/townhall/ - Townhall

No. There's no real reason to. Mostly just misinformation and lack of understanding for what the AR15 actually is.

Probably

>>>/pony/1034658
>Most of the deadliest mass shootings in America used these AR-15 weapons.
That's a correlation, but it doesn't show any causation.  If the deadliest high-speed car crashes involved red-painted cars, would you want to ban the use of red paint on cars?  

>Nitpicking, avoiding the real issue.
I'd argue that it isn't nitpicking but rather addresses a central issue: Are AR15-style weapons any more deadly than traditional hunting rifles?  I'd answer this question negatively.  And thus I see no reason to ban either AR15-style rifles (e.g., left side of pic related) or AR15-style pistols (e.g., right side of pic related).

>2017 Law Vegas shooting. 58 killed, 413 wounded.
That was with a bump stock, not an ordinary AR-15.


>2016 Orlando Nightclub shooting. 49 dead, 53 wounded. 2012 Sandy Hook shootings. 26 killed, mostly children.
The number of people killed by drunk drivers is more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of people killed by people wielding so-called 'assault weapons'.  Should we ban alcohol?

>>4948
>And thus I see no reason to ban either AR15-style rifles (e.g., left side of pic related) or AR15-style pistols (e.g., right side of pic related).
Oops, I posted wrong picture.  Here is the pic I wanted.

>>4948
The sale of alcohol is regulated, and drunk driving is illegal. We take steps to prevent drunk driving deaths, even if you cannot completely prevent them. That's what this would be. A step to prevent mass shooting deaths.

>>4947
The third most deadly shooting, Virginia Tech, was done with semi-auto pistols.
The 6th most deadly was also a handgun.
And it's not like the AR-15 is the only rifle used, anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States

Handguns've been used for many mass shootings for ages, and as I understand it, make up the majority.
They're certainly far more prominent in crimes, besides. Leading to the outlook of many gun owners on this particular subject that it's not something based in reason or logic, but rather just flat emotion, paranoia, and a lack of education. Especially given the things always chosen to ban, being largely just attachments that do little besides make the firearm more comfortable for the shooter.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/

>>4950
>The sale of alcohol is regulated, and drunk driving is illegal.
The sale of AR-15s is even more regulated than the sale of alcohol, and committing mass shooting is even more illegal (in the sense of carrying higher penalties) than drunk driving.

>>4952
>>4951

Are you saying that mass shootings are unavoidable? Because most other countries don't have a mass shooting problem. So that's a faulty argument. It's possible to prevent mass shooting more than we are.

>>4946
>Mostly just misinformation and lack of understanding for what the AR15 actually is.
I agree.  To quote myself from a few days ago on /ef/:
>As I learn more and more about firearms, laws against so-called """assault weapons""" make less and less sense.
( https://www.ponychan.net/ef/res/379246.html )

>>4954
>Are you saying that mass shootings are unavoidable?
I'm saying that banning AR15-style is a wrong way to go about addressing the problem of mass shootings, just like banning red automotive paint would be a silly solution to the hypothetical I posed in >>4948.  And, just to re-emphasize: My position is that the difference between AR15-style weapons and traditional hunting rifles is akin to different paint jobs on cars.  

>>4954
My stance is more if it's on principle, there's a lot of other stuff to ban.
There's a lot of ways I think you could address mass shooting events without punishing law abiding people

>>4956
>>4957
What ways would you suggest preventing mass shootings besides regulating the weapons used to commit them?

>>4958
For schools, better security and evacuation.
Duck and cover never worked well anyway. Doubly so for a shooting scenario. You are just asking for people to crowd together as easy targets

There is a lot of stuff I would change in schools to help get rid of the general isolation and hopelessness, as well, but that's a bit a wider scope I think than this thread. And, honestly, that'd take a while to implement anyway. Main one is getting people out of the area during these events. Scattering is the best way to survive

>>4958

There haven't been any school shootings in a couple months now.  I suggest moving education entirely within the home.  If you don't put the bettas next to each other, they won't fight.

>>4960
>>4962
I didn't say "school shootings". That's moving the goal post. I said mass shootings.

>>4963
For the general random area stuff, I don't really think there's anything you can do that's practical.
I mean, you can't force churches to have armed security.

