This is why I'm trying, it's difficult, to shed my partisanship. It is normally someone on the left, saying that the political right is this and that because of their getting fake news from Fox. Here we have someone on the political left with a highly biased news source ignoring the actual facts that may be found and latching on to the s…
This is why I'm trying, it's difficult, to shed my partisanship. It is normally someone on the left, saying that the political right is this and that because of their getting fake news from Fox. Here we have someone on the political left with a highly biased news source ignoring the actual facts that may be found and latching on to the spin that supports their worldview. Truth is hard to discern once the conversation becomes politically partisan. We are all vulnerable to the same emotions.
We suffer from the delusion that we're any different. Have you read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind yet? Got it for Christmas, just finished it an hour ago. Really, really dense with information and data on 'why good people are so divided by religion and politics'. Not densely written, just so full of valuable insights it's a wonder the book doesn't explode from the pressure ;) Haidt describes himself as liberal but I suspect his liberalism has moved closer to the centre, like mine has, and he's closer than either you or I are. He makes a case for ideas liberals have that are, in his opinion, really really right, some things conservatives get really really right, and also that libertarians get really really right. He says humans are 90% chimp, out for our own interests, and 10% bee, part of the hive, and that we have a 'hive mind' that can be switched on through transcendent experiences, which can be but aren't limited to drug or religious or meditation experiences. He talks about how we all think we're in control of our minds and *none* of us are; our conscious mind is a very small rider on the huge elephant of our subconscious which the one who's *really* calling all the shots. He talks about the moral foundations we've all built, but in different ways, from the same six parts of it. Liberals are motivated more by care for others and inclusion, conservatives by loyalty, authority and sanctity and how there are good evolutionary reasons for all (including religion, with the 'secret sauce' of its success being when you bind people together in something sacred it encourages/mandates them to be less selfish, which often carries out to the world at large. Really fascinating stuff, and a book I'm going to have to re-read. It will make you think differently about whatever ideology you think is the 'right' one, hopefully make you recognize the weaknesses in your creed, and wonder what the other side might get right. I'm beginning to find common ground now with right of centre conservatives, not the hard right, just as I have less patience now with the hard left.
I call it The Murky Middle, where you don't always like the company you keep. You will find yourself occasionally even finding value in 'problematic' pundits and celebrities who you mostly dislike but shit, s/he just said something I really agree with! Cognitive dissonance! (Learn to live with it :) )
All of those political tests show me very slightly right and a bit more libertarian. Agree on some stuff, disagree on others. Probably what makes me to the right is my thoughts on firearms. I'd prefer everyone, including felons to have them than only government & criminals (I repeat myself) have them. I've been shot at, both in combat and as a civilian which makes me that way, but I understand that my preference is just mine and might not be right for all of society. Indeed, some who share my experiences came away with different views.
The first time I laid eyes on dead Viet Cong, I observed that they were all very young. Empathy kicked in; their mothers are waiting for them. So was mine. Empathy died. I'm sad to say that empathy turns off at times to this day when I wish it wouldn't. A scar that never healed. Not right for everybody or even me. An emotional self-defense mechanism. At an intellectual level I still have both empathy and sympathy.
That little personal bit is to say that even though I am aware of the "lived experience" that shapes my opinions, I don't hold them as truth for all. My demons are not that of others, nor theirs mine. That's where the trouble come, people with different traumas often don't understand each other.
I've lived in Canada for the last 17 years and I've experienced a much less violent society than I did when I lived in the US (CT, for the last 18 I was there). Toronto is still one of the safest cities in North America although the gun violence rate has gone up considerably since i've been here - mostly because of gangs on 'those sides' of the city. I myself stand little chance of being murdered because I'm an older woman (maybe ten or so younger than you if you were in Vietnam) and the only way I'll get murdered is if I get randomly caught in a gang shooting (unlikely, but they've happened in 'good' parts of the city) or if I get murdered by a partner (even less of a chance than a random bullet since I don't tolerate controlling or abuse in anyone and most men can't get past the first coffee date with me. It's *much* more difficult to get a gun here as a civilian and we like it that way. We're okay with occasional raids on neighbourhoods to get rid of illegally owned weapons. The laws are a bit different out in the western Prairie provinces where there are legitimate reasons to own guns for protection and more problematic shootings like there are in the US: Sometimes someone gets problematically shot while committing or having just recently committed property theft and destruction crimes, racial profile of the crime victims - white - and the of the shooting victims - Indigenous. But at least where I live, in a highly urbanized city, I can walk around safely at night, even after I moved here as a hot young chick of 42 lol. Canada hasn't suffered the social, economic and legal breakdown that the US is currently undergoing so it's different here. I'm good with keeping guns hard to get here, and I wish they were harder to get in the US, because frankly, Americans have proven they can't handle liberally-available guns. I'm not sure what America's future is but I'm sad to say I find it bleak, and I'm sure glad I don't live there anymore. Never will again. Too FUBAR'ed at this point to consider it.
I understand your point of view. I do cringe at the phrase "gun violence" though. To me, it's just a matter of violence, without regard to the tool. I went to a vocational high school, now a "magnet school" where I was a slight racial minority since it had a large population from the Pruitt-Igoe and Peabody Projects. Several students got stabbed or sliced every year I was there. That experience led me to a dim view of black people. As a Marine in Vietnam, we were brothers, at least thru the wire, ready to go in harm's way for people we might not even like. A black Marine in my platoon did just that for me and I know that he really didn't like white guys much. New view, all men are brothers. We experience new things and get new views.
Guns were a common thing when I was young, not yet demonized. A rifle rack was one of my elementary school woodworking projects. In the summers I stayed with my grandfather in the Ozarks where I was trusted to go into the woods with a rifle or shotgun to hunt. As a young adult I was a competitive shooter in Handgun Silhouette. The high school I went to had an indoor small bore rifle range and an armory for the rifle club and teams. I have a picture in an old yearbook of the Girls Rifle Team that had just won the intramural rifle championship for St. Louis that year. Yes, in the 60's high schools competed against each other in rifle marksmanship. Half of the girls in the picture are black. Times have changed.
I'll put on my tinfoil hat and opine that the anti-Second Amendment movement's man behind the curtain is politicians who want a citizenry that can't do what the founders did in the face of tyranny. Deep in its soul, the Rittenhouse debate is not about the actual self-defense case, it's about guns; for them or against them. Old guys like me, in America, see them as a tool.
It's funny, because I think the ones who brook no discussion of intelligent gun ownership want to *enact* the tyranny, and the rise of gun bullying since the Obama years, when armed vigilantes would show up to intimidate town hall meetings, not to mention race- and gender-based mass shootings, don't disabuse me of that notion.
That said, I understand why Americans want them *today*. Y'all be crazy. Not kidding. All of you.
