The Liberal-Conservative Partition Isn't Just Helped By 400 Million Guns

[ancianita]

Last edited Tue May 31, 2022, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Just thinking out loud, is all, as a way to gain some relief until gun control laws are passed.

This might be a useful visual, might not; because when we also examine gun ownership maps, a lot of blue areas are also high per capita gun holders.



Considering this map beside a map of mass murders of unarmed innocents, there must be some high level anxiety and fear where red and blue are in contact, because mass murders seem to happen in contact areas in politically blue states. One example is in east Washington state, where Idaho survalists mobilize against west Washington progressives; or in the east-west Florida divide, a source of at least three mass shootings in recent years. Contact lines maybe intensify fear to perceived threat and 'defensive' action. So there's likely more behind those murders than fear of race replacement along these contact lines.

Fear of replacement is amplified for grown aged gun owners by FOX, but that doesn't seem to be why children (age 17-20) choose other children to murder with flesh blasting AR-15's. Does it?
So I ask: Are the hurt and hopelessly deranged children who slaughter other children, blasting away at their collective future? Or are they doing what their sick racist parents and culture taught them -- a world view of 'might makes right', and 'live and let die'?

I could be belaboring the obvious, but as with 'I love you,' statements, sometimes the obvious must still said, lest we forget: in a democracy, violence partitions world views -- one that deep down believes that 'right makes right', the other that 'might makes right'; one that deep down believes in 'live and let live', the other 'live and let die'. Why live-and-let-live types have a lot of guns must mean that they more clearly know the lay of the land. Do the rest of us?
Yet they fail to save innocents, those with or without AR-15s. Can the rest of us?



If, in the meantime, we need to use a sort of 'urban archipelago' for our safety, Forbes' 2022 report on the 10 most conservative and most liberal cities. Forbes implies that how cities are ranked as conservative or liberal depends on who's looking, whether conservative or liberal media organizations like The Economist, PEW, or Vox.

Forbes frames its list of the top ten conservative cities and top ten liberal cities this way:

the how-much-wood-could-a-woodchuck-chuck way to say this is: the most conservative cities are not as conservative as the most liberal cities are liberal.

https://www3.forbes.com/leadership/the-most-conservative-and-most-liberal-cities-in-america-vue/?utm_campaign=The-Most-Conservative-And-Most-Liberal&utm_source=FB&utm_medium=fb193471d0us705252202&lcid=fb193471d0us705252202&fbclid=IwAR1gBJCWapbh7m4WVEou0SVbFY7aTFtjA3wXTSifkZm2VcHDH3Td2XOqDA4

[2naSalit]

1. Hmm...

Forbes implies that how cities are ranked as conservative or liberal depends on who's looking, whether conservative or liberal media organizations like The Economist, PEW, or Vox.

[ancianita]

3. The irony??

Granted, Forbes is no exception; it just borrows from a couple of sources as content for its site. I still thought the content was well sourced, and its posting attitude fair, though a bit ironic.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. I would argue externalizing anger is a defense mechanism.

these misfits are raised in an authoritarian culture that fails to value their feelings causing them to hate themselves and resent their surrounding milieu. They must externalize that hatred and blame others in order to survive in this culture, and to think well of themselves. In essence, externalizing anger is a defense mechanism. They feel they must dispel and discharge that anger to achieve their destiny and feel important and gain recognition. Or some such.

[ancianita]

4. It is.Thanks for your post. So are you saying the guns make the difference in how they externalize?

Because we can make their externalizing a lot less harmful, right? Eliminate guns and heal mental illness, right?

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Yeah that would be the implication, but guns should not be an available outlet

Child rearing is still a root cause. Value feelings and freedom instead of repression.

[ancianita]

6. Agree. And

the next big move by our Democratic govt, after we win both houses in 2022, is to re-establish mental health systems, optimally under Medicare For All. A healthy country is usually a mentally healthy country.

Capitalism impoverishes mental health and then exploits it to reach its own pathological goals.

