One of the synagogues in town held their High Holy Days services in the church where I work for a couple of years, as their place wasn't big enough to handle the crowds, and we had to have a conversation about their armed guards, as our policy is no weapons on the premises. It was jarring to see a uniformed security guard with a gun out front of the church. But they've got this guy out front of their synagogue every Saturday morning.
I was horrified a couple of years ago, visiting a synagogue in leafy Surrey to see how seriously they felt they needed to take their security. I was visiting as part of a group of ministers in training. All our names had to be sent ahead and we were ticked off on the list as we came in. The main gates were locked and an entry phone system used for their regulars. All this in Thames Ditton!
People have hated the Jews for thousands of years. There are old reasons, and new reasons, but the hatred has been murderous and constant. Melbourne had a Jewish community before the Holocaust, but it grew significantly after the second world war. Mostly the violence is low-key or implied here - grafitti, graves desecrated, institutions firebombed in the dead of night and the like, verbal abuse. Things amp up in times of trouble, usually centred around Israel. Its not the left that's to blame though. Its always the right and recently, deluded Islamists.
I have a recollection that TBI's security was prompted by an actual series of close calls from the deluded Islamists, but I haven't been able to clarify that with internet searches so I think I'm wrong. But 10 years ago, it wasn't one bloke in front of the synagogue. It was a team of a dozen or so and they are running it like they are from the Green Zone in Baghdad. They are at every door you have to go through to get to the worship space, they are outside the building, they are on the street, they are at the front door, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were in an apartment block on the other side of Alma Rd too. They have put serious money behind the safety of their congregation. And this is in what I reckon is one of the safest places to live on the planet.
Mind you, Trump saying the Tree of Life Synagogue needed a guard is classic blaming the victim. He is such a turd that bloke. I think its calculated, those sorts of statements he makes, calculated so that people who are disposed to like him will just go, kind of reflexively, 'yeah they should have had a guard. This isn't about the American right, its about the Jews. They should have had better security.' I don't reckon these people are bad in themselves. They are just ordinary conservative people being led by the nose.
Last Wednesday, after this service had concluded, eight or 10 people were still within the church complex when a man named Gregory Bush tried to break in. The doors were all locked. Billy Williams, the church administrator, saw Bush on the surveillance cameras because this is 2018 and churches, especially those with large African American congregations, need surveillance cameras. Bush finally gave up and drove to a Kroger's supermarket not far from there. He shot two African-American patrons after telling a white customer who was within range that, "Whites don't kill whites."
Note that the shooting of two unarmed grocery customers (one in the store and another in the parking lot) is what passes as a success among America's ammosexuals. Security measures at a house of worship (a locked door rather than the mythic 'good guy with a gun', but whatever) meant that another sympathetic church shooting was avoided by making the shooter take out his issues (and his gun) elsewhere. Remember that calls for more security at specific places is essentially making a plan that the shooting happens to other people, not a plan to prevent mass shootings.
Which is why we need real gun control, not more armed guards.
Exactly.
You'd think it would be possible to conclude; that's it's easier to control a gun (in terms of legislation, ownership etc), than it is to control a person holding a gun, especially in life-threatening situations. But in a country where gun ownership is such an ordinary aspect of national life, I can see why even that observation is unhelpful.
I suppose once you've committed yourself to the philosophy that it's more desirable to wait until the abscess has burst and the pus is everywhere before seeking medical help, than to curtail the disease that infects the skin, it's kind of a bit too late already.
And the idiot-in-chief thinks the answer is to have armed guards in synagogues and churches. God help you.
Four police officers were shot. They were armed. That didn't save all the murdered victims.
I want to do something to help! It's so frustrating. My fellow Americans, vote! Please! Not that I want to tell everyone who to vote for, but vote Blue.
Even if the miracle of both houses of congress turning majority Democrat would occur, (please God) would there be any changes made to gun control? I always have hope, but after so many years of slaughter it's hard not to feel resigned to seeing a future full of murdered children, church goers, shoppers, and other innocents minding their own business.
Is it true that Americans kill each other more than terrorists do?
Depends on how you define "terrorist". Does Robert Bowers count as a terrorist? Dylann Roof? Scott Roeder? The question seems premised on the dubious notion that "Americans" and "terrorists" are separate and distinct categories.
I guess I could more correctly ask: do American citizen-terrorists kill Americans more than other terrorists?
