Add now to our unseriousness the exposure of our nation as one that does not condemn the sexual abuse of young girls by men of wealth and stature. Lip service only. Forever. Shameful!!
I'm in Texas and it is far too easy to get and carry a gun. You need no training, no license, nada. Just a driver's license. Gun owners say, "But we do have regulations!" Flimsy bs regulations without enforcement nor oversight.
I learning that Europe grows more unserious as well. Maybe we have all always been unserious. The prize we get from the transparency of our "Western" daily thoughts on social media is to learn that we are savages, not intellectuals. Uncomfortable truths.
A sad, but very true post. I thought we showed our true colors as a nation when we failed, after Sandy Hook, to pass any meaningful legislation. Kindergartners (babies) are gunned down and we did nothing. I got my hopes up after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting, because the teens were so passionate and eloquent in their pleas for change. Again, we failed. This is our major national embarrassment.
It is always the response to the terrible acts and words coming out of this administration that "the people" are not paying attention, not "news junkies as the media roundtables will state, or in your words are not serious, i.e., do not care, or all the power is in their hands when they go vote.
With a government that does not want, or care to respond to its constituents, does not want to govern just acquire more power and money from their puppet masters, and a Fourth Estate that has relinquished its power to same moneybags that keep that keep the business profitable, citing the "seriousness" of the people is a moot point, if not condescending.
How are mass shootings covered? With a sigh -- here we go again, and a body count, motivation, and thoughts and prayers, then on to the next. Have you heard one politician, one commentator, one roundtable discussion of gun control, without the qualifier "common sense". Didn't we have a ban on assault rifles, in place for a decade? Has the population changed so, or has the manipulation and propaganda changed?
JVL says this weekend's violence shows us something deeply true about our revealed preference. On my first read I found that convincing and a bit depressing, but the more I think about I'm not sure.
We know what Americans say they believe about different kinds of gun control. Pew Research has some interesting stats from 2024 here: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/ . What's most interesting is, while most Americans support some kind of gun control, they disagree quite a lot and on party lines about how to do that. Pew notes that 85% of Dems but 54% of Republicans agree we should ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, and on the reverse, 74% of Republicans but only 27% of Democrats support arming K-12 teachers and staff. My takeaway is nearly everyone think we need to do *some*thing, but they've mapped their preferences to what "their" people say is causing the problem and what would fix it. That means when it's time to vote on a specific policy proposal it would be much more difficult to get something passed than a high-level "we really need to do something about these guns" suggests.
I agree that there are loads of deeply unserious people in this country. Probably even more troubling, there's loads and loads of hopeless people. Looking at those stats, there are a lot of people who look at a heart-rending trend and think they need the tools to keep themselves, personally, safe. They seem to just not buy that fixing the system will really work to keep them protected. They need the right to carry a gun to more places themselves or have their kid's teachers carrying a gun because that's the only thing that's going to really keep their own kids safe.
So it's that "we"/"us" I keep getting hung up on. Most people do know what works for everyone. But even if there was an easy way to convert that into political action (if Congress was effective, if there were no special interests gumming up the works, etc.), I think a lot of people look at this horror show and aren't able to take the leap of faith to think that giving up their guns will make them, personally, safer. And when so many people are just abstracting themselves from the possibility of collective actions to solve our problems, even saying "we" seems like an overly generous read of our situation.
That for me's the root of the Problem, and yes that capital 'p' is both intentional and entirely earned. It's in many ways *the* problem of American government these days. Would that I had a solution.
I would guess that a JVL-type response to your comment would go something like: 1) People who are buying guns for “protection” are NOT serious people, given the stats on gun suicide and fatal gun accidents at home. The nearer you are physically to a gun, the LESS protection you have against being killed by gunfire. 2) Someone (ahem) who tries to make the argument that gun-buyers-for-protection are serious people, is ALSO not a serious person. So yes, WE are not a serious people. WE lie about guns ALL THE TIME, to ourselves and others. And WE look like fools to the rest of the world.
