to notice that the killings in the USA

[butisthismyname]

Are HUGE NEWS, but the children who are being shot and killed every day in syria, the children who live on the streets and die every day in south america and the children who are dying in third world countries are 'part of the furniture'? I know what has just happened is horrific and sad and awful, but it's just so fucking unfair. It's like the twin towers - OMG the USA is in trouble, lets be outraged ( not negating that but just an example) When will we be as understanding and sympathetic and make what is happening everywhere else in the world as important and newsworthy as this?

i think there would be mini, i really do. Most people i beleive would hold back their weapons or obtain licsenced ones the militias would try and fight thegov. can't type much as away at moment on dhs tablet that i am shit at which is why spelling and grammar ar so bad at moment.

flip, im confused did you have a point?

*unlicensed ones

Me too GreenEggs. I get you - we are probably coming at this from the same pov. It's just so distressing.

I referred to Dunblane earlier and I can recall that with horrible, vivid clarity. Many people who are old enough to remember will know what I mean :(.

thebody so sorry to hear that, how awful. I hope you're ok.

I'm asking because I genuinely know nothing about American Militias. I though the the right the v=bare arms related to democracy in that the people could not be oppressed by a government etc......., but I had no idea that people formed militia in this day and age. I'm quite shocked.

Will change happen, Obama seem to infer that things would ave to change, twice in his speech he said that "we must ensure this can not happen again" In view of the fact that America is possibly going to lose it's position of holding the reserve currency, the dollar could be instantly devalued and real strife could happen over night, it might be that the time is right to disarm the population. Esp if people form militia under current circs, what the hell would happen if there was a real economic melt down?

We allow the children of the UK to be sexually abused by basically anyone who wants to. Shall we sort out our own problems first OP?

i don't know even obama would never try to abolish the right to own guns. i feel like the only thing we can do is try and give people who need help, help. prosecute people who get caught using a gun for any reason besides protecriin to the full extent of the law. i want the guns out of my country forever, but i have never heard a feasible strategy for doing it. :( how would you get the knives out of the uk?

Santas I'm not interested in some sort of tedious, snappy who knows best contest, given what we are talking about it feels undignified and plain old wrong. No doubt you do know a lot more about it than me, and that's fine. I would guess our views on this are poles apart so lets just agree to disagree.

I would love to know how 20 precious primary school children are to be held accountable for American foreign policy!

The right to bear arms, after yet another mass murder of innocents is it not time Americans accepted the this right should have some severe limitations, when will they accept that incidents like this one are becoming too frequant and the ease of obtaining fire arms plays a part.

My heart really does go out to the families of these little ones

The statistics show the US has by far and away the highest rate of deadly shootings of any developed nation - nearly 50% higher than Switzerland, which also has a lot of guns around due to their idea that every citizen should be trained to defend the country.

The really sad thing about it is a good proportion of those killings in the US are of children by other children who are just playing. Because lots of people keep guns in their homes, children find those guns.

I was deeply distressed by the unfolding news this morning. My brother goes to school in Texas, so not round the corner, but the gun regs are looser there.

From this thread I have questioned: if the USA were to bring in tighter firearms regulation, how would they know where to start?

It sickens my heart but I guess a lot of gun owners would just keep quiet about them, and there must be a lot of weapons in circulation. If a gun owner dies are their weapons part of their estate, or are they taken back by the state?

And if the USA don't bring in tighter firearms regulation: what next?

Thanks for your response, Ladybeagle. It is shocking, isn't it. It was bad luck that we cross-posted, but those figures show what a difference unregulated gun ownership makes :(

I'd also like to thank GothAnne for her post about her family in Syria. It must be so painful to read some of the comments on this thread, Goth.

For Mini and most others:

Seventy percent of Americans mistakenly believe that the United States has a system of licensing and registration for guns.

In fact, the U.S. doesn't even require a background check every time a gun is sold and allows the sale of assault clips holding more than 10 bullets. This makes it easy for dangerous people to get their hands on lethal firepower.

www.bradycampaign.org/facts/

Here are those death tolls again.
In one year, handguns murdered
17 people in Finland
35 in Australia
39 in England and Wales
60 in Spain
194 in Germany
200 in Canada
9,484 in the United States.

Australia and Canada have far greater expanses of wild 'backlands' than the US, so that barely holds up as an excuse for the unregulated possession of lethal weapons. America's love affair with the gun causes murder.

"All the people want is for the regime to go and the fighting to stop. Is that so hard to relate to?"

