I live in a part of the country that is a seeing significant violence throughout these protests. The protests have touched such a nerve in this country and the peaceful, progressive messages of the protests are what we need more than the violence that comes after. I’ve seen police instigating, I’ve seen looters and malcontents instigating. I’ve seen cops gunned down in the streets, I’ve seen protesters (peaceful) and rioters (not peaceful) gunned down.
The internet is just super divided it seems on what is going on. I just want the violence to stop. Police violence, gang violence, looter violence, all of it. Please stop!
I see your pov in some form, believe me, even as a non American. The way I see it, though, this is a result of a long string of racial tensions that explode because of George Floyd.
There are some parts of the protest that, as you mentioned, are violent in nature where the protestors and police duke it out with one another. The other side which is less focused on but do get some media coverage are the peaceful ones, especially ones where the police are joining in. Cynics sees it as doing it just for the camera, which I think can be possible, but honestly in this confusing time sometimes we just have to take their word and accept it as what it is. If they are caught backtracking their word then so be it; its on them at the end of the day.
I personally don’t feel violence is the most elegant option, as most people do, but they felt so tired of a lack of change that they decide to make it louder than ever to stop this injustice from happening again, or if it does be punished severely.
I’m not sure if I said this before, but I’ll say it here regardless: I’m just hoping this will get the police to start reforming their rules to be more fair to everyone not just in the US but hopefully this will ripple around the world too. There are already protests relating to this in other countries including the UK and France too, the latter of whom share a similar instigator of sorts to the one the US. So there is at least some hope to the world if people of different origins and culture are united in this issue.
The morons that loot shit are just using this whole thing as an excuse. BLM is a mess like always.
Peaceful protests are fine but the moment it becomes violent the whole thing is ruined.
Every single incident of violence I see is so saddening. Last night, looters destroyed several businesses here, set fire to the local library branch by the mall (didn’t cause significant damage before it was put out quickly by FD), there were 2 violent home invasions, an aggravated assault, a 115mph police chase across town, and a crash that may have killed somone 2 hours ago that is supsected to be someone evading police. Nobody could possibly convince me it was a positive and peaceful night. We were at the protest…not just idling by either. The hate and anger you could feel in the whole downtown area was very palpable.
It’s really an odd thing to me, because I hear rumblings but don’t see anything. Perhaps I just stay in the safer spots. Perhaps living by a military base discourages rioters. Either way, it’s unfortunate for those who do have to be right where those events are taking place. There’s been news of businesses smashed up near our town, but I’ve yet to see anything. Not sure what I’m trying to say, other than please stay safe. I guess it just feels surreal to hear about violent events in the news but not physically see it. Based on what I’ve read and seen online… I don’t want to. As much as I generally dislike being near people in general, I don’t wish anyone harm. I really hope this ends soon.
I live in a city with about 115k people other people. Our city is nationally known for violent crime. In the summer of 2019, before any of this happened, we had a person murdered every week here. Citing Neighborhoodscout.com data, which compiles and analyzes several local, government and private data sets about communities, you have a 1 in 71 chance of being a victim of violent crime in this city, versus a 1 in 247 chance of being a victim in the state. Neighborhoodscout states that our city is only safer than 4% of other cities in the US.
It’s not cops that are responsible for those crime statistics.
The people who are responsible for those crime statistics are out rioting and destroying our city and hurting each other and bystanders and police. I’m fucking tired of it. Bad cops and bad people are out there ruining our country and really we’re all just slaves to forces way beyond our collective power.
These ’ protesters ’ do not care about equality , rights or anything of that sort. They just want to vandalize stuff and unfortunate event of Floyd’s death was just an excuse to cause chaos.
And these actions only deepens tension between certain racial groups , so they are making this hole even deeper than it is now. Causing violence to stop violence? What sort of logic is that…
My greatest fear is that thousands of people bought weapons during the pandemic…and are probably untrained, undisciplined, and never had relatives or parents with weapons. I expect lots of accidents with adults and children.
*Tens of millions bought guns since February in the US. It’s publicly available data for every state to look up.
So many guns have been and are selling and will be sold that when you do find ammo for popular calibers (9mm, .45acp, .38, .22lr, .7.62mm, etc.), the price has increased 25-50% compared to when you could buy ammo in December of 2019.
