this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
533 points (94.8% liked)
Lefty Memes
4391 readers
746 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What possible correlation could there be? If only we could comprehend this complex issue.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country
One shooting in a country is not proof that the right to bear arms is a public danger. As one might note from the equally isolated incidents in the countries without the right.
288 school shootings in a country that is hardly alone in that right is instead proof of a cultural disease.
A cultural disease that would be inhibited by strong gun restrictions
It raises an interesting point: if the US cracked down super hard on guns but didn't address the underlying social problems, would people just turn to a different type of violence? Whst would that be? Would you suddenly get all of the would-be shooters committing acid attacks instead?
Before or after the civil war you'd get for trying to disarm a population with more guns than people?
In any event, if you assume it happened magically you'd probably just get mass stabbings that are, at least, easier to stop and have lower body counts.
God, just imagine if all the gun fetishists became knife fetishists overnight, they're already creepy enough.
One argument I've seen against gun restrictions is that you'd be more reliant on the police force which is largely a corrupt gang of stupid bullies with both guns and the impunity to commit murder. I'm for enacting stronger restrictions but this point is difficult for me to refute.
What was that thing with "Under no pretext" I'm sure that it's not that important
Nah this is a bad take.
Gun law is complicated, they can definitely be used to enhance the violence someone with ill intent can do but social conflicts generally drive it. I mean I'm aussie, we have a fair bit of gun control but still basically anyone who isn't a drongo can get one (although atm I'm in appeals because apparently ADHD precludes me lmao, yep defs don't want shooters getting mental health treatment! Should encourage them to hide it!). We actually have quite a few, almost all bolt/lever action rifles but. Handguns have a lot of commitment and training required which is reasonable since they're for target shooting and people murdering.
We have social issues involving violence, mostly femicide DV stuff, we don't really have the shooters. We don't get the stuff like acid attacks or stabbings that you get over in like the UK or whatever. Someone can do a shitload of harm with lots of thing, a slow firing rifle isn't substantially more dangerous than a car, improv bomb, or crude chemical weapon.
Nah, this is a bad take.
There's an obvious connection to guns being easily available and mass shootings.
In the trivial sense, in that you need access to guns to do mass shootings sure
But it's way more complex. The USA is absolutely insane in how available they are, you can just fucking buy one off the shelf without a waiting period etc. You can often carry it everywhere, you can also access absolutely bonkers weapons like semi and fully automatic rifles designed to kill humans in war.
But guns are easily available in Australia: you do a 4 hour training course, pay about 100 bucks and fill out a form, say you have a safe place to store them (it'll be checked in the next year or so), and about 2 months later you can have one. It's easier than getting a license for a car! Our last mass shooting with more than 10 dead was 1996 and 10 wounded was 1999.
The USA has about 10x the guns per person but has mass shootings all the time, as well as tremendously more violence in general.
Fucking iceland has about 1/4 the guns per person of the USA and approx twice aus with similar laws and their last mass shooting was like 2005 or something?
The UK has like 1/3 as many guns per person as aus but is a waaaaay more dangerous place in terms of violent crime and even restricting it to guns comparing the same casualties for aus it's 2010 and 2018 respectively
That's not "easily available". That's technically available, but difficult to get. Is there anything, other than a driver's license, that requires that much time, effort and investment?
Getting a mortgage? Getting fit? opening a business? having a child? modifying a car? building an extension? getting vaccinated for travel?
Loads of things require more effort and cost that people do with similar or longer time frames. Nobody would say "it's technically possible but difficult to build a shed" but you've gotta go back and forth with council approval, the builder, contractors etc yet almost every house has one.
edit: also in case you're not familiar a driver's licence here requires 120 hours supervised driving, 20 at night, one knowledge test, one hazard perception test, a driving test, 3 years probation with zero tolerance and reduced speed limits (on the first year you can't even take multiple passengers at night). It is not even in the same league as a gun licence yet almost everyone has one and nobody claims they're difficult to get.
Even a motorcycle license requires a 2 day training course, a test, 1 year learning and another test, then 3 years probation. They're considered super easy to get! It costs more and takes longer than a gun licence.
There are millions of car/bike licences, clearly it's not the licencing requirements stopping people from getting guns.
Involves a mandatory 2 month waiting period?
How is that relevant?
Takes more than 2 months to do the paperwork?
Again, how is that relevant?
More than 2 months?
By whom? Lunatics?
Because it's a tool that's extremely useful, that many people have to use multiple times per day. It would be extremely difficult to get through modern life without transportation, but guns have no real use in daily life.
Oh you appear to be under a misapprehension, it doesn't take 2 months to do the paperwork. It takes about 15 minutes, but you have to wait for a cooling off period and then for processing which depends on the current admin load. So it's very quick in terms of effort, it takes you an afternoon including the training course and then it's just a matter of waiting with no more effort required.
To address your questions, for my mortgage it took us about 3 months to get everything together, not including the saving for a deposit. We needed to get a conveyancer, find the house obviously, get preapproval which involved getting lots of information about our finances and stuff together and applying to multiple banks to compare offers, then we paid a deposit, got a building inspection, needed to get insurance which was another few days of shopping around a phone calls, then we had to wait while a bunch of legal shit was done and the contract to settle which was 2 months. So yes! a lot more involved and expensive than when my wife got her licence which as mentioned only took an afternoon's effort.
Getting fit is relevant because it's an example of something people do which requires way more effort; it requires multiple days per week for months! yet more people are fit than own guns.
Child same deal as fit but more paperwork. My sister just had kids and aside from the pregnancy which was obviously rather intense they had to move, negotiate time off with work, apply for various benefits from the government, multiple screenings etc and vaccinations. She was busy as hell and she's committed to being busy as hell for like 10 more years. Heaps more effort than a firearms licence, and again very common.
Travel vaccines is a multiple week program (you can't get them all at once) and each visit to the doctor is 100 dollars or so. Plus wait times, travel like owning a firearm is often a luxury hobby so I think they're comparable. Defs harder to travel than get a gun, yet again most people do it here at some point.
You can call all of NSW lunatics if you like, but motorcycle licensing is usually done by people who already own a car and are doing it for a hobby. I did it and found it easy, at the training most conversation was about how easy it was and how excited we were to ride. When I talk to people who don't ride they have never mentioned the licensing as a barrier but instead it is almost always fear of injuries (quite reasonable) or lack of desire.
You can invent your own standards for what counts as onerous licensing, and if you're in the USA I can see why the aussie system would look very difficult. I only mean to show that it isn't considered difficult here, and provide common examples of things people do that involve way more paperwork, cost, and/or time. It's also worth nothing that some states in australia have much more lax licensing requirements for firearms without much higher ownership. It is a lack of desire which stops people, a minor barrier is enough to stop people who are just mad at someone and wanting to shoot them from doing that. People that premeditate crime aren't stopped, and yet no shootings problem.
There is no justification for having easy access to guns in the public. If citizens feel so unsafe in their homes that they think it's necessary, then there is a structural problem
Sorry, how does this follow? Most countries allow access to firearms. while we can question the validity of the concept of a country; this presumably communicates that most people don't feel it's absurd to have access to firearms.
They are just machines, some are designed as human killers and I would agree that access to those is generally bad. Some are for target practice, some are for killing non humans which I find abhorrent but understand is part of the world for now, some are pure silly fun in the same way fast motorcycles are.
When talking about firearms you need to talk about a certain category because banning them all is as silly as banning drugs or banning stump remover because it's trivial to make a crude incendiary from it.
There was a mass shooting at Uni Heidelberg last year