Guns weren't demonized back in the '60s because the NRA hadn't been taken over by loons yet. But crime *was* bad back then and things spiraled out of control. I don't think everyone needs guns and the research on this is quite quite clear - in countries with unfettered access to guns, the violence is *way* higher. The US is a bit of an outcast as far as the rest of the West is concerned. Just look at Australia - they got rid of a lot of guns after one or two bad mass shootings and their gun violence went way down. Same in Scotland after the Dunblane massacre.
Since I don't have to live in the Ignited States anymore I don't have the passionate feelings about guns as I once have - I'm just glad I live in a place that can seriously clear your head about it. Dave, you're living in a very real climate of fear, just as people were back in the '60s and I understand that, but just know...it doesn't have to be like that, and guns are part of the problem, not the solution. (Not unless the solution to the opioid problem is more opioids, and the growing abortion rate is more abortion clinics, and the spiralling alcohol problem--more alcohol--you get the picture.
I'm just saying...when you live in the middle of a violent shitstorm, you can lose sight of the fact that *there are alternatives*.
And they don't even involve a *total* ban on guns.
Just idiots with guns. No matter what their political philosophy.
Australia didn't ban all guns, after Port Arthur they banned the ridiculously overpowered armament that no sane person should feel a need to own unless he is in combat.
Full disclosure: I favor a complete repeal of the second amendment, with gun ownership granted only on demonstrated need and with conditions such as regular proof of safe storage and continued possession. "Demonstrated need" as, for example, living in a high crime neighborhood or being particularly vulnerable to theft, e.g. operating a jewelry store. And explicitly not including "I enjoy killing animals," something I see as extremely sick.
Don't get me wrong; I fully understand the absolute political infeasibility of this repeal, but then I was saying the same about same-sex marriage thirty years ago and it is now the law of the land (my partner and I were married in 2017). The fetishizing of guns, the perception pf gun ownership as the foundation of identity, ridiculous notions that stocking up at Wade's is a deterrent tyranny ... all these stand in opposition (never mind that a lot of the same people would enthusiastically support a tyrant who hated the right people).
I live in a country where guns are illegal, only the cops have them, and people here don't cower in fear at a traffic stop and the cops don't demand you let them at your dog so they can kill it.
I have never owned a gun; I borrowed one for three days once and couldn't stand having it around. When someone tried to rob me at gunpoint I defused it by laughing that I was a college student and broke.
But I grew up in the south, I have met a lot of gun fetishists, and I can't stand them.
Oh, about that infeasibility .. even the most fervently-held attitudes can change incrementally and then they hit a tipping point and they collapse. I've been waiting most of my life for the near-daily massacres to move the needle, and it's not moving.
Then again I've been awaiting a national revulsion against background music and that hasn't happened either, even as the music has gotten so horribly worse.
Arggg! Once again as I've spent ten minutes typing, poof all gone, and I must start over.
Your dismissal of things that sound like they came from the NRA is an example of the problem of partisan (that's not just political parties, but all ideologies) demonization of "other." Some of what they have to say is true. They are also, by far, the best source of firearm safety material and training for civilians. A significant number of people are abandoning the NRA and joining less compromising organizations like the GOA which are all about the political, like the NRA's ILA.
Most people are practical in seeking efficiency or ease. Certainly, it is easier to kill someone or yourself with a firearm. They are not required. We adopted my niece when she was orphaned as a result of my sister-in-law being brutally beaten to death (fists and feet) by her boyfriend. I doubt that gun prohibition would end suicide or violent crimes of passion.
I think that nature vs. nurture is more of a ration than an absolute. Some say that gendered traits are a social construct. There is probably some truth in it. China has banned actors and entertainers who are "sissified" because they think it contributing to the feminization of Chinese men. Having said that, I think that men are inherently more prone to violence than women. Taking tools away won't change that either. It might reduce the number of "weak" boys, bullied by the school's jocks, from taking a gun to school, but as sensationalized as such events are, they are rare. And of course there are other tools https://tinyurl.com/2ps39486
We require training and/or testing to drive a car and I am in favor of training and testing to go out and about with firearms. I am far too liberal to support "need" as a requirement.
I dismiss some of what you say as NRA propaganda because of the illogic, such as noting that if you got rid of all guns people would still kill each other, or that gun prohibition wouldn't end crimes of passion. You're absolutely right, but as Jon Stewart pointed out, enacting strict DWI laws didn't eliminate drunk driving but it reduced deaths by TWO THIRDS! Now what if we reduced the 40,000 deaths (don't care who pulled the trigger or why) cited in the Pew article by two-thirds? That brings the annual death by gun rate to *13,200*. I'd rather have zero gun deaths than 13k, but I'd much rather have 13k than 40k and likely growing. I'm also in favour of keeping in place our laws prohibiting murder, rape, stealing and child abuse. They haven't eliminated those problems but they've greatly reduced them.
Men will always be more violent than women, but they're *less violent* now thanks to feminism, progressivism, intellectual advancement, and technology. We may never eliminate rape but it went down over 60% before it began rising again in recent years (why, we can't be sure, but I suspect the breakdown of the American body politic and the pandemic making us all a little nuts, literally, although only the ones prone to violence to begin with will likely become *more* violent). And I'll remind you: I have not once called for a ban of *all* guns. I merely note the firm evidence behind the fact that the *proliferation* of guns is directly linked to higher rates of gun violence. I call specifically for *saner* gun laws that don't put them into the hands of every idiot who wants one. I don't worry about people like you, Dave. I don't worry about women either, regardless of how right-wing they are. If veterans or women start suddenly claiming more market share in killing people with guns, I'll start damning them too. Did you know recent studies are finding a strong link between men who commit active shooter killings (that's a better way to put it, actually) and prior history of domestic abuse? That wouldn't have helped your SIL but it would have helped all the women who WERE killed by gun-totin' partners. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/26/domestic-abuse-gun-violence-reveal
So yeah, I favour NOT allowing men with prior domestic abuse violations from owning guns.
Sometimes, dealing with folks who are very pro-2A feels a lot like JK Rowling must feel when she gets excoriated for claiming biology is real. How is it controversial for me to assert that only people who can handle the responsibility should have guns?
Here's the thing, Dave: The presence of guns in the house increases the likelihood that someone's going to die by it, the most common person being the white adult male by his own hand. Suicidal feelings are more often than not impulsive. Someone with a lot of longstanding suicidal feelings will act on them no matter what if they make a considered decision to kill themselves; but most are actually impulsive actions arising from recent events like a fight with a spouse or a lost job or some other traumatic event. This happened to a friend of mine who had a fight with her husband one night and went to bed, and found him dead the next morning. (Suicide by hanging, in the backyard. She found him.) Why the hell Bill (no guns in the house) was so hell-bent on killing himself is beyond all of us, but without a gun in the house most people will think about it, consider their options, but if they don't do it within the first hour they're far less likely to do it at all. With a gun, it's too easy in the heat of the moment to pick it up and shoot yourself; no planning required. (Most men in Bill's place would have given up, why he didn't is a mystery, but he's in the minority).
