bitwise

The problems with mass shootings are stem from psychological problems. These problem stem from a culture that normalized posting photos on facebook posing with firearms. The point of these posts is to appear intimidating which associates firearms with power over others. This puts people that engage in this behavior one bad day from going on a killing spree.

You know that Canadians have had these kinds of firearms for decades, right? The guns themselves aren't the problem, it's the violent rhetoric. Facebook is definitely a problem, and I wouldn't care if they banned that instead (though I imagine it would be a far less popular move). Addressing the root cause would be more beneficial, instead of treating the entire adult population with undue suspicion and fear. Besides, you can already report unstable people with firearms to local police, and if they decide to investigate, they'll confiscate those firearms pre-emptively.

So firearms need to be regulated similarly to tobacco. We don't want tacticool firearms for people to pose with on facebook, which starts them down a dark path. Ideally firearms should be lame looking, and not have the capability of killing large numbers of people. Many weapons aren't suitable for hunting, but pose a significant danger if used for killing sprees have been banned.

I don't own firearms for mass killing. It's a sport that I enjoy that requires a unique blend of practical skills that translate to other parts of life. Are firearms dangerous weapons? Yes, that's why we have licencing programs that require training and education. You know, kinda like cars.

Lame-looking guns still kill just fine, and these bans haven't removed all semi-automatics anyway. The SKS is still non-restricted; it was left alone because it's incredibly popular with First Nations hunters, but that doesn't mean Mr. Mass Shooter can't pick one up to replace his AR-15 or 9mm PCC.

And yeah, guns get across the border. This is also illegal, so not sure why you're trying to make a point about it being somehow hypocritical to have both owning weapons suited for mass killings be illegal while smuggling guns is also illegal.

The bans don't stop the crime, that's the point. Taking guns from lawfully licenced people won't impact the crime statistics because they're almost entirely absent from those statistics. Spending the gun buyback money on increased border enforcement would've been a more effective method.

If you don't like it, go move to the US and have your kids go to schools where they need to do mass shooting drills.

Telling me to move to the US to enjoy mass shootings is not a reasonable or stable response to my objection to the assault on gun ownership in Canada.

What I like about Canada's gun culture is that it's focused on safe use and ownership of firearms. The irony is that we try very hard not to be like Americans in that respect, but we're still villified as if we're the same simply because we have/want firearms.

Not everyone has the luxury of buying meat at a grocery store, and not everyone is silly enough to think carrying a bolt-action rifle in the woods is sufficient enough for safe predator control.

Finally, if you know anyone who has a really fast car, and doesn't race it anywhere but the racetrack, would you ban those fast cars because someone could do something illegal with them? After all, propaganda films glorifying illegal street racing like The Fast and Furious are programming impressionable young minds to drive recklessly on our roads, threatening to make every commute a deadly gamble!

Reposting my comment here.

https://lemmy.ca/comment/14701904

The propaganda to encourage USians to see us as the enemy has already begun in full force. Don't expect them to grow spines anytime soon.

This is the government that banned semi-automatic firearms for licenced citizens even though the gun violence is almost exclusively committed with smuggled firearms from the US.

I don't think they want to draw attention to that distinction because it undermines their political assault on lawful ownership of firearms in Canada.

No plata. Only plomo for Cheeto Benito.

Update: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/trump-fires-top-us-general-cq-brown/index.html

The loyalty purge has begun; I wonder if our military leadership is smart enough to see where this is going?

I was thinking like this a few weeks ago but with more thought I think we are geographically too difficult to invade by force.

It's unfortunately much the opposite; our geography makes us easy to divide and conquer through a combination of the Canadian Shield being difficult to develop on, and the Trans Canada highway being a single point of failure.

https://youtu.be/550EdfxN868

I know the video is about invading the US, but it covers the general strategy the US could easily use to prevent troop movements between the western and eastern parts of Canada.

The rest of the world would also have boots on the ground here to help us out.

The US Navy could easily blockade or destroy the entirety of Europe's combined naval forces in a matter of days. Large-scale troop and equipment transport to bring reinforcement would be extremely unlikely to work, and Europe's militaries know this.

Also I think the vast majority of Americans would just refuse the order to do it.

20 years ago, Ukrainians would never have entertained the idea that Russia would invade and annex them. Many families lived, and continue to live, across both countries. Pernicious propaganda combined with authoritarian rule eventually removed the risk of sufficiently organized opposition.

Will it take 20 years for the US oligarchy to do the same? It's only been two months and we've gone from mutual cooperation to booing each other's anthems in sports games and AI-generated pictures of geese smashing eagles.

Increased trade with China at the US' expense will be the grain of truth buried in Trump's lies about Canada being owned and run by China (it doesn't need to be true, he just needs a fact he can grossly misinterpret, and often, not even that).

I wouldn't underestimate just how thoroughly ignorant and upset many Americans are. A little push in the right direction and the promise of wealth, even if ill-gotten, might be all they need.

I wish I shared in the optimism, but I could easily see them invading, and treating this land as an exploitable frontier. Incentivizing millions of their own citizens to move to their new colony to develop it for their own personal enrichment would mean we could quickly find ourselves outnumbered and displaced.

Haven't been able to read the article, even archive services are paywalled.

Good thing Trudeau banned most semi-automatic "assault style" firearms just in time for us to get annexed!

You'd think he'd put a pin in that shit given what we're facing.

It's actually the opposite; US shale oil is very high quality in terms of purity. The problem is that their refineries are built around the idea of processing lower quality crude because the by-product is used in manufacturing other goods.

Canada's oil sands produces the crude they need to make money off that by-product.

https://youtu.be/_l1cj_AyR1E

Which is great for us, because it means export tariffs would have an outsized impact on their secondary petrochem product prices.

Good to see more of this out here. Harsh criticism of everyone that makes mistakes only serves to ensure that no one will ever change or take responsibility.

Quick, let's give more money to megacorps and business our way out of it! That'll fix it!