To despair? Another mass shooting in US

[KimberleyClark]

8 people killed. In Texas shopping mall.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65515915

Exactly. It’s lazy and uncaring. Lacking any real thought. Why do they feel the need to comment? 🙄

My sister is a brown immigrant with no guns. Built a life from scratch in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Only to see it come to this.

It’s terrible but I think this too now.

Even a partial control would help.
Automatic and semi automatics banned.

I think it's more basic: it's the fact that it's the "go to" attention seeking action for aggressive malcontents.

Gun shootings happen more in America BECAUSE mass shootings happen more in America. A bit like the suicides in Bridgend. Humans aren't very imaginative.

Life is cheap in the US. It starts with private healthcare, revering capitalism and ends with shooting people. There is a direct through line in a value system that puts money above people. Everything from their tv and movies to their gun laws says that money, violence and fear are more important than people's rights to live healthy, safe lives.
I'm not so cynical to think it can never change but tbh the people of the US who disagree with guns, who abhor their politicians being bought by the highest bidder - they need to mobilise. They need to march. They need to start an alternative party. They need to stand at every level of government. They need to withhold their labour, etc. The US isn't the first country to have corrupt government in thrall to lobbyists. They need to adopt tactics from elsewhere and not let up until laws are changed.

I’m another one who can’t worry about this. Sounds harsh, but there are so many bad things happening around the world that I can’t get upset or I would be constantly in distress.
Instead I try and do my best for my own community; family, friends, volunteering for a local charity etc. I can’t make a big difference but try and make a small difference, that’s all I can do.

Well.That's why ,every country will.have people that want I kill.and main others ,but if you don't have access to thread weapons that can cause utter carnage than people w/o want I carry out violent n
mass shooting ,s can't
There was an awful case near me a couple of years ago where a teenage lad was stabbed to death by some idiots who thought they were big hard men ,but as aerials it was it could have been so much worse if those idiots had a gun.

These weapons*

I’m another poster to whom it’s just white noise. Nothing will change whilst it’s legal, fine and dandy to carry a gun.

If gun violence in America had any other name - typhoid for example - it would be called a public health emergency.

Until they address it systematically, it won't change.

Polls have shown that the majority of Americans are in favour of some kind of gun control/ checks. I think it shows the power of lobbyists like the NRA.

If you remember the name of that book @Crikeyalmighty I'd like to read it.

The USA covers up so many of its problems. The crippling poverty, the fact that a 3rd of citizens can't get health insurance, even if they do it often won't pay out so they suffer and die, the very serious drug problem they have - was plain fentinyl, now the flesh eating concoction that is devastating San Fransisco. The homelessness everywhere.

It's just dire. Western, civilised country my arse. Their government prefer to playground wars on a world scale rather than look at their own problems. I feel sorry for the poverty stricken American - oh and lets not forget the multi-million pound prison industry - imprisoning poor people to basically use them for slave labour. Atrocious. No wonder some people go nuts and start shooting.

Guns are a fact of life over there; the answer to every problem.
The more shootings there are the more everyone feels they need more guns to protect themselves from all the people with guns.

It isn't a safe country and I wouldn't visit it.
Far too dangerous.
The remedy for mass shootings is in their hands. If they do not choose to stop everyone from having and carrying guns all over the place, they get no sympathy from me.

If you want to understand a little more watch this:

Gun Fever
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 1, Episode 5

Obviously a satirical comedy but it hits the nail on the head, as that show does with just about everything!!

What's striking in the maps (I am assuming the sources are reliable) is that the high density places have more mass shootings (per capita). Not saying people shouldn't live in cities, but mass shootings will be seen by rural (conservative, gun-toting, hunting) America as an urban problem (decadent lefty slums lack of self-sufficiency and no moral values crime-ridden ville).

Nothing will change until rural areas get afflicted, too, the US political system (even within most states) causes rural areas to have higher political representation than urban areas.

It is a dangerous country. You’re literally taking your life in your hands if you go into any public place.

The response in Serbia has been the government banning automatic weapons and making gun ownership checks more stringent. Similar to our response after the terrible events at Dunblane.

It’s hard to understand why the Americans don’t do the same isn’t it?

Was it "not stupid white men?"
I read it years ago .

No wonder some people go nuts
If someone over here goes nuts the worst they could do is stab a few people with a kitchen knife, (I'm not saying that isn't an awful awful thing)
but if you go nuts and you've got access to a gun you can do a lot more damage. This raises the sense of fear and panic leading more people to go nuts and do a lot of damage.
An horrific and everescalating spiral of death.

The influence of the NRA in high level politics is one part of the problem. In a culture where power is intrinsically and inextricably linked to money, no politician can afford to go against the NRA.

Very Large parts of the US (particularly in mid west and south) are still semi third world, full of trailer parks, food stamps and falling down shacks…. Usually frustrated, undereducated , illiberal morons- the kind that blindly followed Trump

And despite knowing that Trump’s appeal to the hopeless and impoverished is the bedrock of his popularity, the media and establishment continue to ignore these people’s genuine need by dismissing them as idiots and morons.

Trump spotted the gap in the market and set out to gain the vote of people who felt they had no representation at all, people who were disenfranchised came out to the polls.

It only further entrenches peoples loyalty to dismiss people, who have always been ignored, as idiots and their leader as a moron. Trump may be scum but he has a political genius. There’s still a gap in the market though for someone with the genius to see the underclasses AND possess a moral compass.

The problem is that the US has form for shooting those kinds of presidents.

But surely it's because any government that wanted to tackle the gun problem wouldn't get voted in because so many people want to be able to have guns to protect themselves from all the people with guns ...who have guns to protect themselves from all the people with guns🤷

Where's your logic? You commented on a thread about a woman thinking of having an abortion, you said that life begins at conception. So that ‘registered’ with you enough that you felt the need to go on the thread to add to her struggle and guilt, yet you don’t register the deaths of actual existing people, including children.

🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't think banning guns would work any more than banning alcohol did, or banning drugs does now. The root causes have to be tackled rather than the symptoms.