Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

The now-deleted tweet from the AP, something like "while some are calling the subway killing a homicide, others view it as a 'defense against disorder'" really made me feel like garbage. I try to be sanguine about the changes at Twitter because it's all so dumb, but the effect of having a wall of blue-check dipshits defending the most monstrous behavior (unless the perpetrator happens to be black or queer or have green hair or something) before you can see any reply containing the least bit of humanity - it's bad!

xpost the Serbia incident has absolutely caused shockwaves here. We'd never had anything close to a school shooting before, even with the head-spinning gun ownership figures Tom D quoted.

Then on Wednesday a 13-year old boy from a prestige elementary school in Belgrade, straight A student and son of a renowned doctor, brought his dad's pistol with extra clips as well as four homemade explosive devices, to school, firing 57 times and killing seven girls, one boy, and the school security guard; wounding many more children and one teacher. He had a list of targets and a hand drawn map of the school, moving steadily between classrooms. The history teacher he shot was the one who gave him an F the previous week. One of the deceased was his school crush. It's so textbook, I can't believe it's happened in this part of the world. The kid is too young to be prosecuted under current laws, which are swiftly being redrawn.

And in the following 36 hours already there have been several more verbal threats of repeat incidents; one premeditated stabbing by a girl in my old high school also in Belgrade; and an AK-47 drive-by murder spree by a 20-year old in a nearby town with 8 more dead, dozens wounded.

Already announced are stricter gun laws and a crackdown on illegal gun stashes from the nineties, but I don't see any attention being given to the fact the child acted straight from a known playbook, and one that is connected to a specific pipeline. Just like anywhere, TikTok is huge with kids here, and so is Andrew T*te. Popular YouTubers cosplay as him for views. I work at a regional rap record label and used to moderate a Facebook group connected to it, and the kids there were so funny and creative and charming, but so consistently toxic to any girls trying to enter the space, it was heartbreaking. They were so obviously taking their cue from memes. I waged wars trying to change their perspective, but ended up alienating most of them. It's so bleak to see it getting worse.

This is likely the first time I heard about a shooting before seeing it here and am surprised it hasn’t been mentioned. It’s just all too common.

Ugh, that made me do a quick Google search and yeah, terrible.

A gunman opened fire at a crowded mall outside Dallas on Saturday, killing at least eight people and injuring at least seven before a police officer killed him, the authorities said, turning a busy afternoon of shopping into a chaotic and tragic scene.

Who wants to live like this? It's so fucked up.

"Since at least 2016"

In the US so far this year there have been at least 198 mass shootings in which four or more people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That is the most at this point in the year since at least 2016.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/allen-texas-mass-shooter-motivated-by-white-supremacist-beliefs-feds-1234731085/

people on twitter throwing shade at this because 'how can a guy with a mexican name be a white supremecist' and I'm like, uh, please meet the paternal side of my family, the Garcias.

Enrique Tarrio, Nick Fuentes ...

Like a WASP in 1900 asking “How can an Irishman be a white supremacist, they aren’t white!”

not a spree but

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/09/louisiana-shooting-girl-hide-seek/

Yeah, unfortunately, we have a whole new thread for quaking-in-their-boots stand-your-ground types who need to shoot children to assuage their fears.

Shoot anything that moves: Hair trigger gun nuts standing their ground.

(it's been discussed a little there)

Jesus the curve on this year's line:

US on record pace for mass killings, driven "exclusively by gun violence," @axios rpts: https://t.co/jCqJzxjgrY

— Mark Albert (@malbertnews) May 9, 2023

The national response in Serbia could not be more different - no talk of 'false flags' or 'crisis actors', just people marching in the streets and handing in weapons; similar to the response in Australia after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-6559762

People were handing in grenades and rocket launchers

yeah it's not like this is denmark or something - the place is awash in guns

Denmark historically partof serbia tho

Great piece from Nathan Rabin on his friend Amy St. Pierre who was killed at the CDC in Atlanta on 5th May. https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2023/5/17/true-crime-the-endless-circle-of-mourning-and-my-late-friend

I can't be the only one that clicks on this thread when it's bumped, dreading to see a link to a news story for an active shooting somewhere I know folks.

i get a nervous pang every time it's bumped

same

There are European countries awash with guns they just don't feel the need to murder constantly.

I'm looking at you Scandinavia.

Europeans historically are very peaceful

There aren't any European countries that are awash with guns in comparison to the USA, not even Serbia.

xps Yes, I just expect there to be another horror.

Europeans historically are very peaceful[

Lol yes the last instance of European persons shooting each other was... (checks watch, looks at news)

Pretty sure the Prez was joking

Europeans historically are very peaceful

^ a well-formed one-liner

I automatically hear Trump's voice when I read it

There aren't any European countries that are awash with guns in comparison to the USA, not even Serbia.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Monday, May 22, 2023 9:48 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

im talking Sweden. True, nowhere near as many (21 guns per 100 people) but still, all those IKEA instruction and still no daily mass shootings.

They prefer killing themselves over killing other people over there.

xpost 21 guns per 100 people vs. 120 guns per 100 people is a HUGE difference

also their licensing requirements are far far more restrictive than the US

https://www.lifeinsweden.net/sweden-gun-laws/#:~:text=Please%20note%20that%20it%20is,transporting%20process%20when%20transporting%20guns.

They prefer killing themselves over killing other people over there.

Swedes may dispute this - they claim to be just more honest in reporting about suicides, rather than actual higher rates. The US has had a lot of 'accidental deaths' while someone was 'cleaning their gun' etc.

xpost 21 guns per 100 people vs. 120 guns per 100 people is a HUGE difference

HUGE enough to cover the variation in murder rate by gun?

or what, exactly, are you arguing here?

What are you arguing? That if the average number of guns was the same Americans would still be killing more people because we are violent savages?

there was a story in the wsj about this just yesterday. Sweden had 62 gun murders last year (population ~10.5M), which the article said was 1/6 the US rate. so...~1/6 the number of guns as the US, 1/6 the number of murders? it also said that rate is 30x (!) London's.

link to the article

xp im asking what you're arguing.

you're on a very strange run of posts itt imo

What are you arguing? That if the average number of guns was the same Americans would still be killing more people because we are violent savages?

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, May 23, 2023 12:37 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes

And why wouldn't you be? You're fed a solid diet of highly individualized, us versus them (but really me versus everyone), fear and resentment from day nought. You are taught to treat your country like a beloved sports team even though that team, your government, is literally killing and bankrupting millions of their own citizens and somehow making you think its another citizen or group of citizens fault. We all know this but no one will ever do anything about it because no-one seems to understand the govt works for us, we dont work for them. Above all, in good times and bad, one must stand behind the team.

funny thing about american exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally shitty.

and you could be exceptionally great

sunny otm

There it is

Americans have the murder gene

I can’t tell who is being serious here anymore.

i can't either but we are veering towards "the irishman has a natural tendency to drink and violence due to their skull shape" areas

No, that's the Scots.

I suppose pulling it into % gun ownership and overall shootings was a poor start away from mass shootings which like it or not is pretty inarguably something associated strongly as a modern american phenomenon

Might have something to do with all the guns here. I dunno.