This is exactly what the NRA wants. Because if people are concerned about encountering a mass shooter, they are then more inclined to buy a gun. The NRA, like all those in the weapons trade, wants...
This is exactly what the NRA wants. Because if people are concerned about encountering a mass shooter, they are then more inclined to buy a gun. The NRA, like all those in the weapons trade, wants to be able to arm both sides, and reap double profit.
On the flip side of this, now more Americans are getting to experience what veterans such as myself experience(d) after returning from war.
I spent ~2 years locating the "most strategic place in the room", and jumping when a door opened behind me. I am not alone in that post-war experience, thankfully, I finally healed (Mostly). If we could connect those two, among the wider discussion in the US, perhaps we'd be less trigger happy to send people to war, knowing personally how fsckd they get afterwards.
I've felt this a lot over the past couple of years, especially living in the south. I considered purchasing a pistol, but the Dayton shooting really set in stone for me that there's no real reason...
I've felt this a lot over the past couple of years, especially living in the south. I considered purchasing a pistol, but the Dayton shooting really set in stone for me that there's no real reason to add another weapon to the issue. The police killed this man within one minute and he still managed to hit 35 people. I can't fathom a scenario where someone with a pistol would have done anything but get themselves killed by the shooter or law enforcement. The only time your gun will have the upper hand in a fight is if you pull it out first, which of course shouldn't happen if you're using it for self defense.
Someone needs to explain this to all the heavily armed IT guys who come out of the woodwork on Reddit and Twitter any time something like this happens.
The only time your gun will have the upper hand in a fight is if you pull it out first, which of course shouldn't happen if you're using it for self defense.
Someone needs to explain this to all the heavily armed IT guys who come out of the woodwork on Reddit and Twitter any time something like this happens.
They arm themselves out of fear and a desire to control an uncontrollable situation. No amount of explaining why it won't work will change their perception of reality - until the threat of being...
They arm themselves out of fear and a desire to control an uncontrollable situation. No amount of explaining why it won't work will change their perception of reality - until the threat of being shot in public by a crazy person with a gun goes away their ideology unfortunately is very unlikely to change.
That's the thing though. For most of these people there is no practical threat of being shot by a crazy person with a gun. I've had coworkers who live in suburban bedroom communities, commute into...
until the threat of being shot in public by a crazy person with a gun goes away their ideology unfortunately is very unlikely to change.
That's the thing though. For most of these people there is no practical threat of being shot by a crazy person with a gun. I've had coworkers who live in suburban bedroom communities, commute into an office and go home, and actually do very little with their days aside from being home or doing errands and they talk about carrying like they're at risk of being mugged at any moment. I've lived in a neighborhood that had one of the higher murder and armed robbery rates in the country and I have never been as scared for my well-being as they seem to be for theirs.
I don't even think it's fear really. They know these risks are remote, it's just a thing they say because they think guns are cool and it's a more reasonable sounding justification than "I like how tough I feel when I hold one."
If anything I'd argue this article is proof that they don't know. If you want more proof, ask people whether it's more dangerous to drive a motorcycle or walk down the street. Ask people to name...
They know these risks are remote
If anything I'd argue this article is proof that they don't know. If you want more proof, ask people whether it's more dangerous to drive a motorcycle or walk down the street. Ask people to name things more dangerous than skydiving and see how many mention driving a car. People don't know mortality rates offhand and often times they aren't aware how infrequent things actually are, especially when they appear regularly in the news or affect people they know in their life (availability heuristic).
I think they do know, they just like to play it up to themselves and each other because it makes themselves feel cooler. People don't cite the risks in cars because they drive in a car multiple...
I think they do know, they just like to play it up to themselves and each other because it makes themselves feel cooler. People don't cite the risks in cars because they drive in a car multiple times a day without issue while the subjectively riskier seeming behavior is done only rarely. They also walk around all day without getting mugged, so if anything you'd think they'd be able to just go to the grocery store without feeling the need to be strapped.
