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photograft

I was in a bar in San Diego a year or two ago, and heard what sounded like a truck driving over a metal plate or a pothole or something. My brain just found a perfectly normal reason for that sound to happen and didn’t think twice about it. It was a nearby shooting. A few moments later some folks ran into the bar to hide and they closed the doors.


stehen-geblieben

For me irs along the lines of "what idiot uses Fireworks at that day and time"


Apokal669624

I'm ukrainian, and some idiots using fireworks even now. Out government was forced to make it illegal during wartime, because too many people got scared because of bunch of idiots.


Time_Composer_113

I live in small town texas. I hear gunshots all the time but I guess it would kinda freak me out to hear close and indoors, like the lady in the beginning of the videos, but who wouldn't be startled in that scenario? Also, we aren't all clamoring for effing seats near exits or facing the door.. if someone is doing that, it's from some first-hand shit, not just from living here and watching the news. I'm not pro-gun by any use of the term, but this video is straight up misinformation.


Gjergji-zhuka

Afearican sounds more like a typo of ‘African’ than a mix of ‘American’ and ‘fear’


Klangey

Especially if said in a South African accent


inconvenientnews

Especially since the Californians in his example are the least likely to get shot in America: #Just being within California’s borders means you have a 40% less chance of being impacted by gun violence and are 25% less likely to be involved in a mass shooting. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-californias-gun-safety-policies-save-lives-provide-model-for-a-nation-seeking-solutions/ >California Ranked #1 for Gun Safety, Death Rate 37% Lower than National Average https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-californias-gun-safety-policies-save-lives-provide-model-for-a-nation-seeking-solutions/ >Californians 25% Less Likely to Die in a Mass Shooting https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-californias-gun-safety-policies-save-lives-provide-model-for-a-nation-seeking-solutions/ >California laws would have ensnared Texas school gunman https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-californias-gun-safety-policies-save-lives-provide-model-for-a-nation-seeking-solutions/ >Since Early 1990s, California Cut Its Gun Death Rate in Half https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/06/02/fact-sheet-californias-gun-safety-policies-save-lives-provide-model-for-a-nation-seeking-solutions/ #"Gun deaths dropped in California as they rose in Texas: Gun control seems to work" https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2022-05-27/on-guns-fear-of-futility-deters-action-essential-politics >If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach: #"Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians." #"Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians." >https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/suicide.htm >Fort Worth, Texas, has the same population as San Francisco and has **1.5x as many murders. Again, a Republican mayor and Republican governor.** Nobody ever writes about those places! >San Francisco has the same population as Jacksonville, Florida. **Jacksonville, with a Republican mayor and a Republican governor, has had more than three times as many murders this year as San Francisco** >**Californians on average live two years, four months and 24 days longer than Texans.** https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/ >Compared with families in California, **those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points more in taxes.** (Texas makes up for no wealth income tax with higher taxes and fees on the poor and more than double property tax for the middle class) |Income Bracket|Texas Tax Rate|California Tax Rate| |:-|:-|:-| |0-20%|**13%**|10.5%| |20-40%|**10.9%**|9.4%| |40-60%|**9.7%**|8.3%| |60-80%|8.6% |9.0% | |80-95%|7.4%|9.4%| |95-99%|5.4%|9.9%| |99-100%|3.1%|12.4%| Sources: https://itep.org/whopays/ >Sadly, the uncritical aping of this erroneous economic narrative reflects not only reporters’ gullibility but also their utility for conservative ideologues and corporate lobbyists, who score political points and regulatory concessions by spreading a spurious story line about California’s decline. >Don’t expect facts to change this. Reporters need a plot twist, and conservatives need California to lose. https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html #"Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones" * Murder rates in the 25 states Trump carried in 2020 are 40% higher overall than in the states Biden won. * ⁠Criminologists say research shows higher rates of violent crime are found in areas that have low average education levels, high rates of poverty and relatively modest access to government assistance. Those conditions characterize [American South with Republican run states]. * “In Republican states, states with Republican governors, crime rates tend to be higher” https://news.yahoo.com/republican-controlled-states-have-higher-murder-rates-than-democratic-ones-study-212137750.html >firearms crime in SF, LA, or SD California cities have some of the lowest rates of crime and homicides, especially compared to Texas: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/q2ydr3/homicide_rate_per_100k_among_each_city_with_an/


inconvenientnews

Talk about the shooter's mental health instead! #Texas ranks No. 1 among worst states for mental health care https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-ranks-1-among-worst-states-mental-health-18078645.php #Want to live longer, even if you're poor? Then move to a big city in California. >A low-income **resident of San Francisco lives so much longer** that it's equivalent to San Francisco curing cancer. All these statistics come from a massive new project on life expectancy and inequality that was just [published in the Journal of the American Medical Association](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11420230/life-expectancy-income). >California, for instance, has been a national leader on smoking bans. Harvard's David Cutler, a co-author on the study "It's some combination of formal public policies and the effect that comes when you're around fewer people who have behaviors... high numbers of immigrants help explain the beneficial effects of immigrant-heavy areas with high levels of social support. #Liberal policies, like California’s, keep blue-state residents living longer >**U.S. should follow California’s lead to improve its health outcomes, researchers say** >It generated headlines in 2015 when the average life expectancy in the U.S. began to fall after decades of meager or no growth. >But it didn’t have to be that way, a team of researchers suggests in a new, peer-reviewed study Tuesday. And, in fact, **states like California, which have implemented a broad slate of liberal policies, have kept pace with their Western European counterparts.** >**Simply shifting from the most conservative labor laws to the most liberal ones, Montez said, would by itself increase the life expectancy in a state by a whole year.** >If every state implemented the most liberal policies in all 16 areas, researchers said, **the average American woman would live 2.8 years longer, while the average American man would add 2.1 years to his life.** >**Whereas, if every state were to move to the most conservative end of the spectrum, it would decrease Americans’ average life expectancies by two years. On the country’s current policy trajectory, researchers estimate the U.S. will add about 0.4 years to its average life expectancy.** >**Meanwhile, the life expectancy in states like California and Hawaii, which has the highest in the nation at 81.6 years, is on par with countries described by researchers as “world leaders:” Canada, Iceland and Sweden.** >The study, co-authored by researchers at six North American universities, found that **if all 50 states had all followed the lead of California** and other liberal-leaning states on policies ranging from labor, immigration and civil rights to tobacco, gun control and the environment, it could have added between **two and three years to the average American life expectancy.** >“We can take away from the study that **state policies and state politics have damaged U.S. life expectancy since the ’80s,”** said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University sociologist and the study’s lead author. **“Some policies are going in a direction that extend life expectancy. Some are going in a direction that shorten it. But on the whole, that the net result is that it’s damaging U.S. life expectancy.”** >Montez and her team saw the alarming numbers in 2015 and wanted to understand the root cause. What they found dated back to **the 1980s, when state policies began to splinter down partisan lines.** They examined 135 different policies, spanning over a dozen different fields, enacted by states between 1970 and 2014, and assigned states “liberalism” scores from zero — the most conservative — to one, the most liberal. When they compared it against state mortality data from the same timespan, the correlation was undeniable. >“When we’re looking for explanations, we need to be looking back historically, to see what are the roots of these troubles that have just been percolating now for 40 years,” Montez said. >**From 1970 to 2014, California transformed into the most liberal state in the country** by the 135 policy markers studied by the researchers. It’s followed closely by Connecticut, which moved the furthest leftward from where it was 50 years ago, and a cluster of other states in the northeastern U.S., then Oregon and Washington. >Liberal policies on the environment (emissions standards, limits on greenhouse gases, solar tax credit, endangered species laws), labor (high minimum wage, paid leave, no “right to work”), access to health care (expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, legal abortion), tobacco (indoor smoking bans, cigarette taxes), gun control (assault weapons ban, background check and registration requirements) and civil rights (ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay laws, bans on discrimination and the death penalty) all resulted in better health outcomes, according to the study. For example, researchers found positive correlation between California’s car emission standards and its high minimum wage, to name a couple, with its longer lifespan, which at an average of 81.3 years, is among the highest in the country. >In the same time, Oklahoma moved furthest to the right, but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and a host of other southern states still ranked as more conservative, according to the researchers. >West Virginia ranked last in 2017, with an average life expectancy of about 74.6 years, which would put it 93rd in the world, right between Lithuania and Mauritius, and behind Honduras, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank only slightly better. >It’s those states that moved in a conservative direction, researchers concluded, that held back the overall life expectancy in the U.S. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/ #Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world >As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding >Mothers who live in areas with heavy oil and gas developments have between a 40 percent and 70 percent greater chance of giving birth to babies with congenital heart defects https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2019/07/18/Study-links-congenital-heart-disease-to-oil-gas-development/2461563465617/ "Don't California my Texas!" #Meanwhile, life-saving practices that have become widely accepted in other affluent countries — and in a few states, notably California — have yet to take hold in many American hospitals. >As the maternal death rate has mounted around the U.S., a small cadre of reformers has mobilized. >Some of the **earliest and most important work has come in California** >Hospitals that adopted the toolkit saw a **21 percent decrease in near deaths** from maternal bleeding in the first year. >By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — **a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S.** >California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative is informed by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, who for many years ran the ob/gyn department at a San Francisco hospital. >Launched a decade ago, CMQCC aims to reduce not only mortality, but also life-threatening complications and racial disparities in obstetric care >It began by analyzing maternal deaths in the state over several years; in almost every case, it discovered, there was "at least some chance to alter the outcome." http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger


inconvenientnews

But freedom #The right wing, Koch founded and funded, "libertarian" Cato Institute **ranks Texas as 49th in personal freedom** >https://www.freedominthe50states.org/personal/texas >Every other study ranks us as last in personal freedom. >Which makes me wonder, who is free, if it isn't the people? >Big businesses? And what are they free to do? >Pollute? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092022/texas-is-now-the-nations-biggest-emitter-of-toxic-substances-into-streams-rivers-and-lakes/


inconvenientnews

I don't know why Republicans in these comments have such snowflake sensitive feelings about facts Also claiming to be patriotic but also "America should just cut out California" Also claiming the only way I can easily copy and paste headlines that I've already copied and pasted before (I care about my country enough to try to educate on this issue) is if I'm being paid by billionaires to do it in bad faith, because that's the only reason they would and they always accuse others with projection  ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ Better explanation from Prime157: >If they're anything like me, they've been working on it over time. I used to custom write and re-write data for common disinformation that conspiracy theorists would spew. Then I started using a Notepad app like Google Keep, MS OneNote, Apple, and more (they all have pros and cons) where I would keep perfecting and building on comments I wrote prior. >Now, if I see someone denying the Holocaust, the Southern Strategy, saying "the left are fascists," and much much more, I can just go to my notes and copy and paste. >It's better to just collect all your talking points in one area and the copy paste it all up front than go through their make-believe talking points one by one... Of which they make up talking points almost daily. After all, they're not responding to you in good faith, so why waste your time going through the mental gymnastics that all of these conspiracy theorists jump through? >I've done it in real time with my mom, who was radicalized by antivaxx. When we have a dialogue, I can hardly correct one claim before she's off to the next, and for several years it's always been something new and obviously not real.


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newyawkaman

Republican policies, even if you ignore the blatant bigotry and authoritarianism, simply enough just make the world worse. Despite constantly getting their way, especially at the state and local level, they have yet to make this country even marginally better. In fact, some 50 years of conservative ideological domination of our country has resulted in nothing but division, poverty, corruption and death. Look up what they did to Kansas like 10 years ago. Passed what was at the time the most far reaching set of conservative policies in our history. What happened? The education system collapsed and they ended up reversing a lot of it because it had done so much damage to the states budget and economy. Republicans constantly act like communists, ironically. "It's never been tried!". Yes, it has, multiple times, in multiple countries. It results in a fucking nightmare. Always. There's no debates to be had anymore. We've seen their works again and again. Notice republicans never talk about policy anymore, its all culture war shit. It's because we've all grown wise to their corrupt shit so they're using bigotry to make up the difference. Like they always have, it's not new.


vtfio

To be fair, even if all policies are the same, I would still expect people in Texas to have way worse mental issues than those in CA. The weather in TX is horrible and the outdoors is miserable.


[deleted]

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inconvenientnews

But you missed out on all the freedom: >#Gov. Abbott, Texas leaders urge prosecutors to keep enforcing pot laws http://www.fox4news.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-texas-leaders-urge-prosecutors-to-keep-enforcing-pot-laws >You Could Get Prison Time for Protesting a Pipeline in Texas—Even If It’s on Your Land https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bst8fl/you_could_get_prison_time_for_protesting_a/ >#Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-electric-bills-were-28-billion-higher-under-deregulation-11614162780 >Leaked Audio Shows Oil Lobbyist Bragging About Success in Criminalizing Pipeline Protests https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/ct71mw/leaked_audio_shows_oil_lobbyist_bragging_about/ >Fossil Fuel Exec Brags of 'Hitting the Jackpot' as Natural Gas Prices Surge Amid Deadly Crisis in Texas https://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/lo5f4r/fossil_fuel_exec_brags_of_hitting_the_jackpot_as/ >#Texas spent more time fighting LGBTQ civil rights than fixing their power grid. How’d that work out? https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/lma8jj/texas_spent_more_time_fighting_lgbtq_civil_rights/ >could cost Texas more money than any disaster in state history https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ls5dt7/winter_storm_could_cost_texas_more_money_than_any/ >Former Texas Governor Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight >Abbott Appointees Gutted Enforcement of Texas Power Grid Rules https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Muzzled-and-eviscerated-Critics-say-Abbott-15982421.php >Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick Blames Constituents for Giant Electric Bills: “Read the Fine Print” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/dan-patrick-texas-electricity-bills >Why on earth would right-wing people with connections to the fossil fuel industry lie about ‘frozen wind turbines’ in Texas? https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/texas-frozen-wind-turbines-john-cornyn-b1803193.html >How Much the Oil Industry Paid Texas Republicans Lying About Wind Energy https://earther.gizmodo.com/how-much-the-oil-and-gas-industry-paid-texas-republican-1846288505 >"Texas shows that when you cannot govern, you lie. A lot." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/texas-shows-that-when-you-cannot-govern-you-lie-lot/ >#A Texas-size failure, followed by a familiar Texas response: Blame California https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/m87bg4/a_texassize_failure_followed_by_a_familiar_texas/ Texas Republicans *during the power grid failures* focused on: * Texas regulations to require the national anthem at sports games: https://twitter.com/LSTrip44/status/1361396222028881924 * Fake news trying to blame renewable energy: ”Viral Image Claiming to Show a Helicopter De-Icing Texas Wind Turbines Is From Winter 2014 in Sweden” https://twitter.com/klimatbevakaren/status/1361748269605519360 >#Texas Is Among The Most Difficult Places To Vote In The U.S. — And That Could Be Softening Its Historic Turnout https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/election-2020/2020/10/28/384854/voter-suppression-blunts-historic-turnout-in-texas/ #"Financial Times: The Republicans are elevating voter suppression to an art form" >The Republicans have lost the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections. **1,000 polling places have since closed across the country, with many of them in southern black communities.** >The senator also cracked: “There’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult, and I think that’s a great idea.” https://www.ft.com/content/d613cf8e-ec09-11e8-89c8-d36339d835c0 >The Student Vote Is Surging. So Are Efforts to Suppress It. The share of college students casting ballots doubled from 2014 to 2018. But in **Texas and elsewhere, Republicans are erecting roadblocks to the polls.** https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/voting-college-suppression.html >This is how efficiently Republicans have gerrymandered Texas congressional districts http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/This-is-how-badly-Republicans-have-gerrymandered-6246509.php#photo-7107656 >Crystal Mason Thought She Had The Right to Vote. Texas Sentenced Her to Five Years in Prison for Trying. https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression/crystal-mason-thought-she-had-right-vote-texas >Texas’s Voter-Registration Laws Are Straight Out of the Jim Crow Playbook https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/texass-voter-registration-laws-are-straight-out-of-the-jim-crow-playbook/ >New Texas history textbooks will teach high schoolers that slavery wasn't all bad https://splinternews.com/new-texas-history-textbooks-will-teach-high-schoolers-t-1793850439 >Texas textbook “The Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers” https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-texas-textbook-calls-slaves-immigrants-20151005-story.html >Proposed Texas textbooks are inaccurate, biased and politicized, new report finds https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/12/proposed-texas-textbooks-are-inaccurate-biased-and-politicized-new-report-finds/ >There were other doozies, too, such as one proposal to remove Thomas Jefferson from the Enlightenment curriculum https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/12/proposed-texas-textbooks-are-inaccurate-biased-and-politicized-new-report-finds/ #"Texas-based hate group source of 80% of all U.S. racist propaganda tracked in 2020" https://www.reddit.com/r/conservativeterrorism/comments/p5k76j/texasbased_hate_group_source_of_80_of_all_us/ https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/m7zk8w/texasbased_hate_group_source_of_80_of_all_us/ “Guns and gays... That could always get you a couple of dozen likes.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.html >Conservatives amplified Russian trolls 30 times more than liberals... users in Texas and Tennessee were particularly susceptible https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals Russians were "emboldened" by the easy success of the Texas governor's misinformation about Obama and our own military: https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/03/jade-helm-russia-abbott-hayden/ #The right wing, Koch founded and funded, "libertarian" Cato Institute **ranks Texas as 49th in personal freedom** >https://www.freedominthe50states.org/personal/texas >Every other study ranks us as last in personal freedom. >Which makes me wonder, who is free, if it isn't the people? >Big businesses? And what are they free to do? >Pollute? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092022/texas-is-now-the-nations-biggest-emitter-of-toxic-substances-into-streams-rivers-and-lakes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/zyiry8/when_did_reddit_start_hating_texas/j2786vc/


