Well, as far as we know, Sal was only at the rally to hang out with and talk to Marcie (except that Marcie was busy and it was difficult for her to get her hands free enough to respond to Sal. So Marcie was stuck there listening to Sal rant and unable to respond. I imagine that’d get annoying.) and then Amazi-girl tried to fight Sal while Marcie was right next to her.
In fact, the crowd of people that wanted to see a fight and were egging it on left an empty circle in the middle containing Amazi-Girl and Sal *and* Marcie. And Marcie didn’t appear to do anything to stop that fight.
(I’m trying to think of it from the point-of-view of a manager of a security company trying to deal with a political rally that ended up with the assault of several university students. An event in which a reasonable solution might be to find an excuse to fire someone just so you can tell your client that you’ve taken care of the problem.)
Not just students but volunteers with the campaign running the space, not to mention “antagonizing”* the rally attendees.
Yeah, I definitely see Marcie and Sal being thrown directly under the bus in order to distract from the main security officers refusing to intervene because they wanted to watch the superhero fight and the general bad press and disaster of the event.
*Not really, but I’m going with the likely framing of the campaign and Marcie’s boss
Except Marcie held Sal back the entire time she was confronting AG and that didn’t end in a fight. AG then proceeded to get in a fight with Ryan and Sal stepped in when that went from a one on one fight to a grossly unfair ‘three guys holding her down while Ryan is about to knock her teeth in’.
After Amber stalked her – stalking is a violent crime, Sal is entitled to confront her and respond in kind. Not great timing for Marcie, no, but what Sal did constitutes self-defence.
Jason
But this isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about Marcie’s employers and how they reacted. From Marcie’s text they don’t see it that way.
BBCC
I’m not addressing her employers, just the person above me’s comment. Even if her employer’s don’t know what happened, AB should have.
That said, I’m not sure how Marcie’s employers could say Sal ‘started a fight’. She yanked AG down (in self-defence, which Marcie can explain) sure, but then…nothing happened. They stood there yelling at each other, with Marcie holding her back (albeit not very well), and then Sal backed off (for unknown reasons assuming silent security footage, but that’s what Marcie’s there for – to fill in the blanks).
Even with Ryan and his bros, Sal pretty clearly did not begin that fight – Ryan did.
Assuming of course they didn’t just toss the ‘thug’ black girl under the bus and weren’t interested in hearing Marcie out, which is probably what happened.
Stalking is a violent crime — You mean that if I think you’re stalking me then in fear of my life I can pull out my registered handgun and turn around and start blasting away and it’s self-defence?
No, but you can take measures to defend yourself that are actually reasonable.
Sal had reason to believe AG was going to pounce on her and beat her up, since she literally had the drop on her, and had tried to do it before. The amount of force she used was justified.
Silly Name
Is that how it works in the US? Here in Italy there’s quite a bit of talk about rewriting the laws about self-defence because some perceive them to be too restrictive, which includes that you can’t claim self-defence if you initiated the violence, even if you did as a measure of self-defence.
For example, I can’t beat up a burglar who has sneaked in my home unless I am sure they mean harm to me – and this means they have to clearly threaten me or initiate violence.
Fart Captor
Roughly, but the details of how that works varies wildly from state to state. And even within states, the way it’s enforced can depend far too much on who was defending themself, rather than on how reasonable it was for them to feel threatened, and how reasonable / proportionate their response was.
Some states are smart, and lay out specific requirements, but many states only specify that it must be ”reasonable”.
BBCC
Except stalking is already a violent crime, entitling Sal to respond in kind. Even if stalking wasn’t inherently violent, AG has very obviously been looking for reasons to attack her, and tries to goad her to fight every chance she gets. Sal KNOWS AG is stalking her with the intention of getting in a fight. So does Marcie. Again, self-defence.
joy2b
Laws vary from state to state, right now, the big back and forth among law makers is about whether you need to try to get away before you can claim that you were defending yourself. Like Italy, most states in the US expect people to call the police for a non-violent burglar or stalker, particularly in places where the police can get there quickly.
In rural Alaska or Texas, many people live more than an hour from the nearest police station, so the laws often allow for people to handle problems themselves. I don’t know as those loose approaches apply to the college town where this fight was, they obviously have the ability to get police onto campus promptly.
I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of either of these ladies legally. Defending that behavior is probably possible, but lawyers who are good at court room explanations are expensive. Also, the presence of security affects things. Would anyone be able to claim that they expected to be gravely harmed, when there was a security officer right there to stop the fight?
