Violence & Hypocrisy in America

[Remmah2]

Hollywood celebrities condemn and yet profit from violence with guns.

[Pholus]

1. When I was young, the fundies went after D&D.

Of course, being a geek I played at the time. Thinking myself to be a good christian it bothered me of course to suffer the various harsh pronouncements. After a while I noticed a critical assumption in their arguments as they concluded that people who played D&D were certainly closet Satanists who would destroy our country.

That of course is that we have a difference between fantasy and reality. Just because I talked about magic doesn't mean I do it, nor is the wanton violence something I'd condone in real life. Actually, thinking through the false equivalence they presented was one of the major events in my development as a critical thinker and a Democrat.

So I guess what you're saying here is that there actually are many people who can't separate fantasy from reality. I am disturbed to think that they might be buying these guns for realsies because they have been totally brainwashed by Hollywood into thinking that the movie version of life is something real that should be aspired to.

That sounds like a problem! But problems are made to be solved. We have imaginary guns and real guns here. Probably it would be effective to concentrate on putting some restrictions on the ones that do actual damage.

[rwsanders]

2. My wife and I only have the most basic of basic cable...

When we talk to the reps. we have to explain that we aren't getting even the basic channels, so we only have about 15.
So when I travel and end up in a hotel, it is surprising that I can't find a channel that isn't running some show that revolves around someone running around with a gun. I think some of the channels are 24 hour cheesy westerns only.
So maybe it is like the old saying, if your only tool is a hammer (or gun) every problem is a nail (bad guy).

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R

[rschallack]

4. Although there's violence in Hollywood...

other countries do not have the mass shootings America does. So, Canada has, essentially, the same TV and movies we do, but their mass-murder rate (hell, even just their gun violence rate) is way lower than the US. So it's not Hollywood causing it. It's not video games. It is the easy accessibility of guns and the lax gun regulations in this country. I carry an NRA membership (momentary insanity) and the level of denial in that organization is unreal. Even simple, non-controversial, minor gun regulation can slow this level of violence. The NRA had a real chance to give meaningful dialogue and instead demagogued the issue and blamed video games. Video games. No sir, wasn't the 1000 rounds of ammo and the AR15 that shot those kids up, it was video games. I'm with Michael Moore. Bowling was the cause for Columbine. We should ban bowling.

We do need our leaders to step up and do the right thing.

[secondvariety]

5. Dang.

Go to You Tube and read the comments for this video. Gun lovers are nuts.