It’s still early days, not even four months since inception, but the early signs aren’t encouraging. US must break away from their trajectory of engagement in West Asia or may well find itself mired in another war. 
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Well not to get into too many details here, but that’s because 2a gun nuts raised money to pay his $2M bail. He’s still awaiting his trail date in Novemeber of this year I believe.
Weapons used in crimes are largely skewed towards illegally acquired weapons. How does the U.S. limit the access of weapons that aren’t supposed to be getting accessed anyways? Genuinely curious because we need some help here bad.
Huh? How is that?
Well, you just have to look at other countries. I know that this is very difficult for the US, but it would really help. Of course illegal weapons are used in illegal activities, but by reducing the number of weapons in circulation, you will also reduce the amount of illegal weapons. I could probably get my hands on an illegal weapon if I really wanted to, but it would be extremely difficult. In fact I have no idea where I’d start. This is going to take decades as there are so many weapons in the US, both legal and illegal. There is no quick fix.
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I think this is a brilliant post Sweeting:
Tiny bit of background - vet, deployed a couple times. We have a fundamental issue in how we train/recruit/hire police officers
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Too many Iraq/Afghanistan veterans in police forces. I read somewhere that it was north of 30% of our police officers in the U.S. have military experience, and many of them are still serving in the reserves in some capacity. Culturally, it leaves no choice but assimilation into the idea that police need to be militaristic. Many of those who served in Iraq have moved up the chain of command in these departments and are now training the next generation. There was going to be no other outcome once the decision was made to rush into that alleyway.
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Violence of action - law enforcement often gets taught the easiest way to de-escalate a situation is to escalate it to the point where you can subdue the potential perpetrator. This often occurs with having power in numbers, but when numbers aren’t available officers typically try to act fast and quick. This is wrong in so many ways because you automatically create a fight/flight response for that individual in question. It is almost ass-backwards when you say it out loud. “escalate to de-escalate.”
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How I think we solve this? I think you remove protections, pay them more, and stop making the police be the go-to employer for veterans with combat experience. I have a few guys I served who say some parts of Chicago are worse than some of the places they’ve been in Iraq. I’ve communicated to them well maybe the police are part of that problem. These are peoples neighborhoods and communities.
Sorry i went out a bit but I have largely stayed out of this thread, but I wanted to add/comment on your post because I thought it was very good @Sweeting.
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I think that is something we fail at horribly. The U.S. is notorious for always thinking we have the best way to do things.
I’ve drastically shifted my thinking over the past few years towards the 2a stuff. I used to very strongly be in the less government = good camp, but clearly these large shootings have shown we need to find a way to make it more difficult to get your hands on it.
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And count the days until this shitshow of a season is over!
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Biden’s campaign and the comments from the early period of his administration were a lot narrower on Saudi than ending all arms sales. While I think it’s reasonable to straight up condemn any arms deal with them its a lot harder to call this hypocrisy without knowing more about it. Their rhetorical focus was on ending support of the war in Yemen, which never precluded continuing to sell them things that could be used defensively. As a policy position that meant blocking the last Trump deal until they could reevaluate what could be categorized as defensive vs offensive and what other things they could do to ensure any arms were only being used in a defensive capacity.
This is a decent piece from the first month of the adminstration
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-arms/exclusive-biden-team-considering-a-halt-to-offensive-arms-sales-for-saudis-idUSKBN2AQ2J6
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Gangs will still exist in even the ideal society but it’s hard to argue to that a poor education system and poverty haven’t led to a dramatic increase in young people seeking shelter and protection by joining gangs and dealing drugs.
Where I differ in my view point on gang membership - compared to how the US Police seemingly view it - is that the vast majority of those who join gangs are lonely, misled and hopeless young people who have been failed miserably by society and governance. For many of them, even those who have done terrible things, I think it is easy to imagine that they would never have fallen into gang membership had they grown up outside of poverty and with good educational and career opportunities.
Police treat them as evil and dangerous men.
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I know it seems tiresome to some, but so much comes back to racism in some way. A big reason for the formation of many non-white gangs in big cities was a direct response to the brutalization of those communities by the cops.
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I drive past that facility all the time, whenever I’m on the I-465 (Indianapolis orbital, sort of like M25 for London). It was the old airport - FedEx bought it about 10 yrs ago and they built a new airport here.
Anyway, crazy business. I think CNN reported 45 mass shootings in America since the Atlanta massage parlor shootings a month ago. The whole thing is well out of hand. Usually we don’t think of it very much, but this one was closer to home, at least for me.
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We average close to two per day nationally. The biggest head fuck of the whole thing is that the it is only the ones that have something novel/interesting about them that make the national news and get more than local attention.
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Why does it do that with the quote when you edit some of the text?
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It’s because there’s a gap after the first quote square brackets. If you edit it so that there’s no “return” after the first square [quote] section it will correct it. ie, delete the gap between the ] and Anyway.
Keep going 
This is your post:
[quote=“RedOverTheWater, post:6973, topic:905”]
Anyway, crazy business. I think CNN reported 45 mass shootings in America since the Atlanta massage parlor shootings a month ago. [/quote]
We average close to two per day nationally. The biggest head fuck of the whole thing is that the it is only the ones that have something novel/interesting about them that make the national news and get more than local attention.
But if you bring the “Anyway” back up next to the ] in the first line you’ll correct it…
We average close to two per day nationally. The biggest head fuck of the whole thing is that the it is only the ones that have something novel/interesting about them that make the national news and get more than local attention.
YAY!!!
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There are so many thing wrong.
Again it’s a kid with a gun it’s just madness that most states have no minimum age for possession of a gun. Yet can’t go to the pub till your 21.
It’s nuts that Americans walk around with semiautomatics weapons more suited to military use. If your a hunter, you have one shot. Absolutely no need for semiautomatic.
The culture of right wing militia is just as bad as gangs. They use weapons to incite fear or power. Idealisation of hero’s, with misguided belief they could be real life John Wick or John McClane.
That bail is allowed for an accusation of murder. 
Like I said with Adam Tolado as soon as he left his house with a gun in his hand there was a high likelihood it would go wrong for him or someone else. In a different situation Kyle Rittenhouse too would also have been killed.
These guns were not about hunting, they were not about self protection. All about intimidation, fear, power. Put into a hands of a children at night, inner city.
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That this was a 13 Yr old (a child) with a gun being chased by the cops in connection with a shooting is the saddest part of this. Whether the cop fkd up or not, there’s a bigger problem when a child is in this situation.
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Child out at 2am, firing a gun?
Weed out the shitty police, by all means. Chauvin deserves to go down for a long time, and if he doesn’t there will be a backlash.
But this case, tragic as it is, seems to have more mitigating factors for the police officer. It likely wasn’t handled optimally, and it is tragic that a child died, but I don’t have nearly the fire in my belly over the injustice of this one, as compared to some others. Sorry.
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This social experiment took place a few years ago - A gun shop selling the actual guns used in mass shootings etc. Worth a watch.
- Video changed - better quality.
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Seems to me that the fucking Foriegn legion has better restrait and training than some police officers in the USA. Then again some police nationale are probably on par with those USA police mentionned. Wierd if you ask me.