James O’Brien makes a very good point here.
If I was to be reading my newspaper every single morning and be told that my very existence was under siege from people I’ve never met and never seen but keep getting told are coming here in their hordes.
If I was to open my newspaper or turn on my radio or TV to hear that everybody who is coming here is a rapist and they’ve got their eyes on our women and we’ve got no chance whatsoever of protecting ourselves.
And unless we do this or do that, or treat them like this or treat them like that, then we’re all doomed, we’re all going to hell in a handcart.
If I was being told it’s time to reclaim our country every time I got out of bed in the morning, I’d begin to believe it, I think, if I didn’t have the knowledge and the insights and the education to know that it is not true.
We atheists are very, very good at telling people they ought to use their reason and think rationally. The most important thing is reason, we say, not emotion; if only those wacky religious people would use evidence and rational thought, they wouldn’t believe in such silly things.
But reason is not enough. “Garbage in, garbage out” is a familiar phrase to describe what happens when your eminently predictable, logical computer is reduced to processing bad inputs, but it’s also true for human beings. We make the mistake of thinking other people’s brains must be inferior or working badly when they reach bad conclusions.
Those wacky Catholics…how stupid they must be to believe in original sin or that Jesus and Mary are watching over them. But Catholic culture actually values education and logic, and they aren’t stupid at all: what they’ve done is reach an entirely rational conclusion built on a set of premises that have been dunned into them from an early age. Their flaw isn’t that their minds are bad, it’s quite the opposite — Catholic scholars think creatively and intelligently from a set of invalid claims about the nature of the universe.
Consider any group you disagree with. Your first assumptions shouldn’t be that the group is a unique vortex of stupid that draws in mentally deficient people who don’t know better, and will be unable to think their way out of a soggy paper bag. Assume that they are a group with the same mental capacity in general as your favorite people. Then try to figure out what foundational ideas are leading them to conclusions you find repugnant.
Look at gun fanatics, for instance. That earlier post about arguments for owning an AR-15 is addressing an entirely reasonable set of justifications for needing a deadly weapon…if you believe you are living in a world in which you and your family are facing an existential threat from hordes of other human beings who specifically intend to do you harm. That guy’s rationale would make a lot of sense if this were the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, and we had to deal with random monsters popping up and trying to eat our brains, and also needed to forage for any wild game to survive.
We do not live in such a world. He thinks we do. GIGO.
As O’Brien points out, if you wake up every morning to listen to right-wing talk radio, or Fox News, or to read Stormfront or white nationalist literature, the inputs to your mind are all skewed. Those outlets are committed to presenting a terrifying picture of the world, in which you, your family, your tribe, your race, your whole damn species is in peril. The brown hordes are coming to replace you…yes, you personally! Your problem with landing a job is not your fault, it’s because that immigrant over there is competing with you unfairly. We once were a great and powerful nation — you know because your grandparents said so — but it’s all gone to the dogs in your generation, because it’s different.
Get that message over and over and over again, and then apply your rational, intelligent, thoughtful brain to the problem, and you’ll come up with reasonable solutions. Kick out those immigrants. Assassinate that politician. Build a wall. Vote for Trump.
The man who killed Jo Cox was not crazy. He was somebody who read and listened and came to what he thought was a necessary solution to a serious problem. He had built a world in his mind that corresponded poorly to reality, because he’d been consuming lies.
Lies kill.
Unfortunately, we all live in a world where institutions and media lie to us constantly, and navigating through all the chaos is a difficult skill that none of us have fully mastered and that misleads many of us.
The radical right are terrorists. They use terror to influence the body politic. And it works. Again and again and again and . . .
I work with some right-wing radicals. Some employees, some volunteers. They scare me. They scare me because Faux News, and right-wing radio, and the local libertarian/fascist newspaper, and a significant portion of the internet, have scared them, have terrorized them so badly, that I think some of them are capable of violence. Violence that they would see as being in their own defense.
Hear, hear!
