The god of Liberty is a hungry god. Child Sacrifice Uvalde edition. [UNLV Update]

That’s an obscene amount of money to give any politician for any reason, let alone gun lobbying. Wtf?!

When someone sells their soul, they're not gonna do it for a pat on the back.

So when people say ‘thoughts and prayers…’ what are they actually praying for?

If you are praying this never happens again then it seems your prayers are going unanswered.

Or maybe your sky being doesn’t actually exist and your prayers are all bullshit?

Or maybe God doesn’t care about little kids getting murdered… in which case he may not be a being worth following and then, really, what’s the point of your religious devotion?

Fear of being punished with eternal damnation I guess?

Just some random thoughts. I don’t think we have any hardcore religious people posting here anymore.

Only fakers like TLS.

Thoughts and prayers cost nothing.
And since you don't have to say what the content of the thoughts are, they can be "Haha! Just kidding, God. Take-sies back-sies!! I luhhvs mah guuunnz!!!".

Why?

Why does each slaughter need of children need its own thread?

What is special about this one? What makes it any different from Columbine, Sandy Hook or Parkland?

This is America.

This is just how it is.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of children and teachers. It is it’s natural manure.

Child Sacrifice is required to be free. Does each incidence really need its own thread?

This is what Freedom looks like:

For one thing, making this its own thread will make it stand out more. Members browsing Wordforge might see the thread title of this current thread and see that it has new posts, but from the thread title this thread appears to be related to Florida, and has nothing to do with this most recent shooting in Texas.

Additionally, this thread has over 2,500 posts, which is rather daunting and offputting for someone to open and read through the thread, making it even less likely for someone to click on the thread. I honestly think more discussion would happen if this were its own thread.

I understand your point, though. This shit happens all the time, and it's a fucking disgrace. But this most recent shooting is particularly awful considering the number and age of the kids murdered. It's on par with the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings. And I still think this deserves its own thread.

We can't trust the government because they're incompetent and fuck up everything, but if we let them regulate guns more closely they will take over our lives and control every aspect of our existence. Have I got that right?

I just want to point out the choice the guntards are providing. Out of their cold dead hands, or your cold dead children, black people, and maybe you.

Maybe if the choice is killing guntards or seeing all these innocent people killed by guns then we were told what we had to do to stop the murder of innocents, and it is to spill the blood of the not so innocent guntards.

Let us face another fact that the guntards are telling us without telling us. None of them think we would ever allow them to have a gun if we passed some common sense gun restrictions. They jump in front of that accusation every time letting us know even they know they have no business with a gun. It is like talking about racism around oldfella who always knew we were talking about him in his head.

Every time someone mentions some tighter regulastions these people scream because they know they should not have a gun. They know that in their own heads, and who knows who they are better than they do? They know they are dangerous and irresponsible with a gun and if anyone made the slightest bit of effort to judge whether or not they should have a gun no one would let them near a gun, except for a gun salesman. If there is anything worse than the lowest drug dealer, lawyer, politician, or pimp it is a gunseller.

Guns are a religion in this country.
A religion created by corporations.
And make no mistake, the NRA isn't a "civic group" it's a big fat corporation.
All this blood is for a buck.
Nothing else.
All this flag-salute-y "liberty" horseshit is just the fairy tale of the religion.
Like Kool-Aid Man, or Tony The Tiger, or Lucky The Leprechaun.
Shit like that.

More guns isn't the answer. (the police shot at the suspect and still let him go inside the school, and need I remind you this was Texas, where there are millions of guns and gun owners).

Fewer guns isn't the answer. (banning a thing does not prevent people from getting that thing in other ways, often empowering criminal enterprises like the mafia, see prohibition, and literally anything else actually banned in this country).

A culture not steeped in the glorification of militarism, in the commodification of human lives, in the increasing scarcity of not only basic necessities of life, but even the luxuries that let our brains rest, that let us rest, a culture steeped in the brutal treatment of the poor and weak by authority figures who demand your vote and crush you under their limousines, addressing that would be a start to an answer.

If we promoted a culture that rewarded kindness, compassion, cooperation, interdependence, that would teach that your neighbor isn't your competitor, that the resources you're fighting over are actually plentiful, that there is more than enough room for you, for me, for everyone. There are countries that work to create this culture, that doesn't have the draconian fascist-lite "justice" system the US has, countries that seek to truly rehabilitate, rather than our carceral system that treats its prisoners (a number that increases by the day) like subhuman scum.

It's not the fact that people can get hold of guns. The gun is a MacGuffin. It's the mindset behind the gun, the culture that feeds that mindset, and the state that provides the grist to make it possible. Getting people to realize that is the most difficult part, because that shiny gun is right there, sitting on a pedestal, waiting for you to fight over it, to claim victory once you have it. That's all it is, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's enough to keep people busy rather than noticing that whether it's children, adults, seniors, black, white, home grown, immigrant, the bodies keep piling up, and the people at the top on "both sides" of the debate continue to make bank while it happens.

