Be Excellent To Each Other

Horrific scenes in Dallas last night.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-36743033

4 snipers working in unison against the police.

Snipers.

In Dallas.

This wouldn't have happened if the police were allowed to be armed.

Yeah. If only Texas had more guns...

I am so numb to this stuff now, which is horrific if you stop and think about it.

I just expect Americans to shoot each other en masse on a regular basis. Whether it's police shooting people on suspicion of being black, unhinged gunmen engaging in mass killing sprees in schools or other public places, accidental shootings within families where people thought the gun was unloaded/had the safety on, drug dealers and robbers being armed with guns for self defense, gang related guncrime.

It's utterly fucking insane. No other country has this problem to this scale.

The American policy isn't just that some people can have guns, but that everybody should be able to have a gun if they want to. Including youtube commenters!

I can't see any way for it to change, any attempts to introduce any form of gun control result in widespread outrage from so many people. It's terrifying.

This is pretty awful stuff. While I can certainly understand a desire for payback bubbling up in the US right now, we've seen just how badly that goes wrong before now.

There was a recent incident where a man accidentally killed his own son at a shooting range. His shell casing bounced off the wall and landed in his collar. Whilst flailing around trying to get it out, he fired a .22 round directly behind him, hitting his 14 year old son, who was hurrying to help his Dad.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Such a sad situation.

And it's getting more and more absurd.

This case mixes America's gun problem with its long-standing racial tensions, making it even more divisive and problematic.

Yep. It doesn't help matters when police can murder black people with complete impunity.

Aye.
I can't even foresee a solution, other than perhaps 'stop shooting black people' and 'cut your gun addiction', neither of which is going to go down well.

Don't the number of gun homicides keep on falling each year, though? Or is that just some bollocks I've picked up from somewhere?

I think it is from the NRA, which might be biased

From the BBC:

That graph is 5 years out of date, surely there must be some more recent data,

A significant factor seems to be liability. Police departments are seemingly without fail whitewashing follow up investigations, finding officers not at fault. That has to change, given how often the victim seems to be at no point offering any kind of threat.

They won't indict any of these officers because it'll set a precedent. The police unions are heavily involved and put pressure on from day one for no charges to be brought - the cops are told to call their union rep before they even radio it in to base. It's despicable.

Interesting. The other issue I've heard discussed is the severe underrepresentation in the various police forces of officers from these communities, so there's no sense amongst the populace of policing by consent and a general lack of trust by either side.

There is no reliable, widescale data on US gun deaths. The NRA lobbies to stop anyone from gathering it. There's some amateur efforts that involve combing through police reports, but they are hard to get right.

Edit -- overview here: http://boingboing.net/2013/02/26/firear ... e-mis.html

I agree with Lewie. It's a horrible situation when something like this happens, and it's not surprising.

If America aren't going to do anything about guns after Sandyhook, then I honestly don't know what it'll take for them to do anything.

There undoubtedly is, but it does look remarkably flat, though.

The SGU had an interesting couple of pieces on gun issues recently:

18 June 2016
Follow-up 2 July 2016

https://www.facebook.com/ParentsAgainst ... =3&theater



Parents Against Gun Violence puts out one of these every month. They're quite the thing.

Bins are just as big an issue over there, clearly.

Genuine LOL! Good work Kern.

The future is here.

http://www.ktxs.com/news/national/urgen ... n/40416820

Fucking hell.

I'm_ok_with_the_events_that_are_unfolding_currently.gif

Holy shit. They killed him with the remote control exploding car from COD Black Ops.

Holy shit.

'The Dead Pool' had remote control exploding cars first. Admittedly they were used by the bad guys.

Gta 3, too

Is it ok to be irritated by the guy saying 'The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb'?

Yep.

That goes down as the most passive of all passive sentences.

Regarding the story that started this thread:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /86790460/

'In a statement, police said, "During the stop, shots were fired. One adult male was taken to the hospital. We have been informed that this individual is deceased."'

In case anyone wanted to feel even shittier about Dallas, the events that unfolded were a result of the violent escalation of a (up till that point) peaceful protest following the murder of two black men by police.

With one there was a struggle as they arrested him, but the level of violence used to subdue him was maddeningly brutal. The other worked at a school, and was in the car with his girlfriend and her daughter.

It's not just a gun control problem, it's also a racism problem, and the two sit hand-in-hand in the most horrific way.

I saw that the Dallas PD were tweeting pictures of an apparent suspect who was openly carrying a assault rifle around during the march.

He was innocent and not involved on the shootings at all.

But he was carrying a high powered long assault rifle around the streets because that is his legal right.

I just... I can't even.

Welcome to my home state.

I'm sort of okay with the statement. All they can do at that point is state what they know absolutely for sure. Officers could be confused or lying. Eye witnesses could be confused or lying. The coroner has given no cause of death. It sounds incredibly weaselly, passive, and impersonal - but I don't think they've got much choice, despite the available unconfirmed information definitely providing a very likely narrative. Obviously they should go back and elaborate on that statement once information is confirmed.

Yep. The second amendment wasn't really designed for black people it turns out.

He could have saved the day. It was a carry your gun about place. We keep getting told it wouldn't happen as good guys carrying guns could shoot bad guys.

Right?

You know what this cancer needs? More cancer. As much cancer as humanly possible, please.

Yes. This makes sense.

Guns don't kill people, terrifying Bomb Robots kill people.

If guns had guns then this wouldn't happen.

I've smashed up a coke machine just to be on the safe side

I'm scared to go home to my RoboVac now.

You shouldn't call her that.

The only way to stop a Bad Terrifying Bomb Robot with a gun is a Good Terrifying Bomb Robot with a gun.

Slightly off topic (Continents away) but RoboVac made me remember this weeks Popbitch story