Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
Serious question, but when did the assault type weapons or high powered rifles etc become legal in the US? Have they always been so? The number of mass shootings is increasing significantly as is the number of general firearm deaths and suicide deaths.

There is also only a very loose connection between gun ownership and gun death rates when you look at it state by state.

Something has changed in the last 10 years. Don't get me wrong, I would ban these assault weapons tomorrow and raise the gun ownership rate to at the very least 21, but it strikes me that the change is not actually in relation to access to guns and the severity of the guns - is that right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vi..._United_States
I guess increasing inequality. many people are under a lot of pressure these days, and the gap between the haves and have nots in America is widening all the time.
I saw a historian noting a few years ago that it is approaching the point (or already there) at which in other societies in the past we have seen violent uprisings and revolution. so it is easy to see why there is more simmering resentment in general, and this building resentment has been redirected from those that have all the power to other groups.
attribute the blame to immigrants, to culture wars etc etc, that is the reason your life is so hard now, not the fact that those at the top are making more and more money.
pressure is definitely building like a pressure cooker, who knows how it will end