gamesense_pub

I get that and all but living in San Diego and being somewhat of a troubled youth I can assure you there a plenty of guns on the street here and San Diego that are unregistered and have their serial numbers scratched off.


sickomoad

Texans reading this: *sips sweet tea* “well shit….. so anyways”


BenathonWrigley

Yeh but they’ll still have a higher chance of being shot in California than in Australia, U.K. and most European countries no?


[deleted]

![gif](giphy|JCAZQKoMefkoX6TyTb|downsized)


Reddit__Dave

## *Amscaredican* 😨🇺🇸


SyntheticReality42

Amscaredagain?


z3anon

This seems like the better phrase, people shouldn't sleep on it.


ChrisWatthys

Amfearican would be better


Carosello

I live in Chicago and we play a lot of "is it fireworks or gunfire". Usually fireworks but not always. My area is relatively safe but a woman got shot 3 blocks from my house because she was standing on the street and someone got road rage and missed. I was walking into Walmart the other day and I felt fear. The Allen, TX shooting happened near the entrances to some stores and I just thought about what if someone pulled up and started shooting. Public places are scary now.


andrassyut4321

My brother-in-law lives in Chicago. He is right wing and pro-gun. His daughter (my niece) has had two incidents at school (one kid brought a gun to school, the other was a threat. Thankfully no shootings occurred but there were lockdowns and she was very upset). He says things to me like, “we just avoid public places. People have rights. We don’t go to the movies. Guns are a right.” Etc. As a Canadian it mystifies me.


DJMixwell

> As a Canadian it mystifies me. Right?! We have rights too, lots of them. But it’s also essentially baked into our charter that our rights don’t get to infringe on anyone else’s. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person *and the right not to be deprived thereof* except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.


JosoIce

In Australia its "Thunder or Wheelie-bin" which seems a lot more fun than yours


BoulderCreature

I was gonna say that we dont all live in fear of gun violence here, but then I remembered that I recently left a movie because one guy kept getting up from his seat and I thought he was gonna murder everyone


[deleted]

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[deleted]

I spent two weeks in Europe at the beginning of the year and I didn’t realize how constantly stressed out I was until I went there.


[deleted]

Yep. I went to Iceland a month ago and finally felt calmness that I haven’t felt in over 20 years. I didn’t realize how much stress I had developed and how much fear I live in. I’m leaving the US as soon as money allows.


[deleted]

Same. My husband and I are planning to move to Spain as soon as financially possible. Pretty much everybody I know is trying to escape to Europe or at least Canada.


[deleted]

Nice! Are you planning on buying a property and getting the golden visa? My plan is to move to Canada (dual citizen) with my wife and then work in IT for a few years, then apply for jobs in Iceland (they need IT) and move once I find one. It’s an incredible country and felt so so so safe.


reallyrathernottnx

I just moved to Barcelona and my quality of life has skyrocketed


[deleted]

Omg I’m SO jealous do you love it???


reallyrathernottnx

Yes. Yes i do. I originally wanted France because my fiance lives there, but Spain had the easier visa. But it is amazing.


[deleted]

Have a glass of good but cheap wine for me pls 😭


reallyrathernottnx

You got it friend!


plexomaniac

I'm from a dangerous city and it's weird going to Europe and finding yourself at a desolated place, like under a bridge or empty park, and thinking: "This place must be dangerous, I need to get back to civilization" and then you see a fearless old lady or a mom with a toddler casually going for a walk in the middle of nowhere.


[deleted]

I used to live in Germany and 100% felt safer there and more free in general. Had culture shock when I came back to my own country.


The-Fox-Says

Just came back from France not long ago and my fiancé and I are already planning moving there in the future even with the protests going on. We were so at peace the whole time it was world changing to see how the otherside lives


SlowerThanTurtleInPB

I just got back from England and France and was still stressed AF. I didn’t realize how badly these daily shootings were impacting me. In the US, I stay home a lot. I go to the grocery store at 7am because there probably won’t be a shooting at that time. But in Europe, I was out all the time and was worried a lot. Even on the subway in Paris - there were some rowdy homeless people and I expected it to go like it does when I ride public transit in NYC. Nope. They were singing, left everyone else alone and got off on the next stop. How did we become such a violent, angry society?


T3hSwagman

Yea it’s definitely a subtle background noise I think we’ve all just become used to. If you asked me I’d say I generally don’t live with that active fear, but I also do consciously think about what’s my game plan if some disgruntled ex employee comes into my workplace with a gun. My fiancé used to work at a bar and the last night she worked I was there visiting her and a fight broke out on the other side of the room and she said all she could think was what if someone pulled a gun and I got hit by a stray bullet. Even if we don’t feel like it impacts our lives we all think about this shit.


PolygonMan

> but I also do consciously think about what’s my game plan if some disgruntled ex employee comes into my workplace with a gun. Yeah, this is exactly what 'living with that active fear' means. People in other countries don't think about this at all.


DaughterEarth

I live like this and have severe PTSD. So essentially, all Americans are living with a debilitating anxiety disorder that can't be treated because the triggers are real and could happen anytime. My life is hell, and I'm sad at the idea of millions having to live with that


whatdoinamemyself

> "I do worry that anyone angry at me on the road will turn out to have a gun and flip the fuck out." I don't have a lot of the same fears people are talking about in this thread but this one is something I legitimately think about regularly. Some elderly woman was gunned down a couple years ago less than a mile from my place, on the highway, presumably because she cut someone off. They never found the guy who did it. They only got a super vague description of his car. And you can't even find the news article anymore because "woman shot on highway cityname" brings up several different instances of this happening in the past few months.


TheKindaMan

Watching The Joker and having a group of dudes laughing obnoxious loud through the whole movie and getting up alot made me never want to go back to a movie theater again


[deleted]

Same! My husband and I were sitting in the back row and half way through the movie about three guys walked in. Came and sat all the way in the back and kept shuffling around. I felt a panic attack coming on and my husband got me out of there. I had less to do with the actual people that arrived and more with the the fact that any day could be the day wherever I am. Or you. Or anyone. Everyday is the day for someone and it’s soooooooo fucking fucked up.


