Can we talk about the mass shootings in America?

[rodheadlee]

18 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Oh look, we must have hit a time warp back into the 90s.

Are we going to talk about the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons again too?

I don't know. Do we need to? I have never played the game. Isn't the object to kill your opponent? I don't know about that game but any game that the object is to kill your opponent it's not a good thing for young kids. I never had children so I don't know. I hear four year olds are learning how to play these games is that true?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

We have to give our kids training for shooters now?

We did it for nuclear bombs.

Though I remember tornado drills much better.  Those were actually useful.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

Isn't the object to kill your opponent?

There aren’t any fixed objectives.

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

I hear four year olds are learning how to play these games is that true?

Sounds like a fun new take.

We already brought back the satanic panic scare so why not four year olds murdering each other in fantasy adventures?

Just make sure to include all the relevant supporting elements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

We did it for nuclear bombs.

Though I remember tornado drills much better.  Those were actually useful.

Yeah, duck and cover drills. Pretty much as effective as the shooter drills and training. I especially loved the “duck and cover” drills that told you to do it immediately when the bomb unexpectedly hits. Yeah, that was never going to work.

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Don’t get me started on TSA.

Children shouldn’t have to endure having their backpacks scanned to get into school. We need to start hitting the roots of these problems instead of focusing on mitigation. Everyone talks about how a school is a soft target so we need to harden it. The thing is we aren’t in a war zone. Why are we okay with a bunker mentality?

There was a time when we did not have search screens at airports.  People simply boarded planes with a plane ticket.  One could also enter a courthouse without a search.  There was no bunker mentality.  Then planes began to be commandeered by people for ransom or for terror.  In the real world we had to make adjustments.  It is annoying, but a reality.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

We could try more restrictions on weapon sales and weapons that serve little purpose beyond killing a lot of people.

There are trade-offs which absolute security requires.  We could take the Stalinist and Maoist approach, which is to disarm the populace and regiment them (re-education camps for those who refuse).  We have seen recently what that means in Shanghai, which has now become a prison for the millions who live there.  The CCP tackles crime and COVID the same way.

We can just ignore the Constitution and rule of law, as we have been doing lately, and which is really the source of our problem.  Turns out, however, that when law-abiding citizens don't have guns, then only the criminals have them.  Great, because nearly all shootings in America fall into two large groups:  (1) suicides, and (2) gangland shootings.  And nearly all of those are with pistols.  Also turns out that law-abiding citizens who own guns rarely shoot someone who threatens them:  Instead, they merely brandish the firearm, which dissuades the perpetrator, who then leaves.  Actual stats show a very different America from that of fable and fantasy.  There is no correlation between vastly increased gun sales and murder, unless it has caused a decrease in murder:  https://infogram.com/overall-homicide-1979-2020-1h7z2l81pk37x6o

Edited May 27, 2022 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

 

[Amulek]

17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We have also made schools with small children gun-free zones with little to no security.  Same for our churches.

Govt bldgs, on the other hand, generally have strict search-screens to prevent entry of people who are armed.  Why is it that we do not value the children enough to make their learning experience secure?  Why is that crazy people choose to go to gun-free zones, such as schools and churches?  Seems like a no-brainer.  Why are our teachers and school administrators so uninterested in doing something intelligent for a change?

I understand why administrators aren't interested doing anything. It's not necessarily because they are unwilling to do anything, per se, but because the likelihood of having a mass shooting event is small and the cost of securing your campus might be high (and potentially involve ongoing costs as well), and they end up making the decision to spend that money elsewhere.

Instead of Congress wasting time going through the predictable cycle of attempting (but ultimately failing) to pass some sort of "scary-gun" ban, why not work on making changes to the system you already have in place - like conditioning federal funding for schools based on meeting minimum security requirements?

My son attends a Title III (read: poor) elementary school here in Texas, and our school has been completely secured for years. Cameras at the doors, parents are required to provide drivers license to gain access beyond the front office, etc. It's not like this is a problem that can't be solved.