For a non-violent stalker, great, except Sal knows for a fact AG is not a non-violent stalker. For that matter, so does Marcie. And Sal is legally entitled to confront her stalker.
Silly Name
Of course, Sal had legitimate reasons to suspect AG would initiate violence on her because she did in the past.
thejeff
I dunno. Are you white?
I suggest making sure the stalker is dead, so they can’t tell their side of the story.
BBCC
No, no you couldn’t. Force begets force, not lethal force. Sal was not trying to kill AG. She threw her out of the place where she had the drop on her and confronted her, which she is legally entitled to do. Much the same way she’d be entitled to block a punch and then punch back to get her to stop had AG tried to punch her.
Maybe if she knew AG carried a weapon.
But thanks for the hyperbolic reaction.
Lailah
Legally, that is exactly the case, and this is where I’d say law and ethics diverge – but mostly because you shouldn’t have a handgun.
Like, you have to /reasonably/ think people are stalking you, you know? The thing is, *Sal did reasonably think that. because Amber was.*
Jesus fucking christ, white people are all over themselves to try to say Sal is the worst.
BBCC
The law might have a few things to say about this too – “violent” doesn’t mean “lethal force”. Violence begets violence, sure. Lethal force begets lethal force. For that to fly you have to be reasonably fearful for your life. AG has no weapon, nor does Sal have any reason to believe she had a weapon, nor has AG ever expressed a desire to do anything but hurt (hurt, not kill) her. Also, Sal is black and therefore tends to be judged more harshly, so no, practically, legally, and ethically speaking, she could not have justified shooting AG.
Lailah
Nnnn. With stalking, the threat of violence, in a vacuum, can easily be lethal, and you can’t reasonably be expected to know – and in the states, taht pretty much always means you can be lethally violent in self defense. The only reason we have to think it won’t be lethal is that it’s Amazi-girl doing the stalking. But she could have changed her mind (And was certainly in a much darker place wrt Sal than she was before, so I’m not even entirely sure it was off the table) – because Sal can’t know it wasn’t lethal here, she probably can legally respond to lethal force.
You know, before we get the actual execution of the law mixed up and then it’s a black criminal shooting a misguided but ultimately innocent white girl. I mean, christ, we’re omniscient viewers who loudly profess to be against racism and we still have bullshit like Clif’s comment here.
BBCC
That’s true, and stalking often does cause fear for one’s life precisely because it’s hard to know what they’ll do. Lethal force (or fear thereof) does beget lethal force.
Lailah
I actually feel there’s a duty to retreat, but the problem with that is it’s predicated on retreat not endangering you – and Sal can’t count on authorities to help. It’s not helped by the fact that theoretically attentive authorities would, on average, also be using lethal force.
BBCC
There’s also the fact she’s legally entitled to confront her stalker, but the fact that the authorities are less likely to help her out.
Disloyal Subject
Wait, you’re saying it’s unethical to own a pistol? What the fuck?
Escalation is dangerous, I agree, but how is ownership of a weapon unethical?
Lailah
The fact that your weapon is far more likely to injure or kill someone in a domestic dispute or accident than in any form of self-defense that even the US’s extremely permissive self-defense laws would call justified, means I can’t see any good reason to own a handgun – given that you are more likely to harm someone who hasn’t done anything than a threat to your safety, owning it strikes me as grossly negligent at best. Combined with the fact that easy civilian access of firearms means it’s cheap and easy for criminals to obtain them, and that ownership of a firearm is pretty much concordant with arguing that you SHOULD totally be allowed to have that firearm and that firearms are actually useful, it strikes me as unethical.
Hunting weapons can be different, particularly with stringent storage requirements, and even if I thought hunting shouldn’t be permissible for the general public as a leisure activity (I’m from a place where it actually was needed to cull a population sometimes, so I’m pretty okay with it as a leisure activity just so that there’s folks available for when it is needed), there are some people who legitimately need to deal with dangerous animals as part of their job. It’s not that big a deal in most states, but sometimes, it is, and there are other places /not/ in the USA where it comes up.
trlkly
Nothing you said remotely connects to whether it’s right or wrong to own a firearm. It’s a bunch of tortured logic to get to a preordained conclusion.
With this and crying racism when there isn’t any, I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually the fabled straw liberal that all the conservatives are afraid of. The one that makes all the rest of us look bad.