Best I can say is, don't let police get away with sitting around waiting for "backup" when lives are on the line.

This thread seems to be unproductive as it seems like a lot of unjustified assumptions about a lot of things.

The availability of AR-15s is not the only factor on why mass shootings and other forms of violence against other people. Remember, the reason the shooters went in and shot up the school at all was cause the bombs they planted didn't detonate. So maybe focusing on the means of killing is kind of missing the point?

And no, violence is not inevitable. That's the kind of logic that screams "negativity bias". The reasons why countries with gun ownership rights similar to our own have such lower rates of violence than the U.S. is because of that one thing no one seems to want to own up to, or seem to want to make an effort to change, and that is our country's gun culture.

We romanticize gun violence way too much in our national mythologies and in our media in general. We constantly want to paint a rosy and glorious picture of the liberating power of gun violence, and we glorify unfettered thoughtless vengeance against those we perceive (or convince ourselves) as having done us wrong in some ways (real or imagined) is it any wonder that we so often have those who would fall back on gun violence as a solution to their problems? Or to get revenge before committing suicide?

>>4970
>>4970
>Remember, the reason the shooters went in and shot up the school at all was cause the bombs they planted didn't detonate.

Which incident are you specifically talking about? America has had a numerous mass shootings in the past decade.

>>4964
Again, other countries don't have the same problems with mass shootings America does, so it isn't impossible to prevent them at all.

>>4971
And those countries have a lot of other issues besides.
It isn't like they don't have mass killing events anyway, though, so I would question whether you'd actually save lives or just change the means.

Besides that, those countries have quite different circumstances by large between culture spread and population.

>>4970
That culture isn't really unique to America. Though, I also take issue with the framing it as "gun culture" besides. It's simply the way media and stories have gone since the Greeks.
I'm skeptical of the claim we've got some radically higher rate of violence as well

>>4963
>>4964

Perhaps a bit more isolation would help in general.  Children are pretty restricted in their movement, after all, so preventing them from going to school was enough to stop the killings.

I propose we also take away the ability for people to drive.  Not only would this reduce car accidents (and incidents), another leading cause of death, but if people can't go places they can't shoot up those places.

>>4974
Honestly, and this is a controversial take I know, I think a major help would be getting rid of the zero tolerance to violence policies.
For one, it leaves victims of physical abuse with fear of consequences should they resist, and two, leaves those facing social bullying which can absolutely be as if not more damaging with no recourse.
That, though, likely requires more of a shift in the way lawsuits by upset Karens are handled. So it's probably not realistic.

I presume the driving access thing is not serious? If it is, at least in America driving is largely required if you want to get your basic necessities, let alone work or otherwise participate in the economy.
It's a very spread out country.

>>4975

We're on a discussion board,  so I'm willing to call it serious.

>at least in America driving is largely required if you want to get your basic necessities, let alone work or otherwise participate in the economy.

If it was concluded that this is causing people to die, though,  wouldn't it be good to change?

>>4976
I just wasn't sure if you were making a point with it basically. People often go with the "well we should regulate pools then" type of deal, for instance, to push back at a line of logic in regards to gun control.

>If it was concluded that this is causing people to die, though,  wouldn't it be good to change?
Depends on your standards, I suppose. Lower liberty, I would personally say, is worse.
There's also the question of the cost to quality of life, and whether due to other effects caused by it, lives would be lost.

Needless to say in any case, it'd be hard to pull off. You would have to effectively revamp society from the ground up. Make sure population is entirely concentrated, for instance, so as to keep logistics manageable.

>>4970
I largely agree that culture of romanticizing gun violence is a major factor in mass shootings in the US.  And I'll go further and say that cultural problems are a major factor in most criminal shootings in the US.  Addressing these problems of culture is difficult, but if people spent as much effort on this problem as they spend on trying to ban certain cosmetic features, we might actually be able to significantly reduce the number of murders committed with firearms.

Part of the problem is the way that American news media does reporting on mass shootings.  They (unintentionally) glorify the shooter in some sense.  Instead maybe the government should cut off the shooter's head and put it on a pointed stick and encourage the media to use that image for their reporting.

>>4976
>If it was concluded that this is causing people to die, though,  wouldn't it be good to change?
It would be solution that is worse than the problem, like burning down your house to address a bedbug infestation.  More lives would be lost (due to economic devastation) than would be saved.