What's more, these guys I'm talking about don't exhibit any proclivity towards an "overabundance of caution" in any other areas of their lives (except maybe identity theft) from what I've seen. They're not the types to be fastidious about wearing their seat belts, minding their diets, making sure they're wearing their helmets, etc. So I seriously doubt generalized risk aversion is a strong motivator for them. That's just the socially acceptable front they put on because they have sort of a fetish for the aesthetic of being "prepared for anything." They'll have a multi-tool in their pocket at all times and a lifted truck that never seems to have a speck of dirt on it.
I think it's probably fair to say that there's a mix of biases and a mix of personality traits contributing to this kind of a unique individual. The important part, I believe, is that there's...
I think it's probably fair to say that there's a mix of biases and a mix of personality traits contributing to this kind of a unique individual. The important part, I believe, is that there's probably no solution to "educate" these people out of their mindset.
An Onion article from October 2001: Security Beefed Up At Cedar Rapids Public Library. The point of this article, of course, was that even in the month following 9/11 worrying about terrorism in...
Exemplary
An Onion article from October 2001: Security Beefed Up At Cedar Rapids Public Library. The point of this article, of course, was that even in the month following 9/11 worrying about terrorism in the "second largest city in Iowa" was ridiculous. The Onion's take was that terrorism was a concern for places like New York or Washington and that much of the fear and paranoia sweeping the country was unfounded; Al Qaeda wasn't about to bomb a library in a town of 100,000 people.
Reading this article in the context of 2019 though it's hard to even see the satire. People aren't afraid of (or at least not most afraid of) life turning into a Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie—they're afraid of an individual with an odious ideology and a weapon of mass murder attacking a crowd. And, that is something that could happen at a public library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
But it's not likely. The mortal danger the average American faces from high calorie snack foods or alcohol or driving or sitting at a desk all day is much higher than the threat posed by mass murderers. That's cold comfort though. Those things just don't affect us at the same emotional level. The thought that an ideological enemy (a brown guy screaming "allahu akbar" or a white guy screaming 4chan memes, pick whichever disgusts and frightens you most) could show up and kill you at any moment is scary in a way that getting into a traffic accident isn't. There's both a malevolent intention and a meaninglessness to it; at least when we hear about a car crash we can accept it as an accident and the cost for the ability to get around so easily.
People are anxious and afraid for understandable reasons and this fear can spread even further on social media. We look to our social groups, consciously or not, for cues on how to think and behave and for most of us now our social group includes a large contingent of internet strangers where certain voices can get magnified out of proportion to the number of people who hold those views. Whether or not everyone in your circle of friends is now low-key planning how to escape a mass shooter whenever they're in public you can still end up in an online space where everyone is saying that's the new normal. And if everyone is saying it's normal, isn't that normal by definition?
This fear is harmful though. It's also intentional: the root of terrorism, both politically and etymologically, is terror. Along with half-baked manifestos and ideologies these attackers want to spread fear. In the case of the former we as a society are deciding we won't allow that. We de-platform the breeding grounds of their ideologies, we censor and criminalize the sharing of their manifestos, and we even try to erase their names and faces from news reports.
In the case of the latter though, the intentional spreading of fear, we help it along. We drink deeply of this fear and we share it freely with others and we glorify it. The fear is, paradoxically, comforting. Fear is our natural reaction to danger and to fear something dangerous is to attempt to be safe from it.
This natural reaction is maladaptive though: across the political spectrum in the US the reaction to hate and violence is to arm yourself and prepare for more violence (sample Tildes thread); political opponents become hated and dehumanized enemies as even small disagreements can be seen as enabling and furthering "stochastic terrorism"; and on a personal level, as shown in the OP article, many people are unable to go about their normal lives without crippling fear of being a victim of the next attack.
