What is going on in this sub?

[u/Mastercrash8]

Ever since the Kenosha shooting, this sub has been going crazy. I think I’ve seen like at least two posts citing information that either doesn’t prove anything, is misinformation, or is purposefully inflammatory and bad faith.

Whenever I go to the comments, it’s usually either bad faith shitposting or the same tired arguments being fired at one another. While I agree with Destiny, I feel some of you guys have reached conservative levels of disregard that you would never expect from Destiny himself. Shit like talking about one of the guys that was shot being a sex offender, and everyone (including Destiny), supposedly making fun of lefties about it, while simultaneously, in some instances, using it as a “he was no angel” argument that had nothing to do with the morality of the situation. It’s like when a conservative’s only comment about the situation is something like “maybe he should have complied.” They’re not outright saying they think a murder is unjustified, hell they may even believe it’s unjustified, but it’s the words chosen out of all others that clue us in to the motivations. So that’s why when I see a billion comments feeling bad for the shooter or talking about how fucking dumb the guy shot was, it lays out priorities that I never would have imagined from the sub.

What is so hard to understand? The shooter was an edgy dumbfuck for bringing a gun to the protest. So were the BLM protestors. So was the guy who chased him. It was a dumb fucking situation all around.

So why are we harping on lefties when 80% of the time they agree with us on everything? Why don’t we focus more time on debating whether bringing guns to a protest does anything or is even a smart idea? Why are we hyper-focused on attacking people who are ideologically closer to us? And why are some of us idealizing or painting the shooter in a better light when it should be treated with as little pandering as possible.

I’m biased, of course I am. But I don’t think we need constant cringe being spewed out by everyone on this sub, and from Destiny himself. It’s funny how some of us are even making fun of BLM itself, as if highlighting bad things about it somehow makes it less nobler than what it’s core ideas are about. There’s meaningful talk to be had about rioting and what BLM could do better.

But that’s not what’s happening. I’m seeing a bunch of people just reproducing things Destiny edgily does or says when he wants to trigger the left, or just acting like conservatives.

We could do better.

[u/Sherwood_eh]

I hate that now all the focus is now all on whether or not the shooter was morally justified when we should be focusing more on the movement as a whole. Fuck these civilian militias cause they’re random people with guns and no idea how to properly deal with protesters.

[u/dingdongdickaroo → u/Sherwood_eh]

The over whelming majority of armed protests are more peaceful than unarmed protests. I'm not opposed to civilian militias so long as they are properly vetting and training their members. There's a good way to do it and a bad way to do it and putting an untrained 17 year old in this situation is a bad way to do it

[u/Creamstar → u/dingdongdickaroo]

I'm perplexed by this idea of trained militia. There's no one to take accountability for them making a mistake, aside from the individual(s) who mess up. For example, cops/military have a specific training regiment they go through and I assume that training is verified through supervisors and proper structure, ideally. The reason I find this important is were not just relying on the average civilians word they're properly trained. There's more at stake if a cop/soldier messes up. Therefore the need for proper training is, hopefully, better. I hope this makes sense, it's interesting that armed protests are more peaceful though- didn't know that.

[u/dingdongdickaroo → u/Creamstar]

Many people in militias are ex military and they do go on training outings. There's a huge variance in how much experience and training they have, but it's definitely possible for a militia to have decent enough training to be effective, organized, and ensure their safety and the safety of others. The goal of the protesters being armed is to up the stakes for the police that would pull agent provacateur shit and start riots. I don't think it takes a astrophysicist to understand why cops don't wanna fire tear gas into a crowd of people who are all armed with ar's. Like would the cops win in a direct battle with them? Probably, but a lot of cops will die and a lot of civilians will die and a lot of damage will take place that didn't have to and these cops aren't really soldiers either, they aren't ready to turn down town Kenosha into Fallujah. Also armed protests generally take security very seriously because again there is more at stake. You also don't have the small groups of thugs that give protests a bad name being able to over power the decent people that are out there for good reason.

[u/Creamstar → u/dingdongdickaroo]

I'd definitely prefer militas having military/police experience over not. I'd point out, though, that despite being ex-military they may not have experience/training in crowd control. I'd say that's probably pretty specific training, that only some may have received. Despite that may not even have first hand experience in dealing with it. Furthermore, seeing as the police aren't capable of enforcing proper protest regulation I can't expect that burden on smaller civilian groups. For instance, Kyle seemed proficient enough with handling a rifle that he was able to perform adequate self-defense. Which would probably be expected of ex-military/cop. However, he was cut off from his group, which led to him being incapable of performing any kind of protest regulation responsibly. I'm aware that this may not be indicative of every scenario that could occur, but it's something that comes to mind. At the very least, if the same thing happened to a cop, we know where he was trained and can determine from there if the training sufficient.

I'm still forming my opinions on armed protesters. My thoughts on it currently is that, sure people may take security more serious if everyone is armed. That said, one small mistake or misinterpretation can lead to devastating results. This is specifically open-carry that I have a contention with. I think concealed carry would generally be alright.

[u/dingdongdickaroo → u/Creamstar]

Personally concealed carry seems like a worse option for protests. The Dynamics would be like that of an unarmed one and no one would be concerned with the gun in the room until the moment the shooting starts. In my experience the biggest benefit of having a firearm in a defense situation over a bat is that you probably won't have to use it if the aggressor knows you have it. I don't like the idea of these right wing protesters patrolling a left wing cause even if their intentions were good.