Texas school shooting!

[youngestisapsycho]

Just watching on news now.. shocking!

Agreed. That's the long and short of it. Life is cheap in America.

Ah pressed post too soon

I remember finding the idea that people might come into the school and plant a bomb pretty terrifying. What it must be like to regularly do armed shooter drills, the fear that that must generate, is deeply disturbing.

Isn't it always a male too. Less than 4% of these shootings carried out by females apparently.

What’s going on with males at the moment, and is this the culture we really want exported here through films, the ‘hood’ rap music and social media?

I’ve said this before but America is a third world country with a Gucci belt on.

it is abhorrent that the biggest killer of children in the US is guns. It’s a vile place (and I have lots of family over there in Texas and SC).

They need to sort gun laws out asap. Along with every other ridiculous law they’re trying to bring in.

I think mental health provision in the US is at least partly to blame. Obviously it's expensive, but the attitude to mental illness is even worse than it is here.

I've had indirect experience of mental health provision in the UK, so I'm obviously well aware that it's not great here either.

Mental health provision is just firefighting - sometimes called failure demand. It’s the culture that causes all the failure in the first place that needs stopping.

But there’s no money in that is there? Only in the poverty industry.

Mental health provision is slim to non existent in lots of countries, and they don't see this level of gun violence. That's not the common denominator here, access to guns is the issue.

I would love to know the statistics on how many of the shooters are on medication?
Especially the younger ones, brains are still forming, they are still growing as a whole.
Some of these prescribed drugs have a terrible effect on the mind at that age.

The impact on children's mental health of doing regular lockdown drills and wearing a bullet proof backpack isn't exactly going to be positive. The shooter was still a teenager himself.

The 2nd amendment looks to me to be trying to avoid a standing state/King's army as opposed to citizens forming a temporary militia. Not sure if anyone now tries to argue that the US Army is unconstitutional.

65% of the US population is on at least one prescribed drug so it's likely that many are on meds yes.

Not just mostly males.

Mostly white males. If there was a pattern of crime in another race you can bet that the race or religion would be reported.

Before his picture was published I knew he was white due to the lack of his colour being mentioned in the press. Every crime committed by a non white person has their ethnicity mentioned in the headline.

Where's the #notinmyname hashtag

Just saw a video of parents running to the school, I can’t even imagine the terror. All those innocent lives lost because so many people there are obsessed with guns.

Trouble is when I saw the news initially coming in from America last night I wasn't shocked.

It's no longer shocking that American children go to school and can be killed in their classrooms by a man, albeit a young man in the last few shootings, with a gun.

Heartbreaking, yes.
Shocking or surprising, not any more.

Those poor babies and their teachers, and their poor families. Such heartbreakingly sad news.

When will America learn? How many children need to die before they act?

I am sad about it because innocent children have been slaughtered. They did not choose to be born in such a fucked up country who are beholden to the NRA.

And always people rushing ro talk about the white males mental health and trying to make excuses for his behaviour.

I never said easy access to guns wasn't the main issue, but I was replying to the post about why men and what was making them do this. It's rare for mass shootings to happen without significant mental health issues being involved.

One off shootings of another person are different, I think. It's all too easy to whip out a gun and shoot someone in the moment. In the UK or other low gun ownership countries it might involve a bit of a punch up. In the US people are shot dead.

I was listening to a podcast the other day about an ex sherriff shooting dead a fellow cinema goer in an argument about texting during the trailers. No one would have died in the UK over that. In the US it's all too easy for angry people to wip out a weapon.

Obviously the gun culture is the absolute reason that the US has so many gun deaths. I do think mental health provision is a factor, along with a wild west culture among some groups of people.

I believe there are other countries with very high gun ownership who don't have problems with gun deaths, so there must be sonething else at play here. I'll try to find out which countries they are.

Yep. The massive point missed is that mental health illness is not unique to America.

what is unique is the absolute and utter ease with which you can get a gun, a gun which has just one purpose.

This is exactly it and explains why it's almost impossible to change the law. In order to get into power, the senators have to support the gun lobby in the less populous states. You can't change laws unless you're in power. Even some Democrat senators are elected in places where their constituents support the gun lobby, so how are you ever going to get a big enough majority to change the law?

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/16/obama-gun-control-227625/

It's not an excuse, it's an additional reason.

Exactly this. How many more lives need to be lost.

I have close family both in a " third world" country and across the US, and honestly I feel safer in the third world countries. Bad things can happen there too, but not on this terrible scale. You don't have to look out for crazy gun toting teens when going to school or a store or to a church/temple. You can take certain precautions. Meanwhile my niece in uni in Texas had to deal with students open carrying guns. My family- none of whom have guns- just compartmentalise or they would go mad.

I have never forgotten how my dark skinned BIL was driving in a blue state ( California). Another driver called him the N word and my BIL just ignored him "He might be carrying a gun and I am not."

Sickening. Brings back Dunblane memories. School security here isn’t great. I work in a primary school and it concerns me. Only takes one loon.

Fucking horrifying that guns are more valued than children in America.
I really have no words any more. These things just keep happening.

Before his picture was published I knew he was white due to the lack of his colour being mentioned in the press. Every crime committed by a non white person has their ethnicity mentioned in the headline.

I don't know that he is white. He has a Hispanic name and lived in a Hispanic majority area.

arming teachers sounds madness. Physically having a gun in the classroom sounds madness. There’s already accidental deaths where kids find guns in the home / parents bags.