At least the guns are okay

[bigb]

Huge issue, maybe the single biggest issue in society right now that is looming like an iceberg, where we are only recognizing and really understanding the very tip of the problem, and everyone glosses over because we are so ill-informed, everywhere around the entire world. Yes the mind is mysterious, but mental health issues is one underlying factor, and often a huge one, for so many societal issues, including crime, abduction, divorce, bankruptcy, suicide, absenteeism, lost productivity, parental neglect, bullying, you name it. We need to take this seriously as a society, yet we do not. It really makes people uncomfortable to discuss at all, so we just don't. Someone's significant other is acting weird, they are arguing a lot, they sleep a lot, they cannot hold down a job, they have a lot of negative talk about themselves, they are sad all the time, they have a really short fuse, they occasionally mention they think about ending it all, and yet what happens is more likely divorce than getting help because the other one has no idea, zero, nada, how to help, or often any frame of reference at all to even recognize or understand depression for what it is, let alone empathize at all, and often it is damaging enough they don't think about help at all, just getting away. It is way worse than anyone thinks or acknowledges or admits or understands, pick a form of denial there.

How do we break though this one is the problem. It is a very tough nut to crack, if we ever can or will. Somehow we need to break the stigma associated with it. Like we have been doing with weed use, and about time. How do we do the same thing for mental health issues?

But I will tell you that voting against funding things like this doesn't help at all, even if the funding bill isn't perfect and includes some **** they don't like, we have to ****ing start somewhere.

I can tell you that a major issue for me has been learning how to “behave” when my wife is struggling. She has a tendency to be very short and angry. It’s hard for me to not react negatively when my wife tells me to go **** myself when I ask if she has anything planned for dinner. I struggled with it for a long time. I’m still not great at it. The thing I have to remind myself is that my wife is sick. It’s not her real self saying that to me.
I wish my wife were more open with her struggles. She refuses to tell the kids about it. She only tells me when she’s having a really bad episode. I have gotten to the point where I can see the signs, but she is very good at hiding it. She puts on a great front. I think that’s leading to some issues with my kids not wanting to go to her with issues. And because they know my wife and I discuss everything related to our family, they aren’t all that open with me either. I think my oldest daughter (18) has figured it out. I think my oldest son (15) knows there’s something going on, but isn’t sure what it is, but he may have a pretty good idea. Luckily, my wife has found a therapist that seems to be helping and I think we’ve finally found a good combination of drugs as well. The stigma of depression and anxiety, while getting better, is still very very real.

 

[bigb]

Doesn’t Bullying happen everywhere and at any time? Bullying happened 30 years ago but the weapons and ammo available now weren’t available then. Bullying happens in Canada, France, and Finland, right? Yet they aren’t seeing insane mass shootings. The difference between us at other times in our own history and with other countries is the ease of obtaining an overwhelmingly amount of weapons and ammo in this country.

Why don’t we attempt to do both? Divert more resources for mental health AND institute gun bans and buybacks? Try that for 15 years and let’s see the results. If we don’t see the desired results, we can always return to the status quo. Of course, gun manufacturers, the NRA, and the *** clowns on Fox News won’t like this. But whatever. It’s worth a shot, right?

The thing about is that if it doesn’t work, you know as well as I do that we won’t return to the status quo. I love the idea of buybacks. I think people will be more inclined to sell their firearms to the government than have them taken away.
Guns and ammo have always been easily obtainable. I don’t think it’s easier now than 30 years ago to buy a gun. Admittedly, I wasn’t buying guns 30 years ago, but I was in sporting goods stores then and saw them everywhere. Getting ammo is probably easier. You can literally buy it online and have it show up at your front door. I would be open to limiting that option.

 

[SteakNEggs]

Look at how some of you all make death and mass shootings political. This happens on both sides and it's disgusting. This is why there will never be an answer. Too busy playing politics....

 

[Gameface]

Look at how some of you all make death and mass shootings a trolling opportunity. This happens on www.jazzfanz.com and it's disgusting. This is why there will never be an answer. Too busy trolling...

