Time's person of the year for 2022 should be a gun, for a million reasons including Uvalde.
@mathowie I think US and European societies have been pervasively gun-centered since the 16th century; is not just a question of one year. Since the first nuclear war almost 80 years ago, guns have become a little less central to states, but states (based on guns) have at the same time become more central to society.
@radehi my point with this year is as an American you can be killed at school, church, the movie theater, a sports event, on the road driving, and at any supermarket thanks to half the states allowing permit-free gun carrying.
It's wild that this is the case in 2022.
@mathowie I don't think that's a realistic fear. You're much more likely to be killed on the road driving by a traffic accident or at church by obesity. How many people do you know who were killed by gun violence? Compared to, say, suicide, heart disease, or cancer.
I also don't think is a realistic causal model, because people have been killing each other much longer than they've had guns. In fact, in most of America, we have less guns than you have in the US, as well as more restrictions on guns, but we kill each other more.
@mathowie The bigger issue is that you're being manipulated into hating each other for the benefit of those who profit from factional conflict. You're careening headlong into a civil war.
Last year you shot each other to death 20,000 times. When the war starts, twenty million of you will die within two years. It'll be like 1000 years of "Homicide: Life on the Street" compressed into two years. Even if you don't die in the fighting, you'll suffer innumerable losses of freedom, opportunity, and peace of mind.
That's a much bigger risk to you personally than some jerkoff going postal at the supermarket. Right now mass shootings only serve to manipulate you into hating.
