Summary
During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) repeatedly shouted an anti-trans slur despite objections from Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly.
She defended her remarks by attacking transgender rights and dismissing criticism.
The outburst drew condemnation from LGBTQ+ advocates and political figures, highlighting her shift from previously supporting LGBTQ+ rights to embracing anti-trans rhetoric.
Mace has used the slur in past statements and introduced legislation restricting transgender rights.
Before this year, I was absolutely anti-gun. I’m a teacher, and it chills me that every time I enter a classroom I think “how the hell am I going to get these kids out of here if shit goes down”. That’s how I start my Monday’s.
Owning a gun at home is statistically more dangerous to you or someone you love than to an intruder.
Most school shooters are taken down by unarmed teachers who work together.
But we aren’t facing intruders or school shooters. We are facing the proud boys, Jan6ers, and now the federal government. I normally don’t believe in violence and weapons either, but the context has changed and now we cannot rely on promises of public officials to keep us safe. We cannot rely on the police to keep us safe (as if we could before). We cannot rely on any market force to keep us safe.
Only we can keep us safe. This shit is getting real, and for those of us who are most likely staring down the barrel of a fascists gun, we can’t just let that happen.
I hate that this is the reality.
I should never have to consider these things.
But in America, every conservative and their mom is carrying, and we in the cities have been complacent. Obviously you are not from America. You don’t understand the sheer amount of guns here. Sadly it’s creating a feedback loop and to sit unarmed is to be a sitting duck in a civil war/ genocide situation.
The time for the idealism of pacifism is done. If you are neutral you are on the side of the oppressor.
My wife was against guns. She hated my guns, didn’t even want to lay eyes on them. She bought a 9mm last year.
Something missing from this concern about statistics is that it lumps together the people who leave loaded guns on their bedside table with those who take reasonable precautions like storing their guns in safes or using trigger locks.
I think for those who take those precautions and follow the safe handling rules, guns are safe enough to have at home.
The stats are real though. As ownership goes up, more of these events happen since people make these mistakes at a predictable rate. What might be safe for you doesn’t necessarily scale to the masses. Hence, some caution is recommended when making recommendations for the masses.
Quite a few of these stories that go like “he was cleaning his gun and it went off” are just disguised suicides.
Only you know if you are experiencing suicidal ideation. If you are, don’t get a gun.
If you have a gun and start to have those thoughts, give your gun to someone you trust and talk to a psychiatrist.
You could also do my method from when I was a hardcore suicidal alcoholic. Get totally blackout and hide it from yourself. Took me months to find it. Really though don’t do that.
I was a complete pacifist for a couple decades. Now, I’m a believer in peace through being a hard target. You cannot rely on the basic human decency of sociopaths to save you. You need to deter their aggression by making it more costly and risky.
I’d think it this way: Get the training anyway, hold off buying if that’s morally (and understandably so) difficult.
If shit hits the fan before you get one and/or it’s otherwise too late, there’ll be chances of obtaining one in the middle of the shitstorm one way or another. Maybe someone friendly has one, but never got around to proper training? Good thing you did. You can help out and try your best to utilise it as morally but also as professionally and efficiently as you can.
Slightly more long term, you can assist training others, if using one on live targets still feels objectionable (and rightly so!) to you.
Learning the craft and proper handling will not go to waste, if it starts looking even worse than it does now.
It can be good, too, to help others use the things more safely and otherwise properly. May save lives. And you need not take any, not in defense or otherwise, if that’s important to you.