Octopus Overlords

Well now the Kentucky governor has had two close friends killed today in the bank at Louisville will that change anything?

No one seems to care what happens in Chicago every year. This is just 3 days every year. No national reporting, just another year for them. Year after year.

Years ago some had called for and tried “Thou Shalt Not Murder” Easter Sunday which unsurprisingly didn’t work out as planned. These days with the apparent plan going forward to get even softer on crime, we’re expecting for more shall than shalt.

Final Hol(e)y Tally: 5 killed, 18 wounded
2022 weekend tally: 6 killed, 24 wounded
2021 weekend tally: 4 killed, 29 wounded
2020 weekend tally: 4 killed, 19 wounded
2019 weekend tally: 5 killed, 18 wounded
2018 weekend tally: 2 killed, 10 wounded
2017 weekend tally: 2 killed, 44 wounded
2016 weekend tally: 3 killed, 33 wounded
2015 weekend tally: 6 killed, 31 wounded
2014 weekend tally: 10 killed, 36 wounded
Average tally: 5 killed, 27 wounded

Good Friday
12:25p 4400 W West End, Garfield Park, M/25
12:25p 4400 W West End, Garfield Park, M/28
7:00p 6700 W Belmont, Montclare, M/17
7:05p 6300 S Ashland, Englewood, M/31
Hol(e)y Saturday
1:30a 8000 S Anthony, Avalon Park, M/35
1:30a 8000 S Anthony, Avalon Park, M/36
1:30a 8000 S Anthony, Avalon Park, M/30
3:00a 2300 S Michigan, Near South Side, M/33
5:25p 7000 S Lafayette, Grand Crossing, M/30
5:25p 7000 S Lafayette, Grand Crossing, M/24
6:10p 9000 S Vincennes, Washington Heights, M/22
Easter Sunday
12:25a 4300 S Hermitage, New City, M/31
12:50a 10600 S Sangamon, Wa. Heights, F/15
1:00a 100 N Laramie, Austin, M/20
2:30a 2700 W 68th, Chicago Lawn, F/23
3:30a 800 N St Louis, Humboldt Park, F/23
3:40p 5800 S Racine, Englewood, M/27
4:00p 1300 S Homan, North Lawndale, M/28
7:15p 7600 S Jeffery, South Shore, M/20
7:25p 1400 W 114th, Morgan Park, M/32
8:20p 200 E 132nd, Riverdale, M/44
Businessman shoots burglar
at Lincoln Square tobacco shop
11:45p 2600 W Lawrence, Lincoln Square, M/18
No Accountability Monday
1:40a 3300 N Keating, Portage Park, M/25

https://heyjackass.com/enlightening-com ... weekend-2/

UsulofDoom wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:57 pm This is just 3 days every year. No national reporting, just another year for them. Year after year.

Weekend. It's just another weekend. Week after week.

What is "No Accountability Monday"?

Blackhawk wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:07 pm the current Supreme Court might make this a bad time to push the envelope - bad laws are easier to fix later than bad SC decisions.)

SCOTUS created this mess (by creating an individual right to bear arms) and is making it worse (by curtailing regulations on that ginned-up right). Real change will require a societal reset, but remember that a large majority of Americans already want better gun control. A friendly SCOTUS that's willing to overturn these bad precedents and enforce the "well-regulated" part of the 2A could change the very bad direction that we're going in now.

The odds of getting a liberal court anytime soon are poor, but not impossible.

dbt1949 wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:54 pm I cannot think of any way to solve this. I'm not even against banning guns if it comes to that.

Somehow we've got to end the fetishization of guns.

Well, I know I'm a gun nut but even I want to see the end of these mass shootings.

I think the main reason is the guns are a symbol of self defence and without training (either officially or from family) people get big heads. Combine that with mental illness and high powered high capacity weapons and you are just asking for trouble.

In America anyone can take on a guy the size of the Rock or John Cena with their gun, while in other nations it's a foolhardy endeavour at best.

If you go to Canada or New Zealand which have a right to guns, but as a hunting tool like a fishing rod or for sports. And if you want a gun you need to have training and have people vouch for you that you should be able to have one. In NZ they have a real gun culture, with hunting shows on television where you can see eight year olds shooting feral mountain goats 500m away in high wind in a one shot kill. Heaps of people have a license. Even Christchurch hasn't changed that.