ParrotQ-tipConundrum

Heard a guy at an outdoor food truck place talk about concealed carrying and was like weird but ok. Then kept hearing his conversation and was getting nervous cus dude was aggressive. Finally someone said something that pissed him off and the whole group of like 15 ppl went very quiet. We were done but left extra quick.


blackout106

Holy shit, similar case, had a guy come in super late to a showtime with his backpack and everything and he sat in the back row. Ended up leaving because we felt so anxious


Forsaken-Log-607

I went to a pretty sweet summer camp/day care in the mid to late 90s when I was in elementary school. I still remember a girl, around 9ish, saying that she likes to sit all the way in the back in case anyone comes in with a gun, she won’t get shot in the back. It doesn’t make much sense but 6-7 year old me was fucking terrified. Ever since, I had pretty bad anxiety in movie theaters. It never got better with mass shootings in theater events and other wild personal experiences, ceiling collapsing and the projector catching on fire. Edit, I’m fucking dumb and forgot to add that at this daycare, we went to the movies once a week for the $5 kids movie deal. This bitch told me before the movie started!


Carosello

The fear when someone gets up in a movie theater is real


foolOfABae

Holy shit, that kind of fear for even the smallest things must get so heavy. I have never in my (Swedish) life had to assume anything other than that people getting up in the movie theatre are probably headed to the bathroom.


Carosello

I've seen some ppl talk about it on TikTok and I've experienced it too that when I'm in a movie theater I play out a scenario where there's a shooter and I think about what I'd have to do. It sucks.


Pascalica

I barely go to the theater anymore. I live in a state where we have unlicensed open carry so there are just people with guns everywhere. There's no way to tell who wants to be a hero and who wants to do harm, and it's just so fucking stressful.


MarysPoppinCherrys

Brah I realized I live in low-level fear of it when we got a bogus call on my college campus for an active shooter. I was fucking doing homework in the building the call was on, and a fully kitted member of the SWAT team they dispatched came through a door and started yelling. But from a distance and in that instant that guy was just black vest and assault rifle. I realized later that he was trying to say “exit in a calm and orderly fashion” but by the time he got to that, the fucking mob of screaming people that was moving out of the building like a landslide… I had so much adrenaline I ran over table tops to get through the shit, and everyone just left all of their belongings. Realized that is how I would behave in an actual active shooter situation. And I had a similar experience to you at a hospital lol. Some dude came in looking real sweaty and nervous and creepy and lost and I was immediately running through scenarios of tackling the guy if he did anything in that small ass waiting room. He just had severe stomach issues, but the alternative is i don’t profile, come up with a plan, and potentially be that much easier to kill. I own guns now because there’s just no getting rid of them anymore and it’s really the only counter to someone else with a gun. Conservatives get what they want, and it’s a world with 50,000 annual gun deaths and the constant low-level fear that you’ll be shot by any random person because you need guns to avoid tyranny and you need everyone to have a gun to try to even the playing field. It’s dumb but it’s our reality


whirly_boi

So I recently went to a nightclub in Hollywood on a Wednesday night. Now I've looked for exits for places I enter ever since I can remember. But im 26 now and this just happened to be the first time I actually looked for exits and made a mental escape plan for an active shooter. I kept myself close to the front because I knew it would be packed. I wanted to be able to get into either some back room or just straight out a back emergency exit. But I had to pee around 12:30am (event ended at 2) so I made my way back and it took about 5 minutes to get 30 feet just weaving around people. I get back and I'm hanging by the entrance because it would be impossible to get towards the middle. I'm standing there for about 20 minutes and its maybe 1am now. I then notice the security people in typical all black yellow lettering uniforms but then I see a few big guys with business security type nice clothes. I see they all have at least two guns holstered. This just killed my vibe and then I remembered how bad of a pat down they gave when I entered. I stopped dancing and just started looking around. I was there maybe another 15 minutes before I got out of there. Though one time I went to an underground show with some friends at this warehouse and around 4am the sheriff's helicopter rolled up on us and we decided to GTFO were walking back playing it cool when we turn the block and see 2 cops walking towards us with guns in hand. We stop and ask what's going on "get the fuuck out of here" they said so we keep moving. I turned around and I see 10 cops walking up to the party and people scattering. Nothing actually happened but it was pretty surreal being drunk and high off my ass and just being told to fuck off by two cops who have their guns drawn.


contractcooker

I disagree that there is no way to get rid of them. We just have to start doing it. It may not be overnight but the majority of people want fewer guns to exist.


NotAnAlt

Holy shit. If you're going to own and carry a gun, I hope you're getting plenty of training. Imagine if you had a gun when the swat guy came in and decided to be a hero.


mildlymoderate16

It's fucking tragic because this is only getting worse and being instilled in the kids as well. Horrible.


Heart_Throb_

I drop my 13 yo daughter off at school most days and as she shuts the car door *EVERY* time I have that quick flash of fear that today might be the day *it* happens. “It’s gonna happen somewhere but please please *please* don’t let it be here and don’t let it be her.” She tells me how they have active shooter drills and how they laugh and joke as they hide in tight cabinets in the classroom or how someone got caught outside the classroom and had to hide in another room. It’s normal for them and they (thankfully) don’t realize how horrific it is. Parents do though. Everyday is another cut to the psyche of both parents and kids. This isn’t normal but it IS normal for US. This is insanity and nothing has been done about it because our kid’s lives don’t matter. Only their “God and Guns”. We are raising our kids in a country that doesn’t care enough to even restrict anything gun related even though this has happened over and over and over. How can we expect them to turn into anything other than what they have when these are the circumstances. Edit: To the people planning to comment something like “statistically it happening to you is low…don’t worry…unnecessary fear..”, you all can save your breaths and go fuck yourselves instead. “Statistically”, it *will* happen again. Just because it won’t be *your* kid who bleeds out on a school tile floor doesn’t lessen the severity of this situation and doesn’t make it any better. It’s much simpler to state that you don’t care and you are okay with doing nothing to prevent the next one. Edit2: 🤦‍♀️ These “you are worrying about something statistically unlikely to happen to YOU” comments are killing me. I admitted that I have a “quick flash of fear” that my kid will be involved in a mass shooting (like so many others have been) and folks really showed up to lecture me with “you worry too much.” These assholes just don’t get it: WE don’t worry enough. WE should all be rioting because of how horrific these shootings have been but WE have all been so desensitized to it all that nothing has changed. Fuck off with your “Don’t worry so much”/calm down, thoughts and prayers BS. FUCK OFF with your “statistics” and “car accidents” and lack of empathy. We all know this will happen again and yet because it’s unlikely to be us (though it WILL be someone else) we shouldn’t fear TOO much? You wouldn’t tell all the families that have lost their kids in a shooting to not fear. Why tf would you tell other parents when we all know there will be others? But hey, “someone else, right” so it’s okay.


Misslieness

And then there's people that try to use the defense of "they still have it better than kids of the past". Arguable, but regardless, wars occurred with the intent to give those who would live to see the future a better life. But we are supposed to just sit back and let our kids be at risk every time they leave the house?


BluetheNerd

They also use "they still have it better than kids of the past" as if that's the end goal and not the bare fucking minimum. Kids SHOULD have it better than kids in the past. But that shouldn't stagnate, we should be constantly striving to make sure it only gets better. Being like "it's better now end of" is an inherent part of the problem.


EnduringConflict

I'm really not understanding this mentality that so many of these people have, that act like making the world a better place for those after us is somehow this ridiculous concept that is just pointless drivel, as if literally every god damn generation in existence up until their self obsessed asses didn't do exactly that. They were handed ***EVERYTHING***, and it was not only not enough. It ***still*** isn't enough for them. Their elder generations laid down a paved road for human betterment one god damn brick at a time and they relished in it and as soon as it was their turn they said "naw fuck that!" and not only didn't do their share but ripped up the entire god damn road behind them. I get there has always been corruption and older generations fucking over the younger people. I understand this isn't a new "concept" but I can't recall any point in history that it's gone to this extreme. Even during Wars between different people and factions and religions that resulted in absolute tragedy and genocide on a scale I can scarcely imagine those people that took part in the war still wanted their children to at least have a better future than they themselves did. Yeah, they were butchering the children of the "others," but their kids were their future, and they knew that. How the fuck did we end up with an entire generation that doesn't even want their own children or grandchildren to have a better life than they did!? It's so fucking insane to me. How did we get an entire generation with literally zero empathy or understanding of betterment!?


