Shootings! Shootings! Shootings! Today's and tomorrow's shootings!

[TheatreDiva90016]

I'm getting tired of hearing that people need guns to protect themselves. ANOTHER story where someone does and there was no 'bad guy". Boyfriend Accidentally Shoots Boyfriend. In The Face.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Or this: Murder-suicide of Tulane law students: 'Nobody saw this coming'

[Jordan Catalano]

President Hilary Clinton just delivered an incredible speech about racism in the United States. 

[TheatreDiva90016]

Of course she did.  She's running for POTUS.

 

and I'm sure she spent most of the time reading her script.

[Jordan Catalano]

It sure as hell didn't sound like she was reading from a script. It sounded like she was PISSED. 

[tazber]

Buzzfeed has a huge story about Roof's website.

I don't mean to sound dramatic, but I literally got chills reading it. It made me queasy (again, literally). I couldn't go on.

 

[uncageg]

http://mic.com/articles/121068/in-one-quote-hillary-clinton-just-took-a-bold-stance-on-race-in-america

[javero]

Is there a chance that males are genetically pre-disposed to kill?

I mean since time immemorial nations have dispatched armed young men to either restore calm, or protect their borders, or protect their national interests, or build empires.  Even states, municipalities, and corporations have exploited the killing gene.  And fire arms make those young men even more efficient killers.  Mankind has always used technology to gain a mechanical advantage over the environment or an adversary.

Gun ownership is part of our national DNA, right, wrong, or otherwise.  It's also a fundamental tenet of the "Dixie bro code".  How do we convince gun owners who feel compelled by their God to protect the homestead at all costs, to turn in those fire arms for a greater good?  Those men have their pride as well as a moral imperative to protect their wives, children, and property.

Having grown up in the old south, I would never attempt to burglarize any home or business down there.  My biggest fear would be that I wouldn't make it out alive.  And there are plenty of men down there who teach their wives and daughters how to shoot as both a hunting and survival skill.

I'm usually the last to dip into regional stereotypes, but there are folks in the country who love their guns as much as they love their God.  My worst fear now is that in the wake of the Charleston tragedy, folks are going to start showing up at places of worship strapped or at least one of the church deacons will be "locked and loaded" at all times.

 

[FindingNamo]

I think you covered most of the messy contradictions.  At this point is be happy if the gun lobby to shut their mouths rather than say things like "if everybody brought a gun to church" there would be nomore problems. 

"Put away your swords," said Jesus Christ, Superstar. "Why are you obsessed with fighting?"

[South Florida]

^This seems a bit rambling but to try and answer your first question, YES!  Women should run the world, sure it would be a lot more bitchy but way less violent.  Notice it's always men who commit mass murder.

 

[javero]

Guilty of the charges of rambling...

The Pew Research Center report gets right to the point.  It ain't pretty.  Details at Gun Violence in America

[SNAFU]

An interesting read.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201506/anti-intellectualism-is-killing-america

[South Florida]

We can't repeal the second amendment PJ, there are too many citizens who will be freaked out by this.  The only path for Dems is to come out strong for tougher restrictions, and to appeal to the middle, this is important.  I fear this will not be an issue in the next election as both candidates will be for stricter gun laws.  Or even the primaries, the GOP candidates who are pro NRA will melt away.

[javero]

Call me naive at 50+, but I believe that the 2nd amendment is the only one that could be repealed by 2/3 of state legislatures joining forces and bringing about the change.  Nevertheless, it would be extremely difficult to pull off and would set a precedent.  Odds are TX & GA would secede in the process.

I'm hopeful that I'll see it in my lifetime.  

One in four Americans want their state to secede from the U.S., but why?

[PalJoey]

The repeal of the Second Amendment is necessary, but it's going to happen in our lifetime, and it will require a Second Civil War more bloody than the first.

[uncageg]

Yes, we need better gun laws, but that is not the crux of this shooting. Racism is. It is just amazing me how people are sidestepping talking about the real reason this man walked into a black church and killed black people. He is a racist. Discuss that. Post articles on that. And this is not directed at everyone but I am just seeing this on a lot of social media sites and it, as a black person, is upsetting.  JMO

[Auggie27]

