Another mass shooting

[RonnieBird]

The irony of telling people what subject they are allowed an opinion on in the same breath as accusing others of being against freedom of speech (who are these people you speak of that are actually doing this, by the way?)

The 'dumbed down generation' as you so eloquently put it, frequently complain about the atrocities that you have mentioned. I'm not sure how you would know either way... Have you got a good sample size of these thick-as-shit, millennial loonie liberals in your social circle that you can vox pop on the subject?

Hopefully you can come back and post a chart with your results after you've conducted your research.

Getting back to the issue at hand, not wanting innocent children to be murdered in their classrooms every year shouldn't be a f**king discussion.

Dunblane turned out to be the pivotal moment in gun control in the UK - why shouldn't the public of a nation that hasn't had a school shooting in over 20 years, thanks to changes in our gun laws, be able to say that they think another nation has got their priorities completely arse backwards in regards to gun control? (This is usually when someone says that the USA's history is more entrenched in gun culture/wars so it wouldn't work... Let's just skip that bit by saying Germany have had 4 mass shootings in 20 years, the USA have had 2 in the last 24 hours!)

The ones who talk about tyranny and constitutional rights clearly care more about history and tradition than the lives of innocent civilians living in a different world to the one when independence was declared in the US over 200 years ago! They can go **** themselves... Hopefully with a bayonet rifle.

Such hysterical anger !
I didn’t tell anyone what opinions they can have.
Some people might think liberty is even more important than safety- ever considered that ?

I can’t even de cypher the stuff about vox pops and it’s not implicit in protecting the Constitution that you want people to kill anyone.

It’s only the dumbed down generation who think charts and graphs are a substitute for common sense or logical thinking so no I won’t bother with that bollocks.

You don’t seem to grasp that there are so many guns in the USA which is a big place that it’d take 100 years of gun control before you’d reduce gun crimes.

Bit freaky wishing people harm because they said something you didn’t like on a message board really!

[Heisenberg]

Such hysterical anger !
I didn’t tell anyone what opinions they can have.
Some people might think liberty is even more important than safety- ever considered that ?

I can’t even de cypher the stuff about vox pops and it’s not implicit in protecting the Constitution that you want people to kill anyone.

It’s only the dumbed down generation who think charts and graphs are a substitute for common sense or logical thinking so no I won’t bother with that bollocks.

You don’t seem to grasp that there are so many guns in the USA which is a big place that it’d take 100 years of gun control before you’d reduce gun crimes.

Bit freaky wishing people harm because they said something you didn’t like on a message board really!

The vox pop and charts thing wasn't a real challenge for you. Someone of your self-professed intelligence and ability to think logically should surely be able to understand obvious sarcasm. I said it in relation to your comment: "We don't hear the dumbed down generation complaining about countries where they execute homosexuals and adulterers , prevent females going to school or perform genocide , but they're incandescent with rage that a free country allows its citizens personal responsibility and freedom from state intervention before any crime has been committed ."

I'd like to know how many of these people you actually know to even be aware of what they say or believe. It's the usual shit espoused by those who can't back up their own arguments so they invent a new one, with a nice side of whataboutism. If the dumbed down generation were complaining about the things that you mentioned (which they very obviously do), which alt-right website or news channel that you so obviously frequent would you be able to access that information from? (see, I can generalise too).

It would take 100 years to reduce gun crimes?! To just reduce it... really? Even as little as not having more than one mass shooting every single day? (There have been 253 confirmed mass shootings (four or more people being shot) so far this year in the States - we're on day 216).

Even if something took a long time to fix, is it not worth even trying? (isn't that the motto of the Brexiteers?)

[Heisenberg]

I didn’t tell anyone what opinions they can have.

I find it remarkable that so many people here think they've got some right to dictate to the USA that they should change their constitution.

Umm... I think this counts.

[RonnieBird]

Umm... I think this counts.

Well you're wrong. An opinion isn't a right to decide and I said that I find it remarkable, not ban it.
Is English perhaps a second language to you ?

[Wales-Bales]

F**king hell. You've gone from missing the point to being offended in a flash there.

Why is the trope of "there will still be murders without strict gun controls" always trotted out? Of course there will... but will the numbers be significantly fewer with tighter restrictions on purchasing and owning guns? The answer is a resounding yes. How many people would have been killed this weekend in the States if those terrorists didn't have automatic weapons which no civilian has any legitimate cause to carry? Even if they were just carrying handguns, the mortalilty rate could have been reduced. Spree shootings would also be reduced if these right-wing murderers only had "shotguns" or "hunting rifles". In the time it would take to shoot and reload weapons of their caliber, these shooters could get get off an entire magazine, potentially killing dozens of people.

