[Primateus]

But you're not really offering any insights or counterpoints. Nothing you have offered is anything new. It's the same old arguments that, when boiled down to their core, amounts to nothing more than "I need my guns because X reasons." and "Bad guys with guns are only stopped by good guys with guns". We've heard it all before, and despite everything you've claimed, so far your government hasn't tried to take your guns away from you.

Oh, I forgot about your stupidly ignorant assertion that only you guys are free, because guns.

What insights have you offered? What counterpoints that have not been addressed?

[Tsundoku]

OK, recent Democratic successes in the lower house and a new commitment to gun control. Do you think it will last? Does it have a shot (pardon the pun)?

https://www.theatlan...slation/581191/

Apologies for my habit of posting short intros with a link to an article, but it's generally because the article says it far better than I could, espcially with the sub headlines and intro paragraphs. Hey, I know my limits, and they are many.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 28 January 2019 - 10:29 AM

[worry]

I wouldn't expect anything boundary-pushing before 2020 personally, but I would hope they get there eventually, and I do think very simple common sense things like expanded background checks & doing away with loopholes won't hurt them by and large.



This story isn't strictly gun-specific, but it does break down when violence is political in motive, who's doing that violence in the U.S.:

[worry]

[Aptorian]

That wasn't funny at all!

[worry]

Aw dang I thought I posted both parts.

Spoiler

[Nicodimas]

The New Zealand shooting videos....are brutal. Wouldn’t suggest don’t watch super sad. It’s everywhere right now

1- I was sad when the first of the live-streaming ones occurred..knowing some sickos are going to use this venue. This was probably the worst i have seen.

2- The best chance the people have is to cower in a corner. it enrages me that this considered a option and what most modern safety incident’s teach..so mad.


This one is brutal. Horrific. Prayers truly out to all those effected.

Sidebar: This guy was a 4chan/8 Chan? Not sure what 8 Chan is and guessing its the bottom of the barrel part of 4 Chan and followed the links to that particular part of the net that I usually ignore. Ick.

Shooter posted a manifesto. It’s out there

Read through it, if this was from the attacker. White nationalist terrorist very very angry. Looking to ignite a war...

Update final: cops got him i think

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 15 March 2019 - 03:52 AM

[Silencer]

Thank fuck New Zealand's common sense approach to gun control means that this is the first mass shooting in nearly three decades.

Hope this one off sick fuck gets his dues quickly at the hands of our well trained and mostly responsible police force.
I can only imagine how much worse this would be in a country where more people in the area were armed.

[Primateus]

Also, it's not going to be played off as some "angry loner with a chip on his shoulder".

NZ Prime Minister has already officially called it terrorism, which is as it should be.

[Cause]

Where do these nutjobs come from. How does your mind get warped like this.

to hate something so much that you are willing to go on a suicide mission to kill people to make a point that the vast majority of your country is going to ignore and disagree with.

[Aptorian]

If you step back for a second and look at who these people are and why they do what they do, it's not that hard to understand.

These are people who feel disenfranchised. People who believe that the world is wrong and they know what's right. If you step into their shoes, they're the good guys. The freedom fighters, the patriots, the martyrs. They want to see a change in this world and they want to be the lone gunman who faced down the aliens, the foreigners, the corrupt non-believers or what ever romantic notion they have in their heads.

It's not just about hatred, it's about ideology. It's what's so scary about this new age of fake news and fringe communities on the Internet.

[Silencer]

Today, I am proud to be a Kiwi.
This is how you respond to these attacks. Clear condemnation of the act of hate, calling it what it is - terrorism - and focusing on the victims, positive actions to move forward, compassion, and empathy.


https://i.stuff.co.n...ds-darkest-days

[Tiste Simeon]

Yep. In America there would already be people (the usual Fox News loving MAGA types) trying to justify his actions or explain away things or argue about it being terrorism because he's not brown skinned. Well done NZ. We love you.

[QuickTidal]

Absolutely well done NZ in how they responded to this. Even in Canada when this happened a few years back we kind of had some pundits equivocate about the guy...but it's nice to see no equivocation and just solidly calling it what it is.

