A Well Regulated Militia . . .

[Nefertiti2]

[URL]https://twitter.com/charlesppierce/status/1157772935802888192?s=21[/URL]

[Cesar Rodriguez]

I think its time to accept the fact that what we are witnessing day by day and week by week is the gradual dissolution of civil society in the United States.

These aren't isolated incidents anymore, they are part of something bigger, something more global. You've a President who doesn't even behave with a shred of decency, he is a bigot, un Presidential and morally unfit for the job. A society where everyone worships at the altar of greed, a society which is seeing year-upon-year declines in life expectancy and the standard of living, mass homelessness in places like California because housing is simply not affordable meanwhile some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations don't pay their share of taxes. Wages have been stagnant for years while the rich get richer, meanwhile the US has wasted trillions of dollars on regime change and fighting terrorism - things that didn't pose that big of a threat in the first place. To cap it off citizens united ensured that the government are just puppets for the people with the biggest check books.

Until you extricate government from the clutches of the corporations, institute campaign finance reform and impose term limits on those good-for-nothing-bastards in Congress nothing will change.

[Guy Profumo]

Greg Abbott asks for "prayers"

https://www.huffpost.com/us/entry/us...604e330770/amp



"Pick up the pace, Texans" (i.e. "pick up more guns")

"We did not evaluate and plan for an incident like this"

"Too early for politics, let's focus on the memorials"

"The state legislature has 'passed bill after bill' (to protect school students)"

Huff post: "none of the bills proposed increasing gun control"

[Guy Profumo]

Meanwhile, in Dayton


https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry...b0aca3411eede9

[Guy Profumo]

(And remember folks, Nigel Farage wants people to have access to lethal weaponry in the form of handguns)

[Satchmo Distel]

It will be interesting to see if any Republicans are willing to call the murderer a racist. Trump just calls him a coward, as if he's letting the side down.

[Satchmo Distel]

Nine confirmed killed in Dayton.

[Tactical Genius]

Satchmo, more interesting for me is the thoughts of NS and if this passes his bar of what constitutes a White supremacist killing spree?
Unless he has flounced of course.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Satchmo, more interesting for me is the thoughts of NS and if this passes his bar of what constitutes a White supremacist killing spree?
Unless he has flounced of course.

Well, I'm a little surprised that in the wake of such an awful tragedy you first thought was what my opinion was, I must admit. But as you ask I'd suggest that this was very much a WS attack. I know that we're not really supposed to do this, but I did read the killer's manifesto when I found it on the Net last night. (I presume that it was legitimate, though it could have been fake, I suppose). His intentions were made very clear and it was obvious that race hate and extremist politics underpinned his actions.

When incidents such as the one in El Paso happen I have no problem in labelling them for what they are. But when an Italo-Iranian on anxiety medication yelling how angry he is starts shooting randomly at a garlic festival, I think it's wise not to assume, like you did, that is was a calculated, targetted attack and part of a WS strategy.

The interesting question for me is why you always rush, with rather unpleasant haste and glee it must be said, to assign violent attacks to WS. You did this with the shooting of the black child in Texas a few months ago, which then turned out to be the action of a black gunman. I strongly question your motives and your ability to apply fair judgment.

[Lurgee]

FWIW I'd always argued (not hereabouts, but abouts) that Islamist terrorists weren't primarily made into terrorists by Islam, but by what NS called 'toxic personality'; the radical ideology that was nearest to hand became the vessel for their hate and propensity to violence, giving it shape and direction. I'm not sure what the difference is with these wankers. They're just sad jerk offs with guns who get fired up by some evil demented gobblidigook about the Aryan Race. Does that make their killings White Supremacist killings or does it make them killings by people who happen to be White Supremacists? I'd imagine there must be considerable overlaps in the venn diagram of mental instability, violent impulse and radical ideology.

[ad hoc]

FWIW I'd always argued (not hereabouts, but abouts) that Islamist terrorists weren't primarily made into terrorists by Islam, but by what NS called 'toxic personality'; the radical ideology that was nearest to hand became the vessel for their hate and propensity to violence, giving it shape and direction. I'm not sure what the difference is with these wankers. They're just sad jerk offs with guns who get fired up by some evil demented gobblidigook about the Aryan Race. Does that make their killings White Supremacist killings or does it make them killings by people who happen to be White Supremacists? I'd imagine there must be considerable overlaps in the venn diagram of mental instability, violent impulse and radical ideology.