Lailah
“A thing you’re doing is probably going to cause harm” rather directly correlates to whether it’s right or wrong to do the thing. It’s not the whole story, but if you /are/ going to cause harm, there needs to be a justification. And boy howdy am I doubtful you can provide a satisfactory one for this. Especially not to a pacifist, but frankly, I doubt you can provide one satisfactory to the rest of the developed world either.
As to ‘crying racism where there isn’t any’, are you a jackass? The primary place it’s come up lately in the comment section is:
1) the comment section’s reactions to characters
2) the fact that Amber unfairly enforces the law on Sal
Now, I know you haven’t really been /reading/ anything I said if you think 2 is ‘crying racism where there isn’t any’, because I quite pointedly don’t talk about amber’s heart of hearts. I don’t talk about her intentions. I talk about her /effects/. What she /does/ and says has been primarily racist towards Sal, even given that her motivation has nothing to do with racism. I know white people struggle with this, but your intentions don’t really factor into anything that much. Or, to borrow a phrase I feel reasonably confident a fundie White Person is familiar with, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
as far as 1), that’s pretty uncontroversial. Willis has been saying it for literal years, even. Usually some variant of “it’s so weird how much angrier non-white character X gets people than white character Y for doing the same thing” (Malaya and Mike being the most archetypal example.)
Ooo, I think the other funny one that you, specifically, denied was the racism inherent towards the jewish people when y’all talk about how Iesos was their messiah. I think they know their holy books and concepts better than you, dude; there is a reason he isn’t one.
Mav
I think it’s pretty dangerous to own a weapon. And a lot of pro gun people assume absolutely everyone who owns a gun are responsible owners. But the thing is, they’re responsible until they’re not – and in any confrontation where a gun is involved, escalation I’d think would be more likely, just by virtue of the lethal option being there.
I’m not saying no private citizen has ever benefitted from owning a gun for self defense, but it seems like there is more violence than protection, given that many of perpetrators – think of family murders and murders of of women by their abusers for example – ALSO tended to obtain their guns be LEGAL meanss, or by borrowing from someone else, etc. And not stealing or black market. If you can get a gun, so can the guy who wants one so he can steal or hurt you.
And the things people say they want defense from are events that don’t tend to happen that often, frankly. You’re more likely to get into a car accident or get an illness than be killed by an armed robber, but having a gun gives the illusion of control over the unpredictable.
And that’s assuming you even know how to react. Everyone thinks they’re Indiana Jones until they’re actually put in that situation.
Cerberus
Uh… the heck… why did you suddenly escalate this to shooting people?
Especially with the dark context we all know wherein any white man with a gun can shoot an unarmed black person and be found innocent even if they were stalking the kid before hand and where any black man with a legal to carry gun is blamed for his own murder when he uses said legal right to own a gun.
Also, um, stalkers are dangerous. They really are. Far too many rape or kill or severely injure the people they are stalking and that persistent terror acts as a low-level terrorism against freely living one’s life.
I’ve been stalked before and it severely curtails how free one can be in both online and offline spaces and means worrying that an attempt to get out and have fun is going to get you or a close person to you hurt.
And the road Amazi-girl was on… yeah, that could have been really bad if she let AG build up her escalation to justify “getting the drop on her” when Sal was all alone. Really, Sal confronting her here where AG could see herself reflected in the crowd was the only way that was going to de-escalate without one of them getting severely hurt.
foamy
Yeah, uh, this here?
“this to shooting people?
Especially with the dark context we all know wherein any white man with a gun can shoot an unarmed black person and be found innocent even if they were stalking the kid before hand and where any black man with a legal to carry gun is blamed for his own murder when he uses said legal right to own a gun.”
This is what you call an “overgeneralization”.
BBCC
This is what you call ‘missing the references’.
foamy
I am completely aware of the references.
BBCC
The point of them was to point out white people are more likely to get away with crime, including violent crime, while black people are more likely to be murdered by law enforcement. The use of the word ‘any’ is hyperbolic, but it doesn’t change the original point, which you have either missed or are ignoring.
BBCC
I’m really sorry, this came out really snappy and temperamental and you didn’t deserve that. I stand by my point that hyperbole doesn’t change whether a point (in this case, grossly unequal applications of the law) is valid, but I should have made my point better. My apologies.
Sal and Sarah could be besties but they’re incapable of being criticized the way they criticize others.
