If Trump Ever Actually Creates A Social Network Of His Own, You Can Bet It Will Rely On Section 230
from the i-mean,-come-on dept
There have been rumors for ages that former President Donald Trump might "start" a social network of his own, and of course, that talk ramped up after he was (reasonably) banned from both Twitter and Facebook. Of course Trump is not particularly well known for successfully "starting" many businesses. Over the last few decades of his business career, he seemed a lot more focused on just licensing his name to other businesses, often of dubious quality. So it was no surprise when reports came out last month that, even while he was President, he had been in talks with Parler to join that site in exchange for a large equity stake in the Twitter-wannabe-for-Trumpists. For whatever reason, that deal never came to fruition.
But, over the weekend, Trump spokesperson (and SLAPP suit filer) Jason Miller told Fox News that Trump was preparing to launch his own social network in the next few months. Amusingly, right before Miller made this claim, he noted exactly what I had said about how Trump being banned from Twitter and Facebook wasn't censorship, since Trump could get all the press coverage he wanted:
“The president’s been off of social media for a while,” he told Fox News Media Buzz host Howard Kurtz, “[but] his press releases, his statements have actually been getting almost more play than he ever did on Twitter before.”
But he then followed that up with an offhand comment saying:
I do think that we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform.
And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, it’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does. But it will be his own platform.
Many, many people have assumed that -- just like revealing his tax returns, infrastructure week, and his shiny new healthcare plan -- that this announcement was just bluster and nonsense with no actual expectation that anything will ever be done. And that is perhaps likely. Even Trump's normal allies seem less than thrilled with the idea, though mainly because it may lead to further fragmenting among the "social media website for MAGA conspiracy theorists." Others have, quite reasonably, pointed out that a social media site built on Trump's cult of personality is likely to be crazy boring and just not that interesting.
However, I kind of do hope that it actually comes to be, if only to see just how quickly Trump's new social network has to rely on Section 230 to defend itself in court. Remember, Trump spent the last year of his presidency slamming Section 230 (which he completely misrepresented multiple times and never seemed to actually understand). You may recall that one of the parting shots of his presidency was to try to block military funding if Congress wouldn't completely repeal Section 230.
But, of course, if a TrumpBook ever came into actual existence, you can bet that (1) it, like Parler, would need to speedrun the content moderation learning curve, and (2) would certainly be subject to some lawsuits regarding whatever insane crap its users would post. Trump's own comments on his own site would not be protected by Section 230, as that would be content created by an "employee" of the site itself, but the site would be protected from liability from whatever nonsense his sycophantic fans posted. And you can bet that his lawyers (assuming he could find any who would work for him) would very quickly lean on Section 230 to protect the company from any such lawsuits.
I mean, we've already seen Trump rely on anti-SLAPP laws in court, despite demands to "open up our libel laws." So he's already got a precedent for relying on the very same laws he hates in court. Hell, Trump has even relied on Section 230 in court to argue that he wasn't legally liable for his own retweets.
So, sure, let him start his own social network, and then be forced to recognize how Section 230 is actually something that he needs.
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Filed Under: donald trump, section 230, social media
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I bet it gets hacked within a week.
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Like Gab and Parler before it, a theoretical Trump-branded social interaction network would garner a lot of attention early on before hitting a wall with its userbase numbers and potential for growth. The reason for that is four little words: the “worst people” problem.
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And will he be competing against his pillow buddy lindell?
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell reveals his new social-media site, called 'Vocl,' will be a cross between Twitter and YouTube
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Re:
And what will the hackers do? Anything they might do would be an improvement, I'm sure. After all, how can you "deface" a site that already has the world's most ugly face??
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If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Yet again railing about TRUMP! Sheesh.
Next is one of Techdirt's many attempts at exposing "hypocrisy" by claiming that opponents must be ideologically, so should NOT pursue a currently lawful course (which doesn't have any baggage with it of harming someone as abortion does), thereby disarming themselves -- standing still so that tiny little toothless ankle-biters like Masnick can slobber all over their socks. Sheesh.
Maz, you're FUNNY as hell when taken right, but you do no damage and ought to know better by now. -- AGAIN, you need some positive.
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Love versus hate
Like so many things among the completely unprincipled, his opinion of a law just depends on which side of the lawsuit he's on.
