Podcast #66: Roseburg

87 October 7, 2015 by

66_finalIn this special episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors, Jason and Christian discuss the recent mass shooting in Roseburg, OR, as well as exhibit their hatred of America and freedom by daring to wonder aloud whether anything can be done about this sort of thing (and if so, what). As it turns out, plenty of things can be done (but whether we have the national will to do them is another question).

Also, small penises.

Links from this Episode:

87 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  2. I’m in more less complete agreement on this issue. I completely agree that it is a culture problem; we glorify guns. I think the “Rambo fantasy” is really good label for it. I have actually been kind of pessimistic about being able to change the culture, but then you brought up cigarettes and drunk driving. You’re right, the culture can be changed; we don’t have to simply accept it. More shame/guilt needs be divvied out. More comedians need to make fun of it. More movies highlighting the ridiculousness and danger of the mindset need to be made.

    You mentioned that violent video games aren’t to blame, but I think they play right into the mindset you are want to destroy. They desensitize people to the violence and consequences. They glorify guns. They give the impression that you could do something during a mass shooting. The give reinforce the Rambo fantasy. I don’t think you can/should ban them, but there has to be a way to discourage them more, especially for children/teenagers.

  3. Also, I would like to point out the parallel issues for the Left and Right. The Right love their gun culture. And there is seemingly nothing that can happen (mass shootings, gun accidents, children being killed…) to assuage them from their position. The answer is always more guns, never more restrictions. In a real sense, they allow child sacrifice to their idol. The culture must be changed.

    On the other hand, the Left love their sex culture. And there is seemly nothing that can happen (broken families, divorce, normalizing immoral relationships, millions of abortions…) to assuage them from their position. The answer is never less sexual immorality. In a real sense, they allow child sacrifice (more directly through abortion) to their idol. The culture must be changed.

    Also, Christian it wasn’t too long ago that you were going on and on about how laws wouldn’t change anything. But when it comes to the gun culture, NOW the law becomes the teacher. Now laws have the power to shape culture. And you know what? I agree! Just apply it to the other issues as well.

    Just like for the Right, they are blind to their own issue. The gun nuts want tons of laws against abortion, but none against guns. Because it is a “heart issue”. And abortion isn’t a “heart issue”?

    Same reactions, different issues. If it weren’t so ruinous to society, it might actually be funny.

  5. Random thoughts

    • Facebook just pisses me off at this point. Because I fucking know what everyone is going to say before they say it and I’m so fucking tired of these stupid fucking responses which serve no fucking purpose but to keep everything the fucking same because they’re living in a fucking fantasy world where somehow trying to stop stupid fucking psychos from getting a fucking gun is the same thing as trying to take away their personal fucking Precious AK-47 security blanket. Fuck.

    • You don’t hear about most mass shootings because they aren’t public events. They’re the stories you hear on local news about a father killing his wife and three kids and himself over a custody dispute. Or an estranged psycho ex shooting his ex-girlfriend and her family. The national media doesn’t cover those unless it’s done in a public place.

    • Every responsible gun owner is a responsible gun owner right up until the point where someone gets shot.

    • I think one of the main things we could do is that any time your gun is discharged and wounds or kills someone without justification, you should be charged with a crime. Even it is an accident.

    • We should probably also require gun owners to carry liability insurance.

    • And the justification for being upset at attempts to limit magazine capacity is “Well, how do you know how many rounds you’ll need to defend yourself. What if a gang attacks you?” Which leads me to believe that at the heart of many gun owners there is a fear of THOSE people.

    • Conservatives live in a fantasy land.

    • Yes, Christians. Let’s make this mass shooting ALL ABOUT US. Charming.

    • One of the things we should do is strip away the immunity from lawsuits that Congress gave to gun manufacturers from being sued for liability for how their products are used, marketed, and distributed.

    • Whenever I hear Switzerland, I think, well, Nazi gold… but I also think of Futurama’s planet of the Neutrals.

    o Neutral President: If I don’t survive, tell my wife ‘Hello.’

    o Neutral President: All I know is, my gut says maybe.

    • What we need is prayer back in schools that will solve the problem! Because Jesus is magic. And a corporate prayer in a classroom is just like casting a magic force field over the school!

    • Christian, you’re sounding reasonable and responsible and making valid suggestions about gun control. Therefore, it will never happen.