These attacks are real and horrible and are personal tragedies for the victims and their families and friends and communities. We should ask ourselves why these attacks happen and how they could be prevented. But, at the same time, we shouldn't let the attackers' power to victimize grow to encompass an entire society. Just as we want to temper our reaction to limit the spread of their hate and their ideas we should be careful as well to limit the spread of their fear. We've seen the harm that terrorism can cause to a society but that harm doesn't have to be inevitable if we react properly.
I've been living outside the USA the past 3 years (digital nomad) and feel much safer everywhere else over America. Coming home in a few months for the holidays and stuff like this does make me...
I've been living outside the USA the past 3 years (digital nomad) and feel much safer everywhere else over America. Coming home in a few months for the holidays and stuff like this does make me scared to go out when I'm back home. When I go to sporting events, to a bar, a concert, or even the movies I have this weird thought in the back of my mind that something could happen here. I don't think owning a gun would make me feel any better. I primarily live in Southeast Asia which feels 100x safer, where the most dangerous thing are the roads.
This is exactly what the NRA wants. Because if people are concerned about encountering a mass shooter, they are then more inclined to buy a gun. The NRA, like all those in the weapons trade, wants to be able to arm both sides, and reap double profit.
On the flip side of this, now more Americans are getting to experience what veterans such as myself experience(d) after returning from war.
I spent ~2 years locating the "most strategic place in the room", and jumping when a door opened behind me. I am not alone in that post-war experience, thankfully, I finally healed (Mostly). If we could connect those two, among the wider discussion in the US, perhaps we'd be less trigger happy to send people to war, knowing personally how fsckd they get afterwards.
I've felt this a lot over the past couple of years, especially living in the south. I considered purchasing a pistol, but the Dayton shooting really set in stone for me that there's no real reason to add another weapon to the issue. The police killed this man within one minute and he still managed to hit 35 people. I can't fathom a scenario where someone with a pistol would have done anything but get themselves killed by the shooter or law enforcement. The only time your gun will have the upper hand in a fight is if you pull it out first, which of course shouldn't happen if you're using it for self defense.
Someone needs to explain this to all the heavily armed IT guys who come out of the woodwork on Reddit and Twitter any time something like this happens.
They arm themselves out of fear and a desire to control an uncontrollable situation. No amount of explaining why it won't work will change their perception of reality - until the threat of being shot in public by a crazy person with a gun goes away their ideology unfortunately is very unlikely to change.
That's the thing though. For most of these people there is no practical threat of being shot by a crazy person with a gun. I've had coworkers who live in suburban bedroom communities, commute into an office and go home, and actually do very little with their days aside from being home or doing errands and they talk about carrying like they're at risk of being mugged at any moment. I've lived in a neighborhood that had one of the higher murder and armed robbery rates in the country and I have never been as scared for my well-being as they seem to be for theirs.
I don't even think it's fear really. They know these risks are remote, it's just a thing they say because they think guns are cool and it's a more reasonable sounding justification than "I like how tough I feel when I hold one."
If anything I'd argue this article is proof that they don't know. If you want more proof, ask people whether it's more dangerous to drive a motorcycle or walk down the street. Ask people to name things more dangerous than skydiving and see how many mention driving a car. People don't know mortality rates offhand and often times they aren't aware how infrequent things actually are, especially when they appear regularly in the news or affect people they know in their life (availability heuristic).
I think they do know, they just like to play it up to themselves and each other because it makes themselves feel cooler. People don't cite the risks in cars because they drive in a car multiple times a day without issue while the subjectively riskier seeming behavior is done only rarely. They also walk around all day without getting mugged, so if anything you'd think they'd be able to just go to the grocery store without feeling the need to be strapped.
What's more, these guys I'm talking about don't exhibit any proclivity towards an "overabundance of caution" in any other areas of their lives (except maybe identity theft) from what I've seen. They're not the types to be fastidious about wearing their seat belts, minding their diets, making sure they're wearing their helmets, etc. So I seriously doubt generalized risk aversion is a strong motivator for them. That's just the socially acceptable front they put on because they have sort of a fetish for the aesthetic of being "prepared for anything." They'll have a multi-tool in their pocket at all times and a lifted truck that never seems to have a speck of dirt on it.
