Someone is truly in here going nerd The hundreds of people gunned down daily is really a small percentage of the population so it’s all just scaremongering. Several dozen people are upvoting it. I think I’m done with hexbear for a bit. Thanks for the fun posts, everyone

Being a child is criminalized. And the children are suffering. The point of childhood anymore doesn’t seem to enjoy some innocence and learn life lessons and make mistakes in a loving or caring environment where you’re shielded from most of the consequences. The purpose of childhood is to mold you into an ideal member of the proletariat. And to never ever misbehave, because the Eye in the Sky (whether that’s your parents or the police state) is always watching and you’d better get used to it.

I’ve talked about the atrocious state of childrens’ rights in this country, and had some really good discussion here about it. It’s only getting worse. Don’t walk or bike home from school, wait for your parent to come get you in an SUV. Don’t go skateboarding, you hooligan. Don’t hang out with friends or other kids in the neighborhood with only the admonition of being back before dark. Don’t drink a beer, even as an adult- you’ll go to jail. Don’t host a party, you’ll go to jail. Don’t have awkward teenage sex. Don’t go hang out downtown or explore the woods, you’ll be raped and abducted and sold into slavery! Just stay home, on your phone where it’s safe.

I fucking hate this. This shit honestly makes me despair more than climate change. I’m not sure why that is, obviously what we’re doing to the climate could well spell the end of human civilization. I think I’m just really upset at this very clear, yet less dramatic impact of living in a fascist society. Being a child is criminalized.

  • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    (I have a separate screed about “mass shooting” being cynically refined in the public imagination from meaning situations where a person deliberately intended to kill strangers to any shooting where more than one person was hit

    Literally the definition used when you hear “x mass shootings have happened this year”, where x is usually greater than the number of days we are into the year, is 4+ people shot. For any reason, with any outcome, with any relationship between the victims and the perpetrator.

    But that’s not what you think of when you think of a mass shooting. You think school shootings, attacks on mosques, synagogues, and gay nightclubs, and whatever the fuck the Las Vegas shooting was about (side note: the deadliest mass shooting in history and we still have no idea what the motive was, that’s always been suspicious). Public spaces, much more than 4 deaths, the victims usually don’t have much of a relationship with the perpetrator or even each other (besides maybe whatever reason they were in the same public place, like classmates or fellow worshipers). i.e. someone decided they want to kill a bunch of people either for the terror, bigotry, infamy, revenge on society, or just because. What you don’t think of is someone killing their partner and children in their home in a domestic dispute, but they count that for some reason.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I think TrueAnon has a pod on the Vegas shooter. I don’t think they came to any definitive conclusions, but like everything in America it’s weird as hell.

    • manuallybreathing [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I dont really see the use in arguing the semantics of what is or is not a mass casualty event, considring many of what you mention as mass shootings in the popular consciousness do start out with the shooter killing people they know (often women) in their home, workplace etc.

      this post reads pretty conspiritorialy, they’re not hiding the a mass shooting is 4 people number, it’s there for anyone who cares to look. obviously there’s some hyperbolic shit in the media, but by this statistic, someone like Kyle Rittenhouse is not a mass shooter, food for thought.

      i’m not sure if this is the mindset where they’re taking our guns, we need them, rah rah revolution is the base, but do you know what we need a whole lot more than guns? comrades we can trust. communities that are organised and ready to support each other.

      I’m not from the USA, but i’ve seen friends argue about this, and i’ve especially seen the impact these semantic like points have had on friends who have lived in the USA. Talk of condemning ourselves to pointless slaughter if we’re not armed, its unhelpful, it’s only driving us apart and keeping us at arms length.

      The individualist drive to arm every man woman and child in school, churches, and supermarkets, in their bedrooms, for their protection, does nothing but line the pockets of the arms dealers who would have us all on the frontlines sooner than you could say I will not fight my working class brothers and sisters in Vietnam

      sorry that’s scattered and a bit ranty, but I absolutely consider someone shooting their partner and child to be a part of the issue we’re up against, the conditions we face, capitalism, imperialism, white nationalism, and oppression of the powerless.

      haha dark and awful, but we’re almost discussing if a shooting is more impacting, if say, it were taken out on a large, christian family, 10 kids or something, uh, #greatreplacement or something I guess.

      whew i’m glad I’ve finally taken the time to articulate that, even for myself.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        this post reads pretty conspiritorialy, they’re not hiding the a mass shooting is 4 people number, it’s there for anyone who cares to look. obviously there’s some hyperbolic shit in the media, but by this statistic, someone like Kyle Rittenhouse is not a mass shooter, food for thought.

        People don’t look. They “know” what they “know” and don’t think to look up the official FBI definition. Kyle Rittenhouse is not a mass shooter. He doesn’t count by the “official” standard. He killed two people and injured one. That’s not a mass shooting, either in public conscious or official statistics. But it does highlight the problem; The concept of a mass shooting has gotten to the point where two people being killed in a fight is a “mass shooting”. Which is somehow worse than a double homicide. The notion has been used to sensationalize gun violence and create an atmosphere of terror. People think they could be gunned down at any time when, I cannot stress this enough, violent crime is at or near an all time low in the US since they began keeping records. Things have gotten worse since the pandemic started but that’s a function of the economy being in free fall collapse. Poverty drives violence.

        Calling it a “mass shooting” doesn’t make it any less of a crime or a moral offense. It doesn’t make it extra bad or wrong. but it does mislead people in to thinking masked gunmen are executing dozens of white suburban parents every day, contributing to the atmosphere of terror that has contributed to children being locked in a social and political cage as we’re discussing.