• The possibility of getting shot has broadly convinced the general public to improve their own behavior.

    No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.

    Your argument makes no sense. We should deescalate but fear for our lives so we behave? Who’s gonna escalate to put the fear into people? Rethink and try again.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      4 hours ago

      No. Guns give assholes carte blanche to be an asshole without consequences.

      The idea that actions should have consequences is the real problem that both your latest and your parent comment describe. Parent comment talks about “putting up with shitty behavior”, implying that they should be able to directly respond to such behavior. Any such response is “escalation”. Your parent comment is describing a desire to commit offensive behavior, but that offensive behavior is held in check out of fear of a gun. You behave better.

      Your current “consequences” argument says the same thing: You observe what you perceive to be poor behavior, and wish for “consequences”. If that wish culminates in any sort of direct interaction with the poorly behaved, you have escalated. Your “fear for our lives” holds your own behavior in check. You behave better.

      I can’t control the road raging asshole. You can’t control the road raging asshole. There will always be one road raging asshole somewhere. There doesn’t need to be three. You can look inward and recognize the harmful, hostile attitudes in yourself that would lead to road rage, and you can actively suppress them. Alternatively, you can fear the external consequences arising from entertaining those harmful attitudes, and elect against such behaviors.

      So long as you are going to continue to rationalize your good behavior as being the result of other people being armed, I’m not going to support your efforts to disarm the people creating those good results.

      (Edit: Somehow I thought that you were an additional commenter. Edited to reflect that you are also the parent commenter)

      • Allow me to clarify: I don’t want to ram someone off the road, I just want there to be a way to give feedback without it being escalated from there. Thumbs down, not finger up. Not that people who already drive like that give a shit about other people and any feedback lesser than a major accident. I’m real tired of the car culture here, too.

        We do this all the time when on foot. Somebody bumps into someone else, maybe somebody says sorry or watch where you’re going. Or maybe someone decides to pull a gun. That’s more what I’m getting at.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          4 hours ago

          How many dashcam videos do you need to see of drivers crashing into vehicles or obstacles while giving or receiving such “feedback”?

          You are turning your attention away from driving, and focusing instead on “feedback”. Simultaneously, you are distracting the shitty driver from driving, and forcing them to focus on your attempt at providing “feedback”. Two drivers are now distracted from the road because you felt some pressing need to communicate your displeasure.

          You say “feedback”, I say “escalation”, and “endangerment”. Again, if the possibility of a gun is what keeps you from choosing to escalate in this fashion, I cannot support your efforts to disarm.

          Quite the contrary, I would prefer that you chose to arm yourself. Then you would understand that your feedback is not worth the risk, and a person providing you with such “feedback” is not worth your time. You would recognize that if you drew your firearm during a road rage incident, you would invite prison time for brandishing, manslaughter, or attempted murder. You would already understand the extreme dangers of escalation, and would actively avoid it. You would hold your ego in check, rather than allowing it free rein over your actions.

          The best course of action is to open the distance between you and the shitty driver. Not try to convince them of their shittiness. If you need them to be possibly armed for your ego to allow you to retreat, then it is better for everyone on the road that they be armed.