By a very big margin. Let me dig out some stats...
AFZ
That was much easier than I was expecting. I knew the answer coz it's one of those things that's incredibly clear cut but I thought I'd need to compile a few things. It's worth noting that since 2000, worldwide, well over 90% of terrorism victims have been Muslim.
Anyway, a couple of years ago CNN looked at this question, so if you can forgive the fact that these numbers are not quite up to date...
For every one American killed by an act of terror in the United States or abroad in 2014, more than 1,049 died because of guns.
Don Lemon(?) got into a bit of strife for suggesting white males were a dangerous category of person in the USA. I'd say blokes I think and include domestic violence. If the USA is like Australia, domestic violence is a huge killer of people, and no prizes for guessing the gender of most victims.
We are starting on raising awareness/consciousness here, as well as law reform and the provisioning of services for victims. [candle emote]
Don Lemon(?) got into a bit of strife for suggesting white males were a dangerous category of person in the USA. I'd say blokes I think and include domestic violence. If the USA is like Australia, domestic violence is a huge killer of people, and no prizes for guessing the gender of most victims.
We are starting on raising awareness/consciousness here, as well as law reform and the provisioning of services for victims. [candle emote]
US mass shootings (that target people at random or that target a specific class of people) are predominantly done by white men. There are some counter examples but the trend is overwhelming. Don Lemon is right.
Men in general here are socially programmed with a toxic masculinity that pushes many to commit violence when they feel that their entitlement to women’s bodies or other tokens of toxic manhood is being challenged. What makes this kind of mass shooting it more common among white men is that this entitlement extends to a feeling, conscious or unconscious, of racial superiority. A lot of the - again, often unconscious - resentment among white people (who don't go around shooting others) that led to Trump's had to do with the fact that quality of life was stagnant (or declining) for many while they observed, since the civil rights movement, that some (certainly not all) opportunities for racial minorities had improved, or at least that these minorities had more visibility in some leadership roles (major trigger for them: Obama).
Because these white people (again, often unconsciously) had gauged their own social status by how far economically above they were those that they thought they were better off (and, for many of these white people, thought that they were more deserving) than, these circumstances led to a feeling of a loss of a whole world that they were accustomed to (hence the idea that America needed to be made "great" again).
In the US, and especially among certain subcultures and in certain geographical areas, gun ownership and the defense of one's honor with guns is very important - especially among white men. Self-armament and the willingness to use vigilante violence (such as lynchings) against those who would disturb the social order that gave rise to a sense of manhood (such as freed slaves after the Civil War or the rise of a black middle class at the turn of the 20th century). Of course, gun ownership and/or violence in defense of one's property, honor, or merely one's life is also prominent among blacks. Even MLK, Jr., defended his house with multiple guns (his nonviolence was in his social action, but he was willing to defend his family from the many who wanted to kill them with force). And we all know about the gang violence among black and brown people that is the cause of many mass shootings (more than 4 killed by one person, according to one technical definition) in the US, but this violence, is not, as I said above, directed at people at random or at whites, blacks, Jewish people, etc., as a broad group.
There is also about toxic white male privilege in our culture that makes "going out in flames" by "taking people with you" - ie, going out and killing strangers, seem like an understandable option (albeit not a moral one) just like killing one's spouse and their lover in the case of adultery feels like an understandable option. This random public violence is not as much of a cultural phenomenon among other races here, although there are counterexamples, and I think it has to do with the idea that society (or the group one scapegoats) needs to be publicly punished for the loss of white male honor. Other racial groups are raised to think that their honor is constantly being undermined in society, so they don't have a eureka moment that some white men seem to have when they suddenly realize that they aren't getting what they are entitled to and society (or the other) has to publicly pay. When other races have engaged in public violence (including racist and antisemitic violence) it is often communal (see the Crown Heights Riot in NYC history).
And what makes this worse is that this kind of mass shooting (at random people or as a hate crime) by white men is now a meme - something to be copied - because it has become so common.
Don Lemon(?) got into a bit of strife for suggesting white males were a dangerous category of person in the USA. I'd say blokes I think and include domestic violence. If the USA is like Australia, domestic violence is a huge killer of people, and no prizes for guessing the gender of most victims.
