Thank you for your reply Harlequinn.

I beg to differ: The rate of gun deaths in the USA is only low when compared to countries that are either active (civil-) war zones or basically run by drug cartels. When compared to other, similar developed countries, it is at least 4 times as high (when excluding suicides/accidents) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
I would call that a significant deviation from the norm and stand by my use of "staggering".

You compare gun deaths to deaths from car crashes. Others have already pointed out that one of the main differences is that cars are not tools for killing that are put into public hands and furthermore, since I asked you the question (that you did not answer): "Is the reason for the Second Amendment worth the amount of gun violence in the USA?", my follow up question would be: I can show you the (financial, societal, etc.) benefits of cars (i.e. individual travel by car) for the society, what exactly are the benefits of private gun ownership?
(Whether cars are really worth it, is a whole other discussion.)

Regarding suicide rates, this seems to be a compelling argument until you notice that suicide rates in some, equally developed countries and some lesser developed countries are higher than in the USA and that the number of gun killings that are not suicide is still way higher than in comparable countries (see above).

I do not think that gun violence in the USA can be blamed on mental health issues though <irony>unless you count gun/power fetishism among mental illnesses </irony>.
Edit: Saying that whoever commits an act of gun violence must be mentally ill is tantamount of saying that any criminal must be mentally ill and thus not responsible for his/her actions.

<aside>
One nice observation about this gun fetish (not by me, I think it was Bill Burr): Another common argument pro guns is that people are in it only for home security, if that were the case you would have tons of photos of people with their new door locks or magazine-covers with girls in bikinis in front of security doors.
</aside>

I applaud your stand on public (mental-) health policies though.

Now to your main question:
Have I ever encountered interpersonal violence against me or others?
Yes, but not on a level that bringing lethal force to the situation ever seemed warranted. Thankfully. One obvious reason for that is that I live in a country where I don't need to expect everyone else to carry a gun.
Would it be possible that I would think otherwise, if it would have been the case? Yes.
Would I be correct in thinking that way? No.

To explain: I am not a friend of passive aggressive "stand you ground" thinking. The sane response chain is: 1. Try not to let yourself be provoked, 2. try to de-escalate, 3. try to evade/flee, 4. try to defend yourself.....And of course: CALL THE COPS!

Does that harm my male ego? Yes.
Does that matter enough to me for me to risk killing another human being? No.

Considering it's aggressive stance I'd have thought it was a Gladiator.

I just tried to find any source for this and failed, so take the following with a pinch of salt, but...

My understanding was that this is an example of American automotive industry protectionism coming home to roost.

There was a time where the Japanese cars were viewed as more reliable, cheaper and more fuel efficient (as mentioned in the video). American companies became increasingly worried about competition so settled on the plan of changing American consumer preferences for ever larger cars through aggressive advertising.

This gave American companies a price advantage over foreign producers, as larger cars cost much more to transport, and created an unofficial import tariff. Other companies also did not have designs for big cars, as they are domestically unpopular and fuel is usually prohibitively expensive in their regions.

Now the same industries are calling protectionism as their designs don't match the preferences and fuel efficiencies expected by non US consumers.

Like I say, not sure about this, but if anyone knows something about this either way, I'd be interested to hear.

Bob...
Tell that to the couple murdered in cold blood in Houston.
The entire force tried and tried and tried to lie about it, up to and including the police chief and police union president threatening the entire city with murder on television if they don't support the police....police who had just murdered an innocent family and boldly thoroughly lied about it to cover their murders.
Where were the good cops there? Not a single one in the entire city came forward with the truth, they banded together and used their lie as an excuse to ignore more laws and become more threatening and aggressive to the public. This continued well after the truth was uncovered, numerous lies and fabricated evidence was offered publicly, only the media investigation exposed the tapestry of lies the whole force produced together.

So...where are all these good cops you claim exist? Show me 5 cases where cops turned in criminal cops who were then convicted of serious crimes and the whistle blower remained on the force. You simply can't, they don't exist.

Do you think not all MS13 are bad? Some haven't murdered or pushed drugs, just stood with and protected their brothers who do...those are good people, right? *facepalm
Bob, all cops are bad....some worse than others but they're all in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.