 

[bluebell]

16 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I understand why administrators aren't interested doing anything. It's not necessarily because they are unwilling to do anything, per se, but because the likelihood of having a mass shooting event is small and the cost of securing your campus might be high (and potentially involve ongoing costs as well), and they end up making the decision to spend that money elsewhere.

Instead of Congress wasting time going through the predictable cycle of attempting (but ultimately failing) to pass some sort of "scary-gun" ban, why not work on making changes to the system you already have in place - like conditioning federal funding for schools based on meeting minimum security requirements?

My son attends a Title III (read: poor) elementary school here in Texas, and our school has been completely secured for years. Cameras at the doors, parents are required to provide drivers license to gain access beyond the front office, etc. It's not like this is a problem that can't be solved.

 

My kids' elementary school here in Utah is the same (and so is the local junior high.  I have no idea about the high school as my two oldest went to charter high schools connected to Weber state, so on a college campus.  No security features there at all).

But I know, from reading the District's email they sent out yesterday about school security, that not all of the schools in the district have those security measures and I really wonder why.  They should all have those things, at a minimum, by now.

[Amulek]

19 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

So what is the root causes of these mass shootings?

What is the root cause of killers bent on committing publicly visible murders? No idea.

But I suspect that one small part of it has to do with the attention that such acts predictably receive in the media.

At some point, we might need to really start looking at the media's role in this cycle and seriously consider some changes with how these sorts of incidents are reported and talked about (see, e.g., here).

 

[Amulek]

19 hours ago, bluebell said:

I don't think that arming teachers is the answer.  As the meme says, if we don't even trust our teachers right now to pick library books, why would we trust them with a gun?

My wife and I have been heavily involved in our kids' elementary school for years now, and I can say with some degree of authority that there are a ton of teachers (not to mention administrators) that I wouldn't trust to be anywhere near a gun.

However, there are also a couple of teachers in our school who happen to be either former military or who are currently part of the reserves. I wouldn't be opposed to allowing teachers who have had experience with weapons training and military discipline to have access to guns in the event of an emergency.

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by Amulek

[Amulek]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

We did it for nuclear bombs.

Though I remember tornado drills much better.  Those were actually useful.

I wonder if any studies have been done with respect to the effectiveness of active shooter drills in schools.

I know I've seen articles concerned about the mental health effects of surprise drills, but I'm also thinking about the potential message that might be sent to kids who are marginalized and part of the population which might be considering engaging in something like this. Could these drills be inadvertently teaching them that this is a way to gain power/control/influence over a very large number of people, including (or especially) your peers? I don't know - something to think about more I suppose (or maybe google next time I remember to think about it).

 

[The Nehor]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There are trade-offs which absolute security requires.  We could take the Stalinist and Maoist approach, which is to disarm the populace and regiment them (re-education camps for those who refuse).  We have seen recently what that means in Shanghai, which has now become a prison for the millions who live there.  The CCP tackles crime and COVID the same way.

Amazing how European nations don’t have this problem. What is the difference? Almost as if there is another choice in restricting weapons that doesn’t require a descent into authoritarian totalitarianism.

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We can just ignore the Constitution and rule of law, as we have been doing lately, and which is really the source of our problem.  Turns out, however, that when law-abiding citizens don't have guns, then only the criminals have them. 

Which is why Sweden and France are plagued with mass shootings. What is the difference? It is the easy availability of guns. Britain had a problem with mass shootings. They tightened gun control laws and the problem stopped. Same with Canada, Australia, Germany, and others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/gun-laws-australia-britain.html

The USA just doesn’t care to go with that solution. Given the choice we choose guns and act like gun control is impossible. It is not. So this keeps happening and will continue to happen. We are very stupid.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Amazing how European nations don’t have this problem. What is the difference? Almost as if there is another choice in restricting weapons that doesn’t require a descent into authoritarian totalitarianism.

