#us gun violence

[amarguerite]

Listening to Sondheim’s Assassins due to current events and it is… so strange and so fascinating to me that we have known for a very long time (and had some of the country’s greatest cultural critics point out) that the easy availability of guns is a huge problem not just for individual citizens who suffer the consequences of an angry and entitled person failing to mesh their own reality with objective fact… it’s a deadly threat to the person our country agrees should be THE MOST protected and immune from this kind of violence. But theres a sizable enough minority in key positions of power that gun violence just… kind of became a fixture of American culture even while the majority of the country does not want that. No solutions! Only thoughts and prayers.

[triscribe]

So y'know what is scarier than a single shooter in a school?

A group of teens deciding they're gonna work together to kill as many people as they can.

Thankfully, in this particular instance, they were reported by a third party, so the boys involved who separately brought bullets and at least one gun to the school where my mom teaches were caught and arrested over two days. But fuck, word's going around they were planning to pull the fire alarm, fill the main halls, set up on the second floor balcony and just... hnn.

I took her some lunch today, got to see the lingering police presence, and unintentionally stuck around long enough to hear her spiel to the handful of kids present in her fifth period. My mom's not the sort to sit quietly if shit's going down, that's for sure. She treated it like any other class activity, showing her students where the skinnier ones can go out a particular window to hide on the roof, and the bigger ones where she's arranged a chair and desk and bookcase by the wall so they can literally climb up into the ceiling. Make sure to close the window afterward, last person up pushes the foam tile back in place, have it look to anyone coming in like there weren't any students present at all. And she finishes this with "and see? the coat rack inside this closet comes loose. nice solid piece of metal here. worst comes to worst, I'm sending you all out, and putting myself next to the door. key rule of being in close quarters with a gunman, you go for the knees, then the head, and don't stop hitting until they stop moving."

One of her girls got overwhelmed at this point and began quietly crying. 15 or 16 years old, just. dismayed that this is something real. something they need to go over. Two thirds of that school's student body were out today, kept home by worried parents, and the ones who still came were pretty evenly split between laughing it off, and cracking under the fear.

None of them deserve being in that position. Not the kids, not the teachers, not the office staff or kitchen workers or janitorial crews. But most of all-

A grey-haired, overweight ornery woman in her fifties with a makeshift bat shouldn't be the last line of defense between teenagers and assault rifles.

[sepdet]

OK, I just tagged something "Microsquat shooting itself in the foot," so, in the spirit of "I'm not immune to the propaganda," I'm unearthing one of 500 half-finished rants from the drafts folder, where most rants belong.

Let's see if I can de-rantify it.

Audience: US Tumblr. The rest of y'all, feel free to chime in with, "What the fuck, US Tumblr?"

What set this off: A post saying we should give a gun to real Doge's owner to shoot Elon Musk (which I started to agree with before catching myself, remembering she's a schoolteacher who campaigns for pet adoption) — a post which I saw soon after one that joked the Ents were Tolkien saying we should give trees guns.

Both were jokes, and here I am taking them seriously. But the things people joke about tell us something.

And what that those jokes told me is that they had to have been made by US Tumblr— someone younger than GenX, because we grew up before school shootings, active shooter drills, and the whole teach-kids-fear-of-death-before-we-tell-them-where-babies-come-from dystopia that is modern America.

Not that we didn't have a dystopia like that, too. No, not the Cold War. A narrative.

We had "cigarette culture" and the Marlboro Man. Parents, bus and taxi drivers smoked while driving, restaurants and planes were hazy. TV characters smoked in every genre (even Starbuck and Boomer on Battlestar Galactica).

There were candy cigarettes, but new dads handed out cigars. Children doodled cartoon characters smoking or cigarettes on the lips of people in magazines, and mimed smoking with invisible cigarettes or rolled-up paper or twigs and toothpicks. I did it, even though cig smoke made me nauseous and gave me migraines.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Cultural zeitgeist gets into your head.

Which is probably why US Tumblr folks so easily imagine a gentle person like Atsuko Sato with a gun, in a culture where gun crime is extremely rare, and gun culture is nonexistent. And it's why a US fan would miss Treebeard's rants about Saruman [having] "a mind of metal and wheels; he does not care for growing things.” That conflict was nature vs. the machine, especially the industry of war.

So what?

My point is that people in the US under the age of 40-50 have been so acclimatized to gun culture we're liable to impose it on media whose authors do not share that culture. It's like drawing Studio Ghibli characters smoking cigars. Ok for a joke, but USians don't realize how odd it is.

So, maybe, those of us from the US should make a mental note to watch and see when we use gun metaphor or imagery (as if we don't have enough to worry about): am I letting my US gun culture show? Am I imposing GUN on somebody/something in another culture where GUN is not a place people's minds often go?

