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I love to talk to conservatives about this since i used to be a HUGE conservative and gun owner, till i got out of certain echo chambers and realized what was going on.
I will gladly have a factual, calm conversation about why we need gun control now and why the GOP has left their base behind. But no one will even have this conversation because the instant they hear the words "gun control," they get really defensive and the whole conversation is ruined.
But thoughts and prayers...
You can't talk about gun control. You just have to do it. Talking about it is a political death sentence. Similar to trans issues on the left. It galvanizes more opposition than support despite being supported by the majority of people.
It's like handing free Red Bull to the NRA.
Nothing at all? No thoughts? No prayers?
Don't miscount their lack of action as a negligence. It's actually intentional because they want the mass shootings. When mass shootings happen, the Republicans jump up and clap hands with glee. They like that people are dying from their "lack of action". It furthers the police state that they want; kills voters that opposes them; undermines the premise of society's functionality in things like public education, public functionality, and the public's trust in rescue (remember that cop who stood outsidein Parkland?); and benefits their donors.
What do you mean nothing, "they are sending thoughts and prayers...."
The gop never does anything when there is a shooting. They don’t care and they never will.
I love to talk to conservatives about this since i used to be a HUGE conservative and gun owner, till i got out of certain echo chambers and realized what was going on.
I will gladly have a factual, calm conversation about why we need gun control now and why the GOP has left their base behind. But no one will even have this conversation because the instant they hear the words "gun control," they get really defensive and the whole conversation is ruined.
But thoughts and prayers...
Oh no
He slammed them
slams
FUCKIN HERE HE COMES FROM THE FUCKIN TOP FUCKIN ROPE, OOOOOOOOOH WEE!
Literally, but the sad truth we need to accept is that this is the only way most people engage with anything outside of themselves and their own world: through some dramatic narrative retelling in their heads.
It has been like this for millenia, since before we had words, we had series of images and imagined events chained together in our minds that made us feel things, or explained the way we felt.
We have the exact same brains we did tens of thousands of years ago, we are the same story-creature that rather understand the world through a story of heroes and villains than logic and understanding of systems.
This is what Trump capitalized on, likely drawing from his experience close to WWE and its owners and managers, to learn how people engage with media through cognitive dissonance, and he supplied narratives and dramatic retellings of complex stories to simple minds and won them over so thoroughly it's now basically a cult.
If we understood this sooner, we might have been able to get in the middle like Newsom is doing now, and create more engaging stories for them that serve greater good. But we thought ourselves better than that, and tried to scold, educate and demand more from a class of people who simply rather "see their wrestler win."
Honestly, I'm more tired of people bringing this up than of seeing it in headlines.
How news and headlines are presented are meant to grab your attention, and it's definitely working because they continue to do it!
Both written and spoken language are forever evolving, and right now this is how the news is written. Seeing nonsense comments like this on almost every single article is just boring and doesn't add anything to the discussion.
In a couple years headlines will be using some other hot ticket words to keep things fresh.
But “absolutely nothing” is what they’re good at.
Wtf does he want?! The GOP are sending all the thoughts and prayers they can over social media.
PRAY HARDER.
I occasionally listen to the local right wing radio show to check in on what bullshit they're saying.
They were going full speed ahead on the christian persecution complex, with not a single solitary fuck given to anything else, let alone preventative measures.
Well yeah, they have to take the Christian persecution angle on this one because they can't take the "this is what happens when you take God out of schools" angle.
If you’re looking for reason or logic, it won’t be there.
They’re just footsoldiering for PutinAnalytica and Reichbart.
As long as he is suggesting that we fix the societal issues we face and not disarm ourselves while a fascist gov is literally sending soldiers into the streets and arming ICE like they're in a fucking war...sure.
Yes, Governor Homelesssweep is very interested in tackling the root causes of crime, drug dependency, and homelessness.
You do realize that 49 states send us their homeless because they KNOW we take care of them right? Like I first hand delt with it as a bus driver and an officer says "He's on your bus. Take him somewhere." Several times.
O, I know he's suggesting we disarm ourselves, but I'd take him over the pedo any day...which is sad that the bar is that fucking low.