Alefroth wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:23 pm

dbt1949 wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:54 pm I cannot think of any way to solve this. I'm not even against banning guns if it comes to that.

Somehow we've got to end the fetishization of guns.

Thus, time. Changing a society's views isn't as simple as creating a law. We need the laws (and should continue to push), but they're going to be a barely-effective solution until we change society, and that takes generations (sometimes literally, as you have to wait for the generation that started it to die off.)

I've recently found myself pondering my childhood and how it informed me. I was born in '73 (yeah, I'm about 26 hours away from 50, eek), and was a child and teenager during the late 70s, the 80s, and the early 90s. There was so much hubbub about whether cartoons made kids violent - Wile E Coyote, Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny - did they make kids dangerous? In and of itself, the answer is no. But at the same time, I grew up watching and loving gun after gun after gun.

In the 70s, it was westerns (including the cartoons), and almost every one of them was about a good guy with a gun. In the 80s, it was GI Joe. The A-Team. Almost any film I saw the latter half of the 80s on, including anything with Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Russel, or any of a dozen others was about someone mowing down bad guys with guns. And the toys I (we) played with? They were often the same thing - I had Butch Cassidy action figures, GI Joe action figures, Star Wars action figures. Every one came with guns, and you could even buy packs of extra guns! Just like TV and film taught people that smoking made you cool in the 60s and 70s, my (our?) childhood taught us that guns made you cool, and that heroes had guns.

It didn't make us dangerous. It didn't take mentally stable people and make them want to hurt people. What it did, though, is (as Alefroth coined), fetishize guns. The people we're trying to take guns away from are the people who have that mentality. The heroes have guns, and the solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And they want to be the good guy, so they want a gun(s). And the politicians have tapped into that, reinforcing that ideal, legitimizing it in exchange for votes and loyalty, and then leveraging it ("they're coming for our guns") as a source of fear to retain that loyalty. The result is an insane number of guns, and a push for deregulating bigger, cooler looking guns (half of the accessories that people argue over are cosmetic junk that actually hinder a weapon's performance.)

The studies were right - violence and cartoons didn't make us violent. But I can't help but wonder how responsible they were for enabling violence on a society-wide level.

Freyland wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:08 pm What is "No Accountability Monday"?

IIRC, after a particularly bad weekend, Lightfoot said there would be "Accountability Mondays" where she would meet with police brass to tackle the violence problem. Nothing happened. I think Superintendent Brown famously skipped a meeting, too.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 10:08 pm

Freyland wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:08 pm What is "No Accountability Monday"?

IIRC, after a particularly bad weekend, Lightfoot said there would be "Accountability Mondays" where she would meet with police brass to tackle the violence problem. Nothing happened. I think Superintendent Brown famously skipped a meeting, too.

Thank you.

Kurth wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 7:29 pm

Unagi wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:36 pm

Kurth wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:12 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:05 pm Eventually we'll get to the point of "this is why we can't have nice things" with the majority of the 2A crowd but I shudder to think what the body count will have to be to get there.

No f’ing way. After Sandy Hook, I think just not realistic to think we’ll ever get that crowd to that point. Not ever going to happen.

There just has to be a tipping point (and it may indeed be a loooong way off) where enough people are truly impacted by an event in their immediate family that it finally becomes politically impossible to protect the current read of the 2A. Perhaps that's what LB was saying and I'm just parroting it.

Sure, in theory. But that's not going to happen. Your chances of dying in a mass shooting are incredibly small. And those not killed in a mass shooting? The ones that make up the vast majority of lives ending in gunfire? No one really gives a shit. Barely newsworthy.

There is no tipping point.

Then maybe you need an anti-gun extremist group that use guns to attack specific people to change thing but that'll be illegal and count as terrorism.

It wouldn't count as terrorism, it would be terrorism.

We've seen what happens when one outsider commits a mass shooting as occurred at Nashville a few weeks ago.

Certainly it appears only a matter of time before America descends into Northern Ireland style sectarian violence as guns become more and more prevalent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

We are fairly close given a number of militias attacking power utilities and other disturbed individuals attacking churches, schools and nightclubs.

I’m just going to say that I don’t think guns can get more prevalent. I’m probably wrong. Alas.