PZ: what they’ve done is reach an entirely rational conclusion built on a set of premises that have been dunned into them from an early age.
Excellent point. The ability to learn comes long before the ability to think critically, and it’s very hard to challenge those early truths. They seems to bypass logic by “being there first”.
Also, you don’t need to believe in a pending apocalypse to want a gun. The AR15 is a quite versatile platform that can be built and modified into virtually any application with simple tools. It’s popularity and standardized military origins ensures low prices and a huge marked for spares and custom components. High capacity and rate of fire isn’t really a drawback for most uses, just as your car is capable of driving at speeds far beyond the legal limit. It doesn’t mean you have to, and most people don’t.
Not trying to defend anything here, just pointing out that most people doesn’t buy these guns in case they feel like going postal in a crowded theater.
Erland Meyer @3:
You are correct. The ~8 million or so AR15s in civilian hands (that number may include law enforcement, not sure) were not all purchased with the express purpose of committing mass murder. They were purchased because the owners have been terrified by a relentless propaganda campaign promulgated by the radical right. The problem is, though, once those weapons are out there, when someone’s fear or anger becomes unmanageable, what then?
And I disagree that these are versatile weapons. They are not hunting rifles. They are not home defense weapons. They are assault weapons.
My point is, read the entire post by Myers. |There are huge numbers of terrified people in the United States. And they are terrified by the propaganda of the extreme right. And they are terrified into preparing for a civil war. And I fear that, when Trump loses the national election, we will see a fair number of people take to the streets with assault weapons with the misguided idea that they have to defend themselves against the tyranny of a right-of-centre politician.
These people scare me. But I can also understand why they are scared. And why they are arming themselves to the teeth with weapons that are good for only one thing — killing large numbers of ‘the enemy.’ And I am one who will be considered an enemy to the radical right.
Yep, one of the more insightful things I picked up from Less Wrong long ago is “there are (approximately) no evil mutants”. Related to “nobody’s the villain in their own life story”.
We see it often enough in the religion/atheism area – the assumption that atheism must lead to nihilism and moral relativism is what drives a lot of concern about secularization of culture.
If you assume enough Mexicans will move to the US that government institutions (like, say, the police) get as bad as Mexico’s, it’s reasonable to worry about immigration. Likewise if you think Muslims are taking over Europe (e.g. “no-go zones”), nobody wants the US to become Saudi Arabia.
Obamacare really is an existential threat to America if you assume 47% of the country is dependent on government. Obamacare would increase that a bit, and if it gets over 50% a tax-and-spend moochpocalypse ensues.
With guns in particular, I think assumptions that violent crime is much more common than it is interact badly with (mostly universal) bad risk assessment. That is, people propose arming school teachers to protect against once-a-couple-years-nationwide school shootings, but don’t consider the rise in accidents, deadly temper flare-ups, and suicides that would result. Actually that applies to home defense too; any gun kept so that it would be useful in a surprise home invasion (readily grabbable and loaded) would be a HUGE accident/suicide risk.
Another useful principle, I think I got this from Bruce Schneier: any danger you learn about from the news is rare enough for you to not worry about; if it was common it wouldn’t be newsworthy.
And it’s not like the left wing is immune. I was intrigued by this takedown of some of the more common mud flung at Hillary Clinton (dishonesty, scandal, etc.): http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-profound-and-moving-defense-of-Hillary-Clinton-I-have-ever-seen It’s not about whether you should prefer her to other candidates, rather that a lot of the main negatives attributed to her are at best tainted by rampant hypocrisy (male politicians get away with these things) and at worst just flat out wrong (she’s actually one of the more honest politicians according to fact-checking websites).
One key point is that it’s night just the right wing that’s guilty of buying into, and propagating, the assorted accusations and slanders. And once enough media, talking heads and other politicians spread these ideas it’s not surprising that a lot of perfectly rational and thoughtful people start believing them.
Maybe I’m miscomprehending but here goes.