    • How about a tiered tax on ammunition? The first 20 rounds are tax free. After 20 rounds, each additional round has a tax of $100 per bullet.

    • Wearing body armor every time you leave your house is just the price of freedom, citizen. Now available in child and baby sizes.

    • Hey, if the government turns evil, I’m perfectly sure that my .45 will keep me safe from a Predator drone strike launched from 20 miles away.

    • The thing with Detroit and Chicago is that it is very easy to drive outside of the city, county, or state limits and get a gun quite easily and then drive back with it.

  6. The parallel was between gun control and environmental laws on one hand, and laws that place limits on marriage/sexual morality on the other. You were making the case that people are going to be immoral regardless of the law, and I said that is the same argument that the NRA uses against gun control laws. You thought it was ridiculous when it came to the specific idea of incestuous marriage, however I think it applies to the entire category of sexual immorality (contraception, no fault divorce, gay marriage, co-habitation, polyandry/polygamy, open marriages, and abortion). There are many victims of the sexual revolution most of which are children, but also include the spouse forced into a divorce.

    The point is, and from listening to this podcast I think you agree, the law is a teacher. People tend to conflate what is legal with what is moral, especially young and unreflective people. Having laws against some practice discourages it on average across society. Conversely, making things legal legitimizes things and thus encourages it. When applied to gun laws, you suggested making the NRA’s prescribed safety rules made into law – I agree. I do think it will make a difference to society.

    The many unintended consequences of the sexual revolution on one hand and the unintended consequences gun culture on the other, BOTH, hurt the flourishing of our society.

    I don’t say this to blow off the gun problem, it is a huge problem! I just wanted to point out the parallel.

  7. Oh sweet fucking Buddha…

    Hey, I was just watching this show on TV and saw a ton of nudity and sex… and no wait, I didn’t because we regulate the media from showing that stuff and it’s relegated to pay TV channels.

    Or how the message we teach kids is to just go out and have sex with everyone and anything without protection because they can just get an abortion later? Oh right, we don’t.

    Or how we celebrate the assholes who run out and have unprotected sex with their partners without telling them they have STDs that can hurt or even kill their partners? No, we don’t do that either. In fact we prosecute the people who knowing do that to pass along potentially fatal diseases.

    Other than that, it’s just like a culture that celebrates wanton violence and death.

  9. Right like there is absolutely nothing about our culture that teaches that it is completely okay to have sex outside of marriage. That if you aren’t having sex in college, you are weird. That if you don’t have multiple sexual partners, you aren’t a man. So nothing on TV with regard to sex has changed over the last 50 years? They wouldn’t even show married people in the same bed in the 50s! GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.

    You are simply BLIND.

  13. Interestingly, most TV shows and movies show consequences for many of the things you describe above. Comedies are many times the exception, although they too often show the consequences of sexual promiscuity.

  14. How you use it is where the morality comes in. For example, it is immoral to leave a gun unattended around children.

  15. Right like there is absolutely nothing about our culture that teaches that it is completely okay to have sex outside of marriage. That if you aren’t having sex in college, you are weird.

    People do not agree with you and your religion that this is wrong. And even those that do, often do it anyway. Every state that tries abstinence only sex education has shown that people pretty much keep on fucking anyway, they just end up with more STDs and more unplanned pregnancies. So should we outlaw fornication? Or just have the government become the official genital spokesman for Catholicism?

    That if you don’t have multiple sexual partners, you aren’t a man.

    These people are generally shown to be bad, liars, damaged, or hurting in media these days.

    So nothing on TV with regard to sex has changed over the last 50 years? They wouldn’t even show married people in the same bed in the 50s! GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.

    And do you think that was healthy?

  16. Good, we need more depictions of the consequences.
    Then you turn on a family friendly show like Friends, and everyone is sleeping with everyone else. It is simply expected that that is how relationships are supposed to be.

  17. I don’t think it’s wrong or immoral for two consenting adults to have sex outside of marriage. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be for legislating against it. If you can’t see the difference between that and someone murdering a classroom full of children with an assault rifle, then we really don’t have much to talk about on this topic.

  18. “These people are generally shown to be bad, liars, damaged, or hurting in media these days.”

    So are mass murderers. But our gun culture is still a problem. The culture also has a problem with sex, admit it.

