• millie@slrpnk.net
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    2 months ago

    As a late night cab driver, if you’re ever wondering why I’m on the street rather than the driveway in your sketchy, pickup truck filled suburban neighborhood, this is why.

    Give me a shady looking industrial district or run down residential neighborhood over semi-rural suburbia any day of the week. I feel much safer.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Yikes.

      I’m like the exact opposite, but it’s mostly because I’ve had bad experiences with gangbangers.

      • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I was lily white guy living in ground zero of MS13 gangland in Los Angeles in the early 2000s for four years. I know it’s crazy, but best neighbors I ever had. We all bbq’d together, watched each other’s kids, and got along well.

        One morning I was taking a bus to work. Two guys robbed me while I was standing at the bus stop. I had fifteen dollars, which I happily gave to them.

        I went over to my neighbor that evening and told him what happened.

        The next day, there was fifteen dollars in my mailbox.

        I moved from there to high end HOA in Texas and holy hell it was miserable. I hated them all. They were the nosiest, most judgemental assholes imaginable. One lady would go walking down the alleys checking how many beer cans people had in their recycling and called the police on one house charging them with child neglect because of beer cans in their recycling bin. Fuck that neighborhood forever.

        (There’s a funny coda to the robbery. I smoked a lot back then. When they were done shoving the gun in my ribs and walking away, I blurted out, “guys, I’m stressed. Do one of you have a light?” and I swear on a stack of books of your choice that one of them turned around and lit my cigarette)

        • millie@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          This is real. I’ve had folks in my cab that clearly were trying to probe my boundaries to see if I’m an easy target who immediately switched gears the moment I showed my personality. Just because someone is desperate doesn’t mean they want to fuck over someone who’s cool with them and is real. The way you carry yourself makes a difference.

          It’s pretty obvious if you meet me in person that I’m a broke artist who cares about real people and detests fake corporate bullshit. That’s not really an appealing target and I have fuck all to give them anyway.

          But if some fuck shoots me for being on their street while being trans, or literally just someone they don’t recognize, I don’t get the chance to show how I carry myself.

        • Dr. Bluefall@toast.ooo
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          2 months ago

          There’s a certain weird honor in lighting the cigarette of the guy you just robbed. It’s kinda respectable.

            • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              “It wasn’t personal, it was just racial. If we’d known you were one of the good white people we wouldn’t have robbed you. You’re not like those other ones”

          • set_secret@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Weird the US slang version comes before the actual definition. Someone needs to edit that Wikipedia article.

            Every other dictionary (Including US ones)

            gangbang /găng′băng″/

            noun

            1. Sexual intercourse forced upon one person by several others in rapid succession.
            2. Sexual intercourse involving several people who select and change partners.
            3. Sexual intercourse involving more than two persons, especially with a high proportion of men.
            4. A street gang attacking random people on the streets and/or committing gang crimes.

            intransitive verb

            1. To participate in a gangbang, either consensually or as an aggressor.
            2. To participate in violent gang-related activities.
            3. To subject (someone) to a gangbang.
            • force@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Whether a term is characteristic of a certain dialect or region isn’t generally considered all that much when it comes to order on Wiktionary, unless it’s an “obscure” dialect. I contribute a lot to Wiktionary (mainly for languages other than Modern English though) and there are few rules on the specific the order of definitions, it’s mostly just common definitions above uncommon definitions (but this isn’t even a hard rule).

              Editing it to change the order for your reason specifically might be considered vandalism, as it’s typical and allowed for entries to be like this and it’s common for little disputes like that to cause editing wars (although that’s admittedly far more common on Wikipedia, since many Wiktionary contributors are actually linguists and are less controversial).

              That being said, someone actually did intentionally move the “gang member” definition above the other one, so there’s clearly some sort of difference in opinion.

              If you want it changed, the course of action you should take is starting a discussion about it. It’s a good way to get a community consensus.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                2 months ago

                So let’s be clear here. You’re implying very heavily. Are you actually claiming that this person did this nefarious thing? What are you saying?

