It doesn't help much with where things are, but Jon Ronson's 'Things Fell Apart' podcast has a fascinating episode on the origins of the anti-abortion movement: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0011cpq
In response to the mass shooting in Texas, the state legislator calls for arming teachers. Sickening doesn't begin to cover it. BBC News - Texas shooting: 19 children among dead in primary school attackhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61573377
Active shooter lockdown drills are a common part of the school curriculum, from primary to high school.
Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month.
Quote from: TobyD on May 25, 2022, 08:17:02 amIn response to the mass shooting in Texas, the state legislator calls for arming teachers. Sickening doesn't begin to cover it. BBC News - Texas shooting: 19 children among dead in primary school attackhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61573377These quotes, from the article, show how fucked up the USA is with respect to guns.Quote Active shooter lockdown drills are a common part of the school curriculum, from primary to high school.Quote Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month.
I think they are beyond saving. All US climbers I taked with about guns when I was there some fifteen years ago seemed like clinically insane gun enthusiasts to me --- and I grew up on the Swedish countryside where gun ownership is high but where no one in their right mind would 1) own a handgun and 2) bring it to the crag with 3) a bullet in the chamber. Something I came across more than once. I am just happy that there is an ocean between us, making smuggling of guns tricky. I pity Mexico and Canada, but I have no pity left for US.
California doesn’t feel like a gun nut place and lots of people I met hated gun culture, but it’s always there beneath the surface.
Not surprising the decisions are regressive when rules written in the 1700s are being used to justify decisions today. Sure, the constitution says people should have the right to bear arms, but when that's making it possible to have more than one mass shooting a day, maybe it's time to rethink some stuff not sure the guys in 1791 were expecting that when they wrote it (or if they were, it doesn't mean they were right!)
Well that was actually part of the problem with Roe v Wade, and why it has now been overturned; it was an attempt to crowbar the right to an abortion into law under the existing constitution. I.e. arguing that the constitutional right to privacy meant that abortion should automatically also be legal, which to me has always seemed like extremely shaky ground. Obviously abortion isn't mentioned explicitly in the constitution. This approach to gaining nationwide abortion rights was obviously easier at the time, with a more liberally minded court, than doing the actually democratic thing and making a law in Congress and the Senate that could then be protected by the court instead of struck down. In that sense, this is actually a win for democracy in that the elected state representatives can decide what to do for their state. If the people of each state don't like it they can vote to remove those representatives. The tragedy is that in the meantime, lots of suffering will be caused.
next on the list are Obergerfell (same sex marriange), Griswold (contraceptives) and Lawrence (same-sex sexual activity).
Wherever you stand on the issue (and I am 100% pro choice), pushing major changes to society via undemocratic back door means was never going to end well.
Scary times over there. The UK is a mess right now but it's looking blissful compared to the state of the US. Who knows what damage could be done by a Republican majority in both houses + Republican president come 2024, with the supreme court by their side.