    You even used an example in your above comment:

    You don’t hear about most mass shootings because they aren’t public events. They’re the stories you hear on local news about a father killing his wife and three kids and himself over a custody dispute. Or an estranged psycho ex shooting his ex-girlfriend and her family.

    A human killing his family over a custody dispute. This is a symptom of a combination our gun culture AND sex culture. What lead to him having a gun and wanting to use it our gun culture. What lead to the marriage falling apart, I don’t know, but our sex culture didn’t help. An ex jealous over a new sexual relationship of his partner? Remove the sex from these relationships, would this be more or less likely to happen?
    Both cultures contribute to a hindrance to human flourishing in our society.

  19. Like I said, comedies are many times the exception, but even Friends had lasting consequences for “sexual immorality.” However, I’m not sure what you want? Do you want shows to reflect the culture or to be completely fake? Personally, I’d rather the shows I watch be grounded in some kind of reality. No one’s going to relate to a show of twenty-year-olds who all wait until marriage to have sex. It just won’t have any connection with anyone except for a few weird Catholics! 😉

  20. I don’t think it’s wrong or immoral for two consenting adults to have sex outside of marriage.

    Tell that to the NRA nut who doesn’t think it is immoral to have dozens of assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

    I’m not saying two consenting adults having sex is EQUAL to a classroom full of children being murdered. I’m saying that the permissive sexual culture has damaging consequences to society – including several million aborted babies – and so does the gun culture.

    The Right sees no problem with the gun culture. And the Left sees no problem with the sex culture.

  21. “Do you want shows to reflect the culture or to be completely fake?”

    No. In fact, I want them to show even more reality. Including all the consequences, let the consequences be a major plot point. The same with the gun culture. Show a NRA guy trying to be the hero, and show him how silly and delusional he is by placing him the realistic situation.

  24. Okay (deep breath)…okay…

    First, abusers are going to find a reason to be abusive. There is no reason for domestic violence beyond psychological ones.

    Second, our gun culture definitively costs lives. Fornication, no matter how much you disapprove of it, generally does not.

    Third, what exactly do you want to do about this ‘problem’, Lane?

  26. “First, abusers are going to find a reason to be abusive. There is no reason for domestic violence beyond psychological ones.”

    Yes, and murderers are going to murder even without guns. There is no reason for violence beyond psychological ones. So I guess it is just mental illness alone. See the parallel yet?

    “Second, our gun culture definitively costs lives. Fornication, no matter how much you disapprove of it, generally does not.”

    The culture that encourages fornication, encourages all the problems that fornication brings. Sex binds people (biologically, hormonally). It leads to strong feelings, which leads to very hurt feelings. It also leads to babies, which leads to ill advised marriages that end in broken families, single parent homes, or the killing of children. Nothing very flourishing about this.

    “Third, what exactly do you want to do about this ‘problem’, Lane?”

    Similar things that were suggested about the gun culture. The soft influence of media, TV, movies, comedians. I think we are passed making fornication illegal, just like we are passed taking away people’s guns. But first, I simple recognition of the problem would be nice.

    If you are on the Right and think the culture doesn’t have a gun problem, you diluted and blinded by your idol. If you are on the Left and think the culture doesn’t have a sex problem, you are diluted and blinded by your idol.

  27. Everyone sees a problem with broken homes. Most see a problem with abortions (even if they support the right). These are just symptoms of the problem with the culture. Which is your point. The Right also doesn’t approve of the mass murders, they just don’t want to address the real problem.

  28. I don’t see how adopting your stance on open relationships will lead to flourishing of our society either. So there. We’re even.

  29. Okay, not calm anymore.

    First… MASS SHOOTERS ARE NOT GOING TO FUCKING COMMIT MASS MURDER TO THE SAME DEGREE THAT THEY WOULD WITH A GUN!

    It is NOT the same as saying a victim of domestic violence contributed to it because she moved on with her life and her god damned abusive dick of an ex decides to show up and shoot her and their kids and her family and boyfriend. Even if there wasn’t a jealous ‘sex thing’ as you call it, someone like that would still be an abuser absent help.

    And he wouldn’t be able to kill them all if he didn’t have a fucking gun.

  31. First… MASS SHOOTERS ARE NOT GOING TO FUCKING COMMIT MASS MURDER TO THE SAME DEGREE THAT THEY WOULD WITH A GUN!

    I’m on your side here. Are you angry because you think I’m trying to argue against gun control? I’m not.