Dave, we don't disagree on much here, but I think your information on gun violence is a little outdated. Mine is, too, because things have changed a LOT in the last five years since Trump took office and further divided the US and then the pandemic happened. Do some research and make sure your information is up to date and also consider that at least a few of your arguments are easily discredited, while your history of being a combat veteran who owns a gun (probably more than one I'm guessing) and yet hasn't murdered anyone with them is your strongest talking point. I don't know how effective you'd actually be, frankly, armed at an active shooter site because I don't know whether you practice regularly - that's critical to being an effective 'good guy with a gun' which is why only 3% of armed shooters are stopped by armed 'good guys' - but if you do practice *regularly*, like one or more times a week, you might actually be an *effective* 'good guy with a gun' rather than someone who'd get shot before he had his gun out of his pants because he's out of practice and the bad guy isn't.
I'm with you on the 2A, Dave, even though I've never owned a gun. Let's bring rationalism back to the gun debate and fight the extremists just as we do in the culture wars.
A lot of gun owners fancy themselves as having nerves of steel and that they will respond to an armed attacker with cinematic control. They've shot at paper targets at the gun range so they're ready to face an armed attacker or be the heroic Good Guy if the opportunity ever arises.
This is pure conceit.
Law Enforcement officers on SWAT teams go through biweekly training sessions to maintain neural readiness and missing even one session means they will not go out on the next emergency.
In real life people's hands shake uncontrollably, they will even drop their guns, their target practice may as well have never happened.
Yes, the FBI report (I think it's about 10 years old at this point) that noted only 3% of armed men ever disarm a shooter, mass or not, is the one that notes that you need to train regularly, not just occasionally or, take some classes and that's the end of it. I talked to an Iraq/Afghanistan vet about this a few years ago and he noted how you have to train CONSTANTLY to move behind the freeze response, which too often happens when you don't have the 'muscle memory' to spring into action. You need to know *exactly how to move* or you will react, as studies of active shooter situations have demonstrated, that armed civilians more often than not get shot while fumbling to remove the gun from their holster or pants. Which is why a war vet, years or decades removed from combat, may be no more useful in an active shooter situation than a wannabe Rambo.
There is a climate of fear generated by politicians and the press, Steve has written about how people think the number of unarmed people being shot by the police is out of proportion with reality. The FBI number of people in a "mass shooting" is far lower that what people are thinking of when they hear the words mass shooting. A few years ago, I looked up mass shootings in Maricopa County where I live. There had been two. A four-person drug deal gone bad and an apparent home invasion.
Arizona is a Constitutional Carry state, you don't even need a permit to carry open or concealed. Open carry in grocery stores is a sight common enough that people don't pay attention to it. Not long ago I saw a mother with a baby in her cart, open carrying a Glock. I do have the state issued permit, Reciprocity in many states, I can carry concealed in places that serve alcohol provided that I don't drink, and I can go into a gun store, buy a gun and a box of bullets and walk out the door with it because it assures that the State and Feds have checked me out already (periodic renewal and new check). I am not the least bit afraid to see someone carrying a gun. Even when you don't see it, they are there. The thing is, people with concealed carry permits, and even NRA members are not the people out committing crimes with guns. Felons, prohibited carriers, have guns and they do.
You mention the NRA. As a boy I took the NRA Safe Hunter Corse sitting in my 8th grade school desk. It was their targets and safety program that we used at my high school Rifle Club and with the Arizona Gun Safety training course I took. The NRA is not what people are thinking of when they think of the political arm of the NRA. It is the NRA/ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) which came into existence as a response to gun control advocacy.
Australia and Scottland? I couldn't care less what they do. They are not America. The guns will never all go away here, it is fantasy to think that criminals will give up useful tools. I frequently see news stories about a criminal arrest that included illegal firearm possession. The criminals are not concerned about gun laws.
We have different views partly because we have different situations. I'm not trying to get you to change your views, and you won't change mine. Pretty much all of my friends have at least one gun. None of them have committed a crime with them or had a negligent discharge/tragedy. Most of them are veterans.
A far bigger problem than guns is political partisanship which blinds people both sides of an issue. You named the political right for something I think is more common on the left, but both sides have their radicals don't they. Ignoring ours while pointing at theirs will never solve the problem.
You're right, we will never change each other's minds and I can see how you can't even fathom living in a society where people don't feel the need to be armed to the teeth. Nevertheless, numerous studies have demonstrated time and time again that the proliferation of easily accessible guns results in high gun violence in any country. An FBI report noted that only 3% of armed crimes in progress were stopped by 'good guys with guns'; the vast majority were stopped by *unarmed* men. Most gun deaths aren't mass shootings; they're only a small percentage, even as daily as they are today. Two-thirds of the gun deaths every year are male white suicides. Y'all are your own worst enemy.
I used to live in the small town of Newington CT and IIRC correctly (20+ years go) we had two notable cases of gun violence: A mass shooting at a lottery office (4 dead, including a former mayor) and a Vietnam vet who went nuts and held someone hostage with a gun while in a standoff with police (pretty sure the hostage survived, can't remember if the vet did.)
So, so glad that I live in a sane world where I don't have to deal with armed paranoiacs in the Tim Horton's. I wish you could understand how safe we all feel here in Canada.
Few people "feel the need to be armed to the teeth." I don't own a semi-automatic rifle capable of holding over ten rounds (hoplophobs incorrectly call them assault rifles). As a Marine I never heard my fully automatic M-16 referred to as an assault rifle. Assault was a verb. I not only don't need an AR-15, but I also don't want one.
You use the loaded word "gun deaths." When mayors have guns turned in and send them to a crushed for destruction, I suppose you could call that a gun death, except that gun are not alive in the first place.
Suicides? Surly you don't believe that people who decide to kill themselves wouldn't choose another method. My father checked himself out and he didn't use a gun. I don't understand the mentality of suicide. In my darkest moments I've never considered it.
Stopping crimes in progress is low because most good guy who own guns leave them at home, like me. The number of crimes preempted by people who are armed is another thing.
Most crimes of violence are committed by young men. If you could by magic make all the guns in America vanish, we'd still have violent young men, and be honest with yourself, MOST women, old men, weak and disabled men wouldn't stand a chance against a young able-bodied man in his physical prime. If they come as a group and you are not armed, they can do whatever they want.
