But it makes an important point when the person we’re talking about:
It’s too stark a contrast and deserves to be evaluated.
ETA: there are also now simply too many people, and living too close together, to flourish in a “Hooray for me, to Hell with thee” society.
So do I, but many times, it’s the only thing that works. People just don’t care about other people that they don’t know, so are willing to sacrifice them for their own noble ideals.
When it comes home and actually costs them, they do often change their tune.
No, actually it’s not like either of those things. Those are stupid examples, and you should feel stupid for offering them.
I can admit readily that I have principles that I could very well abandon in the face of fear, or even of temptation. I can hope that I would act a certain way in those circumstances, and I can be disappointed with myself because I am not sure I would.
But, that’s irrelevant to the point, completely.
The point is, that people who lack empathy, like our good friend here @Martin_Hyde, don’t understand the suffering of others, certainly not of people they don’t know and will never meet, and only understand when something happens to them.
Would you find it so despicable if you have a big anti-gay bigot screaming about how they are all disgusting, and you “wished” upon them that someone they knew came out as gay? That has indeed converted some homophobes to become more accepting of homosexuality.
That’s not “wishing someone to be gay.” It’s just wishing that someone was capable of thinking about someone other than themselves for once.
Literally 95% of the worlds population thinks your “guns for any nut job on demand” ideal is fucking nuts. Most of the rest are pirates and warlords. And then there’s the people pulling the strings of the racist party in the US.
This isn’t “projection”. It’s calling fringe nutcases like you out.
What are you willing to sacrifice for the 2nd Amendment? The deaths of innocent people doesn’t count, btw-that isn’t a sacrifice you are making.
BTW: the same fucked-up dynamic occurs pretty much every time in the last 80 years that we’ve sent young people off to war.
Our ‘vital national interest’ is at stake. This is so important to the USA that those of us who stand to profit are willing, nay, eager to send your children off to fight and die for it.
[“Those MFs better never question my patriotism again !”]
Yes, I can see where people find that comment offensive, but he’s also repeatedly said that he favors stronger gun control laws than currently exist in any State. Until WB came along, everyone in the thread was in agreement that we need more, not less, regulation of guns.
The inverse of that statement would be “I am not willing to accept any deaths at all in order to protect gun rights”, which would basically mean a total ban and confiscation policy. And while I think that’s a defensible position, it’s certainly not anywhere near the American mainstream at this point.
I’m starting to think that Martin is actually one of the board’s more accomplished trolls, capable of driving liberals into a blind rage while not only being superficially polite, but without actually saying anything particularly extreme or controversial. If there weren’t an element of trolling involved, he wouldn’t have kept participating in this thread, much less done that cringy Slacker-esque “victory dance”.
How about “Guns, like all tools, provide benefits and have costs. If the societal costs outweigh the societal benefits, guns should be removed. Guns provide very little societal benefit, even in abstract ways like preventing tyranny; they have a massive societal cost; therefore we should restrict gun ownership, greatly reducing the societal cost while hardly harming societal benefits”.
That’s a statement I agree with much more than “I am not willing to accept any deaths at all in order to protect gun rights”.
What makes Martin monstrous is the fact that for some nebulous concept of “freedom” that no one in the planet other than far Right wing Americans recognizes he is willing to toss away so many lives.
“Unlimited numbers.” Okay. Another in a long list of lies and distortions. I’m starting to think you have a congenital hatred of honesty.
Well, wishing that someone your opponent loves comes out as gay really isn’t remotely equivalent to wishing someone they love would die IMO. And yes, many people have been led to rethink their hateful beliefs by having loved ones come out; enough that over the last few decades, it’s radically shifted the political conversation about gay rights.
It doesn’t really seem like it works that way for guns, though. Above DavidnRockies said that each mass shooting increases the support for gun control but, sadly, that doesn’t actually seem to be true, because those shootings keep happening and the numbers don’t change much. If you could find a cite that people whose loved ones have been victims of gun violence become more supportive of gun control (as opposed to becoming more vocal and active about beliefs they already held), I’d feel somewhat differently.
Also…lots of people do change their minds about stuff even WITHOUT having to personally experience some sort of horrible tragedy. Couldn’t we just wish Martin would become one of those people? Seems like it would be better karma.
Well, I certainly agree with your first paragraph. I’d be interested to hear what Martin thinks of it, I’m not actually sure he would disagree.
But we’ve established that he does favor stronger laws than we have now, so if we’re going to call him a monstrous far right winger, what words will we have left over to apply to, like, actual NRA members?
Have we?
That’s not remotely accurate. I have simply pointed out the person wishing innocent deaths, is an immoral, bad person. It has been my experience that these little performative “mobs” that flock to Pit Threads like this to perform their little plays, frequently drift into immoral bad behavior. That bad behavior goes unnoticed and unremarked most of the time, as the targets of these attacks usually can’t help but go down various rabbit holes of hypothetical stupidity and other nonsense the mob tries to create. When I see immorality I stop right there and call it out, and I will continue to call it out, period.
