America has been in decline for years and as a society and a culture it's a horrible place.
The bad (typically gun related) things happening in America thread
- Thread starter calodo2003
- Start date
The old dude at the front of the store right at the beginning is so odd...kind of just like, meh, not this again. Pretty standard in the US now I guess.
Yeah, that specifically prompted my use of ‘surreality.’ Don’t know if the old cat was in shock through potentially seeing that one victim being presumably killed, but he was slow in processing the enormity of the situation.
The journalist circled the entire building to find that old man only halfway down the exit ramp from the store. You have to wonder if the gunman perhaps spared his life by taking pity on him. That old chap was as sitting a duck as possible.
Yeah, I’d say shock. He is a long-time employee and like you said probably couldn’t process what he was seeing.
I don’t know what the deal with Colorado is. I know people move there for health reasons - mental as well as physical - but that’s not enough to explain stuff like this or the murderer dressing up as a Batman villain at a theater. Or that stupid bitch in Congress.
Thanks.
Don’t forget Columbine, the modern day bell weather for mass shootings.
Colorado is very neck outside of the blue island that encompasses Fort Collins, Denver, & Boulder. Extremely neck. Quite the dichotomy.
Seventh mass shooting in the past seven days per MSNBC, apparently.
I'm the last guy who would demand heroism as an expected behaviour, and it's natural and correct to flee after you hear shots, but have to say I'm pretty creeped out how all these people at the beginning stand there with their phones, including the one filming the footage, and noone thinks to check on the people lying right there, to see what's going on with them and if some first aid could be done to save them. Surely it would also be helpful for any EMTs arriving to have info on the injuries.
Again, obviously the sense of shock and threat in the situation, I couldn't blame anyone for anything. It's just weird and horrible to see.
I’d like to argue with you on this, but I can’t.
I wouldn’t say it is everywhere except those areas from what I saw growing up there, but as you said it can go from ’deep blue’ to ‘deep red‘ much like some other western states.
To his defense, you could hear sirens about 45-50 seconds into the clip. If we hear it on the tape, they obviously heard it far more clearly. But I totally get your point. I don’t think I would put myself in danger by checking on the victim inside the store with the shooter still active, but I think I would have done something to assist the victim on the ground outside the store. That said, who the feck knows what I would do overall. I’m of the age where I was too young for ‘duck & cover’ & I have never participated in an active shooter drill as I am too old.
No doubt this tape will play a key role in the prosecution of the shooter, so there is a definitive positive from this cat being behind the camera filming it.
Oh don't get me wrong, I would absolutely not want to claim that I would act differently, let alone better, if that is even a notion. I've never been in such a situation, impossible to pretend to know what it's like. It just strikes me when watching, right at the beginning.
It's also not the first time this kind of thing strikes me, there was a similar situation in one of the videos of the assault on the Capitol, where one cameraperson was filming a security officer all alone keeping in check intruders in a precarious situation, slowly retreating, and the person filming was keeping their distance and filming like a cameraman. Thought it odd they would be so taken up with recording that they seemingly don't even think about getting involved.
It really is just a very speculative, and maybe not fully appropriate or frivolous given the occasion, aside, but the omnipresent and routine use of cellphone cameras to capture surrounding events on video surely has somewhat influenced and transformed our very relation and attitude to the situational reality we're in. But it also obviously has enormous merits for evidencing, as you point out.
I watched / listened to the first hour diligently, more sporadically after they led the shooter out. What subsequently shocked me was how laissez faire so many who were told by the journalist that an active shooter was present. I don’t know whether to chalk it up to shock, apathy, or overall stupidity (for lack of a better term) by those being told to get away. The interaction with the person who said they were heading to work was very hard to determine which of those three it was.
Again, just surreal.
Watch gun sales sky rocket after this shooting.
We cam blame the NRA and politicians all we want but the NRA is powerful for one reasons. Americans on average have a weird infatuation with guns.
We cam blame the NRA and politicians all we want but the NRA is powerful for one reasons. Americans on average have a weird infatuation with guns.
No doubt it will. It’s the counterintuitive result of every mass shooting.
