And to think that you guys pay to be there. Imagine loading yourself with massive student debt for a place that stocks up on weapons as if its at war with you.
They are right. I can’t wrap my head around it.
I am glad my biggest worries as a student were if I wasn’t failing any classes and not how many weapons the university was buying to control the student body.
Hey Jones! If you fail one more test, I’ll have you taken out the back and shot!
Good point, only students should be allowed to carry guns.
How is a private entity allowed to buy military grade weaponry to use against their students?
Oh right… 'Merica. You guys have a problem with weapons, a problem no civilized country has. But then again, we’re not talking about a civilized country but a capitalism ruled country.
There are plenty of capitalist countries where this sort of shit doesn’t happen.
Because none of them are ruled by capitalism. Capitalism is their economic system, not their government system.
Because none of them are ruled by capitalism.
I with you were right…
If they were ruled by capitalism, things like universal healthcare wouldn’t exist. Things are far from perfect in other countries, but there’s a huge leap between the US and other counties in terms of what capitalism is allowed to do in them.
I think you are in the wrong here. Europe is definitely ruled by capitalism. What Americans don’t understand is that universal healthcare benefits capitalism, because the state makes sure your workers are healthy.
Your employee is sick? State money is going to fix him up and pay (most) of the wage in the meantime.
But that has more to do with a lack of democratic accountability than with the way the economy works. In my opinion, what holds back the US the most is their completely insane election system.
That lack of accountability, imho, comes from capitalism dictating what democracy can do, and not the other way around. In other countries, democracy limits what capitalism can do, so it’s more or less subordinate to it.
In the US, capitalism decides what democracy can do, so it’s actually democracy which is subordinated to capitalism.
lol
Don’t say, “against their students”, say, “against their customers”. Which makes it sound even more ridiculous.
Capitalism isn’t the problem.
Edit: I would argue wealth inequality is the problem. You can have (a form of) capitalism and still fix wealth inequality.
Capitalism is a tool, used by 2000 people to rule the rest. Hierarchy is the problem. The idea that one person is better than the other.
This idea needs to die already.
But yes, money is a good tool to brainwash people into misunderstanding the worth of their work and their property. This „inflation“ treadmill is insane and makes you run faster in the hamster wheel while the rich dont work at all!
And may the odds be ever in your favor.
Agreed
It’s THE problem
Capitalism may not be the problem, but “country being ruled by capitalism” definitely is.
Capitalism will seek profits over all else. If that requires implementing corporatism as a form of government it will endeavour to do so. That is the point of the whole god damn thing.
Capitalism is an extremely potent and powerful tool to create profits. Whatever else it does is incidental. If the food system can get away with creating a profit by making you eat sawdust then it will. All costs are externalised as much as possible and all profit is privatised as much as possible. This is not a bug but a feature.
European here. “Pepper munitions” aren’t military weaponry as they’re banned for use in war by the Chemical Weapons Convention. This all reads like riot control stuff. The only weird thing is that american universities have their own police departments.
Private railroad companies also have their own police departments.
Does that actually count as a police department or is that more like a private security company and they have to call the real police if anything happens?
It’s a real police department, The United States postal service also has their own police department.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_Police_Department
Weird.
Neither are the bean back rounds and launchers
But yeah, this was a shock for me a few years after I graduated. My school made a big deal of “Campus Security” becoming spcertified as a police force “University Police”, but the only reason they ever gave was so they could carry guns.
I’m not denying there may be a gun threat occasionally, but this was in a small university town, not near any cities. This was as safe a place as you could expect, and I’m sure almost all their calls were kids binging on new intoxicants, and kids fumbling through dating and relationships
I’m an Indiana University alum and my dad was a professor there. During the protests there, they had a fucking sniper on the roof. The protests were in a park next to the student union which had been used for protests since the Vietnam War. I was there in middle school in a shanty that was protesting the 1990s Gulf War. Now the new semester has started and there’s a chain link fence around the whole thing.
The president just got a raise.
Makes me fucking sick.
Here’s the sniper:
I used to climb up to that roof where that sniper is with friends when I was in high school to smoke weed, so that was a trip to see.
I agree it’s insane what they do, but the sniper is needed with the direction we’ve gone. The sniper is there in case someone with a gun comes to kill protesters, not to kill protesters or they would have done it by now. They really are there for everyone’s safety. Now the guys on the ground who attack people or the guys firing pepper rounds/spray at protesters, they’re the ones we should be complaining about. The ones who are actually applying violence to protesters. The sniper may appear worse if you aren’t paying attention, but they’ve yet to actually shoot anyone, while protesters have been assaulted.
Nonsense. The sniper is part of the same police force as the one attacking protesters.
Which side did the cops take when protesters in New York were attacked?
They are a part of the same police force. I’m not saying they’re good people. I’m saying this role is not one doing harm, and is actually useful until we get our shooting issue under control. You’ll see the same snipers at sporting events and anywhere else with a large gathering. They’re obviously not there for the protesters, but in case someone decides to do something to start killing others.
Why has there never been a sniper there before then? There’s a huge festival every year in that park with a huge number of students and non-students, including a lot of teenagers, with live bands playing on more than one stage. Never a sniper.
No Idea. My university did a yearly celebration as well and we for sure had snipers and guys with rifles walking around. If you know where to look, they’re at most large events. I can’t tell you about this location specifically, but it’s common.
This is Bloomington, Indiana. Population 80,000. Police snipers aren’t generally a thing in towns that size.
“to escalate its warfare on its students”
Yep, my mind doesn’t understand this phrase at all.
“American universities turn into concentration camps” was not on my bingo card for 2024.
weren’t all schools like that from the beginning?
Insanity
RIP to all of the Freshmen.
May the odds be ever in their favor
Its not so bad, they’ll will get out in 4 years with Good Behavior.
Not American so not up to speed on what’s going on…
Are these students that are protesting doing it with tanks, machine guns, grenades, planes? Are they being at all non-peaceful? Has anyone been killed?
Aren’t they protesting about the arms supplied to Israel and being used against Gazans?
You don’t understand, they have signs. Signs. And they shout. Better buy some bear spray.
Oh my fucking god, are they impeding someone’s income? The monsters!
The worst things that happen are when students lock the door to a building, or when fascist counter protestors (often in police uniforms) show up and escalate shit.
PR rules the world. Can’t allow free speech and protest if it might draw attention.
Better to show overwhelming military force on domestic college students at the first sign of protest. Keep it from spreading.
UC Merced annual training required only 7 rounds, while UC San Francisco used 7000 and UC Santa Barbara used 9000 🤔
Shoutout to UC Davis for having the only police department on the list who “did not use any military equipment during this timeframe”.
For some reason the linked PDF varies from the screenshot in several ways, though most of the numbers are the same. (UC Riverside’s number of rounds of .556-range ammunition used in training is 3000 in the screenshot but 6000 in the PDF now.)
I was curious how much this launcher costs:
… over here I see this glorified paintball gun is normally $2400 but currently on sale for just $1850.
Fucking excuse me?
Do we think part of why this is happening is because Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are in bed with academia
When the university buys an f35 we can talk about it, this is small arms.
9 what???
What do you think you fire the 40mm munitions out of?
Their ass? No wait, that’s where their arguments for peaceful protesters being scary are being fired from!
What do they need grenade launchers for???
With a weird mind you could excuse single target weapons, but grenades? Do you want want to free some seats early?
Grenade launcher make excellent multi-purpose payload delivery systems. You can put bean bags in them for direct firing, and pepper “spray” or tear-gas canisters for indirect engagements.
Less-lethal grenades, probably.