In the early years after my return from Vietnam there was a thought about ticking time-bomb deranged Vietnam Veterans. Given the number of us, the number that did something was incredibly small. We weren't automatically inclined to kill people.
While in Vietnam, a group of about six of us, an equal number of black and white, were sitting, shooting the breeze. We all had loaded M-16s. One of the bros kept using the word "Chuck" referring to white people. One of the white ones said, "Listen, if I'm a Chuck, you're a n****r." Moment of silence and then the bro said, "Dig!" and stopped using the word. Nobody died just because we were armed.
America is not other countries. Times are changing, there has been a steady anti-2nd Amendment drone demonizing firearms for much of my life. Political propaganda works, that's why it's done. An increasing, or so it seems from the propaganda, number of people see guns as demonic violent entities. Where that will lead, I cannot say.
You may think me a toxic male gun-nut, I don't know. I can only say that you don't know me based upon one conversation.
Edit addition: Here's a picture from my 1964 high school yearbook. There probably aren't any pictures in the latest high school yearbooks like this one. America is changing.
Apparenly you've gotten a bit triggered (no pun intended, honest) and have exposed a few gaps in your own knowledge (and as a result, I've had to update my own knowledge a bit with a quick Google). Here's a Pew Research article on gun violence and deaths (you know what a gun death is). Pew is considered one of the least biased sources for information according to Media Bias Fact Check.
- In 2017, 60% of gun deaths were suicide (down a bit; but the murders committed by gun may have done that because....
- 75% of all US murders were committed with a gun (they're the easiest way to kill yourself and others!
There are other not-so fun stats but I'll note that I have read up on guns, including a few books over the years (one of them responsibly pro-gun, the other more neutral) and I'll also remind you I haven't called for banning all guns, just idiots with guns. At this point you're beginning to repeat NRA ideology so I'll leave this thing here. The facts are firmly on my side when it comes to the availability of guns and gun violence. Where they are easily accessible, they are directly linked to higher gun violence, and *every* society has angry young men.
It's just some are smart enough to keep them out of the hands of....idiots.
BTW, I realized a few years ago I don't give a damn how many women of any political stripe own guns...clearly, we're not running around killing ourselves or others like strangers or domestic partners the way men clearly do. So when I talk about keeping them out of the hands of 'idiots', yeah, I mean pretty much men. But still...only the idiot men who can't handle the responsibility of gun ownership. You and your buds sound like exceptions. So rock on.
Allowing guns in a tavern is rank insanity. Alcohol lowers inhibitions (that's why people drink that shit) and clouds judgment.
Does anyone really believe that open carry is anything but intimidation? Yeah, polite society ... say something I don't like and it will take me a second to kill you.
When I mentioned firearms where alcohol is served, I was thinking of restaurants, and I did say that it is unlawful to drink while carrying. Bars generally have a no firearms sign. I think that's just fine. Property rights. No weapons signs are a bit problematic in that there are very few things that cannot be used as a weapon although they might not be thought of as weapons until they are used as such. I rarely drink, even at home after I've decided I will have no reason the leave the house and drive so it's not an issue for me.
I'm not a mind reader, I don't know why people choose open carry, unless they live where concealed carry is illegal. As I wrote before, it does not bother me to be around armed people. In many cases it makes them less inclined to violence since the presence of a firearm escalates the situation. Much of my life has been where there were firearms, and also where there was a lot of violence, mostly not involving firearms, so my views may be different from those of people who have lived more privileged lives. I like knowing that I can be armed if I think it prudent, but it is actually quite rare that I do so.
I used to participate in shooting sports. I stopped hunting may years ago when I had cross hairs on a deer and wished my rifle was a camera. I'm not against other people hunting. They fund wildlife management programs. The last time I went to a rifle range I noticed that the percentage of women continues to go up. Smiling faces saying, "this is fun." It's not about need, I don't need my banjo, but I like it. Insert banjo joke here.
You might find this to be of interest, https://communitycrimemap.com/ I live where there is a lot of aggravated assault, open drug use, theft, burglary, etc.
I totally agree about The Righteous Mind. Top recco. I chuckled at the information density comment - I was highlighting the book as I read, and it was comical that I almost felt it would be easier to highlight the non-notable sections! Only partly joking. But it was not difficult to read, just a lot of insights to ponder and integrate. My partner read it first, and we usually summarize the interesting reads for each other (like a search party splitting up to cover more ground), but as she was reading it, she was saying that I was going to have to read it myself too, and I was glad that I did.
And my political path is similar to yours; my spouse and I moved from lifelong progressive liberals towards that murky middle. Although perhaps even more, the left moved in directions we began to believe were unhealthy and counterproductive to the progressive liberal values and goals which have inspired us over the decades. I call this new ideology "neo-progressivism", because it does grow out of traditional progressivism but has mutated quite a bit making it fairly distinct.
I wonder if Haidt et al have found any shifts in the liberal/conservative moral foundations scores in more recent times. I have observed distinct increases in the purity and loyalty foundations among neo-progressives. A thing or person who has been denounced as unclean (off message) causes everybody else to shy away from them so as not to be tainted. And freedom to remain in the tribe is increasingly based on dogmatic conformance and loyalty to The Narrative.
I have found many thoughtful articles in Quillette. But I remember the first time I read something there which had a substantially more conservative framing than I can agree with; I was kind of irritated that this wonderful source of good perspective was hosting something like that. And then I had to chuckle to myself - choosing heterodox sources means that you WILL seriously disagree with some things there. I do not want Quillette to only present perspectives I agree with, I also want to stretch my mind with articles I don't yet agree with, and some which I will never agree with, so I can decide which are which.
And like you, I found that I can agree with some things said by philosophical conservatives. Once you break the tribal filters, there is room to actually think about each issue in itself, rather than needing to take a tribally defined position.
Yeah, Quillette is problematic. I've read some great stories there but I also recognize it's considered a far-right source with a mixed history of fact-checking: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/
Sometimes shitty sites have good articles. A writer I respected on Medium mentioned an article she was consulted for as a therapist; the subject of the article was on victimhood and its ideological narratives and how harmful they can be; this is a therapist whose work and articles I respect. So I checked out the article she was featured in; great article, but the source? The Epoch Times, a notoriously far-right site with a lousy history of fact-checking. It's hard for me to recommend that article even when it's good when it's on a shitty site even though a broken clock is right twice a day, y'know?
Haidt talks about increased polarization, especially on college campuses, since The Righteous Mind; read The Coddling of The American Mind yet? Killer book!!! It's about Gen Z snowflakes.
Just started this morning Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity. Fascinating so far, and offering a good explanation of what 'post-modernism' is and how it has tainted public discourse and discussion and turned its back on objectivity and evidence-based thinking.