                • force@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  No, not at all. You can easily view the edit history of all Wiktionary pages – 2 years ago, someone put the definitions in the order they are now for a specific reason. This person thinks it should be the other way around, so if they want to change it it’d be best to make a discussion about it. That’s the best way to get a community consensus on it. Wiktionary is a collaborative effort, people have different opinions on the specifics of a page, that’s why discussions exist and are the go-to for settling differences in views.

  • SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Its not that he thinks that this is normal behaviour, its that so many Americans think that this is normal behaviour.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Babcock told police what he could see on his Ring camera made him think someone was breaking into his car, so he went outside and started shooting.

    Turns out your life is not in danger of someone is breaking into your car and it is not legal to shoot at them. I’m guessing this dipshit considers himself a responsible gun owner.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Sortof the defining characteristic of regressives is that they are easily brainwashed by media. An enlarged amygdala makes them fear and rage-addicted.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        That doesn’t explain the city/rural divide though. It could well be that listening to reactionary right wing rhetoric leads to an enlarged amygdala.

        • immutable@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Or that people prone to fear of others would self select living in areas that provide them with fewer others

    • SeabassDan@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s exactly the reason. When push comes to shove, these are the people that will be willingly used for fodder on the front lines.

      • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Knowledge Fight takes a critical look at Alex Jones(I put this in every post I make about him because I can’t stand to listen to AJ direct, and I don’t want people thinking I do). Anyway, he goes out to break quite often shouting stuff like THEYRE COMING FOR YOU, THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU, THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU!!! after having discussed the “demonic antifa/BLM/democrats coming to your houses.”

        Obviously not everyone is as sensationalist as Alex Jones, but he’s been bragging about how other places have started sounding like him. Including Joe Rogan (probably more on Vax and stuff like that, but still)

  • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Me: * checks to make sure this wasn’t Georgia *

    Me: “Tennessee, thank God… oh and the delivery driver wasn’t killed, that’s good too.”

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    My friend tells me that her in-laws in rural Missouri are cutting holes into the walls to hide guns so they are prepared for attacks from antifa.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      I know a guy who in 2021 saw a single teenage girl with a BLM sign on a street corner outside St. Louis and has a panic attack, proceeded to invest in home security.

      Seriously. He saw it as a signal that his ‘enemies’ who would be his enslavers are invading his space and that he wouldn’t be safe.

        • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          That guy in particular calls himself a liberal. Thinks anything related to leftism or marxism is authoritarianism, and loves Elon.

          Wants weed, nuclear, and no substantial structural changes to society or economics whatsoever.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    2 months ago

    It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you’d all be such fuckwits.

      • Aganim@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I’m not American, so I could be wrong, but wasn’t it something about a well-regulated militia?

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It was, those three words aren’t there by mistake.

          Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.

          This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.

          And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.

  • InternetUser2012@midwest.social
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    2 months ago

    Maybe some gun nut can help me with this. If the teen had, say an AR15 because he was concerned about running into some wild hogs. If he ducked down and started firing back in a clearly self defense situation, would he fine in doing this?

    Or does it depend on the color of his skin?

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Nevermind the racial part.

      Your scenario actually highlights a good point, what kind of society do we want to live in? Some western everyone for them selves, shoot first talk later, or do we want to live in a civilized society?

      My belief is that guns in general make us less safe. Both of the individuals in this story would be safer if neither had any guns. As well as the entire neighborhood, would also be safer without guns.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Nevermind the racial part.

        Yeah I don’t think I will… This isn’t happening in a vacuum.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    The ONLY ONLY ONLY way to Prevent this is to make sure TEENAGE DELIVERY DRIVERS shoot at every home they pull up in before getting out!

    • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      If the driver had a gun, and the neighbors had guns then this would have never happened…

      /s

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    We’ve turned into a nation of cowards. Just completely craven people who shoot first and ask questions later because the news has made them terrified that they’ll be murdered in their beds, despite violent crime being historically low, comparatively speaking.

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Having mingled with the gun community for some time, there are a lot of level-headed people among gun owners but there are also a worrying amount of terminally fearful people with violent ideation. Many are likely one bad life event, one half-cocked response to an uncertain situation from being a mugshot on a news story like this prick.