enable.

But Vote Blue, No Matter Who, right? Let's Make America Great Again, Again! Fuck all that gay shit about being principled, we have a popularity contest to win!

[bleghcourse]

"God created all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal,"

“LGBT people don’t need pride”

“LGBT people are accepted nowadays”

“LGBT people have enough representation”

“LGBT people have the same rights as others”

[problemnyatic]

the steven universe hate is insane bc people are (or at least were) more upset that fictional war criminals got fictional hugs than they recognize that it singlehandedly advanced queer rep in children's media by lightyears and then straight up ate heavy retaliation for the nerve.

It does have real flaws that are worth discussing, but it also put their male protagonist in dresses and skirts and played it straight and even empowering, they aired a lesbian wedding on television, it was a genuinely queer, genuinely diverse piece of media through and through. It did a lot of real good for the real world.

But also the fictional characters caused fictional harm to other fictional characters, and didn't get an onscreen firing squad sentence. So, you know, it's basically ontologically evil in real life.

[mysharona1987]

For the people asking: “Well, why didn’t they try peaceful protests?”

Um…they did.

[bleghcourse]

I'd appreciate it if gun-grabbers could name one (1) war where the AR-15 was issued to soldiers because I can't seem to find anything.

I can name at least eight wars where hunting rifles were used by the United States Marine Corps as sniper rifles, but nothing on the AR-15. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[underwaterspiderbird]

nope, still defending my trans ass and the ones i love with guns ����🏼🔫

[azuremist]

(Note: The Tweets on the left is one of of MANY like it, and Ben Shapiro isn’t the only conservative rallying behind this sentiment.)

Do y’all remember that Bojack Horseman episode that aired in 2017 about how, no matter how much leftists rallied and cried against it, the government and right-wing groups wouldn’t ban guns…

UNTIL a marginalized group started using guns to feel more safe, and a member of that marginalized group committed a mass shooting, after which there were cries for them to be controlled more almost immediately by the previous gun-rights defenders?

Life is a fucking cartoon.

[infiniteglitterfall]

A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

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So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

[1stpoliticalcartoons]

[mysharona1987]

[you-are-all-weirdos]

And, in a reasonable world, that would be the end of the gun control debate. The state is not only unable, they are unwilling to protect you. Thus, anyone who wants to strip you of your ability to protect yourself is offering nothing in return. Less than nothing.

Veronica Mata says she can't understand how the police officers who stood in a school hallway for more than an hour while children and teachers were being slaughtered in a classroom could possibly have been doing their jobs by the book. But that was the conclusion of a new municipalreport released Thursday into the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.  "We don't understand. Like, everybody knows what went on. Everybody was there," Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess was among those killed, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "Everybody saw that these police officers stood there for 77 minutes and did nothing to protect our children. Nothing."

Continue Reading

[bleghcourse]

I don't want to have to choose between gun rights and Israel or gay rights and Ukraine.

Why did you people let this happen? No, legitimately, why the fuck did you people get Trump elected in 2016 and Biden elected in 2020? Are you all stupid? Do you have such contempt for our democratic institutions that you think this is an acceptable mode of operation?

This isn't a fucking game. You people need to grow up and stop acting like children.

[d8tl55c]

hey wait a minute

so it's the start of AvA part 7 and Chosen and Dark are talking, right? and the former has this vision of terrible things happening if they don't stop the latter, right here and now.

they see the ViraBots descending on the last remnants of stick kind with Dark as their leader (or Lord if you will. ha ha) and i, trusting viewer, took their assessment as reliable*. we JUST saw Dark getting uncomfortably violent in earlier scenes after all

but

however

notwithstanding

unless Chosen has demonstrable prophetic powers (like how Orange has** in the past seen things currently happening (horizontally-prophetic let's call it: seeing faraway in the current time) (there's probably a better word for this but let's move on)), how did they know this was definitely what Dark was leading up to?

** ⬆ examples of Orange horizontally-prophesizing in AvM episode 11, SkyBlock (unconfirmed but referenced as, "uh? well maybe??? maybe i didn't think about it yet-" (abridged quote from AvG react video)) (op will die /j /extremely pos if this is used again in AvA 11 (HAH they'd both be episode 11 (op just giggled maniacally)))

Dark doesn't even have his control bracelets on.

because Chosen didn't know about them yet.

because this is not a prophetic vision.