After all, if you don't vote for the Republicans, the liberals will steal your guns.
But it's important to remember that if you don't vote blue no matter who (Henry Cueller included), the Republicans will give everyone a gun and it will be like the wild west again.

You care, and I care, but the people in power? They don't give a shit how many bodies pile up. They still make money from every tragedy.

The LAST goddamn thing we need to be fostering is "interdependence." Fucking hell.

So, basically, what you're saying is before we can even attempt to make things better, we need more information to fully understand where the issues are and how we can resolve those issues?

Did you build the computer you're typing on?
No?
Could you?
No?
You're dependent.

Yes. Going back and forth on more guns/fewer guns only scratches the surface, and doesn't address the core issues of why these things happen in the US like they do, where they don't happen anywhere else in the world, save for nations that are consistently torn apart by war, and even then it's not as common as it is here. We have a deep, deep cultural problem that needs addressed first, and the gun itself is just a distraction.

Says UA, as he lies in the desert, dehydrated and dying, while telling the paramedic who found him to leave him the fuck alone.

No man is an island, UA. You didn't create yourself, pop out of your mom, and start doing your own taxes. Your ass had to be carried a long time before you could walk.

I do have to disagree. The gun is empowering the mindset. I do not believe everyone has a good and decent heart. Humans come from animals, and it is clear that there are a large chunk of them that operate on the cruel level of an animal. Pain, physical restraint, and intimidation do the most to stop violence from those of us who are most prone to animalistic violent outbursts.

When I ran my paintball business we did not give grown men chest padding. That was for children and women. The reason was pain was much better at stopping some guy hopped up on adrenaline and charging people than the refs words. If you gave the grown men the chest shields you would have to physically get in front of them to stop them from shooting people. It is not to say all men were like that, but most were and you did not know who was like that.

The change you want in society might be possible, but you cannot cure the section of the population who has that problem now. Maybe you can raise the next generation to be better, but the ones we have now cannot be changed. We actually have to wait until they die, or kill them all. That latter part of that is a joke that is not going to happen.

The US is not such an extreme deviation from other places. When guns are scarce the death rate drops significantly. They are a tool that makes killing too easy. You cannot put that tool into the hands of an animal and expect any good results. Some people have evolved from animals, and perhaps for their freedom we should have the entertainment of guns, but that will always come with a cost. The cost of having guns in society is and has always been larger death counts. The best way to lower those counts is to remove the presence of guns. Unlike other things that work on the same principle like drugs or cars, guns do not have much utility beyond killing something. So limiting them to areas where we need to kill something is easier as no one actually dies from lack of a gun.

Do you or do you not live in a society?

Fuck off and die alone if that's your wish.

I keep pitching Colorado to him.
Colorado lets you live the Grizzly Adams life without paying property taxes.
If he hunts and forages, there goes income and sales tax too.
Its his utopia, and a chunk of America allows it.
It's right fucking there.

You're not wrong, but I'd be fine with taking guns first and doing national introspection later at the moment.

There's a reason mental wards don't leave sharp objects around in those first few weeks after being admitted.

The government is filled with competent people that function in a corrupt, bloated, broken system. They are really good at blowing shit up, stealing people's land, trampling on people's rights, making people's lives a living hell and going to war. Given the opportunity, they will control as much as they possibly can and we know that they never give that power back.This has been proven with the actions of government figures during the pandemic.

I kind of clarify more of what I was trying to say earlier in @Shirogayne's response below, but I do understand where you're coming from here. I used to be all in against guns, because I don't like them, I don't. I hate guns. That said, the more I learned about our history as a nation, the more I studied the undercurrents of systemic racism, oppression, and every day violence, the more I understood that guns have to exist, and they have to be available to the masses. They won't stop a federal military from bombing the shit out of millions of people fighting back, but if we've reached that point, everything has fallen apart anyway, because I know of very few who would say "yes, we should absolutely murder millions of people," at least not openly.

I certainly don't disagree. We can take a few steps to stop immediate threats. For example, private sales where there is no documentation, or the "gun show" loophole, we can enforce those. Absolutely. Those are sharp objects within arms reach we can move out of the way. It's not leaving fewer guns available to people who need them, it's just ensuring that people who have an itchy trigger finger and the mindset that they need to murder a school full of children can't just act on it immediately. Having learned so much about the history of the US, though, I can't endorse taking away guns from most people.