I was 18, barely supporting myself working at dominoes pizza. I felt sure I couldn't get a lawyer to talk to me without a video and hospital record, much less do something. I didn't have serious injuries, just some scrapes and dirty clothes, and a well earned lifelong distrust of cops.
This was the 80's when people didn't get paid big bucks for civil rights violations they could prove, and all I had was my punk kid word against an entire police force. That wasn't opening any doors.
When I couldn't even make a record of the incident, I dropped it. After all, the cop did tell me he had my address so I should just walk away and not make trouble for myself, and his superior was clearly going to have his back 100%, to the point of refusing to take my complaint, aggressively. I really just wanted the cop to be reprimanded for being so threatening even after realizing it was all his mistake, I didn't see a winnable case or dollar signs.

Cancer isn't one disease. A squamous cell carcinoma of the skin is not aggressive and you would have to be very unlucky to die from it.
Pancreatic cancer unfortunately usually presents very late. Stage 4 - distant metastasis means they have confirmed spread to liver or lungs. It absolutely tragic. I've seen many a person 'fight it' and die a horrible death with complications of a new treatment such as radioactive beads inserted in their liver and all sorts of things that made their last months worse. I think that's what most people are expected to do, especially when they have a young family dependent on them. It just seems so random and inexplicable .

*sigh....passive aggressiveness from someone who keeps changing the argument is tiresome, ask your friends.

Your original statement ....""American wealth inequality is staggering. "
???? Stated as if that is a bad thing......."

Clearly indicating staggering wealth inequality isn't a bad thing.

Now..."I totally agree that EXCESSIVE wealth inequality is a bad thing",
so unless you misspoke, you must be parsing the difference between staggering (acceptable) and excessive (unacceptable)....but staggering >= excessive.

Wealth/income inequality are tied....and now who's being pedantic?

Well, I'm glad you aren't running the economy then, sadly the one most in control thinks the same, that one person making (not earning) >10000 times what another makes for < 1/10000 the work isn't inequitable, and neither is one person owning more than 10,000,000 average fully employed countrymen thanks to an accident of birth and/or criminal/dishonest business practices.

Anger/hatred is only step one, maybe even a precursor to step one, which is devising and taking action to oppose the wrongs that pissed you off. You're making assumptions again....what did Mptions do to deserve being made an ass of? ;-)

The roads to hell (and by your theory, back out) are infinite, and usually paved with good intentions (but poor premeditation and/or ongoing examination).

The abuse I speak of was the illegal search and the aggressive, disruptive, stress-causing intrusion into his private room, and he had no choice in that. He also had no choice but to waste his time with them. He could have made it easier and more pleasant for them by letting them violate him silently, but he chose not to capitulate without resistance....what little he had to offer. I support that wholeheartedly.

Trust doesn't expose truth, it hides it, obfuscated it, twists it, colors it.....Trust is antithetical to finding "truth", and today is a terrible idea as more than half of all circulating information is not trustworthy by far. (""Truth" is an idea in the mind of a crazy person, you don't need to know the "truth" to not lie."-my father.
.....what I really mean here is "fact" Not "truth".)

Only truly blind infatuation fits that model, I love with eyes open. If you love someone blindly you really love a concept of them you created, not the real person. I think love is much stronger and real when you love the whole person, scars and blemishes included, not some idealized version without the normal human flaws. It leads to far less disappointment.

I kind of swing the other way on this. We live in a cruel, violent, unjust world. Talking about that is not automatically an endorsement of it. Making jokes about it is part of talking about it and an important coping mechanism. Yes, talking and joking about it CAN be done in a way that encourages it, but it's NOT automatic.

As per your Toy Story examples, the ultimate take away for the young audience exposed to it is that the violence/torture was a clear cut bad thing. When someone in your office pulls a prank on someone and the other party responds by jokingly threatening to kill them for it they aren't normalizing murder. Nobody comes away from that interaction with the idea that murder is somehow more acceptable or less bad.

We need to relax a little bit about looking for micro-aggressions and 'bad' culture in every little thing that people say or joke about,

Yes, he gets between them, and the kids then close in and surround him....in a group.....hi-ya-hi-ya-ing, woo-boo-boo-boo-boo-ing and tomahawk chopping.
He is also on multiple video interviews saying they did block his ceremony, which was permitted, and it's undeniable that the kids and black Israelites interrupted the ceremony that started at the reflecting pool and was supposed to end at the top of the steps the kids took over. That said, he didn't get between the other two groups to continue the closing ceremony, he did it to separate and distract them and instead became the target for both groups.

