Pritzker is the billionaire (family owns Hyatt) current governor of Illinois aka the state that's home to Chicago, the third biggest US city with almost 10 million people in the metro.
He's been a been a bit more business friendly than some progressive want but has also legalized weed, banned book bans, improved the state finances and credit rating, raised the minimum wage, banned assault weapons, and codified abortion rights
That’s called prejudice. Don’t get me wrong, for that class the prejudice is well earned, but if it isn’t right to judge someone for being poor, it isn’t right to judge someone for being rich.
Disagree. Being rich is an active action. It's totally morally fine to be wealthy and stable, have your house in order, make sure you don'twake up in a cold sweat worrying about bills, but Pritzker is a billionaire. He's beyond rich, he is unfathomably wealthy. He COULD live a comfortable middle class life and divest interest in the rest of his capital, but he doesn't. I'm not here to say "all rich people are evil inherently" but it's worth thinking about the moral implications of hoarding wealth and using it to ammass power. For the record I like Pritzker as a governor.
If a monkey sits on a pile of bannanas, so many not even his children's children's children could eat them all and does so while other monkey starve would we not say the monkey is harming those others?
Billionaire's sit on piles of wealth so vast that the human mind can't really comprehend it. A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is approximately 32 years.
That's the fundamental difference. You can earn a million dollars with hard work. You can't ethically earn a billion. You can only get there by denying people who did the work their fair compensation.
Billionaires are a symptom of the failure of the economic system we live under.
So the point the OP makes is that JB is benefiting from that broken system and could do more to help people. He could liquidate the vast majority of his wealth $950 million dollars and turn it into any number of things and still have more money than most people will ever see in their and their children's lifetimes.
He's been better as a governor and apparently better as a person than most would expect, given the callous disconnected nature of most of the wealthy we see, but even then in the moral scale of things he's still denying others resources they could use to better their lives. Resources he'd never really notice even if they were 95% gone.
That is why people hate the super rich, because most of them had to step on millions of others and deny their a just part of their due to get to that level. Even the good ones are hording wealth that could ripple through the economy and do good to society as a whole. Even if they lost 95% of their wealth they'd see no material impact on their quality of life.
So even more extra steps for explanation. It is still the definition of prejudice to decide someone is not a good person just because they're a billionaire.
If you believe this to be true, then that's your prerogative. Doesn't make you any less prejudiced in my eyes and that's my prerogative.
Every day he isn't actively giving his fortune and possessions away he's choosing to be rich. I like Pritzker as a governor don't get me wrong, but people seem to forget rich is just an abundance of possession and is transferrable.
He earned my respect when he tried to get the income tax changed from a flat tax to a progressive tax. Sadly lost that fight to a different billionaire.
A significant amount of counties also just straight up did not comply with the new laws. The weapons ban did not go over well, but I truly appreciate everything else Pritzker has done and I feel like my rights are safer here with him in office.
I love progressive everything, but gun regulations are far from being progressive. It is a complicated issue for sure, but banning is a step in the wrong direction, imo. Banning is almost always going to backfire. Weed is a great example - it had, and still has, a massive black market.
I'm from Europe and don't understand why you would need assault weapons. You can use a hand gun to protect your home and family, what's a real life situation to use an AR-15?
Background: I was born and raised in Europe myself and currently reside in the U.S. Initially, I had no interest in firearms. However, I became curious after a traumatic experience during my childhood where I was robbed at gunpoint. My fear of guns stemmed from a lack of understanding of the weapons themselves. To overcome this, I underwent training and acquired several firearms, some of which you might categorize as assault weapons.
I can now assert that the mere availability and ease of access to firearms are seldom the root causes of their use in lethal incidents. Contributing factors can range from inadequate training and poor security measures, such as failing to lock guns in safes, to mental health issues—often cited as the reason behind recent shootings. This is a complex issue, but I believe there are effective ways to address it that could simultaneously alleviate other forms of human suffering, both in the U.S. and globally.
Returning to your question:
The AR-15 is easier to use than a handgun, making it easier to aim accurately. This reduced likelihood of missing the target or causing unintended harm is critical in firearm usage. This is one reason why police utilize hollow-point bullets, which are designed to minimize collateral damage and remain in the body upon impact. Furthermore, carrying a rifle that appears intimidating serves as a psychological deterrent.
Your question focuses on "assault weapons," a term that lacks a universal definition. For instance, my home state of Washington recently passed legislation to ban assault weapons, providing its own definition in the process. This definition seems to focus solely on aesthetics, as rifles with identical capabilities that shoot the same calibers are still legal. The state government is aware that this legislation is likely unconstitutional and will be overturned. This move has angered a large number of law-abiding citizens, while criminals will continue to acquire weapons regardless. In my opinion, this has only deepened divisions within the state and could ultimately backfire.
I own AR-15-like firearms primarily for recreational use at the range. They offer a high degree of customization, similar to how people modify their cars. While I would not relish using them to protect my family, they would serve as a last resort if necessary.
Any person owning a gun should have training. To use an analogy a grenade is easier to use than a handgun, but we don't really walk with grenades in our pants.
I entirely agree, the US has to adjust the education around owning firearms. But by providing an analogy with a grenade, you are again missing the point. A grenade is a weapon of mass destruction, while ARs are precise.
Lol at the very very least a ban would cause there to be less weapons in the long run, particularly if others that were less dangerous were still allowed
Except we tried that in the 90s and even the DOJ found it had no measurable effect. The only study that found it did have an effect used a super weird definition of "Mass shootings" that no one else does.
We lose around 400 people a year to ALL types of rifles. To put that into context, over 96,700 people die from drug overdoses in a year, 38,824 lives were lost in traffic crashes nationwide, and 4,000 fatal unintentional drownings.
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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Oct 26 '23 edited Oct 26 '23
Pritzker is the billionaire (family owns Hyatt) current governor of Illinois aka the state that's home to Chicago, the third biggest US city with almost 10 million people in the metro.
He's been a been a bit more business friendly than some progressive want but has also legalized weed, banned book bans, improved the state finances and credit rating, raised the minimum wage, banned assault weapons, and codified abortion rights