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

[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.

[Auggie27]

I hope people read the piece I posted above, here or somewhere. It's critical that we abandon the facile myth that racism will die out with boomers (or worse, boomer parents).  The mythology around youth as enlightened carriers of a new world order is frighteningly out of touch.  Actually, both this piece about millennials and anti-intellectualism are critical analyses of this awful week that (sorry) take us beyond confederate flag petitions.  

[FindingNamo]

There is so much good writing and speaking happening that it is easy to be overwhelmed and when we're overwhelmed it's easy to feel as if there is nothing we can do or there is nothing to be done.  Does it help that Ronald Reagan ushered in the contemporary era of selfishness, where calling somebody out for their racism (or any other ism) was unseemly and passé and this took such tight hold in American consciousness that now bringing up racism is dismissed as racist???  

The day after the Charleston racist murders I wrote a Facebook post about my incredulity that some people were calling the tragedy "an attack on faith" and I described why.  A well meaning acquaintance from high school, (blonde, feathered Stevie Nicks hair back in the day) told me I "had her" until I "brought up race."  Since my entire post was about race I have no idea how long I actually had her for.  But that reaction made me despair for a while.

Then, I happened to listen to a This American Life podcast on a drive today from a couple of weeks ago.  The theme was "Birds & Bees" and it was about difficult conversations, namely sex, racism and death. Comedian W. Kamau Bell had a remarkable piece about telling his mixed race daughter about race and racism.  And he said something that really resonated with me:  If you see racism, say "racism." 

And that right there is a tiny thing all white people can do.  If it upsets a white person or two, you're probably on the right track.

Act Two: If you see racism, say racism

I like this episode a lot because Ira Glass isn't on it.  He's worked my last nerve to death.

[javero]

Both pieces cited by @Auggie27 really struck a chord with me.

I'm not comfortable singling out the old south, but the virulent anti-intellectualism that I was exposed to early on led to my exodus at the first opportunity.  I struggled immensely with being labeled as stupid by default by a racial majority due to an accident of birth.  And there were simply too many people who looked like me who acted like we were their God's chosen people and that we somehow invented a religion that never really appealed to me.  Clearly those are my issues though which are not germane to the Charleston shooting.

At work, I routinely come into contact with millennials at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum.  Never the twain shall meet.  I always thought of them as more of a marketing team construct than anything else.  @Auggie27's second article helped crystallize my views about them in that regard.  I don't knock them per se, but wish a few of them in my ambit would come to terms with the fact that there is no "magic app" that will resolve some longstanding problems that have plagued our nation.  I manage a team of software developers so the statement's not completely frivolous.

The most stunning revelation from this discussion to me has been @PalJoey's assessment of what it would take to repeal the Second Amendment.  It's a bold assertion to put forth that armed conflict would be required to repeal the very constitutional amendment that placed a gun in each of our hands in the first place, figuratively speaking.  Please let there be a peaceful pathway forward.

 

[South Florida]

PJ is a passionate man, but he goes too far, and some of his statements are preposterous. There will never be a war about repealing the 2nd amendment.  This is something that is going to have to be gradual.

[South Florida]

Auggie I read your stuff.  I don't believe it.  It's going to get better before it gets worse. We continue to grow up albeit slowly.

 

[adamgreer]

"PJ is a passionate man, but he goes too far, and some of his statements are preposterous. There will never be a war about repealing the 2nd amendment.  This is something that is going to have to be gradual."

 Oh I think he's right on the money with that assertion.  There are too many gun nuts in this country that would rather go down fighting than see their beloved second amendment repealed. 

Do I think this conflict will ever actually happen? No, because I dont think anyone will be a strong enough advocate for change. I have no confidence that this country's gun laws will ever actually change. 

[FindingNamo]

Also, they have the guns.

[javero]

5 words...Waco Siege...Oklahoma City Bombing

ETA: Believe it or not, Karl Rove has weighed in on the Charleston tragedy and actually makes sense.

[South Florida]

He didn't say he was for repeal, he said it was the only way to eliminate it.  Repealing the 2nd amendment dosen't seem to be in the cards any time soon.  Stricter laws are the way to start.

[South Florida]

If you'd like 15 minutes of very funny stuff you tube Jim Jefferies gun control.  I'd link it here but I don't know how to do that.