It's interesting - I was talking about something similar (or trying to) in my comment on last weekend's Focus Group with Mark Hertling. Sarah and Gen. Hertling were talking about voters' response to crime, drugs, and the need to feel safe, both w/r/t domestic crime (like sending in the national guard to clean up unsafe cities) and with bombing drug boats. My point was *absolute* safety was impossible, and that pursuing it in one area almost always made you less safe in others.
The same thing applies with guns. Someone *thinks* buying a gun makes them safe. Setting aside the fact they're not also putting in the training necessary to be able to use a gun effectively, there's all the other ways it makes us statistically less safe. It's similar to people who think an overly heavy-handed law enforcement presence (national guard or otherwise) will make us less crimey, rather than just making people too afraid to reach out to the police because they need help. The COVID crime spike suggests things didn't work out that way.
To be clear, my point wasn't that gun-buyers-for-protection were choosing between having a gun in the house or relying on other people to protect them. It's not that sort of a rational failure. It's that for reasons I really don't understand, they think the choice is having the guns onhand or leaving their families unprotected because they don't count on the system to protect them. And even there, there's a whole host of cognitive failings between thinking getting shot by a home-invader was more their fault or even more likely than someone in their family getting killed by suicide, DV, or just a gun accident. But a cognitive failing isn't quite the same as a rational one, though it winds up in much the same place. Whether that counts as unserious is a question worth asking.
It's also for the record why I don't own guns and won't go into the houses of family members I know who own them. (Also all the normal political things we should all do to push for gun control.) It's caused a lot of family friction, but for me, I'm not willing to give the impression I even condone of that choice to have guns on hand.
I guess what I'm objecting to isn't the idea that lots of Americans are deeply wrong on this issue, even being unserious about this. It's that there's a "we" involved at all. Rather, it seems like there's people who see the cost of these attitudes and horrible/nonexistent policies, and there's the people who just don't think any sort of society-wide policy will keep them safe. Probably there's also people who just haven't stopped to think through the dangers, and given how deadly important this issue is, *they* are certainly being unserious on this point. But we?
Maybe I'm wrong, of course. It is awfully convenient to cocoon myself off from that kind of nonsense and pretend it has nothing to do with me. Possibly too convenient. Sometimes it's hard to see that kind of thing fairly.
While waiting in a doctor office two men seated across from me were talking about guns and how it was people who were the problem, not the guns. I said “If guns aren’t the problem but people are, then why let people have the guns”?
so forgive me for being an anthropology minor in college but could it be because we’re too big? maybe there’s something after you multiply Dunbar’s number too many times.
I recall the stunt Ds pulled when they all sat in the well, held hands, and sang songs. At the time, there was some crazy sense that the stunt meant something. It was a step in the right direction! It was interrupting business! The GOP had to notice this! If this didn't bring awareness to the gun problem, what would?
Apparently, it wasn't sitting in the well, singing songs, and holding hands.
When are the consequences of such terrible policy choices going to occur to the GOP? What will it take? Scalise being shot at didn't do it. Mass shooters with clearly revealed Trump preferences didn't do it. If someone showed up on the House floor with an AR-15 and started shooting, I suspect the GOP would write it off as just "one bad apple."
Add now to our unseriousness the exposure of our nation as one that does not condemn the sexual abuse of young girls by men of wealth and stature. Lip service only. Forever. Shameful!!
I'm in Texas and it is far too easy to get and carry a gun. You need no training, no license, nada. Just a driver's license. Gun owners say, "But we do have regulations!" Flimsy bs regulations without enforcement nor oversight.
I'm sure they were celebrating AID's destruction in Moscow and Beijing with sheet cake as well.
I learning that Europe grows more unserious as well. Maybe we have all always been unserious. The prize we get from the transparency of our "Western" daily thoughts on social media is to learn that we are savages, not intellectuals. Uncomfortable truths.