[Primateus]

Well that's nice...

[Aptorian]

Gotta love that Bible quote at the end just to give it that final touch of class.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 March 2019 - 03:49 PM

[Illuyankas]

The BBC actually has a policy of not using the word terrorism unless it's a direct quote, which is another reason (along with finding more and more Question Time question askers who are 'secretly' Tory councillors) why our media is a total shitshow that needs dramatic levels of reform

Also fuck that guy forever

[worry]

We have to stop thinking of this as a fringe-only problem, or even a not-us problem. 8 chan may be the fringe, but FOX News and Rupert Murdoch's other entities aren't the fringe. Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Richard Dawkins, and Bill Maher aren't the fringe -- aside from Peterson, they aren't even necessarily aiming this stuff at the right wing. I know in the past I've defended Maher's show, if not Maher himself, as worthwhile entertainment even if Maher was obnoxious and wrong often. I've even done it on this board in years past, IIRC, and very much regret it. He's a large-platform vector for Islamophobia, period. So I know I'm complicit.

David Frum, who coined the Axis of Evil, writes for the Atlantic. Not a single war criminal who took us into Iraq and Afghanistan faced any consequences -- in fact, the US just announced it would be revoking visas of any ICC investigators looking into US war crimes there. China has a million Muslims in concentration camps. NZ's current PM calling this terrorism was right and good, but Scott Morrison in Australia rose to power largely on an anti-Muslim campaign, right? And we know the tech bros in charge of Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter will platform straight white male supremacy forever, under the guise of "free speech" absolutism. But it's for money, and perhaps because they fundamentally agree. @Jack was just on the J*e R*gan show alongside neo-Nazi "journalist" Tim Pool, after all, rubbing shoulders. He literally apologized to Candace Owens last year for someone accurately describing her as "far right". And we know FB contributed to the Rohingya massacre. And 63 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. They can claim they didn't think he was serious, or they voted for reasons unrelated to his consistent and open white nationalism, but none of that holds water...no matter how much you try to outsource your responsibility, the end result is the same. We have to stop pretending that it's like just a matter of different political opinions, the marketplace of ideas where the best rise to the top. Or that "political correctness" is some boogieman out to stifle liberty.

And I'm not saying all complicity is equal, or that a vote is the same as a bullet. But in particular, we have to stop pretending that support for the global right -- for any reason -- isn't complicity in this ugly, brutal nationalist enterprise. And that progress requires self-reflection, honesty, and accountability. The stakes are violence and death, and at its extreme, genocide. For real. And like, as an individual you can only do so much. But at the very least, react to Trump etc. supporters the same way you'd react to someone who just told you they believe in phrenology. Don't minimize the way dork-asses like Pewdiepie casually pumping out the N word & pro-Nazi "jokes", or Gamergaters insisting games not "push an agenda", or incel communities festering resentment, or anti-Trans bathroom bills, or someone on your messageboard getting drunk and going on a rant about "liberals" being subhuman or whatever -- all contribute to this overall project. Because the flow goes both ways. Some of this stuff is concentrated, like on 8 chan, some of it is more diffuse, like casual acceptance of people saying "durka durka" for laughs, but it's all ultimately on the same wavelength. There are preconditions for radicalization that aren't internal (eg the manufacture and widespread availability of guns), and there are modes of radicalization at the individual and societal level that don't get categorized as "radicalization." The GOP is radicalized, but no one hardly thinks of them that way, even among their opponents. But these are all circumstances that foster extreme acts.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Silencer, on 15 March 2019 - 11:44 AM, said:

Today, I am proud to be a Kiwi.
This is how you respond to these attacks. Clear condemnation of the act of hate, calling it what it is - terrorism - and focusing on the victims, positive actions to move forward, compassion, and empathy.

https://i.stuff.co.n...ds-darkest-days

Absolutely brilliant response. "You may have chosen us.... we utterly reject and condemn you" could not be clearer or better said. As others have said, Britain has plenty to learn with this sort of thing.

[worry]

This is good: