Me too. Thanks.
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Yeah, cause they needed an excuse to do that, it's not like they were doing that already/are still doing that commonly, which was the main problem they were seeking to solve. It's not like the tactic of stealing from wealthy white neighborhoods in order to fund the free meal programs was already a pretty dangerous tactic that also was pretty likely to get them shot, but I dunno. maybe you'd advocate against that as well. Despite all of this, I can't really find any evidence of any member of the black panther party getting shot before the Mulford act was signed, at which point that form of protest was basically no longer possible. I dunno, maybe you can prove otherwise. You also say "painted as a dangerous group of extremists", but that kind of makes it pretty hard to take you seriously. MLK was painted as a dangerous extremist. Anyone seeking any change will be painted as a dangerous extremist, an argument against that is an argument against change, and an argument in favor of the current state of affairs in which the current violence is occuring.
Also, I'm pretty sure it's more frequent than a biannual execution of a room full of children, at this point. That's evidenced as a pretty high profile instance of gun crime, but if you wanted the real story on that, you'd probably look at the violent crime statistics and find out that the majority of gun crime comes about as a result of both suicides and gang violence, i.e. poor mental healthcare and drugs being overly valuable property which gangs use guns to protect. Other gun violence is a much lower fraction. Most of the time the people committing crimes like school shootings are already flagged as having serious problems and could've been stopped beforehand.
Nowhere here have I advocated against common sense gun laws or licensing that would stop the production or overwhelming supply of guns into this country, but I do also find it suspicious that, say, shit like the mulford act seems to be some of the only times politicians are really willing to roll out gun laws. I can explain to people how the prison industrial complex works, how the school to prison pipeline works, how the government doesn't give a shit about moving anywhere to combat climate change, how we exploit third world countries for resources at a massive institutional level and subvert their governments constantly, even to the point where there's currently war in the Congo ongoing as a result. People will wholeheartedly agree with all of that as the reality, but then when you turn around and start talking about gun ownership, or armed resistance, as a means to combat this, armed resistance that doesn't even require like, actually shooting anybody, necessarily, or even having a loaded gun, and suddenly people are super trusting of the government which we've previously established to be pretty relentlessly villainous and despicable, super trusting to make legislation that limits this responsibility rather than functionally limiting just like. Black people, from having guns.. If you look at any of that legislation, it's always the most insane, dumb bullshit that doesn't actually make any sense. Go look into the origins of the difference between a pistol, a short barrelled rifle, a destructive device, a shotgun. None of that shit's even necessarily a distinction which makes things illegal, as long as you have the dosh, you can pay tax stamps and get your shit. You can still get automatic firearms, if you have the money. Alternatively, you can acquire them illegally, or use a wheel grinder from harbor freight and then spend like 20 dollars once. Felons also can't own firearms, as an example of the idiocy. Check the difference between sentencing of felonies on the propagated crack throughout the hood vs the cocaine that the CIA was intentionally smuggling in. Even just possession of weed is a felony in some states. It can also even be the case with the illegal possession of hormone treatments, like what trans people might use, which I'm pretty sure is the case in New York.
Like I dunno, even at a basic level here, if you don't trust the fucking police to protect you, the fucking, institutional mechanisms by which you are to be protected, who is to protect you then? I dunno. If Trump gets elected and project 2025 comes to pass, I would probably not trust the government, and me personally, I would probably want a gun, yeah.
I also like how you're framing it that, because I'm just advocating for guns generally, right, as a devil's advocate, or, advocating for the use of guns as a legitimate political tactic, you're framing it that actually, what I'm advocating for is that minorities get shot and killed by the police, as though that's something that doesn't already happen in extremely large numbers. Yup, that's definitely a good faith extrapolation there.
This paragraph functionally just admits that there was a problem and walking around with guns didn't solve it. They did nothing except give the illusion of power which was no match for actual power.
Means reduction is one of the most effective methods of suicide prevention but sure, sweep them under the rug.
Gang violence is still gun violence so I've got no idea why you're trying to present it as "this doesn't count". Also, there is no magical gun fairy arming gang members -- the current gun laws give them an infinite supply of cheap, accessible firearms (including ones that are perfect for crime).
Most wealthy countries have underfunded mental health services and drugs. America the only one that enthusiastically escalates these problems into homicide and mass killings.
But they weren't and one group consistently opposes anything designed to address that.
You suggested an answer and I asked you to justify that answer.
I don't understand how you got that from the paragraph on the black panthers doing armed copwatching. You also don't make any attempt here to prove that the guns, in that circumstance, increased the violence directed at the black panthers, so I guess you're ceding that point?
