‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens - Gun Violence in America

[Cactus]

@Aofrantic

To encounter 1-2000 people a day you’d have to work a full shift in a Costco, there is nowhere in the USA I can even imagine you’d run into 1000 gun carriers a day. Not even the busiest gun range gets anywhere near that much traffic.

Ever drive a car on an expressway at rush hour?

[Aofrantic]

You think driving a car past somebody is encountering them? That’s a very interesting definition of the word, and again, it would come nowhere near your claim.

[cilldroichid]

According to the chart i linked Australian law enforcement officers killed 4 people in 2016. US law enforcement officers killed 933 people in 2019.

@Cactus

Do they shoot more than 1000 people dead per year?

Without googling that question, i doubt Australian police have shot dead a 1000 people in a 100 years never mind 1 year.

[eyebooger]

@Cactus

constitutionally protected right

@Cactus

constitutional right

@Cactus

my constitutional rights

You use this crutch a lot.

Try this for an exercise: Pretend that the 2nd amendment doesn’t exist. Argue that it should.

[ChrisV]

Australia averages like 5 police shootings a year on a population of 25 million. A similar rate in the US scaled to population would be 65 deaths a year, instead of which the number is like 1,150.

All police officers in Australia carry guns. For citizens a license to even own a handgun is very difficult to acquire (not super familiar with the law but a national police check and two character references for starters) and even with a license you can’t carry.

The idea that police will be held in check by an armed populace is insane, what happens is that they are constantly apprehensive and escalating encounters. If a cop even draws their gun here they have to fill out a bunch of paperwork about why that was necessary, since there’s no need to draw your gun when you can be very confident that a routine encounter is not with someone who might also be armed.

[kerowo]

I’m not trying to be sophisticated.

Yeah, we got that…

[microbet]

@JohnnyTruant

I imagined you were avoiding other parts of the forum lately because you were tired of being mad and hating everyone.

[Nozetradamus]

LOL Cactus at it again, what a dumbass.

[microbet]

I don’t know if you saw this exchange or have seen me post about it, but mongidig on 2p2 had sworn that this freeway exit in San Diego was absolutely a no-go zone. He was sure that anyone (well a white person) would be attacked in their car if they got caught in a red light in that neighborhood. The next chance I had, I went off that exit and ate at the closest little neighborhood restaurant with my daughter and discovered Las Cuatro Milpas which is a famous and extremely excellent Mexican restaurant.

My point is, Americans are terrified. I can not imagine thinking I needed a gun for my safety or the safety of my family. If I really thought I might have to get into a shootout to save my family, if I thought there was even a tiny chance, geeez, I’d move to the hills or to Japan or something. It wouldn’t matter if that meant giving up a nice house to live in a shack. I’m not going to risk a shootout every day of my life.

[clovis8]

Reminds me of the awesome scene in Bowling for Columbine when he goes to Compton and of course it’s not the war torn Syria of the media.

[microbet]

Yeah, I worked in Compton a lot in the early 90s. It wasn’t that bad and wasn’t the most run-down area of LA. I never had any problems.

[ViridianDreams]

@iron81

Ok, here’s how that works, because I initially had the same reaction as @Cactus: Arbery initially wants to run past the left side of the car and runs in that direction. Travis sees this and stations himself at the left front corner of the car. Arbery sees he’s armed and zags to the right to avoid him. Travis counters by moving to the right front corner of the car. They meet there. The video cuts out at this point, but when you see a couple seconds later Arbery holding the end of the barrel, you can conclude that within 2 seconds of Arbery passing the car, Travis trained the gun on Arbery.

So Travis escalated 3 times before Arbery showed any aggression: following Arbery, ordering Arbery to stop by the left front corner and training the gun on Arbery at the right front corner after trying to cut Arbery off. The only remaining issue is whether Travis stopping Arbery constitutes a citizens arrest and that Travis properly defended himself after Arbery grabbed the gun. That might fly if Travis had witnessed Arbery commit a burglary, but in a saner world, hearing about a burglary months ago won’t cut it.

At no point should it ever be acceptable behavior for a private citizen to chase a person jogging and train a gun on them. They are the ones that escalated. It doesn’t matter that he charged at the guy with the gun, he would have been justified to pull out his own gun, had he had one, and shoot the redneck piece of ahit where he stood.

[mosdef]

You’re not taking into account that the white people are DECENT CITIZENS and the black guy is an URBAN THUG.