We are starting on raising awareness/consciousness here, as well as law reform and the provisioning of services for victims. [candle emote]
US mass shootings (that target people at random or that target a specific class of people) are predominantly done by white men. There are some counter examples but the trend is overwhelming. Don Lemon is right.
Men in general here are socially programmed with a toxic masculinity that pushes many to commit violence when they feel that their entitlement to women’s bodies or other tokens of toxic manhood is being challenged. What makes this kind of mass shooting it more common among white men is that this entitlement extends to a feeling, conscious or unconscious, of racial superiority. A lot of the - again, often unconscious - resentment among white people (who don't go around shooting others) that led to Trump's had to do with the fact that quality of life was stagnant (or declining) for many while they observed, since the civil rights movement, that some (certainly not all) opportunities for racial minorities had improved, or at least that these minorities had more visibility in some leadership roles (major trigger for them: Obama).
Because these white people (again, often unconsciously) had gauged their own social status by how far economically above they were those that they thought they were better off (and, for many of these white people, thought that they were more deserving) than, these circumstances led to a feeling of a loss of a whole world that they were accustomed to (hence the idea that America needed to be made "great" again).
In the US, and especially among certain subcultures and in certain geographical areas, gun ownership and the defense of one's honor with guns is very important - especially among white men. Self-armament and the willingness to use vigilante violence (such as lynchings) against those who would disturb the social order that gave rise to a sense of manhood (such as freed slaves after the Civil War or the rise of a black middle class at the turn of the 20th century). Of course, gun ownership and/or violence in defense of one's property, honor, or merely one's life is also prominent among blacks. Even MLK, Jr., defended his house with multiple guns (his nonviolence was in his social action, but he was willing to defend his family from the many who wanted to kill them with force). And we all know about the gang violence among black and brown people that is the cause of many mass shootings (more than 4 killed by one person, according to one technical definition) in the US, but this violence, is not, as I said above, directed at people at random or at whites, blacks, Jewish people, etc., as a broad group.
There is also about toxic white male privilege in our culture that makes "going out in flames" by "taking people with you" - ie, going out and killing strangers, seem like an understandable option (albeit not a moral one) just like killing one's spouse and their lover in the case of adultery feels like an understandable option. This random public violence is not as much of a cultural phenomenon among other races here, although there are counterexamples, and I think it has to do with the idea that society (or the group one scapegoats) needs to be publicly punished for the loss of white male honor. Other racial groups are raised to think that their honor is constantly being undermined in society, so they don't have a eureka moment that some white men seem to have when they suddenly realize that they aren't getting what they are entitled to and society (or the other) has to publicly pay. When other races have engaged in public violence (including racist and antisemitic violence) it is often communal (see the Crown Heights Riot in NYC history).
And what makes this worse is that this kind of mass shooting (at random people or as a hate crime) by white men is now a meme - something to be copied - because it has become so common.
Or it could just be that there are a whole lot more white men than African American men in the country. Interracial killings only account for about 10-14% of the 6000 U.S. murders every year, so as horrible as they, and the terrible mass killings that make such tragic news, are, it's probably a shame that we talk about them so much more than the other 90% which are the ones that are most directly related to the lethal combination of spur of the moment decisions plus easy access to guns.
The lawyer for the man responsible for the bombs being sent to the Clintons and other prominent Trump enemies was very interesting on the subject. He said his client was a sort of fatherless, lost soul who looked at Trump as a father figure and was trying to impress him. That doesn't sound like a macho guy with a big sense of entitlement to me.
Or it could just be that there are a whole lot more white men than African American men in the country.
Near as I can figure, white men make up about 36% of the population in the US. But they are responsible for a hell of a lot more than 36% of the mass killings.
Or it could just be that there are a whole lot more white men than African American men in the country.
Near as I can figure, white men make up about 36% of the population in the US. But they are responsible for a hell of a lot more than 36% of the mass killings.
Never mind what your most likely cause of death is if you're a black man between 18 and 35.
I think a focus on the causes of violence is worthy of attention in addition to continued efforts to get American legislators to limit the distribution of weapons. Over here, domestic violence is a big killer, and it is a blokes thing. Here, there are no racial barriers to domestic violence, and where my wife works giving legal advice to those accused, she has more difficulty explaining the law to people from migrant communities, who seem to have a similar attitude to women and kids as Anglo blokes in my Grandpa's generation.