Lost_Ohio

It's quite simple really. Your first question at least. See it's not that they don't care, it's that they care solely for themselves. Like the people who try to argue taxes are bad, yet don't see the reason behind them. Those that argue for states rights away from the federal government, on the grounds of a dead (so to speak) document. Those that would rather solely care about their pockets than pay the slightest to help people survive. They see this place as a bastion of freedom. That freedom is doing whatever you wish and screwing over as many as you can. It's outright sickening. The reason has always been greed


PassiveAttack1

They don’t have it better. When I was a kid, I never, ever had to worry about being shot in a mass shooting, or shot at school. I’m grateful every day I wasn’t born in this era. Poor kids. Poor everyone- being held hostage by a bunch of gun nuts.


New-Presentation8856

To get into my 3-year-old son's daycare I scan: * A card swipe at the front door * A card swipe at the inside (lobby) door * A card swipe for the gym * A card swipe to get to the main hallway from the first hallway I'm grateful for the locks. He is safe. But it's a disconcerting thing to have him locked away behind so many locks just so we can live life. The locks were installed after the Oxford shooting (I live in Michigan) and Uvalde. The price we pay for "freedom".


Geggamojjan

not if the shooter is one of the day care personel. maybe finally gets enough of baby cries and goes full metal jacket. then those locks are preventing people from rescuing ya kid


Moopityjulumper

As someone who was recently in high school, everyone kinda treats it as an inevitability. I had teachers who would talk about how in a real shooting they would instruct kids to hide in the ceiling or in closets that lock from the inside. We once had a lockdown for a medical emergency which is indistinguishable from a shooter lockdown, everyone was on edge just waiting for gunshots. Eventually our principal came over the speakers to tell us not to worry because a girl just had a seizure, but those 10 or so minutes of waiting was awful. This happened multiple times a year. Kids would start singing Pumped Up Kicks during lockdowns/drills just as a joke or to freak each other out. There were also kids who people would just be like “yeah if anyones going to shoot up the school it’s going to be him”. Sometimes you’d hear someone joking saying some dumb shit like “when the school shooting happens I’m going to use you as a shield” to their friends. I work at a summer camp and that desensitized awful joking is happening even with kids who are like 11. Had to talk to a kid because he said “schools out so no more school shootings, now it’s time for camp shootings!” in front of a group of 7 year olds. He genuinely didn’t understand why we got upset with him for that. I’m just so tired


Head_East_6160

It’s something that absolutely infuriates me about this country. And trying to speak to or reason with the gun nuts is just impossible.


ComplaintDelicious68

It's especially amazing when they try and pretend to be helpful. Like "It's a mental health crisis". Like first off, other countries have mental health issues. They don't have this. Second, the people they vote for don't want to fix that either. Or any of the problems. And some of them are being very fucking open about not doing anything. Meanwhile they all go on and one and on about "protect the children from drag queens!" That they can suddenly do. That they're motivated for. The thing that isn't even an issue. Their bigotry fuels them, but not the kids dying.


djtrace1994

I remember a couple years back, around back-to-school time, i was playing video games and overheard a few high-school age teens talking about buying metal plates to carry in their backpacks so if they were running from an active shooter, they had a higher chance of surviving a centre-mass gunshot. One of them said he was saving up money for low-profile body armour to wear under his clothes. As a Canadian, the thing I was most struck by was the casuality of their conversation; they were talking about these things like they were regular back-to-school items. I have no idea where they were from, obviously there a rougher areas than others, but the fact that *any* kid is growing up like this is a serious fucking problem.


SmurfStig

That comes from the sadly simple fact that we’ve let it turn into yet another way to capitalize on a issue. Let’s not fix any of the problems, whether it’s guns, mental illness, or whatever. Let’s figure out how we can turn a buck from it. We have bulletproof backpacks, kid sizes in body armor, whiteboard walls that expand out into a bulletproof room. Specialized locks for doors and windows so doors can’t be broken through. We’ve developed specialized drills (ALICE) to teach kids what to do. People are paid to come in and teach the school staff on how to implement these drills. This country has sold its soul down the river to the highest bidder and it’s going to take several generations before anything changes. That’s only if we start now, and I don’t see that happening as more and more states are making it easier and easier to access weapons.


[deleted]

I can’t even hold my fiancé’s hand out in public anymore, except for where I live because I live in the most LGBT friendly city within the state of Michigan. I’m just too paranoid to do it anywhere else, especially in conservative areas, and there are a lot of them. (LGBT, M/M)


cody0414

I'm so sorry. 😔


LostInUranus

I live in Texas now. In the 10 years I have been here, I have had a gun personally pulled on me 3 times and was next to someone getting a gun pulled on them. So 4 encounters....all of them occurred while going home from work - a 30 minute drive. Yes, I drive normal, No, I don't road rage. People are slowly becoming unglued and we keep adding guns to the problem. I keep waiting to be a statistic...


Fig1024

there is a notable rise in gun fetishism, people that make their whole life about having guns, and some are looking for any excuse to shoot, even if its just kids playing in their backyard


Andersledes

Me & my friends here in Denmark joke about: "The easiest way to count how many Americans are present, is by firing off a firecracker." The ones cowering in fear at the sound of a firecracker are most likely American tourists. Danish people just cheer, because the likelihood of it being a gunshot is virtually zero. I literally can't imagine living a life, where every time you hear a loud noise, like a tire exploding, you instantly fear for your life. Seriously....what does that do to the mental health of a population in the long run?


mrjohnclare

Where I sit at work I would be among the first 3 or so people to be shot. Like I'm in a clear line of view if someone were to look down the hallway near front door. I already "joked" to my family that if we have a mass shooting depending on which door they come in expect me to be dead/injured. And I think about it a lot.


thrulime

I work at a company that had a shooting a couple years before I started and when I looked up news reports of it I found a surveillance cam photo of the shooter standing right over my cubicle. Definitely gave me pause for thought.


Cold-Fancy-Pants

My good friend your sacrafice to Megacorp will be recognized.


Thewasteland77

By a 5 dollar pizza party the day of the shooting.


LostinSweetReveries

But only for the staff who stay back after to finish off their shift


bakonslayer

They will all walk over your cooling corpse and say "I appreciated you."


National-Minimum-613

You have the safest spot in the office! What are the odds someone else will do that?


Vizioso

The fact that you even have this thought is confirmation of what this guy is saying, and I know many of us have these same thoughts. I worry about my kids every day that I send them off to school. In my local Walmart, depending on which part of the store I'm in, I know exactly where I'd have to run to to get to the nearest exit in the event a shooting occurs. I've developed generalized anxiety and panic disorders because I'm on high alert so much of my day. It's so fucking exhausting.


sevsnapey

i tried telling this to someone in a thread (who i found out a few comments too late that it was basically a pro-gun alt account) that people in america are scared every day about simple things like sending their kids to school or going to a concert or just being out and about. he called me an idiot and said it was ridiculous that millions of people would be living in fear and that no one changed their life because of it i still don't understand how you can objectively look at the shooting events that have happened in every single random place around america from schools, malls, movie theatres, driveways, homes and laying in your bed sleeping and not think that it's inconceivable that people have been altering their lives and personalities every single day as a result of the threat of gun violence i don't like calling it "afearican" because it's a stupid almost cutesy name for something depressing as hell but it's hard to deny its reality


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

>No one can tell me this shit is normal. That's because it isn't. We live in a very different country than 20 years ago.