>>4978
>Part of the problem is the way that American news media does reporting on mass shootings.  
I can definitely agree there. It's the same reason why serial killers were a problem.
Media hype makes that an easy way to gain fame. For some, that's what they seem out.
The 24 hour news cycle is a net determent to society

>>4971
Apparently I only thought I typed out Columbine before shooter there.

>>4973

We have higher rates of gun violence per capita than a country like New Zealand which has some of the looser gun control regulations of other countries out there.

But New Zealand doesn't have a culture that glorifies war to the point that war themed mefia is one of the most popular genres of fiction in the united states. We hold up stories about people seeking violent vengeance using guns. We don't treat guns like a sewer system, like something disgusting but unfortunately neccessary in certain circumstances. We don't like acknowledging that weapons aren't toys so we pay that responsible attitude lip service on the one hand and fantasize about the possibility to be heroes with our weapons, sometimes to the point we treat those weapons as practically sacred.

We may not be unique in being a culture that has violence in our stories, but we are uniquely irresponsible in our glorification of weapon violence  framed as pure escapism rather than something with more complex moral themes surrounding it.

>>4978
> Addressing these problems of culture is difficult, but if people spent as much effort on this problem as they spend on trying to ban certain cosmetic features, we might actually be able to significantly reduce the number of murders committed with firearms.

Of course it would be difficult but it is the ideal solution. No one need to lose their right to defend themselves in those situations where law enforcement is too far away (or even hostile to those people of certain identities) and we can't really ignore or dismiss it just because it's difficult.


>Part of the problem is the way that American news media does reporting on mass shootings.  They (unintentionally) glorify the shooter in some sense.  Instead maybe the government should cut off the shooter's head and put it on a pointed stick and encourage the media to use that image for their reporting.

It's a two-way street. Whether or not a shooter ends up glorified depends on what the audience members bring with them when interpreting the news media. Not everyone will see the mass shoter as glorified by that, especially not quite so much outside of America.

The problem is that media is run for profit again, thanks to deregulation of the market. Mostly from the federal communications act of 1996 that,  amongst other things, lifted restrictions meant to be a check on media monoplization, in order to encourage expansion of media coverage, which, in theory, are supposed to be part of our country's "watch dog channels".

>>4979
>The 24 hour news cycle is a net determent to society

I disagree, it's only a detriment so long as we are not properly educated on media literacy.

Looking at news media as "all good" or "all bad" is over simolifying things. As I mentioned earlier, the fundamental point behind a free press is that it's supposed to act as part of our public watchdog channels.

But at the same time, so long as the press needs to secure revenue and make profits, they are going to need to compete for attention with all other news outlets, so they often have to fall back on the rule of thumb that "if it bleeds, it leads".

That doesn't mean the press is completely untrustworthy, it just means that you need to seek out multiple media outlets and apply critical thinking skills to parse out opinion from fact in media that blurs the two and figure out a more accurate version of the story yourself.

>>4980
>We have higher rates of gun violence per capita than a country like New Zealand which has some of the looser gun control regulations of other countries out there.
I do not know the specifics of new Zealand gun policy, but, aren't they fairly small Nation?
It seems like it would be a fair bit easier to police as a result.

>We hold up stories about people seeking violent vengeance using guns.
And since the era of the Greeks at bear minimum, violent stories of vengeance have been held up.
Again, I'm skeptical that this is a uniquely american thing.

>We don't treat guns like a sewer system, like something disgusting but unfortunately neccessary in certain circumstances.
Why on Earth would they be a disgusting thing? there is nothing unsanitary about it gun. There is nothing immoral about a gun. It is just an inanimate object.

>We may not be unique in being a culture that has violence in our stories, but we are uniquely irresponsible in our glorification of weapon violence  framed as pure escapism rather than something with more complex moral themes surrounding it.
I fundamentally disagree. Near as I can tell the only major factor with american media is that involves guns, rather than any other weapon. There is plenty of other foreign media that follows the same lines, and have followed the same lines for ages. "Escapism" likewise is not a uniquely american thing, and besides that, doesn't immediately mean they're are no moral themes involved in a story.
Look at anime. It's something quite commonplace there.