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Good guy with a gun who saved the day (non police) because of easy access to firearms
Boulder: 0
Orlando: 0
Parkland: 0
Las Vegas: 0
Aurora, CO: 0
Sandy Hook: 0
Waffle House: 0
San Bernardino: 0
Midland/Odessa: 0
Poway synagogue: 0
Sutherland Springs: 0
Tree of Life Synagogue: 0
Credit / Source
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what in the flying amazon-position fuck does this have to do with the article
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Re:
It's called "positive reinforcement", but in the collective opinion of the majority of the world (and particularly the USA), it will be of a negative nature. That will serve only to point out all the more easily just exactly who failed to grow up and learn to think for him/herself.
The platform's mission will be to instill an even stronger sense of community, and reinvigorate the call to "restore the real president to his rightful seat", etc. yadda yadda, so on and so forth. Under current Twitter/Facebook rules, that's not a likely scenario, hence the annoucement - to whet appetites of the mental-toddlers for yet more bullshit..... errrr, conversations about how to put their Beloved Leader For Life back on his throne.
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Fling more poop, Trumpanzee!
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Re: Love versus hate
Bingo. Trumpy is like my life after I graduated from college: No principles.
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So the entry tier will be what $50 a month?
And then teasers of better things the more you give?
If it launches and it is not a pay service I will be shocked.
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Subscription services are so 2010.
No Trump's going F2P MMO Microtransactions. Think 2000's cell phone nickle and diming. X posts per day, par per post after. You can read, but that like or comment will cost you. You can pay for VIP, gives you unlimited posting, but likes are a different service, cause hes borrowing Korean MMO's overlapping VIP subscription model.
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What’s sad is, this is sincerely believable.
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Speaking of, ever wonder how come your posts have to be expanded to laugh at them?
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
At least Trump jailed Hillary as he promised so there's that.
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Lol, good point.
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Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
And Mexico paid for it! Wait..that was a wall and it was expensive and parts of it are falling down.
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I think a social media site run by Donald Trump would be terrible.
I also think it should be called "Trumpet"
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Apparently it's already changed names to.. Frank.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's social-media site is now called Frank, and it's launched as a static webpage – take a look
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Still... it would probably have a better ROI then Oath.
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Re:
(I posted an earlier response, but it was held for moderation. Whether or not it comes back, we'll see.)
There's a lot discuss about "the worst people problem", but I want to leave that for now (vis-a-vis my earlier post), and deal with "lot of attention" and "potential for growth". It seems to me that #45''s got immediate access to more than 70 million Americans that are slavishly sitting in his pews, plus a fair number of journalists, analysts, and "just curious" looky-loos. The latter grouping will likely stick it out for as long as possible, but the former group, aye, there's the rub.
I think, without any real evidence besides my "feelz", that it will take a long time to burn through that large a number of adherents. IMO, the number of people who will get bored and leave will be small at first, and the acceleration rate of departures over time will not increase either. That's going to come down to the hardcore 20-50 most zealous acolytes repeating the Daily Mantra for all to see, and the rest of the board's population will simply not see any reason to move on elsewhere. After all, it's really going to come down to confirmation bias. IMO, of course.
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Have at it
I actually really hope this one turns out to be more than just empty lies, because it would be great in multiple ways for a Trump-centric platform to be created. Not only would it attract lawsuits like mad that would require them to make use of 230 but drawing in all the Trump cultists away from civilized platforms, and providing a neat response to any claims that they've been 'silenced' by being booted off the platforms people want to use('Just use TrumpBook, they love people like you') would be of great help cleaning up those platforms.
I'm not so enamoured by the idea that it will be used to con gullible suckers in one way or another, but if people are going to be conned then it would at least be fitting that it be those that worship at the feet of a narcissistic con-man.
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Re: Re:
Or just take the model of donating to support a favorite content producer by paying some amount for a message that gets mildly amplified somehow, but apply it to everyone who wants their message more noticed on the entire platform.
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Re: Have at it
I don't know, pretty sure he/they would want access to the APIs of other platforms to automatically and forcibly rebroadcast their shit elsewhere.
If it stays a huge echo chamber and literally draws the majority of that ilk in, hey, moderation costs go down everywhere else.
