Okay... and they talk about how violence is part of art and narrative conflict and is entertaining.
Quite right.
And then the article goes beyond its use in fiction and into real world violence, and then about how there's good and bad violence...
We're told so very often growing up that violence is never the answer. But what about when it is?
Oh... so maybe they'll tall about self defense?
Adam Brown steps into the ring against Ronda Rousey and spectators have
paid $20 a head to watch this debacle and the winner gets a free dinner
and a Fitbit, what is it we've come to see? We're all waiting for the
show. If neither party fights, then we didn't get what we came for and
everyone is disappointed. Violence was the answer, in this case. In pro
boxing, in MMA, in the WWE, violence is the answer.
Nope!
And later on...
Much like alcohol and drugs can be abused, a car can be used as a
weapon, and you can use fire to cook a tasty burger or burn down an
orphanage, violence in general can be abused. To lump it all together
under one banner as bad, or subhuman, or crass and bestial, does a
disservice to humanity and insults us all.
The funny part... is that they're talking about bloodsports ( yes the article itself uses that term). So violence is okay if it's for entertainment....
Heck note the article has "weapon" as a universal negative on the car example.
But points to Cracked for at least pointing out about consent and that just because someone else abuses X doesn't mean that X should be banned.
Huh... odd that only a couple weeks ago they were going on about how violent movies are to blame for mass shootings...
(To be fair, not all of my posts about Cracked are when they go into gun control. Increasingly they've started being scolds about movies being too violent and bongs being too easy to buy)
On talking about Vegas wedding options that have range time, with some high priced rentals before the ceremony....
Now, we're not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, a large portion of us
here at Cracked would jump at the chance to spend the day screaming
"GET SOME" while firing off hundreds of AK-47 rounds with our
significant others. The problem is that these offers came a mere two
months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Or as Wikipedia puts it, "the second-deadliest mass shooting by a
single person in U.S. History." The one that resparked heated gun
debates and forced ads, TV shows, movies, and video games to remove gun-related material.
Well that's the thing Cracked you have said that that's a bad thing. Because you've put up some very stridently anti gun writers and let them be your go to guys for writing on gun control.
Oh and thanks for linking that the main objections to these events are similar in nature to people wanting to censor TV, movies, and video games.
Obviously this shows how crazy...
Wait no... Cracked didn't you recently, publish an article blaming Hollywood movies for how they decrepit guns?
We're not here to take a stance on that debate (that's a whole library's
worth of articles full of opposing viewpoints), but we can certainly
understand why some people would cringe after hearing about the
promotion to empty a machine gun clip into pictures of their ex.
We? Now this article was written by two people Marina Reimann, Kieran Hair so presumably this is their opinion and the we is not an "editorial" we.
Still isn't it funny how Cracked has taken to distancing themselves from the "gun control" side, at least overtly?
The United States now has more guns than people, according to estimates published last year in the Washington Post. But even before that disconcerting nugget of information entered the public realm, the U.S. still housed a rather obscene amount of firearms
Disconcerting? Obscene?
Yeah... it seems like you want to ban guns.
"Here's what we do know. After peaking in the 1980s and early 1990s, crime has plummeted in the United States. The rates of forcible rape, murder, violent crime, property crime, and aggravated assault are currently as low as they were in the 1960s."
So.... more guns don't cause more crime? Any expanding on how that undercuts the core reasoning behind gun control? None?
Ah, gonna focus on the mass shootings? Right.
Lankford then explored how the number of mass shootings per country were associated with each country's homicide rate, suicide rate (used a rough proxy for mental health), and firearm ownership rate. While he found no link between the number of shootings and suicide or homicide rates, he found a highly significant (p<.01) link between the number of shootings and firearm ownership rates.
Apparently, yes, there's no link on homicide and gun rate but there is on the subset of homicides.
Oh-kay. No pondering why that's happening?
Lankford noted a number of limitations to his study. Older incidents occurring further in the past and in countries without streamlined reporting systems may have been missed. Moreover, since public mass shootings are rare, the sample size is small for the forty-six-year study period.