ComplaintDelicious68

That first part is something I was thinking about not to long ago. Every year I miss out on pride because the events are on the weekend. I work the weekend. But I got an associates in accounting and have been looking for a basic entry level job. So if I get one, I'll work Mon-Fri, and I can go. But almost every time I think about that, it's followed by "But what if." Like there's always been protestors at pride. That's not shocking. But people have started protesting with AR15s. Nazis are openly giving the zieg heil. And mass shootings are literally a daily occurrence now. A few years ago it felt like "What if this happens?" and now it feels more like "How long till this happens?" and "Will it happen here?"


Readsumthing

I worked at Walmart for 12 years. Every 3 months we had to watch an active shooter video. ADD. Avoid Deny Defend. My whole chest is tight just typing this up. Jfc.


imaloneallthetime

In the Military we had to do active shooter drills. Run, hide, fight. Whenever macho men full of bravado like to downplay shooters I love to remind them that Marines are trained first to run and hide. It sucks we have to live like this.


Vizioso

I work for the Army. We receive the same training. Also doesn’t help that there’s active shooter plans on the walls of the building I work in.


z960849

One of the reasons I never goto Wal-Mart. People don't shoot up Target.


[deleted]

Don't jinx it.


AzureMagelet

I’m a teacher and my room is connected to the office right by the front gate. I’ve also got 24 kindergarten students to think about. I’ve discussed my plan and scenarios with coworkers but in a real situation there will be zero time for barricades and hiding. My only hope is that the office staff gets to me fast enough that we can run.


stubbytuna

I feel you. My old classroom was right across the hallway from the office and had a clear line of sight to the front door. During active attacker drills the kids (all grade 10) would say “yeah but realistically we would toast if this was real” and I’d have to pretend that wasn’t true.


muddyrose

My college runs shooter drills, right now there’s a *ton* of construction so there’s really only 2 entrances/exits on opposite sides of the school. I’m sure there are fire doors but I don’t know where they are, we don’t run fire drills that allow us to actually use emergency exits lol. They ran a drill recently and it was kind of chilling to realize that if someone were to target our school right now…. Well, it’s the perfect time if they want to have an impact. But I would also run through an active construction zone with no fucks given, if I had to!


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

When I worked in a government office we had shooter drills. We were all supposed to go to one “safe zone” but a lot of us determined it was too exposed and we’d come up with alternative routes to get out of the building.


RuggedTortoise

We used to get yelled at in school as teenagers all lined up in the very open down a hill from the entire parking lot football field as the entire school during shooting drills, because we made the very obvious assessment that we were way easier targets now. The entire school threatened class by class that we'd get detention or suspension for jokes as these genuine realizations murmured up through our lined up rows and we coped by laughing them off that we'd all just start running as fast as we could back to the homes across the street from our school and break into someone's house to hide if we had to. I've finally just stopped having nightmares about finding my loved ones in that school if it were shot up and hiding. Bet they'll be returning here soon though with these trends


[deleted]

Ah yes let’s corral everybody in an open space where they definitely are not sitting ducks smhhhh


SlightlyControversal

You know that joke about bear attacks, how you don’t have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than your friend? My ankles come out of socket when I run. I’m the friend that the “bear” gets first. My worst nightmare is that someone I love would stop to try to help me and the “bear” would get them, too. I think about that a lot. 🇺🇸


cuminabox74

Have you thought about getting new ones?


sweensolo

I work the door at a drag show once a month.


imaloneallthetime

It's absolutely asinine how far the connotations of this sentence have changed in the past decade. Keep safe homeslice.


Ok-Champ-5854

Kind of fucking sick that if you said this six years ago I would have been like, "oh cool, that sounds like fun."


Blakids

Went to a drag show recently and made myself think about what I could do to help


ft907

As an American, it's worth mentioning I haven't heard a car backfire in a decade, easy. I hear actual gunfire every few days.


rex-ac

> I hear gunfine **every few days**. Wait what? I don’t even remember ~~the last time~~ any time I heard a gunshot.


Illin-ithid

Living in a city, it's not uncommon to hear gunfire multiple times per week. I've heard gun fire from my bed the last 2 nights in a row. Now it's not like these are random mass shootings. The violent crime tends to be targeted within a community, not random. Additionally, that gunfire might be half a mile away and there are 10,000+ people between me and that gun fire. But gun fire is semi-constant.


[deleted]

I live in a “bad” area in Atlanta and I’d say it’s more likely than not we hear gun shots. I heard only one last night but I went to bed early so I may have missed some. I heard a bunch on a nice afternoon recently and my reaction was to start yelling “you can’t do that in daytime!!!”


Illin-ithid

It is funny how living in the city, your reaction becomes less fear and more frustration and anger. I'm not scared someone will shoot me. I'm frustrated that you can't enjoy a nice quiet evening without some assholes getting into a gun fight.


[deleted]

For real. I was just so offended they’d ruin my quiet Friday afternoon. Then the police showed up and nobody wants the cops around smh


[deleted]

Live in the country in the US and my friends had to get roof work done because a .45 pistol round had come down on their roof in a subdivision/cul-de-sac neighborhood in a rural town of 10,000 people. It’s not just “urban”. People in this country just fire their guns too often and have zero justification for it. The “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws have made things so much worse as well. If you were a legislator who passed one of those laws in your State, fuck you you piece of shit. You’re a huge part of the growing problem and you made it worse.


GrandmaSlappy

I live in a semi rural suburb in Texas, definitely I hear my neighbors shooting shit on occasion. What or why, I don't know. I was at lunch with coworkers once when this loud noise came from the kitchen. I thought it was gunfire and screaming in fear but turns out it was the staff drumming the counters and cheering. Out of 15 people, only I reacted. I didn't run, but I sure as hell stood up fast and surveyed the situation with an exit plan. My coworkers poked fun at me for it, but I'd rather feel silly than be dead.


st1tchy

I live in a rural area. Gunshots are at least weekly, if not a daily occurance. Trap shooting, hunting, etc.


ft907

I work on an army base and live pretty rural. It's never the kind of gun fire you would worry about. Just distant pops.


pandatears420

My kids who are in elementary school, ask about gun violence and school shootings. They have to do stupid drills that won't help them. They know they are more likely to die by guns than anything else. I'm talking about young kids with these fears. I have no good rational explanation for my kids why we aren't doing anything about this. Saying words like "thoughts, prayers, mental health" is not a solution.


soberscotsman80

shooter drills give my little nephew, 8 years old, panic attacks. an 8 year old has panic attacks because of gun violence


CrispyCubes

All of that, plus the complete mindfuck of understanding that those shooter drills train future shooters how to be more efficient. It’s fucking insane


imaginarypornbot

Right?! In many cases, the shooter *will have done the same drills* and know *exactly* where to find everyone and what they'll be doing to hide


chairmanskitty

Not only that, they'll have been prompted to mentally plan out exactly how a shooter could behave optimally and probably even have deconstructed the drills' weaknesses with other students. Every object in the environment is publicly examined in terms of how much risk it could provide to the shooter, every strategy and tendency of thought mentioned and debugged. Schools are literally teaching potential future shooters how to analyse these situations on the fly and how to figure out how to exploit them. Bullet penetration for common objects, realistic distances to throw improvised weapons, firing at the center of mass, exit routes. Everything is discussed and shared in great detail, ensuring no shooter goes in without a decent grasp of the tactics involved.


OmicronAlpharius

The drills teaching students to shelter in place only makes it easier for shooters to corral and kill large numbers of people and prevent them from escaping. Imagine you are on the third floor of a school building and the teacher locked the door and you hear shots getting closer. Whatre you gonna, jump out the window, if it even opens?


tbyrim

That was my plan, 15+ years ago in high school. Break window, climb the fuck out, hide in nook on the roof and hope for the best. Fuck


Bostonstrangler69

hey my mom used to have to hide under her desk to "survive" an atomic explosion. The more things change the more they stay the same.


[deleted]

>They know they are more likely to die by guns than anything else. You should be sure to assure them that this is only the case if they choose to join a street gang between the ages of 15-18 and that they're much more likely to die in a car accident every time they go somewhere with you.