[microbet]

@JohnnyTruant

lived deep in East Oakland

East Oakland? You mean West Oakland. East Oakland was sweet. I lived there for about 5 years. Best place I ever lived I think. (I also lived in West Oakland briefly - not the nicest place I ever lived)

[mjiggy]

This restaurant sounds rad, definitely trying it next time I’m in San Diego

[Cactus]

@Aofrantic

You think driving a car past somebody is encountering them? That’s a very interesting definition of the word, and again, it would come nowhere near your claim.

My point was that if you live in America you are around more gun owners than you think, and the overwhelming majority of them are good, decent, and normal people. All the peacenik pacifists here want to do (because they can’t come up with anything else) is blanket smear every gun owner as some deranged lunatic and hero wannabe. It’s such an infantile argument. There are definitely some nut jobs who shouldn’t own a gun (the racist father and son team are a prime example). But there are always going to be some nut jobs guns or no guns

@eyebooger

ry this for an exercise: Pretend that the 2nd amendment doesn’t exist. Argue that it should.

A 105 lb women has the right to defend herself against a 250 lb male attacker for starters. A gun is a great equalizer (much better term than “heater” lmao!). Just because you happen to prefer getting beaten to a pulp on the street by some steroid junkie, or are willing to hand over your money if robbed, or would rather take your chances if your house gets broken into in the middle of the night, doesn’t mean anyone else has to feel the same way

Also, I went into this last time and am not going to make the whole case again, but guns are a deterrent to a tyrannical government. Again, I’m not going to make the case for the morons who say citizens can never defeat drones, stealth bombers, or an atomic bomb. These people aren’t worth talking to. They have no idea how disruptive a few million well armed people can be even for even the most powerful military on Earth

@JohnnyTruant

Have we got to the part where we find out the flu is worse than guns?

You’ll never hear stupid shit like that from me. But let me ask you this question @JohnnyTruant… Had that jogger been armed when these two white pieces of trash were hunting him down, and had the jogger shot the guy brandishing the gun, would you be STILL be crying about gun violence and how the jogger was some deranged person for shooting someone with his gun and that he had no right to do so? Seriously… I’m SUPER curious how you’d be responding if the guy actually was able to defend himself with deadly force in that situation and was still alive because of it

[Riverman]

The solution to racist assholes shooting innocent black people isn’t to prevent racist assholes from having guns, its to arm the nonviolent person and place the burden on them to pay for the gun and spend hours learning how to use it, thereby otherwise increasing their risk of death substantially simply by virtue of owning a gun. Jlawok.gif

[Cactus]

@Riverman

The solution to racist assholes shooting innocent black people isn’t to prevent racist assholes from having guns, its to arm the nonviolent person and place the burden on them to pay for the gun and spend hours learning how to use it, thereby otherwise increasing their risk of death substantially simply by virtue of owning a gun.

Or maybe just perform stronger background checks and require licensing like we do with cars. I’m sure you’re all over the internet being the same staunch activist when it comes to drunk drivers, right? Sethtgiamrn.gif

[Riverman]

Wait, I thought gun control was hopeless because criminals will always get guns?

[Cactus]

@JohnnyTruant

First of all, if we are imagining scenarios my happy path is nobody involved had guns, and that racist, cowardly rednecks didn’t feel invincible enough to harass joggers and a man fucking jogging didn’t have to even consider doing so with a 3-4 lb sidearm.

Alright. If you want to eliminate guns, your argument is not with me. I’m guessing it would be with the supreme court. So take that up with them. Also, I wanna say my Glock weighs less than 30 ounces with a 15 round mag and I go jogging with it all the time

@JohnnyTruant

Second, if we take the very narrow and rare possibility that a person who is carrying a gun actually protects themselves with it in a gunfight and comes out unscathed vs two other armed men, and that person is a black man in America, and he has killed the two white men, there is a very good possibility he’d be shot dead by the cops or in prison right now and I would not be hearing about it at all.

I couldn’t agree more with all of this. But again, you’re misdirecting your ire. The possibility that he’d be shot dead by cops or be in prison has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with our racist elite culture

@JohnnyTruant

But sure, in the one choose our own adventure where we can’t possibly be reasonable at any other juncture and the armed black jogger gets to defend himself, gets to kill his racist pursuers, doesn’t get subsequently killed, and avoids the prison system and there is literally no other solution to be had, well I might just be turned around on the whole subject. Let me know when that happens.

My problem is, you want to take away any chance he had. He deserves that chance if he wants it