22+ dead, suspect on the run

The problem is too many people with guns. Gun ownership should be a privilege, like the rest of the developed world that doesn't have the problems we have. You should have to work for that privilege through licensure, registration, mandatory training, and mandatory psych evaluations bi-annually, at a minimum.

The problem is that for all the excuses the gun weirdos make, the fact remains that people with guns are the problem. They're the ones doing all the shooting. If we're not going to get rid of the gun, then the people need to be managed.

Where do the illegal firearms come from? 🤔 What a mystery right?

@br0kenrabbit: I mean, there's nowhere else for this to go, dude. You know the ruling of the land, as it's been shown. You know the statements of the founding fathers, instructing citizens to arm themselves for self-defense for all personal purposes--all citizens--even going so far as calling on people to take their guns on their everyday walks, and this coming from Jefferson himself. You know the founding fathers declared the militia to be the people themselves, distinct from the military. Both matters clarified, with full documentation, book lists, quotes, etc.

There's plenty more quotations and sources, court cases, rulings, speeches, etc., to post, all supporting the right of guns in the hands of any citizen wanting as much, but it's obvious by now that none of that matters to you. You'll just interpret it how you want, which is your right, of course. So be it.

The only thing left to say is this, then. It comes down to the citizens themselves, me, myself, and my fellow countrymen. This is the truth of the situation:

All of the arguments, all of the protesting, whining, complaining, shouting, cursing, and so forth (I don't mean you personally in this thread, as the conversation has been pretty civil, and I thank you for that, truly; speaking more of the general reaction online or elsewhere when discussing these matters)--all of it falls flat, useless. This is the case because the armed citizens of this republic, the ones bearing a philosophy, will not give up their arms for anybody, not for you, not for your whiny brothers, not for any politician, bureaucrat, president, so forth. Nobody will ever take the guns out of our hands. It simply will not happen, because they know that if it comes down to it, they'll have a war on their hands. A bloody one. People are willing to shout, to post gifs, memes, and what-all in forums trying to get guns out of law-abiding hands--but not one of those people are willing to show up face-to-face and try to take them out of our hands. And that will never happen. Most of the military is comprised of conservatives themselves, raised by conservatives, patriots; damn well they will not take the arms out of the hands that taught them to use those arms. Half this country, give or take, are rugged, stubborn, tough as nails patriots that won't budge for anyone. These are the people I am referring to specifically, not just some random that bought a .38 and stuck it in his closet and forgot about it. These people shoot, a lot, and they train, a lot. I'm one of them. I come from a whole line of them.

All arguments aside, the only proof you really need is time, because you will see, in time, that our guns will never be taken. We won't let that happen. Ever.

And that's about it.

Oh, and I love you, regardless. Like a brother.

Does someone's race matter to you when it comes to a violent act?

When black gangs keep shooting people up, people say it's a black culture problem. When white guys keep shooting shopping centers and schools up, how is it not a white culture problem?

People thought that about abortion, too. Look what happened. 😆😆

And it's funny how ya'll talk so fondly of Jefferson...until you get to his Religious Beliefs, then it's 'that silly progressive Jefferson".

The fact of the matter is, most Democrats AND Republicans want more gun control. The fact of the matter is, we have a real issue in the USA with the wrong people getting guns. The fact of the matter is, more innocent people will keep dying until something is done.

You can go on and on about "The Supreme Court" ignoring the fact that we have never treated Supreme Court decisions as the end of the conversation. Dredd Scott?

@br0kenrabbit: Yeah, but that's my point, the flimsy aspect. The rulings, the dialogue, the back and forth ad nauseam is good for forum banter, but doesn't amount to anything ultimately, because at the end of the day, we're still holding, and always will. My block is wall-to-wall jarheads, old heads, brass, and the like. Armed to the teeth. Any given time there's a pack of Pitts or Rotts roaming. All throughout the mid west and near-mid there are neighborhoods like this, endless. If somebody, anybody, wants some, they can come get it. But they never do, be it bureaucratically, or otherwise. Been that way forever, and isn't going to change. We'll keep cracking cocky grins, keep shooting at the range and on our acres, keep training, keep lifting iron, keep strong. We're the beating heart of this land.

Is that a yes?

Interesting reach though, do you think race is a causal factor in shootings?

I mean the only thing the Midwest really provides is beef. That's...pretty much it. It's not even good farm soil (dust bowl, anyone?).

