Guns

[mimekiller]

Good read.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/59383156 ... nd-reality

[Phoebe]

People are bringing the inspirational reading to this thread - I had a tear pop out just from reading Darcs' words on teaching, (okay, I cry easily, but damn that was powerful beauty!), and then we had Eli as chaser:
"Some of us do things because we must, because we are called and because we have no other choice in our lives."
And now the person I refer to on my end in shorthand as The Philosopher, as if I were Aquinas and he is Aristotle. (Yeah, I can be Aquinas in my mind if I want to):
"We pretend that these are largely unpreventable, perhaps inevitable, given the prevalence of thoughtful, but cowardly practitioners of this carnage. That somehow, this is part of what 'normal' looks like. Bullshit.
This is subsidiary to a larger lie, that government and laws don't work, so maybe we shouldn't pay so much for them."
"Wholesale education is an impossible task that folks have somehow been managing successfully for at least five thousand years. It produced, for good or ill, the British Empire. It produced NASA. It is, however, the last big pile of public money that folks like Blackwater, and their grafty ilk, eye with rapacious glee. But, but, in order to defund, destroy, privatize the system, we have to convince folks it's broken."
Truth!!! And this very strategy is unfolding where I live right now. Thankfully there are people trying to fight it and we can help, but it's pretty hard when you've got a couple billionaires who are convinced they don't want to have to pay for other people's education, and would rather have that money back as a tax cut to themselves or their business. The whole rest of society is what suffers, because like it or not these are our kids. They belong to all of us and will serve the needs of this community in everything they choose to do in the future. How that goes is going to depend on how we choose to invest in them. (Right now we're building a lot of citizenry that has traumatic memories of their parents being deported or having to hide lest they be deported. This stuff is absolutely not being reported on in the media, relative to its incidence and importance, but I'm sure every teacher knows that it's real because it's happening to the students and their families.)

"All this, in most places, for a per kid hourly that's a bargain compared to your local teenage babysitter."
Suppose that they make an average of $20 an hour, which is maybe more than starting wage for some teachers and less than what successful mid-to-late career teacher will be making (?), or if that's too low take $30 an hour. Average class size between 25 and 30? That's probably in a good school system. I pay my babysitter 10 bucks an hour to watch two kids. So that's either a half or a third of what the teacher is making, I don't need to withhold taxes because they earn under the legal threshold for what I can pay one person in a calendar year, and the big difference is I offer no benefits package. Otherwise they're getting paid way better to babysit my kids, if you think about what is demanded for the job.

[mimekiller]

Do you give your babysitter paid summers off?

[Phoebe]

Who gets paid summers off?

[Eliahad]

[Mike]

It's hit a nerve and it's trolling. That's what it does. Discussion will never change it.

[Phoebe]

Oh I get it now, that was a reference to teaching again. I don't understand the point of the trolling though. Is there something to disagree about here or are we mad at somebody or what? Maybe there is no point of the trolling and that's the point.

[mimekiller]

Zero trolling, it's a absurd comparison.

I believe this 100 percent, we should pay teachers more and we should make it easier to fire them.

[Bonefish]

It also has only the most tangential relationship to guns and gun laws.

[Phoebe]

Stephon Clark, has a cell phone and it's magically a gun. When the NRA calls out these incidents and demands that black citizens be legally armed with "whatever the True Name for assault rifle is" and able to defend themselves against unidentified intruders in their own homes and yards, then I will listen with an open ear to the NRA.
NRA: it's ok that kids are being shot, black people are being shot (see also: traffic stop in Chicago), black child sitting alone in park shot dead in one second no questions, mentally ill being shot (see LA man in middle of street unarmed), black man prone on ground in Florida, unarmed, shouting that his companion is a harmless, unarmed disabled person... NRA is stone silent, but oh yes, everyone else needs guns and there's a huge and successful conspiracy to take them away.

[mimekiller]

good read

https://drgo.us/gun-violence-is-not-an- ... radicated/

[Bonefish]

The opposition isn't interested in facts or objectivity. Or saving lives, either.

I mean, anyone notice how California and Maryland's strict gun laws didn't stop people from trying to go on shooting sprees? Like, you know, I have said, time and time again. And as has been proven, time and time again.

Buuuut hey, ITA FER DA KEEEEDS

[Phoebe]

I don't understand what this is supposed to prove. Pretty sure despite my support for legally owning and even concealed-carrying guns, I'm "the opposition" for anyone who wants a totally unlimited ability for anyone to own any type of firearm they want in any quantity, which I take to be your position? Is there something wrong with CA and MD's laws? Are they only successful or good laws if they can stop all use of guns to murder? I don't get this. Has anyone actually lost the ability to have/buy a weapon thanks to all this outpouring of concern about lax gun laws, other than 18-21 year olds in Florida? The main gun issue where I live is that many people want it to be legal to bring weapons into my workplace, and it's always a challenge to push that back. It is not even a remote snowball chance in hell possibility that guns are going to be heavily restricted. But keep that money flowing to the true fear-mongerers, the NRA, so that we can have quality elected officials from the GOP who are really solving some problems for this country, including the #1 issue that you claim to be your concern, the prevalence of young black men and other young men of color being shot. Not trying to be mean, just not understanding this constant gotcha mentality that proves... what? That people hate it when innocent people get shot, and they're trying to figure out what to do? A spiteful urgency to gather up even more weaponry is definitely the right answer.

[Bonefish]

Strange how more black men die from gun violence in Democratic cities that prohibit or make gun ownership extremely difficult. Guess the GOP must have done that, right?

And again, there only substantial bill the house is considering about gun control from the left is a BILL TO MAKE THE MAJORITY OF SEMI AUTOMATIC FIREARMS(WHICH ARE THE MAJORITY OF FIREARMS) ILLEGAL.

Stop lying about what you want to do. Either you support people's right to self defense or you don't.

[Phoebe]

Or maybe we're capable of more nuance in our thinking than false dichotomies like AllGunsAlways and NoGunsNoways? Wanting to work out a reasonable compromise is now lying about true intentions? Gun violence in urban areas is caused or magnified by Democratic-lawmaker gun policies? Sure, ok, that seems reasonable. Nobody is coming for your gun, I'm sorry. Nobody is coming for a white lady's guns either.

[bralbovsky]

Seems pointless and unnecessary to immediately question someone's motives or honesty without any basis.
Absolute gun folks have different priorities than absolute no gun folks, and representing one side as dishonest because they're nuanced or because they see limitations in the language of an amendment especially in contrast to the "purity of those who see no limitations in the amendment is a dodge that smells of bad logic and fear of actual discussion.

That urban areas might have other pressures that influence violence doesn't seem to work its way into evaluations of gun legislation either. Not too many red areas that are truly urban anyway. Places that claim to be cities are often places where population density perhaps used to qualify as urban, but have been decimated by industrial flight.

[buckett]

To be fair, I am coming for your guns. Specifically, I'm coming for Bonefish's guns. I'm on my way right now to confiscate them.

[buckett]

[Phoebe]

Nobody even knows if I have a gun. Because that isn't required. The Second Amendment says right there in plain English that I can have any gun I like, in secret.

[Bonefish]