The NRA is as weak as it’s ever been in it’s ‘new’ version (‘new’ being multiple decades old, yet a far cry from what they were in the 50s & 60s), but its creation of the fetishization of guns & gun culture will be nigh on impossible to erase in the coming decades. It’s just so unfortunate.
It's just a law to protect an industry that gets more profitable as more innocent people die. It's not impossible, it's that this country doesn't give a feck about anyone.
You are correct, it’s just a law.
And you’re right, there’s no inertia to repeal the law or craft a different one. It smacks of the same autonomy with which the tobacco industry had for decades. It took a massive aligning of some stars (& some luck) in the late 80s to be able to pierce the defenses the industry had erected around themselves & finally hit them in the pocketbook & further change advertising to the better. With the country even more polarized currently, there simply won’t be any way the gun industry will soon face retribution for the hell they have wrought on this country.
Christ, I hope I am wrong, but we’ve been here far too many times in the past. It’s a macabre Groundhog Day.
Don't want to de rail to much, but is the term red neck not seen as derogatory these days or not yet?
It also seems to be from both sides left and right which is very surprising.
It’s weird alright.
There was an article in the paper about a year ago from a lefty in CO that explained his reasoning for buying a gun. I didn’t agree with it but....
I’ll see if I can dig that up later.
Those poor white people, systematically discriminated against for hundreds of years simply because of the colour of their neck after a hot day.
Hardly what I'm saying now.
A lot of people wear it as a badge of honour so probably not seen as derogatory.
Hillbillys are fair game
I actually thought it would be what the racists use as a counter point to racism.
Uh but you call us red necks so I'll call you....
If you get me. The extreme counter point.
So thought it would be frowned upon at this stage.
Not sure, perhaps ‘Redneck’ might be derogatory towards many Southern folk, but I feel ‘neck’ accurately encapsulates the gun fetishizing, thumping, aggressive & intentionally ignorant segment of my country, regardless their location on the map. I’ve been surrounded by them my whole life & seen & their idiocy, I don’t mind much if it is taken as derogatory or not.
It’s a mark of pride for some like Dwazza said, and used in a more light-hearted manner than...other type words I don’t use. I might joke about myself being one, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend walking up to a big ol’ country boy and calling him that.
It's a term of endearment in the south. 10 match ban for Evra
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but in seriousness, no I don't think I would class it as derogatory. I spent almost 20 years in Bama and no one I ever met down there took offence and most wore it like a badge of achievement.
I think it's mostly used by white people towards other white people.
‘Cracker’ would be a derogatory term that holds far more racial connotation. ‘Neck’ is more focused on ignorance.
Thanks for the explanation guys.
Permanently? The wife not liking Italy enough?
No just heading back to get vaccinated. Back to Europe sometime in the Summer when things are a bit more sorted here.
I think its around 22% of Americans who own a gun (330m population so around 72.5 million americans)
so on average I would say they don't, however, there are 120 guns for every 100 americans (393 million guns) therefore your average gun owner owns 5 guns which suggests that of the minority that own guns those that do tend to own a lot (if you further factor in that im sure a lot of pople own only 1 or 2 guns meaning there will be a lot of people who own a lot more than 5 guns)
Around half of the worlds guns owned by civilians are in the united states ... and as the above shows probably something like 30% of the worlds guns are going to be owned by perhaps 10% of the american population or in real terms 30% of the worlds civilian guns are owned by 0.5% of the population and they are all huddled together in one small corner of the globe - so yeah no wonder its messed up
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This is it.
If a classroom full of 6 year olds, babies, can get blasted to bits by an assault rifle and the country's response is "Thoughts and prayers" then that country is broken beyond repair. America is a lost cause with guns. They'll never change.
I was thinking that we've all pretty much concluded that these were sex shops and sex workers that were targeted but that may not be fair. This article indicates that it was just a place for a massage, not necessarily a rub and tug type of place.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/22/atlanta-spa-shootings-mario-gonzalez-detained-police
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/22/atlanta-spa-shootings-mario-gonzalez-detained-police
I really need to marry a European/South American, pop out some mini-mes, and repatriate. We dumb.