Idontcarenomore
Sal does not criticize others. She pretty much keeps to herself. She told AG to get her head out of her ass and stop blaming her past on everything and start living for today. That was after Sal saved her ass from being spread all over the road by Becky’s crazy damn father.
Sarah criticizes others when they step on her. Can’t blame her a bit.
Lailah
It’s extremely important to let the commentariat hold their grudges against the black gals, hon.
jfc
Disloyal Subject
Oh, of course. Their skin is different, so of course they must be perfect cinnamon rolls who never make stupid decisions like all those other silly people. It’s not as if the comic is called Dumbing of Age – oh wait.
Lailah
I said, in no uncertain terms, and repeatedly, that Sal has probably betrayed an agreement with Sal, and that Marcie has every right to be angry. It’s not that Sal didn’t fuck up. It’s that the way she fucked up has nothing to do with y’all dragging her through the dirt. I’m not blind.
Lailah
*an agreement with Marcie.
Look at the actual thing that spawned this thread. Sarah is being targetted and she’s neither in the comic, nor does she have any real connection to Sal besides a skin color, and we had someone reach like whoa.
So you know. Fuck off. There’s like, one person who maybe implied Sal was blameless.
Actually, I was thinking they could be besties because they’re both misanthropic loners with hearts of gold.
Disloyal Subject
Yeah, I noticed you’re acknowledging and analyzing why Marcie’s upset with Sal, but I was feeling a little snippy and I’m tired of people dismissing criticism as persecution, or saying that the “commentariat” you keep mentioning are holding a grudge against the black gals when Charles was just pointing out that neither of them takes criticism very well despite being pretty on-the-nail when dishing it out.
I felt a little sarcasm was warranted.
trlkly
No, Sarah was being brought up because they are in similar situations. This was obvious when everyone was talking about it.
You assumed racism because it gives you an excuse to attack others. This is far from the first time you have done so.
I would suggest you look at John, because you’re doing the same thing he did to Joyce, just from a different direction.
trlkly
Leilah, of course. Charles Phipps is fine here, even if I vehemently disagree with him further down.
They really aren’t in similar situations. That’s kind of the thing. Look up – the original post is almost definitely a weird inside joke, or a typo. Phipps then decided to try to link them – on a thing they really aren’t linked by, nor is it even particularly true of them (Not in a way that isn’t true of basically everyone, anyway). Now, I don’t mind saying I misread him, but to pretend y’all don’t drag on these two constantly, wherein y’all is “A particularly loud plurality of the comments section”? That’s funny. At this point, nonsense is better assumed to be racist – especially when that nonsense is mocking someone who’s not white and isn’t even here or actually really related at all.
Mav
True friends are often the people who aren’t afraid to tell you to get your head out of your ass, or otherwise blunt but necessary things so you can improve yourself. The people who really don’t care that much will just watch you crash and burn, a la Napoleon’s advice.
364 thoughts on “Waitin’”
Ana Chronistic
“Marcie, yer job’s no fun”
“NO SHIT WORK ISN’T FUN”
“yeah, fuck work”
“>8(“
Pablo360
Yeah, it sounds like Marcie’s getting worked up about it.
I apologize for nothing.
AnvilPro
Nice of Marcie to wait until after Sal’s class to call her a piece of shit
Foxhack
Marcie got in trouble because she knows Sal?
Porto
Probably because they were hanging around and Marcie didn’t seem eager to try and stop Sal.
Fart Captor
Even if she did her job, her friend was hanging around and got in a fight, and it sounds like Sal is being blamed for starting it
Annie
Well, as far as we know, Sal was only at the rally to hang out with and talk to Marcie (except that Marcie was busy and it was difficult for her to get her hands free enough to respond to Sal. So Marcie was stuck there listening to Sal rant and unable to respond. I imagine that’d get annoying.) and then Amazi-girl tried to fight Sal while Marcie was right next to her.
In fact, the crowd of people that wanted to see a fight and were egging it on left an empty circle in the middle containing Amazi-Girl and Sal *and* Marcie. And Marcie didn’t appear to do anything to stop that fight.
(I’m trying to think of it from the point-of-view of a manager of a security company trying to deal with a political rally that ended up with the assault of several university students. An event in which a reasonable solution might be to find an excuse to fire someone just so you can tell your client that you’ve taken care of the problem.)