Seems to be growing worldwide.
A sad, but very true post. I thought we showed our true colors as a nation when we failed, after Sandy Hook, to pass any meaningful legislation. Kindergartners (babies) are gunned down and we did nothing. I got my hopes up after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting, because the teens were so passionate and eloquent in their pleas for change. Again, we failed. This is our major national embarrassment.
It is always the response to the terrible acts and words coming out of this administration that "the people" are not paying attention, not "news junkies as the media roundtables will state, or in your words are not serious, i.e., do not care, or all the power is in their hands when they go vote.
With a government that does not want, or care to respond to its constituents, does not want to govern just acquire more power and money from their puppet masters, and a Fourth Estate that has relinquished its power to same moneybags that keep that keep the business profitable, citing the "seriousness" of the people is a moot point, if not condescending.
How are mass shootings covered? With a sigh -- here we go again, and a body count, motivation, and thoughts and prayers, then on to the next. Have you heard one politician, one commentator, one roundtable discussion of gun control, without the qualifier "common sense". Didn't we have a ban on assault rifles, in place for a decade? Has the population changed so, or has the manipulation and propaganda changed?
This is conservatives: southerners, midwesterners, evangelicals, and all around authoritarians. Liberals and progressives seem a bit more serious
JVL says this weekend's violence shows us something deeply true about our revealed preference. On my first read I found that convincing and a bit depressing, but the more I think about I'm not sure.
We know what Americans say they believe about different kinds of gun control. Pew Research has some interesting stats from 2024 here: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/ . What's most interesting is, while most Americans support some kind of gun control, they disagree quite a lot and on party lines about how to do that. Pew notes that 85% of Dems but 54% of Republicans agree we should ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, and on the reverse, 74% of Republicans but only 27% of Democrats support arming K-12 teachers and staff. My takeaway is nearly everyone think we need to do *some*thing, but they've mapped their preferences to what "their" people say is causing the problem and what would fix it. That means when it's time to vote on a specific policy proposal it would be much more difficult to get something passed than a high-level "we really need to do something about these guns" suggests.
I agree that there are loads of deeply unserious people in this country. Probably even more troubling, there's loads and loads of hopeless people. Looking at those stats, there are a lot of people who look at a heart-rending trend and think they need the tools to keep themselves, personally, safe. They seem to just not buy that fixing the system will really work to keep them protected. They need the right to carry a gun to more places themselves or have their kid's teachers carrying a gun because that's the only thing that's going to really keep their own kids safe.
So it's that "we"/"us" I keep getting hung up on. Most people do know what works for everyone. But even if there was an easy way to convert that into political action (if Congress was effective, if there were no special interests gumming up the works, etc.), I think a lot of people look at this horror show and aren't able to take the leap of faith to think that giving up their guns will make them, personally, safer. And when so many people are just abstracting themselves from the possibility of collective actions to solve our problems, even saying "we" seems like an overly generous read of our situation.
That for me's the root of the Problem, and yes that capital 'p' is both intentional and entirely earned. It's in many ways *the* problem of American government these days. Would that I had a solution.
I would guess that a JVL-type response to your comment would go something like: 1) People who are buying guns for “protection” are NOT serious people, given the stats on gun suicide and fatal gun accidents at home. The nearer you are physically to a gun, the LESS protection you have against being killed by gunfire. 2) Someone (ahem) who tries to make the argument that gun-buyers-for-protection are serious people, is ALSO not a serious person. So yes, WE are not a serious people. WE lie about guns ALL THE TIME, to ourselves and others. And WE look like fools to the rest of the world.
EXACTLY why I don't and won't own a gun!
It's interesting - I was talking about something similar (or trying to) in my comment on last weekend's Focus Group with Mark Hertling. Sarah and Gen. Hertling were talking about voters' response to crime, drugs, and the need to feel safe, both w/r/t domestic crime (like sending in the national guard to clean up unsafe cities) and with bombing drug boats. My point was *absolute* safety was impossible, and that pursuing it in one area almost always made you less safe in others.