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Re: Re: Have at it
I don't know, pretty sure he/they would want access to the APIs of other platforms to automatically and forcibly rebroadcast their shit elsewhere.
Oh I'm sure he and his cultists would like something like that, but even ignoring the constitutional issues of forced speech I don't see that happening as Facebook and Google would not be happy with something like that and would likely push back hard against any attempt.
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Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment
I thought Hillary was going to pay for the wall? Or was it Mexico paying for Hillary?
So much bullshit I've lost track.
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Can anybody translate this into English?
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Let’s set aside whether or not guns are actually helpful in such situations. Masnick hasn’t really spent much time discussing the 2nd Amendment at all. Gun rights, gun control, and the 2nd Amendment are rarely even mentioned on Techdirt beyond noting that many pro-2A people are less insistent on protecting other rights, or that someone is known for having strong opinions on such issues, or noting cases where someone was shot solely because police thought that they had a gun but it wasn’t out in the open or where the police broke into the home and an occupant exercised their right to defend their home from unknown intruders. None of it was anti-2A, pro-gun-control, or any of that. Sure, many commenters have taken such stances in the comments, but neither the articles nor their writers did.
Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly and vehemently attacked §230, calling for its repeal or reform (mostly repeal) in many occasions, both as President and as a private citizen. He has never expressed support for or said anything even neutral about §230. He even tried to hold up a military spending bill because it didn’t repeal §230 (which, of course, has literally nothing to do with the military or spending at all)!
As such, the idea that Trump will have to rely on §230 is far more ironic and hypocritical of him than the idea that Masnick will someday rely on the 2A, and the former also appears far more likely than the latter. The comparison you make is completely and utterly inapt.
(Also, I’m unaware of any articles on Techdirt that even mention abortion aside from mentioning the speech rights of people who are pro-life or pro-choice or anyone sued by such persons, nor have any Techdirt writers appeared to have ever mentioned abortion in any of the comments on Techdirt or in their Twitter accounts. So why you even mentioned abortion is beyond me.)
Furthermore, Masnick never said that Trump shouldn’t rely on §230. He just noted that it would contradict his vocal stance against §230, and that he should really rethink that particular stance if and when he does start a social media site if he doesn’t want to be a hypocrite (something Trump doesn’t seem particularly bothered by beyond calling any such accusations “fake news” when it’s inconvenient for him).
As for Trump being mentioned again, he was brought up as a potential new entrant to the social-media space in recent news, and his stance on §230 is well-known. That makes this news on current events in an area Techdirt generally covers. It’s also been only, like, two months since he left office and slightly longer than that since he was kicked off of Twitter, and he’s still a public figure both as a businessman and as a former president who still tries to remain relevant in politics even now (and also as a subject of several ongoing criminal investigations, but that’s not exactly relevant to this specific article). That he’s being mentioned on this site now is essentially his own fault, not to keep beating a dead horse.
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Ah, but see, this isn’t about departures (though that will happen). This is about the room Trump’s theoretical social media service would have for growth.
Sure, the service will snag a significant number of users at the outset. I don’t doubt that. And barring a surprise shutdown or something similar, I also don’t doubt that it’ll keep a hefty number of those users over time. But the real question is how big the numbers can/will get when people find out that the Trump social media service is another “conservative”-friendly service like Gab and Parler, where the mods allow bigotry and shitheadedness to run rampant.
That’s why the “worst people” problem is a problem: It always inhibits growth. A service can’t keep people around if they’re surrounded by assholes, and it can’t keep bringing people in if they know they’ll be surrounded by assholes. The only real solution is to keep people from being surrounded by assholes — which should be easy for anyone to accomplish if they’re not an asshole…or part of the Spaceballs.
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That explains all the Frank Sidebottom memes I've been seeing this morning lol.
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"But the real question is how big the numbers can/will get when people find out that the Trump social media service is another “conservative”-friendly service like Gab and Parler, where the mods allow bigotry and shitheadedness to run rampant."
Nobody not already in the cult would even bother to try a Trump branded service out, and those in the cult think that bigotry and shitheadedness are the free speech they want to begin with.
Not everyone's a fully fledged cult member to begin with and those communities can get pretty toxic even to their own people, but I would say that the maximum ceiling is people who already support Trump and his international hangers-on, while the more likely scenario is that they get a few million regular users who don't generate enough long-term revenue to make things liable long term - though this may help competitors who are finally free of the extremist morons gumming up their normal social media outlets.