The inherent desire of most people is to belong. to a group. to feel part of a larger entity, afraid of being solitary, that being a singleton is the least effective way to accomplish anything. So being continually bombarded with attitudes that are being said to come from a large group makes it very hard to resist and encourages actively trying to “fit in”.
which leads to the Dunning-Kruger effect that causes me to think that no one spontaneously decides to massacre a group of people they spontaneously think of as “other”. Even without being told what actions to take, the attitudes they desperately try to adopt get integrated into actions that most people would classify as evil.
I think I’m just trying to rationalize my own nature of trying to be unique and standout as not part of any group; hence the D-K self assessment.
*bows out — exit stage left*
Just be overly paranoid. Otherwise, no problem owning guns kept in a gun safe at a shooting range, and transferred between shooting ranges in armored vehicles.
No need to keep a gun in your home, or carry it loaded in the streets.
That interacts with peoples’ bad assumptions by reinforcing them. Once it becomes part of someone’s tribal identity to believe in no-go zones, Benghazi stand-down or whatever, it gets immune to disruption by facts.
In a related vein, I think the top 1% in this country don’t think assault weapons are a problem because these kinds of tragedies happen outside their gated communities. They seem to believe they are above all the violence that has been happening, which is somewhat surprising given the anger towards the “Wall Street fat cats” that followed the collapse of our economy.
Now, if someone with an AR-15 hit an event attended by top political donors, I think we would have very strict gun laws within a month.
And this world in his mind made him think it was OK to walk up to and murder someone who he disagreed with. Does that not count as being crazy, regardless of whether the source of his craziness was external or internal?
Post note: The above statement is not intended to encourage anyone to act violently, in any way, shape or form. Such a statement shouldn’t be necessary, but there are way too many people with guns and anger issues out there.
mykroft@10, There is a related-ish proposal in the works, Let’s drug-test the rich before approving tax deductions, US congresswoman says:
@ Ogvorbis #4: The fear propaganda could be an explanation, I don’t know (not from or in the US). But it’s not the only explanation for the popularity of these rifles. Even if you don’t buy into the fear and just want a rifle for hunting, target shooting or plinking the AR15 can be an excellent choice.
What constitutes a hunting rifle? You might not need a high capacity semi for that, but it’s not a handicap either. Many prefer semis since they allow for quick follow-up shots, and you don’t have to fill a 60rnd mag when hunting (5 and 10rnd mags are available).
With the right setup it can be either a combat weapon, a target rifle or anything else you might want it to be. That is at least part of the reason why they are so popular compared to many other typical “assault rifles” (a proper assault rifle has full auto capabilities, so it’s not entirely accurate). Few (if any) other platforms offer the same combination of versatility, accuracy, reliability and price.
for many years I did not pay any attention to the news at all for that very reason. I still do not pay any attention to the normal news as seen on TV at 6 o’clock Head-Lline news shows because they tell you nothing useful and are a distortion of reality. That raises the problem of where and how do I find out what is going on. I appears that to try and become a well informed citizen is not a passive activity. As is implied in the post here and by the results the majority are not so engaged and are content with what they get at least as far as to not question it very hard.
uncle frogy
I’d say “I know that tale: you used to spew the same bullshit about my grandad, so Fuck You Very Much”
Of course, that doesn’t makes me a genius, it just means that I was inoculated from that type of heinous rhetoric at an early age by my (Catholic, by the way) mother who taught me her family’s history.
Still, there’s something else about Thomas Mair: even thought he was influenced by far-right rhetoric, he still had access to other sources of news, sources that debunked the fascistic murderous bullshit that drove him to kill, sources that he deliberately disregarded.
The lies the far-rightists listen to and repeat do not simply portray “the other” as dangerous, despicable and disgusting: they portray their own audience as the daring and clear-eyed vanguard: that’s why they find enthusiastic audiences who then wallow with delight in epistemic closure: with the claim that “There’s a horde coming” comes the implication that “You, yes, You who listen and take our **warnings** seriously are part of an elite who sees the truth for what it is and who deserve to replace the current treasonous ruling class“: why accept the truth when the lies flatter your hubris?