Advocates of gun control aren't expecting to end shootings or murders - it's about reducing them to a level where we're not reading about innocent people being gunned down while they're going about their lives on a regular basis.

If there were tighter gun controls, that would mean a reduction in the production of firearms - which, logically, would make it harder to purchase one (legally or illegally).

Since you're so troubled by my remark - of course I don't wish that upon you... but if you genuinely think that history and tradition is more important than reducing the loss of innocent lives, then the 'go f**k yourself' part still stands.

Are you sure they are both right wing?

[Heisenberg]

Well you're wrong. An opinion isn't a right to decide and I said that I find it remarkable, not ban it.
Is English perhaps a second language to you ?

Perhaps it is, because I'm not understanding you at all. People were sharing their opinions on gun control and what they believe should be done in relation to it - not declaring their right to decide on what the US govt do. Please signpost me to where one person has said that what you're suggesting has been posted. If you can't do that, I suggest you try to refrain from making things up in future.

Since I know that it's only opinions that have been shared on this topic, not posters declaring anything about their rights to decide (or whatever else you may wish to suggest) - the fact that you were explicitly linking the same people as being against freedom of speech is definitely ironic when you were also saying that they have no right to suggest what America should or shouldn't do.

[surge]

Such hysterical anger !
I didn’t tell anyone what opinions they can have.
Some people might think liberty is even more important than safety- ever considered that ?

It’s only the dumbed down generation who think charts and graphs are a substitute for common sense or logical thinking so no I won’t bother with that bollocks.

If you have time please listen to this: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/659...e-the-next-one

The impact of gun violence doesn't end when the UK stops talking about what is happening in the USA (typically 4-5 days after an attack until the next one), instead it just carries on darkening people's lives and this impact is aided by those who are saying "now is not the time to talk about it" each time the conversation is started. I'm not sure how you can tell a parent who has lost a child at their school that liberty is greater than safety but if you feel comfortable in doing so then fair enough.

[RonnieBird]

The vox pop and charts thing wasn't a real challenge for you. Someone of your self-professed intelligence and ability to think logically should surely be able to understand obvious sarcasm. I said it in relation to your comment: "We don't hear the dumbed down generation complaining about countries where they execute homosexuals and adulterers , prevent females going to school or perform genocide , but they're incandescent with rage that a free country allows its citizens personal responsibility and freedom from state intervention before any crime has been committed ."

I'd like to know how many of these people you actually know to even be aware of what they say or believe. It's the usual shit espoused by those who can't back up their own arguments so they invent a new one, with a nice side of whataboutism. If the dumbed down generation were complaining about the things that you mentioned (which they very obviously do), which alt-right website or news channel that you so obviously frequent would you be able to access that information from? (see, I can generalise too).

It would take 100 years to reduce gun crimes?! To just reduce it... really? Even as little as not having more than one mass shooting every single day? (There have been 253 confirmed mass shootings (four or more people being shot) so far this year in the States - we're on day 216).

Even if something took a long time to fix, is it not worth even trying? (isn't that the motto of the Brexiteers?)

My motto is "Dieu et mon droit" actually. Can't speak for anyone else.

Look, I must offer you respect for putting your point as logically as is possible with the material available and without the rudeness which is very common here, ( don't mind anyone taking the piss though, please don't think I'm that precious).

It's kind of unstructured with respect so it's hard to answer concisely. Firstly, I don't think I've ever particularly professed intelligence, but more importantly ,generalisation is a very effective and important human ability without which we wouldn't have survived, so don't knock it - it's only been denounced quite recently by this intolerant dumbed down generation I spoke of.

As you get older you eventually speak to lots and lots of people and do stuff yourself during which you tend to reach conclusions which are probably more reliable than news channels and polls because you know they're true. I'm sure you're right that some of these kids occasionally complain about third world brutalities, ( after all , they complain about everything ), but we don't get this constant withering fire of protest about - for example- terrorist and other attacks in Pakistan where deaths are regularly numbered in hundreds , that we hear about gun laws in the World's leading democracy.

You don't have to start compiling statistics on it because it'd be hard to avoid noticing it.