I do believe that if we want to reduce the number of violent deaths, including by gun, Domestic Violence is a fertile field where progress could be made relatively cheaply. Of course, it will cost allot of dollars. They run here, to the extent that they do, on a combination of Government money and charitable donations. Its not enough.
I think it's probably in the "relatively." I agree with Simon that if we're going to label white men for yet another Bad Thing, "domestic violence" applies much more often than "mass murderer." Men as a group will probably always be more violent than women due to the testosterone factor.
Domestic Violence is a fertile field where progress could be made relatively cheaply. Of course, it will cost allot of dollars.
I can't square this circle.
I'm sitting here going what? what? What's mousethief on about? Then I see it....
I wonder if the impasse on gun violence could be overcome by changing the focus to violent crime in all its forms, or some other type of violence that people can agree is a bad thing. I think that's what I'm grasping for with domestic violence. Maybe there's another way to skin this cat.
Comments
One of the synagogues in town held their High Holy Days services in the church where I work for a couple of years, as their place wasn't big enough to handle the crowds, and we had to have a conversation about their armed guards, as our policy is no weapons on the premises. It was jarring to see a uniformed security guard with a gun out front of the church. But they've got this guy out front of their synagogue every Saturday morning.
I have a recollection that TBI's security was prompted by an actual series of close calls from the deluded Islamists, but I haven't been able to clarify that with internet searches so I think I'm wrong. But 10 years ago, it wasn't one bloke in front of the synagogue. It was a team of a dozen or so and they are running it like they are from the Green Zone in Baghdad. They are at every door you have to go through to get to the worship space, they are outside the building, they are on the street, they are at the front door, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were in an apartment block on the other side of Alma Rd too. They have put serious money behind the safety of their congregation. And this is in what I reckon is one of the safest places to live on the planet.
Mind you, Trump saying the Tree of Life Synagogue needed a guard is classic blaming the victim. He is such a turd that bloke. I think its calculated, those sorts of statements he makes, calculated so that people who are disposed to like him will just go, kind of reflexively, 'yeah they should have had a guard. This isn't about the American right, its about the Jews. They should have had better security.' I don't reckon these people are bad in themselves. They are just ordinary conservative people being led by the nose.
Note that the shooting of two unarmed grocery customers (one in the store and another in the parking lot) is what passes as a success among America's ammosexuals. Security measures at a house of worship (a locked door rather than the mythic 'good guy with a gun', but whatever) meant that another sympathetic church shooting was avoided by making the shooter take out his issues (and his gun) elsewhere. Remember that calls for more security at specific places is essentially making a plan that the shooting happens to other people, not a plan to prevent mass shootings.
Exactly.
Or a toy gun. It's happened.
You'd think it would be possible to conclude; that's it's easier to control a gun (in terms of legislation, ownership etc), than it is to control a person holding a gun, especially in life-threatening situations. But in a country where gun ownership is such an ordinary aspect of national life, I can see why even that observation is unhelpful.
I suppose once you've committed yourself to the philosophy that it's more desirable to wait until the abscess has burst and the pus is everywhere before seeking medical help, than to curtail the disease that infects the skin, it's kind of a bit too late already.
Four police officers were shot. They were armed. That didn't save all the murdered victims.
I want to do something to help! It's so frustrating. My fellow Americans, vote! Please! Not that I want to tell everyone who to vote for, but vote Blue.
Even if the miracle of both houses of congress turning majority Democrat would occur, (please God) would there be any changes made to gun control? I always have hope, but after so many years of slaughter it's hard not to feel resigned to seeing a future full of murdered children, church goers, shoppers, and other innocents minding their own business.
Depends on how you define "terrorist". Does Robert Bowers count as a terrorist? Dylann Roof? Scott Roeder? The question seems premised on the dubious notion that "Americans" and "terrorists" are separate and distinct categories.
By a very big margin. Let me dig out some stats...
AFZ
That was much easier than I was expecting. I knew the answer coz it's one of those things that's incredibly clear cut but I thought I'd need to compile a few things. It's worth noting that since 2000, worldwide, well over 90% of terrorism victims have been Muslim.
Anyway, a couple of years ago CNN looked at this question, so if you can forgive the fact that these numbers are not quite up to date...
So there you go, it's about a thousand to one...
AFZ
The film "Arlington Road" deals with this very well. It might also be the most thoroughly disturbing film I've ever seen. Haunting.
