The News Thread

[The Ozzman]

Explosives were used at Columbine, weren't they?

Couldn't remember this or not:

The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine,[3][4] an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and car bombs. The perpetrators, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while attempting to escape the school. After exchanging gunfire with responding police officers, the pair subsequently committed suicide.[5][6]

Edit: Found this too. Amazing that we're still talking about bullying 20 years later. I'm starting to believe that people want guns banned so they/their kids can continue bullying the less fortunate or the nerds without any punishment or recourse. It would make sense:

The massacre sparked debate over gun control laws, high school cliques, subcultures, and bullying. It resulted in an increased emphasis on school security with zero tolerance policies,[8][9] and a moral panic over goth culture, gun culture, social outcasts (though the perpetrators were not outcasts),[10][11] the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers, teenage Internet use,[12] and violence in video games.[13][14]

>School security with zero tolerance policies

How's that working out for them these days?

 

[The Ozzman]

Found this from the Columbine weapons used lmao

 

[Satanstoenail]

I love how creative the NRA are, coming out and blaming Ritalin and video games. Who needs to actually fact check anything when you can just say stuff? Never mind that the rest of the developed world has Ritalin and video games.

I'm starting to believe that people want guns banned so they/their kids can continue bullying the less fortunate or the nerds without any punishment or recourse.

Wut

 

[The Ozzman]

Wut

Grab your tinfoil hat!

 

[Satanstoenail]

Grab your tinfoil hat!

I'm starting to believe that people want guns banned because 911 was an inside job

 

[The Ozzman]

I'm starting to believe that people want guns banned because 911 was an inside job

JET FUEL CAN'T MELT DANK MEMES

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Lying, whether implicitly or explicitly, is a necessary part of marketing and lobbying. I don't think it's conclusively wrong to blame psychiatric medication of children for the recent uptick in school shootings; pharmaceutical proliferation is FAR higher than gun proliferation since the 1970s. At the same time, it's unquestionable that the proliferation of guns allows people to commit quick massacres that would be nearly impossible without guns. I don't blame the NRA for distorting some truths when the left already does the same to a far more egregious extent in ignoring ethnic differences between the USA and Western Europe when discussing overall gun violence.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The assault weapons ban of 1994 worked. Mass shootings immediately plummeted after implementation, and naturally they immediately resurged as the law expired in 2004. That's one thing, and the fact that a shotgun and revolver were in this case used is not a counter-argument to this like gun nuts always like to pretend. On gun violence more generally, easy: restrict access, require comprehensive gun safety training programs, and implement a steep sales tax on gun purchases. Making it harder to get guns doesn't stop all gun violence, but it does radically reduce it.

[citation needed]

Until the last five years, most spree shootings did not involve an assault rifle.

 

[The Ozzman]

What's that source, ground beef boi?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Just yanked it off of Vox since no one can call it a right-wing source. You can get different numbers depending on how you define a spree-shooting incident.

https://www.vox.com/cards/gun-violence-facts/mass-shootings-rare-united-states

 

[Dak]

https://marginalrevolution.com/marg...terialization-humanitys-biggest-surprise.html

Andrew McAfee argues that the Earth Day environmentalists correctly diagnosed the problem, a worsening environment, but were wrong about the solution, degrowth. In fact, the drive to reduce costs by making better use of resources has led to a dramatic decrease in resource use even as production has increased, a dematerialization. Poverty not prosperity is the enemy of the environment.

 

[The Ozzman]

Called this a year ago

https://drudgenow.com/article/?n=0&...ndoms-required-at-scouts-24th-world-jamboree/

 

[Mort Divine]

Yeah, and?

 

[The Ozzman]

Yeah, and?

Says the xhir who used to date kids

Should really just rename it the Degenerate Scouts of America and call it a day but it's not surprising that the board's biggest degenerate has no issue with this.

Edit: Sorry, I meant the Xhir/Xhim Scouts of America how cishet of me

 

[Satanstoenail]

I don't blame the NRA for distorting some truths when the left already does the same to a far more egregious extent in ignoring ethnic differences between the USA and Western Europe when discussing overall gun violence.

Can you elaborate?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Can you elaborate?

Democrats pretend that the only factor related to homicide that differs between the USA and Europe is gun abundance. What they neglect to mention is that black descendants of slaves make up 50% of all homicide in the USA, and that Europe has basically no descendants of slaves within their borders. Non-Hispanic whites commit murder at a rate close to that of European nations with above-average homicide rates, e.g. Belgium. Blacks commit murder at a rate several times higher than non-Hispanic whites.

Democrats also neglect to mention the existence of Switzerland and the Czech Republic, two European nations with relatively high levels of semi-automatic weapons available with overall very low homicide rates.

 

[Satanstoenail]

The vast majority of mass shootings are committed by white men though, and the only time that gun control is brought up seriously is when a mass shooting happens.

I have no doubt that there are other countries with high levels of semiautomatic weapons, the difference is the gun culture in the USA and perceiving gun ownership as a right instead of a privilege.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The vast majority of mass shootings are committed by white men though, and the only time that gun control is brought up seriously is when a mass shooting happens.

I have no doubt that there are other countries with high levels of semiautomatic weapons, the difference is the gun culture in the USA and perceiving gun ownership as a right instead of a privilege.

For the vast majority of notable mass shootings (e.g. the 10+ dead ones that make national news), true. Mass shootings when defined as any shooting where three-ish or more people are shot and killed fall closer to the overall nation's demographics; white men make up ~50% of men in America, and they commit ~50% of mass shootings. Blacks are still over-represented when all mass shootings are considered. That might be beside the point though.

I don't disagree that gun availability enables people to commit sudden deadly rampages. Said rampages make up less than 1% of all our gun homicides, however, while black gun homicide (often in the context of "gang violence") makes up approximately 50%. Therefore, the NRA lying about the cause behind 1% of gun homicides is a much less serious sin than the Democratic Party lying about 50%.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Mass shootings are also defined as being indiscriminate and non-gang related though. Most of the black homicide you’re talking about wouldn’t fall into that category anyway.

America has a gun problem and America has a mass shooting problem. It’s a gun culture issue that differs greatly from every other country in the world and laying it at the feet of black people is a massive cop out.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Like I said in a previous post, mass shootings are a somewhat nebulous term, so I'm sure there is some definition of mass shooting that fits the non-gang related criteria, but the common ones I'm familiar with just look purely at the number of people shot within a brief (usually 24 hour) window. If you wish to use narrower criteria that only includes the biggest/most infamous mass shootings, that's fine, you're only boosting my argument by narrowing the number of murders you care about. If there was a magic wand that could be used to cause all intended mass shooters to spontaneously combust before beginning their rampages, the reduction of America's murder rate would not be measurable above noise. If there was a magic wand that caused all intended black murderers to spontaneously combust prior to the act, our homicide rate would be cut in half overnight.