That’s entirely your own personal bias, I have given little indication on my “feelings” at all, and they frankly aren’t your business or even relevant to a political discussion.
I don’t think that’s true, to be frank. I think you seriously misunderstand reality. The vast majority of people with strong feelings on gun rights only make up a relatively small portion of the total electorate, there are a lot more people who “side with them” on that issue, but it isn’t a “ride or die” thing for them. For that reason, I would speculate the vast, overwhelming majority of parents of school shooting victims are like most Americans, they probably don’t actually have tremendously strong feelings on guns. Faced with an imminent gun tragedy, they will support gun control that previously they just put zero thought into going about their day to day lives.
However, given the level of commitment, any die hard 2A person whose child was killed in a school shooting, I suspect plenty, maybe most, would still hold their 2A beliefs. We know this has happened, with example this Parkland father continuing to defend gun rights after his daughter was killed:
I agree with @Thing.Fish ultimately, the point you are trying to make by personalizing it isn’t that powerful and is just a silly gotcha game.
Note I’ve never once said I lack empathy for the dead or their families, that’s a silly construction you and the mob are obsessed with. You are assuming something based on a pre-conceived conclusion that simply isn’t reality–willingness to tolerate deaths, is not the same as lack of empathy surrounding those deaths. That’s not a real thing. No one assets that about anything other than gun crime and that’s because you’re just locked into heavily biased, politicized thinking. I won’t keep mentioning other rights because you guys won’t talk about anything by analogy, but you also won’t discuss gun rights honestly. That leaves me with the path of simply saying you are wrong and saying wrong things, and making false conclusions based on a formulaic approach that is not assumed by people who aren’t trying to make a cheap gun control argument.
I don’t have that ideal so you must be confused, I’ll leave you to your confusion.
I’m willing to live in a society that otherwise would probably have lower homicides and gun crimes.
Not so much–there’s an effect I’ve read about, I wish I still had the article up because it was just a few weeks ago. It was talking about how liberals have far more invective for centrists in their own party than they do conservatives, at least in many discussion venues and debates. I think there is a psychological element where people of a certain brand of political extremism get really mad when someone who they can’t easily classify as the abject polar opposite enemy says things that confound them. This same effect the article noted was present on the right, with specific scorn for “Never Trump” Republicans being even more vitriolic for many on the right than for Democrats.
Another big thing is this forum loves to rant and have recreational outrage, threads that will go literally hundreds of posts with low IQ and low information posters (you know the ones) spewing the same hot takes and digs at off board political figures etc. Anything that dares stand even somewhat partially against any of that causes the seething hatred of a thousand suns.
That is because these people aren’t interested in ideas, discourse, discussion. They are interested in being a hate mob, targeted at whatever they want to hate. Sometimes it is anti-vaxxers, sometimes the religious, sometimes gun owners (I don’t like anti-vaxxers or most deeply religious people either FWIW, but there’s a difference between dislike and foam at the mouth rage out). Get in the way of that and you will find trouble in these parts.
Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice if you think that you personally and your loved ones won’t be affected. Your “sacrifice” seems to consist of your willingness for others to be worse off.
Babale, four posts up. Admittedly, he is a single person, but I was addressing him directly, so I think the plural pronoun is acceptable.
I mean, I have already said my positions (which include support for very strong gun control) wouldn’t change if a family member was a victim of a gun crime. What I’m saying is that is also implicit to the position, you guys making the assumption someone’s support of a right is only as deep as it being a personal problem for them is a shallow view of rights. Again, how many times do I have to answer the same question? The personal appeal to emotion doesn’t change my view that while I support incredibly strong gun control laws, I don’t support an outright ban of all guns because I think the right to possess a gun is a fundamental right. Fundamental rights can be regulated, but not obliterated.
Leaving the emotional argument out of it – i.e.- whether it’s true that if a family member were a victim of a gun crime you wouldn’t change your position – I just want to focus on that one phrase “my positions (which include support for very strong gun control)”.
If that’s true, why do you completely reject and refuse to discuss the effectiveness of actually strong gun control measures as enacted in all other civilized countries on the planet, and their consequent effectiveness in reducing gun violence to tiny fractions of what the US has to endure – literally orders of magnitude difference?
Put another way, the two links below are a historical review of gun legislation in Canada (from the state of Connecticut, no less) and a recent press release detailing proposed new measures because it’s felt that the original ones, strong as they are, are not strong enough.
Do you agree with both of these legislative actions? If not, then I would suggest that what you like to characterize as “support for very strong gun control” really means “support for feel-good but completely ineffective gun control that won’t inconvenience my gun nuttery, which I regard as a God-given right”.
https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt/olr/htm/94-R-0838.htm
https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/05/30/further-strengthening-our-gun-control-laws
I didn’t call him a monstrous right winger. I said his support for a “right” only recognized by the American far right is monstrous.
Gun rights aren’t only recognized by the American far right, that is a false statement. Another among a long list of them.
Not sure that’s a meaningful distinction, but yes, that is what you said.
In that other countries sometimes let you buy guns under some circumstance, this is true. In the mentally ill Mad Max way the American right wants society to function? Nah.