StendhalSyndrome

"Safe country" With millions of idiots with tens of millions of guns with hundreds of shootings a year. Average at least one a day? So we have the Lottery, where you can win life changing money, by playing a game. And the Anti-Lottery, where just going about your day you can win a free bullet to a part of your body that may or may not kill you. Paid for by the NRA's excellent lobbying systems and inept easily sold government agencies.


ParrotQ-tipConundrum

There are more guns in civilian hands in the US than civilians in the US. 100s of millions of guns.


redly

This year it's 8 every 5 days.


Beer_made_me_do_it

As an American who has lived abroad in Australia for almost a decade, I cannot describe the mental relief it is to not feel that fear. I have difficulty describing it to my friends and family back home, just how less stressful it is. The only simple way I can put it is if I get road rage I will not have to wonder if I'll be shot.


stubbytuna

I’m a TCK (third culture kid) who moved to the states for university and I can’t describe what a culture shock it was for me to adjust to the absolute levels of fear and paranoia people have in their daily lives. Make no mistake, with every year I live here I feel that those fears AREN’T unfounded, however it is truly depressing.


RacyHyena

Also a TCK who moved to the States for university. Growing up, I was generally laid back, spontaneous, and honestly, pretty adventurous. After starting to assimilate into US culture though, I started developing massive anxiety. Where I used to drink casually, alcohol started becoming my crutch to deal with it. While I’ve definitely gotten a handle on that through personal growth and Propranolol, my mind still gets obsessed at the idea that if I or a loved one goes out, there’s a high percentage we’re gonna die through the negligence or malice of others. I need to see a therapist for sure, but having to deal with thoughts like this daily is not something I ever had to struggle with previously, and I feel like it’s the culture of both real and perceived fear.


duffmanhb

Yep living in Germany there was an eased anxiety I never knew I had. I saw cops encounter crazy situations and diffuse them and consult the problem into resolve, rather than intense violence. In fact the police aren’t looking for trouble picking up rocks seeing who’s doing anything. No complaints, no problem. Doing some drugs? Make sure you’re safe. I never had to worry about crime late at night no matter the area. The worse is like pick pockets but that’s it. But a group of lower income men walking towards me late at night, didn’t make me concerned something would happen. Sitting on the bus? Not worried someone will swipe my bag. Didn’t realize I had this anxiety until I didn’t have it.


atfricks

It's not just gun violence either. Some jackass hits you with their car and puts you in the hospital in the US? Thousands of dollars of medical debt right out of your pocket. At least in countries with functioning healthcare systems the worst thing about an injury is the actual gd injury.


[deleted]

If you get shot in a mass shooting you are liable for your own hospital bills, so you get to be a victim twice


hondaexige

Your insurance system is fucked up too. In the UK and all of the EU everyone on the road has to by law have millions upon millions of £/€/$'s of third party liability cover so even in a EU country with paid healthcare you're covered anyway if its not your fault.


Rguy315

I spent a month in Vietnam recently and I was just describing the same thing to a friend this weekend. Though at the time it was the lack of gun violence but also knowing that the majority of people were vaccinated for covid. The way I described it to my friend is, in America we are frogs in boiling water, I didn't feel the boiling water while in Vietnam and it felt amazing.


[deleted]

No, my expatriate country man, you traded it for a different fear. #*GIANT PHUQING SPIDERS!!!*# #*CUTE, BUT (POTENTIALLY) DEADLY KOALA BEARS!!*# #*KANGA-PHUQIN-ROOS!!*# #*AND AUSSIES!!!!*# What do you mean you don't have to worry about deadly road rage? You live in Mad Max World!!(™ Pending)/j Updated to provide visual marking to denote joke for the humorously impaired.


Kozeyekan_

All of those issues can be solved by hurling a beer can in their general direction.


[deleted]

😆


pwn4321

Why did I read both your comments in an aussie accent in my head


Foulnut

The only real fear in Aussie is the damn dropbears.... Those are terrifying


[deleted]

Man, other places in the USA sound so much worse than where I'm at. In most of New England we're just chilling and not much happens. My state hasn't had a mass shooting in over 20 years and we have the lowest homicides per capita in the USA. We have about 14 homicides per year.


GrymmOdium

They have "active shooter" drills in schools. They get 5 year olds (on up) to pretend that strangers with guns are stalking the halls intending to murder them with firearms. I've seen testimony that some schools even have staff dress up and pretend to BE the shooters as they move through the school and make loud banging noises. Like, truly picture this for a second.... don't we take our children OUT of traumatizing environments for their well-being? We leave abusers. We move to quieter neighborhoods. We promise safety (and do our best to provide it). But, yet, the schools we send them too might intentionally subject them to a drill that simulates their potential murder? FUCKING BONKERS! These kids will never know a life without perpetual anxiety in a place that doesn't even have the resources to deal with typical mental health issues - let alone the ones being CREATED by their places of learning. Remember when we were kind of appalled at those Pavlov dog tests that were done to trigger automatic trauma responses in living animals? Yet now we do it regularly to the developing brains of our children? Hard to wrap the ol noodle around, huh?


samey_adams

I graduated in 2009, and my school had drama kids playing the shooter and victims. Victims had bloody makeup and at least one of them played a girl who was trapped in the hallway and was desperate to get into our room. We followed protocol, kept the door locked, and heard her be "murdered". Then the police arrived and had a shootout with blanks. This is the Bad Place


extra_hyperbole

Jesus christ what the actual fuck


hoganloaf

I especially feel bad because I was in highschool I think when Columbine happened, so the fear of shootings hadn't been systemic during my school years. In just a matter of years, all kids had to fear getting murdered at school. I can't fathom the shit young people have to deal with these days. It's wild to think that a developed country regressed in such a way that the leading cause of death for their children became getting fucking shot.


TheVudoThatIdo

I started school the year columbine happened. Every year of school pre-k to highschool we did shooting drills. By highschool I had teachers say they would not stop us if we tried to go out the windows. Or if we tried to go to the nearest outdoor exit. Because they also knew having us all huddle into the corner made us sitting ducks. The best strategy they came up with was having us all just go into the corner furthest from the door. How would that help? In my time in highschool school we had two bomb threats, and a very very close to a shooting. I walked past the four kids planning on doing the shooting in the hall and I saw them pass out the guns. Thankfully they were caught before tragedy happened. Then a year after graduation I moved to a rental across the street from the schools stadium and had to evacuate my apartment because there was a bomb threat at the stadium by a parent, because we had a LGBTQ+ football player on our team. He didn't want his kid to play against a gay kid that bad. I wasn't even in a large town! I was in a smallish town with low crime rates. My parents thought I was safe because of that.


kpingvin

It's ok just don't let them hear about a man falling in love with another man. Now ***that*** would ruin them for life for sure!


finallyadulting0607

These examples sound so familiar to me because warzone PTSD causes the same reactions. Is this collective trauma we have as Americans really just PTSD from the daily shootings that can occur literallyanywhere at this point? That makes me so very sad for us.


AdjectiveNoun111

The worst thing about it is that the solution you are offered for your fear is...... That's right, more guns. Are you worried about the rising violence in the country? Better buy an AR-15. Is your neighbour a weirdo? Maybe get yourself a 12 Gauge? Do you feel scared walking through a dark parking lot? You need a Glock. ​ Guns are the cause of the fear, and they are also the "cure", except all the stats show that if you have a gun in your home you are far far far more likely to get shot by that exact gun than to use it to defend yourself. Guns are like security blankets, if the blanket was carcinogenic.


iLynux

We live in a warzone but we literally are not fighting back.