>>4980
>I disagree, it's only a detriment so long as we are not properly educated on media literacy.
Perhaps, but, I do not think we can get that media literacy.
Not for the majority of the population, in any regard. certainly not with the way that the education system work at the moment. My experience there is that if anything, education hurts that aspect, as priority is giving to repetition and memory of what was said elsewhere, over logical progression and rational thinking.

Oh, and of course, this still leaves the aspect of fame and notoriety coming from a media attention.

>Looking at news media as "all good" or "all bad" is over simolifying things.
To be sure, which is one I directed my complains at the 24 hour cycle.
Not all news is bad, of course. 24 hour cycles seem to have little to no advantage as I've seen however.

>But at the same time, so long as the press needs to secure revenue and make profits, they are going to need to compete for attention with all other news outlets, so they often have to fall back on the rule of thumb that "if it bleeds, it leads".
This is only if they decide to be the best.
This is the thing; you don't have to be EA.
You can make a game company that's decent, produces good content, and does it in an ethical way. You can earn more than enough money this way.
You won't be the best doing it this way. Not in terms of raw profit. But that is not required.

This is something of a problem with the way that stockholders work. People with no interest in the company beyond what they get out of the money in it, no interest in the field or what they produce, will ultimately only care about the growth of that company. Everything else is meaningless, as it does not matter to them, only the profits do.
That's a bit of a different subject in its entirety, but, suffice to say, I am rather heavily against investment and stocks which control over companies.

>That doesn't mean the press is completely untrustworthy, it just means that you need to seek out multiple media outlets and apply critical thinking skills to parse out opinion from fact in media that blurs the two and figure out a more accurate version of the story yourself.
Absolutely. However, I do not think that is a practical option for the general population.
If nothing else, simple time messes that up. A lot of people are working more than full-time. A lot of people have a lot of other things to do in there lives then simply research the latest news but they don't particularly care about.
And, too be quite honest with you, I do not think most people really care. A lot of it feels like little more than cheering your favorite sports team.

This aside of course, my earlier mentions of how the education system impacts this is of course still applicable.

>>4981
>>4981
>I do not know the specifics of new Zealand gun policy, but, aren't they fairly small Nation?
>It seems like it would be a fair bit easier to police as a result.

By transitive property, their police force is also smaller than the united states.

>Again, I'm skeptical that this is a uniquely american thing.

It's not, but the degree is unique in our culture, we literally produce such media basically in mass quantity on basically an annual basis. Historic cultures didn't have an industrialization of their media.

>Why on Earth would they be a disgusting thing?

Because they are weapons, designed to hurt or kill or coerce with the threat of either. People may love to fall back on calling it a tool, but it's still a tool of violence nonetheless and isn't designed for any other purpose.

Even if there are good arguments why it is ultimately better for people to have a right to them doesn't mean our culture needs to treat them as somehow more than just weapons.

In fact, I think the tendency to call them "tools" betrays this poor attitude towards guns, if one is too insecure to just call it a weapon.

>Near as I can tell the only major factor with american media is that involves guns, rather than any other weapon.

Yeah, it's an explanation why it's gun violence we have a problem with.

>There is plenty of other foreign media that follows the same lines, and have followed the same lines for ages.

Yeah, but it doesn't often involve guns, and usually doesn't frame it the way our media frames violence, again the point I was making about it is to explain why gun violence is worst in the United States, while conceding the points that anti-gun control crowd makes that are pretty valid (soundess varies though) such as the fact that the guns themselves don't drive people to kill and that yes, they can be neccessary to survive in rural areas, and yes there is even a good argument to make about the check on power that a gun may give to a person against corrupt authority. Also merely being exposed to violence isn't going to inspire someone to be violent. All that leaves as the most probable explanation for the disproportionate amount of gun violence in the United States is the attitudes and beliefs of Americans towards their guns.

>>4981
>"Escapism" likewise is not a uniquely american thing, and besides that, doesn't immediately mean they're are no moral themes involved in a story.

I mean, I never implicated escapism nor implied that it was unique to America. I was referring to aspect of typical American escapism into worlds were there are little, if any, moral complexities surrounding weapons and things like consequences. It's an escape to a reality where such morally complex situations never happen and things like war always has someone 100% in the wrong and someone else 100% in the right. And we have plenty of media that may pay lip service to such themes and morals while contradicting them via how guns and gun violence is framed as practically sexy.

