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

There’s a difference between recognising you may not be able to change something and not caring. I can’t change the situations many people are in but I still care. You do you though as the saying goes.

Same, I'm afraid. It's awful but they don't want to change anything, and so this will keep happening.

The gun lobby always say guns don't kill people, people do. And things like with all these shootings you have to have guns to protect yourself and others if you happen upon a gunman. Not to mention it's our right to carry arms. And in some ways all these things are true in a back handed sort of way. So it becomes ever increasingly difficult to convince people that they don't need a gun when things happening around them (and in the news) reinforce their feeling that it is necessary to carry a gun.

A bit like boys in the UK carrying knives because lots of other boys do, so they have to be able to protect themselves. A circular argument.

Those in the US in the House and the Senate who refuse to support some even limited measures of gun control should be refused entry into the UK, should they want to come here. We should try to persuade the EU to do the same.

I will. I was once so overwhelmed, I was housebound. I was depressed and anxious to the point of being incapacitated. One of the single most useful things in my recovery was detaching a good bit. Me being unable to leave my house makes not a jot of difference to the people suffering elsewhere, but a great deal to me and my loved ones.

Sometimes we need to narrow our focus to protect ourselves.

guns don't kill people, people do
such a primitive argument!
people with guns kill people more easily quickly and in much greater numbers than people without guns

I didn't even read the item on the BBC website. Another day, another mass shooting in a country that puts the right to carry a gun above the right of a child to go home from school alive.

There will no doubt be at least one more mass shooting before next weekend, its hard to keep up with them all.

@LlynTegid Unfortunately you don’t change views by not talking to people. Talking and persuading is all there is.

@Greentree1 I do think you are correct. Every gun owner in the USA thinks crime is near them. We have areas here where there’s more crime, but we cannot easily buy and use a gun. We met a couple from LA on a recent holiday. They lived in a very decent area of LA. They are rich. They own guns. They are scared of being robbed. Scared of a situation where they are threatened and need to regain control. The wife wasn’t even originally American. It’s this ingrained belief that you might be attacked and you defend yourself with a gun: so very different from views here. How the USA can change has never been solved but I don’t think they really want change enough. Or they would.

I do not think there will be real change during any of our lifetimes. Maybe some tinkering around the edges with some of the more deadly guns being banned. But with 3D printing people can pretty much make their own guns already.

Its awful. I saw this being reported and honestly my first thought was why is this news worthy? Its just another normal day in America.

And that's an shameful way to think. 8 people have died. But another 8 or so will die the same way next week, and the week after that and the week after that. Until the end of time.

The politicians will offer their thoughts and prayers and the police will promise to do all they can.

What they won't do, is something about the fucking guns.

It really is hard to understand; it just makes no sense. I've been to America four times (for a holiday), and visited three states. There's no way I'd go on holiday there now. It's just absolutely sickening to think that an everyday pass-time like going to the shops could cause your death, and I can't even think about the horror of children not coming home from school. Those poor victims and their families.

They will continue and unfortunately most likely increase in severity & frequency as societal problems with poor mental health, poverty & general moral decay worsens. Its ingrained into their culture, 'entertainment', their very constitution & they have never known society without them. It's shocking to me but its not at the same time when on the news. 🤷‍♀️What other outcome do they expect!? It's truly crazy stuff 🤯

It isn't just widely available guns that are the problem, because they've always been available and there weren't anything like the number of mass shootings that there are today. The actual total number of deaths by shooting is quite a lot lower than it was at some points in the past, but the mass shootings scare people more.

In the US the gun is a powerful symbol for freedom, protection, individualism, whilst being an instrument of horror death, loss and grief. I think there is some kind of mass trauma bond going on.
Because the gun is such a potent symbol it can be used to control and manipulate people and this is exploited by the r wing of gvt, the NRA and anyone who has something to gain from the status quo.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65305145

There are american trying to change things- this guy below isn't against guns but counts the gun violence

"There's a level of irresponsibility in guns that needs to be solved so people don't die," he says. "I want to stop the violence."
The very act of assembling statistics on a fraught, politically and emotionally divisive topic like gun violence, however, has brought pressure and scrutiny.
"I sometimes tick off people on the gun violence prevention side and I certainly sometimes tick off people on the gun rights side, but my best day was when I published a piece of information and both of them were angry with me," he says.
"That told me I was doing my job correctly."

I suspect his views are very main stream - it's like many of their issues political parties aren't reflecting where the majority of population are.

I think it's an internal political/cultural issue that external forces are limited in ability to influence.

I’m not sure why the U.K. media even bother reporting mass shootings in the US any more. It’s just what happens over there. A normal day in America. There will be another one next week, the only question is ‘where?’
For reasons which people outside the country find baffling, the US government have obviously decided that the scale & frequency of these incidents is a price worth paying for the right to bear arms. Their country, their laws. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sadly I agree. I'm an American living in the UK, and yes. Enough people want to keep their guns at all costs. So guns stay, and mass shootings continue, and it is seen as a sad inevitability that people with die at the hands of guns. My cousin's children school ages children have their own guns. My cousins are not stupid or uneducated, but they will never willingly give up their guns. There are a lot of people with that mindset in America, nothing will change them

Just ban real guns altogether. Even farmers and farm workers. If pests need controlling then bring in licenced operators with secure armouries. There is no place in a modern society for guns to be acquired by any section of the public. Defence yes, the public no. At the same time a mandatory 20 year minimum sentence for anyone carrying a bladed weapon in public, 40 if due to membership of any gang, club or society.

Conservatives and the NRA control the narrative, which is to propagandize about the sanctity of ‘the second amendment’ and how ‘the libs’ want to take away ‘your guns and your rights’. Any politician who openly supports gun control, or opposes unchecked gun ownership, or speaks out against the NRA doesn’t have a prayer because right wingers and the NRA immediately double down.

How would "banning guns altogether" even work. Who would go from house to house taking all the guns, and shooting the owners if necessary (as it would be in some cases). How would the police/FBI etc prevent illegal guns from being smuggled in, any more than they can prevent illegal drugs from being smuggled in?

I've visited that mall a couple of years ago. Scary 😢

There will be another one next week, the only question is ‘where?’

There will probably have been another 10 mass shootings (4 or more injured or killed) by this time next week.

160 mass shootings in the USA so far THIS YEAR!

I wonder how the NRA got so powerful? And why they are allowed such power?Equally why are they electing old, white men for presidents? Will anything change under these old men? Is Biden really the best man for the job at 80?

I mean, Obama was pretty young when elected even for the second term, during which Sandy Hook happened. He didn't manage to change much either. If dead children don't rouse a real want for change in the public, then nothing will.