Anything we can do as a majority to keep humans healthy, safe and sane -- ending Citizens United is the big one -- will result in stricter regulation of pathological Big Corps, whether it's their Big Fossil pollutions, election influence, or their control of the courts.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. re: "Are the hurt and hopelessly deranged children who slaughter other children...

...blasting away at their collective future? Or are they doing what their sick racist parents and culture taught them -- a world view of 'might makes right', and 'live and let die'?

IMO, yes to both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#Studies_of_United_States_school_shootings
A United States Secret Service study concluded that schools were placing false hope in physical security, when they should be paying more attention to the pre-attack behaviors of students. Zero-tolerance policies and metal detectors "are unlikely to be helpful," the Secret Service researchers found. The researchers focused on questions concerning the reliance on SWAT teams when most attacks are over before police arrive, profiling of students who show warning signs in the absence of a definitive profile, expulsion of students for minor infractions when expulsion is the spark that push some to return to school with a gun, buying software not based on school shooting studies to evaluate threats although killers rarely make direct threats, and reliance on metal detectors and police officers in schools when shooters often make no effort to conceal their weapons.

In May 2002, the Secret Service published a report that examined 37 U.S. school shootings. They had the following findings:

Incidents of targeted violence at school were rarely sudden, impulsive acts.
Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker's idea or plan to attack.
Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the attack.
There is no accurate or useful profile of students who engaged in targeted school violence.
Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help.
Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Moreover, many had considered or attempted suicide.
Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack.
Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack.
In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity.
Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.

A few thoughts of my own:
Physical security is never going to be the answer to many of these incidents. While it shouldn't be neglected, more attention should be directed to assuring both hardened refuge areas within school spaces and quick escape routes for anyone being attacked. Many school shooters are current or former attendees of the schools they target. They've spent years in these buildings and know the ways in and out and probably the habits of many of the staff. Schools will remain physically vulnerable to current or former students and staff.-----
IMO one key to this issue will be tracking students and adults with campus access for stress events, criminal activity and personal/family losses. Schools and parents will need to be more proactive on issues like bullying and depression or suicidal tendencies.-----

Also, adult campus access was responsible for the worst event shown in the graphic. A school board trustee was responsible for the explosion. Like some of the other murders targeting schools, he killed his wife before hand. I remember that the killers at Newtown, Uvalde and I think Red Lake all killed family members first then went to a school.

[ancianita]

8. Thank you for your thoughtful post.

Shifting our effort toward prevention school shootings is important, but it must be what drives a bigger system of gun death.

That is my aim. It's one thing to react to the consequences of manufacturer profiteers; it's another to go directly after the manufacturers of death themselves.

The legal precedent set by Sandy Hook parents win sets the model for how all parents can get manufacturers back on the hook for AR-15 production. That ruling was the first.

The corporate menace of AR-15s is beating the public down. The gun industry markets to domestic terrorists. AR-15 manufacturers the depressed and helpless public the gun tools to take their pain out on themselves and innocents and end it all. We have to beat that corporate menace that's driving the public to kills itself off.

AIM at the producers and distributors of weapons, along with all background checks for all purchasers, red flagging, and AR-15 buy-backs in all states.

Whatever the House AND Senate do should include these:

DROP THE FILIBUSTER, then
GET THE GUN LAW PASSED IN THE SENATE, then
MONITOR THE LAW:
monitor that ALL background checks are completed for ALL purchasers, monitor red flag data,
monitor all gun murders to help later prove in courts that this legislation "well regulates" the gun loss, harm, and damage while not infringing on the people's right to bear arms.

If the courts can overturn 50 years of precedents for Roe, they can overturn all precedents for Heller.

THIS latest gun legislation will face court challenges, but it will win when it specifically stipulates, and proves by the numbers, that the well regulated part does not infringe on the people's right to own and bear arms.

Give the people what they want -- life and liberty.

The more the Republicans scream, the more we know we're doing the right thing by the country.

And Democratic candidates like KY's Charles Booker will win votes for it. More seats in the Senate.