[PalJoey]

The difference between what Karl Rove is saying and what I'm saying is that Karl Rove agrees with you, South Florida, that it's "preposterous" to think we could eliminate guns in this country because it would mean repealing the 2nd Amendment, which he believes is never going to happen.

I'm saying that it IS going to happoen because it's the only way to eliminate guns in this country. We will do it and when we do, there will be a civil war or large-scale insurrection, because the gun people in this country feel as strongly about the 2nd Amendment as the rest of us do about the 1st.

Stricter laws are the way to start.

Not necessarily. They're not that stupid. Stricter laws only make them madder. They understand that you want to take away their "gun rights" slowly, because it's the same way they're taking away "abortion rights." And so they are as absolutist about not allowing us to chip away at assault weapons as we are about having no restrictions on abortions. 

But unfortunately, we haven't been smart enough about protecting the access for women to safe abortions. And if they have their way, a woman will have to travel from her home state in the South, Midwest or West, hundreds or thousands of miles away, to the East Coast or the West Coast, in order to get an abortion.

And all the time, they will make her watch videos of her mandatory sonogram.

It's not enough to sit around smugly and think "These people are so stupid." We have to be smarter than the stupid people.

[madbrian]

Putting aside the blowhards on Fox "News", there really are good. normal Americans who look at tragedies, like Charleston and Sandy Hook, and they honestly think the solution is more guns.  I don't know how to reconcile that mindset with my own.  And again, these are many of my family members, folks with many of the same shared life experiences as mine.  I just don't know how we get past large factions of the country who look at the same problem and see diametrically opposite solutions.

 

Again, this is an easy opportunity to generalize those with contrary opinions, and throw them in with politicians and gun manufacturers who are trying to profit from this.  But I don't think it advances the issue to not realistically consider those on the other side.

[Kad]

Having gun rights taken away is legitimately the nightmare scenario of many, many people. Any threat to those rights will result in galvanization of the burgeoning conservative movements like sovereign citizens, etc.- people who are a growing threat to public safety.
The Growing Right-Wing Terror Threat

[Borstalboy]

Anyone from the GOP care to comment on this?

[javero]

It's been my experience that both abortion foes and gun owners in my family attempt to take the moral high ground on both counts.  The gun owners feel that the right to bear arms is an extension of their God-given natural right to self defense, notwithstanding the Second Amendment, and the abortion foes hold up holy scripture as their main guiding principle.  And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the Army of God in the context of right-wing terror groups.

Details on the Army of God can be found at the Army of God website.  WARNING: It contains very graphic pix of fetuses in trash cans.

[PalJoey]

At a 4 PM press conference, Governor Nikki Haley will call for the flag to be taken down.

[javero]

In SC, that's a big friggin' deal!

[NYadgal]

Huge.

[TheatreDiva90016]

I'm glad she's listening to the hundreds of thousands of people tweeting her and signing petitions.

[Jane2]

This is disgusting - I'm watching the news on tv. Instead of hearing about a shooting almost every day, they now report A LIST OF SHOOTINGS! literally. Today, among other shootings, a school bus was hit by a "stray bullet." We now have as normal, bullets flying all over, and a "stray" one hit the bus. 

The shootings and bullets are now discussed on the news the same casual way that the weather is reported.

I'm so disgusted.

[The Glenbuck Laird]

"It's been my experience that both abortion foes and gun owners in my family attempt to take the moral high ground on both counts."

 

How do you take the moral high ground on those subjects?

 

Good debate this. Agree with lots of their views here but PalJoey and Namo do write very well here.

 

[TheatreDiva90016]

"The shootings and bullets are now discussed on the news the same casual way that the weather is reported."

 

If only.  Here in L.A., if the weather is not sunny and bright, then the top story is always STORM WATCH 2015!!!!!  These folks freak out over a few drop of rain.  But they don't seem to freak out over random gun violence

[FindingNamo]

We now have as normal, bullets flying all over, and a "stray" one hit the bus.

That's really insightful.  Bullets are now lost or abandoned dogs with no destination.

[South Florida]

This civil war you speak of I'm not liking our pacifist chances.  Please, we can get almost 90% of us to agree we need stricter gun laws.  Gun loving family and friends of mine are starting to come around, don't eff this up by talking of civil war.

[FindingNamo]

Oh for crying out loud, man.  Why are you insisting on going off on this tangent and why are you pulling ridiculously inflated percentages out of your ass? "Gun loving family and friends of" yours should contemplate their Christianity for a while, just like the Pope suggested.