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?

okay. It's horrible children are dying in Syria, but they had the misfortune of being born there.

It's horrible those children died, but it's the chance they took, being born in the USA.

Come up with an effective way of removing all firearms from all civilians in the USA right now. It's a more difficult task than you seem to think. Countries with large open countryside tend to have areas with relaxed ownership laws. Even if they managed to ban all guns in some areas, sales would still exist somewhere. Shootings would reduce, I agree, but they wouldn't be eliminated.

cross-posted with Santas. Yes, that's the problem. The guns exist, it's massive country, and fully half the states at least would not enforce a federal law even if one were passed which would require everyone to turn over their guns.

I have to go out now, but I think I've probably said enough. I didn't really come for a gun control debate; I'm very happy I live in a country now without the gun culture the US has. I hate to think I'm coming out pro-gun here. I am just listing the difficulties faced.

And my heart aches for all parents everywhere who have to bury their children. :(

It's not that there is more coverage - it's that there was no coverage of the China situation after the US story broke while the American one so very much (and news companies were so gobbling for more to publish, they put an innocent man's picture up on the news that they had nicked off of facebook from someone with the same name).

22 children were stabbed, latest news from China has 7 being moved to larger hospitals for procedures such as reattaching their ears and parts of their hands. And this is not the first mass stabbing of children in China.

The disparity should be looked at when all the American stories (not just this one) get massive coverage, breaking all the rules of how one covers mass murder to avoid copycats. The media knows what sparks copycats - it;s been studied in depth - and they completely ignores the rules for this stuff in some settings and play the 'being respectful' in areas where really they have little interest in the 'lose of innocence' that they keep repeating over and over with the flashing pictures, putting up everything they can for the next one.

Why do seemingly ordinary people just snap ? Is it because they have access to guns or because there is some pathology within society itself? In china they are now dealing with 2000 riots a year and spending more on inland security than they did under communism. Inequality and impoverishment along with a sense of individual rights trumping all others and the associated blame of individuals over institutions I think are a major factor in why we have so much civil unrest. Society is becoming toxic. (not just America before santa jumps on me!) I'm not certain but I wouldn't mind betting that this recent spate in china of school stabbings is a fairly new development.

"Why do seemingly ordinary people just snap ?"

Just thinking that quite often the gunmen are very young, so when they've no previous criminal record it doesn't really count for so much

Mini, the most likely mass murderer is an affluent white man. A lot of reasons are given as to why, but mostly it comes with the idea that their private pain needs to become the world's problem to deal with.

The Chinese one is very much more recent, beginning a couple of years ago, mostly by middle-age unemployed men.

Are these young men really bloody angry or really bloody mad? Himmler was both and he killed 6 million people. He was turned down for the military several times and felt inferior. It's always men. Men like having power and they like having money because it gives them power and they like killing people to hold power. Unless the patriarchal power relations within society (whether that be the middle east or the west) are over turned then we can expect more wars, more stabbings and more shootings, more inequality and poverty and more and more disenfranchised, powerless and angry men. Its all a competition amongst themselves but the victims are invariably women and children.

If all MEN were equal and happy to be equal then no one would have created guns or the socio-political climate and conditions that encourage their use.

Google would tell you that in Australia (which had massive gun ownership), following the massacre in Tasmania, the government held a mass buyback, where they bought the guns off people.

Australia now has very tough gun laws and has had no further mass shootings.

It all about social change. If enough people want something to happen, then it will.

Basically, bit of both Mini though the madness comes with society telling these white men that there feelings are so much more important and need to be heard over everyone else. If they are in pain then everyone else should know about it. And with the way it is portrayed on the news, when we all have known better for decades, it feeds the cycle for the next one.

In the USA, it would have to come down to votes.

"It's horrible those children died, but it's the chance they took, being born in the USA."

Kindergartners and 1st Graders were taking a chance by being born in a middle class, quiet CT suburb in the US?!!

OP, fwiw, I'm glad you came back and apologised and owned what you had written. I was going to reply last night but this thread made me so angry, I couldn't. I don't think the actual question is wrong, but the timing definitely was.

As as for the grief wank comment, although, there are no MN'ers (I would presume), who are the parents of these children, there was one MNer on another thread who said they were friends with people who attended the school and hadn't managed to get hold of them yet. And there are MNers who live within a reasonable distance, whose own schools went into lockdown yesterday as a response. My kids' school didn't but it broke my heart when I picked them up yesterday and there was a noticeable police presence there.

I'm sorry you feel like that Forbiddenfruit but I understand some people will refuse to accept my apologies - that's fine. I have no more to say.

Why bring the Twin Towers into this?

Do you think just because that happened in America people are not allowed to be outraged?

Look, I have explained that I know I was in the worng to post that last night. I did it without thinking it through. I was in a vulnerable state feeling extremely upset about something I'd seen about Syria. It was appalling judgement and I regret it.

Here's the reason Syria doesn't get as much coverage:

People in the west don't give a fuck.

Put Syria on a front page of a newspaper and you'll lose thousands of readers, have it as your lead bulletin on a news broadcast and half your viewers will switch off.

The public perception is: it's the Middle East. They're all nutters who are always blowing each other up.

I just fail to see how the two are relevant.

It's only the timing that was wrong but - otherwise it's very valid to talk about the balance of news in the media. Don't let people upset you with their extreme reactions and refusal to accept an apology.

forbiddenfruit85, did op mention twin towers? I haven't seen that. I did though, so you are attacking the wrong person with that.

what a lovely thread.

Clearly there is a competition here to see which type of grisly death or murder is the worst. Maybe there should be some kind of sliding scale of awfulness where dying peacefully in your sleep only scores a 1, whereas being shot to pieces by some crazed gunman is an 8.

And lovely that SGB, despite having had similar posts deleted on other threads, is back to her disgusting and offensive 'grief-wank' comments and other toilet-gutter talk. How sad that your vocabulary remains in the gutter SBG, even when you are talking about children being murdered. Well done you.

Maybe it's the fact that I knew someone who died in 9/11 as well as her unborn baby that I am unwilling to accept your apology.

Your comment It's like the twin towers - OMG the USA is in trouble, lets be outraged is disgusting.

And I hope you at least reflect on the cruelty of your words.

The whole Syria situation is heartbreaking.
It's a different topic, but it seems that the UN can't intervene because Russia and another couple of world powers have vetoed it?
Am I right on that?
There is true evil in this world, and President Assad and his corrupt Government are up there with the worst of them.

Yes she did mention the Twin Towers MiniTheMinx it's in the OP.

Christ Catinthehairnet is that a quote from sometime on this thread?

What the hell is wrong with people.

Mind you people were making disgusting comments after Dunblane. It makes me angry but it doesn't surprise me - some people will say anything to get attention.