7865

The social contract was always a lie, we just didn’t realize it until people got cell phones.

YMMV

And that’s not a defense of the Do It Themselves folks by any means. Being able to handle a problem that comes to you and going looking for one are two very different things.

7867

Saying the social contract is a lie is not terribly helpful, or accurate in my opinion. I’d say it’s more of a consensual framework that is effective as long as everyone goes along with it. Which is pretty much how any contract works in the absence of a higher authority to enforce it. By its nature, the social contract creates an entity that is in effect charged with self-monitoring and enforcing its own rules on itself. Even a Hobbesian take on the social contract, with its reliance on a sovereign power distinct from the people per se, ultimately gives the people the responsibility to hold the Leviathan to the terms of the contract.

The thing about guns though is that they manifestly do not provide safety or security except in very distinct, individual circumstances, and even then, it’s an open questions as to whether the benefits (possibility that being armed will prevent harm to you) outweigh the overall risks (the possibility that being armed will result in harm to you in some way). It’s even more sketchy when you factor in the impact of other people being armed, assuming that not everyone with weapons only wants to protect themselves. And of course, to actually be “protection,” you have to go everywhere, all the time, with firearms. Which then starts to create situations that prompted the creation of social contracts in the first place.

The security promised by the makers and sellers and devotees of guns is illusory. That isn’t the point though. It’s the feeling off empowerment and security, backed up by a culture that celebrates binary moral judgments, violent solutions to problems, and individual aggression, that is the real commodity being purchased.

7868

The Cold War saw a whole spate of films envisioning what would happen if the social contract broke down, as a subset of WWIII fear. The Mad Max films were the most iconic. Some people apparently grew up viewing them not as cautionary but aspirational.

7869

Yeah, but the cops aren’t doing that. In fact, it seems that they likely never were.

So instead we give them extra rights and privileges and in return they can kill or abuse us depending on their whims.

They don’t even pretend otherwise anymore.

7870

Truth to this for sure, but owning guns does zero to help you with this problem unless you are down for open warfare. And not all police, or all departments, in all areas, act the same way. But definitely the role of police in Anglo-American culture has never been to “preserve and protect,” but rather simply to arrest lawbreakers after the fact and inject them into the court system. A by-product of this only dealing with the worst elements of society is that police become cynical and predatory, in addition to being able to indulge in their worst behaviors with impunity.

7871

Does Stand Your Ground apply to (unarmed) iguanas?!

Florida says no: A man accused of killing an iguana wanted the charge dismissed based on stand your ground law. A judge said no - CNN

7872

Look, if you’re going to attempt to shoot a puppy that’s running loose, I think accidentally shooting your own kid is near-perfect karma.

7873

Uh, not for the kid. Shooting yourself in the ass is acceptable karma IMO.

7874

Who the hell packs heat on a bike ride?

7875

Did the 5yo return fire? Needed a good kid with a gun here to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

7876

The kid is collateral damage. I hope the sight of his blood and the sounds of his screams of terror haunt her dreams forever.

7877

Yeah… no that isn’t cool.

I’m sorry, a kid shouldn’t just be used as a prop in some delusional ideal of justice or karma.

You might be… a not good person.

7878

Was the mother a cop?

7879

Thank God, the kid survived. Getting pretty goddamn sick of Gunmerica.

7880

charged with deadly conduct with a firearm.

Lovely, another legal euphemism.

7881
7882

That sounds like a wild and fucked up situation. A 14 and 12 year old left a foster home and broke into a house.

Deputies surrounded the house and began talking to the pair. The girl threatened to kill a sheriff’s sergeant and fired at him multiple times about 8:30 p.m., the sheriff said.

Authorities said the children fired at the deputies four separate times over the next 35 minutes. At one point, Chitwood said, an officer went close enough to the home to toss a cellphone inside to try to talk to them.

“They were traversing the length of that house and opening fire on deputies from different angles,” Chitwood said. “They were out on the pool deck, they shot from the bedroom window, they shot from the garage door. This is like Bonnie and Clyde at 12 years old and 14 years of age.”

The girl eventually came out of the garage with the shotgun and pointed it at deputies. They repeatedly asked her to drop the weapon, Chitwood said. She walked back into the garage.

7883

She was accused of stealing puppies and was put in a half-way home in Flagler County. He said she burned the house down on April 10 and was sent back to Volusia County.

7884

Wait, hold on. How did the 14yo girl get the shotgun if the homeowner had their guns properly secured, like every good gun owner always does? Clearly this incident could have never actually happened.

7885

They said that they did. But I’m guessing that anyone who owns an AK might be full of shit.

BTW the owners said that the kids did $100,000 of damage. By breaking stuff with a baseball bat. What did they have in that place?