Because the post I just put up on the Newtown shooting is so troubling and disturbing, I am setting up this separate thread so people can discuss the shooting without having to deal with or think about MRAs.
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We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
Alex, wrong place, wrong everything.
Honestly, I think it’s the lack of respect for people that leads to things like this rather than any kind of gun control. The US culture has gotten so invasive and toxic I have no idea how we’ll get through it. If you inherently believe that people deserve basic respect, you don’t end up shooting them/stabbing them/beating the shit out of them. Instead of respect for your fellow beings, we get “us vs them” and tribal identities and all sorts of other divisive crap that divides everyone into their little boxes and groups and whatnot. Everyone other than (general) you is a nonhuman “other” to be despised unless they give you the secret handshake or code word or whatever. Non-white people/Non-heteronormative people and any other “groupings” of people are just that – people. They’re not “the enemy” or anything else. There is a basic lack of respect for people in this country, and that, I think, has more of an impact than the fact that we have a lot of guns.
We could have twice as many guns in this country, but if everyone wasn’t bombarded by messages that people who are different than you were subhuman creatures, there’d be less of this. If we had a little more empathy or even sympathy, if we weren’t so scared of being “conned”, if we didn’t care so much about the supposed scammers out there, if we had more human decency, then angry people shooting up places would happen far less. It’s okay to be angry; it’s not okay to shoot people because of it. Go see a therapist if you feel the anger being too much.
And that’s other thing about this country – you don’t have to be mentally ill to go see a therapist to help you deal with your problems. Sometimes a person needs a little bit of help to get through problems and it’s not a sign of an organic disease nor a sign that someone has failed. But because we don’t respect that people sometimes need help – hello “rugged individualism” – we end up with angry people who don’t care enough about people in general and they go shoot whoever.
Sorry for this being so long; I just get mad when people want to blame everything under the sun rather than the fact our culture fosters this. Video games! Misandry! Satan! No, fools, you’re just proving the point of why some people are mass shooters – because you lack the common decency to keep your fool mouths shut and let people grieve. Just because people are tearfully asking “why?” doesn’t mean you have to answer with shit you’re pulling out of your ass.
I agree, generally.
I also think that if people didn’t have access to assault rifles they wouldn’t be able to kill as many people. Gun control isn’t a solution, but it’d make things better.
Gun control, yes. I’m not saying “ban all the guns” necessarily, but certainly I’m not sure why anyone outside a war zone needs assault rifles or automatic weapons.
I was originally going to come on here and add my two cents about the ableism that’s been infesting all the coverage I’ve seen of the shooting and the shooter, because I’ve been finding that very triggering. But the conversation doesn’t seem to be going that way, and I’m not sure if this thread is officially devoted to the gun issue, so I’ll hold off if it’s not appropriate.
@thenatfantastic. I was unsure at first but now that I read the FAQ I have to disagee with you. It has everything to do with this place. He killed his mother and then a female principal, it screams about the man-woman relationship. I just found out that ALL school shootings are done by boys. It’s gender specific!
And finally, it’s not about gun control. Yes, gun availability amplifies the problem. But that’s looking at the issue very superficially. The real problem is why teenage/young men can’t deal with their frustrations and seek help.
Look at the title of this post, duder. No one wants to hear either a) your little theories on how women are to blame for this or b) your transparant attempts to ‘trick’ us into saying something you can interpret as man-hating.
Go play somewhere else, Captain Obvious of the Obvious Brigade, you sitting around playing armchair psychologist really isn’t going to help anything, is it?
Alex, if you refer to the murder of children as ‘maximizing kill hits’, then you are not viewing this situation with the compassion appropriate to post here. Young men are frustrated? Well welcome to the bloody club. There are tons of discontent, frustrated people in this world, and all but thirty-one of them chose not to respond to that frustration by shooting children. At that point, it isn’t the frustration of young men that is the problem, their tendency to respond to frustration with mass murder that is the problem. You want to talk more about this, meet me in another thread. Babies died yesterday and I am in no mood to hear how you think it was all the fault of the evil feminists.
Clearly it’s all the fault of vidya games.
Mklein: This is a fine place for that! It’s Jeff who brought up gun control and he shouldn’t have.
And you are right, there seems to be no evidence that the killer was mentally ill, and even if he was, that’s really neither here nor there. I’m really, really sorry if you (or anyone else with mental health issues) feel like you’re being lumped together with him.
If you don’t want to help, ignore me. As a father of a 4-yr boy I find it challenging to bring him up in this complex society. I have to disagree with you again, it most definitely is going to help if I can raise him as a man fitting this society.
Yes, we don’t want to talk about this here because we hate children. Dude, you are probably on your way to being put on moderation, so read these words carefully- there are people on this board that would like nothing more than to bat you around like a brand new cat toy- but this is no the thread for it. This is the ‘I want to curl up under a desk and die’ thread. And no one here agrees with you. So if you want to argue, go to another thread on the subject (one down from this). if you want to curl up under a desk and die and not talk about gun control, tell us more.
Note how he phrases that as a demand that we as members of a (what he presumes to be an all-)female group, spend our time explaining things to him, comforting him and giving him the answers he wants to hear, or we’re big meany-pants feminists who hate children.
I’m too ill for grammaring, but you get my drift. If you must hang around Alex, please go to the thread where you’re welcome to whine to your heart’s content.
And there is nothing more comforting to a sad man and father than to have everyone agree with him. I am waiting for him to come back and express his ever important Opinion despite the title of the thread and long time posters telling him this is not the place.
Nope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer
I also note how quick he is to accuse others of ignoring things, while blatantly ignoring a heartfelt request by both David and others here to stop posting about these particular topics in this particular thread.
When the men sitting around signing the bill of rights, the weapons at that time were single shot and took manual reloading. If they couldn’t conceive that their woman or their slaves would be one day considered actual “people” in “We, the people…”, they couldn’t have possibly assumed that it would one day be possible for a single man to hold what would be considered a whole army at the time against the people of the United States.
Then how about you go raise your kid like a goddamn adult and quit wanking at us?
Paige: Maybe take it to this thread? We’re trying to keep the actual discussion there, I think, because it attracts trolls and we want to keep this thread troll-free (fine job we’re doing, right?). (If other people say I’m wrong about this, then ignore me.)
Nat: Are you sick too? I just caught a cold from my husband. That makes, what, four or five regulars who are all sick right now?
Damned computer viruses!
XD
@Katz Yeah, I have a sinus cold, at my last rough estimation I have snotted out at least 150% of my body weight. I’ll live though.
@Kittehs I loled XD
Glad to bring a smile! 🙂
Nat, ewww, that reminds me of when our Magnus had cat flu, a long time ago. Vet said to try the Vick’s in steaming water trick with him. I did – him in a basket and the bowl in front.
Gross does not begin to describe it.
Sounds like a rave thing…
“That makes, what, four or five regulars who are all sick right now?”
*hands out tea* I hope you all feel better soon!