How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion - mandatory 48-hr waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he's about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence, and an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because). Let's close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun.
It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right? I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?
@LordShadowfire Sounds damn good to me. Especially this bit:
"an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because)"😂😂😂
But can I add one more suggestion.
Tax ammo to the point that it's more expensive to buy than a university degree. Pretty much all guns in circulation will become little more than rather obscene wall ornaments within days.
Not as long as half of our government is [b]owned[/b] by the NRA, and the gun lobby, which profits off of the sales of weapons used to spill this blood.
Every country has its violent types, but mass shootings for no clear reason other than shallow disaffection seems unique to the USA. They are extremely rare even in notionally similarly rich countries allowing private gun-ownership.
Such as Switzerland where holding guns at home was part of a military conscription / reservist system it scrapped only quite recently. Or France and Malta, with many so-called "hunters" who love to blast away with shotguns at flocks of migrating birds as "sport" - not even for food. Some people in rural Norway shoot wild elk, for their meat - but to limited, licenced numbers.
In the UK, gun ownership is far less common because very few Britons feel they need, want or can justify a gun. The nearest, other than agricultural pest-control and collecting antiques that cannot be fired, are the sports of clay-pigeon and game-bird shooting. Both are under very strict controls, but those birds are edible and most are bred for it. (Plenty of Britons would like that stopped altogether.) Even so, occasional Police gun amnesties net a surprising number and variety of weapons. Many are war "souvenirs" or sports guns left by deceased owners, or are legally-held but handed in as no longer wanted. One Police Force donates the hardwood parts from the stocks of the guns it destroys, to a "Men In Sheds" scheme!
The least privately-armed of the developed nations appears to be Japan.
In all of these nations, gratuitous shootings not terrorist-inspired are extremely rare: about 4 in the UK in the last 40 years, though one was in a primary school (Dunblane). Norway suffered a terrible political-extremist massacre by one of its own citizens in Oslo in 2009; leaving over 70 dead. '
Whatever is wrong in the USA to make criminal shootings so casual and habitual, mystifies and saddens everyone else around the world - though might encourage those regimes that despise the American way of life - but it does seem based on deep social and cultural problems.
Those do include a widespread but by no means universal fetish for owning guns whose only possible purpose is killing people, including military-grade guns no civilian should ever "need". I don't claim that fetish as the reason for the gratuitous murders, just the means to commit them; but why own a gun anyway? What sort of gun?
If you buy a gun other than only the appropriate type solely for a genuine, controlled sports or farming purpose, are you prepared to shoot dead, fellow human beings? Just as some yob skulking around with a kitchen-knife is prepared to stab someone to death? Even in "self-defence"?
We foreigners must recognise that despite the estimated 120 guns per 100 adults, very many Americans do [i]not[/] own guns of any type. We must also recognise that the big-name, legal gun-clubs are proportionally very small in reality; but though they would presumably refuse membership to someone they suspect of criminal intent, some have large political-campaign funds for friends in high places, making any condemnation by them of gun violence rather hollow.
Nevertheless, does that gun fetish create a circle of fear leading to many others who would not otherwise dream of arming themselves, to do so?
That estimate includes a big jump in weapons purchases during the worst of the Covid pandemic - does anyone know why?
Only Americans can answer such questions of their "own" land; and to identify and overcome their own social and cultural problems, but one major obstacle seems a cultural tendency to reduce everything to mere money and shallow party-political bickering.
Does anyone in Wall Street and the Capitol look beyond bank balances?
All democracies disagree on party lines on how to run a country, but usually manage to work together, somehow. Is there no cross-Party co-operation in anything in the USA ?
A bullet can kill anyone, but it needs more than mere politics or a Constitution obviously open to being amended, to endeavour to ensure it is never fired in the first place.
It needs cross-floor political will, but also genuine, nation-wide shifts in society and culture.
@ninalanyon A very good point; but as you say the problem is climbing back out.
No country is ever perfect because it consists of lots of human beings and nothing human-made ever works perfectly all of the time despite best endeavours for that.
It's all too easy and very common to tar all politicians, police-officers or any other section of the community with the same brush thanks to the bad minority among them; and I think once that mistrust takes hold it festers like dry rot.
I expect the mistrust and prejudices have always been around but these days is stoked by wilful or misguided material on (anti?)social media.
Racial and ethnic problems are even harder to cure than ineptitude or malfeasance by officialdom. Politicians and officials can be replaced, albeit having done a lot of damage; but racial or other cultural tensions tend to reflect very deep-rooted social fears and attitudes going back many generations.
I do not believe they can be eased by harping on about past evil or making bland gestures like artificial apologies, moving statues about and categorising people in alphabet-soups as if database entries. All that merely perpetuates the feelings of "difference" and even the feuds they bring. Instead, it needs accepting that yes, the past was bad, let's not repeat it; but above all, let's look to the here, now and tomorrow.
I forget who, but one famous Hollywood actor had the right idea when he admitted that when faced with the question "Race" on an official form, always wrote simply, "Human".
To me, the right to bear arms is important, but far more important is the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In just the most recent shooting, 2 adults and 19 children, aged 7-10, were deprived of that first 'inalienable' right.