Which is why Sweden and France are plagued with mass shootings. What is the difference? It is the easy availability of guns. Britain had a problem with mass shootings. They tightened gun control laws and the problem stopped. Same with Canada, Australia, Germany, and others.

False.  In 1689, the British Parliament passed an extensive bill of rights, including the right to keep and bear arms (the people had just had to fight a real civil war).  One hundred years later, our own Founding Fathers recognized the need for that and the other rights in that legislation in our own Constitution.  The Brits have since thrown out many of those rights (they don't have a real Constitution).  Ukraine also disarmed its populace and gave up all their nuclear weapons -- with a guarantee that their security would be held sacrosanct.  Putin has always relished that weakness -- and has been taking full advantage of it.

As I have already shown in this thread, the rise in gun sales in the recent past shows no correlation with the murder rate -- which has been going down since 1990.  Nearly all gun murders are committed by gang members -- criminal on criminal violence, primarily in the inner city -- with handguns, not rifles.  The stats are very clear that the problem is not ready availability of guns to law-abiding citizens, who have them for self-protection.

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/gun-laws-australia-britain.html

The USA just doesn’t care to go with that solution. Given the choice we choose guns and act like gun control is impossible. It is not. So this keeps happening and will continue to happen. We are very stupid.

Yes, Americans are very stupid.  However, America is also very heterogeneous, a true melting pot of diverse cultures, with a powerful strain of libertarianism and anarchy.  There are a number of heavily armed nations (like Switzerland) which don't have mass shootings.  Banning guns is like banning automobiles in order to stop the carnage on the highways.

[Zosimus]

20 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Oh look, we must have hit a time warp back into the 90s.

Are we going to talk about the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons again too?

Ronny Jackson's good ol wholesome Texas was also the site of one of America's first mass school shootings. In 1966. 14 people shot and killed and 40 injured on the campus of the school he graduated from. Decades before video games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting

I'm guessing rap had nothing to do with it

[manol]

19 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Also turns out that law-abiding citizens who own guns rarely shoot someone who threatens them:  Instead, they merely brandish the firearm, which dissuades the perpetrator, who then leaves. 

Six times I've been in a "good guy with gun" situation (three times as that guy, three times as an unarmed participant), the earliest being at age eleven.  Each time the good guys dominated without actually pointing guns at anyone, and no shots were fired.   Common to each case was a moment when my "little voice" told me to "take this seriously".

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

False.  In 1689, the British Parliament passed an extensive bill of rights, including the right to keep and bear arms (the people had just had to fight a real civil war).  One hundred years later, our own Founding Fathers recognized the need for that and the other rights in that legislation in our own Constitution.  The Brits have since thrown out many of those rights (they don't have a real Constitution).

They deliberately chose to restrict gun availability in the 20th century because they were having problems with shootings.

Saying “false” and going on about the civil war is a clear dodge since I wasn’t talking about that. Your understanding of the British Constitution and what it is and how it works is…..lacking. The only reason the US has a constitution is because the Founders were generally great lovers of the British Constitution.

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Ukraine also disarmed its populace and gave up all their nuclear weapons -- with a guarantee that their security would be held sacrosanct.  Putin has always relished that weakness -- and has been taking full advantage of it.

What are you even talking about? Ukraine ranks pretty high amongst European nations and nations in general for gun ownership.

Why are you discussing nukes? Do you think that is a Second Amendment issue too? Yes, Ukraine had nukes when the Soviet Union fell but they had no way to maintain or use them. The missiles they had were long range and would have required extensive work to function as a deterrent against Russia. If they were somehow maintained sources I see shows they would have been useful against Vladivostock and other targets in Russia’s Far East. To credibly threaten Moscow they would have had to start their own weapons program which would have resulted in sanctions from both the US and Russia and possibly a Russian invasion. The idea that Ukraine could have noped out and stayed nuclear was a pipe dream. Condemning them for it is unfair.

