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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26483 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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Young children being abducted from a playground doesn't happen literally never, but it's so close to never that spending time thinking about it, and letting it drive larger policy issues, is both insane and counter-productive.

You know, gun advocates frequently point out the vanishingly unlikely chance of a school shooting, compared to all the other ways kids can die, but somehow this sort of statistical analysis does not move those of you who are suddenly about cold hard numbers over emotional valience when it is convenient. Yes, stranger abductions on the playground are rare compared to parental abductions, just as stranger rapes in a dark alley are rare compared to partner violence. But we still care about those things because they happen, and without vigilance against those things, they would happen more because predators are, in fact, out there.

Yeah, I don't really care about gun control, I agree that people use school shootings for rhetorical purposes more than on logical grounds.

I think we waste too much time and energy and social capital on low-frequency high-salience events like this, enough so that we make things actively worse in total. Sure there are some common-sense things we should do, mostly just staying alert, but the scare mongering and warping of everyday life to accommodate the media-driven panics around these issues are really bad for our society and the people in it.

Yeah, I don't really care about gun control

Hm.

Yup, that sure is a bunch of my posts from 5 years ago in which I don't personally advocate for gun control, alright.

I didn't think I needed to post examples from 5 years ago backing up my claims about my beliefs, but I guess it's nice that you went and found them anyway.

  • -14

Gun control comes up in the context of school shootings because dead children are a hugely powerful rhetorical device. However, the issue has much large impact on the culture, that makes it more reasonable to talk about.

For instance, many police departments and poor communities are effectively in a state of continuous cold war with each other, because the police use extreme methods because they are reasonably worried about getting shot by the populace of those communities, and those communities are reasonably nervous about getting shot or brutalized by jumpy cops.

Even if we can't get rid of all the guns in the nation, taking 90% of them out of those communities would probably do a lot to ease those tensions by making cops feel safer and letting them use less extreme tactics, which could make the communities feel safer interacting with them, and help starting to cut down on crime and violence in those communities.

Whereas most US police departments have a policy of escalating violence (eg point 12 guns at the suspect the second they look at you funny), most countries where guns are illegal have very effective policies of deescalating violence (in my non-professional understanding of the situation).

This is an impact of guns that reaches far beyond the actual people shot by them and even beyond the actual crimes committed with them. These are the types of things that create such divergent experiences about what 'gun culture' means and how it affects people's lives. It's part of why the issue is so urgent to so many people, even if it doesn't usually enter the media narrative.

Yeah, I do think things would be a lot better if there magically weren't any/as many guns in the country.

Magic isn't on the table.

So I don't care much about gun control. I don't think arguing about it is actually going to lead to the utopian outcome that would be good.

That quote doesn't "personally argue for gun control" either, if you read it closely. They're just describing how other people might see things, not taking any position of their own.

I believe him. I dont think he cares about the trans issue either.

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