this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

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That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

What possible correlation could there be? If only we could comprehend this complex issue.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country

One shooting in a country is not proof that the right to bear arms is a public danger. As one might note from the equally isolated incidents in the countries without the right.

288 school shootings in a country that is hardly alone in that right is instead proof of a cultural disease.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

What was that thing with "Under no pretext" I'm sure that it's not that important

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Nah this is a bad take.

Gun law is complicated, they can definitely be used to enhance the violence someone with ill intent can do but social conflicts generally drive it. I mean I'm aussie, we have a fair bit of gun control but still basically anyone who isn't a drongo can get one (although atm I'm in appeals because apparently ADHD precludes me lmao, yep defs don't want shooters getting mental health treatment! Should encourage them to hide it!). We actually have quite a few, almost all bolt/lever action rifles but. Handguns have a lot of commitment and training required which is reasonable since they're for target shooting and people murdering.

We have social issues involving violence, mostly femicide DV stuff, we don't really have the shooters. We don't get the stuff like acid attacks or stabbings that you get over in like the UK or whatever. Someone can do a shitload of harm with lots of thing, a slow firing rifle isn't substantially more dangerous than a car, improv bomb, or crude chemical weapon.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nah, this is a bad take.

There's an obvious connection to guns being easily available and mass shootings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

In the trivial sense, in that you need access to guns to do mass shootings sure

But it's way more complex. The USA is absolutely insane in how available they are, you can just fucking buy one off the shelf without a waiting period etc. You can often carry it everywhere, you can also access absolutely bonkers weapons like semi and fully automatic rifles designed to kill humans in war.

But guns are easily available in Australia: you do a 4 hour training course, pay about 100 bucks and fill out a form, say you have a safe place to store them (it'll be checked in the next year or so), and about 2 months later you can have one. It's easier than getting a license for a car! Our last mass shooting with more than 10 dead was 1996 and 10 wounded was 1999.

The USA has about 10x the guns per person but has mass shootings all the time, as well as tremendously more violence in general.

Fucking iceland has about 1/4 the guns per person of the USA and approx twice aus with similar laws and their last mass shooting was like 2005 or something?

The UK has like 1/3 as many guns per person as aus but is a waaaaay more dangerous place in terms of violent crime and even restricting it to guns comparing the same casualties for aus it's 2010 and 2018 respectively

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is no justification for having easy access to guns in the public. If citizens feel so unsafe in their homes that they think it's necessary, then there is a structural problem

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Sorry, how does this follow? Most countries allow access to firearms. while we can question the validity of the concept of a country; this presumably communicates that most people don't feel it's absurd to have access to firearms.

They are just machines, some are designed as human killers and I would agree that access to those is generally bad. Some are for target practice, some are for killing non humans which I find abhorrent but understand is part of the world for now, some are pure silly fun in the same way fast motorcycles are.

When talking about firearms you need to talk about a certain category because banning them all is as silly as banning drugs or banning stump remover because it's trivial to make a crude incendiary from it.