This is why I'm trying, it's difficult, to shed my partisanship. It is normally someone on the left, saying that the political right is this and that because of their getting fake news from Fox. Here we have someone on the political left with a highly biased news source ignoring the actual facts that may be found and latching on to the spin that supports their worldview. Truth is hard to discern once the conversation becomes politically partisan. We are all vulnerable to the same emotions.
We suffer from the delusion that we're any different. Have you read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind yet? Got it for Christmas, just finished it an hour ago. Really, really dense with information and data on 'why good people are so divided by religion and politics'. Not densely written, just so full of valuable insights it's a wonder the book doesn't explode from the pressure ;) Haidt describes himself as liberal but I suspect his liberalism has moved closer to the centre, like mine has, and he's closer than either you or I are. He makes a case for ideas liberals have that are, in his opinion, really really right, some things conservatives get really really right, and also that libertarians get really really right. He says humans are 90% chimp, out for our own interests, and 10% bee, part of the hive, and that we have a 'hive mind' that can be switched on through transcendent experiences, which can be but aren't limited to drug or religious or meditation experiences. He talks about how we all think we're in control of our minds and *none* of us are; our conscious mind is a very small rider on the huge elephant of our subconscious which the one who's *really* calling all the shots. He talks about the moral foundations we've all built, but in different ways, from the same six parts of it. Liberals are motivated more by care for others and inclusion, conservatives by loyalty, authority and sanctity and how there are good evolutionary reasons for all (including religion, with the 'secret sauce' of its success being when you bind people together in something sacred it encourages/mandates them to be less selfish, which often carries out to the world at large. Really fascinating stuff, and a book I'm going to have to re-read. It will make you think differently about whatever ideology you think is the 'right' one, hopefully make you recognize the weaknesses in your creed, and wonder what the other side might get right. I'm beginning to find common ground now with right of centre conservatives, not the hard right, just as I have less patience now with the hard left.
I call it The Murky Middle, where you don't always like the company you keep. You will find yourself occasionally even finding value in 'problematic' pundits and celebrities who you mostly dislike but shit, s/he just said something I really agree with! Cognitive dissonance! (Learn to live with it :) )
All of those political tests show me very slightly right and a bit more libertarian. Agree on some stuff, disagree on others. Probably what makes me to the right is my thoughts on firearms. I'd prefer everyone, including felons to have them than only government & criminals (I repeat myself) have them. I've been shot at, both in combat and as a civilian which makes me that way, but I understand that my preference is just mine and might not be right for all of society. Indeed, some who share my experiences came away with different views.
The first time I laid eyes on dead Viet Cong, I observed that they were all very young. Empathy kicked in; their mothers are waiting for them. So was mine. Empathy died. I'm sad to say that empathy turns off at times to this day when I wish it wouldn't. A scar that never healed. Not right for everybody or even me. An emotional self-defense mechanism. At an intellectual level I still have both empathy and sympathy.
That little personal bit is to say that even though I am aware of the "lived experience" that shapes my opinions, I don't hold them as truth for all. My demons are not that of others, nor theirs mine. That's where the trouble come, people with different traumas often don't understand each other.
I've lived in Canada for the last 17 years and I've experienced a much less violent society than I did when I lived in the US (CT, for the last 18 I was there). Toronto is still one of the safest cities in North America although the gun violence rate has gone up considerably since i've been here - mostly because of gangs on 'those sides' of the city. I myself stand little chance of being murdered because I'm an older woman (maybe ten or so younger than you if you were in Vietnam) and the only way I'll get murdered is if I get randomly caught in a gang shooting (unlikely, but they've happened in 'good' parts of the city) or if I get murdered by a partner (even less of a chance than a random bullet since I don't tolerate controlling or abuse in anyone and most men can't get past the first coffee date with me. It's *much* more difficult to get a gun here as a civilian and we like it that way. We're okay with occasional raids on neighbourhoods to get rid of illegally owned weapons. The laws are a bit different out in the western Prairie provinces where there are legitimate reasons to own guns for protection and more problematic shootings like there are in the US: Sometimes someone gets problematically shot while committing or having just recently committed property theft and destruction crimes, racial profile of the crime victims - white - and the of the shooting victims - Indigenous. But at least where I live, in a highly urbanized city, I can walk around safely at night, even after I moved here as a hot young chick of 42 lol. Canada hasn't suffered the social, economic and legal breakdown that the US is currently undergoing so it's different here. I'm good with keeping guns hard to get here, and I wish they were harder to get in the US, because frankly, Americans have proven they can't handle liberally-available guns. I'm not sure what America's future is but I'm sad to say I find it bleak, and I'm sure glad I don't live there anymore. Never will again. Too FUBAR'ed at this point to consider it.
I understand your point of view. I do cringe at the phrase "gun violence" though. To me, it's just a matter of violence, without regard to the tool. I went to a vocational high school, now a "magnet school" where I was a slight racial minority since it had a large population from the Pruitt-Igoe and Peabody Projects. Several students got stabbed or sliced every year I was there. That experience led me to a dim view of black people. As a Marine in Vietnam, we were brothers, at least thru the wire, ready to go in harm's way for people we might not even like. A black Marine in my platoon did just that for me and I know that he really didn't like white guys much. New view, all men are brothers. We experience new things and get new views.
Guns were a common thing when I was young, not yet demonized. A rifle rack was one of my elementary school woodworking projects. In the summers I stayed with my grandfather in the Ozarks where I was trusted to go into the woods with a rifle or shotgun to hunt. As a young adult I was a competitive shooter in Handgun Silhouette. The high school I went to had an indoor small bore rifle range and an armory for the rifle club and teams. I have a picture in an old yearbook of the Girls Rifle Team that had just won the intramural rifle championship for St. Louis that year. Yes, in the 60's high schools competed against each other in rifle marksmanship. Half of the girls in the picture are black. Times have changed.
I'll put on my tinfoil hat and opine that the anti-Second Amendment movement's man behind the curtain is politicians who want a citizenry that can't do what the founders did in the face of tyranny. Deep in its soul, the Rittenhouse debate is not about the actual self-defense case, it's about guns; for them or against them. Old guys like me, in America, see them as a tool.
It's funny, because I think the ones who brook no discussion of intelligent gun ownership want to *enact* the tyranny, and the rise of gun bullying since the Obama years, when armed vigilantes would show up to intimidate town hall meetings, not to mention race- and gender-based mass shootings, don't disabuse me of that notion.
That said, I understand why Americans want them *today*. Y'all be crazy. Not kidding. All of you.
Guns weren't demonized back in the '60s because the NRA hadn't been taken over by loons yet. But crime *was* bad back then and things spiraled out of control. I don't think everyone needs guns and the research on this is quite quite clear - in countries with unfettered access to guns, the violence is *way* higher. The US is a bit of an outcast as far as the rest of the West is concerned. Just look at Australia - they got rid of a lot of guns after one or two bad mass shootings and their gun violence went way down. Same in Scotland after the Dunblane massacre.