The generation of kids coming have have been traumatized, and their opinions are the ones they're going to be voting with. Boomers are almost gone, GenX is a tiny, tiny generation. It's these kids (I call Millennials kids because I changed their diapers) that are going to be swinging the pendulum in very short order.

So before you get all comfortable in those shoes, maybe you should see where they are leaning. They're breaking the traditional mold by not becoming more conservative as they age: they're becoming more liberal.

And perhaps you should consider their view on gun control specifically. Here's a recent read.

Regan's 'moral majority' are almost all gone. What next?

It's a "here's your logic back at you, in your face" comment. And it was either you or Eoten who was arguing once that race def had something to do with it.

I don't think race is the real issue, I think it's the circumstances people find themselves in. Unfortunately, circumstances are often centered around race. We are not that dream homogeneous society, race still determines an awful lot about how society treats you, from education to medical care.

Deny it's not true all you want, the data is pretty clear: race matters, but it shouldn't.

The only thing that could've prevented this is having the shooter's guns confiscated the moment he checked into a mental institution. At that point, he would need to undergo a thorough mental examination for any hope of legally owning a firearm....

This shows there needs to be closer attention being paid to those gun owners who, at any point, is registered at any mental health facility. Especially if they're hearing voices. So in truth, this could've possibly been avoided. Or at the very least, made it difficult for the shooter to carry out his plan...

I didn't use the logic however, yet you did which was is very bizarre. Again, I merely asked if race matters to you when it comes to violent acts. You keep beating around the bush.

If you don't think race is the real issue, then why be so focused on it that you went back to your thread to edit it in. Clearly, it has importance to you--and my question is merely why.

Again, do you think race is a causal factor in shootings?

I just explained it. Race is always brought up when they're NOT white. I'm just holding to the same standard. Don't like it? I bet!

And as I said above: race SHOULDN'T matter, but it unfortunately does. It isn't a problem inherent in the races, but a rather the fact that the races are not considered equally in all manner of social aspects.

WHERE you grow up can have as much an impact on your life as anything, and the fact is minorities often grow up under much less favorable conditions than others. You can argue about the cause of this all day long but that fact is there.

On the other hand, no one has easy access to proper mental health care regardless of race. Some people manage to get it, most don't. And even those who do are often disregarded once they're on the pills.

As someone who has experienced the mental health system myself (CHIPS=Children's Hospital Inpatient Psychiatric Services ~1987 / Camelot Care Center ~1993) I can tell you they took a bored, over-achieving boy who wouldn't pay attention in class because I already knew that shit and turned me into a fucking rage filled teen full of all kinds of pharmaceuticals.

The mental health industry is profit-driven just like the health care industry. And when you have that, the patient is not the primary concern.

I'm sure the black community has about the same incidence of mental health issues as the rest of the population, but it is often hidden behind gang violence and so we don't often see it.

So I bring up race in this instance to challenge the usual script black = gang violence and flip it around to see if these same people will follow their own logic syntax, mass shooter = white Trump fan.

I mean, if the glove fits?? What's another example I've heard, oh yeah, "how is it stereotyping if it's true?"

I'm not the first to make this observation. It's well known that if you're looking for a serial killer, it's probably a white man.

Is it because white people are prone to serial killing? No. It's because white people have more opportunity. They don't attract as much attention. No one cares if a white guy is walking down the street alone at night. No one question a white guy buying duck (jajaja I'm leaving it!) tape, a shovel and rope, he's probably just some handy man.

I have black people in my family, I've been shopping with them before. I know how these old southern whites treat them. And I've no doubt they don't see the worst of it when I'm with them.

If everyone lived in equal circumstances, I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that you'd see about the same prevalence of the same crimes across the board. But we don't live in a society where everyone gets treated the same, so you're going to get different results from different populations.

So the poor black kids grow up with all the gang pressure, and the poor white kids grow up with everyone telling them they have no excuse for feeling rejected.

Neither should ever happen. But until things change, it's going to keep happening, and you're going to end up with results you're quite familiar with.

That's quite the long winded non-answer. I merely asked if race matters to you when it comes to violent acts. You keep pandering to a "general" argument as if you were speaking broadly. But you weren't. Now you argue your mention of race was a "challenge [to] the usual script black = gang violence and flip it around to see if these same people will follow their own logic syntax, mass shooter = white Trump fan." Yet you're the only one in this thread to bring up "gang violence" and "black" for that matter. That's convenient, albeit a "throw crap at the wall and see what sticks" defense. Amusing to me, at least. So thank you for that sensible chuckle.