Seen many versions of this sentiment yesterday.

https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/stat ... 7092993024

Compare and contrast the coverage of the poor, misunderstood straight, white, male shooter to the "THAT TRANS MONSTER!!" coverage from just a few days prior.

They're both murderers. Treat them both as such.

As a kid in my neighborhood our favorite game was to "play gun" as we all had a toy gun or some sort. We even used dry squirt guns for this too. We'd just divide in two and go to it. "Can't hit a running target!" was how we denied being shot.

dbt1949 wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:53 am As a kid in my neighborhood our favorite game was to "play gun" as we all had a toy gun or some sort. We even used dry squirt guns for this too. We'd just divide in two and go to it. "Can't hit a running target!" was how we denied being shot.

When I was a kid we always played “Army”, same game.
And yeah, we all had toy guns of some form. I’m pretty sure a few choice sticks were also machine guns, etc.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:30 pm

Kurth wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:12 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:05 pm Eventually we'll get to the point of "this is why we can't have nice things" with the majority of the 2A crowd but I shudder to think what the body count will have to be to get there.

No f’ing way. After Sandy Hook, I think just not realistic to think we’ll ever get that crowd to that point. Not ever going to happen.

It may take every one of them losing a family member or friend to realize it but there is a point where it tips. I hope we don't have to get to that point before there are changes but there is a number.

We are at about 15/100,000 right now with around 48K gun deaths annually. 200,000 annual gun deaths would be about 63/100,000. So what would it take? Well, cancer is around 610K per year and seems to hit close to home for just about everyone. So maybe a 12X increase before we see changes? 200/100K? That's 10x Chicago's shooting fatalities. Oh, and that's just deaths. You'd have a million or more shot.

It's sickening to think about it that way but that's where we.are.

Timely:

Nearly 1 in 5 adults has had a family member killed by a gun, including in homicide and suicide. About as many adults have been personally threatened with a gun, and about 1 in 6 adults has witnessed an injury from a shooting, the survey found.

So 20% of the way there? 200K may be the magic number.


Until then, maybe it's working as the GOP intended?

There are vast disparities in who’s dying from guns, too. A recent study found that the homicide rate among young Black men was nearly 10 times higher than the overall firearm death rate in the US in 2021.

According to the new KFF survey, Black adults are more than twice as likely as White adults to have lost a loved one to gun violence and to have personally witnessed someone being shot.

Granted this is a self-repoting survey but we still can get traction with 1 in 5 being directly affected. Not there yet, I guess.


Link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/health/g ... index.html

Blackhawk had it right. Its a culture thing of seeing guns used as tools of greatness. How many of our top shows, top movies, top heroes, are people with guns?

For a while we have removed "guns" from kids cartoons. A great many cartoons have tazers, or blasters, or just literally anything except guns.

I see hope for the future, but its a ways off. The kids, the ones who are living through this terror, thy won't stand for it, and will do away with this culture. I just wonder if there will still be a country left for them.

We're also a culture of righteous rage. The same entertainment that tells us that guns are talismans of power also tell us that if we're wronged, we must respond with escalated violence. Someone insults you? Beat them up. Someone is breaking into your car? Double tap. They killed your partner/spouse/dog? It's fine to rampage through the city leaving a trail of bodies. When that is the baseline, it can easily mutate in someone's mind. Go on a shooting spree because you got fired or murder a bunch of children because someone bullied you. You want to kill yourself? Why not shoot a bunch of NPCs before you go?

Guns give the means, culture and mental state provide the motive, all that's left is opportunity. If your can't eliminate one of those three 100%, and we can't, you need to work on all three. As a society, we only ever focus on the last one. At least as far as any action goes.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:03 pm We're also a culture of righteous rage. The same entertainment that tells us that guns are talismans of power also tell us that if we're wronged, we must respond with escalated violence. Someone insults you? Beat them up. Someone is breaking into your car? Double tap. They killed your partner/spouse/dog? It's fine to rampage through the city leaving a trail of bodies. When that is the baseline, it can easily mutate in someone's mind. Go on a shooting spree because you got fired or murder a bunch of children because someone bullied you. You want to kill yourself? Why not shoot a bunch of NPCs before you go?

Guns give the means, culture and mental state provide the motive, all that's left is opportunity. If your can't eliminate one of those three 100%, and we can't, you need to work on all three. As a society, we only ever focus on the last one. At least as far as any action goes.