>Perhaps, but, I do not think we can get that media literacy.
>Not for the majority of the population, in any regard. certainly not with the way that the education system work at the moment.

I mean, media literacy isn't something that requires that much education, so it's not like everyday people can't educate each other on these sorts of things, and it's not like there aren't plenty of free resources out there at the moment that can teach some really basic principles of media literacy, which are ... well, basically critical thinking skills combined with a bit of knowledge and awareness of things like common rhetorical strategies, biases and common logical fallacies.

It's just too bad we have a lot of GOP lawmakers who explicitly oppose teaching of critical thinking skills in public schools.

>My experience there is that if anything, education hurts that aspect, as priority is giving to repetition and memory of what was said elsewhere, over logical progression and rational thinking.

Yep, good old GOP and their opposition to anything that might "undermine parental authority".

>Oh, and of course, this still leaves the aspect of fame and notoriety coming from a media attention.

Which comes as a less than complete and less than useful explanation. A lot of people do things for fame and notoriety, but most of them don't use violence to get it. So then the next question is why someone might choose to gain fame and notoriety via mass murder and suicide with a gun? Where did they get the idea that the best way to end one's life is to get revenge against no one specifically or humanity "in general", when it's so much rarer for people in other countries.

>24 hour cycles seem to have little to no advantage as I've seen however.

It's a relic from the pre internet era, allowed people to tune into the news anytime they wanted to instead of having to wait till 6pm. It was more convenient.

There is nothing intrinsiclly special about 24 hour television news media that makes it especially more detrimental to society. It has nothing to do with how long it's on the air or how much content it has (most repeat the same news cyclicly in a 24 hour period anyway) but rather to do with how they maintain attention in the long term, which is not particularly unique to 24 hour news channels, they exploit negativity bias for consumers attention and use confirmation bias to build consumer loyalty.

>This is only if they decide to be the best.

The free market is essentially an elimination challenge. It's kind of why it has a tendency to monopoly/oligopoly. If you're to survive in your own niche, you have to meet a bare minimum of competitiveness, if you want your niche to remain your niche.


>This is the thing; you don't have to be EA.
>You can make a game company that's decent, produces good content, and does it in an ethical way. You can earn more than enough money this way.

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

>You won't be the best doing it this way. Not in terms of raw profit. But that is not required.

As I alluded to earlier, that's fine and all if you didn't have competition looking to take consumers away from you or else offer to absorb you into them peacefully.

>>4981
>This is something of a problem with the way that stockholders work. People with no interest in the company beyond what they get out of the money in it, no interest in the field or what they produce, will ultimately only care about the growth of that company.

Yes, this is the foundation of Capitalism, what sets it apart from other forms of free market systems. This is how it works. >>4981
>Everything else is meaningless, as it does not matter to them, only the profits do.
>That's a bit of a different subject in its entirety, but, suffice to say, I am rather heavily against investment and stocks which control over companies.

This is pretty much being against the fundamental driving force in capitalism. Not that I have a problem with this

>However, I do not think that is a practical option for the general population.

You mean, googling for an alternative source on a story you just read isn't practical? In the age of the smart phone?

>If nothing else, simple time messes that up. A lot of people are working more than full-time. A lot of people have a lot of other things to do in there lives then simply research the latest news but they don't particularly care about.

This isn't really a problem though if we just emphasize critical thinking skills and the justifications for it as a civic virtue. Sometimes it's as simple as just making sure to have a good grasp on the fact that if you only watch one news source you're only getting one perspective and let that indicate how much confidence you can justifiably have. Sometimes it's as simple keeping that in mind.

>>4981
>And, too be quite honest with you, I do not think most people really care. A lot of it feels like little more than cheering your favorite sports team.

Most people have a bias to see information that has no bias as being biased against them. It's a normal phenomenon of human cognitive psychology. You can't retain audiences if they think you're biased against them.

Of course, that's a cultural problem I would trace back to goid old fashioned American anti-intellectualism.

>>4984
>Because they are weapons, designed to hurt or kill or coerce with the threat of either. People may love to fall back on calling it a tool, but it's still a tool of violence nonetheless and isn't designed for any other purpose.
Some guns are designed specifically for competitive target shooting.