You act like this thread is the only interaction I have had with this community. It is not.

So your race connection was in relation to previous threads? Which ones, out of curiosity?

Man, if PG were still open I could show ya. There's some straight-up racist bastards here. I know I haven't been around much in the past few years and a few of those users are gone, but surely we still have our Bell-Curve proponents here.

Eoten was one and I'm only mentioning him because he's gone. There are others.

Fair enough, I suppose.

But also, to be fair, you are just about the most programmed person I've come across on these boards. I mean, your worldview could not possibly be more mainstream. If Rachel Maddow were a perpetually recovering jib head, with some alterations, throw in a healthy dose of David Hogg, and anyone would be justified in thinking you were cloned from their ribs.

We cool though. Like I've said, I've got love for you. And I don't say that disingenuously. But sheesh, dude. Sheesh.

Thread about George Floyd brought the "best" in people.

C’mon Horgen, ol‘ buddy ol‘ pal. Reopen PG. You’re a chill mod, you know you want to. 😉 Good times I miss.

Reality isn't Hollywood, it is most often more drab and boring than paper work. People think some kind of different human runs the world or something, but that's not the case. It's just us.

Yeah, when I first came across this behavior, meaning when first I was aware of it consciously, years and years (and years) ago now, it was interesting to me in a clinical, if slightly perverse kind of way. My dad got his master's in psychology, and while I didn't go that route specifically, in this respect, in terms of interest, the apple didn't fall too far. I looked at it as an opportunity to engage frequently, in an organic setting, with an array of somnambulant states. Over time, though, I learned this is not really the case. It is not an obscured window, so to speak, but rather as though the window is clear as usual, but the eyes looking through it are at once seeing one thing, and seeing another--though not in an opinionated sense. Beyond dissonance, it approaches levels of almost zealous denial, to the extent that denial itself is a terrifying prospect, and is, ironically, denied. I was seeing the personification of Thich Nhat Hanh's "victims of fear"; but it is far more profound than that, as it does not rely on a trigger, at least not any one trigger, but is built from the ground up psychologically speaking from adolescence, which in turn makes it most devastating. It's learned behavior, but it is also grafted. Breaking the spell, so to speak, in the worst of cases might well take death. That hit me pretty hard. It was, is, a gloomy prospect, to say the least. When I arrived at Yuri Bezmenov and his ilk, what I was hearing was not surprising by this point, naturally, but it was nonetheless demoralizing, as I was working in trenches with the rest of the alarm clocked community, and we were in a vacuum chamber of sorts, far too comfortable. This was, of course, a long time ago. That Yuri was not speaking of the soviets, or of any official presence named, was, also naturally, immediately evident, and we began to truly see why it had to be that way, and it was the most banal reason imaginable. It came back to the clean window, as clean as ever, but uselessly clean. This, of course, was illuminating on a progressive basis. It was and is a spiritual matter. And that makes perfect sense, as it is right there, in front of the window, as so much of everything is in this reality. Hiding in absolutely plain sight. An entire new world opened up, but one whose gate closes the moment one passes through, effectively blocking out the next man, who must in turn open the gate himself, which becomes increasingly unlikely, if not outright hopeless, in the absence of spiritual bearings.

I can't read that until you break it up into paragraphs. I have old eyes, and that just all runs together.

Paragraph:

1 main sentence, 1 to 4 supporting sentences.

Oh my dude, oh my dude.

I don't play video games anymore because I can't see shit. You can't expect to me to read a block of text with no breaks.

@br0kenrabbit: how about I double space it

Paragraphs.

They help with not just the visual, but properly composed they more clearly convey the message.

Ah, no dice. Paragraphs will do nada to break you out of your mentality. Would be very Godot of me.

My mentality, hunh? And what would that be?

Well, for that, go read what I wrote. Sans formatting. If you can, of course, handle that.

And the neat little vid.

I got as far as you talking about it may take death something or another but I couldn't follow it. It was rambling, I was failing to connect the pronouns and I couldn't identify an overall subject other than alluding to something spiritual. Then I lost my place in the words and ain't going for it again.

When an argument involves the word 'spiritual' I'm already losing interest. Pull out the healing crystals, get set for some sex magic, hmm?