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Re: Re:
I lean more to PaulT's view, rather than to Stephen's. But Paul's final two or three sentences will be the telling point - to be viable (nee "liable"), the platform will have to pay for itself, because it's sure as Gawd made little green apples that Trump won't pay a bleeping penny towards the bills to run the thing. He's expecting that his name will automagically make all mundane things like utilities, hosting services, and all that, just "pay for themselves", out of thin air. And when the users don't pony up either in direct donations, or in buying advertised products (for a cut, of course), then he'll just simply declare bankruptcy, and start another service.
In fact, to avoid S.230 lawsuits, he might get the bright idea to simply start and host his service outside of the USA borders in the first place. He'll escape culpability by saying he's "simply leasing my name to the service", or some such. And the "royalty" checks for that lease won't go directly to him, they'll go to his PAC, to become indiscernible from all the other dark money flowing into their coffers.
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Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
"Can anybody translate this into English?"
I think the closest analogy, translated from the hillbilly dialect of Moron he's using is; "Hi, I'm Baghdad Bob and this is what it looks like when I shit on my keyboard!"
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Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
I'm not a fan of the good guy with a gun theory, but this seems like a bit of a straw man. I don't think the argument is that shootings are impossible because a good guy with a gun will stop them. All you're demonstrating there is that shootings happen, which yes of course they do. The argument is that the most effective measure to stop them is other people being armed.
The problem is that this is very difficult to either prove or disprove. There are definitely incidents where someone pulls out a gun, and armed bystanders / potential victims chase them off. The thing is, this results in a non-shooting, which doesn't tend to be very newsworthy. How often does this happen, compared to the frequency of attempted mass shootings? How often are there armed people in the area who fail to stop a mass shooting? The claim is that "a good guy with a gun" is the best solution, so that raises the question of what are the other possible solutions, and how well might they work? These are not easy questions to answer factually.
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Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment
Very true.
But as long as we are off-topic and speculating:
What about the proposition that more "good people with effective means of self defense" would correspond to a somewhat increased likelihood that one of them might be in a position to respond to a multiple murderer, and might be able to limit the tragedy the murderer is causing?
Or the similar proposition that fewer "good people with effective means of self defense" would correspond to a somewhat decreased likelihood that one of them might be in a position to respond to a multiple murderer, and might be able to limit the tragedy the murderer is causing?
Would we prefer an increased chance of a better ( or less bad) outcome, or a decreased chance of a better ( or less bad) outcome?
Your view on this might depend on whether or not you were next in line to be murdered.
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Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment
It's nothing more than cherry-picking in the bad faith integral to every anti-gun argument.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amend
This doesn't account for people that are somewhere in between...what about marginally good or bad people who wouldn't otherwise use a gun for nefarious purposes, but for the fact that they can freely carry it wherever they want?
And what does it say about the land of the free and home of the brave, where you should have to carry a gun to protect yourself for something as common as a trip to the grocery store? Isn't that something you'd expect to deal with in a third world shithole country?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amend
You're saying there can be no good faith argument for more stringent gun control?
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Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment
"How often are there armed people in the area who fail to stop a mass shooting?"
It's true that this is not measurable, but what is measurable is how many mass shootings happen where someone is armed on the scene but fails to address it while it's ongoing. One of the people killed in the recent Boulder shooting was an armed police officer. In the Parkland shooting, there was an armed security guard who refused to enter the scene. Clearly, when there's an active shooting, even trained professionals with guns are not a fix, so why would you depend on non-professionals, when it's proven that easy access to guns have driving the shootings themselves?
"The claim is that "a good guy with a gun" is the best solution, so that raises the question of what are the other possible solutions, and how well might they work? These are not easy questions to answer factually."
Most other civilised countries have managed to come up with solutions. But, since those tend to take the form of the UK or Australia banning certain types of guns (followed by a demonstrable general lack of further mass shootings), they tend to avoid those.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd A
I'll believe it the first time I see it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd A
"You're saying there can be no good faith argument for more stringent gun control?"
In the US I'd find it hard to justify many of them, and I say this as a european who happily lives with gun control far beyond the wildest dreams of US gun control advocates.
