The rhetoric on Paul Pelosi's hammer attack was unhinged - it also was political violence. I don't doubt the same figures who made lurid comments, mocked or ridiculed the attack will now act more measured and asking for decorum due to the victims "team".

January 6 was mass political violence, and I my unprofessional opinion is that the pardons marked a turning point in how engaging in political violence is viewed; all is forgiven if/when your team wins.

Hyper-partisanship, and choosing not playing by the rules when it benefits you will be America's downfall. At some point, people on the other side of the political fence stopped being seen as opponents,but became "enemies", I think cable news/entertainment shoulders much blame on this, but the politicians themselves know outrage turns out the vote. I wonder if they'll attempt to lower the temperature or raise it further.

If you haven't noticed a difference between his first and second terms may I suggest you go for a vacation outside the US and try coming back in? For bonus points make a mistake on your forms.

US customs are now _worse_ than they were a month after 9/11 and this time it's not just the ones at airports.

I know plenty of people who will be giving NeurIPS a miss _on the advice of their governments_. This _did not_ happen during his first term.

Heh. You know. I don't want to be too flippant, but I will respond to this, because it raises an interesting point.

I would like to hope that you recognize that registration of political affiliation is just one data point. Spring it does not make. You know how I got registered as a republican? I got incorrectly registered as one during judge election volunteering.

I am not saying it means nothing. What I am saying is: some nuance is helpful in conversations like this.

> There was just no way for an opponent to top that photo op.

Rising up with your fist clenched right after you were shot isn't something you train for either. That's a natural reaction from instinct.

It's morbid curiosity to analyze it, but I don't think it would have had the same net effect if it was Harris.

“Photo op”.

A man was killed that day.

No, they're the same thing from a risk management perspective. As a defender, you do not (or at least should not) care about motivations. Seatbelts protect against genuine mistakes (by you or others), mechanical failures, road rage, etc.

There's a long funnel of all the things that could happen, probability of each, and total resulting probability. That's no different for being in a car wreck or being shot at.

Now, on a moral level, sure, malice is different from negligence is different from coincidence.

It's only an accident when taken out of the bigger picture. There is a reason it's often called car collision (or similar nowadays): Because it's a statistical inevitability when taken in aggregate.

It's kinda nice to live in a country where that the evil being doesn't have easy access to guns.

How many gun deaths per capita does Japan have compared to the USA?

There are whole continents of countries showing how effective gun control is. At this point you've got to be ignoring it on purpose.

It's not some statistical difference between almost no violence and no violence. It's night and day. Orders of magnitude. Teens walking back from parties through the middle of the city at 1 am with their parents permission vs clan wars.

Define effective

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> not even the "bourgeoisie" can completely shield themselves from it

The bourgeoisie can't. The aristocracy can. That's the point.

If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House.

I actually wish that were the case.

The problem today is that we've scaled up the damage that a single attacker can do. I won't go too far into it, but think of it this way, what happens when someone wakes up to the fact that they can use autonomous ordinance (e.g. - Drones)?

We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse. In retrospect, it's kind of obvious that it set us on a slippery slope.

I've always thought that the middle class were proles as well, or petit-bourgeoisie at best. I don't think you're wrong, but one thing that I've noticed in my time of thinking about and discussing societal problems in the US is that nothing ever really seems to help the poor anyway.

<< People who are against violence by all means necessary are privileged

I think you misunderstand the point. My argument is that each act of political violence ( especially on a national stage ) further degrades existing society. That ongoing degradation is a real problem and, yes, individual suffering is irrelevant to it, because, society is a greater good.

You may say those say it are privileged, but to that I say that I like having working society. It keeps being us civil. I like it to stay that way.

If you feel otherwise, please elaborate. It is possible, I am misunderstanding you.

> Haitian Revolution comes to mind of "the bourgeoisie" that were actually in country

Yes. The bourgeoisie don’t get away. The aristocracy do.

If you work in tech, you’re part of the American bourgeoisie. If you have a college degree, you’re bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the middle class.

Why should this negate my rights?

It has been stated before, but perhaps we should only allow older people to have guns, probably 40ish. Of course that filters out all but one mass murders - Las Vegas (at least from brain memory).

I would think addressing the reasons people commit suicide leads to a better society. I would think that simply removing a popular tool for them only hides a symptom of a broader problem.

The other break in your statistic is people who own guns and commit suicide, and people who own guns and have a family member steal them to commit suicide. The later is far more common. Which suggests that part of the issue is unrestricted access to firearms by children in the home of a gun owning parent.

I'm not sure how Wikipedia is distinguishing them but for the most part firearms do not have to be registered in the United States. Some states require firearms to be registered but most do not. Unregistered firearms can nonetheless be counted because they are inventoried and sold legally (firearms dealers must be licensed and regulated), even though the end purchaser is not registered anywhere.

Federally, only specific categories like fully-automatic machine guns and short-barreled rifles have to be registered.

Only a tiny minority of firearms need to be registered. My guess is that covers NFA weapons like machine-guns, which are uncommon. Virtually all typical firearms people own don't need to be registered.

No one really knows how many firearms there are in the US or who owns them. Just the fact that something like 15 million firearms are sold every year in the US gives a sense of the scale. The number of firearms in the US is staggering, no one knows the true number, and they have an indefinite lifespan if stored in halfway decent conditions.

Most weapons in the US don't require registration.

Certain kinds of firearms are required to be registered, like machine guns, short barrel rifles, and short barrel shotguns.

Tons of guns are not those limited categories, so they are not required to be registered.

Its entirely possible to sell a gun in the US without any kind of paperwork depending on the type of firearm sold, the buyer of the firearm, and the seller of the firearm. I'm in Texas, so I'll use that as an example. Lets say I want to sell a regular shotgun I currently own to a friend. IANAL, this is not legal advice, but my understanding from reading the applicable laws would be all I have to do is verify they are over the age of 18 and that I think they are probably legally able to own a gun (I have no prior knowledge of any legal restrictions against them owning the gun). We can meet up, check he's probably over 18 and can probably legally own a gun and is a Texas resident, he can hand me cash or whatever for trade, I can give him the gun, and we go our separate ways. I do not need to do a background check. I do not need to file any registration. Nobody would know this guy now owns this gun. I do not need to keep any record of this sale at all. This shotgun has been an unregistered gun for its entire exstence.

This wouldn't necessarily be true if I trade some certain amount of guns as then I would probably need a federal firearms license and thus have some additional restrictions on facilitiating a sale. This also isn't necessarily true in other states which have additional restrictions on gun sales. But if I haven't done any gun sales in a long while, such restrictions wouldn't apply (according to my current understanding of the law, IANAL, not legal advice).

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easy access to guns plus a culture glorifying access to guns.

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I think though joked about, one of the most telling things about the NRA is their absolute militancy about gun rights... when it suits them. As you pointed out.

And as also evidenced by things like "From my cold, dead hands! ... unless you're at an NRA convention, in which case please use these lockers or leave your gun at home, and walk through this metal detector, please."