Cerberus
Not just students but volunteers with the campaign running the space, not to mention “antagonizing”* the rally attendees.
Yeah, I definitely see Marcie and Sal being thrown directly under the bus in order to distract from the main security officers refusing to intervene because they wanted to watch the superhero fight and the general bad press and disaster of the event.
*Not really, but I’m going with the likely framing of the campaign and Marcie’s boss
BBCC
Except Marcie held Sal back the entire time she was confronting AG and that didn’t end in a fight. AG then proceeded to get in a fight with Ryan and Sal stepped in when that went from a one on one fight to a grossly unfair ‘three guys holding her down while Ryan is about to knock her teeth in’.
darkoneko
Hey, she didn’t start the fight.
achallenger
feel the rythem, do the crime, hold on folks its bobsled time…. no wait how does it go
foamy
Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme,
get on up,
it’s bobsled time!
COOL RUNNINGS.
I’m sorry, it’s obligatory watching here.
cesium133
It was always fighting since the world’s been… fighting…
I’m not on my A-game tonight.
Doctor_Who
Don’t worry, that’s exactly where my brain went too.
No, I didn’t write it, but I tried to fight it
PapayaPunkPixie
She didn’t start the fight
They were always qaurreling
since the world’s been whirling
Sambo
Genius
antiqueChairman
It is hard to think of another word, though.
sun tzu
She was, however, the only non-white person involved in said fight. Which was taking place in the middle of, well, THAT political rally.
Annie
Yeah, most of the folks at that rally would write Sal off as a “thug.”
Mr. Random
Fists were always throwing since the world’s been turning.
Sambo
Well, she did pull Amazi-Girl off that ledge
AngelBadman
Yes she did, Sal grabbed Amber and threw her to the ground.
BBCC
After Amber stalked her – stalking is a violent crime, Sal is entitled to confront her and respond in kind. Not great timing for Marcie, no, but what Sal did constitutes self-defence.
Jason
But this isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about Marcie’s employers and how they reacted. From Marcie’s text they don’t see it that way.
BBCC
I’m not addressing her employers, just the person above me’s comment. Even if her employer’s don’t know what happened, AB should have.
That said, I’m not sure how Marcie’s employers could say Sal ‘started a fight’. She yanked AG down (in self-defence, which Marcie can explain) sure, but then…nothing happened. They stood there yelling at each other, with Marcie holding her back (albeit not very well), and then Sal backed off (for unknown reasons assuming silent security footage, but that’s what Marcie’s there for – to fill in the blanks).
Even with Ryan and his bros, Sal pretty clearly did not begin that fight – Ryan did.
Assuming of course they didn’t just toss the ‘thug’ black girl under the bus and weren’t interested in hearing Marcie out, which is probably what happened.
Clif
Stalking is a violent crime — You mean that if I think you’re stalking me then in fear of my life I can pull out my registered handgun and turn around and start blasting away and it’s self-defence?
Cool!
Fart Captor
No, but you can take measures to defend yourself that are actually reasonable.
Sal had reason to believe AG was going to pounce on her and beat her up, since she literally had the drop on her, and had tried to do it before. The amount of force she used was justified.
Silly Name
Is that how it works in the US? Here in Italy there’s quite a bit of talk about rewriting the laws about self-defence because some perceive them to be too restrictive, which includes that you can’t claim self-defence if you initiated the violence, even if you did as a measure of self-defence.
For example, I can’t beat up a burglar who has sneaked in my home unless I am sure they mean harm to me – and this means they have to clearly threaten me or initiate violence.
Fart Captor
Roughly, but the details of how that works varies wildly from state to state. And even within states, the way it’s enforced can depend far too much on who was defending themself, rather than on how reasonable it was for them to feel threatened, and how reasonable / proportionate their response was.
Some states are smart, and lay out specific requirements, but many states only specify that it must be ”reasonable”.
BBCC
Except stalking is already a violent crime, entitling Sal to respond in kind. Even if stalking wasn’t inherently violent, AG has very obviously been looking for reasons to attack her, and tries to goad her to fight every chance she gets. Sal KNOWS AG is stalking her with the intention of getting in a fight. So does Marcie. Again, self-defence.
joy2b
Laws vary from state to state, right now, the big back and forth among law makers is about whether you need to try to get away before you can claim that you were defending yourself. Like Italy, most states in the US expect people to call the police for a non-violent burglar or stalker, particularly in places where the police can get there quickly.