It goes against my politics to focus on the killer, but it's consistent with my curiosity about human beings and their too often perverse trajectories to want to know telling details.  To me, it's this young man's room.  A textbook example of middle class white male privilege, the same plaid spread-covered bed he likely slept in since childhood, the cozy, comfortable trappings we see in films, even cartoons (Andy's in Toy Story 3 just before he heads to college).  He is a privileged, preserved child entering adulthood, treated as he always has been: with possessions and distracting playthings. Rock band posters have switched out for framed mirrored liquor ads seen in Bennigans.  When he had no discernible ambition, not even a fast food job, when he was a dropout adrift with two arrests, at least one a felony, his parents gave him seven hundred dollars for a gun.  A new plaything.  The mindset that led them to that decision, coupled with these innocuous shots of him inhabiting his child cave masquerading now as a man cave should give us all pause.  And make us shudder.  An unaccomplished, vicious miscreant, still with a 12 year-old's haircut, was awarded the ultimate toy, and the story is ours.  We do need to know who he is and the appalling context for his behavior. The Trayvon Martin case pushed his buttons? A case in which a white zealot-murder walked free after cold blooded murder of an African-American man? Attention should be paid.  This boy is everywhere. 

[Auggie27]

Required reading: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/20/415878789/dylann-roof-and-the-stubborn-myth-of-the-colorblind-millennial

Dylann Roof and the Stubborn Myth of the Colorblind Millennial

 

[South Florida]

Uncageg, of course it's about racism, first and foremost.  What can we do as citizens to combat racism, aside from disassociating with them or condemning them.  We can't pass laws that make it harder to be a racist, but the other thing is treatable.

[ErikJ972]

"Gun ownership is part of our national DNA, right, wrong, or otherwise."

That's just crazy talk. People used to say the same thing about slavery.

[FindingNamo]

"What can we do as citizens to combat racism, aside from disassociating with them or condemning them."

I've posted about this many times and in many threads on here over the years and the first step is a difficult one: White people have to take a fierce moral inventory of our own racism and examine the small and huge ways we benefit from institutionslized racism. It's not easy and it's just the first step.

But every single time I've mentioned it, some white people get apoplectic. That is how deep the denial is in our DNA. The folks who have their work cut out hoe them are the ones who relexively post "I'm not racist," "I don't see race," or "People should be judged by the content of their character."

We don't have to take it personally that white people have thrived in this oppression of systemic racism for over 200 years. But if we're really wondering "what can we do?" examining ourselves is the first step.

[PalJoey]

I've been wondering: What's the second?

[FindingNamo]

Then we see how we can apply what we know in our real lives. I posted not too long ago something I do in my work life that I took from Sarah Schulman's suggestion. About 12 hours after I posted it That Troll made fun of me for it. If I'm asked to present on a panel regarding my work I tell them I made a choice years ago not to present on all-white panels. Small step, makes a difference. Also, I pinch myself so I don't mansplain or talk over others. If people of color are silent during a panel discussion I ask open ended questions to clear some space for them to speak if they want to. That's one way I can use my white privilege to clear some space and hand it over. 

I have a commitment to assembling diverse teams when I hire people.

I try (TRY) to challenge people's subtly racist actions, but as we've seen, people get very defensive. 

 

 

[FindingNamo]

It is not easy to say to myself, "What am I putting out into the world and how does it support the systems that keep women, people of color, sexual minorities, the disabled, the differently gendered in places if subordination to the dominant (in every sense of that word) culture?".

And if I get something right, I don't ask for approval from those I'm trying to include. I don't want to be like those guys Chris Rock makes fun of when they brag they're good dads. "You're supposed to he a good dad, what do you want, a cookie?"

[javero]

* Beltway Snipers, John Allen Muhammad (black American) and Lee Boyd Malvo (black Jamaican)

*Virginia Tech Shooter, Seung-Hui Cho (South Korean)

*Fort Hood Shooter, Nidal Malik Hasen (Palestinian-American)

*Washington Navy Yard Shooter, Aaron Alexis (black American)

I would be the last person to deny the racist motives of the Charleston shooter but encourage everyone to not lose sight of the fact that the perpetrators of gun violence in the USA are overwhelmingly males between the ages of 15 and 35.  It's a male problem with strong ties to our gun culture that's encoded in our national DNA.

@ErikJ972 I'm no constitutional scholar but it's my understanding that the Second Amendment has been in force for nearly 224 years.  In addition to being based partially on the right of FREE MEN to keep and bear arms, it also imposed a civic duty on those FREE MEN compelling them to take up those arms if necessary in defense of the nation.  A well regulated militia then did not mean Halliburton.  It was a real challenge for the colonies first and then a nascent nation to establish a regular army.

I'm at a loss as to what slavery has to do with gun ownership in the context of the Second Amendment in 2015.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

A very illuminating history of conscription can be found at Chronology of Conscription in the U.S. – Colonial Era to 1999

[TheatreDiva90016]

"What's the second?"

 

Ask them them out for drinks?  Then roll them in the parking lot and beat the crap out of them.