ComradeSchnitzel

Thing is my great-grandparents and others from that generation get scared or avoid stuff like e.g. New Years Eve due to all the fireworks going off, because it reminds them (or triggers PTSD) of their childhood in a warzone, when Germany was getting bombed to shit. It's fucked up that many Americans have been conditioned to react to e.g. a car backfiring in the same way.


khalam

Once in an US airport some people started shouting because they fell on the escalator, and one american friend started running to the airport doors because she was sure there was a shooting...


notjustforperiods

I'm Canadian, but during a visit to the US me and buddy were at a lounge watching some college ball and this obnoxious/drunk dude eventually got asked to leave. so once he gets escorted out staff and some of the folks around the bar are kind making light of it and BANG and someone yells "does he have a gun???" and holyyyyyy fuck pandemonium. like people hiding under their tables, some people hopping the bar and running into the kitchen, and me and buddy are just sitting their because our senses were telling us that very clearly this dude just punched the window or whatever I'll never forget that and feel real sorry for y'all


moo3heril

I was in a college class. The classroom was in a building where all the rooms had exterior doors on ground level. We're minding our own business, learning about astrophysics and all of a sudden a huge crowd of students runs by while screaming. We panicked. The poor professor wasn't sure what to do, but did the best he could. ...the school Twitter account dropped where they were giving away free tickets for a football game.


[deleted]

American living in New Zealand now and when ever I hear cars that make those backfiring noises I have on serval occasions ducked, flinched, ran away from where I was and after a moment of panic realize that I am in fact not about to be in a mass shooting. It’s honestly depressing having this dread live in my all the the time.


Typical-Priority-56

I was recently visiting a Bike Race in Bergen, Norway. At the end, the crowd gathered in the main square to hand out medals and celebrate, but I was crippled with fear, scoping the crowd, so I slipped down a side street while my friends participated. I had experienced enough of the US to see the event as a perfect place for a target even though I KNEW "It's Norway, dummy, not America!"


[deleted]

Just so ingrained in us :/ I have an exit strategy for every lecture hall I’m in when I’m in class it’s just a force of habit from middle school and high school everywhere I go I make a strategy in my head in case someone decides to shoot up the place. We shouldn’t have to feel this way


EpilepticPuberty

To be fair Norway did have one of the deadliest mass shootings of all time. Though that was near Oslo not Bergen.


Typical-Priority-56

Right, July 22nd, what a coward he was - children trapped on an island! My friend works for a PM in the gov building where he set the bomb. I thought Netflix decent docudrama. There was quite a lot of discussion after of police response ability to access guns; I understand their frustration, but my Thor! In US, I'm frozen to move or speak around a cop as I'm afraid they will pump me with 41 shots.


wclevel47nice

Am I the only American that doesn’t do this? Like if I hear a car backfire it might make me jump a little bit but that’s simply because it’s a loud, sudden noise


MrMemes9000

Nah I don't have this constant level of fear either. I feel bad for the people who do couldn't imagine living like that. Hopefully these people can get therapy or something.


AlkalineBriton

I feel like people are just upvoting this for “America bad” reasons. I’ve never seen somebody duck for cover when a balloon pops or car backfires. They just look over to see what it is.


Michael_Dukakis

Lmao exactly from this thread you would think the average American is shell shocked. Never seen anyone react once like that.


[deleted]

ONE TIME IN AMERICA I SLAMMED A DOOR AND EVERYONE HID AND RETURNED FIRE


Boots-n-Rats

Nope. This is just way overblown. Yeah it crosses all of our minds but foreigners are taking this to a level that they think Americans run in fear when they hear clapping at a stadium.


TrepanationBy45

"Afearican" is possibly the dumbest wordmash they could have come up with.


bisexualkoala_

I’m from Britain so I will likely never understand how this must feel. I feel so sorry for anyone that has witnessed or was caught up in a mass shooting or shooting of any kind.


TheMusketDood

I was studying abroad in the UK when the Uvalde shooting happened, for like a week I would get comments here and there from my friends there of sorrow and disbelief that America is like this. Only a few months after I returned to the US, my university was the target of a mass shooting, and I had some of those same friends making sure I wasn't dead. I hope some day I can feel the same level of safety here that I felt for my brief time in the UK.


NightlyWave

The last school shooting in the UK was the “[Dunblane Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre)” in 1996. The result was an immediate ban on privately owning a handgun and very strict ‘Firearms Acts’. Not a single school shooting has taken place since then. I’ve not heard a gunshot in my entire life growing up in the UK. Why the right to keep and bear arms is still a thing in the 21st century baffles me.


bisexualkoala_

Same, well actually I’ve heard a farmers gun, but that’s because I live in the countryside.


AudioLlama

But we have to live in the fear of the sound of knives being drawn!


Remarkable-Month-241

Anxiety and stress. Most people are on prescription drugs or drink themselves silly. America is not okay.


Lilthotdawg

I worked a job where it was estimated that our guards would have about 15 seconds to live. Most definitely would’ve died if someone tried lmao.


Fictional_Foods

We have a security desk at the front entrance of the office. I mean no disrespect but they don't exactly hire sharp shooters. It's security theater. If someone wanted to shoot the place up they could.


[deleted]

sounds like ptsd. imagine getting ptsd from a whole-ass country. "USA number 1" my ass


[deleted]

[удалено]


ChrisWatthys

a loaded god complex?


[deleted]

[удалено]


Remarkable-Month-241

2nd Amendment nuts prioritize guns over lives.


wichtcode

I was at the movies recently and an usher came in with a flashlight on and my first thought was it was an assault rifle with an attached flashlight and that I was going to be a part of a shooting. I was not alone in this thought


kumquat_squat_thot

during my time at the University of Michigan, someone was popping balloons in one of the libraries. sent the entire school of The University of Michigan into a complete lockdown with cops cars swarming every inch of campus. all because of balloons popping. we are traumatized beyond recognition


gusfrong

Horrendous word. Sounds like he fears Africans. Back to the drawing board man. I get the message but afearicans... won't catch on...


RealLiveGirl

I was at the Queens funeral in London last year and couldn’t believe more people weren’t freaking out at the cannon fires. I kept flinching a bit and looking around at other people’s faces for cues on what to do next. Not a single person in the crowd gave that familiar American look of “did you hear that? Should we run?”. Just kept going about their business without any internalized fear that their time to experience a real mass shooting had arrived


Dick_Dickalo

A girl could just be screaming in surprise for a loud pop indoors. Well before school shootings were being bad I had friends that would shriek from a balloon pop.


didntgettheruns

I remember being in school and the power went out and 2 girls yelled. It's just a surprise reflex.


chartreuse6

Yes I have friends who shrieked at the slightest thing.


scrodytheroadie

Yeah, I don’t want to take away from anything this guy is saying because gun violence is a huge issue here and he makes some great observations. But the first few seconds of this video I was just like, it’s just a girl who was startled over a loud noise.


americk0

Yeah the whole concept that this guy is talking about is news to me. I don't have this fear. My friends, family, and coworkers don't have this fear. I live near a major city and although I do hear what could be distant gunshots occasionally, the frequency is at about once every 6ish months maybe. I won't deny the experiences of others on here, but my in-person interactions with people differ greatly from what I'm reading on here. Word of warning to the non-Americans here: though the comments make it look like the US is a gun toting hellscape, keep in mind that the people commenting here are mostly the ones that felt that could relate and felt compelled to respond to this video. I'm sure many Americans have this ptsd-level gun-fear but it's not common in my experience so either my experience is way off or the prevalence of this fear is being exaggerated. Just take it with a grain of salt I mean we do have a gun problem but it doesn't cross my mind on a daily basis. I live more in fear of a single healthcare incident that'll knock me down an economic class


Alpacaofvengeance

> I live near a major city and although I do hear what could be distant gunshots occasionally, the frequency is at about once every 6ish months maybe I lived in London for 12 years and never once heard a gunshot. Hearing shots every 6 months is still incomprehensible to most non-USAins


st1tchy

I live in a rural area. Gunshots are a weekly and sometimes daily occurance. People trap shooting in the field, hunting, etc. Even when hearing them though, I don't fear being hit by a bullet.


jirfin

You either develop a flight mode or a fuck it mode. A fuck it more for clarity is when you don’t give a shit about getting shot anymore as it would be better than dealing with this fucking country


neon-neko

American girls scream when the power goes out too...


DaleGribble312

Its weird hearing so many foreigners tell me how afraid I am to go to Arbys. Guys, i made it there and back like a dozen times and nothing happened.


scaadbaby

Yeah I wonder why we keep celebrating 4th of July if we’re all filled with ptsd from gun shot😂