In rural Alaska or Texas, many people live more than an hour from the nearest police station, so the laws often allow for people to handle problems themselves. I don’t know as those loose approaches apply to the college town where this fight was, they obviously have the ability to get police onto campus promptly.
I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of either of these ladies legally. Defending that behavior is probably possible, but lawyers who are good at court room explanations are expensive. Also, the presence of security affects things. Would anyone be able to claim that they expected to be gravely harmed, when there was a security officer right there to stop the fight?
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/04/us/table.selfdefense.laws/
BBCC
For a non-violent stalker, great, except Sal knows for a fact AG is not a non-violent stalker. For that matter, so does Marcie. And Sal is legally entitled to confront her stalker.
Silly Name
Of course, Sal had legitimate reasons to suspect AG would initiate violence on her because she did in the past.
thejeff
I dunno. Are you white?
I suggest making sure the stalker is dead, so they can’t tell their side of the story.
BBCC
No, no you couldn’t. Force begets force, not lethal force. Sal was not trying to kill AG. She threw her out of the place where she had the drop on her and confronted her, which she is legally entitled to do. Much the same way she’d be entitled to block a punch and then punch back to get her to stop had AG tried to punch her.
Maybe if she knew AG carried a weapon.
But thanks for the hyperbolic reaction.
Lailah
Legally, that is exactly the case, and this is where I’d say law and ethics diverge – but mostly because you shouldn’t have a handgun.
Like, you have to /reasonably/ think people are stalking you, you know? The thing is, *Sal did reasonably think that. because Amber was.*
Jesus fucking christ, white people are all over themselves to try to say Sal is the worst.
BBCC
The law might have a few things to say about this too – “violent” doesn’t mean “lethal force”. Violence begets violence, sure. Lethal force begets lethal force. For that to fly you have to be reasonably fearful for your life. AG has no weapon, nor does Sal have any reason to believe she had a weapon, nor has AG ever expressed a desire to do anything but hurt (hurt, not kill) her. Also, Sal is black and therefore tends to be judged more harshly, so no, practically, legally, and ethically speaking, she could not have justified shooting AG.
Lailah
Nnnn. With stalking, the threat of violence, in a vacuum, can easily be lethal, and you can’t reasonably be expected to know – and in the states, taht pretty much always means you can be lethally violent in self defense. The only reason we have to think it won’t be lethal is that it’s Amazi-girl doing the stalking. But she could have changed her mind (And was certainly in a much darker place wrt Sal than she was before, so I’m not even entirely sure it was off the table) – because Sal can’t know it wasn’t lethal here, she probably can legally respond to lethal force.
You know, before we get the actual execution of the law mixed up and then it’s a black criminal shooting a misguided but ultimately innocent white girl. I mean, christ, we’re omniscient viewers who loudly profess to be against racism and we still have bullshit like Clif’s comment here.
BBCC
That’s true, and stalking often does cause fear for one’s life precisely because it’s hard to know what they’ll do. Lethal force (or fear thereof) does beget lethal force.
Lailah
I actually feel there’s a duty to retreat, but the problem with that is it’s predicated on retreat not endangering you – and Sal can’t count on authorities to help. It’s not helped by the fact that theoretically attentive authorities would, on average, also be using lethal force.
BBCC
There’s also the fact she’s legally entitled to confront her stalker, but the fact that the authorities are less likely to help her out.
Disloyal Subject
Wait, you’re saying it’s unethical to own a pistol? What the fuck?
Escalation is dangerous, I agree, but how is ownership of a weapon unethical?
Lailah
The fact that your weapon is far more likely to injure or kill someone in a domestic dispute or accident than in any form of self-defense that even the US’s extremely permissive self-defense laws would call justified, means I can’t see any good reason to own a handgun – given that you are more likely to harm someone who hasn’t done anything than a threat to your safety, owning it strikes me as grossly negligent at best. Combined with the fact that easy civilian access of firearms means it’s cheap and easy for criminals to obtain them, and that ownership of a firearm is pretty much concordant with arguing that you SHOULD totally be allowed to have that firearm and that firearms are actually useful, it strikes me as unethical.