@14
I have to wonder what you mean by price in recommending an AR15 I am sure you are not limiting yourself to hunting because loos like to me that there are some good hunting rifles for sale at less that 2/3 the price what the bottom line AR-15 goes for.
yes versatile if you think you might happen to need a combat rifle. a good bolt action 30.06 or a .308 will not be as useful in that situation but would be a better hunting option more versatile and effective
uncle frogy
I’ve tried a variation on this with a conservative co-worker who’s Catholic and Irish-descended – pointed out that all the anti-immigrant rhetoric today is just an update of the anti-Irish screeds of yore. Didn’t work very well.
@11 parrothead
I see nothing to suggest he generally thought murder to be an OK response to disagreement, no. What I do see is far right-wing ideology so thoroughly inculcated in this man that he saw the imminent threat emphasized and responded accordingly.
I wouldn’t be so quick to label him crazy unless you’re prepared to similarly condemn entire swathes of humanity starting with, as PZ points out, all Trump supporters.
If price is all you’re looking at then a bolt gun will be better, no argument there. But many prefer semis for hunting as well, and not necessarily because of firepower.
Ergonomics is one aspect, personally I find the pistol grip better than a traditional stock. For the southpaws they are also convenient as left hand bolt guns are generally harder to find and much more expensive. Some have physical disabilities that makes repeters hard to use, and some simply find the semis quick and convenient. Not having to reload allows you to keep the focus on the target and deliver a quick follow-up if needed.
Now of course there are civilian semis with more traditional looks and limited magazine capacity. But these tend to be expensive, especially when it comes to spare parts. There’s also less of an after–marked for these, so if you’re a tinkerer the AR platform does provide more options.
Billy Bragg said it well about the Daily Mail and Thatcher: “It Says Here”
@ 18 cmutter
Maybe this will impress your co-worker: http://flashbak.com/the-simian-negroid-irish-depicted-in-english-and-american-cartoons-12727/
@20
you brought up price as a reason not me and connected it to hunting it sounded to me.
so the versatility is better with a combat rifle then and the price on re-sale is better
If we decide to outlaw combat rifles for civilians it will not be the first time we have made some specific kind of firearm illegal civilians can not by machine guns(fully automatic) or punt guns
hunting is still practiced without much harm as is target shooting
You like modern light weight combat rifles so what I think a Thompson is a pretty effective weapon for it’s purpose but I sure as hell don’t think anyone needs one for home protection or plinking though!
uncle frogy
I’m not arguing for or against anything here. I’m just trying to explain why these guns are popular. While it might look like all US gun owners are rabid redneck ‘sovereign citizens’ I think it’s safe to assume that the majority are normal, decent people like you and me. And I have no problem seeing why people with no intentions of harming anyone for any reason could want a weapon like this.
In the responses to the blog on Jo Cox’s murder, one poster (bresson) has 20 out of 90 posts. His reasoning is tangled, and I’m pretty sure that it’s not important. Sinking the discussion of the murder and exonerating the murderous atmosphere created by the extreme right seems to be the aim.
On this thread, 10 out of 24 posts are trying to turn this into a discussion of the merits of different types of hunting rifles. Again, a troll complex aiming to swamp out serious discussion of issues iseems probable. If you are simply thickskinned stupidos, shut the fuck up.
Nope, you lie through your teeth. I don’t own a gun, and don’t expect any rational person to do so, unless they keep the gun in locked gun safe at shooting range. Actually most people don’t own guns. Here in US, only about 32% of the people own, or live with people who own guns, but there are 112 guns per one hundred residents. And a good chunk of those with multiple guns engage in carry, which is intrinsically unsafe. They are not responsible gun owners, and should be condemned as such.
Seriously. The discussion of the relative merits of firearms is explicitly off topic here.