I'm not quite sure what an alt right website is, but I think you must have been reading an alt wrong one. Best not to take too much notice of any of them though really because they've all got an agenda.

It's vital really to be suspicious of all " news and information " channels and services.

All I'm concerned with is the truth as far as I can discern it and you may see it differently. You almost certainly won't think any of that stuff in 20 years time by the way, but I don't disrespect or dislike you for forming your own opinions and whether I happen to agree or not I'm very keen on preserving your ability to express them insofar as that idea still exists in the U.K.

Without getting too complex ,there are very good reasons for the 2nd amendment and in my opinion they outweigh the unintended harmful consequences . Someone said something like, " Those who give up their liberties in exchange for security will end up losing both and deserving neither ".
I tend to think that if you went into a bit you'd probably agree, and probably will in the future , but in the mean time I don't think we have to be angry with the other because we see things a bit differently. I'm sure we both only want the best outcome.

[Wales-Bales]

Perhaps it is, because I'm not understanding you at all. People were sharing their opinions on gun control and what they believe should be done in relation to it - not declaring their right to decide on what the US govt do. Please signpost me to where one person has said that what you're suggesting has been posted. If you can't do that, I suggest you try to refrain from making things up in future.

Since I know that it's only opinions that have been shared on this topic, not posters declaring anything about their rights to decide (or whatever else you may wish to suggest) - the fact that you were explicitly linking the same people as being against freedom of speech is definitely ironic when you were also saying that they have no right to suggest what America should or shouldn't do.

You did say they were right wing murderers, so I assume you checked your facts and didn't make any of it up?

[Eric Cartman]

You don’t seem to grasp that there are so many guns in the USA which is a big place that it’d take 100 years of gun control before you’d reduce gun crimes.

Citation for that figure? Would be keen to work read the study that made that prediction.

[Eric Cartman]

I'd be keen to know who would win in a battle between a self trained militia armed with assault rifles or a tyrannical government blowing them up from drones they can't even see.

Reality has moved way beyond the purpose of the second amendment that all it does now is make sure more people get murdered than in comparable countries.

[life on mars]

I've seen loads of threads here down the years where people wrung their hands in despair about gun deaths in the United States but never one related to the numbers dying in South American, Central American, or Caribbean countries. Is it because they simply don't give a hoot about those people? It's more likely they're unaware because the corporate media is so focused on the U.S.

Brilliant post I've thought the same myself when you see unbalanced argument on many subjects, I believe as you say it's media driven ,selective interest,and political point scoring .

[life on mars]

Citation for that figure? Would be keen to work read the study that made that prediction.

Americans made up 4 percent of the world's population but owned about 46 percent of the entire global stock of 857 million civilian firearms."[5] U.S civilians own 393 million guns.

[lardy]

Just imagine how bad it would be in the US if they didn't have all those thoughts and prayers flying around.

[life on mars]

You did say they were right wing murderers, so I assume you checked your facts and didn't make any of it up?

Some interesting facts about the last set of shootings

"
Recent mass shootings in the US have been attributed to a variety of causes - disaffected youth (Parkland and Santa Fe), mental illness (Annapolis), workplace conflict (Virginia Beach) and family discord (Sutherland Springs).

The deadliest such incident in modern US history, the 2017 shooting at a music concert in Las Vegas that claimed 58 lives, still has no attributed motive.

In this case, however, all evidence indicates that the El Paso shooting was a calculated political act drawn from the white nationalist rhetoric that has become increasingly prominent in modern US politics. In that way, it's more akin to last October's Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, which prompted discussions about rising anti-Semitism in the US, or the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, which served as a jarring display of the strength of the modern white supremacist movement.""

[the other bob wilson]

Brilliant post I've thought the same myself when you see unbalanced argument on many subjects, I believe as you say it's media driven ,selective interest,and political point scoring .

I've been deliberately trying not to get involved in as many political threads now the football has started, but I can't believe the way this thread has developed.

America has been seen as the leader of the so called free world for maybe a century. Let's bear that in mind, when people are reduced to putting up charts which show that there are more gun deaths per hundred thousand in nineteen countries than there are in America.

Is it a shock to see any of those nineteen countries where they are in that chart? Not to me it isn't and maybe that's why the media don't make an issue of it. The notion that being as low as twentieth in that table can, in some way, be used as argument to support America is completely risible when you consider the way it is portrayed and seen as an enlightened society which others aspire to, but fail to match - which of the nineteen above the USA could such a claim be made about?