Chosen is just that... reactive. what was it. @compressedrage (hi o/ ) had a good wording let me find it. yeah i guess it was reactionary

the ONLY time we've seen them stop to think things through is actually just a terrified anxiety breakdown while they stand there, frozen, imagining the worst, until they snap out of it JUST in time to impact their reality.

but with no time left for debate. reasoning. they assumed Dark was beyond reasoning from the moment he showed off what his device could do............. because they were beyond reasoning out of fear.

<community post version>

[cry-ptidd]

Laura genuinely makes me so sad, like I cried all silly sometimes ago cause we have a similar past but I went on and she’s like you know..stuck and I wouldn’t want that for anyone :( even if she’s fictional and a killer. I just wish to be kind to her for a moment and tell her a lot of women or really humans feel her pain, that it didn’t turn all of us into monsters. I guess it’s why I’m attached to her because I get it I do, but also…why I hate characters that have SA in their backstory cause it’s really depressing. She’s an amazing character but I can’t help but still wish her punishment and somehow through it all. Peace. That she gets all the punishment she needs and gets some peace right after..a good for good slumber. Even if she doesn’t get that, or feel worthy of it.

This ask actually made me a bit emotional, im gonna be honest. It's one of the most sincere messages I've gotten i think? I am very sorry about what you went through and I will do the same thing you'd do for Laura and tell you to please remember you're not alone and that i believe in you as a person, and that you're still able to move ahead despite everything that's hurt you.

Laura is a character built on cruel irony and tragedy, and many of her aspects are an exaggerated version of views that i also have because of my own trauma (aversion to men, aggression, anger, spite, stubbornness) and the crimes and attitude that would make her an irredeemable character are here to kind of cement the fact she went way too far in her revenge and how being hurt an turn a person into a monster.

But, i rally have to agree with you. Holy FUCK do i pity her. She's not reveling in her evil, she's not actively trying to do more harm (not anymore), and she's just in a state of permanent self-loathing and isolation, where her punishment isn't satisfying to watch or even really clear. You don't really wanna root for her morally, you just kinda wish she'd just... stop. And take a long sleep. Just like you said, a proper, defined punishment, and then let her sleep.

I think this ask sealed the deal of me giving her a canonically somewhat "happy" ending? Maybe a mild one? Where she starts to settle down and indirectly heal alongside Integra and Seras post-canon. A household of damaged women growing alongside each other. Im sure her Creator can decide on a rightful punishment when she passes. Let's just give her a bit of leisure for now.

[bcofl0ve]

i don't particularly like to get political on here but man is terribly horrifically hard to be a school shooting survivor in this country. i found out about the new one because i logged into facebook and my feed was

someone i went to high school with posting about it

a survivor i know from a different community posting about it

a parent of a dead child i met through politics posting about it

someone in a support group saying not to watch the news

repeat. repeat. change the order. repeat.

i'm too wired to sleep because i don't know the kids that were in that building today but yet i do because i am them, because a part of me will always be 17 years old in my algebra three class hoping god would really forgive me if it came down to it. i just texted a friend from another survivors community that i haven't talked to years because he tweeted something that worried me. i've gotten a handful of those check in texts today myself. i hate flying because i'm terrified of plane crashes and don't feel the least bit comforted by statistics. i hate intercom systems and police sirens and going from a women's undergrad college to a co-ed law school was hard because i became very aware that the chance of it happening again ticked up. the shooting at my high school was my english teacher's second. i spent a week in dc after the uvalde shooting and all i could think as i looked at my friends is that the only thing that had changed in four years was that we all looked older. i had to leave the political sphere because i sat in meetings- with republican staffers and well-intentioned democrats alike- and just wanted to scream. nonprofits forced "gun reform not gun control" down our throats but it rotted on my tongue and i wish you could say repeal the 2nd in polite company but you can't. good survivors tow the non-profit respectability line. good survivors don't get blocked by shannon watts from moms demand action for years and only unblocked after being part of a direct action that made international headlines. good survivors aren't in the facebook support group for survivors that moms demand and everytown hung out to dry.

to live in this country as a school shooting survivor is to take every breath through a gaping open wound in your chest.

cut that always bleeds i wish i knew how to sew you up right. i wish the stiches didn't always pop. i wish this place was different and that america didn't leave a generation of children behind to just live with their neatly tied in a red, white and blue ribbon trauma or die trying. fuck it all. i'm so fucking tired.

[deepbreakfast]