So, a small sample size, combined with bad reporting. You know, when you have a correlation that seems anomalous and is in part due to a small sample size, there might be something off with that correlation.
But why let that get in the way when there's obsecene and disconcerting guns to ban!
Lankford also made clear that he utilized the definition of public mass shooting from the NYPD's report. The attacks "must have (a) involved a firearm, (b) appeared to have struck random strangers or bystanders and not only specific targets, and (c) not occurred solely in domestic settings or have been primarily gang-related, drive-by shootings, hostage-taking incidents, or robberies."
Which means despite the breathless writing earlier in the article San Bernadino wouldn't count.
He did however, state the natural conclusion from his findings. "Perhaps the most obvious step the United States could take to reduce public mass shootings may also be the most politically challenging: reduce firearms availability." Lankford noted that the approach seemed to work in Australia. After a public mass shooting in 1996 that left thirty-five people dead, the country's government passed comprehensive gun control legislation.
Wait... so overall gun deaths's aren't correlated... but the natural conclusion is gun control? Color me surprised.
But nobody wants to ban guns. Do note they don't even say that Australia had mass bans and confiscations.
I also wonder which other rights and possessions these folks think should be banned because a correlation was found. Is that how science works now?
"Hey we found a correlation between autism and visits to the doctor! Let's ban doctors!"
Also note that the logic that not voting in the way the President wants is a rejection of the constitution and democratic values. Well again... see the first meme they put up.
So it looks like the antis are *finally* admitting that gun violence is down in the US.
What do to?
Why scream about mass shootings.
And here's Cracked....
Despite a massive drop in gun violence, spree shootings are such the American craze that VH1's inevitable I Love The 2010s
will be nothing but ten episodes of George Takei weeping. And thanks to
the Internet, the debate is almost as exhausting as the sorrow. The
loudest voices tend to pin blame on a single problem, like gun
control or mental health, while groups like the NRA eject responsibility
more forcibly than a Chipotle-filled bowel. No one wants to admit that
their side might contribute to what is clearly a broad cultural problem.
And that can't be more evident than when looking at cinema and the really fucking weird choices filmmakers keep making when it comes to guns.
Movies may not cause people to suddenly become maniacs, but that
doesn't mean that Hollywood doesn't have a pants-poopingly bizarre,
almost dangerously naive view of how gun violence works. Starting with
the fact that ...
Do note that the NRA is culpable for the mass shootings but not for the decline in overall gun deaths. And do note that Cracked has in the past complained that gun control advocates focus on Mass Shootings when they're only a small part of overall "gun death".
Oh and isn't it funny that now Cracked gets to go "The loudest voices tend to pin blame on a single problem, like gun control " Pot. To. Kettle.
Of course it wouldn't be Cracked if they went into a creepy anti-free speech setup. I mean they say that that Hollywood is culpable but they don't say Hollywood should be censored....
And let's quickly go over the list. They complain that Hollywood doesn't portray guns and injuries realistically. Duh.
Then they get angry that Hollywood makes people who have lots of guns good guys.
Like Kay from MIB, Sarah Connor and Bert Gummer. And sure the article points out that these people are nuts, the article then complains that they're hero.
Oh and then the article does the expected thing and links to an article calling a dozen guns a "cache" and complains about how "here's no real-world reason to stockpile guns"
But the best whine is at how in movies even anti-gun people will use guns in an emergency.
The next part has Cracked complain that cops and the military aren't good guys vigilantes are!
Need I remind you this is the same Cracked that things the Police are brewing a civil war against America...
[[link]]
But the next part has them complain that Hollywood is making victims look bad! While also complaining about Death Wish. Again... Cracked now sounds like Tipper Gore.
And then there's this part.
Saying the "good guy with a gun" argument is bullshit isn't anti-gun, by the way. Any responsible gun owner with a concealed carry permit knows that part of having a gun is not
trying to be a Michael Bay character when shit gets real. Without the
proper training, trying to get the jump on an active shooter is like pulling out a Hail Mary pistol when you're a '90s action villain: It only ends one way.