Twenty nine people in Dayton and El Paso (including a sister of one of the gunmen) who were alive and well on Friday are now dead because America cannot see what has been obvious for decades. When the founding fathers talked about the right to bear arms, they, surely, could not have thought that almost two hundred and fifty years later, their words would be used by those who seek to defend a situation whereby far more powerful weapons than they ever saw are aimed and fired at defenceless Americans who are unlucky enough to be too close by at the time.

The fact that incidents like those seen at the weekend are going on, and have been going on for far too long, in a country with the reputation and influence that America has should be a national humiliation for them and anyone who tries to argue otherwise can only be doing so through stubborn political dogma.

[Eric Cartman]

Americans made up 4 percent of the world's population but owned about 46 percent of the entire global stock of 857 million civilian firearms."[5] U.S civilians own 393 million guns.

If you think that is evidence for the claim he made then we might as well not bother.

[Eric Cartman]

Brilliant post I've thought the same myself when you see unbalanced argument on many subjects, I believe as you say it's media driven ,selective interest,and political point scoring .

Says a lot that you think the USA should be comparing itself to El Salvador, Columbia and Afghanistan.

This is like dismissing knife crime increase in the UK and London in particular because 'well, look at Khayelitsha'.

USA has a problem with people shooting each other and themselves and most sane countries would have taken steps to fix it.

[CardiffIrish2]

Brilliant post I've thought the same myself when you see unbalanced argument on many subjects, I believe as you say it's media driven ,selective interest,and political point scoring .

You get your knickers in a twist and your head explodes when there’s a sniff of anti Semitic behaviour in the Labour Party but you’re insinuating that commenting on ridiculous gun laws is unbalanced argument ?

You come across as an odd chap fair play .

[Rjk]

What is remarkable about that list of countries is the number of them in the Americas. 18/20, Greenland isn't far either?

What could be the reason for that?

USA firearms spilling out into neighbouring countries?
Usa drugs market driving criminality (can't see why that would be different than elsewhere)?
USA destabilising other regional governments?

[Harry Monk]

Difficult for Trump to deal with this while he's very busy trying to sort out London's knife crime.

[Wales-Bales]

I'd be keen to know who would win in a battle between a self trained militia armed with assault rifles or a tyrannical government blowing them up from drones they can't even see.

Reality has moved way beyond the purpose of the second amendment that all it does now is make sure more people get murdered than in comparable countries.

That's a big diversion in a thread that is supposed to be about the tragic loss of innocent lives. You asked for a citation in a previous post, and now you are assuming that the military would follow the orders of Chuck & Nancy? Just like a previous poster who assured us that the shooters were right wing, you seem keen to twist these events so that they fit with your own political ideology. We don't even know the facts yet, but you are already suggesting a solution that is based on a hypothetical event which bears no relation to reality.

[Eric Cartman]

That's a big diversion in a thread that is supposed to be about the tragic loss of innocent lives. You asked for a citation in a previous post, and now you are assuming that the military would follow the orders of Chuck & Nancy? Just like a previous poster who assured us that the shooters were right wing, you seem keen to twist these events so that they fit with your own political ideology. We don't even know the facts yet, but you are already suggesting a solution that is based on a hypothetical event which bears no relation to reality.

You have missed the point completely or wanted to inject some faux outrage for no reason. As you know, the reason frequently given to explain why individuals need to own high powered guns is to protect themselves against a potential future tyrannical government. I think the world has moved on though and this isn't valid anymore.

[lardy]

Says someone is twisting events to suit a political ideology.

Also says Chuck and Nancy are the government.

This guy

Let's see if lifeonmars denounces it as political point scoring. My guess is, because it was Wales Bales, he won't...

[Gofer Blue]

I believe you get the kind of society you deserve. If, apparently, the majority of the American population are happy for everyone to own a gun for their own protection (against whom - it depends who you ask it seems?) then all it takes is a tiny minority of that population with some warped mentality to cause mayhem. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing (Edmund Burke).

I had a cousin in Pennsylvania whose husband kept a rifle at home. A perfectly normal bloke, he used it for hunting but told me he was perfectly prepared to use it to defend his home. I remember visiting them just after the famous Tony Martin case (the guy in Norwich who shot two burglars in his house) and he was gobsmacked when I told him that this guy had been arrested and jailed for killing the burglar, something which he (cousin) would have done without hesitation!