Jesus fuck. I don’t give a damn about caliber or versatility or which one is better for hunting. Stop wanking over guns now.
My apologies if I have offended anyone. I was only trying to explain that they have a fairly broad appeal, it’s not just the rabid wing nuts that like them. Believing so would be a mistake, and it could affect just how you approach the topic.
@Nerd: What I was trying to convey was the fact that a large percentage would be quite average people (in all other respects). According to The Daily Show a majority of both US citizens AND gun owners are for better gun control. And while they might not be in favor of a complete ban, it’s not like they’re all rabid gun fondlers.
Well, I wake up and read Pharyngula every morning. This affects how I see my reality.
Where have I ever said I’m for a complete ban. Just complete gun safety.
It’s never going to change. Not in a thousand years.
You’re right, you never said that. My bad.
Now, completely safety is never going to happen, but it sure as hell could get a whole lot better. And I doubt it would take much to improve on the current situation, but the issue still seems completely dead-locked. Why that is I have no idea, though I do wish you the best of luck.
from the subject of this thread I take it that the suggested reason for the dead lock is many people a believe things that are just not so, their perceptions are distorted by internal bias and external influence. There is no means of ascertaining objective truth that is accepted by everyone hence the disagreement. That same “logic” applies to most controversial issues like climate change.
it is the same problem I repeatedly run into it everywhere.
seldom have I had any success in surmounting it dealing with other people and have mixed results with my own thinking to such a degree that I do not trust myself so very often have I been mistaken.
uncle frogy
Why isn’t it a GOAL for every country, including the US??? The goal may never be achieved, but as rules change with continued improvement it can be asymptomatic to the 100%. That is the result of any quality system….
At present, there is no quality system.
OT, but I can’t help remembering David Marjanović getting a shitload of grief about not sourcing his quotes. Seems to be standard practice now. Funny, that. If you’re reading, cheers David!
Nerd: I prefer realistic goals, perfection can be an enemy of good. The trick is to keep moving the goalposts as one inches forwards.
Unclefroggy: But the majority seems to be in favor of more gun control, even the gun owners themselves. It would make more sense if the majority of gun owners were opposed, but as it is it just boggles the mind.
I don’t know which majority it is that wants better gun control but they have not succeeded in getting enough of the votes yet.
uncle frogy
Good grief, LBC never had that quality of presenter when I lived in London: well
done to them.
Yet you stand here in the way of achieving anything because your precious guns are being criticized for what they are and how idjits use them.
You are abetting the problem, not finding a solution.
I don’t see how I stand in the way of anything, I was only trying to provide some information. The assumption that only the extreme wingnuts would want an AR simply isn’t correct. I don’t know if it makes any difference, but it is the truth.
the problem is not that everyone who wants a modern combat weapon is an irresponsible gun nut and would be mass killer, that is an absurd and gross exaggeration. The problem is in the real world where we make it possible for people to own these kinds of weapons it is impossible to reliably ascertain the character of anyone who wishes to own them.
As they have a primary purpose of war fighting banning all combat arms would have a minimal effect of hunting and sport shooting. We have done that with other weapons. The only thing that stands in the way of doing that is the lobbying supporting of the status quo.
I suspect that support is primarily motivated by money and fed by exaggeration, paranoia and lies and maybe just a little bit of extortion and bribery.
no one rationally thinks that we can eliminate some poor soul from going “postal” by better gun control regulation but clearly what we have been doing is not working at all.
uncle frogy
Wrong. Only gunnuts want one. They have no use to the general public. You showed nothing cogent, being a gunnut. You aren’t helping gun safety, but rather hindering it. Your posts have nothing about safety, like separating the ammo and gun when in public, in them.
Unclefrogy: You are quite right, hunting doesn’t require a semiautomatic weapon. And there are strictly civilian semiautomatic rifles without high capacity magazines that would serve most needs. There are many popular match styles for these rifles, so they would be more affected by a ban. But it won’t be the end of sport shooting, not by a long shot.