Because that's One Weird Trick we do.

[canadianabroadvery]

Tjeerd Royaards - Netherlands 

11 April 2023 

Twisted sense of freedom. The price of freedom in the US.

[callese]

Source

[a-continuous-cutting-motion]

Boy I sure do love living in America and hearing automatic gunfire from the crappy neighborhood across the river from me from time to time.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[animentality]

[canadianabroadvery]

America has had more mass shootings this month than there have been days. It's the guns.

[ghostellie]

FYI, Vance used illegal guns coming through the border as a defense argument for why school shootings occur so frequently in the USA, however statistics show the majority of gun violence here is committed with legally obtained guns.

[averycanadianfilm]

2023 Maine Mass Shooting

Wed. Oct. 25, 2023 6:45 pm (based on news reports)

Among other things, note:

Pluto 27degCapricorn57min conjunct MC

trine

ASC 27degTaurus34min conjunct Algol 26degTaurus30min

US Sibly Chart Pluto_R 27degCapricorn33min

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #24

June 21-28 2024

The US Surgeon General declared for the first time ever, firearm violence a public health crisis. The nation's top doctor recommended the banning of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons. President Trump dismissed Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in 2017 in part for his criticism of guns before his time in government, he was renominated for his post by President Biden in 2021. While the Surgeon General's reconstructions aren't binding a similar report on the risks of smoking in 1964 was the start of a national shift toward regulation of tobacco.

Vice-President Harris announced the first grants to be awarded through a ground breaking program to remove barriers to building more housing. Under President Biden more housing units are under construction than at any time in the last 50 years. Vice President Harris was announcing 85 million dollars in grants giving to communities in 21 states through the  Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO) program. The administration plans another 100 million in PRO grants at the end of the summer and has requested 100 million more for next year. The Treasury also announced it'll moved 100 million of left over Covid funds toward housing. All of this is part of plans to build 2 million affordable housing units and invest $258 billion in housing overall.

President Biden pardoned all former US service members convicted under the US Military's ban on gay sex. The pardon is believed to cover 2,000 veterans convicted of "consensual sodomy". Consensual sodomy was banned and a felony offense under the Uniform Code of Justice from 1951 till 2013. The Pardon will wipe clean those felony records and allow veterans to apply to change their discharge status.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.8 Billion in new infrastructure building across all 50 states, 4 territories and Washington DC. The program focuses on smaller, often community-oriented projects that span jurisdictions. This award saw a number of projects focused on climate and energy, like $25 million to help repair damage caused by permafrost melting amid higher temperatures in Alaska, or $23 million to help electrify the Downeast bus fleet in Maine.

The Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion to support domestic sources of nuclear fuel. The Biden administration hopes to build up America's domestic nuclear fuel to allow for greater stability and lower costs. Currently Russia is the world's top exporter of enriched uranium, supplying 24% of US nuclear fuel.

The Department of Interior awarded $127 million to 6 states to help clean up legacy pollution from orphaned oil and gas wells. The funding will help cap 600 wells in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Ohio. So far thanks to administration efforts over 7,000 orphaned wells across the country have been capped, reduced approximately 11,530 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions

HUD announced $469 million to help remove dangerous lead from older homes. This program will focus on helping homeowners particularly low income ones remove lead paint and replace lead pipes in homes built before 1978. This represents one of the largest investments by the federal government to help private homeowners deal with a health and safety hazard.

Bonus: President Biden's efforts to forgive more student debt through his administration's SAVE plan hit a snag this week when federal courts in Kansas and Missouri blocked elements the Administration also suffered a set back at the Supreme Court as its efforts to regular smog causing pollution was rejected by the conservative majority in a 5-4 ruling that saw Amy Coney Barrett join the 3 liberals against the conservatives. This week's legal setbacks underline the importance of courts and the ability to nominate judges and Justices over the next 4 years.

[wildorcaaviation]

This post is VERY easy to look up and poke holes in...holy fuck!!! I mean this makes it seem like Australia JUST did this law change within 12 months, instead of 13 years...at the time of the original email. (2009...this was not recent!!)

Ooohh and I found that original email. On a website picking all it's LIES apart, one by one.

This is just pathetic. If you think that everyone owning guns will lead to less homicides, then you're fucked in the head.

I’m lifting this from Facebook

Australian Gun Law Update.. September 28

Here’s a thought to warm some of your hearts….

From: Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia

Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real

figures from Down Under.  It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.

The first year results are now in:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent,

Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent;

Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!

In the state of Victoria…..alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.(Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!)

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady

decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home.

Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in ‘successfully ridding Australian society of guns….’ You won’t see this on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the State Assembly disseminating this information.  The Australian experience speaks for itself. Guns in the  hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note Americans, before it’s too late!

[canadianabroadvery]

[callese]