    “It is NOT the same as saying a victim of domestic violence contributed to it because she moved on with her life and her god damned abusive dick of an ex decides to show up and shoot her and their kids and her family and boyfriend. Even if there wasn’t a jealous ‘sex thing’ as you call it, someone like that would still be an abuser absent help.”

    Not every divorce is caused by domestic violence. You can thank no fault divorce for that.

    The sexual culture encourages sexual freedom, sexual fulfillment, the rejection of children as the main point marriage. This leads to more sexual partners. More abortions. More reasons to divorce. Because you know, “he just wasn’t satisfying my needs”. Or trading in your old wife for your younger hotter new wife. Or kids being shuffled between 4 different houses because their parents – whoever they are – are in several open relationships. These are problems caused by our sex culture.

  32. Disagree with the term if you like. But you can’t argue that single parent homes lead to human flourishing.

  33. Just in case it got lost in the comments below. I agree with the podcast, and want to see something done about the gun culture.

  38. The cultures are what I’m comparing. They both have devastating consequences that end in people’s lives being ruined or even taken.

  39. I think the nuclear family is overrated. People just need to be loved. That can be done in a divorce, and it can (and often) fail to be done inside the nuclear family. Take a husband and wife who hate each other but stay married “for the kids.” You can’t argue that that’s better for the kids than a divorce where the husband and wife are friendly (maybe even learn to love each other in a different way) and the kids are loved. Why can’t I make an argument against traditional marriage with that context?

  40. People grow up messed up in both “broken” and “whole” homes. You want to blame all kinds of things on broken homes. Do you blame non-broken homes and monogamy in the cases where there’s no sexual immorality and someone still grows up messed up? Do you blame God when the parents die in a tornado and the kids are left to grow up in a system that messes them up? Or are you just cherry-picking on sexual immorality?

  41. And because people grow up messed up many times no matter what environment they were raised in, let’s do our best to keep the guns out of the hands of those messed up people.

  43. Both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold has nuclear families with married parents. I think Dylan was even raised Lutheran! Therefore, I’d like to blame nuclear families for their problems.

  44. Life is complicated. Will every marriage work out? Of course not. In general, I am much more in favor of encouraging people to grow in virtue. I dislike what I view as our culture encouraging people to vice.

    If everything evolves, there very well may be a reason that every culture on Earth has developed something more or less that looks like traditional marriage. Probably because it leads to flourishing, like a survival of the fittest on the societal scale. I am confident that if our culture attempts to go the direction you want it to (blowing up the entire marriage paradigm) we will be bit in the long run, and be forced to reverse course. I would rather us not get bit to learn our lesson.

    I’m reminded of a G.K. Chesterton quote (I see why Jason likes him so much, he’s great):

    “In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

  45. I don’t want to blow up the entire marriage paradigm. I think it has an important place and I know (and hope) that it will continue. I just don’t want alternative options to be looked at as a disaster. Many times, I wonder if the half of the “devastation” that comes from marriage is a result of the religious tradition that marriage is the only way to do things. (i.e. calling anything that is not a successful marriage “broken”, etc.)

  51. That is one of the draw backs of using shame to shape society. I would much rather hold up the ideal, and point to that as the goal. And have laws that encourage people to strive after it. Even if we all know that people are going to fail trying. Focus on the positive.

  53. Jealousy is engrained. It is probably due to evolutionary forces. I would need to see something that proves the opposite.

  54. Not every divorce is caused by domestic violence.

    Yes, and not every man goes out and kills his family and his ex. In fact, the vast majority of men don’t.

    So would you think it’s healthier for kids to grow up in a home where mom and dad don’t get along or outright despise each other but are forced to stay together because they can’t get a divorce?

    But let’s try this again.

    Let’s say I buy into the sex culture you think is dominant. Let’s say I just throw caution to the wind and go out and cheat on my wife. That’s a horrible thing to do. I will have betrayed her. Broken our trust. Broken our vows. Hurt my wife and children emotionally. She divorces me. I move out. We both move on and the kids now have to deal with two homes. Not great. Now maybe I cheated with a married woman and I’ve done the same to their family. That’s an awful thing and one that everyone involved may struggle for years to cope with.

    The good news in all of that is that they are all still alive to struggle for years to cope with it. There can be healing. There can be reconciliation. There can be closure.

