In a way, the black-and-white Palestinian scarf draped over Hannah Sattler’s shoulders this week and the tie-dyed T-shirts of 1968 are woven from a common thread. Like so many college students across the country protesting the Israel-Hamas war, Sattler feels the historic weight of the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the 1960s and 70s. “They always talked about the ’68 protest as sort of a North Star,” Sattler, 27, a graduate student of international human rights policy at Columbia University, said of the campus organizers there.
I keep seeing this, and it does look bad, but these are honestly there to kill anyone who starts shooting protesters. I remember my university held an event every year with some fair rides and stuff, and there were guys with rifles walking around everywhere securing things. There were no protests and no reasonable expectation of violence. The same can not be said here. I suspect it’s only a matter of time until some outsider decides to start shooting protesters.
It sucks that’s where we’re at in the US, but it is. The snipers are not the guys doing harm. The cops with riot shields are. They look less dangerous, but they are far more dangerous.
That’s uh, not how things are done in most universities… Truly insane that we think people with rifles walking around public spaces are a necessary and reasonable security precaution.
I agree it’s wild it’s required, but I was fairly glad they were there honestly. It was George Mason University. I don’t know of any gun violence happening there yet, but when I was there the campus did have a scare of some group coming near campus with rifles to scare people. America has an a lot of issues that were choosing to not deal with. It sucks.
Did you see the other pictures I posted? Do they look like guys walking around with rifles securing things?
I went to IU. I grew up in Bloomington. They don’t normally put snipers on rooftops.
If you mean the dude in green with the suppressed rifle, actually exactly. Those are the guys who were at my university for those events I mentioned. I don’t recall snipers during those though. That’s the abnormal part, but yeah that’s expected at large gatherings. They’re at large football games if you know where to look, for example, which isn’t because they don’t like football fans.
They aren’t the ones you should be afraid of. They aren’t just going to start shooting people, but the guys with riot shields very well may just start beating you, and the guys with the paintball gun looking weapons very well may start shooting you, even though there’s supposed to shoot at the ground.
The part I am specifically talking about is the abnormal part?
Gosh, wonder why I brought it up?
Also, the other pictures are of cops reacting violently to protesters, so I’m not sure why you’re acting like that always happens when I showed with a simple photo that it doesn’t.
The protests are abnormal. That’s why there’s an abnormal presence. Seriously. Those guys aren’t going to hurt anyone unless someone brings a gun, in which case they’re almost certainly only going to hurt that person with the gun. They’re fine and expected.
Yes, and none of the ones acting violently have rifles, at least not what we usually call rifles. The paintball guns may be rifled. Idk. The ones being violent mostly all have riot shields. They’re the ones who are there to be violent. They’re the ones people need to pay attention to.
Again, it’s abnormal to see snipers at the campus but it is perfectly normal to see them at a large gathering of people, especially one that’s politically and emotionally charged. You want those cops there because they will only protect people against a shooter. The guys with shields, pepper spray, and the paintball guns should fuck off, or stand between protesters and counter-protesters at most.
Campus protests are in no way abnormal. Again, I showed a photo to prove that this is different from how they have treated protesters in the past.
I like how you actually went to the university in question and you still get downvoted and told “nah, that’s normal”. That guy in green is only barely distinguishable from a soldier in a warzone. How many spare magazines of ammo does he have in his kit?