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AIBU?

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Original poster

Why can’t America ban automatic weapons?

905 replies

MaryPoppinsPenguins · 14/02/2018 22:42

I don’t get it. I honestly don’t. After Sandy Hook that should have been enough... statistics speak for themselves.

Why? What don’t I get?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
26
BakedBeans47 · 15/02/2018 20:02

I am 44 years old. I can remember 3 mass shootings in the UK in my lifetime. After the first two gun laws were substantially tightened.

I have lost count of the number of mass shootings I have heard about in the US.

It’s an absolute bloody disgrace and I am so fed up of apologists for mass murder and the complete “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” shite and their poxy “constitution”

Exiguous · 15/02/2018 20:11

Exiguous I don't know what security the school had, but the shooter did walk into the building. He didn't take a hostage or shoot his way in, and he had already been identified as a risk.

There was an armed security guard at the school.

I wonder what we do next? Barricade all doors, bullet-proof windows, every single teacher armed, all students in Kevlar vests?

It's really not about security is it? It's about stopping crazy people from getting hold of guns.

tillytrotter1 · 15/02/2018 20:13

I’m going to say it again. The sad but self evident truth is that America places more value on an individuals right to have a gun than they do on the lives of their citizens.

Spot on, if Sandy Hook produced no change, nothing will. I can never get het-up about these shootings, Live by the sword, die by the sword.
It's very disconcerting to see people carrying guns on their hip in public not in wilderness areas but in pleasant residential areas.

Julie8008 · 15/02/2018 20:19

Maybe as well as arming the teachers they should arm the children as well, so they can defend themselves from any teachers or students who take aim.

What age can a child have a gun in America 15?

squeekums · 15/02/2018 20:40

**HelenaDove

The USA....................where its easier to obtain a gun than obtain an abortion**

Disgustingly and sadly true

Original poster
MaryPoppinsPenguins · 15/02/2018 20:53

I’ve been reading online that his defence lawyer hugged him. I hope that’s massively exaggerated...

OP posts:
Julie8008 · 15/02/2018 21:17

Just saw it on TV, his lawyer was standing beside him and she put her right arm around his back in a 'supportive' manner for the whole time the Judge was speaking.

Frequency · 15/02/2018 21:19

I don't think his lawyer should be condemned for offering him comfort if s/he did. He deserves punishment, what he did was hideous beyond words but under all that he was very a troubled, sick young man failed by a system too inadequate to support him.

So many people spotted the signs yet he wasn't given any support or medical intervention.

Julie8008 · 15/02/2018 21:51

His lawyer says he is remorseful, so maybe not a bad boy after all?

BarbarianMum · 15/02/2018 21:52

Why shouldn't his lawyer support or even hug him? What possible difference could it make now?

Julie8008 · 15/02/2018 21:58

Because it is very offensive to the parents and families whos children have just been murdered by him.

CaveMum · 15/02/2018 21:59

He’s obviously a very troubled young man, his background makes for sad reading - adopted as a young child, adopted father died a few years ago, adopted mother died 3 months ago, spent time living with family and school friends ever since.

Of course none of that excuses what he has done.

Original poster
MaryPoppinsPenguins · 15/02/2018 22:01

I think hugging him is entirely innapropriate.

If he’d just killed my child, and I saw him being given comfort? I think it would finish me.

OP posts:
BarbarianMum · 15/02/2018 22:02

Is it? Well yes, maybe they'd prefer him beaten and spat at and to be dragged to court naked on a hurdle. Can't say I blame them. But the reality is he's still a young person, entitled to a defence and if he needs emotional support then its good there is someone to give it to him. It's an arm round his back at the end of the day, she didn't bake him a cake and throw him a party.

Julie8008 · 15/02/2018 22:03

There comes a time in a persons life where their shitty upbringing is no longer an excuse for mass murder. And I do not mean that in a funny way.

Kursk · 16/02/2018 04:03

Bekabeech

Of course I know it’s happening in the US, and I am
Aware of the stats. But that doesn’t change the fact that
My past of the US feels far safer and better than the UK

Wonkylegs
Sorry that happened to you, I feel that with a firearm in the
House I have at least the choice to use it. The chances are
I would react the. same as you.