Yeah, uh, the word doesn't come up until the end, so.......

Anyway. Watch the vid, if you wish. Not talking about spirituality in the sense you're thinking; it is the fork in the road that leads you another way, eyes glazing, all that. Yuri gets to that.

The sciences have always given me the answers whereas spirituality just twists words.

Hey I found out our energy comes from ATP, which is created (recycled) by the ATP synthase complex, which is powered by the electron-transport chain. All very intricate and complex molecular machinery, but when you break them down to their component parts they're just doing what those particular molecules do.

And along comes the spiritual people all like "let teh energies flow through". Yeah, I'll skip that particular kool-aid.

Why is that video taking two minutes to pump out two words? Watching now. LIve comments:

Sounds like church.

Still sounds like church.

Definitely sounds like church.

'The Enemy' Yeah it's church.

More than 3 generations, buddy.

Without being challenged by FACT and SCIENCE!

"Half-baked intellectuals" yeah I see where this is coming from. LOL what a loser.

There's your video.

That....literally has nothing to do with anything stated in the video.

Let' see here:

First 2 minutes: trying to spit out the words "ideological subversion".

"Despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions" - un-huh. We have science out here with the answers, and the whole dumb half of the country going "GOD CREATED!!"

"It's a great brainwashing process" -religion sure is

"Which goes very slow" - yup, it's a life-long effort

'Divided into 4 basic stages, the first being demoralization" - You were born into sin. You are unworthy. You are in need of salvation.

"Why that many years? This is the minimum number of years it takes to educate 1 generation" - Religion has been at it for longer than that, but they DEFINITELY WANT YOUR CHILDREN!

"Ideology is being pumped into the heads of American students" - Yup, Judeo/Christian ideology and American Exceptionalism

And then it just gets heavily biased and stupid from there.

I think this is a dumb video. I feel dumber for watching it.

Here's a video that pretty closely follows my mindset, since you seem so interested on what's going on in my head:

@br0kenrabbit: Dude is describing to a T your state. Yuri, that is.

You didn't miss anything. Nothing of importance there.

@LJS9502_basic: Here comes the confederacy

You don't know me, don't act familiar. Gross. 🤮

Meh, I mean, I still think it's cool how the technology has advanced, being there from the beginning and all.

But the fun sure hasn't. :-\

@br0kenrabbit: It's just hard, dude. Mean, you're in such a state of reactionary subversion that you can't separate Yuri from what he's saying. He's literally talking about the external blueprint, the use of cult idealism in a generational capacity. And you marry it to him, the man himself, the observer.

Then you start your God paranoia kick, and of a sudden it's "oh my God it's God lul".

Yeah, dude. Your state through and through. And you're far from alone. Whole generations of dudes just like you. This is why America is where it is. Demoralized.

You don't see at all what I just did? Need it spelled out for you?

Yuri was basically using a 'fill in enemy name here' diatribe. Really, substitute the proper nouns for any other and it works just as well.

It is a narrow-minded argument with a narrow-minded, self-superiority complex that has no substance.

You do realize these are the same words thrown around by the counter-culture movement in the 1960's, right? So ironic that he mentions those people as enemies, when he's using their playbook, their arguments and their words.

It's weak. And you're weak for falling for it.

Not only was the comment worthless but stupid as well.

@br0kenrabbit: To a T.

Perhaps an illustration will help.

@nod_calypse: Well if you're referring to yourself then I agree.

@LJS9502_basic: Lol, okay dude. Just a joke.

Have a good one.

The context here is oddly entertaining and its inherent Chewbacca defense nature. Race matters to you when it comes to violent crime--warranting further detail in your thread--but only secondary speaking once race was confirmed to your prediction. Thus, kindly editing it in with a snide remark. Yet now it has evolved into the remembrance of previous, and unknown, conversations on the topics of race. Specifically, again, trying to take a stab at the logic "syntax" and by breaking the usual script, which again isn't known, or was seen in the thread until you created it.

Is there a Gamespot rule where threads must be self-contained? I know the audience here, and I know precisely who I was trying to trigger.

Looks like it worked.

No, I merely wanted you to expand on your thoughts without beating about the bush. It's why my questions are directed specifically.

So your defense of "race importance" to you has now shifted to "Ha! It was merely trolling!" Very bizarre. I definitely wouldn't recommend admitting such silly behavior on the forum, as it warrants more specific intervention methods to be applied.