i agree with much of this.
so what's your solution?
alasdair
I don't have one. This one comes down to human nature. People like simplicity. Say you're Antigun. You think this gun or that gun or all guns should be taken away. As I said before, I grew up around gun nuts. This one is a debate I've been subject to my whole life, for much of it over on team 2nd amendment. Growing up around such views, I'll confess I used to share them when I much younger. Who wouldn’t when growing up everyone you know shared them? But I grew up and decided I couldn't support that view. But I can't deny I still have sympathies towards law abiding gun owners who've never done anything wrong and don't want their hobby taken away unless there really is NO other choice whatsoever to stop this sort of thing. I also think the current situation is unacceptable and some level of gun control must happen.
But I've seen for SOOOoo long now why it doesn't. Both sides are full of mistrust, believing themselves to be on the right side and their opposition stupid, misguided, I'll intentioned, dishonest, etc. and in some respects I think both are right about that, they just don't see how they do it too. I've seen countless times how people who want gun control will simply refuse to accept seriously gun owners having a right to continue their hobby and their chosen form of self defense. And because of that, they don't even try to find a solution where compromise is involved and the same ends are achieved. And as for the pro gun side, they refuse to accept ANY compromise on gun control, because they know that's how what they want will be taken away. Little by little, one step at a time. All because they compromised.
Worst part is, they aren't wrong. Their compromise, without compromise from the anti gun side WILL have that result. So for their own reasons, neither side will compromise. Those pro gun won't because they know where it will end up. The anti gun side won't because they don't accept that the rights of some to play weekend soldier are worth compromise when people are dying. But the he result is nobody moves, and both have an equal share of blame in why nothing gets done. It's not like either has ANY desire to see the other sides perspective, they have no interest in seeing merit in the others argument and coming to a compromise solution.
And in America that's the only way it will happen. Until then, each side has minor temporary victories and set backs but no real solution.
What's the solution? Sadly I don't see one. Both sides have engaged in so much dishonesty and propaganda. The NRA, the Brady campaign.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, both sides continually use these kinds of events to promote their own cause and continue the very phenomenon that enables this to keep happening. Over here most will be saying how this proves we need more gun control. I promise you right now there are many others out there, over on the pro gun side, talking amongst themselves. About how this was probably a gun free zone and only a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun and how we need to find these people before they do this without taking away people's right to own guns and defend themselves with guns.
I've spent years seeing what hard core gun nuts talk about when they think nobody is listening. I know how they think.
This is how it works on the subject of gun control, but countless other political views have their own version of this kind of thing going on. Different manifestation, same phenomenon. That being that people group with others who think like them, and God the Facebook culture has made this even worse. I'll go unfriend anyone i seriously disagree with till I'm convinced my view must be the majority view.
I don't know how you solve this, I don't know that it can be solved. This has gone on so long, both sides are dead set in their philosophy. And the refusal to associate with people you really REALLY disagree with is a big part of the problem. Because both sides have no empathy for the other. I do because I grew up around one side, but as an adult in real life am mostly friends with people on the other side. But most people haven't spent years seeing how both sides talk with each other as friends and family when nobody who would disagree is around.
I have my own views on gun control of course, but as I said. I don't want to engage in gun control debate and especially not on this thread after people have only just died, most view points would have had at least a few people of the dead disagree. Mine would probably have had all 50 disagree. So as far as I'll go is to say that my beliefs generally make enemies of both sides because it's loyal to neithers hard line and has sympathies to both.
My problem here is that as if all this weren't bad and depressing enough. Both sides continually exploit these tragedies to prove their own point. On bluelight it's mostly for the Antigun side, probably because drug users tend to be a lot more left leaning than gun nuts tend to be. But right now over on the pro gun side they'll be doing exactly the same thing for their points of view. And just like here, not with a thought in the world about the victims. The victims are just background context, they have no more weight than other trivial details like where it happened and what gun was used and where the shooter is from. There's no real caring about the loss of life involved beyond the fun outrage it provokes that if people would just listen and do exactly what we say this wouldn't happen.
And well, yeah I think it's pretty appalling. I mean, these are all real people. Every human being is a universe unto itself. Way I see it, when someone died, you kill them, all the children they might have had, all the children they might have had. Every human who dies long before their time is a genocide. What I see in this is no care for the dead, just use of them to continue exactly what killed them. Refusal to compromise, refusal to understand.
Like I said, I have sympathies in both camps. And frequently find myself appauled by the behavior of both. They are both to blame.
My interest here is in showing what I see as the truth about what's really going on. What sparked it is the few posts of condolences immediately followed by the predictable beginning of politics. I often think about if me or if someone I loved were in that shooting. I also think back to the years I grew up around gun nuts. Another thing that pissed me off was the comment that maybe some would have become Antigun after being shot. It's crap. Gun nuts wouldn't have changed their mind because they were in a mass shooting, they'd be wishing they had their gun and how they could have done something if they had.
The very suggestion shows a total ignorance and disrespect of the other points of view. Both sides have legitimate points of view, and both sides have good intentions somewhere, and both sides have been corrupted and gone to extremes and capitalize and make political mileage out of others deaths. Having been in both camps, I see a lot more in common than I do difference.
I forget who said it, but someone here mentioned how indeed they don't care what the victims views were, followed by that comment that if they weren't Antigun to start with they probably changed their mind (no they would not have and the suggestion is so disrespectful). I'll give them props for this though. At least you admitted you don't care. I still think that's better than pretending you do as so many do in this kind of thing.
