Reply #54: I still don't get it (ed.)

[iverglas]

Why would you represent a comment that contained the expression "shooting ourselves" -- and don't tell me you're having problems with collective noun thingies too -- as referring to, and ONLY to, violent crime?

C'mon now. I'll bet you can come up with examples of a group of people "shooting itself" (you know there's no pronoun for a group of people referring to itself in the aggregate -- "we" has to stand in, and obviously the action is an action on the part of individual members of the collective committing it against other individual members, amounting to some of "us" (you) shooting others of "us" ...) that have nothing to do with violent crime.

Suicides, negligent homicides, accidental shootings, shootings by children too young to have criminal responsibility. Even criminal shootings (e.g. of women by their intimate partners) that really just aren't connected with that criminal subculture of yours.

If you can't answer a question, it's probably wiser just to click on by than to attempt to reframe it and hope that nobody notices.

(edited to add missing word)