1) The average 2A adherent finds it hard to trust the US government. One casual glance at the US of today and we'll have to admit he's probably right about that.
2) Rampage killing isn't a new phenomenon. If there are guns available, people get shot. Barring guns, people get run over by trucks, blown up by bombs, set on fire in wild arson, etc. The US has a gun culture so everyone feeling the need to go out taking as many as possible down with them immediately thinks "gun". Were it not so they'd just load their truck with drums of poor man's gelignite and run it straight into a crowded mall.
3) Every measure of gun control I've seen so far would take low-power varmint rifles off the market, leaving the whole range of thirty ought six and up "dominating" the streets from the nearest water tower instead.
4) The amount of guns were never the problem. Switzerland has more fully automated assault rifles per capita than the US. Sweden has more high-powered guns per capita than the US. And both countries have some of the lowest murder rates by gun in the world. The issue is, and has always been, that any place which so fails to ensure the safety and survival of its citizenry that it leaves a large group of people badly educated and poor, will see regularly occurring outbreaks of rampage killings.
The only solution or viable mitigation of rampage killings is to fix the mental health of the citizenry. Everything else is just an interminably debated administration of aspirin as a cure for the symptoms of the cancer eating away at the nation.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amend
"Most other civilised countries have managed to come up with solutions. But, since those tend to take the form of the UK or Australia banning certain types of guns (followed by a demonstrable general lack of further mass shootings), they tend to avoid those."
The amount of guns is surprisingly enough not the important factor. Rampage killing is a phenomenon which happens whenever you have enough desperate people. Low upwards mobility, cruel and cutthroat society, permanent indebtedness, low education, and general poverty - these are what cause a human being to turn into a confused and despairing murderous loser seeking suicide in a burst of ill-aimed violence.
And the type of guns...honestly, I'm not too keen on any of the suggestions, because they would all leave as the most common tool of murder a brace of shotguns, a few handguns and/or a 30-06 calibre hunting rifle rather than a semi-auto varmint rifle with a larger magazine.
In Europe (or australia) gun control is a viable method; the US, not so much. It'd just become the second prohibition in that nation. Largely useless and consuming even more resources desperately needed elsewhere.
Is gun control desirable in the US?
Yes, surely.
But that's not what anyone is even trying to get on the table. Any legislation likely to achieve any such control is dead from the start. So instead there have been debates, for decades, about legislation which even if fully implemented, is either useless or actively harmful.
You can't take the guns out of the hands of an american unless you first manage to take it out of his head and heart. And before that can happen you need that american to at least give their government passing trust. Fat chance of that happening with "government" being of the quality we've seen demonstrated for the last few decades.
TL;DR?
People are dying. To mainly mentally ill people with easy access to guns. Taking those guns away is literally impossible in that nation. Finding and treating the mentally ill...is only almost impossible.
That's the sort of legislation they need to push. Not something which will consume all their efforts and time and not accomplish a damn thing.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd A
"The amount of guns is surprisingly enough not the important factor"
It's certainly an important factor, even if not the primary one. It's estimated that there are 120 guns per 100 people in the USA, more than double the ownership of the next countries on the list (below), and the only country where guns outnumber people. Yet, only around 40% of households report owning guns. You can talk about the mitigating factors from poverty to mental healthcare all you want, but it's clear that there's also a gun ownership problem. How that's dealt with is another issue, but as we see in other countries, while nutters do still go on rampages with knives and other weapons, they tend to be somewhat less effective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership
But, this can be dealt with, you just can't go all out immediately. If you try to just take guns away willy nilly, that won't work - hell, unfounded rumours that Obama was planning such a thing led to a massive rise in gun sales all on its own. But, the conversation has to start somewhere, and it's obvious that "let's pretend it's not happening and is somehow unavoidable despite this being the only country where this keeps happening" doesn't work. I'd suggest first looking at how people access guns and why there's so many people who think they need a weapons cache bigger than some armies, but it's clear that the answer is not "do nothing".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2
"2) Rampage killing isn't a new phenomenon."
It is, however, something that's increasingly common. At least from my POV, the American attitude toward guns hasn't changed that much since the Reagan era, but the rate of mass shootings has.