And no, you can never be completely safe. Even if all guns were banned the knowledge would still be there, and there are a lot of people with the tools and skills to make them from scratch (like me). But that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try to improve things. If I had to choose one thing it would be mandatory registration. It probably wouldn’t have prevented this particular tragedy, but these mass shootings (massacre would probably be more correct) are only the tip of the ice berg.
Registration would prevent people from selling guns to those who can’t pass a background check. It would also hold people responsible for the guns they own.
Sadly that might also be the hardest thing to implement. Many consider registration to be the first step towards a complete ban, as if that was a realistic scenario in our life time.
Nerd: If you want to talk gun safety I’m all for it. But I didn’t think it was really relevant in this case, mass shootings aren’t accidents.
Starting from faulty premises, then following them rigorously to awful conclusions: this pattern is everywhere.
In my own experience, I see it most clearly in the pro-life movement. I was raised in a socially very conservative Catholic background, where abortion was an issue raised in every mass I can remember. In parochial school, we were fed an intense diet of nonsense about how certain birth control methods worked, and on some basic facts of human reproduction. Letting go of Jesus and God and faith in the Church was a difficult process, but accepting doubt in those things was much faster than giving up all the anti-choice propaganda. Walking away from *that* took a few extra years of re-education and careful reflection to dispel. A few well-placed falsehoods was all it took to reinforce what seemed to me at the time to be a rigorous, internally consistent world view.
I don’t think that starting with an incorrect premise is all there is to it. I’ve seen people try to argue for things using faulty logic that doesn’t even make sense if you accept their premise. Emotional investment and confirmation bias can also make people come to incorrect conclusions. That’s not to say that starting with garbage isn’t going to produce garbage even if you’re perfectly logical.
Also, how do people come to changing their minds about these sorts of issues? How do the people who break away from the Fox News/white nationalist/MRA mindset do so? If they’re starting with garbage and coming to faulty conclusions, I’d guess that they’re shown that their premises are incorrect. That seems easier said than done.
They are. If the guns are made intrinsically safer, less death at mass shooting, as, for example, you need to reload after every fourth bullet, it allows the perp to be mobbed by the survivors. Safety is ALWAYS on the agenda when talking about guns. The fact that YOU don’t think so is telling. It doesn’t take much to change the dynamics.
Anybody, if you feel like loosing you temper, read Sarah Palin’s comment.
@48
…Wow. Palin is an utter shitball. Jo Cox was murdered in cold blood by an asshole that bought into the same bullshit ideology that Palin does, and Palin has the gall to say she deserved it? Between the Bundy militia, the guy who shot up that planned parenthood, and this guy who shot Jo Cox, it’s become clear that right wingers are dangerous morons who are itching to shoot anyone that they don’t like. If there’s any real message here, it’s not that guns will solve everyone’s problems. The message I’m getting is that the right wing douchebags who most want guns to be a part of their lives don’t deserve to own any sort of firearms at all.
reitplum @48
The source, newlso.com , is an overtly satirical site; click the “Show facts” button, and you’ll see that the only factual content in the story concerns the shooting. Everything to do with Palin is made up.
Rather a stupid concept, in my opinion.
@50
That makes it somewhat better. I still stand by the idea that right wing gun fethishists have proven that they don’t deserve to own guns, but at least Palin isn’t quite as awful of a human being as I thought.
That reminds me…newslo and politicops are now in the block filter. Don’t know why I didn’t do it before.
Nerd: I guess we’re into semantics now. I would call that a public health/safety issue.
Rob Grigjanis #36
I gave up. It was a lost cause.
@quotetheunquote #50 – Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry for spreading misinformation!
To my defense: Palin spouting such bullshit doesn’t look like satire at all. “If only the victim would have carried a gun” is a very common argument among gun fondlers.
US politics: Where satire is more plausible than the truth.
“Lies kill.”
That should be edited to say “Lies lead to great profits and giant bonuses for our best liars.”
The reason we are lied to is that it is profitable. Immensely profitable.