Since I don't have to live in the Ignited States anymore I don't have the passionate feelings about guns as I once have - I'm just glad I live in a place that can seriously clear your head about it. Dave, you're living in a very real climate of fear, just as people were back in the '60s and I understand that, but just know...it doesn't have to be like that, and guns are part of the problem, not the solution. (Not unless the solution to the opioid problem is more opioids, and the growing abortion rate is more abortion clinics, and the spiralling alcohol problem--more alcohol--you get the picture.
I'm just saying...when you live in the middle of a violent shitstorm, you can lose sight of the fact that *there are alternatives*.
And they don't even involve a *total* ban on guns.
Just idiots with guns. No matter what their political philosophy.
Australia didn't ban all guns, after Port Arthur they banned the ridiculously overpowered armament that no sane person should feel a need to own unless he is in combat.
Full disclosure: I favor a complete repeal of the second amendment, with gun ownership granted only on demonstrated need and with conditions such as regular proof of safe storage and continued possession. "Demonstrated need" as, for example, living in a high crime neighborhood or being particularly vulnerable to theft, e.g. operating a jewelry store. And explicitly not including "I enjoy killing animals," something I see as extremely sick.
Don't get me wrong; I fully understand the absolute political infeasibility of this repeal, but then I was saying the same about same-sex marriage thirty years ago and it is now the law of the land (my partner and I were married in 2017). The fetishizing of guns, the perception pf gun ownership as the foundation of identity, ridiculous notions that stocking up at Wade's is a deterrent tyranny ... all these stand in opposition (never mind that a lot of the same people would enthusiastically support a tyrant who hated the right people).
I live in a country where guns are illegal, only the cops have them, and people here don't cower in fear at a traffic stop and the cops don't demand you let them at your dog so they can kill it.
I have never owned a gun; I borrowed one for three days once and couldn't stand having it around. When someone tried to rob me at gunpoint I defused it by laughing that I was a college student and broke.
But I grew up in the south, I have met a lot of gun fetishists, and I can't stand them.
Oh, about that infeasibility .. even the most fervently-held attitudes can change incrementally and then they hit a tipping point and they collapse. I've been waiting most of my life for the near-daily massacres to move the needle, and it's not moving.
Then again I've been awaiting a national revulsion against background music and that hasn't happened either, even as the music has gotten so horribly worse.
Arggg! Once again as I've spent ten minutes typing, poof all gone, and I must start over.
Your dismissal of things that sound like they came from the NRA is an example of the problem of partisan (that's not just political parties, but all ideologies) demonization of "other." Some of what they have to say is true. They are also, by far, the best source of firearm safety material and training for civilians. A significant number of people are abandoning the NRA and joining less compromising organizations like the GOA which are all about the political, like the NRA's ILA.
Most people are practical in seeking efficiency or ease. Certainly, it is easier to kill someone or yourself with a firearm. They are not required. We adopted my niece when she was orphaned as a result of my sister-in-law being brutally beaten to death (fists and feet) by her boyfriend. I doubt that gun prohibition would end suicide or violent crimes of passion.
I think that nature vs. nurture is more of a ration than an absolute. Some say that gendered traits are a social construct. There is probably some truth in it. China has banned actors and entertainers who are "sissified" because they think it contributing to the feminization of Chinese men. Having said that, I think that men are inherently more prone to violence than women. Taking tools away won't change that either. It might reduce the number of "weak" boys, bullied by the school's jocks, from taking a gun to school, but as sensationalized as such events are, they are rare. And of course there are other tools https://tinyurl.com/2ps39486
We require training and/or testing to drive a car and I am in favor of training and testing to go out and about with firearms. I am far too liberal to support "need" as a requirement.
The next time everything disappears on you, try hitting Ctrl-Z. Just recently learned that. It sometimes works, not always, may differ on platforms, but good luck. https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-restore-deleted-text
I dismiss some of what you say as NRA propaganda because of the illogic, such as noting that if you got rid of all guns people would still kill each other, or that gun prohibition wouldn't end crimes of passion. You're absolutely right, but as Jon Stewart pointed out, enacting strict DWI laws didn't eliminate drunk driving but it reduced deaths by TWO THIRDS! Now what if we reduced the 40,000 deaths (don't care who pulled the trigger or why) cited in the Pew article by two-thirds? That brings the annual death by gun rate to *13,200*. I'd rather have zero gun deaths than 13k, but I'd much rather have 13k than 40k and likely growing. I'm also in favour of keeping in place our laws prohibiting murder, rape, stealing and child abuse. They haven't eliminated those problems but they've greatly reduced them.
Men will always be more violent than women, but they're *less violent* now thanks to feminism, progressivism, intellectual advancement, and technology. We may never eliminate rape but it went down over 60% before it began rising again in recent years (why, we can't be sure, but I suspect the breakdown of the American body politic and the pandemic making us all a little nuts, literally, although only the ones prone to violence to begin with will likely become *more* violent). And I'll remind you: I have not once called for a ban of *all* guns. I merely note the firm evidence behind the fact that the *proliferation* of guns is directly linked to higher rates of gun violence. I call specifically for *saner* gun laws that don't put them into the hands of every idiot who wants one. I don't worry about people like you, Dave. I don't worry about women either, regardless of how right-wing they are. If veterans or women start suddenly claiming more market share in killing people with guns, I'll start damning them too. Did you know recent studies are finding a strong link between men who commit active shooter killings (that's a better way to put it, actually) and prior history of domestic abuse? That wouldn't have helped your SIL but it would have helped all the women who WERE killed by gun-totin' partners. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/26/domestic-abuse-gun-violence-reveal
So yeah, I favour NOT allowing men with prior domestic abuse violations from owning guns.
Sometimes, dealing with folks who are very pro-2A feels a lot like JK Rowling must feel when she gets excoriated for claiming biology is real. How is it controversial for me to assert that only people who can handle the responsibility should have guns?
Here's the thing, Dave: The presence of guns in the house increases the likelihood that someone's going to die by it, the most common person being the white adult male by his own hand. Suicidal feelings are more often than not impulsive. Someone with a lot of longstanding suicidal feelings will act on them no matter what if they make a considered decision to kill themselves; but most are actually impulsive actions arising from recent events like a fight with a spouse or a lost job or some other traumatic event. This happened to a friend of mine who had a fight with her husband one night and went to bed, and found him dead the next morning. (Suicide by hanging, in the backyard. She found him.) Why the hell Bill (no guns in the house) was so hell-bent on killing himself is beyond all of us, but without a gun in the house most people will think about it, consider their options, but if they don't do it within the first hour they're far less likely to do it at all. With a gun, it's too easy in the heat of the moment to pick it up and shoot yourself; no planning required. (Most men in Bill's place would have given up, why he didn't is a mystery, but he's in the minority).