The root of our rot, though, is systemic. We don't value life like we should, and we make ourselves islands of pain and suffering, even though our neighbors are going through similar hardship. I think we need to focus there. Better healthcare for all, no bar to entry (including monetary), better living conditions, removing the strain of living day to day in a society that squeezes every last penny out of you, releasing that pressure against you just for trying to survive and, god help us, giving people's minds, their emotions, time to rest.

I think that would improve everything by leaps and bounds, and it's not impossible. It's not a unicorn, it isn't something that can't be done, it can be done, we already have the ability to do it, and it seems most people want it, but it's getting our so-called "representatives" to actually do what they should have already done generations ago.

Like gerrymandering, and insurrections?

Hey, at least none of those kids will grow up to take hormone blockers, and have hoo-hoo-dilly surgery.
So...balanced scoreboard for Republican Jesus.
So long as Republican Jesus is smiling, all else is permissible.
Hey....wait...ever notice how Republican Jesus smiles on the same shit as Allah?

ATTENTION AMERICA:

YOU HAVE A GUN PROBLEM.

PERIOD.

Anyone who denies this fact is actually part of the problem.

/thread

I flip flop in this area where I used to be actually very pro-gun ownership. The thing that changed me was the UK and australia doing away with a lot of guns, and even seeing Isreal's stance on gun restriction. In Isreal you have to have a reason to apply for gun ownership. From what I understand they don't accept vague threats as a reason. Gun violence along with violence drops way down, as do accidental deaths and suicides. In the UK they show a massive drop in suicide deaths similar to when gas stoves stopped being a thing. That easy decision to suicide, and the fast effective termination seems to make suicide go up, which tells me that maybe there is something to the idea of making suicide a bit harder actually puts people into contact with help.

The US is awash in guns, and we have to thin that out. There is just too much of something with no utility and only danger. even things like fireworks are not as deadly as guns. In a psychological sense even bomb making is not as bad as guns because bombs are not as easy or threatening. They do not empower someone as much as a gun. A gun is a very personal and directed powerful tool. It is very safe for the bully to have, and it is specific and controlled by them. They are attached to it.

When you get guns out of the society you lower the ability to rampage and kill so much. While you are doing that you also increase the threshold for a person to surrender to their rage because they all know they are going to get hurt. It is like how the internet allows people to say more nasty things because they know the other person cannot immediately smack them in rage or even confront them and intimidate them. A gun has that same empowering effect, only it is in person. Then the reason that person cannot smack them in the head is because you can shoot them and "protect yourself" from the consequences of your words and other rude actions.

I actually do not wan't to remove guns from society because I do like freedom, and I do find them entertaining. However, the obvious drop in violence, crime, suicide, and accidental death is obvious. I cannot argue with that. I do not mean I cannot in a moral sense argue with it. I cannot argue with it in a scientific and logical sense. My arguments for continuing to have guns in society are completely irrational and feeling based when I see you can remove them from society and the effects are so blatantly safer.

The reason why I think we need a banning is because we need to thin the number of guns floating about. I am not under the delusion that we can eliminate guns entirely from the US or world. In order to lower access to them we need to destroy them and make them much more rare.

Way back in the first half of the 1900s there were a lot less car accidents and people hurt by cars. Does that mean cars were safer or people were better drivers? Hell no, there were just less cars. We cannot expect our world to get safer with guns when we have guns everywhere. The reality part of the animal within is to take what we want when we are stronger. That is how animals end up with something. If they can keep it then it is theirs. If you just start putting stuff into a society flooded with guns you have people who will take it because that is who they are. There are people who would take what others have just to be the only ones who have it.

There are some people where if everyone has something they will horde more than everyone else to be better, or they will take other people's away so they can be better. This is status and you are nowhere near eliminating that. Many people if they already have a car like a toyota corolla will steal a mercedes because of status. You are not understanding people. My recently deceased grandmother had a collection of books. The people in her community would leave them on the mailbox for others to read. It is an old people's community. My grandmother would take the books and keep them in her house. When we asked her if she read them she was insulted because she would never read that crap. She took them so that no one else would get them. She picked up someone's prescription glasses that they dropped and kept them as some sort of found treasure. She is not uncommon. You were not going to cure her. We had to covertly ninja these things back to the community because my grandmother would not even throw them away. She kept them like a fucking animal hording shiny things. She had millions of dollars when she died. This is not an oddity, it is a survival instinct.

Large proportions of humans are more like animals and are incapable of growth. You cannot leave killing tools in front of them because animals kill for fun, pleasure, sex, survival, and all sorts of other things. Prey will also kill when given the ability to.

the only way to thin the number of guns in american society out is to actively collect them. I am for surrender and compensation at first, but we will need a time of seek and destroy. This also comes with the end of gun manufacturing as it is now. Gun manufacturing should be limited like we limit the creation of weapons grade nuclear fuel IMO.