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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Ultimately, being truly afraid of mass shootings requires buying into the authoritarian narrative that you're at massive risk of victimization unless you surrender your means of defense.

I think this isn't quite charitable enough. Mass shootings are pushed into our faces multiple times a year, with extremely emotional language and the full might of the leftist media apparatus.

My rational brain can understand and regurgitate the undeniable fact that they're a statistical anomaly not worthy of consideration when looking at national policy. But my animal brain, if only for a second, is absolutely filled with horror at the thought of my kids bleeding out on a tile floor at school because of a subhuman monster. Nobody who spends any time on the internet or in front of a TV can avoid being shown these images, and there's enough statistically illiterate fools to bring it to you in face-to-face conversations as well.

I can state with certainty that the folks pushing for gun control from the top are pieces of shit. But I can also empathize with how horrible being even remotely close to a mass shooting would suck.

My main issue is that such an event that occurs ANYWHERE in the country is used to push fear everywhere in the country.

It makes no sense for someone residing in Oregon or Idaho to really feel unsafe because a shooting happened in Texas. It makes less than zero sense for an event that occurs in New York City (yes, even one that knocks buildings down) to strike fear into the hearts of people in Florida and California.

The homogenization of the national 'crimescape' is just absurd given the scale of this country and the diversity of cultural and socioeconomic demographics.