The only thing on that list that is even a thing that anyone could 'remove' is Guns. Mental state and opportunity are going to be around for quite some time. And culture, well yes - clearly some cultures are handling their guns much better than we do.

It's like our two choices are "fix people" or "remove guns", and while I don't mean to say it would be easy - it just seems obvious which one of those is actually remotely realistic, and yet even it's unrealistic if you can't at least address the other.

You don't even have to remove the guns to *significantly* reduce the problem. You just put in reasonable laws. Laws that would allow hunters and recreational gun owners to enjoy their hobby without much more hassle than what you go through to be able to legally drive a car.

This is a problem that doesn't need to be 100% solved to save countless numbers of lives. Yet the GOP is unwilling to do *anything* that would save one life. Not one single thing. And meanwhile does everything in their power to make it easier for more people to die. It's enraging.

And a big Merry Christmas to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and his family... because of course.

YellowKing wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:30 pm You don't even have to remove the guns to *significantly* reduce the problem. You just put in reasonable laws. Laws that would allow hunters and recreational gun owners to enjoy their hobby without much more hassle than what you go through to be able to legally drive a car.

This is a problem that doesn't need to be 100% solved to save countless numbers of lives. Yet the GOP is unwilling to do *anything* that would save one life. Not one single thing. And meanwhile does everything in their power to make it easier for more people to die. It's enraging.

Yeah, it's infuriating. Especially when I hear terms like 'anti-gun.' As though even the strictest realistic proposals in the US are anything but 'pro-gun.' Like, enjoy your guns! Own a bunch of them! Go hog-wild! God forbid you need to be licensed to do so, that they be registered, and that there be some education / liability attached to the privilege right.

Unagi wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:23 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:03 pm We're also a culture of righteous rage. The same entertainment that tells us that guns are talismans of power also tell us that if we're wronged, we must respond with escalated violence. Someone insults you? Beat them up. Someone is breaking into your car? Double tap. They killed your partner/spouse/dog? It's fine to rampage through the city leaving a trail of bodies. When that is the baseline, it can easily mutate in someone's mind. Go on a shooting spree because you got fired or murder a bunch of children because someone bullied you. You want to kill yourself? Why not shoot a bunch of NPCs before you go?

Guns give the means, culture and mental state provide the motive, all that's left is opportunity. If your can't eliminate one of those three 100%, and we can't, you need to work on all three. As a society, we only ever focus on the last one. At least as far as any action goes.

The only thing on that list that is even a thing that anyone could 'remove' is Guns. Mental state and opportunity are going to be around for quite some time. And culture, well yes - clearly some cultures are handling their guns much better than we do.

Except that until we change the culture, the culture won't let us remove the guns. No matter how much we want to, no matter how much sense it makes, the option to remove the guns is an illusion until the culture that prevents doing so is addressed.

And, again, that takes time.

Oh, and what got me wandering in here. That bank shooting that killed five people and wounded nine? The gun used in to shoot all those people?

That'll be sold to the highest bidder.

We can put it on the wall with the Hitler memorabilia.

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 4:14 pm
That'll be sold to the highest bidder.

Just unbelievable. How remarkably stupid and sad, and just so depressing to belong (not really) to this "culture". What Police Dept wouldn't just simply want this weapon destroyed? WTF?

Nothing to see here... just Mom killing herself and her 3 children...

Officers said they received reports of a shooting just before noon.

At the scene, officers forced entry into the home and found Ethal Steele, 40, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

There were three children who were also dead from gunshot wounds.

Nine-year-old Sakendra Steele, 12-year-old Sakenya Steele and 14-year-old Sakenlo Steele, Jr. were identified as the children of Ethal.

I wonder when we will hear about the Louisville killer's sexual orientation or gender identity or race.

According to the media the poor lad who killed all those people had a history of heavy head injuries due to being a high school sports star. <sarcasm> So it wasn't the guns at all, just a tragic set of circumstances unrelated to guns... </sarcasm>

YellowKing wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:30 pm You don't even have to remove the guns to *significantly* reduce the problem. You just put in reasonable laws. Laws that would allow hunters and recreational gun owners to enjoy their hobby without much more hassle than what you go through to be able to legally drive a car.

This is a problem that doesn't need to be 100% solved to save countless numbers of lives. Yet the GOP is unwilling to do *anything* that would save one life. Not one single thing. And meanwhile does everything in their power to make it easier for more people to die. It's enraging.