If a big violent event occurs, you can expect there to be gun crime associated with it more than ever now.
The biggest fucking irony in all this is the left-leaning folks who were rabid about gun control have flip-flopped and the stats show that they are the ones buying most of the guns now.
Jake was already scum but the idiot does still have a big audience, an audience of easily impressionable kids…
Seeing celebs (even small fries like him) just being okay with this stuff is a massive problem.
The video is a few days old so I would assume he’s on full damage control.
It’s really fucking funny when Logan Paul, the guy who is just as controversial to say the least, has people rallying behind him over a statement. I may not really think he’s changed but at least he is helping his fans deal a serious issue through someone they know.
I stand behind the ability of people to purchase guns. However, I also believe that more gun control is necessary.
I’m not saying we need to get rid of sidearms or hunting rifles, but I think there are some improvements to be made with gun control.
While, yes, it’s humorous and ironic, I wonder how it has been determined the “left” are the major purchasers. No need to answer, I’m sure there is some system in place that tracks a bunch of stuff like that. No need to make a political divide over who is legally buying guns.
I can believe that 10,000,000 guns were sold. I find it more difficult to believe 10 million people bought guns. I know it seems counter intuitive, but I know several people with too many weapons.
And if that is the case, when this all settles down, there will be a lot of returned weapons making for cheap purchases when the gun stores get too much supply. Because, once the stigma of “guns kill people” returns, they will fear guns more than they fear people again.
If I’m going to be real with you folks, the fact that someone can just buy a gun as long as they determine you are “sane” aka no prior history and not shown right away to be mentally unfit scares the hell out of me. I know that some countries that allow this kind of thing seem to be less severe based off the source I’ll link but I just can’t fathom on how many accidents would occur because of a mishap plus the US is a larger country in the grand scheme of things. I don’t even know if this is relevant to the discussion, because both sides keep going after one another divided on what to do. I guess I’m just overreacting and don’t get any bad ideas from what I’m posting here.
I don’t like to talk politics here, and I’m not going to be taking any sides, but I would like to point out what I find to be a bad argument. Pointing out that there’s more gun deaths in the US to someone who claims that more guns causes less death overall (I’m not saying this is correct, I have no idea) , from means other than guns, should seem somewhat irrelevant. We need as few deaths as possible overall, not just fewer of those that stick out as a statistic. (Obviously gun deaths are tragic, but no more than any other kind)
Oh I don’t intend to say the message that gun violence is the worse kind of violence: we are in the middle of a pandemic for crying out loud. I’m just stating my own personal fear regarding the whole gun ownership thing in America. If I offend you for that then I’m sorry. I suppose its just a cultural thing or just flat out ignorance in my part.
No offense was taken at all. I suppose I was addressing more what people would take away from the article which i don’t find useful because it doesn’t look at deaths possibly prevented by guns. Your points were all fine actually.
They are terrifying. Riots attacking businesses owners or even each other, tons of police shoving people, pepper spraying them, shooting them etc. Just yesterday in NY they shoved an elderly man to the pavement, and left him there bleeding.
One of the issues with what is happening now is that there is no deescalation from either side. The rioters are mostly opportunists, hurting the peaceful and important message of the protestors. While on the police side, we have cops continuing to do the thing the protest (and riots) started for.
The truth is, we do have to stop these riots. If it means the National Guard, I say welcome. They are better trained than our police and don’t have trigger fingers. This will get both the innocent cops and the bad cops off the streets as much as possible, giving room to protestors and room for the NA to stop the rioters.
Governors etc saying “no to NA because its bad” have no idea just how similar it is to have police patrolling the streets, shooting up people. At least one is better trained and suited for the task.
This whole thing is so messed up though and it is clear changes need to be made, but I sadly think they are impossible.
I’m sure you could find some stories like that of just about anything. Murphy’s Law and all. While it is horrible it happened, it is statistically so low it basically never happens. And that was, what, 50 years ago?
Compare the NA to the police force of today. You are statistically far more safe with them conducting control than the police, and it is for general good reason. Soldiers go through extensive training, which they have to maintain. Police do not. They are also held to higher standards and accountability than police.