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As I have already shown in this thread, the rise in gun sales in the recent past shows no correlation with the murder rate -- which has been going down since 1990.  Nearly all gun murders are committed by gang members -- criminal on criminal violence, primarily in the inner city -- with handguns, not rifles.  The stats are very clear that the problem is not ready availability of guns to law-abiding citizens, who have them for self-protection.

Again you jump to general murders and away from mass shootings. Try to stay on target.

I am talking about mass shootings. It is an American problem. The only areas that come close to US numbers in mass shootings are active war zones. So why does the US have so many? Because we have the highest per capita gun ownership in the world and it is still rising as the mass shootings rise. Again, other nations have had this problem and heavily restricted gun ownership. The problem diminished quickly. The US solution is to arm more people and the numbers stay high. We are idiots. The deflection and desperate attempts to blame the problem on anything else but weapon availability are facile.

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, Americans are very stupid.  However, America is also very heterogeneous, a true melting pot of diverse cultures, with a powerful strain of libertarianism and anarchy.  There are a number of heavily armed nations (like Switzerland) which don't have mass shootings.  Banning guns is like banning automobiles in order to stop the carnage on the highways.

Comparing cars to firearms is insane. Cars are primarily for transportation. They serve a useful function. We have to put up with some level of loss or lose that level of transportation. Guns are used to kill things. That is it. They don’t increase access to employment opportunities or increase mobility like cars do. The only benefit they arguably have is letting hunters cull some species that need it but the vast majority of firearms aren’t used for that purpose. If you take away cars the American economy collapses because we have no public transportation.. If you take away guns……ummmmm…….there are too many geese and deer and we will have to design some kind of government agency to deal with it.

It is also worth noting that gun violence and accidents recently passed car accidents to become the leading cause of death amongst American children. We love our guns more than we love our kids.

The Switzerland thing is a common talking point but it is the libertarianism and anarchy that make the attempt to use the Swiss as justification ridiculous. The US has over four times as many firearms as the Swiss per capita. While their level of gun violence is low this is due to a massive cultural difference. A lot of gun ownership falls under militia rules, that bit of the 2nd Amendment that many ignore. The Swiss are also not bombastic idiots that carry their guns everywhere. We can’t replicate Swiss culture in the US and the people advocating for less gun control measures are not exactly models of Swiss restraint. It is a red herring suggesting it is possible to have responsible gun ownership thrown out by people who have no interest in creating a culture of responsible gun ownership. They are advocating for unofficial militias and more armed people everywhere. The answer to these groups for gun violence is always to have more guns in circulation everywhere. They combine this with “common sense” safety measures that are, on examination, insane or useless.

[The Nehor]

12 hours ago, Amulek said:

I wonder if any studies have been done with respect to the effectiveness of active shooter drills in schools.

I know I've seen articles concerned about the mental health effects of surprise drills, but I'm also thinking about the potential message that might be sent to kids who are marginalized and part of the population which might be considering engaging in something like this. Could these drills be inadvertently teaching them that this is a way to gain power/control/influence over a very large number of people, including (or especially) your peers? I don't know - something to think about more I suppose (or maybe google next time I remember to think about it).

 

They generally don’t help. This latest target had drills, had an armed person to protect the school (who was away and did nothing), and a police force made up of incompetents and cowards which is sadly becoming the US norm. The police took 45 minutes to neutralize the shooter. An active shooter. This wasn’t a hostage situation according to any timeline. Children were literally bleeding out while the police dithered.

So you didn’t intervene to rescue children being murdered because you might get hurt. Imagine a firefighter telling a parent they can’t rescue a child from a burning building because they are worried they might get burnt.

Useless, that is your literal job. One of the few times a “good guy with a gun” is needed and you held back. Not because you were outnumbered or didn’t know where the shooter was or anything reasonable. You hesitated because you might get hurt….while kids in those rooms were making 911 calls begging for help. This is against all the directives on active shooter situations. They were just out and out cowards.