It's because "self defence". You know my right to self defend my car parking spot outside my condo from people like "you". Or because you insult my mule (he ain't laughing!). Or because I'm a good misunderstood guy who is actually an international assassin who has killed lots of people but now I want to go on a vengeance spree because someone killed my dog and you work for the guy.

Other western nations other democratic republics that have guns for self defence recognise it's for the self defence of the COUNTRY because they read the second amendment and thought what a good idea for our country. And so young men are heavily trained in how to use firearms and their safe use.

Take for example Switzerland which up until 2018 had gun laws that were very much like a red state. You can, with a permit even get fully automatic firearms!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_ ... witzerland

The Swiss army has long been a militia trained and structured to rapidly respond against foreign aggression. Swiss males grow up expecting to undergo basic military training, usually at age 20 in the recruit school, the basic-training camp, after which Swiss men remain part of the "militia" in reserve capacity usually until age 30 (age 34 for officers).

Prior to 2007, members of the Swiss Militia were supplied with 50 rounds of ammunition for their military weapon in a sealed ammo box that was regularly audited by the government (Pocket ammunition). This was so that, in the case of an emergency, the militia could respond quickly.

In December 2007, the Swiss Federal Council decided that the distribution of ammunition to soldiers would stop and that previously issued ammo would be returned. By March 2011, more than 99% of the ammo has been received. Only 2,000 specialist militia members (who protect airports and other sites of particular sensitivity) are permitted to keep their military-issued ammunition at home. The rest of the militia get their ammunition from their military armoury in the event of an emergency.

Note that the Swiss militia system is heavily based on the original Washingtonian militia system in use in the US revolutionary war. And the US system was originally based on that of the Roman Republic.

https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2019/ ... itzerland/

No one needs an assault rifle. No citizen at least. A shotgun for home defense. A pistol for personal and car defense.

You dont need an assault rifle to defend your home. You cant hunt with it.

An assault rifle is for one thing "Can you see my penis now?!?" bout it.

An AR15 is a very modular design but in general isn't as good for hunting in my opinion.

There are better bolt action weapons in general for game hunting and .22 rifles for "varmints" although a lot of AR15 purists don't agree.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/128899 ... -two-years

A lot of people complain you can't take out a rabbit with a .22 or a deer with a bolt action though because you need to be able to send multiple rounds down wind faster and therefore you need some sort of military sniper style setup ...
https://www.varminter.com/cottontail-ra ... uger-ar15/

Its horrendous for home defence. As others have said here a shotgun or handgun is far superior.

The problem is thst AR-15s are actually extremely capable and versatile rifles. They are good for hunting (within 200 yards), they are great for home defense. There are easy to shoot yet powerful. Basically cheat mode. It's hard to argue that they have no legitimate use.

BUT it can be argued that other firearms are equally capable for each use case. Plenty of bolt action rifles are just fine for hunting. In many cases much better.
Handguns, PCCs, and shotguns are proven home defense staples.

AR-15s aren't necessary. But to argue that they aren't capable or useful is, IMO, not the right approach because you'll end up getting dragged down ballistics/tactical rabbit hole.

Unagi wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:23 pm The only thing on that list that is even a thing that anyone could 'remove' is Guns. Mental state and opportunity are going to be around for quite some time. And culture, well yes - clearly some cultures are handling their guns much better than we do.

And Americans sometimes think they are alone on this planet. Or Unique, possibly.

Look outside of your country. The rest of us have opportunity. The rest of us have mental health issues in our population.

The answer is pretty clear, unless you like your gun. Then it's all murky and difficult.

Conservatively, there are 300M guns in the US. I think more like 400M but let's say 300.

Taking them out of circulation would probably average $1000 each, again a conservative estimate. This includes buyback, storage, security, transport, and destruction. If not using a buyback, it includes cost of enforcement and all the "cold dead hands."

Very, very low end, that's $150,000,000,000 to get rid of half the guns. It is a very big lift. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done but the cost is something not often considered. Achievable but another hurdle.

Before it was mental illness, now it's too expensive.

I wonder what would happen if 10-20% were removed.

Look at it this way. Look at the rest of the world where there are no guns at all not just certain ones banned. Is America a safer place with guns?

It gets repetitive, but Popovich's opening statement is right on point.