 

[SteakNEggs]

Nashville Police Chief John Drake made an interesting disclosure on Monday about the plans of the perpetrator of the Covenant School massacre.


"There was another location that was mentioned, but because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security, they decided not to," Drake said. "That area was here in Nashville, so we're continuing with that investigation as well."

Drake confirmed the perpetrator had written a manifesto that explained why she conducted the attack, which included detailed plans. That is presumably the source of law enforcement's theory that the perpetrator skipped her first targeted location because of "too much security."
At a press conference, Drake said that investigators had discovered the perpetrator had planned to attack another location, but decided against that location because it had significant security.

 

[LogGrad98]

I can tell you that a major issue for me has been learning how to “behave” when my wife is struggling. She has a tendency to be very short and angry. It’s hard for me to not react negatively when my wife tells me to go **** myself when I ask if she has anything planned for dinner. I struggled with it for a long time. I’m still not great at it. The thing I have to remind myself is that my wife is sick. It’s not her real self saying that to me.
I wish my wife were more open with her struggles. She refuses to tell the kids about it. She only tells me when she’s having a really bad episode. I have gotten to the point where I can see the signs, but she is very good at hiding it. She puts on a great front. I think that’s leading to some issues with my kids not wanting to go to her with issues. And because they know my wife and I discuss everything related to our family, they aren’t all that open with me either. I think my oldest daughter (18) has figured it out. I think my oldest son (15) knows there’s something going on, but isn’t sure what it is, but he may have a pretty good idea. Luckily, my wife has found a therapist that seems to be helping and I think we’ve finally found a good combination of drugs as well. The stigma of depression and anxiety, while getting better, is still very very real.

I feel for you, for sure. I know when my depression set in, it was a result of my cancer treatment and the trauma of that experience that triggered it, and one of the things I resent the most about it is my kids would never get to know the father I could have been. Instead they got this distant, quick to anger, moody, introverted guy for 10 years before I figured out what I was dealing with and how to minimize the impact on my family, even if imperfectly. And even after I started into therapy and medication it was nearly another decade before I felt I had at least a little handle on it all. It still affects me every single day, but as you said, I put on a really good front and very few people realize I am dealing with this thing on my back every day. I am glad to hear you have her on the road to improvement. There is no such thing as recovery or cure for this, it is about incremental improvement, and learning to live with it, and you are doing the best thing you can in supporting her and trying to recognize that she doesn't mean to act that way, but we still do even when we know we are hurting people, which is where things like thoughts of suicide come in. I thought legitimately for years that my family would be so better off without me, that I would be doing them a favor. Thank goodness I got past that point and now have learned to live with what I have and make the best of it. I got so lucky that my wife is fantastic, but for us it helps that she dealt with depression as well, so she gets it. Makes it easier but sometimes, when both of us are having a bad day, or week, it can get self-reinforcing and end up in a spiral that isn't good. But that doesn't happen very often, thank god. And mostly all that means is we waste an entire weekend bingeing netflix and eating junkfood and eating quart after quart of ice cream (that is mostly me).

But I totally get that it is so tough to understand what it is doing to someone if you have not experienced it yourself. I told a friend of mine that it makes me think of chemo. You can imagine that it is tough, but until you are uncontrollably vomiting on the floor in the kitchen after a particularly brutal chemo treatment, you cannot really know what it is like, and depression is a lot the same. Unless you have been there it is hard to empathize with someone dealing with that. I feel guilty a lot for what my depression has done to my wife and my family even though they know what I have been dealing with and they understand, and some of them are dealing with it as well, but it still hard to shake the guilt. And frankly, we are all still responsible for our own actions, we are not absolved just because we are dealing with this kind of thing. We still own how we treat other people, even if it is partially beyond our control. Getting help is the first step and will lead to good things.

I applaud you and your efforts and support, my friend. It is a tough path to walk for sure.