So far as I can see, the ONLY ways to stop this is for Congress to get serious and honest and take a page from other countries who have dealt with this horror, or, for the voters to vote out those who are ducking and jiving to avoid taking the responsibilities that come with office.
They controlled that “down under” by banning firearms and they haven’t had a mass shooting since.
SW-User
@Pfuzylogic same in the uk. They had a horrendous massacre of primary school children in Scotland in 1996. Handguns were promptly banned and an amnesty to hand in your weapons was agreed. No mass shootings since.
@ElwoodBlues we can pass all the gun laws you have in mind. My question is who obeys these said laws??? That's right....not criminals. So please feel free to take away more of my so called freedoms. Does matter violence can break out anywhere at anytime and anything is a weapon if you know how to hold it
@Brewboy35 According to your logic there's no point in having any laws at all, [b]LOL!!![/b]
In fact, as the data charts show, stricter gun laws correlate strongly with reduced gun violence. You have presented an argument claiming that correlation shouldn't exist, but the strong correlation still exists.
There's no realistic way to prevent them. This country thinks we have nothing to learn from Europe and Australia with how they handle gun laws. It'd be great to adopt those laws but America prides itself on being behind the curve 😷
A lot of people with mental issues that are not being taken care of... They focus on guns, it's their knee jerk reaction and in doing so they keep failing to identify and deal with the real problem..
@Doomflower [quote]@Adstar it wasn't exclusively about money though. Those institutions also wrongly confined many people and did serious damage. The conditions were frequently horrific.[/quote]
Yep that was exactly the line the Activists pushed all over the western world.. And now we are suffering the long term effects of their success in getting people to believe that's how it was in all mental health systems of the time... They threw the baby out with the bathwater and now we live with the consequences..
Oh, the government has it's finger right on the pulse of the issue.
Unfounded claims already abound amidst toothless suggestions. The theories? That the gunman was an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally, or transgender, quickly emerged on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms. They were accompanied by familiar conspiracy theories suggesting the entire shooting was somehow staged.
"It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: It avoids real conversations about the issue (of gun violence), and it gives people who don’t want to face reality a patsy, it gives them someone to blame,” said Jaime Longoria, director of research at the Disinfo Defense League, a non-profit that works to fight racist misinformation (CBS News).
SW-User
@Graylight What gets me is that Fox News has gleefully been blaming the parents. They got someone on to say that you should send your kids to private schools because they take security way more seriously there.
So there you have it. It's YOUR fault. If you can't afford to send your children to private school, then it's YOUR fault if they get shot!!
@Graylight There was mention that the shooter might have been bullied. Others say that he was the bully. But if he had been bullied and that contributed to him flipping out, shouldn't the kids who bullied him share a large part of the blame for turning him into a killer? They should feel guilty for the rest of their lives.
@sunsporter1649 DUUUDE!!! My elected representatives aren't trying to sell the lie that guns allegedly make you safer!!! If Trump & the NRA believed their propaganda, they'd WELCOME guns to all their meetings and gatherings.
But Trump and the NRA do the opposite. Yet idiots still don't notice the hypocrisy. If open carry makes Trump safer, why doesn't he allow people to do that around him??
Ask Britain & Europe - mass killings are VERY rare there. Ask Australia - their gun laws after a 1996 mass shooting greatly reduced gun violence: [quote]Results: In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, and none in the 10.5 years afterwards. Declines in firearm-related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p=0.04), firearm suicides (p=0.007) and firearm homicides (p=0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased. No evidence of substitution effect for suicides or homicides was observed. The rates per 100 000 of total firearm deaths, firearm homicides and firearm suicides all at least doubled their existing rates of decline after the revised gun laws.[/quote] https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365
Meanwhile, mass shootings are on the rise in the US, although the pandemic put a damper on them: This map of US mass shootings is 10 years out of date, but it gives us some sense of how wide the problem is and what weapons are used
It's a real tragedy when school kids get murdered, especially when they are at school.
However, the control freaks jump on such incidents as a way to deprive everyone of freedom by engaging in collective punishment. The evidence shows that the control freaks are not really that interested in protecting lives as they are in imposing their agenda on the country. They love school shootings because they are golden opportunities to push their agenda.
For instance, did any of them say anything of importance about the on-going carnage in places such as Chicago?
"Year To Date Shot & Killed: 213 Shot & Wounded: 941 Total Shot: 1154 Total Homicides: 236" https://heyjackass.com
or Baltimore = https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com
And guess which ethnic group the vast majority of the victims was from?
Illinois and Maryland don't even score in the top 20, when it comes to firearms mortality. Sadly, I can't filter out the suicides and I can't find the homicide by firearms. But hey... I think cleaning up Chicago and Baltimore 'cause black people, isn't enough when it comes to this toppic.
@Diotrephes Actually, according to recent polling, [i]gun owners[/i] would accept a number of gun control measures. Right now the problem is the NRA owns your state reps. If you want any of the measures listed below, talk to your state reps.
@Kwek00 The gun problem is the same as all of the other problems. If the greater society ignores a problem because it primarily affects a segment that it doesn't care about the problem will expand until it destroys the greater society.