He's better than close personal friend of Jeffery Epstein, Trump, but I prefer to wait until after the primaries to start making the comparison. Maybe we'll get a real left wing populist candidate and the Trump backlash will be enough to push them past the establishment candidates like Newsom that the DNC is likely to favor. If we're stuck with an establishment candidates I'd prefer Andy Beshaer. He's a popular southern red state governor so I think he'd have a better shot than Newsom and the establishment candidates are all going to do pretty much the same thing.
I'm sure the white house will send out "thoughts and prayers" within the next few business days.
They were literally killed in the middle of "thoughts and prayers" it didn't seem to work for them. Maybe their god was one of the wrong ones.
They'll call it a hate crime against Christians and throw out the whole "most persecuted religion" argument out against.
Because they are so tired of being slammed they will now have national guard at all schools and streets and homes to choke hold compliance so a shooting like this never happens unless dear leader says so
Have they ever not done nothing ?
No, they sometimes tell their followers to go but more guns and ammo.
Serious question:
What do you want the GOP to do?
Banning guns isn't an option because of the 2nd Amendment.
Repealing the 2nd Amendment isn't an option because you need 290 votes in the house, 67 votes in the Senate and 38 States to ratify the change.
Confiscating 400 million guns? Do you really trust the GOP to go house to house taking guns away?
Look, it just happened this morning so we don't know EVERYTHING yet. The Chief of Police has said the shooter had no criminal record and bought the guns legally, assuming they had no mental health history that would have barred them, what do you want the GOP to do?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/robin-westman-minneapolis-church-shooting-suspect
"A search of state court records showed no criminal history for Westman, but some traffic citations in 2021."
https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-church-shooter-guns-permits/601462465
"Church shooter legally purchased rifle, pistol and shotgun"
If you leave it up to the GOP I guarantee their reaction will be to declare LGBTQ+ a mental illness and bar them from gun ownership based on that.
Why is it always straight to banning guns and “taking 400 million guns” when people say “what do you expect them to do?”
Gun control doesn’t mean taking away all guns, it means making sure that the people that have them are properly trained and responsible.
Maybe implement a voluntary gun buyback program and tighten up gun laws like Australia? Might not have prevented this case, but it's better than the old "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" approach.
Gun buybacks don't work.
https://journalistsresource.org/health/gun-buybacks-what-the-research-says/
Why? The prices offered are generally so low all they attract are ancient, unused firearms.
If you look at Australia's plan, they made most guns illegal and requested they be turned in which still only removed some 20% of available guns from the market, some 650,000 guns.
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/1996-national-firearms-agreement.html
To get a similar result, the US would need to run the program with the same level of effectiveness 123 times.
Even then, 20% of Americas 400 million guns would be 80 million, we don't have the logistics to collect and dispose of 80 million ANYTHING, much less guns.
Removing 20% of Americas guns would still leave 320 million guns out there. America is not Australia.
Thanks for the info. I know we're in a league of our own, but the numbers are interesting and sobering.
Maybe we should consider going in the opposite direction? Require gun safety and firearms training in elementary, middle, and high school; implement first time gun buyer programs for qualifying low income Americans; ban all concealed carry permits; allow firearms in your carry-on at the airport.
I'm being facetious, but California's Mulford Act shows Republicans can pass gun control laws if they're terrified that their outgroups are also armed. Though I'm sure a similar law today would be entirely partisan and only apply to their opposition or something. As a sidenote, I do think everyone should have at least a basic education in gun safety.
I'd love to see training programs, not just on safety but basic maintenance, cleaning, field stripping, that sort of thing.
There are millions of guns that simply are not safe to use and their owners have NO CLUE.
I admit, I was one of them. When my father and grandfather passed away, I inherited their guns. I took my grandfathers deer rifle to a local armorer to get it checked out because I wasn't qualified to do it.
Turned out, that particular make and model (Remington 721) had a known problem with the trigger that could cause it to misfire without touching the trigger.
https://youtu.be/NlzoMqtDUxs#t=3m57s
They cleaned it up and replaced the trigger mechanism, should be good for another 70 years.
They will just ignore it with some LGBTQ nonsense or immigration crap. All they do is deflect.