For the people of Syria, they want the fighting to stop, everyone wants the fighting to stop. There's no guarantee that if the regime did go the fighting would stop. This could be the heart of a wider nascent conflict between Shia and Sunni. I don't think there's a whole lot the "outside world" can do to help civilians caught up in it except by supporting refugees and aid agencies.

Had a look around the internet, Militias do exist in every state, apparently they exist to uphold law and order should the state collapse, to uphold the constitution and to defend themselves from their government should the government seek to change the constitution and strip them of their freedoms. I am truly shocked, I can not imagine such a thing in the UK.

Brycie - if the regime did go, the airborne attacks and shelling which are killing so many people and destroying so much infastructure would stop. It might not stop all the problems, but it would be a huge start.

Brycie - if the regime did go, the airborne attacks and shelling which are killing so many people and destroying so much infastructure would stop. It might not stop all the problems, but it would be a huge start.

Mini - I'm surprised such a politically-motivated poster didn't know about 'militias'. In this country, there's a tiny but currently increasing swell of public interest in the Army conducting a coup ... When the Army is ordered to take over from striking public services (eg waste disposal), and when they come in to help the emergency services (eg floods), they act as a 'militia' in that they provide quasi-governmental services on their own terms.

There have been Army coups in every major country, including this one, I think although my history's shaky.

Thread diversion over: sorry, everyone!

OP - Are you as outraged that children dying in places like Syria, Afghanistan or Gaza, have so much more coverage than the many hundreds of thousands more children dying in the Congo and Sudan?

Shouldn't all innocent deaths be mourned or are American children somehow automatically guilty by the fact that they are citizens of the Great Satan?

That was a bit pointless, Orwellian. The public despair over murdered American children is disproportionate to all those you mentioned, numerically speaking. Are you saying that no-one who regrets this fact has the right to raise concern unless they distribute their feelings according to the statistics? Absurd.

I see nobody calling America satanic, except you.

Can't believe Garlic et al are still bickering and engaging in this racism.

I don't see it as racism or bickering It's exploring the implications of a shocking event.

The anti US sentiment simply because the children are American is racism nothing less.

20 children and their brave teachers died,this thread is awful.

Do some people have their goggles surgically attached?

No one has said anything on this thread which is anti American. What people have questioned is why there is more media coverage of this than Syria or Palestine or indeed the dreadful stabbings in chinese schools.

I am quite capable of making a distinction btw American as in person of American nationality and American as in State of America and American political class and it's policies. Are you?

I am not Britain........I am British.
Does that make it easy for you to understand?

Phew, Mini, glad you replied!

To make the same point, Polka - I am against some aspects of American policy, both foreign and domestic. This isn't racism, it's politics. National policies - particularly US ones, as the USA is so powerful - impact on individuals' personal lives the world over. This includes the lives of those families ravaged by Adam Lanza's action. Discussing this impact is one way of respecting the families' suffering.

Deploring a nation's policies doesn't mean you deplore its people. I'm opposed to a huge amount of my country's policies at the moment. This doesn't mean I'm racist against myself.

I have noticed over the years, that some countries with a dictatorship are eg bombed.
And if the dictator dies, some countries move on to elect someone else.

But in other countries, when a dictator dies, the country still carries on in much the same way.

I noticed for instance, a few years back, when I think it was the or an Ayatollah died, the majority of the Iranian people did not want more of the same. But it was imposed on them.

I think of Libya, on the other hand, when Colonel Gadaffi was eventually killed, that the majority of the country were still behind him. And that did not just include his assistants.

I actually think that foreign policy makers would be wise to know which countries are which to be honest.

Coming back to America. The vast number of its citizens seem to back holding guns. So its problems,as of what happened a couple of days ago will remain.
As a poster said upthread, it would take a shooting that happened this week, to happen several a month, before the American citizens might change their minds about thinking it is ok for 50% of households to keep a gun in their own home.

Had a look around the internet, Militias do exist in every state, apparently they exist to uphold law and order should the state collapse, to uphold the constitution and to defend themselves from their government should the government seek to change the constitution and strip them of their freedoms. I am truly shocked, I can not imagine such a thing in the UK.

MiniTheMinx yes, that's why I find these threads so distressing. Americans are sooo stupid they could just get rid of their guns and everythign would be better.

would I love the guns gone? Of fuckin course I would. But each STATE has different gun laws. There are militias up the wazoo to contend with. And guns are here, they are everywhere, you can't get rid of them. Marijuana until this year has had draconian laws in the states against it. Nearly half of Americans have smoked it. Alcohol was illegal during prohibition, people still drank it.