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Comment by rocketpastsix | Hacker News Reader

I think you underestimate how many people actually care about mass shootings.

Caring with no significant action in prevention doesn’t really signal caring. Sure, it sucks, headlines get printed for a couple of months, then people forget and move on.

To put it in the most disrespectful and sad way, it looks like more people have been on the streets for Knicks games than most (any?) school shootings of the past decades.

It's just harder to get the average joe charged up to fight a battle with anything meaningful on the line. Americans are used to living relatively cushy lives where they don't sacrifice their QOL to make the lives of their countrymen better. The closest thing to that are people in the military, and it's probably been a while since the US military is improving QOL, on average.

People will continue to be complacent on multiple fronts until it absolutely comes to a violent boil. I don't really see half measures or peaceful protests changing anything. And maybe I'm pessimistic, but I think the upcoming elections will either not change enough or be strongly manipulated to maintain the status quo.

>harder to get the average joe charged up to fight a battle with anything meaningful on the line

Doesn't this imply that on average people just don't care? So, school shooting preventions are just way down in the list of "things I care about", when you have "cushy lives where nobody wants to sacrifice their QOL".

It means they don't care enough to meaningfully make sacrifices for change. To deal with school shootings is to change the constitution. The American constitution is basically wired for school shootings. To change the constitution is basically a civil war.

Things aren't binary. Many people care deeply about school shootings. But they don't have the means or power to organize to stop them and, individually, they are powerless.

They’re not binary, but when an issue persists for decades, over the course of multiple administrations, and political landscape… it shows either the country is incompetent in terms of solving an issue, or the issue is not a priority.

I wholeheartedly believe US can solve issues when it’s an important one. And thus, I think, for an average American it’s not an issue.

Decades is a very long timeframe. Countries have achieved more in shorter periods.

> I wholeheartedly believe US can solve issues when it’s an important one.

What's the last important issue in the US that was democratically resolved?

Enforcing the global use of the petro dollar is what keeps Americans living cushy lives so be careful disrespecting the military personel.

My post was not disrespectful. It was matter of fact. And if the Petro Dollar only persists by use of force or perceived force, it's probably not a sustainable system for humanity. So hopefully we can go back to a soft power maintained Petro Dollar?

I think your assumption of lack of caring is misplaced. The citizens clearly care, but have no power to do anything about it. Those in power are the ones that do not care or are paid not to care.

The author said nothing of the people but of the government itself. 12 years ago, elementary school children were slaughtered and even that wasn’t enough to ban guns.

Thoughts and prayers doesn't count as truly caring

> I think you underestimate how many people actually care about mass shootings.

Less than 1% of the population, that’s for sure.

You remember the last protest about school shootings? Neither do I.

I get what you’re saying but in the last 20 years can you think of any mass protest that accomplished anything substantial? I don’t really blame people for giving up on it as a tool for change. TBH only truly effective one I can think of would be Jan 6

I can, just not in the US [0]. I always presumed this is linked to the health care being provided by employers rather than having a more robust safety net that allows for civil disobedience without having to fear existential risks. However, I also can’t forget that the French have their safety net not as a God given right, but because they fought for it via (often not just civil) protest. Reference also the statements MLK JR made concerning the willingness of white moderates to engage in actually effective disobedience, even when their financial situation allows for such.

[0] https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2023/06/02/recent-pro...

There are more people not on employer-provided health insurance in the US than exist in France. How does your presumption work given that fact?

I just checked and it's 54% in the US [0] vs 0% in France (cause basic public healthcare isn't tied to employment). So, unless you are referring to absolute numbers (not very helpful when comparing countries of different sizes), I'm not sure what you are referring to.

I will admit that my purely personal thesis on this front goes a bit beyond healthcare. I feel that a robust safety net, iron clad right to protest and a large, at least reasonably financially stable (meaning no existential financial fears for at least the majority of citizenry, i.e. above roughly 60% middle class for a given economy) are needed to allow for protests in such a manner that the citizenry are both capable, willing and informed sufficiently to protect their own interests and democracy as a whole. Having the right and ability to protests is needed, just as much as being comfortable enough to have the time to actually stay politically engaged (consistent financial strain being a reasonable cause for why one doesn't stay informed in my book). France or my home country of Austria (imperfect countries like any other, I will (un)happily admit) on that front are in the 65%-75% range, whereas the US appears to barely get above 50% purely by income along with higher health care costs in general and employer linked plans for as stated above the majority, so these are somewhat interlinked in my view.

Same reason, albeit less extreme, why in war-torn countries, long standing brutal dictatorships and the like, the citizenry rarely is able to create any proper action agains their oppressors, not because they are accepting of the status quo, weak, or anything of the sort, but because when one is starving and trying to help their family unit survive, even beyond the risk that action can pose, their often isn't any time to actually consider it. "A republic, if you can keep it", in my opinion is a high demand from the public. They need to have the tools, rights and resources to actively defend it. Not saying France is perfect here, but I will say that it is easy to just raise our finger at the US populous without considering the whole picture.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/portion-insured-americans-w...

Well they happen in schools and children don’t vote. If this had been a wave of senior center shootings, something would have been done a long, long time ago.

This is not a good argument. Children tend to have parents who can vote.

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree that it works this way. Parents' concerns for their children are far more self-serving than most parents claim. Consider that every "for the children" political agenda ever has nakedly ulterior motives--name one truly pro-child policy where children are directly prioritized at the expense of their parents? Consider the way that school schedules are oriented around their parents' convenience in spite of decades of studies showing the harmful health effects they have. During COVID we saw dramatic efforts to protect the elderly coupled with a push to reopen schools by parents tired of having to take care of them all day. Whatever you think of the restrictions one way or another, the prioritization of elderly was apparent throughout. These are the same parents who have repeated voted benefits for themselves at the direct expense of their children, saddling them with trillions of dollars of debt to support their own present consumption. I promise you, if seniors were regularly being gunned down like this they would have found a solution already.

Because it has moved way beyond protests. Everyone agrees that school shootings are bad. Legislation has been passed. Policies have changed. Schools have changed their security tactics. There have been years and years of meetings across the country with school administrators and boards talking about how to improve safety and navigate these issues, and then the schools themselves implementing new practices.

If you are looking around and saying that because people aren't waving sign on street corners, then nobody cares, then you have utterly missed a couple decades of dedicated efforts by many people working around these issues.

The fact that shootings still happen is tragic. But it is not because people are just shrugging and saying they don't care.

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