Why are mass killings so common in the US? Is there really no way to prevent mass killings in the US?

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?

Not as long as half of our government is owned 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.
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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.

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.

No wonder the world sees us as savages. We are.

They controlled that “down under” by banning firearms and they haven’t had a mass shooting since.

Oddly enough, a majority of both gun owners and non-gun owners agree on some common sense gun control measures. Why won't legislatures pass them?

And these gun control measures seem to work

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..

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).

Everytime they try n do something about it the Murricah people throw a hissy fit about muh freedoms and muh ammendments.

Glad i dont live there anymore. Nations a mess.

!!! THIS JUST IN !!!
Conservatives CAN protect children when they want to!!!

Ask Britain & Europe - mass killings are VERY rare there. Ask Australia - their gun laws after a 1996 mass shooting greatly reduced gun violence:
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

Nowhere is this more common than in America.
Nowhere can anyone buy a gun as easily as in America.
You do the math.

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?

Many nutcases own many guns..

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.

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.

SOURCE: https://similarworlds.com/politics/4341583-So-if-gun-control-isnt-the-solution-what-is

We are the land of creeps and crazies. Trump becoming president alone is proof of that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

No way to prevent them anymore. The guns are out there. Legislators consistently ignore memtal health because that would cost money. We are fucked.

Mass killings are so common because anyone with a grudge can get a semi automatic gun and ammo and go and shoot people or groups of people.

I don’t think anything can truly prevent them unfortunately, but there are ways they can be decreased at least 😐

People feel like outcasts, I suspect.

Question for the ages

Republicans did this. Evil fucks.

Restrict gun laws or,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ask China to Nuke the place

Nuking would be cheaper

Just sell plastic guns so the people who love guns still have something to look at and play with.

If elected president, I will enact a twofold plan, passing red flag laws and dedicating tax dollars to improved mental health care.

I'm not sure the US is sustainable as a country ... too many poison pills 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

Yes quit organising it