[The Nehor]

 

[Calm]

6 hours ago, manol said:

Six times I've been in a "good guy with gun" situation (three times as that guy, three times as an unarmed participant), the earliest being at age eleven.  Each time the good guys dominated without actually pointing guns at anyone, and no shots were fired.   Common to each case was a moment when my "little voice" told me to "take this seriously".

Is this just random or have you been in an environment that tends to have these confrontations?  You don’t need to share if you don’t want to, it is just not something that has happened even once to most people I know offline. 

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They deliberately chose to restrict gun availability in the 20th century because they were having problems with shootings.

Saying “false” and going on about the civil war is a clear dodge since I wasn’t talking about that. Your understanding of the British Constitution and what it is and how it works is…..lacking. The only reason the US has a constitution is because the Founders were generally great lovers of the British Constitution.

Like many Americans, you seem to have little understanding of our Constitution, how we got it, and why we need to follow it -- aside from rejection by you of the rule of law, which requires an actual legal process to change our Constitution (something the Brits don't even bother with, as they take away many of their citizens rights to free speech, etc.).

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

What are you even talking about? Ukraine ranks pretty high amongst European nations and nations in general for gun ownership.

Why are you discussing nukes? Do you think that is a Second Amendment issue too? Yes, Ukraine had nukes when the Soviet Union fell but they had no way to maintain or use them. The missiles they had were long range and would have required extensive work to function as a deterrent against Russia. If they were somehow maintained sources I see shows they would have been useful against Vladivostock and other targets in Russia’s Far East. To credibly threaten Moscow they would have had to start their own weapons program which would have resulted in sanctions from both the US and Russia and possibly a Russian invasion. The idea that Ukraine could have noped out and stayed nuclear was a pipe dream. Condemning them for it is unfair.

The Ukrainians could have kept the nukes, but they naively believed all the promises of territorial sovereignty, never imagining that the Russians thirsted for a restored empire at their expense. Everyone reassured them.

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Again you jump to general murders and away from mass shootings. Try to stay on target.

I am talking about mass shootings. It is an American problem. The only areas that come close to US numbers in mass shootings are active war zones. So why does the US have so many? Because we have the highest per capita gun ownership in the world and it is still rising as the mass shootings rise. Again, other nations have had this problem and heavily restricted gun ownership. The problem diminished quickly. The US solution is to arm more people and the numbers stay high. We are idiots. The deflection and desperate attempts to blame the problem on anything else but weapon availability are facile.

There are very few real mass shootings.  Most deaths by gunshot in America are suicides and gangland shootings (gang members shooting each other).  The lying press includes gangland shootings in so-called "mass shootings."  As I said before, the stats clearly show that the murder rate was going way down all while the rate of gun-buying was increasing.  How is that possible?  The lying response is always to blame the guns, instead of blaming those who use the guns.

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Comparing cars to firearms is insane. Cars are primarily for transportation. They serve a useful function. We have to put up with some level of loss or lose that level of transportation. Guns are used to kill things. That is it. They don’t increase access to employment opportunities or increase mobility like cars do. The only benefit they arguably have is letting hunters cull some species that need it but the vast majority of firearms aren’t used for that purpose. If you take away cars the American economy collapses because we have no public transportation.. If you take away guns……ummmmm…….there are too many geese and deer and we will have to design some kind of government agency to deal with it.

It is also worth noting that gun violence and accidents recently passed car accidents to become the leading cause of death amongst American children. We love our guns more than we love our kids.

