@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

balerion

@balerion@beehaw.org

fake gamer | sporadic shitposter | pro-ship | BLM | trans rights | head of the antifa PR department | 🚩 🏴

i block tankies, right-wingers, and others with garbage opinions lol <o/

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balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

You are statistically much more likely to--accidentally or intentionally--kill yourself with a gun than successfully defend yourself against an attacker. Arming minorities will just result in more dead minorities.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

People are numbers. Thinking you will be the exception to statistical realities is a fool's errand. And it would be all well and good if the only people who suffered from the myriad gun deaths in this country were the people who bought the guns, but that's not the case. They are also endangering their families and neighbors. It is just objectively true that you and the people around you become less safe, not more, the moment you buy a gun.

As someone who nearly killed myself with a gun and was only stopped because I was too depressed to fill out the paperwork to buy one, my life was directly saved by gun control. If I had lived in a state where buying a gun was easier, I would be dead. If I had still been living with my dad who owns guns, I would be dead. And I am part of a hated minority, just like the people you seek to protect. The statisical reality is that people like me are still more likely to kill ourselves with guns than to be killed by bigots, and moreover, that having a gun on you does not protect you from bigots. It only gives them something to take from you and use against you. Adding a gun to a situation only ever benefits the most violent and unhinged person in that situation.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

As the kind of person who is targeted by rising fascism, I would prefer you did not speak for us. I am firmly against gun ownership. The statistics show that having a gun on you makes you less safe, not more.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

This is not about terminal illnesses. I too support euthanasia. This is about mental illness. The fact is that if more guns are purchased, more mentally ill people will die.

As someone who has attempted suicide many times, I have no idea what you're talking about. The fact is that if you want to end your life reliably and quickly, guns are your best bet by far. As part of being suicidal, I did intensive research into what the best way to kill myself was. The universal conclusion was guns. My other attempts did not work, obviously, and not for lack of trying. It is much, much harder to kill yourself than most people realize. Besides, statistics show that having a gun in the home significantly increases the likelihood of suicide.

Gas stoves used to be a popular method of suicide. Do you know what happened when they stopped being made? Suicides went down. So yes, the method of suicide IS responsible for suicides. It's not true that people will just find another method of killing themselves. Suicide is often undertaken on a whim and people who survive attempts often never wind up killing themselves.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

Because when you recommend that people arm themselves, you are talking to us too. Mental illness is much more common than you think, and becoming even more common as late capitalism exacerbates the conditions which produce some forms of mental illness. Moreover, mental illness can hit at any time. Someone who showed no symptoms of mental illness before can snap one day and commit suicide or murder their family. When you recklessly recommend that people buy guns, you are increasing the likelihood that someone will commit suicide or homicide, due to mental illness or otherwise.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

My recommendation for people to arm themselves isn’t going to encourage to or dissuade anyone from doing so.

Then literally why say it?

they have a right to own them

Yeah, and maybe they shouldn't. There's lots of dangerous shit you have no right to possess. Guns should be in that category. And for the record, I don't believe the government should be sending armed people to enforce shit either.

You sound like my mother.

Smart woman.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

You heavily implied that people of color, at least, should purchase firearms.

What? When the government tells you what your rights are that's good and normal, but when a random person tells you what your rights are that's fascism? Nothing about that makes any sense at all.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

sigh

Alright, what WAS I supposed to take from your post if not "minorities should arm themselves"?

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

you are saying that discrimination is a reason to arm yourself. people are being discriminated against. therefore, you are saying people should arm themselves. what about this is so hard to understand?

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

one kind of dumbass will also be another kind of dumbass. worth knowing, but not especially surprising

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

yup. we have to raise hell ourselves, because even the non-queers who nominally support us won't always fight for us.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

I'm not saying mindfulness can't have serious benefits. However, I would caution anyone who's into it to read the book McMindfulness. A lot of the "science" behind it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, there can be genuine drawbacks to it, and it's often used in unethical ways--like to make CEOs of ruthless companies more able to shove aside their feelings of guilt, or to sharpen the minds of soldiers for killing.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

I mean, look up "mindfulness" on Amazon. There are a million books for sale out there. And people like John Kabat-Zinn have made plenty of money selling mindfulness to everyone from mental health clinics to the military.

Mindfulness in this context is generally just defined as paying attention to the present moment. But that's ethically neutral and can be used to, for example, make the horrors of late-stage capitalism more bearable for its subjects, or to help soldiers focus on the act of killing rather than the horror of it.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

i mean, lemmygrad is a tankie hellhole

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

I can't back this up, but I've heard the mods there are literally feds.

I just got warned for "threatening violence" because I told a racist to choke on shit. I then received a message informing me that the racist had not violated any site rules. Fuck you, reddit.

I don't see how politely suggesting what a racist should do with their time is "threatening violence," but even if it were, we should at least both have received warnings.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

Probably due to my own childhood experiences, it makes me very upset to see an individual or group persecuted because they are doing something or are something that is not harmful in any way whatsoever but have been arbitrarily categorized as unacceptable.

Holy shit, MOOD. I cannot stand people insisting that harmless things are bad just because they're weird/they're gross/they make them feel bad somehow. Especially from leftists like myself. They should know that that feeling is exactly the same feeling that drives conservatives to hate queer and kinky people.

When I see banal evil, or wrongdoing committed out of apathy and selfishness, I want to shake them and explain to them that they are deteriorating the social fabric and ultimately creating problems for themselves through sheer stupidity.

Right? Even if you don't care about anyone but yourself, YOU ALSO BENEFIT FROM THE WORLD BEING A BETTER PLACE. And you can actively contribute to that!

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

Thanks for this. Arguing with racists is probably futile, but I continue to do it, and maybe this will help convince--if not the most virulent racists--the casual racists who just need to pull their heads out of their asses.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

yes i have, and his argument is fucking stupid.

balerion,
@balerion@beehaw.org avatar

tfw you have to strike for the right to strike. what a world

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