The same thing applies with guns. Someone *thinks* buying a gun makes them safe. Setting aside the fact they're not also putting in the training necessary to be able to use a gun effectively, there's all the other ways it makes us statistically less safe. It's similar to people who think an overly heavy-handed law enforcement presence (national guard or otherwise) will make us less crimey, rather than just making people too afraid to reach out to the police because they need help. The COVID crime spike suggests things didn't work out that way.
To be clear, my point wasn't that gun-buyers-for-protection were choosing between having a gun in the house or relying on other people to protect them. It's not that sort of a rational failure. It's that for reasons I really don't understand, they think the choice is having the guns onhand or leaving their families unprotected because they don't count on the system to protect them. And even there, there's a whole host of cognitive failings between thinking getting shot by a home-invader was more their fault or even more likely than someone in their family getting killed by suicide, DV, or just a gun accident. But a cognitive failing isn't quite the same as a rational one, though it winds up in much the same place. Whether that counts as unserious is a question worth asking.
It's also for the record why I don't own guns and won't go into the houses of family members I know who own them. (Also all the normal political things we should all do to push for gun control.) It's caused a lot of family friction, but for me, I'm not willing to give the impression I even condone of that choice to have guns on hand.
I guess what I'm objecting to isn't the idea that lots of Americans are deeply wrong on this issue, even being unserious about this. It's that there's a "we" involved at all. Rather, it seems like there's people who see the cost of these attitudes and horrible/nonexistent policies, and there's the people who just don't think any sort of society-wide policy will keep them safe. Probably there's also people who just haven't stopped to think through the dangers, and given how deadly important this issue is, *they* are certainly being unserious on this point. But we?
Maybe I'm wrong, of course. It is awfully convenient to cocoon myself off from that kind of nonsense and pretend it has nothing to do with me. Possibly too convenient. Sometimes it's hard to see that kind of thing fairly.
While waiting in a doctor office two men seated across from me were talking about guns and how it was people who were the problem, not the guns. I said “If guns aren’t the problem but people are, then why let people have the guns”?
This morning, all 3 stories on Up First on NPR were about mass killings: the Reiners, Brown, and Bondi Beach.
Guess how many made any mention of anything resembling even trying to have a policy response?
(1. It was the one about Bondi Beach.)
(edit: all 3 were about mass killings, not shootings. but the point stands.)
The Reiners were stabbed.
so forgive me for being an anthropology minor in college but could it be because we’re too big? maybe there’s something after you multiply Dunbar’s number too many times.
How is suicide a problem that society needs to address?
Among farmers or those whose livelihoods have invariably been affected by this administration?
This is who we are
It is and the sooner many Americans accept that, the better chances of there being a reckoning, but I doubt it.
I recall the stunt Ds pulled when they all sat in the well, held hands, and sang songs. At the time, there was some crazy sense that the stunt meant something. It was a step in the right direction! It was interrupting business! The GOP had to notice this! If this didn't bring awareness to the gun problem, what would?
Apparently, it wasn't sitting in the well, singing songs, and holding hands.
When are the consequences of such terrible policy choices going to occur to the GOP? What will it take? Scalise being shot at didn't do it. Mass shooters with clearly revealed Trump preferences didn't do it. If someone showed up on the House floor with an AR-15 and started shooting, I suspect the GOP would write it off as just "one bad apple."
Someone pointed out, and I verified, that the non-gun-homicide rate in the US exceeds the overall homicide rate in the UK.
If we understood and could address the roots of this murderous violence, perhaps the gun problem would also yield to solutions.
Screaming from the rooftops, THIS IS WHO WE ARE, until we prove otherwise. Good luck America.
Ugh. This Triad is so on the nose it makes me sick to my stomach.