This is true for things such as virus infections, housing, jobs, criminal prosecutions, cops shooting people, wars, water quality and accessibility, literally everything. So, when a problem breaks out and it is ignored, it will eventually spread and cause all kinds of disasters.
Politicians don't give a damn about the thousands of minorities that are killed by guns every year because they hate them and they regard the shootings as substitutes for lynchings. So, one day a White kid walks into a school and kills a dozen kids and they flip out. Or a Slave Patroller murders a Black driver and they make excuses for it and then the Slave Patroller thugs start shooting Whites and they get upset. Or a disease breaks out in a Third World country and they ignore it until it spreads to them. Of course that is when they make gobs of money so that's OK.
[quote] Joined: April 20, 2021 [/quote] Rad you joined on 420 dude !! You rock !! Or you’re as dense as one at least. Omfg you seem like you must’ve gotten a lot more attention than you should have from your uncle.
@ElwoodBlues [quote] Keep trying, LOL!!! [/quote] Keep trying like you have. Or successfully?? Just curious 🧐 I realize now that you are so literal any answer that you don’t believe is another thing that just goes right over your head. Just like human companionship and sex you don’t get it.
I kinda asked the same thing yesterday @Heartlander ... and I found out it's all about freedom which is like a delicious bowl of ice-cream that I can't understand 'cause I'm not American enough.
I'm so happy that I don't understand this. I think freedom should have a price, certain tragedies are trully unavoidable and limiting your freedom because of that rare tragic event should not be done. But something that repeats itself like clockwork? Considering other examples of people that don't like ice-cream so much, I think you peeps can do a lot better.
We are the land of creeps and crazies. Trump becoming president alone is proof of that. [center]. .and sadness builds to cloud my eyes til hope it yields and all but dies..[/center]
In Canada and the province that I live in. You have to take a firearms safety course. Then you need to submit a PAL ( Possession and Acquisition Licence ). There is also a minimum of a 28 day waiting period.
You also have submit a Possession and Acquisition Licence every 5 years.
Just saying implementing a system like this just might help in America. I mean it helps in canada.
@ElwoodBlues I don’t understand why the US doesn’t. People still can get guns but you can’t just walk into a store and buy them. Why is this so hard to realize?
Well with this newest shooting at the school I heard the man couldn't drive. So someone drove him to the school after he had killed his grandmother. I heard his grandfather couldn't have guns in the house. If he had known he would turn the man in. Then the local police had put in some kind of word search. So if any local people had search those words they would look into it. He was taking pictures of guns and putting them on the internet.
@sunsporter1649 I'm glad that trained police have guns. I'm horrified that idiots like you have access to guns.
Funny how you can't bring a gun to the RNC. Funny how you can't bring a gun to a Trump rally. Funny how you can't even bring a gun to the NRA!
If guns make you safer, why do all those right wing gatherings refuse guns? Is it because they don't feel safe in a room full of guns?? Hypocrisy, anyone???
@sunsporter1649 I'm glad that trained police have guns. I'm horrified that idiots like you have access to guns.
Funny how you can't bring a gun to the RNC. Funny how you can't bring a gun to a Trump rally. Funny how you can't even bring a gun to the NRA!
If guns make you safer, why do all those right wing gatherings refuse guns? Is it because they don't feel safe in a room full of guns?? Hypocrisy, anyone???
Unfortunately the constitution allows for guns. It needs to be changed. Any law that congress would make would be struck down by the supreme court. Most especially this current supreme court.
I don't even see how it could be worked around! The supreme court did nullify Row verses Wade after all. And most of the country was for it.
SW-User
Ask that to the NRA id love to hear their response.
@ ElwoodBlues, mass killings have always been part of American culture. The behavior is woven into the fabric of the society. Expect another one in a few days.
@Diotrephes No bull on either. Your link only covers 12 years. Hard to notice the multi-decade trend with such a short baseline. Also, there are slightly different definitions of mass shootings.
@ElwoodBlues it was reported on the BBC News this morning that that gun's manufacturer has cancelled its appearance at the NRA meeting; and later that the Governor of Texas has followed suit.
I've never understood why any civilian would want to own any such weapons unless for evil ends, nor why they are available publicly.
A single-shot gun is bad enough. Though it might only kill one person, a horrible crime as it is, if fired in a public place, especially from a vehicle, that person is likely to be anyone but the intended victim. It has happened here in Britain but fortunately such murders - outside of political terrorist attacks that anyway usually use bombs or other means - are extremely rare here.
@YukikoAmagi [quote] you can kill people with other items, if there is no gun people can use knife, steel pipe, glass bottle or even fork [/quote] Yes but guns are designed for killing forks are not. So you see…
Just sell plastic guns so the people who love guns still have something to look at and play with.
SW-User
I'm not sure the US is sustainable as a country ... too many [i][b]poison pills[/b][/i] were woven into the fabric of the US at its inception, and they are sacred cows to a significant portion of the populace who will not easily part with poison pills (no matter how irrational or insane it is to hold onto to them), so perhaps the only realistic outcome is dissolution of the country, perhaps preceded by civil war