The Switzerland thing is a common talking point but it is the libertarianism and anarchy that make the attempt to use the Swiss as justification ridiculous. The US has over four times as many firearms as the Swiss per capita. While their level of gun violence is low this is due to a massive cultural difference. A lot of gun ownership falls under militia rules, that bit of the 2nd Amendment that many ignore. The Swiss are also not bombastic idiots that carry their guns everywhere. We can’t replicate Swiss culture in the US and the people advocating for less gun control measures are not exactly models of Swiss restraint. It is a red herring suggesting it is possible to have responsible gun ownership thrown out by people who have no interest in creating a culture of responsible gun ownership. They are advocating for unofficial militias and more armed people everywhere. The answer to these groups for gun violence is always to have more guns in circulation everywhere. They combine this with “common sense” safety measures that are, on examination, insane or useless.

Holding the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment (and other amendments) in contempt is quite common among a certain class of people -- who reject the rule of law and who refuse to seek common sense safety measures.   Our Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee political parties make no effort to solve these problems, which might actually require some compromise.  Your own and others intransigence does not bode well for the future.  Our one time sense of community and mutual respect has largely disappeared.

[manol]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

Is this just random or have you been in an environment that tends to have these confrontations?

Probably some of both.

When I was eleven, we lived out in the country a mile or so from our nearest neighbor.  A man tried to break in while I was home alone.  A few decades later I lived in a city that had a crime problem, and I was present for three attempted robberies of individuals.  The other two incidents were attempted robberies of stores.  (edit: My presence at the second attempted store robbery was not random; I had gone there to warn them of the first such attempt at a similar store, which I was present for earlier that day.)

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by manol

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Like many Americans, you seem to have little understanding of our Constitution, how we got it, and why we need to follow it -- aside from rejection by you of the rule of law, which requires an actual legal process to change our Constitution (something the Brits don't even bother with, as they take away many of their citizens rights to free speech, etc.).

Did you just fill in a Madlibs with random patriotic words?

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Ukrainians could have kept the nukes, but they naively believed all the promises of territorial sovereignty, never imagining that the Russians thirsted for a restored empire at their expense. Everyone reassured them.

I just explained why they would not have been able to keep them. You just repeated your assertion. Neither the US or Russia would have tolerated Ukraine keeping nukes. The nukes were also unusable without a LOT of work. Ukraine didn’t have the codes or know-how to operate or adjust the weapons in their possession. They would have faced crippling sanctions from both NATO and Russia and its sphere and in return they would have got nuclear weapons they had no way of using effectively for at least 12 months and probably longer.

As I said: Pipe Dream.

Whoever told you Ukraine gave up their nukes because they believed in Russian benevolence is a liar.

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There are very few real mass shootings.  Most deaths by gunshot in America are suicides and gangland shootings (gang members shooting each other).  The lying press includes gangland shootings in so-called "mass shootings."  As I said before, the stats clearly show that the murder rate was going way down all while the rate of gun-buying was increasing.  How is that possible?  The lying response is always to blame the guns, instead of blaming those who use the guns.

That is not the “lying press”. The definition does vary a little by media outlet but the general definition is a shooting incident that kills or fatally wounds three or four (depending on database or outlet) people, usually not including the shooter. Yes, it includes some incidents of gang violence. This is known.

We are up to 27 school shootings this year last I checked. Who knows if I missed one in the last few days?

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Holding the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment (and other amendments) in contempt is quite common among a certain class of people -- who reject the rule of law and who refuse to seek common sense safety measures.   Our Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee political parties make no effort to solve these problems, which might actually require some compromise.  Your own and others intransigence does not bode well for the future.  Our one time sense of community and mutual respect has largely disappeared.

I suggest a review of 2nd amendment jurisprudence. The primary advocates for the 2nd Amendment were the Southern States who felt they needed constitutional protection for their slave patrol militias. The first time the Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed the right for individual to own a firearm was the Heller case way back at the beginning of US history back in *checks notes* 2008? Ironically Thomas Jefferson’s draft for Virginia’s constitution included the right for all free men to bear arms. This was taken out as it meant free Blacks would be allowed weapons.

Follow the court cases. The Second Amendment was never considered to be a right to each individual to have weapons until the end of last century and Supreme Court Justices and attorney generals issued a few warnings.

Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by Nixon:

Quote

The Constitution of the United States, in its Second Amendment, guarantees a "right of the people to keep and bear arms". However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood except by looking to the purpose, the setting and the objectives of the draftsmen ... People of that day were apprehensive about the new "monster" national government presented to them, and this helps explain the language and purpose of the Second Amendment ... We see that the need for a state militia was the predicate of the "right" guaranteed; in short, it was declared "necessary" in order to have a state military force to protect the security of the state.

Quote

If I were writing the Bill of Rights now, there wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment ... that a well regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the state, the peoples' rights to bear arms. This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud – I repeat the word 'fraud' – on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

In 1992 six former federal attorney generals issued a statement:

Quote

For more than 200 years, the federal courts have unanimously determined that the Second Amendment concerns only the arming of the people in service to an organized state militia; it does not guarantee immediate access to guns for private purposes. The nation can no longer afford to let the gun lobby's distortion of the Constitution cripple every reasonable attempt to implement an effective national policy toward guns and crime.

You are not wrapping yourself in the Constitution. You are wrapping yourself in the NRA’s post-leadership coup distortion of it. This interpretation of the Second Amendment is largely a modern invention pushed by a specific lobby. You aren’t fighting on the side of the Founders. You are backing the mendacious ploys and propaganda blitz of the gun lobbyists. The Cincinnati Revolt at the NRA was the beginning of real energy saying that the 2nd amendment said we get to have guns no matter what. It was propaganda and historical revisionism. And it worked. We now find ourselves helpless to prevent mass shootings because of some slogans that caught on. The blood of thousands is on the hands of those in the secret combination that perpetuated this fraud.

[The Nehor]

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Whoever told you Ukraine gave up their nukes because they believed in Russian benevolence is a liar.

When we were in Russia in 92 and 95, there was quite a bit of talk about the Ukraine belonging to Russia. I doubt it ever went away, except maybe in diplomatic talks. If the Russians were talking openly about it all along, how could Ukrainians not know?

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

When we were in Russia in 92 and 95, there was quite a bit of talk about the Ukraine belonging to Russia. I doubt it ever went away, except maybe in diplomatic talks. If the Russians were talking openly about it all along, how could Ukrainians not know?

Ukrainians knew that Russia saw them as a puppet state. They also knew that keeping their nukes would mean Europe shutting them out and Russia probably moving in to take them long before the Ukrainians could adapt them for use. Giving up the nukes kept the Russians from moving in immediately and got them a bit of diplomatic cover in the agreement with Russia and the US. Even if the Russians hadn’t moved in NATO would have reacted harshly to a new state with nukes. They would have gotten treatment similar to what Iran got and Ukraine needs foreign trade more than Iran does.

Ukraine also didn’t have the will to resist if they could. They were led by puppet leaders. It took a lot in recent years for Ukraine to forge a national identity and to start fighting the leftover corruption from the Soviet Union. President Zelensky’s story is very strange but amazing. He is a comedy actor and they made a TV show of him accidentally becoming President and the show was aspirational as to what Ukraine could become. So much so they elected the actor to play his character as President and he has done an amazing job. He let the military experts run the military and he and his staff are brilliant diplomats and PR geniuses. The speeches he gave to various European nations were amazingly tailor made to appeal to their own histories. While Putin’s staff were showing dour medal ceremonies before carting the wounded off to somewhere out of sight and Putin was keeping his distance from everyone out of paranoia Zelensky was visiting the front lines and eating with the troops and convening Parliament while in the middle of a war zone to keep vital business humming along.

If you want to see some of the genesis of Ukrainian nationalism they put the show on Netflix with subtitles. “Servant of the People” It is funny while being more than a little dark. The show has the powerful oligarchs winning a lot of conflicts and it shows the roadblocks of trying to reform a system where corruption is literally routine. It is a good peek into the mindset and humor of people under a corrupt regime trying to transition from authoritarianism into a more liberal European state.