American needs to fight against terror closer to home

[josil]

And focus their energy on teenage boys who seem to be causing terror frequently by shooting us schools. Supermarkets etc etc.

What never ceases to amaze me is somehow these shooters manage to escape the stereotypes that others ethnic groups find it impossible to shake off.

RIP to those dead ok the latest massacre in the US.

The US needs to fight against terror and start with those close to home.

A semi-automatic weapon is one in which it will fire one shot each time the trigger is pulled. The vast majority of all firearms across the world are semi-automatic. The AR-15, while commonly used and scary looking, is not a particularly powerful or accurate weapon. There is nothing particularly special about them as far as guns go. They just look intimidating and are cheap. A good hunting rifle is far more powerful, shoots further, and is more accurate.

The same is true of an AK-47 (except in can fire multiple rounds). Not accurate, not powerful, but reliable.

The AR-15 has the dubious "honour" of having been the weapon of choice for the majority of mass murders in US schools - you don't need accuracy or power to kill and maim large numbers of people if they are gathered in a place of worship or a school.

@TruthHertz ?

You didn’t respond.

In fairness, I made that statement because upthread someone, a non American presumably, stated that you could. The closest that you can come to buying guns at the supermarket would be a few select rural Wal Marts that sell hunting equipment. So for anyone envisioning being able to go round to the local Tesco or Sainsbury's and having guns down the pickle row, yeah, it's not like that.

It's gotten that honour in large part because it looks intimidating, and has has been glorified as the centerpiece weapon in the whole gun debate. In short...it's what the cool kids use.

It used to be like that, yes, but over the past 20 years, and especially the last decade, most major retailers, even dedicated sporting goods stores have stopped carrying firearms all together. It is too big of a legal liability for them.

I’m absolutely sick of it. Sick to the back teeth, nauseated, enraged…the list goes on.

I live in Connecticut. I’m proud of Sen. Chris Murphy for putting other politicians on the spot. As he said over and over: What are we doing?

I have adored the last twenty years of living in NYC and CT. The people have been amazing, the lifestyle, the arts, the culture, the outstanding opportunities. But by god, I don’t think I can stay here in this country and continue to raise my kids, because we are being held by the nuts by a bunch of disgusting old white Republican men.

They are far more likely to experience a classmate getting dunk at a party and dying in a car wreck with a few other classmates.

@samyeagar you are wrong there. In 2020 4,300 American children were killed by firearms. That's more than the 4,000 who were killed by cars and considerably more than the 2,000 or so who died of drug overdoses or the 2,000 who died of cancer.

Guns are now the biggest killer of American children.

I truly feel for Americans in your position.

My American friends and family feel exactly the same.

The infuriating impotence to do anything about it must be beyond frustrating.

And what’s worse is that there are young Republicans coming in behind to succeed the dinosaurs currently in office.

The only American I know who doesn’t think like this is an old pen-friend of my late DF’s. A South Carolinian who rabidly supports Trump, and yes, bought his grandkids guns for their first birthday.

I am going to split hairs here as this goes into two separate issues. Gun related injury and gun related crime.

In the context of this thread and what I was talking about gun crime and in particular mass school shootings. Those numbers you cited, while absolutely correct, include accidents and suicide, which make up a large majority of all gun related deaths.

Those are two different issues which require different approaches to solve.

@SomersetONeil , thank you. I’m actually a British ex-pat, who for the first time in twenty years is about ready to throw in the towel and haul my American kids and husband to England.

I just read that another individual carrying an AK-47 was apprehended today outside a Texas high school. I would dearly love to stand outside the NRA conference in Texas Friday, and lob a few dozen eggs the way of Trump, Ted Cruz and all the other bigoted attendees.

I feel you. I too have loved a decade of Southern California living (and we are both lucky to live in liberal states) but this shooting coming 24th after my own child’s school went into lockdown is more than triggering.

We’re heading back to the U.K. in a month, this is definitely one of the reasons why

The attack at Uvalde was not white supremacy.
Bullied at school, poor, there is no pattern to these shootings other than maleness.

Mitt Romney has been the biggest recipient of NRA cash and it is quite a lot of it too $13,647,676. However the number of gun related deaths in Utah is among the lowest in the country. States with strict gun control laws do not have fewer shootings so it is not as simple as people in the UK seem to think.

I was reading somewhere (on here maybe?) that in so many of these cases the man (for they are almost always men - can’t think of a female shooter) first attacks a female (often partner or mum/grandmother), and often there is domestic violence.

I remember when there seemed to be a spate of university campus shootings - was there always attacks in schools, or is this a more recent escalation in these things?

I suspect toxic masculinity is playing a part. So expect more of these types of shootings as the online MRA/incel/extreme misogyny culture gets ever more powerful.

The only female school shooter I can think of is the girl that "I don't like Mondays" is about, and that song is over 40 years old.

oh my I hate this argument, but it's worth pointing out that the USA is a federal country. It's much harder to do because you need all 50 state legislatures to tighten up their laws. Meanwhile the Supreme Court keeps striking down gun laws. "Well we did it after dunblane" doesn't hold true.

The GOP could get its head out of its arse and agree to some reforms but this will never be like the UK or Australia.

Also, to answer something on the first two pages, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity is separate from race (though often popularly regarded as a race). You can be Latino and of any race. Many Mexican-Americans are mixed-race (part Indigenous, this is even more true for Central Americans who may not even speak Spanish) and will check that off on the race section of the census. It's actually quite a complicated question as some people are regarded as white in their home countries but not in the US. I know people who refer to themselves as "white Latino" also. You can see how this can get ridiculous with someone like Anya Taylor-Joy (to pick an extreme example). But many Mexicans are really not white by anyone's definition; they are mestizos.

How many school shootings have there been in Great Britain in the 26 years since Dunblane?

ZERO!

Because John Major and Tony Blair took strong action to vastly restrict the private ownership of guns as a result of the tragedy. I'd call that a success.

Not quite true, although I accept that AL might be considered rural to you!

I've worked in AL and my family and I found it fascinating that you could walk into a regular Walmart and see a range of rifles/guns/ammo clearly on show.

Not that you'd shop in Walmart, when much more serious gear can be bought from a Bass Pro store but I managed to find firearms in Dicks too, which is a UK equivalent of Sports Direct!

Regarding what you said earlier about perspectives, my colleagues all said that they either known someone personally who'd been shot or knew people who'd had direct experience with gun crime. None of them knew anyone would hadn't been affected by guns.

I should add that the guns in Walmart weren't in a special area but in the same vicinity as kids toys/clothing/bicycles/outdoor equipment etc. It really wasn't any different to my local Tesco except for a section with rifles in a glass cabinet.

It was sweet that they even had kids rifles in there for little Chuck's birthday!

"How many school shootings have there been in Great Britain in the 26 years since Dunblane?
ZERO!
Because John Major and Tony Blair took strong action to vastly restrict the private ownership of guns as a result of the tragedy. I'd call that a success."
It was a success but there was never anything like the same level of gun ownership or gun culture in the UK than there is in the US. Banning guns in the US would not have the same effect that Banning guns did over here. Because it is a very different country.

Compare the USA rates of school shootings v countries where terrorists and jihadists storm schools and kidnap children.

FWIW there have been a number of female mass shooters and loads of male ethnic minority ones of all ages. But it's true the overwhelming majority are male.

Woah! That number is shocking