"Switzerland has more fully automated assault rifles per capita than the US"
According to what? Most figures I've seen reflect this Wiki entry: 120 guns/100 people in the US, 27.2 for Switzerland. It's common for the Swiss to have the guns due to things other than outright fetishism, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership
"The only solution or viable mitigation of rampage killings is to fix the mental health of the citizenry."
No, that's a part of the solution. Even in places with excellent mental healthcare and support systems people still break - they just can't do as much damage when all they can get their hands on is a kitchen knife.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2
What you're ignoring, as most do, is that mass shootings are a blip in gun deaths in the US. Most gun deaths are by handgun. IIRC correctly most of them, or at least close to it, are suicides not homicides. Suicides become more likely, even with no change in mental health situation, when a gun is present. Most gun murders are of a single person.
The problem is not big scary rifles, it's handguns. And as far as I can tell there is nobody trying to do anything about those. And of course anything one might do about future sales would also be ineffective, because there are already so many millions of them out there, and they last a long time. Good luck getting rid of the bulk of handguns in the US in the current political climate.
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Re: If Maz ever wants a gun, he'll rely on 2nd Amendment.
Sadly, just like in real life, everyone here has missed the point.
Society, at least the democratic version of it, has a history if missing the target and hitting the innocent bystander when it comes to fixing problems. For instance, all of the above replies to the OP go on about gun control, or slightly closer to the mark, mental health. Well, that last one is much closer to home, but still not quite on target. So what is the real target, you ask?
Easy and simple - bullying. Show me a mass shooter who was not bullied at some point in his life, and I'll show you a truly mentally deficient person. Lawyers for these jackals are constantly pounding the 'temporary insanity' defense, which is the best one to save the shooter's life, but it doesn't do much to expose the underlying reason for why the shooter went berserk in the first place. The usual context is a poor upbringing vis-a-vis bad parenting. I'd posit that such may be a contributing factor, but somewhere along the way, one or more peers of the shooter went out of his/her/their way to bully the shooter. Under the "Kick The Dog" rule, we're seeing a delayed reaction, and that's all there is to it. Said reaction may come quickly (going postal), or it may be years in the making (waiting until one is old enough to purchase a gun), it doesn't matter - it's still a reaction. And the reason for that reaction should be obvious, but I'll spell it out anyway - we're raised to believe in justice, that all wrongs will be righted. But when the system fails to provide what we think would be a just solution, then we feel compelled to take matters into our own hands and find our own justice. That's what's wrong here, not the issue of what tool was used to deliver that justice.
The solution is even more simple to contemplate, but vastly harder to implement.... stop bullying, in all its forms. Once that's done, the number of mass shootings will drop like a lead balloon, trust me on this one.
My opening lines in this post? Snowflakes tend to look at the tool that caused the damage, and not at the person using the tool. Recently we've seen mass stabbings, for Pete's sake! No guns available? No problem, kitchen knives are a dime a dozen. And shall we take such common tools off the market, because the are too deadly? I'd say yes, because that's be about the only way to teach Snowflakes that stupid demands have consequences. Bad ones.
But Snowflakes aren't the real problem here, they're only a distraction from the problem. We as a nation really need to get a handle on bullying, full stop.
I'm reminded of a comparison chart, pitting 1957 versus 1997. In 1957, Johnny brings his plinking rifle to school for Show And Tell, and the teacher goes out to his truck and brings in his own rifle to compare the two. In 1997, Johnny mentions that his dad has a gun at home, and the School Resource Officer arrests him for threatening fellow students. My question is, how in Gawd's name did we go from sensible to Snowflake in only one generation? Answer me that, and I'll die a happy camper.
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Yep. It'll be just like how the Left redecorated and improved cities nationwide throughout 2020.
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Hmmm, Switzerland and Sweden have low violent crime rates... I wonder why that is? Japan, Norway, Spain...low violent crime. Korea, Luxembourg, Austria... low violent crime.
What could it be about those countries? I wonder if looking at various US states could help us figure it out.
Hmmm, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire... Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah... low violent crime.
Why do those countries and states have such low violent crime? What do high violent crime countries and states have that makes the difference?
Jeez, this is a toughie. Just can't figure it out.
Maybe if instead we looked at whole continents, that might help. Let's see...
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"tend to look at the tool that caused the damage, and not at the person using the tool"
Exploring this line of thought much further will lead to a factual conclusion unacceptable to Techdirters. Best leave it vague and unstated as to who does and doesn't commit violent crime, nationally and worldwide.