I disagree. Seems to me that we more or less all have the capacity for horrible senseless violence directed at "the other" . It's not just radical ideology that fires that up, joining the army seems to do roughly the same job. Look at the IDF for example.

[Tactical Genius]

I was actually going to come back and post that to be fair to you, the FBI are also doubting the Garlic festival shooting is based on WS ideology.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/erro...ry?id=64706955

Well, I'm a little surprised that in the wake of such an awful tragedy you first thought was what my opinion was, I must admit.

No you wasn't, I am sure you had a good idea what my response was, I am if anything predicable.

I know that we're not really supposed to do this, but I did read the killer's manifesto when I found it on the Net last night.

I think it is good people read it so that we as a society know what we are up against and are motivated to do something about it. A great fustration of mine is the number of people who stick their heads in the sand whilst the bodies pile up.

But when an Italo-Iranian on anxiety medication yelling how angry he is starts shooting randomly at a garlic festival, I think it's wise not to assume, like you did, that is was a calculated, targetted attack and part of a WS strategy.

He identifies as white, he also posted up a racist manifesto outlining his reasons for doing what he did. Also this is OTF, making assumptions is what we do.

The interesting question for me is why you always rush, with rather unpleasant haste and glee it must be said, to assign violent attacks to WS.

I am calling it out as it is.

If you want to make accusations in my direction under the veil of confused questioning why are you singling me out for calling this as a WS murder when I am not the first one to call this out on this thread?
They called this out nearly 10 hours before me and you didn't call them out for their unpleasant haste.
As for glee, please show evidence of my taking glee in race related murders bearing in mind the victims in general tend to look more like me than like you.
I mean you make a serious accusation there so would like to see you substantiate it.

You did this with the shooting of the black child in Texas a few months ago, which then turned out to be the action of a black gunman.

I was wondering when someone was going to bring this up, my bet was on someone else. I have probably called out around 50 WS incidents and been called once wrong. That's a 98% accuracy rate which I make no apologies for and even that was based on available reports. Can you honestly say you have that rate of accuracy for any subject you post on this board?
So no I wont let you use that to silence me or invalidate anything I say, you have played your joker now and you have wasted it.

This is the point where you threaten to flounce to put me on the defensive and gain sympathy.

[Patrick Thistle]

https://twitter.com/amjadsalimkhan/status/1157944664772599808?s=19

[Nocturnal Submission]

I was actually going to come back and post that to be fair to you, the FBI are also doubting the Garlic festival shooting is based on WS ideology.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/erro...ry?id=64706955



No you wasn't, I am sure you had a good idea what my response was, I am if anything predicable.



I think it is good people read it so that we as a society know what we are up against and are motivated to do something about it. A great fustration of mine is the number of people who stick their heads in the sand whilst the bodies pile up.



He identifies as white, he also posted up a racist manifesto outlining his reasons for doing what he did. Also this is OTF, making assumptions is what we do.



I am calling it out as it is.

If you want to make accusations in my direction under the veil of confused questioning why are you singling me out for calling this as a WS murder when I am not the first one to call this out on this thread?
They called this out nearly 10 hours before me and you didn't call them out for their unpleasant haste.
As for glee, please show evidence of my taking glee in race related murders bearing in mind the victims in general tend to look more like me than like you.
I mean you make a serious accusation there so would like to see you substantiate it.



I was wondering when someone was going to bring this up, my bet was on someone else. I have probably called out around 50 WS incidents and been called once wrong. That's a 98% accuracy rate which I make no apologies for and even that was based on available reports. Can you honestly say you have that rate of accuracy for any subject you post on this board?
So no I wont let you use that to silence me or invalidate anything I say, you have played your joker now and you have wasted it.

This is the point where you threaten to flounce to put me on the defensive and gain sympathy.

You were going to post a retraction of your opinion of the motivations behind the garlic festival shooting. How unfortunate that I mentioned it before you had a chance to do so, because that's made it look as though you only made reference to it after I prompted you to do so. What rotten luck.