 

[LogGrad98]

The thing about is that if it doesn’t work, you know as well as I do that we won’t return to the status quo. I love the idea of buybacks. I think people will be more inclined to sell their firearms to the government than have them taken away.
Guns and ammo have always been easily obtainable. I don’t think it’s easier now than 30 years ago to buy a gun. Admittedly, I wasn’t buying guns 30 years ago, but I was in sporting goods stores then and saw them everywhere. Getting ammo is probably easier. You can literally buy it online and have it show up at your front door. I would be open to limiting that option.

IAWTP

The tough thing with ideas like buybacks is that only the responsible gun owners will really take advantage of that. I suppose it will curtail the accidental shootings that are purely happenstance, but for the majority of gun violence it won't do much to move the needle. Maybe slightly reduce the guns that get stolen then used criminally. But really the effect overall will be minimal.

It is really tough to figure out what to do about guns, without just wholesale attacking it like the war on drugs, only, you know, figuring out how to make it actually effective.

 

[SteakNEggs]

I agree with the guy that said we should publicly execute these scum bags in front of the entire country. I know that bothered some here for some reason but you wanna watch the numbers go down, lets start making a public humiliation out of them instead of heros. That and put armed guards at schools. As shown above the last **** bag used a school because it was an easy target. Just like basically every single mass shooting that is glorified in the media.

 

[The Thriller]

Bullying happens in a lot of places and a lot of different times. Weapons and ammo were just as available in the U.S. 30 years ago, or 50 years ago.

I'm in favor of solutions. I'm not in favor of an "assault weapon ban" because that doesn't actually mean anything. What is being banned? Flash suppressors? Bullpup foregrips? Accessory rails?

Why don't people take a technical approach to the problem instead of using meaningless buzzwords and LOUDLY talking about **** they don't actually know anything about? That would be a welcome first step.

I'm here for solutions, not ********.

I’m going to push back on this. There were more gun restrictions 30 years ago than today. Constitutional carry wasn’t a thing and there were other regulations and bans still on the books (Brady, Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994, etc). I’m here for solutions too. Let’s ban certain types of weapons and institute buybacks. Right now I want the AR15 banned and buybacks to go into effect. Let’s see what happens after 15 years. Let’s give it a try

 

[The Thriller]

Cartoon from Australia titled, “American obscenity”

Btw, how many children did books, drag queens, and CRT murder today?

 

[The Thriller]

IAWTP

The tough thing with ideas like buybacks is that only the responsible gun owners will really take advantage of that. I suppose it will curtail the accidental shootings that are purely happenstance, but for the majority of gun violence it won't do much to move the needle. Maybe slightly reduce the guns that get stolen then used criminally. But really the effect overall will be minimal.

It is really tough to figure out what to do about guns, without just wholesale attacking it like the war on drugs, only, you know, figuring out how to make it actually effective.

Why not try it out? Let’s try it first

Tucker, JD Vance, and Josh Hawley are blaming trans people.
The NRA is doing another round of “arm the teachers” nonsense.
Over the years we’ve seen calls for bringing back school prayer, bringing PTSD inflicted veterans to patrol schools, and to put metal detectors at every school entrance (that’s my favorite lol). Your typical utah high school has 15+ doors to the outside and with students moving in and out of the building constantly due to internships, seminary, and sports.
Why not try *gasp* gun regulation? Haven’t we tried just about everything else?

 

[The Thriller]

The thing about is that if it doesn’t work, you know as well as I do that we won’t return to the status quo. I love the idea of buybacks. I think people will be more inclined to sell their firearms to the government than have them taken away.
Guns and ammo have always been easily obtainable. I don’t think it’s easier now than 30 years ago to buy a gun. Admittedly, I wasn’t buying guns 30 years ago, but I was in sporting goods stores then and saw them everywhere. Getting ammo is probably easier. You can literally buy it online and have it show up at your front door. I would be open to limiting that option.

Only recently have banks like Chase Bank refused to do business with sporting goods stores that sell guns. I hope this trend continues.