Dave, we don't disagree on much here, but I think your information on gun violence is a little outdated. Mine is, too, because things have changed a LOT in the last five years since Trump took office and further divided the US and then the pandemic happened. Do some research and make sure your information is up to date and also consider that at least a few of your arguments are easily discredited, while your history of being a combat veteran who owns a gun (probably more than one I'm guessing) and yet hasn't murdered anyone with them is your strongest talking point. I don't know how effective you'd actually be, frankly, armed at an active shooter site because I don't know whether you practice regularly - that's critical to being an effective 'good guy with a gun' which is why only 3% of armed shooters are stopped by armed 'good guys' - but if you do practice *regularly*, like one or more times a week, you might actually be an *effective* 'good guy with a gun' rather than someone who'd get shot before he had his gun out of his pants because he's out of practice and the bad guy isn't.
I'm with you on the 2A, Dave, even though I've never owned a gun. Let's bring rationalism back to the gun debate and fight the extremists just as we do in the culture wars.
A lot of gun owners fancy themselves as having nerves of steel and that they will respond to an armed attacker with cinematic control. They've shot at paper targets at the gun range so they're ready to face an armed attacker or be the heroic Good Guy if the opportunity ever arises.
This is pure conceit.
Law Enforcement officers on SWAT teams go through biweekly training sessions to maintain neural readiness and missing even one session means they will not go out on the next emergency.
In real life people's hands shake uncontrollably, they will even drop their guns, their target practice may as well have never happened.
Yes, the FBI report (I think it's about 10 years old at this point) that noted only 3% of armed men ever disarm a shooter, mass or not, is the one that notes that you need to train regularly, not just occasionally or, take some classes and that's the end of it. I talked to an Iraq/Afghanistan vet about this a few years ago and he noted how you have to train CONSTANTLY to move behind the freeze response, which too often happens when you don't have the 'muscle memory' to spring into action. You need to know *exactly how to move* or you will react, as studies of active shooter situations have demonstrated, that armed civilians more often than not get shot while fumbling to remove the gun from their holster or pants. Which is why a war vet, years or decades removed from combat, may be no more useful in an active shooter situation than a wannabe Rambo.
"Freeze response," thanks, that was the phrase I was struggling to remember.
That was the NRA a quarter century ago
There is a climate of fear generated by politicians and the press, Steve has written about how people think the number of unarmed people being shot by the police is out of proportion with reality. The FBI number of people in a "mass shooting" is far lower that what people are thinking of when they hear the words mass shooting. A few years ago, I looked up mass shootings in Maricopa County where I live. There had been two. A four-person drug deal gone bad and an apparent home invasion.
Arizona is a Constitutional Carry state, you don't even need a permit to carry open or concealed. Open carry in grocery stores is a sight common enough that people don't pay attention to it. Not long ago I saw a mother with a baby in her cart, open carrying a Glock. I do have the state issued permit, Reciprocity in many states, I can carry concealed in places that serve alcohol provided that I don't drink, and I can go into a gun store, buy a gun and a box of bullets and walk out the door with it because it assures that the State and Feds have checked me out already (periodic renewal and new check). I am not the least bit afraid to see someone carrying a gun. Even when you don't see it, they are there. The thing is, people with concealed carry permits, and even NRA members are not the people out committing crimes with guns. Felons, prohibited carriers, have guns and they do.
You mention the NRA. As a boy I took the NRA Safe Hunter Corse sitting in my 8th grade school desk. It was their targets and safety program that we used at my high school Rifle Club and with the Arizona Gun Safety training course I took. The NRA is not what people are thinking of when they think of the political arm of the NRA. It is the NRA/ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) which came into existence as a response to gun control advocacy.
Australia and Scottland? I couldn't care less what they do. They are not America. The guns will never all go away here, it is fantasy to think that criminals will give up useful tools. I frequently see news stories about a criminal arrest that included illegal firearm possession. The criminals are not concerned about gun laws.
We have different views partly because we have different situations. I'm not trying to get you to change your views, and you won't change mine. Pretty much all of my friends have at least one gun. None of them have committed a crime with them or had a negligent discharge/tragedy. Most of them are veterans.
A far bigger problem than guns is political partisanship which blinds people both sides of an issue. You named the political right for something I think is more common on the left, but both sides have their radicals don't they. Ignoring ours while pointing at theirs will never solve the problem.
You're right, we will never change each other's minds and I can see how you can't even fathom living in a society where people don't feel the need to be armed to the teeth. Nevertheless, numerous studies have demonstrated time and time again that the proliferation of easily accessible guns results in high gun violence in any country. An FBI report noted that only 3% of armed crimes in progress were stopped by 'good guys with guns'; the vast majority were stopped by *unarmed* men. Most gun deaths aren't mass shootings; they're only a small percentage, even as daily as they are today. Two-thirds of the gun deaths every year are male white suicides. Y'all are your own worst enemy.
I used to live in the small town of Newington CT and IIRC correctly (20+ years go) we had two notable cases of gun violence: A mass shooting at a lottery office (4 dead, including a former mayor) and a Vietnam vet who went nuts and held someone hostage with a gun while in a standoff with police (pretty sure the hostage survived, can't remember if the vet did.)
So, so glad that I live in a sane world where I don't have to deal with armed paranoiacs in the Tim Horton's. I wish you could understand how safe we all feel here in Canada.
Few people "feel the need to be armed to the teeth." I don't own a semi-automatic rifle capable of holding over ten rounds (hoplophobs incorrectly call them assault rifles). As a Marine I never heard my fully automatic M-16 referred to as an assault rifle. Assault was a verb. I not only don't need an AR-15, but I also don't want one.
You use the loaded word "gun deaths." When mayors have guns turned in and send them to a crushed for destruction, I suppose you could call that a gun death, except that gun are not alive in the first place.
Suicides? Surly you don't believe that people who decide to kill themselves wouldn't choose another method. My father checked himself out and he didn't use a gun. I don't understand the mentality of suicide. In my darkest moments I've never considered it.
Stopping crimes in progress is low because most good guy who own guns leave them at home, like me. The number of crimes preempted by people who are armed is another thing.
Most crimes of violence are committed by young men. If you could by magic make all the guns in America vanish, we'd still have violent young men, and be honest with yourself, MOST women, old men, weak and disabled men wouldn't stand a chance against a young able-bodied man in his physical prime. If they come as a group and you are not armed, they can do whatever they want.
In the early years after my return from Vietnam there was a thought about ticking time-bomb deranged Vietnam Veterans. Given the number of us, the number that did something was incredibly small. We weren't automatically inclined to kill people.
