Comment by graphime
1 day ago
> I think you underestimate how many people actually care about mass shootings.
Less than 1% of the population, that’s for sure.
You remember the last protest about school shootings? Neither do I.
1 day ago
> I think you underestimate how many people actually care about mass shootings.
Less than 1% of the population, that’s for sure.
You remember the last protest about school shootings? Neither do I.
Because it has moved way beyond protests. Everyone agrees that school shootings are bad. Legislation has been passed. Policies have changed. Schools have changed their security tactics. There have been years and years of meetings across the country with school administrators and boards talking about how to improve safety and navigate these issues, and then the schools themselves implementing new practices.
If you are looking around and saying that because people aren't waving sign on street corners, then nobody cares, then you have utterly missed a couple decades of dedicated efforts by many people working around these issues.
The fact that shootings still happen is tragic. But it is not because people are just shrugging and saying they don't care.
Well they happen in schools and children don’t vote. If this had been a wave of senior center shootings, something would have been done a long, long time ago.
This is not a good argument. Children tend to have parents who can vote.
I see what you're saying, but I don't agree that it works this way. Parents' concerns for their children are far more self-serving than most parents claim. Consider that every "for the children" political agenda ever has nakedly ulterior motives--name one truly pro-child policy where children are directly prioritized at the expense of their parents? Consider the way that school schedules are oriented around their parents' convenience in spite of decades of studies showing the harmful health effects they have. During COVID we saw dramatic efforts to protect the elderly coupled with a push to reopen schools by parents tired of having to take care of them all day. Whatever you think of the restrictions one way or another, the prioritization of elderly was apparent throughout. These are the same parents who have repeated voted benefits for themselves at the direct expense of their children, saddling them with trillions of dollars of debt to support their own present consumption. I promise you, if seniors were regularly being gunned down like this they would have found a solution already.
I get what you’re saying but in the last 20 years can you think of any mass protest that accomplished anything substantial? I don’t really blame people for giving up on it as a tool for change. TBH only truly effective one I can think of would be Jan 6
I can, just not in the US [0]. I always presumed this is linked to the health care being provided by employers rather than having a more robust safety net that allows for civil disobedience without having to fear existential risks. However, I also can’t forget that the French have their safety net not as a God given right, but because they fought for it via (often not just civil) protest. Reference also the statements MLK JR made concerning the willingness of white moderates to engage in actually effective disobedience, even when their financial situation allows for such.
[0] https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2023/06/02/recent-pro...
There are more people not on employer-provided health insurance in the US than exist in France. How does your presumption work given that fact?
1 reply →
> I get what you’re saying but in the last 20 years can you think of any mass protest that accomplished anything substantial?
Nope.
Even the Jan 6 one didn’t really change our quality of life. And damn, that was a protest, by American standards.
It was a protest as much as the Beer Hall Putsch was.
January Sixth was not a protest, it was an attempt to interfere with government processes to prevent Biden from being elected - so a really shitty attempt at a coup.