Respectful Politics Thread (Let's Just See)

[MWoO]

There will still be break-ins if guns were taken away. Knives et al would still exist as well. Beyond that, lack of citizen firearms was one of the reasons of why Hitler kept control of Germany. While a lot of other countries have done this successfully, I don’t know if the US can.

Hey look, we actually agree on something!

That said, I also don’t like MWoO’s argument a whole lot because it doesn’t offer any solutions beyond “We shouldn’t just focus on gun control, but at fixing society as a whole.” Please elaborate, what would that entail?

Oh.... I didn't know I was suppose to solve all of this country's problems with violence... on a Muppet Message Board.... Guess I'll roll up the ol' sleeves and give it a try.

Well for one, I think the more law abiding armed people we have the less likely we are to have random killings. Why? Well, if you have a gun that you obtained illegally and you live in a state or city that does not allow guns or conceal and carry, then you know you have a pretty good chance of meeting no resistance. See... criminals tend to not care about laws.

Two, we need to have a much greater sense of community. How? Well for one we at least need some kind of commonality as a nation. In a day and age where saying you love the United States ends up triggering someone, I really don't know how to accomplish this.

I think entertainment has numbed us as a whole and made us simplify our way of thinking. Not violence in media, but simplicity in media. We are a meme culture. We are a face book posting, intagraming, headline only reading, YouTube video unboxing, twittering population of idiots. The country reminds me of how the US was depicted in "The Dark Knight Returns". Everything is sensationalism, no one cares about facts just "optics". False information is spread like wild fire. It dehumanizes you. People become more isolated and lose their humanity. It makes it far easier for people to kill each other.

We now divide ourselves based on our likes and dislikes. If we like and watch enough videos on YouTube, we get recommended videos that already match what we like. If we dislike certain videos we don't see them again. We do not get exposed to differing points of view anymore so we lose the ability to handle it when someone disagrees with us.

The general feeling among people is that the world is far worse now than it was before. Well.... it's not. We think violent crime is far higher than it was year ago. Well.... it's not. We thinking children are way more likely to be abducted now than they were when we were kids. Well... they're not. The difference is years ago you didn't get a news story fed directly to your pocket for you to read the instant it happened. We are simply more aware of these things, when in fact crime in the US is down over all. Racism in the US is down over all. Gay rights, women's rights, equality over all is at an all time high. Yet everyone thinks the world is getting worse.

How do we fix it? I dunno. It's a social change. You can't just pass a law to change things. We can only change if parents start teaching their kids about community. We can only change if people stop dropping their friends over a difference of political opinion. It will only change if we start turning off the notifications, putting down the phone, and really talking to each other.

But hey, I'm saying this on a message board so... ya know... irony and all.

 

[MWoO]

Coincidentally, I saw this. @MuppetsRule and @MWoO you may enjoy this (and don’t worry, I won’t hold a grudge if you laugh):

I know I am doing what I hate, posting multiple times in a row, but....

I actually hate this meme as much as I hate the other one. This is the problem with society. People see a meme, they laugh if they agree with it, ad their feel their world view has been affirmed and move on.

 

[Old Thunder]

Great breakdown, great posts. Hope I didn’t come across as rude earlier, I was mainly wondering what your solution would theoretically be. I got it, thanks.

 

[MuppetsRule]

Ok... Let's break down what a mass shooting is. All information below was taken from an analysis by Emma Fridel in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence from 2017.

There are three types:

Familicides - Most common form of mass murder. Someone targets people they have a close relationship with (wife, kids, other relatives, etc). These types of killings are the most common.

Felony Killings - These are distinguished by motive, When you kill people in order to achieve a primary criminal goal. If someone robs a bank and then kills all the witnesses, it is considered a felony killing. This is the 2nd most common form of mass murder.

Public Mass Killings - These are your random acts of violence that are reported in the media. They are typically defined as taking place in public spaces and the killer has no ulterior motive. These are actually the least common form of mass killing, but they get the most publicity due to the public nature and randomness.

According to this researcher, as of 2017 31.15% of Public Mass Killings were committed by black people, 49.18% by white people, and 19.67% by mixed race or "other". When you look at the racial break down of the population, these numbers are disproportionate to the racial profile of the country. So, of the least common type of "mass killing" less than half were committed by white people who make up roughly 72% of the population.

The study uses the definition from the FBI of a mass killing being 4 or more victims killed in a single location during one event. When Mother Jones compiled their data base they used a lower standard of 3 or more people. They only viewed the third, least common type of mass shooting. With this new standard, the percentage of white offenders rose to 54% when measured from 1982 to 2012. Some have even reported up to 63% using a different definition and a longer timeline.

No study has found that white males or any more or less likely to commit a public mass killing. In fact, it seems to be a crime that falls evenly among racial lines. Crazy doesn't care what color you are. It also stands to reason that the further back you go in time to more likely a shooter is to be white since the white population of the US was larger. Ya know... logic and stuff.

If we turn to over all stats of all mass shootings in the US using the broadest definition of 4 or more people killed OR injured, things change even more.

The Gun Violence Archive keeps real time tracking of mass shootings of all kinds in a single data base. In 2019 alone roughly 32 mass shootings took place in California. 28 took place just in Chicago. 11 in NYC, 10 in Baltimore, 8 just in Philly. Seems places with strict gun control laws have more mass shootings, not less, just this year when using the full definition of a mass shooting that the FBI uses.

So what have we learned?

1. What social media says is happening is not always indicative of reality.
2. Public Mass Shootings fall along racial lines evenly, and are not disproportionately white male Trump supporters.
3. When you keep changing the definition of what something is you can make numbers show whatever you want.
4. Memes aren't data.

But this can't be true. I was told just the other day and again this morning on these very boards that mass shootings are almost always perpetrated by white supremists.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Part of that issue also comes from the media only reporting white shooters.

I mean, how much coverage did the female vegan Muslim shooter get last year when she shot in an area with strict gun laws?

Zero.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Goes back to this.

Even though I absolutely despise the NRA.

 

[LittleJerry92]

 

[MWoO]

So that whole nuanced point about how memes being used to spread information and ideas is creating division and simplifying complex ideas which ultimately leads to the dumbing down the population... just went over your head or something?

 

[LittleJerry92]

You can’t deny they speak the truth. How people interpret it is their individual problems.

 

[LittleJerry92]

So, since video games are to blame for mass shootings, I’m going to sell away all my T and M rated games with guns in them.

Who wants them?