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So I'm thinking where you're going with this is that places with a lot of black people have a lot of crime, so it must be because of black people. I hope I'm wrong.
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Sorry, my parser broke down at "unacceptable to Techdirters". I'll need to spend the next several hours doing a person reset. In the meantime, one or more others may respond in my stead. Please stand by.....
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"Why do those countries and states have such low violent crime? "
Low population density? Mountains?
I know what your bigoted ass is going for here, but I thought I'd offer something else as an option. Although, it's funny that you mention Spain since there's reasonably large amount of violent crime here surrounding mostly white drug gangs smuggling across the Med. But, I'm going to guess that Irishmen shooting each other in Marbella over gang disputes doesn't fit the narrative you're thinking of.
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I'd say his dogwhistle is fairly obvious. But I giggle at his inclusion of Spain on the list. Here, a lot of the black people you see are the "looky looky" men, African immigrants who make a living selling knockoff merchandise to tourists, and are rarely involved in any violent criminal activity. If you want to see violence you usually need to look at drunken British tourists, while if you want to see gun violence you need to look at Italian and Irish drug gangs fighting each other.
I'm going to guess that there's similar stories in other countries when you look past assumed demographics and Fox headlines.
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"Best leave it vague and unstated as to who does and doesn't commit violent crime, nationally and worldwide."
Let me guess - you're not including white supremacists in your figures here, even though they've been declared the biggest domestic terrorist threat by the FBI in recent years?
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The biggest problem with US gun culture is that they are considered by some to be an everyday carry item. Those people have bought into the myth that a gun is a self defence weapon, ignoring that most of the time that you need a gun, you don't have time to draw it and have a better chance of survival with unarmed combat techniques.
European countries have strict rules about safe storage and transport of guns, and make everyday carrying illegal. When a guns are not handy, they are used mush less in suicide attempts, or as a means to settle an argument.
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The general community of people on Techdirt is quite heavily divided on the issue of gun control. We certainly don’t all focus on gun control as even a significant factor in how to handle mass shootings. Trying to say that we all—or even a majority of us—will reject the conclusion you allude to is highly unlikely in that light, since we can’t really come to a consensus on a lot of things on this issue.
…Unless you’re trying to imply something other than mental health or victims of bullying like race or religion, but if that’s the case, a) that’s unsupported by the facts, and b) no shit we’d reject that conclusion; it’d be no better than blaming the tool for how it’s used. But hey, surely that’s not what you’re going for, right?
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"Best leave it vague and unstated as to who does and doesn't commit violent crime, nationally and worldwide."
Yeah pretty sure he's going for "the problem is dark people." And he's right, most techdirters would reject that quite firmly.
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"The general community of people on Techdirt is quite heavily divided on the issue of gun control"
Some people here live somewhere other than the US and are mystified as to why giving people with obvious mental issues access to an arsenal of weapons is more important then civilian lives. But many of us are from cultures where even the cops don't routinely carry, and cops are trained to de-escalate situations without the use of force.
"We certainly don’t all focus on gun control as even a significant factor in how to handle mass shootings"
Almost zero actual arguments to deal with the situation involve breaking into peoples' homes and confiscating every weapon by force as these people seem to be fixated upon. But, it would seem clear to me that a country that has more weapons than people, where only 40% of households own any weapons at all, and where the mere hint that some politician somewhere might think about confiscation leads to a direct uptick in weapons sales to existing gun owners, and a sign that the pandemic slowing is a regular series of mass shootings... there's possibly something that needs to be addressed.
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Indeed. I can understand some people in high crime areas feeling the need to have a weapon nearby in case of burglary, home invasion or other situations. I don't understand people who think that they need the ability to open carry when they go to the supermarket. In either case, it's likely more effective and healthy to ensure that those around you don't have a lot of guns and that the police are trained to de-escalate situations without the need to use a weapon than it is to have to assume that everyone around you might be trying to kill you.
I've been in places where guns are deemed necessary, and for the most part they're not places you would choose to live.
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Seems you stopped looking any further when you came across something that fit your narrative, which means any conclusions you draw will also fit your narrative.
That you not even dared voicing your "conclusion" is quite telling.
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