Hunting weapons can be different, particularly with stringent storage requirements, and even if I thought hunting shouldn’t be permissible for the general public as a leisure activity (I’m from a place where it actually was needed to cull a population sometimes, so I’m pretty okay with it as a leisure activity just so that there’s folks available for when it is needed), there are some people who legitimately need to deal with dangerous animals as part of their job. It’s not that big a deal in most states, but sometimes, it is, and there are other places /not/ in the USA where it comes up.
trlkly
Nothing you said remotely connects to whether it’s right or wrong to own a firearm. It’s a bunch of tortured logic to get to a preordained conclusion.
With this and crying racism when there isn’t any, I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually the fabled straw liberal that all the conservatives are afraid of. The one that makes all the rest of us look bad.
Lailah
“A thing you’re doing is probably going to cause harm” rather directly correlates to whether it’s right or wrong to do the thing. It’s not the whole story, but if you /are/ going to cause harm, there needs to be a justification. And boy howdy am I doubtful you can provide a satisfactory one for this. Especially not to a pacifist, but frankly, I doubt you can provide one satisfactory to the rest of the developed world either.
As to ‘crying racism where there isn’t any’, are you a jackass? The primary place it’s come up lately in the comment section is:
1) the comment section’s reactions to characters
2) the fact that Amber unfairly enforces the law on Sal
Now, I know you haven’t really been /reading/ anything I said if you think 2 is ‘crying racism where there isn’t any’, because I quite pointedly don’t talk about amber’s heart of hearts. I don’t talk about her intentions. I talk about her /effects/. What she /does/ and says has been primarily racist towards Sal, even given that her motivation has nothing to do with racism. I know white people struggle with this, but your intentions don’t really factor into anything that much. Or, to borrow a phrase I feel reasonably confident a fundie White Person is familiar with, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
as far as 1), that’s pretty uncontroversial. Willis has been saying it for literal years, even. Usually some variant of “it’s so weird how much angrier non-white character X gets people than white character Y for doing the same thing” (Malaya and Mike being the most archetypal example.)
Ooo, I think the other funny one that you, specifically, denied was the racism inherent towards the jewish people when y’all talk about how Iesos was their messiah. I think they know their holy books and concepts better than you, dude; there is a reason he isn’t one.
Mav
I think it’s pretty dangerous to own a weapon. And a lot of pro gun people assume absolutely everyone who owns a gun are responsible owners. But the thing is, they’re responsible until they’re not – and in any confrontation where a gun is involved, escalation I’d think would be more likely, just by virtue of the lethal option being there.
I’m not saying no private citizen has ever benefitted from owning a gun for self defense, but it seems like there is more violence than protection, given that many of perpetrators – think of family murders and murders of of women by their abusers for example – ALSO tended to obtain their guns be LEGAL meanss, or by borrowing from someone else, etc. And not stealing or black market. If you can get a gun, so can the guy who wants one so he can steal or hurt you.
And the things people say they want defense from are events that don’t tend to happen that often, frankly. You’re more likely to get into a car accident or get an illness than be killed by an armed robber, but having a gun gives the illusion of control over the unpredictable.
And that’s assuming you even know how to react. Everyone thinks they’re Indiana Jones until they’re actually put in that situation.
Cerberus
Uh… the heck… why did you suddenly escalate this to shooting people?
Especially with the dark context we all know wherein any white man with a gun can shoot an unarmed black person and be found innocent even if they were stalking the kid before hand and where any black man with a legal to carry gun is blamed for his own murder when he uses said legal right to own a gun.
Also, um, stalkers are dangerous. They really are. Far too many rape or kill or severely injure the people they are stalking and that persistent terror acts as a low-level terrorism against freely living one’s life.
I’ve been stalked before and it severely curtails how free one can be in both online and offline spaces and means worrying that an attempt to get out and have fun is going to get you or a close person to you hurt.
And the road Amazi-girl was on… yeah, that could have been really bad if she let AG build up her escalation to justify “getting the drop on her” when Sal was all alone. Really, Sal confronting her here where AG could see herself reflected in the crowd was the only way that was going to de-escalate without one of them getting severely hurt.
foamy
Yeah, uh, this here?
“this to shooting people?
Especially with the dark context we all know wherein any white man with a gun can shoot an unarmed black person and be found innocent even if they were stalking the kid before hand and where any black man with a legal to carry gun is blamed for his own murder when he uses said legal right to own a gun.”
This is what you call an “overgeneralization”.
BBCC
This is what you call ‘missing the references’.
foamy
I am completely aware of the references.