While in Vietnam, a group of about six of us, an equal number of black and white, were sitting, shooting the breeze. We all had loaded M-16s. One of the bros kept using the word "Chuck" referring to white people. One of the white ones said, "Listen, if I'm a Chuck, you're a n****r." Moment of silence and then the bro said, "Dig!" and stopped using the word. Nobody died just because we were armed.
America is not other countries. Times are changing, there has been a steady anti-2nd Amendment drone demonizing firearms for much of my life. Political propaganda works, that's why it's done. An increasing, or so it seems from the propaganda, number of people see guns as demonic violent entities. Where that will lead, I cannot say.
You may think me a toxic male gun-nut, I don't know. I can only say that you don't know me based upon one conversation.
Edit addition: Here's a picture from my 1964 high school yearbook. There probably aren't any pictures in the latest high school yearbooks like this one. America is changing.
https://tinyurl.com/mrxkfpc2
Forgot to mention, LOVED the photo! I'm saved that one.
Apparenly you've gotten a bit triggered (no pun intended, honest) and have exposed a few gaps in your own knowledge (and as a result, I've had to update my own knowledge a bit with a quick Google). Here's a Pew Research article on gun violence and deaths (you know what a gun death is). Pew is considered one of the least biased sources for information according to Media Bias Fact Check.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
The highlights:
- In 2017, 60% of gun deaths were suicide (down a bit; but the murders committed by gun may have done that because....
- 75% of all US murders were committed with a gun (they're the easiest way to kill yourself and others!
There are other not-so fun stats but I'll note that I have read up on guns, including a few books over the years (one of them responsibly pro-gun, the other more neutral) and I'll also remind you I haven't called for banning all guns, just idiots with guns. At this point you're beginning to repeat NRA ideology so I'll leave this thing here. The facts are firmly on my side when it comes to the availability of guns and gun violence. Where they are easily accessible, they are directly linked to higher gun violence, and *every* society has angry young men.
It's just some are smart enough to keep them out of the hands of....idiots.
BTW, I realized a few years ago I don't give a damn how many women of any political stripe own guns...clearly, we're not running around killing ourselves or others like strangers or domestic partners the way men clearly do. So when I talk about keeping them out of the hands of 'idiots', yeah, I mean pretty much men. But still...only the idiot men who can't handle the responsibility of gun ownership. You and your buds sound like exceptions. So rock on.
Allowing guns in a tavern is rank insanity. Alcohol lowers inhibitions (that's why people drink that shit) and clouds judgment.
Does anyone really believe that open carry is anything but intimidation? Yeah, polite society ... say something I don't like and it will take me a second to kill you.
When I mentioned firearms where alcohol is served, I was thinking of restaurants, and I did say that it is unlawful to drink while carrying. Bars generally have a no firearms sign. I think that's just fine. Property rights. No weapons signs are a bit problematic in that there are very few things that cannot be used as a weapon although they might not be thought of as weapons until they are used as such. I rarely drink, even at home after I've decided I will have no reason the leave the house and drive so it's not an issue for me.
I'm not a mind reader, I don't know why people choose open carry, unless they live where concealed carry is illegal. As I wrote before, it does not bother me to be around armed people. In many cases it makes them less inclined to violence since the presence of a firearm escalates the situation. Much of my life has been where there were firearms, and also where there was a lot of violence, mostly not involving firearms, so my views may be different from those of people who have lived more privileged lives. I like knowing that I can be armed if I think it prudent, but it is actually quite rare that I do so.
I used to participate in shooting sports. I stopped hunting may years ago when I had cross hairs on a deer and wished my rifle was a camera. I'm not against other people hunting. They fund wildlife management programs. The last time I went to a rifle range I noticed that the percentage of women continues to go up. Smiling faces saying, "this is fun." It's not about need, I don't need my banjo, but I like it. Insert banjo joke here.
You might find this to be of interest, https://communitycrimemap.com/ I live where there is a lot of aggravated assault, open drug use, theft, burglary, etc.
I totally agree about The Righteous Mind. Top recco. I chuckled at the information density comment - I was highlighting the book as I read, and it was comical that I almost felt it would be easier to highlight the non-notable sections! Only partly joking. But it was not difficult to read, just a lot of insights to ponder and integrate. My partner read it first, and we usually summarize the interesting reads for each other (like a search party splitting up to cover more ground), but as she was reading it, she was saying that I was going to have to read it myself too, and I was glad that I did.
And my political path is similar to yours; my spouse and I moved from lifelong progressive liberals towards that murky middle. Although perhaps even more, the left moved in directions we began to believe were unhealthy and counterproductive to the progressive liberal values and goals which have inspired us over the decades. I call this new ideology "neo-progressivism", because it does grow out of traditional progressivism but has mutated quite a bit making it fairly distinct.
I wonder if Haidt et al have found any shifts in the liberal/conservative moral foundations scores in more recent times. I have observed distinct increases in the purity and loyalty foundations among neo-progressives. A thing or person who has been denounced as unclean (off message) causes everybody else to shy away from them so as not to be tainted. And freedom to remain in the tribe is increasingly based on dogmatic conformance and loyalty to The Narrative.
I have found many thoughtful articles in Quillette. But I remember the first time I read something there which had a substantially more conservative framing than I can agree with; I was kind of irritated that this wonderful source of good perspective was hosting something like that. And then I had to chuckle to myself - choosing heterodox sources means that you WILL seriously disagree with some things there. I do not want Quillette to only present perspectives I agree with, I also want to stretch my mind with articles I don't yet agree with, and some which I will never agree with, so I can decide which are which.
And like you, I found that I can agree with some things said by philosophical conservatives. Once you break the tribal filters, there is room to actually think about each issue in itself, rather than needing to take a tribally defined position.
Yeah, Quillette is problematic. I've read some great stories there but I also recognize it's considered a far-right source with a mixed history of fact-checking: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/
Sometimes shitty sites have good articles. A writer I respected on Medium mentioned an article she was consulted for as a therapist; the subject of the article was on victimhood and its ideological narratives and how harmful they can be; this is a therapist whose work and articles I respect. So I checked out the article she was featured in; great article, but the source? The Epoch Times, a notoriously far-right site with a lousy history of fact-checking. It's hard for me to recommend that article even when it's good when it's on a shitty site even though a broken clock is right twice a day, y'know?
Haidt talks about increased polarization, especially on college campuses, since The Righteous Mind; read The Coddling of The American Mind yet? Killer book!!! It's about Gen Z snowflakes.
Just started this morning Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity. Fascinating so far, and offering a good explanation of what 'post-modernism' is and how it has tainted public discourse and discussion and turned its back on objectivity and evidence-based thinking.