    Let’s say I buy a gun and I go off my antidepressant and decide that I’m in so much pain, I want to share it with the world, so I decide to make a point and kill myself and as many people as I can. Well, now I’ve not only betrayed my family and hurt them immeasurably, I’ve also killed 20 people and destroyed their families too.

    You cannot compare the noxious fruit of the gun culture with that of the ‘sex culture’ that you envision.

  55. Lane, I would be really interested in you reading Sex at Dawn. I’d love to know your opinions on all of the successful examples of non-nuclear families included in the book.

  56. What about regular marriage leads to ruined or taken lives? Is it the life long commit to love one another that does it (/s)?

    Of course I blame immorality for consequences? Why would I blame virtue? I’m not following you. Are you saying something like: “trying to live out the virtue of marriage by not sleeping around or masturbating to porn regularly leads to ruin lives?” Or, “If only he would have cheated, none of this would have happened?”

  59. It is on the list! However, without having read it, I would probably chalk it up to exceptions to the rule. And would have a difficult time seeing it applied practically to a society at large. But again, I haven’t read it yet.

  62. I would like us to strive to overcome engrained vices, not engrained virtues. =) Noting that jealousy has a positive and negative side.

  65. This is what I hear: “Our idol isn’t as bad as their idol!”. Whatever, they both suck and ruin many lives. And you both (NRA nut, and sexual progressive nut) sound the same when someone points it out.

  66. What you guys need is a DXP reading list, or a DXP book club. That way I can at least keep up with where all your nonsense comes from! 😉

  70. What do you mean “our” idol, Kemosabe? I did everything the ‘right’ way.

    And you know what? You should really spend some time looking at people who grew up in the sort of purity culture that I did where we were all told how wonderful and special sex was and just what some of those consequences were to people: putting virginity on a pedestal, feeling horrible and guilty about sex even after waiting until marriage and viewed it as a duty and not a joy, comparing women who had sex before marriage to worthless chewed gum and destroying their self-esteem, etc.

    You may think the biblical morality is the ‘right’ and ‘healthy’ way and, depending upon which version of it we adhere to, it might be in theory. In practice, it can suck just as much as the worldly ‘sex culture’.

    And yes, as I said, divorce and infidelity and fornication can cause pain. But you’re alive to deal with that pain, and in my mind, yes, that does make it infinitely better than being shot dead or finding out that your wife or kids are dead because some fucking lunatic got his hands on a killing machine and decided to become internet famous that day.

  71. Idolizing purity or virginity is NOT the solution either. And neither is shame. Shame is a shitty weapon to use against someone. Guilt says that there is something wrong with what I did. Shame says there is something wrong with me. Shame must be avoided.

    Encouraging the ideal, with mercy for failure, is what I advocate. I do not want to encourage vice, and that is the problem I see. Unintended consequences are still consequences.

    It is funny you keep on skipping over abortion, trying to pretend that some aren’t directly killed for sexual freedom.

  72. Perhaps that is because while I am pro-life (in every sense of the word) and would like to see every pregnancy end in a live birth, I do not share your maximalist view on the subject that a zygote = a fetus = a child.

  73. (refusing temptation to rehash abortion debate… see I’m growing!) =)

    I will say that this gun issue IS a pro-life issue. And I wish more “pro-life” people were more than just anti-abortion.

  74. There is alot of wisdom in this article by Sam Harris. Because I know most will not read the entire article, I’ll provide a few quotes I found interesting….

    ” Wouldn’t any decent person wish for a world without guns? In my view, only someone who doesn’t understand violence could wish for such a world. A world without guns is one in which the most aggressive men can do more or less anything they want. It is a world in which a man with a knife can rape and murder a woman in the presence of a dozen witnesses, and none will find the courage to intervene. There have been cases of prison guards (who generally do not carry guns) helplessly standing by as one of their own was stabbed to death by a lone prisoner armed with an improvised blade. The hesitation of bystanders in these situations makes perfect sense—and “diffusion of responsibility” has little to do with it. The fantasies of many martial artists aside, to go unarmed against a person with a knife is to put oneself in very real peril, regardless of one’s training. The same can be said of attacks involving multiple assailants. A world without guns is a world in which no man, not even a member of Seal Team Six, can reasonably expect to prevail over more than one determined attacker at a time. A world without guns, therefore, is one in which the advantages of youth, size, strength, aggression, and sheer numbers are almost always decisive. Who could be nostalgic for such a world?”