Yeah.... funny how the guy completely misses the whole point of disengaging or you know... If a gun owner with a CCW didn't think "good guy with a gun" could make a difference he wouldn't be carrying.
But the best part... Nubmer 1.
Where the article complains about how movie heroes kill lots of people.
But note the bait and switch.
See what I'm getting at here? While none of these films directly caused gun violence, they certainly glorify everything
we find unspeakable when done in the real world. To that crazy fuck
with a gun, pop culture has declared that dressing in SWAT gear and
dramatically shooting people we don't like is a heroic problem-solver.
As a movie fanatic, I would never suggest that filmmakers like Tarantino
stop making super-stylized shootout scenes. But it's hard to deny that
when a culture makes guns readily available to almost everyone while also idolizing their reckless use in fiction, it's kind of stupid to wonder where this shit is coming from.
Ah... so in other words. The writer think his hobby is making people murderers but he don't want to censor movies. So instead he demands other people be infringed.
So he can enjoy the movies that you think are warping people and making them more violent.
What happens if movies start to glorify knives or arson? Will you ban those things too?
And take this movie.
I remember a time when Cracked would have applauded a first person mindless action movie.
Now I'm sure they'd go all Tipper Gore and bemoan how it glorified violence and puts the gun in the audience's hand.
This was something that we knew could have happened. The president having a change to put in another SCOTUS appointment and swing the court to gut the 2nd Amendment.
Gonna be a mess...
(And the cynic in me wonders how long it'll be until the Senate Republicans fold and go with whoever the President picks).
So to... lighten the mood. Let's pull back to the same pool I get Mr. A and the other folks.
Now remember, *all* of these people are liberal and rather... forceful about how compasionate adn caring they are.
[Blue-collar-Left-who is anti-police and anti-rich]: Yancy. My Facebook feed is like an endless celebration right now
[Leftist who internet stalks people and talks about abusing her job at the cable company]: "As I attempted to write something nice about Justice Antonin Scalia, Twitter's 140 character limit suddenly seemed enormous."
And then someone linked in "Ding Dong the Witch is dead"
Because compassion.
Update: The same blue-collar lefty had this link to add. With the caption "Loooool". Which means as an upshot... this very white liberal is a-okay with saying Clarence Thomas is akin to a race-traitor slave mourning the death of his master. Lovely fellow eh?
The hilarious part about this is the writer's shock about people being able to buy Brass Knuckles and knives online is that he thought they were already illegal!
Yes it is like someone fretting about the "Demon Rum" or the "Evils of Porn" finding that mail-order exists.
What's cute is the writer getting the vapors over these products being illegal in the first place belies that his concern is merely that such things are sold online. (I mean since there's no background check or prohibited persons class for knives...)
But wait! The article's #1 freakout is on "drug paraphernalia". Yes Cracked is freaking out that bong accessories, little spoons, little vials and other basic products are available on Amazon.
Remember when Cracked advocated for drug legalization?
Oh and for a bonus aside from one line there's one mention of guns in the article (and that's a joke about Chicago).
Hmmm... odd that. Especially given it's in the title of the accompanying audio. Well someone with more patience than me can listen to that.
Their article on Flint's water mess is interesting for two reasons
1) they admit that government is completely, dangerously incompetent and utterly without redress or accountability. 2) And despite the heresy in 1 the article is an amazing case of "the dog that didn't bark"....
Sure they bemoan how infrastructure is crumbling and how "Our parents were promised Star Trek. We're getting, like, fucking Battletruck," but there's no mention of how politicians have been demanding and crowing about their infrastructure spending.
And it's not broached that despite the various governments have been spending huge amounts on "infrastructure" (Remember the Stimulus?) that the money has just "vanished"
Sure the article bemoans the racism in the system, but ignores who is running the system. (Heck the article breezily sidesteps how this was being used to solely blame the one Republican the media could find...)
It's yet another case of the people screaming for "more government" decrying the actions of "more government."