I disagree 100%. Sane people did this to stop the rapidly escalating anger between the kids and (disgusting) black Israelites before the kids attacked the Israelites, which seemed inevitable because no one was controlling the kids (or the small group of Black Israelites) and the kids were getting more and more rowdy. A few insane people say the kids weren't being racist or insulting, and that's absolutely asinine and completely divorced from reality. They were intentionally insultingly racist....and towards a different group than the group that insulted them.

Watched the long version from 1:11-3:11, no shoving into the kids, no Phillips, that's the black Israelites screaming their nonsense at natives, disrupting their ceremony.
So I checked 1:11:00-1:13:00....when he comes in.....and note smirk boy is not there, he gets into the stationary elders face later. It's bears mentioning that his tactics worked too, he instantly calmed the situation and diverted the hopping mad boy's attention from attacking the Israelites to deriding the natives. Even the Israelites are impressed. Not sure what point you thought that makes, but it's not yours.

He was absolutely not aggressive in the least, and did not push or even touch a single person that I saw, and stopped in front of the kids who quickly surround him. Why are you lying?

Smirk boy might have an argument if he was alone, but smirking in the man's face for nearly 10 minutes while hundreds of your friends dance around you shouting insults and laughing derisively is not an attempt to defuse, it's a clear and obvious power play he thought he won until the shit storm hit....now he's trying to claim he wasn't being disrespectful....I call bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing, and expected to be big man on campus for it....probably is. Do you think he would find it respectful if a black kid smirked inches from his mother's face as she performed (or any time) while his friends taunted her incessantly? Doubt it.

The next March for life is probably going to end with thousands of blm activists, possibly claiming they were just insulted by white supremacists, so any disruptions, insults, or rudeness towards the anti choice March will be ignored. Turnabout is fair play, and rapid escalation is the MO of this century.

Too bad the adults in the church group decided to egg the kids on rather than turn the other cheek. No surprise, the school and republicans claim the kids did nothing at all wrong. 100% certain they would think it's wrong if aimed at them, or done by non white non Christians, or even white kids in Hillary hats.

Worst for these kids, they are now poster children FOR PRO abortion groups.....their new commercial could be any portion of these videos captioned "your unwanted kid could be one like these, with their public actions drawing death threats, property threats, and unending verbal assault to your family and communities".

So much for helping their cause by attending the march. All they've done is expose the utter disrespect Christians accept from their children towards others, even defend. My parents would have skinned me alive and offered the pelt as contrition if I acted that way towards an adult, and we don't believe in Jebus.

Did you check out the summary of the video evidence posted by eric3579? Or in the nearly 2 hr one I linked skip to 1:11 and check out the interaction between the drummer and the kids.

The kids stay in their group, and the drummer and his followers wade right into them, with lots of room to go around. Phillips is on audio recording declaring that he did NOT feel that he was blocked from any closing ceremony, but that he wanted to go in and separate the kids from the black Israelites to 'descalate' the situation. Eric3579's video again has Phillips audio statement about what he was doing, listen to that and then watch the longer video for a minute or two at 1:11 when Phillips wades in. He's clearly lying, he went in aggressively pushing into the middle of the crowd of kids, hardly what any sane person wanting to deescalate the situation would do.

Yeah, heaven forfend we end up with a generation of men who think women deserve respect or that violence is a last resort.

That’d be a fucking nightmare.

Toxic masculinity is absolutely a thing, and it harms men as much as women.

But it’s called “toxic” masculinity for a reason. If I said “shit this toxic water is killing us”, would you think I was implying that ALL water is toxic? Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with masculinity or masculine behaviour. But when you define aggressive, predatory behaviour as “masculine” then of course all masculinity is bad. But the problem isn’t masculinity, it’s your fucked up definiton of it. Hence the differentiator “toxic”.

TL;DR don’t be an asshole and no one will bother you for just being a man.

I think if you asked the average woman in Spain, they would say aggressive machismo and misogyny aren't attractive features of masculinity, and they would prefer to be treated as equals by strong men rather than objects by insecure men....but that's just my guess....I haven't polled them.

Sorry, I'm definitely only referring to the coal-rolling shitstains that have nothing better to do than passive-aggressively bully other people.

If you don't like electric vehicles, don't buy one.

Don't see anyone blocking diesel pumps.

Ps. I don't own or want an EV, and my Mustang definitely gets worse mileage than any diesel, by design. If someone looks down their nose at me, I'm not going to do shit to innocent bystanders just because I'm a whiny little bitch like the ICEing dicks.