>>4984
>>4981
>>We have higher rates of gun violence per capita than a country like New Zealand which has some of the looser gun control regulations of other countries out there.
>I do not know the specifics of new Zealand gun policy, but, aren't they fairly small Nation?
>It seems like it would be a fair bit easier to police as a result.

New Zealand is a nation of about 5 million people in a land mass about the size of California. They have a culture of being laid-back and placid. Which is probably why their gun laws were so lax. They allowed a foriegner to purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles with no licence or registration of any of them. However, since they suffered their single massacre last year they have now made all semi-automatic weapons illegal, with an amnesty period and by-back policies. After only one incident they gripped it up fast.

>>4984
>By transitive property, their police force is also smaller than the united states.
Yes, but I was meaning in regards to volume of land. Though that too, I suppose.

>Historic cultures didn't have an industrialization of their media.
Sure, as a side effect of a massive development in economic ability and general quality of life, we can have people working dedicated careers producing media.
But, this doesn't mean that what media is produced, volume or otherwise, is due to some American cultural difference. Near as I can tell, that's par the course for media. Quantity is just the result of general prosperity, not some unique trait of culture.

>Because they are weapons, designed to hurt or kill or coerce with the threat of either. People may love to fall back on calling it a tool, but it's still a tool of violence nonetheless and isn't designed for any other purpose.
So?
Leaving aside the fact that many firearms aren't designed to 'hunt' or 'kill', in some cases being simply decorative and in others being made for sport shooting, killing isn't inherently wrong.
If you're some kind of pacifist type who is completely opposed to all kinds of violence, maybe I could understand. But, frankly, there's plenty of reasons to kill and that's not "disgusting" or otherwise immoral.

>In fact, I think the tendency to call them "tools" betrays this poor attitude towards guns, if one is too insecure to just call it a weapon.
A sword is also a tool. As is any weapon

>Yeah, it's an explanation why it's gun violence we have a problem with.
But gun violence doesn't matter. Violence is violence. What specific tool is used is meaningless.
If someone's killed by a bread knife, they're just as dead as if they were killed with a gun.

We do not have a problem with "gun" violence. We have a problem with violence. The obsession with the tool used is one of emotion, not logic.

>Yeah, but it doesn't often involve guns,
So what? That doesn't matter. Violence is violence.
>and usually doesn't frame it the way our media frames violence
I'm very much not convinced of that. Near as I can see, it does frame it in exactly the same way.
>All that leaves as the most probable explanation for the disproportionate amount of gun violence in the United States is the attitudes and beliefs of Americans towards their guns.
We have "disproportionate amount of gun violence" because we have a lot more guns.
The question was never "do we have a lot of gun violence", it was "do we have more violence as a result of guns".

>>4984
>moral complexities surrounding weapons and things like consequences.
There are little moral complexities surrounding weapons.
It's how you use them that matters.
> It's an escape to a reality where such morally complex situations never happen and things like war always has someone 100% in the wrong and someone else 100% in the right.
What media are you watching?
Most the stuff I can think of does the opposite of that, depicting the horrors of war near constantly, questioning the trade of sacrifice and the necessity of death within those.
Seems to me, as it pertains to war movies, it's the direct opposite there.
>And we have plenty of media that may pay lip service to such themes and morals while contradicting them via how guns and gun violence is framed as practically sexy.
I would suggest it isn't the 'violence' being portrayed as being sexy, as much as the circumstance and reason.

I can't recall any movie involving a mass murderer who kills indiscriminately and without purpose in a 'sexy' light.

>and it's not like there aren't plenty of free resources out there at the moment that can teach some really basic principles of media literacy,
Sure, but there's free resources for a lot of things out there. Doesn't mean everyone knows how to knit, or code in Python.
It's not realistic to expect the majority to suddenly do their own work and learn a new skill.

>It's just too bad we have a lot of GOP lawmakers who explicitly oppose teaching of critical thinking skills in public schools.
>Yep, good old GOP and their opposition to anything that might "undermine parental authority".
I find the blaming of the problem entirely on the "GOP" reductionist at best. Seems more a matter of rather heavy bias against them.
Don't get me wrong, they've got problems. But, they're certainly not the only ones at fault here.
Besides; Just look at colleges.
They're primarily left leaning, and yet they suffer the exact same issues, if not worse so.