Again, I don't contest any of the other points. Sure, go nuts, I guess, go like, have mental health screenings to prevent firearms. I've never said anything against that, I support that wholeheartedly, sure, go nuts. Probably there is a minor hurdle there of figuring out who's actually mentally unwell, considering that the measures currently in place are just kind of like, a little slip of paper that asks you whether or not you're going to use the gun to kill yourself, and if you answer yes then they don't give you the gun and commit you, and other solutions would probably present both aesthetic and real concerns with overreach, right, but I realistically don't think that's a major problem towards the policies in and of themselves, mostly that would just be an issue of practically getting them passed, which isn't really a legitimate argument against it.
I don't pretend as though gang violence "doesn't count" for gun violence, I'm bringing that up to expand the dialogue and focus on different, more prevalent types of gun violence than school shootings, which you see as being in the news pretty frequently for pretty obvious reasons, compared to gang violence, despite it making up a smaller minority of violence.
My goal is not to advocate for guns unilaterally as an end all be all solution to every problem as pro gun nut idiots would believe. My goal is to complexify the debate from "guns good" and "guns bad/scary" into examining the contexts in which gun violence occur so we can understand and analyze them. As I see it, you could have two courses of action, right, for gang violence. Making drugs legal (or at least decriminalizing them) would do a hell of a lot to totally drain gangs and cartels of their economic viability, and is a measure that you could pretty immediately enact, which we can assume in good faith would be the main motivation behind making guns less accessible. Making guns less accessible, sure, that would slowly increase the prices of firearms and decrease their availability over time, as we've seen with pre-ban automatic weapons, which are now mostly pursued by historical collectors for the aforementioned reasons. You would probably see an immediate rise in local black market price, depending on the size and isolation of the community in which whatever legislation you enacted, was enacted, combined with efficacy, but you'd probably also see little progress on the needle in that respect unless whatever you were doing was present at the federal level, because guns could just be taken in from a neighboring state for like, usually an afternoon's worth of gas.
Here, let me link you a different comment thread on the matter in which I thought the guy arguing against me raised some pretty good points and theorized a pretty good set of nuanced policies that could be implemented for a very small amount of effort. This is a thread in which I also take the opposite position from what most people would probably think I'm arguing here, so, give that a go, if you want. Lower down in the chain I maybe better summarize my current positions here, I was just kind of throwing out "the police, probably" as mostly a half-hearted attempt at a comedic answer to which people could kind of empathize with since lots of people do not find the police to be very tolerable individuals and queer people or racial minorities are an order of magnitude more likely to be killed be police on top of threats from other sources.
I can absolutely understand why people don't trust the police but I want a solution to institutional racism and police brutality that actually works, not some bullshit that uses guns like "healing crystals" for social problems.
These days, cop-watching can be done just as effectively with the cameras everyone has in their pockets, without unintended side-effects like fucking school shootings.
We've even seen it actually work with George Floyd. The closest only reason those cops faced justice is because their brutality was recorded. If people pointed guns at them instead of cameras, the cops would have walked free and more minorities would have been killed or imprisoned.
That's not like, the problem guns are really meant to solve, it's kind of unrealistic to expect guns to fill that role. At least, in full, right. If you want a solution to institutional racism and police brutality, guns are kind of secondary to that whole conversation, as I see it, you'd ideally want to just like, abolish the police, and probably you'd want some form of reparations, you'd probably also want to enact more federal funding for local civic infrastructure to bridge the gap while also not forcing people to abandon their own communities, you'd wanna do a lot of stuff. The guns are kind of a secondary order of thing, if we're talking about racial inequality.
I agree that cop watching can pretty effectively be done with cameras as well. I'd also like to add, though, that had people pointed guns at them instead of cameras, the cops probably would've stopped killing him, in that moment. It's hard to say anything with certainty, though, I'm not one to try and make claims on that front. Part of the issue is the cops are extremely unpredictable, consistently well-armed, and consistently poorly trained. They might just scramble to shoot someone immediately on seeing anyone with any kind of gun, regardless of whether or not they're in the right, because "their life was in danger", or whatever, just like that guy with the acorn. Probably this would be less likely in a scenario in which you were consistently cop-watching enough that so-and-so cop knew who you were, but yeah, it's gotten pretty bad. I think probably there's a mild element to which this has escalated due to increased police militarization and paranoia, compared to the 70's.
I dunno, it sort of depends on your definition of working, of success, I guess. The cops still choked that man to death, it's just that his death led to a lot of backlash, riots, and the cop being actually charged for once. I mean, someone still died, so that's pretty bad, but a cop finally got put in prison, so that's good. Pretty sad, that that's what it takes, and I would probably say that it's a massive shame if that's really the case. I dunno if any institutional level of police reform has taken place in minneapolis specifically where it happened, and I guess you could blow that up nationwide. I do know that post-protests, a lot of cities scrambled to fund their police more, like atlanta with the stupid cop city shit they're pulling, but that arguably would've happened anyways since both before and since, we've seen an increasing ramp up in the "crime wave" type of narratives, which are trying to pour more into police funding.