We are starting on raising awareness/consciousness here, as well as law reform and the provisioning of services for victims. [candle emote]
US mass shootings (that target people at random or that target a specific class of people) are predominantly done by white men. There are some counter examples but the trend is overwhelming. Don Lemon is right.
Men in general here are socially programmed with a toxic masculinity that pushes many to commit violence when they feel that their entitlement to women’s bodies or other tokens of toxic manhood is being challenged. What makes this kind of mass shooting it more common among white men is that this entitlement extends to a feeling, conscious or unconscious, of racial superiority. A lot of the - again, often unconscious - resentment among white people (who don't go around shooting others) that led to Trump's had to do with the fact that quality of life was stagnant (or declining) for many while they observed, since the civil rights movement, that some (certainly not all) opportunities for racial minorities had improved, or at least that these minorities had more visibility in some leadership roles (major trigger for them: Obama).
Because these white people (again, often unconsciously) had gauged their own social status by how far economically above they were those that they thought they were better off (and, for many of these white people, thought that they were more deserving) than, these circumstances led to a feeling of a loss of a whole world that they were accustomed to (hence the idea that America needed to be made "great" again).
In the US, and especially among certain subcultures and in certain geographical areas, gun ownership and the defense of one's honor with guns is very important - especially among white men. Self-armament and the willingness to use vigilante violence (such as lynchings) against those who would disturb the social order that gave rise to a sense of manhood (such as freed slaves after the Civil War or the rise of a black middle class at the turn of the 20th century). Of course, gun ownership and/or violence in defense of one's property, honor, or merely one's life is also prominent among blacks. Even MLK, Jr., defended his house with multiple guns (his nonviolence was in his social action, but he was willing to defend his family from the many who wanted to kill them with force). And we all know about the gang violence among black and brown people that is the cause of many mass shootings (more than 4 killed by one person, according to one technical definition) in the US, but this violence, is not, as I said above, directed at people at random or at whites, blacks, Jewish people, etc., as a broad group.
There is also about toxic white male privilege in our culture that makes "going out in flames" by "taking people with you" - ie, going out and killing strangers, seem like an understandable option (albeit not a moral one) just like killing one's spouse and their lover in the case of adultery feels like an understandable option. This random public violence is not as much of a cultural phenomenon among other races here, although there are counterexamples, and I think it has to do with the idea that society (or the group one scapegoats) needs to be publicly punished for the loss of white male honor. Other racial groups are raised to think that their honor is constantly being undermined in society, so they don't have a eureka moment that some white men seem to have when they suddenly realize that they aren't getting what they are entitled to and society (or the other) has to publicly pay. When other races have engaged in public violence (including racist and antisemitic violence) it is often communal (see the Crown Heights Riot in NYC history).
And what makes this worse is that this kind of mass shooting (at random people or as a hate crime) by white men is now a meme - something to be copied - because it has become so common.
I tend to follow NewsThump, and their regularly recycled articles include Now is not the time to talk about gun control, Good guy with gun fails to prevent mass shooting , and most telling satire editor wearily hits repost on mass shooting article.
Or it could just be that there are a whole lot more white men than African American men in the country. Interracial killings only account for about 10-14% of the 6000 U.S. murders every year, so as horrible as they, and the terrible mass killings that make such tragic news, are, it's probably a shame that we talk about them so much more than the other 90% which are the ones that are most directly related to the lethal combination of spur of the moment decisions plus easy access to guns.
The lawyer for the man responsible for the bombs being sent to the Clintons and other prominent Trump enemies was very interesting on the subject. He said his client was a sort of fatherless, lost soul who looked at Trump as a father figure and was trying to impress him. That doesn't sound like a macho guy with a big sense of entitlement to me.
Never mind what your most likely cause of death is if you're a black man between 18 and 35.
I do believe that if we want to reduce the number of violent deaths, including by gun, Domestic Violence is a fertile field where progress could be made relatively cheaply. Of course, it will cost allot of dollars. They run here, to the extent that they do, on a combination of Government money and charitable donations. Its not enough.
I'm sitting here going what? what? What's mousethief on about? Then I see it....
I wonder if the impasse on gun violence could be overcome by changing the focus to violent crime in all its forms, or some other type of violence that people can agree is a bad thing. I think that's what I'm grasping for with domestic violence. Maybe there's another way to skin this cat.