No, that's true. I entirely expected you to leap upon the story and suspected that you'd name-check me and ask me exactly the question that you did.

Well, I think that there are dangers attendant with the dissemination of these tracts. While most people are repulsed by them a few may be inspired, I fear. FWIW, and I only skim read it, amongst all the usual racist tropes and themes, the gunman also seemed scared of a future in which jobs were being lost to automation and the physical environment deteriorated. He also, chillingly, listed the weapons and ammunition he was planning to use and how to maximise their effectiveness!

So, a reasonable response to the comments that you asked me for then, TG. But then the insinuations and game-playing start.

I'm not singling you out, but nice try. While others were posting about the festival shooting in general terms you posted three times and on each occasion it was about a WS connection. In the last one you quoted the gunman as hating "Silicon Valley twats" and I replied to point out that he'd actually written "Silicon Valley white twats." Now, you either misquoted him in error or because the use of the word "white" undermined your thesis. I'd like to know which one it was - a sloppy mistake or a deliberate attempt to obfuscate?

It was your misleading comments which prompted my involvement in the discussion.

You're delighted when you hear about a shooting in the US with a racial angle. You can't wait to link to it and tell everyone how you've been going on about this for ages. Your very first comment after the festival shooting was "I have spoken about this numerous times before" followed by a hyperlink.

My God! You're doing accuracy percentages for muderous attacks and talking about playing a "joker." This isn't a game, man!!!

[Patrick Thistle]

American supremacy

https://twitter.com/Nyrod/status/1157763263167434753?s=19

[DCI Harry Batt]

Thing is, that's out of date already.

[Satchmo Distel]

Has anyone seen reliable data that correlates mass shooting hate crimes with levels of white nationalist political rhetoric? If no such data exists, I think we have to be cautious about trends until they have been scientifically established, while noting that the most obvious variable between the US and the other countries above is gun availability. White nationalism is a factor but there are other countries with racist leaders and bigoted media that don't have regular mass killings. Occam's razor would ask us to look at the obvious before assuming the non-obvious.

[DCI Harry Batt]

White nationalism might be more obvious to some than to others.

[WOM]

I think we have to be cautious about trends until they have been scientifically established, while noting that the most obvious variable between the US and the other countries above is gun availability.

I thought that Michael Moore pretty conclusively dispelled that idea in Bowling for Columbine. The difference between the US and virtually every other country on the planet is simply fear. Americans have built a highly strung culture of fear where everyone thinks everyone else is out to get them or steal from them or notionally take what's theirs. Combine that with the guns and you have mass killings.

Nobody is close to the US for per capita gun ownership, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estima...ita_by_country but even those countries with a statistically significant number of guns (Canada, Finland, Uruguay, Cyprus, Iceland) don't have a proportionally high number of mass killings. None, in most cases.

[ursus arctos]

Bowling for Columbine is 17 years old.

The political landscape in this country has changed significantly in those seventeen years, particularly on the right.

This NYT piece from 2017 summarises a significant volume of research that concludes that the primary factor is our ridiculous volume of guns.

[DCI Harry Batt]

But that really only pushes the question on a further step, surely.

[ursus arctos]

Well, it depends.

If one is looking at "gun violence" or "mass shootings" as a whole, it is indeed the primary factor. "We" shoot each other (and ourselves) much more often than people elsewhere in large part because guns are so ubiquitous. If, on the other hand, one is only focusing on the Sandy Hook/Pulse/Parkland/Tree of Life/Las Vegas/El Paso, etc. subgroup (which I tend to think is what most non-USians think of when they hear "US mass shootings") the broader political issues become more manifest.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I meant that it's not much of an explanation, saying "the USA is exceptional (in this one thing) because the USA is exceptional (in this other thing)". There's not much explaining done by the explanation.

[DCI Harry Batt]

No, it isn't. It's saying that you need to explain why there are so many guns. It's not just something that happened by accident and now well it's inevitable that there will be loads of gun deaths.

[ursus arctos]

I'm not sure that I follow.

If I posit that New Zealand is exceptionally good at rugby union because rugby union is exceptionally central to New Zealand male cultural identity in a way that isn't replicated in another country of its size, doesn't that provide an explanation for their dominance?

It obviously isn't the only explanation, but very few phenomena have a single explanation.