If cops are hard to predict, knock on effects from social media spread of police brutality videos are really hard to predict. It's hard to know if, had he not died, would those protests have still happened with a slightly different catalyst? It seems like there's a pretty consistent set of protests taking place at least in minneapolis almost every time a high profile nationwide or local incident occurs. Would we be in a better or worse position, afterwards, had he not been murdered? I don't really know, I still think it shouldn't probably be a controversial position to take that he should probably not have been killed. I don't know whether or not someone doing an armed cop-watch could've solved that, at this point, or if it would be kind of moot, and the only solution is an unwavering dedication to more radical political reform under which all other tactics are rendered kind of moot, or at least secondary. Certainly I've always been in favor of a diversity of tactics, even including electoralism and reform, mostly under the guise that it doesn't take too much extra effort and time spent fighting over it is time better spent doing other shit. I don't even necessarily think that armed protests are a bad idea in all instances, and that's another possible political use for guns. Certainly, the right has found success with that tactic, though they also benefit from a being in a position that most police are going to be more sympathetic too. I think a lot of it probably comes down to local gun laws and how they're enforced, being a major factor in their political use.
I can appreciate that you're genuinely trying to articulate your opinions but are you sure you haven't picked up talking point that you're now trying to work backwards from to justify?
The refrain is always the same: If guns genuinely helped solve the problem, why isn't that ever reflected when comparing the U.S to other countries with gun control? Why isn't the U.S government less authoritarian? Why aren't the crime rates lower? Why isn't police brutality nonexistent?
Watch the "call to action" comments in any thread that discusses police reform or guns -- anything at all that suggests people do X. The "buy a gun" comments outnumber anything else by at least 10 to 1 and it doesn't actually work.
I mean it's a pretty common talking point, but it isn't exactly a lie to say that the US is pretty unusual as a country on the global stage. I dunno let me hit you with the, again, constant disclaimer of: I still support federal gun legislation as long as we could maybe figure out a way to combat the inevitable compliance problem which probably has to due more with regulation on guns as an industry. Probably like that guy said in the comment chain I linked two comments back, an expansion of NICS on private sales, and with better and more precise data, as well as probably better registration with mental health services, and also mental health services existing, which probably also includes the existence of single-payer healthcare.
I dunno, if you're asking why the US is a uniquely authoritarian country. I could just gesture at like, the entire US's history of religious fanaticism and settler colonialism, and the fact that white people as a collective were willing to totally burn the futures of their children just because they wanted to stick it to black people, which we're still seeing. I'd probably gesture to the fact that the US's military industrial complex is THE military industrial complex of the western world's exploitation. It's not surprising to me, after any of those, that the US is pretty authoritarian. In that perspective, the US is maybe more similar to a fucked up version of south africa, than being similar to most European countries, or even Australia or New Zealand, which are obviously much less militarized and used as a global engine for imperialism abroad.
But also notice how I didn't bring up guns in that? I'm not going to blame a technology for the factors which drove that technology's use, that's buying too much into a guns, germs and steel style meta-narrative of history. The guns are not like a driving factor in that shit, the guns are just a relatively like, simplistic tool which is used to enact it. A probably inevitable one, at that, given the relative advancements of chemistry, metallurgy, and mechanics which lead to their development from a minor kind of historical footnote or oddity into a large encompassing weapon type, over the course of hundreds of years.
Again it's also unrealistic to expect that guns, being a tool through which this happens, that the guns' mere existence alone is capable of reversing these problems, which is basically what like, the common narrative would have you believe. Their use is never brought up or really intellectually engaged with politically, outside of the really simple stuff like hunting, self-defense, historical collections. Simply the ownership of the guns themselves is the end point, which isn't a wonder to me in the current economic system that wants you to buy and own shit.
If you were to put me on a spectrum and play out the like, country to country comparison, right, the comparison of the UK, me personally, I would be agreeing more with the IRA, if that helps you understand the sentiment, and gives you more of a use case for guns. Police are an occupying force.
At this point we're also getting more into overarching political strategies for revolutionary action or political reform, and guns as a vehicle for that, which, again, I'm less sure on, and it's sort of much harder to make a clear assessment of because it's pretty case-by-case. There are lots of ways to engage in that even without guns. The IRA, once again, made great use of IEDs. I'm pretty sure I just have a more radical take on the use of violence for political ends, than you do. It's maybe important to understand violence, or, the threat of violence, as a form of political leverage, over just the violence itself kind of being like, again, an end all be all goal. I don't think it's a mistake necessarily to think that property damage that arises as a result of a protest or riot can create a political incentive in decision making bodies to cave to demands, lest they might face the wrath of a large scale protest once again. The organization of people can provide an implicit threat. Guns are a mechanism by which this can also be accomplished with a smaller force, with greater efficiency per person, maybe at a greater risk to each individual as well. Are you getting what I'm saying so far?
The other shit, I won't disbar that generally people are stupid around guns, that's pretty clear. Victims of 2A lobbying and gun industry marketing and inner city crime wave narratives.