BBCC
The point of them was to point out white people are more likely to get away with crime, including violent crime, while black people are more likely to be murdered by law enforcement. The use of the word ‘any’ is hyperbolic, but it doesn’t change the original point, which you have either missed or are ignoring.
BBCC
I’m really sorry, this came out really snappy and temperamental and you didn’t deserve that. I stand by my point that hyperbole doesn’t change whether a point (in this case, grossly unequal applications of the law) is valid, but I should have made my point better. My apologies.
MatthewTheLucky
Sal ain’t part of your system!
Doctor_Who
Sal decides to try this some more.
Sal: “I wonder when a million dollars will rain from the sky?…Shoot.”
Sal: “I wonder if Tom Hiddleston is looking for a date nearby?…Damn.”
Sal: “Hmmm. I wonder what the smallest dinosaur was?”
Dina (walking by): “A new, crow-sized theropod, Microraptor was recently found in China. It is about 16 inches (40 cm long) and may be an adult.”
Sal: “Knew I could count on her.”
Bagge
+1
yomi
Meh, hummingbirds are smaller.
Gamaran Sepudomyn
Yeah, hummingbirds can be freaking tiny.
tyersome
that’s the buzz I’ve heard
Wheelpath
Yeah, this is why Sarah has no friends
Shiro
Sarah just can’t catch a break today, she isn’t even in this one
Lailah
She really can’t.
ety
I actually have zero idea of what the relevance to Sarah is with this?
Charles Phipps
Sal and Sarah could be besties but they’re incapable of being criticized the way they criticize others.
Idontcarenomore
Sal does not criticize others. She pretty much keeps to herself. She told AG to get her head out of her ass and stop blaming her past on everything and start living for today. That was after Sal saved her ass from being spread all over the road by Becky’s crazy damn father.
Sarah criticizes others when they step on her. Can’t blame her a bit.
Lailah
It’s extremely important to let the commentariat hold their grudges against the black gals, hon.
jfc
Disloyal Subject
Oh, of course. Their skin is different, so of course they must be perfect cinnamon rolls who never make stupid decisions like all those other silly people. It’s not as if the comic is called Dumbing of Age – oh wait.
Lailah
I said, in no uncertain terms, and repeatedly, that Sal has probably betrayed an agreement with Sal, and that Marcie has every right to be angry. It’s not that Sal didn’t fuck up. It’s that the way she fucked up has nothing to do with y’all dragging her through the dirt. I’m not blind.
Lailah
*an agreement with Marcie.
Look at the actual thing that spawned this thread. Sarah is being targetted and she’s neither in the comic, nor does she have any real connection to Sal besides a skin color, and we had someone reach like whoa.
So you know. Fuck off. There’s like, one person who maybe implied Sal was blameless.
Charles Phipps
Actually, I was thinking they could be besties because they’re both misanthropic loners with hearts of gold.
Disloyal Subject
Yeah, I noticed you’re acknowledging and analyzing why Marcie’s upset with Sal, but I was feeling a little snippy and I’m tired of people dismissing criticism as persecution, or saying that the “commentariat” you keep mentioning are holding a grudge against the black gals when Charles was just pointing out that neither of them takes criticism very well despite being pretty on-the-nail when dishing it out.
I felt a little sarcasm was warranted.
trlkly
No, Sarah was being brought up because they are in similar situations. This was obvious when everyone was talking about it.
You assumed racism because it gives you an excuse to attack others. This is far from the first time you have done so.
I would suggest you look at John, because you’re doing the same thing he did to Joyce, just from a different direction.
trlkly
Leilah, of course. Charles Phipps is fine here, even if I vehemently disagree with him further down.
Fart Captor
ಠ_ಠ
Lailah
They really aren’t in similar situations. That’s kind of the thing. Look up – the original post is almost definitely a weird inside joke, or a typo. Phipps then decided to try to link them – on a thing they really aren’t linked by, nor is it even particularly true of them (Not in a way that isn’t true of basically everyone, anyway). Now, I don’t mind saying I misread him, but to pretend y’all don’t drag on these two constantly, wherein y’all is “A particularly loud plurality of the comments section”? That’s funny. At this point, nonsense is better assumed to be racist – especially when that nonsense is mocking someone who’s not white and isn’t even here or actually really related at all.
Mav
True friends are often the people who aren’t afraid to tell you to get your head out of your ass, or otherwise blunt but necessary things so you can improve yourself. The people who really don’t care that much will just watch you crash and burn, a la Napoleon’s advice.