@sodalis

You've summed up all my thoughts on the current state of the US and to be honest, I don't see things getting better until something catastrophic happens. A lot of fucked up stuff has happened in the past three years, but I don't think any of it was enough to spark change. I think all we can do for now is just survive and wait out all the ancient politicians.

@sodalis @QasimRashid

The Right has been strong recently. Neoliberal economic policies caught on as a response to leftist collectivization.
Neoliberalism holds that we need everyone competing to be the best. To be a millionaire, you just need to work harder. You can't get a job? Work harder.
This is obviously a lie that the left needs to address. Fellow workers are not stealing your job/wage, corporations are.
I take some hope from the union victories, class consciousness is how we win, IMO.

@BikeyBike @QasimRashid we don't care. In another normal country, the number is 0.

The USA are an international joke. You are living in a 3rd world country

@jawsh I'm not @QasimRashid but I think three types of regulations would greatly reduce gun deaths.

1) regulate manufacturers. America is really precious about the Constitution, but the 2nd amendment only protects the right to *bear* arms, not the right to *create* them. I think we need to impose much greater safety standards on firearms and SHUT DOWN - NOT FINE - manufacturers who fail to make satisfactory progress in this area. So many gun deaths are the result of gun theft or accidental discharge. Manufacturers could make changes to make both less likely.

2) prohibit anyone with a history of domestic violence from purchasing a gun. This is one of the most common factors - if not the most common - among mass shooters. Currently, most laws of this nature only apply if the person had a conviction for violence against someone they were living with. Not all abusers live with the person they abuse. We need to rethink how to identify domestic abusers and make it illegal for them to access firearms. Which brings me to

3) improve the federal background check system and require everyone who sells any kind of gun, in any capacity, at any venue, to use it. The penalty for not doing so = you get shut down. Again, we have the right to *bear* arms. There is no such thing as the right to *sell* them. Current laws exempt many different types of sellers from needing to conduct background checks. States don't always do a great job of reporting data to the federal government. And different states have different thresholds for what will get you banned (although there is a federal baseline all states are required to uphold). We need more robust systems in place to make sure data that would disqualify a person from buying a gun gets reported to the federal system; we need to remove exemptions for background checks for certain types of sellers; and we need to impose the same standards for disqualification across the country.

Just my opinion.