I think it's probably fair to say that there's a mix of biases and a mix of personality traits contributing to this kind of a unique individual. The important part, I believe, is that there's probably no solution to "educate" these people out of their mindset.
An Onion article from October 2001: Security Beefed Up At Cedar Rapids Public Library. The point of this article, of course, was that even in the month following 9/11 worrying about terrorism in the "second largest city in Iowa" was ridiculous. The Onion's take was that terrorism was a concern for places like New York or Washington and that much of the fear and paranoia sweeping the country was unfounded; Al Qaeda wasn't about to bomb a library in a town of 100,000 people.
Reading this article in the context of 2019 though it's hard to even see the satire. People aren't afraid of (or at least not most afraid of) life turning into a Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie—they're afraid of an individual with an odious ideology and a weapon of mass murder attacking a crowd. And, that is something that could happen at a public library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
But it's not likely. The mortal danger the average American faces from high calorie snack foods or alcohol or driving or sitting at a desk all day is much higher than the threat posed by mass murderers. That's cold comfort though. Those things just don't affect us at the same emotional level. The thought that an ideological enemy (a brown guy screaming "allahu akbar" or a white guy screaming 4chan memes, pick whichever disgusts and frightens you most) could show up and kill you at any moment is scary in a way that getting into a traffic accident isn't. There's both a malevolent intention and a meaninglessness to it; at least when we hear about a car crash we can accept it as an accident and the cost for the ability to get around so easily.
People are anxious and afraid for understandable reasons and this fear can spread even further on social media. We look to our social groups, consciously or not, for cues on how to think and behave and for most of us now our social group includes a large contingent of internet strangers where certain voices can get magnified out of proportion to the number of people who hold those views. Whether or not everyone in your circle of friends is now low-key planning how to escape a mass shooter whenever they're in public you can still end up in an online space where everyone is saying that's the new normal. And if everyone is saying it's normal, isn't that normal by definition?
This fear is harmful though. It's also intentional: the root of terrorism, both politically and etymologically, is terror. Along with half-baked manifestos and ideologies these attackers want to spread fear. In the case of the former we as a society are deciding we won't allow that. We de-platform the breeding grounds of their ideologies, we censor and criminalize the sharing of their manifestos, and we even try to erase their names and faces from news reports.
In the case of the latter though, the intentional spreading of fear, we help it along. We drink deeply of this fear and we share it freely with others and we glorify it. The fear is, paradoxically, comforting. Fear is our natural reaction to danger and to fear something dangerous is to attempt to be safe from it.
This natural reaction is maladaptive though: across the political spectrum in the US the reaction to hate and violence is to arm yourself and prepare for more violence (sample Tildes thread); political opponents become hated and dehumanized enemies as even small disagreements can be seen as enabling and furthering "stochastic terrorism"; and on a personal level, as shown in the OP article, many people are unable to go about their normal lives without crippling fear of being a victim of the next attack.
These attacks are real and horrible and are personal tragedies for the victims and their families and friends and communities. We should ask ourselves why these attacks happen and how they could be prevented. But, at the same time, we shouldn't let the attackers' power to victimize grow to encompass an entire society. Just as we want to temper our reaction to limit the spread of their hate and their ideas we should be careful as well to limit the spread of their fear. We've seen the harm that terrorism can cause to a society but that harm doesn't have to be inevitable if we react properly.
I've been living outside the USA the past 3 years (digital nomad) and feel much safer everywhere else over America. Coming home in a few months for the holidays and stuff like this does make me scared to go out when I'm back home. When I go to sporting events, to a bar, a concert, or even the movies I have this weird thought in the back of my mind that something could happen here. I don't think owning a gun would make me feel any better. I primarily live in Southeast Asia which feels 100x safer, where the most dangerous thing are the roads.
I still feel uncomfortable with outlets calling themselves "news" quoting a few tweets and treating that as representational.