    And this…

    “Seventy mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since 1982, leaving 543 dead. These crimes were horrific, but 564,452 other homicides took place in the U.S. during the same period. Mass shootings scarcely represent 0.1 percent of all murders. When talking about the problem of guns in our society, it is easy to lose sight of the worst violence and to become fixated on symbols of violence.

    Of course, it is important to think about the problem of gun violence in the context of other risks. For instance, it is estimated that 100,000 Americans die each year because doctors and nurses fail to wash their hands properly. Measured in bodies, therefore, the problem of hand washing in hospitals is worse than the problem of guns, even if we include accidents and suicides. But not all deaths are equivalent. A narrow focus on mortality rates does not always do justice to the reality of human suffering. Mass shootings are a marginal concern, even relative to other forms of gun violence, but they cause an unusual degree of terror and grief—particularly when children are targeted.”

    “It is reasonable to wish that only virtuous people had guns, but there are now nearly 300 million guns in the United States, and millions more are sold each year. A well-made gun can remain functional for centuries. Any effective regime of “gun control,” therefore, would require that we remove hundreds of millions of firearms from our streets. As Jeffrey Goldberg points out in The Atlantic, it may no longer be rational to hope that we can solve the problem of gun violence by restricting access to guns”

    http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun

  77. I listened to it last night. Its his “update” on this article he wrote years ago. He also clears up some misconceptions about his position and expounds upon some things. You will probably want to skip the OP and just enjoy the podcast

  79. The arguments you quoted can be summarized as:

    We can’t live in a world without guns! We need them!

    Other things kill people too!

    And we can’t stop all killings, so instead of trying to stop more of them, everyone needs mohr gunz pleaz! And everyone override your survival instinct and charge shooters en masse!!!

    That’s not particularly insightful. It’s the standard NRA strawmen set out every god damned time someone in power says, “Hey, maybe we should do something about these psychos randomly killing us every day.”

  81. Well, I guess you got me. Clearly that means we shouldn’t do anything to try and prevent lunatics from having guns.

    Guess I’ll just learn to love the gun and go join the NRA now and buy some child body armor for my kids because freedumb.

  82. Comrade,

    Offer an interesting solution and we would all love to hear it. You are conflating our skepticism at naive solutions for brovado and a laissez faire mentality…

    If we were starting somehow from scratch would it be a good idea to make guns incredibly difficult to obtain and carry? Yes. But is this still a good idea with 300 million already being traded within our borders? Im skeptical.

  83. If you believe that gun culture and sex culture are similar issues, and you’re pro stricter gun laws, what exactly do you think should be done about sex culture? Ignoring abortion, which I think is a sepperate issue and one we would probably agree on, do you actually think we should laws against sexual imorality?

  84. Offer an interesting solution and we would all love to hear it

    Sigh…

    I’m going to go beat my head against a wall or maybe start drinking again until I feel like I’ve been beating my head against a wall.

  86. I am so glad to see someone else talking about why big cities with tight gun control like Chicago have a gun violence epidemic. That’s another favorite of the trolls: “BUT CITIES WITH LOTS OF GUN CONTROL HAVE HIGH RATES OF CRIME THEREFORE GUN CONTROL DOESN’T WORK THEREFORE YOU’RE COMING TO TAKE MY GUN AWAY AAAAH OBAMA AAAAAH!!”

    I tried to make that point (read: I did make that point) recently on FB, that gun control in a city is only as good as gun control nationally, since someone can (and does) easily drive outside the city limits to get their guns if their state is particularly lax with gun control. I read somewhere that cops in Chicago estimate that 45% of people charged with a gun-related crime got their gun from elsewhere in Illinois.

  87. I would love to see more shaming on this issue, to be honest. The cigarette thing is a GREAT example. Growing up, both my parents smoked. All their friends smoked. When I was a cah-raaazy teenager, everyone smoked. It was definitely still “cool” to smoke, and we all did it. At my first office job during college, there were still offices in our building that allowed smoking. Then for some reason, in our 20s, every last one of us stopped. Now my son, who is five, sees someone smoking and it’s so rare he actually said, “why is that man putting a white stick in his mouth?” He literally has no idea what a cigarette is. This is how significantly “cigarette culture” has changed and become demonized and effectively shamed — just within the last 15-20 years.

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