LakieLady
There is the need to shoot things such as coyotes, who regularly
Hunt our own Ddogs

GnotherGnu
I claim to feel safer because I do, I feel that it’s a better country
To raise my family in

bluepears · 16/02/2018 05:36

**HelenaDove

The USA....................where its easier to obtain a gun than obtain an abortion**

Disgustingly and sadly true

not true in all states eg California no restrictions on abortion before 24 weeks but there are restrictions to buying a gun from wiki 'a 5 year Firearm Safety Certificate, obtained by paying a $25 fee, submission of applicant data to the state, and passing a written test proctored by a DOJ Certified Instructor, is required for the sale, delivery, loan, or transfer of any firearm.[5][6] Handguns sold by dealers must be "California legal" by being listed on the state's Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale.[7'

LeslieKnopefan · 16/02/2018 05:46

I spent some time living in America. They sold guns in the local Walmart.

Guns are I’m afraid part of the culture and I worked with a woman in her 60s who kept one under her bed.

So, just banning guns wouldn’t be anywhere as straight forward as it was here. But changes have to take place, starting with automatic weapons and generally making guns a lot harder to get hold of. Small steps won’t change the culture in a day but small steps are better than none.

LeslieKnopefan · 16/02/2018 05:47

And to anyone who thinks arming teachers or security staff I’m not sure half the police that have guns in America should have them let alone teachers!!

Bekabeech · 16/02/2018 07:25

The most frightening thing about teachers having guns, or any guns in a classroom is, that it turns what should be a "safe space" into a potentially dangerous one. The people calling for arming teachers probably have no experience of the classroom.

With small children - who hasn't known a "naughty child" riffle through a teacher's desk. What if what they took out wasn't a pen or stapler but a gun? And if a teacher keeps their draw locked, what use is the gun?

With bigger children - that gun could be turned on the teacher so easily. And someone wanting to carry out an attack would no longer have to bring their own weapons with them, but could acquire them at school. What if a couple painfully break up in a classroom at high school, and one comes across a teachers gun?

And don't forget the NRA have opposed the technology which is out there to "fingerprint" guns, so only the owner can fire them.

Dipitydoda · 16/02/2018 07:40

Because the NRA backed up by gun manufacturers obviously have some very tight hold on the legislature. In my 42 years on this earth the UK has had 3 mass shootings, hungerford, dunblane and Cockermouth. Each provoked absolute non partisan horror across the board and quite rightly so. Gun control was massively tightened. If a country can see a bunch of primary school kids shot and doesn’t do anything about it quite frankly there is no hope and I don’t know how the people making the rules and those supporting them can live with themselves. Anyone who opposes gun control in the US has children’s blood on their hands as far as I’m concerned.

Backenette · 16/02/2018 07:44

I’d oppose arming teachers. Teachers are there to teach, not act as paramilitaries. It’d make them a direct target, how could you secure a gun in a classroom? Terrible idea.

Stronger licensing
Stronger background checks
Ban on assault weaponry
Better mental health support - looks like this kid had been showing multiple danger signs over a long period of time plus a traumatic trigger event. This is one shooting that could have been prevented by not letting such kids fall through the cracks.

I wonder if the generation that’s in school now has the same attachment to guns as the older generations? What are the differences between ages groups’s opinions on guns?

TeasndToast · 16/02/2018 08:49

I cannot get my head around the fact that, despite the overwhelming statistical evidence between countries with gun control vs those with none, people still think guns are not the problem.

I just can’t understand the mentality of ‘let’s also arm the teachers, the security guards, the dinner lady, the postman’ (ok you get the picture)

Like everyone walking around with deadly weapons is a normal, safe environment. How brainwashed do you have to be?

Bekabeech · 16/02/2018 10:00

I talked about Guns with a couple of girls who stayed overnight once. And they were actually surprised when we told them that most criminals in this country don't carry weapons - because if they got caught they would face worse punishments. And these were highly educated girls at an Elite private school.

I think that to change thinking in the US would involve a massive paradigm shift, and the NRA is doing whatever it can to prevent that.

DGRossetti · 16/02/2018 10:10

Teachers are there to teach, not act as paramilitaries.

Remember that UK initiative to try and get ex-soldiers into the classroom as teachers ...