> A lot of people do things for fame and notoriety, but most of them don't use violence to get it.
That strikes me as rather ignorant of history.
Throughout history, people've used violence to get notoriety.
There's countless outlaws of fame who did exactly that.
If you mean "most" in terms of the majority of people, sure, but the majority of people don't use notoriety to get fame, or for that matter really seek out fame themselves anyway.
> Where did they get the idea that the best way to end one's life is to get revenge against no one specifically or humanity "in general", when it's so much rarer for people in other countries.
Media attention on those events, mainly.
I'm not saying "media makes you do X", of course, but what it absolutely can do is make someone already willing to do X think of it.
Again, I'd say the same was the case for serial killers.

> It has nothing to do with how long it's on the air or how much content it has (most repeat the same news cyclicly in a 24 hour period anyway
I'd disagree. While they certainly repeat stories, they also seek them out more often. They make a fuss about exceptionally little things at times. They'll hunt down something when their ratings start to drop.
They'll rerun stories where they can, absolutely. But, they also seem to directly seek out additional stories besides, and end up making a panic out of nothing often.

>The free market is essentially an elimination challenge. It's kind of why it has a tendency to monopoly/oligopoly. If you're to survive in your own niche, you have to meet a bare minimum of competitiveness, if you want your niche to remain your niche.
That's a very old-fashioned way of looking at it. As it pertains to media, the content is always unique enough to maintain a niche.
The same is the case for the bulk of production.
It's only when you get into services such as repair or to some degree food that you run into the problem you describe. Even as it pertains to something like a chair, people will gladly pay for one based on its origins as opposed to buying a pre-assembled brandname one for cheaper.
This is largely thanks to the internet, as it has connected people beyond small towns and economic centers.

>Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.
Nonsense.
There's more than plenty of games all over the internet to demonstrate that's quite obviously not true.

>As I alluded to earlier, that's fine and all if you didn't have competition looking to take consumers away from you or else offer to absorb you into them peacefully.
Again, it's a very old fashioned mindset.
If you are producing the exact same content, sure. That will be a problem. Why would I buy battlefield from you when I can buy battlefield for cheaper next door?

But as it pertains to media, you are not selling the exact same product. The only area you get such problems in these days is service.

>>4984
>Yes, this is the foundation of Capitalism, what sets it apart from other forms of free market systems.
I'd call it corporatism, myself, but that's my preference to naming after the problem within. I do not think "capitalism" is this particular aspect, though perhaps I'm misinformed as to the specifics.

>This is pretty much being against the fundamental driving force in capitalism.
Driving force of corporations. Again; Your mindset for the necessities of the economy are exceptionally old fashioned, relevant for the era of factories and production based around necessity rather than luxary.
It's only really present beyond that within the service field, and of course corporations.

Reality is, a lot of people do what they do because it's what they want to do. They'll start up their own business because they want to do it, and can make enough money off of it to live comfortably. Potentially even luxuriously, if they expand. It doesn't require a cutthrought mentality. This is because capitalism has never been a zero sum game.

>You mean, googling for an alternative source on a story you just read isn't practical? In the age of the smart phone?
That's certainly not going to be enough.
Leaving aside issues with google itself and how they manipulate results, much of media repeats itself anyway. Hell, much of it is owned by the same people.
Much of it besides ends up sourcing eachother.

>This isn't really a problem though if we just emphasize critical thinking skills and the justifications for it as a civic virtue.
I rather think you overestimate how much people care about 'civic virtue'.
My experience, most people are lazy and do little more than what they're told.
I'll grant that's a pessimistic view, but, I do not think it's so far off from the average as to radically swing the majority around.

>>>/pony/1034440
>It feels like you have specific gripes with the way they handle certain regulations on guns rather than them being incompetent.
The ATF once wrote that a shoestring is machine gun.  Do you own any shoes with shoestrings?  Then guess what, the logical implication of the ATF's position (at that time) is that you are committing a federal felony by possessing your laced shoes!  And it took the ATF three years to realize the absurdity of their position and to correct it: now they only consider the assembly of shoestring + semiautomatic rifle to be a machine gun.