America's Gun Control

It's got to the point where school shootings will barely make the news outside the USA - we get the headline for a day or two 'Another mass shooting in the US' 'Another school shooting in the US' then the news moves swiftly on.

Sigh. I left this thread for a few days in the hope it might have moved on somewhat but I see not. We'll try again. No one who is American or lives here is arguing that the current state of gun control is the US is not ridiculous, embarrassing and not appropriate for a "world leader". What we are saying (repeatedly and apparently with little impact) is that it is not an easy as a bunch of people saying we don't like this, let's change the law. The us is one country with 50 different smaller countries and hundreds of mini countries all of whom have some influence over the laws in their geographic area. So to make significant change, laws have to be changed at all levels and that is pretty much impossible within the current system. The country is big, diverse and a great solution for a city will not be the great solution in a rural area where your nearest store is a 30 minute drive away and the local small police force cover over 100 sq miles of land. Coming onto a thread like this and listening to sweeping generalisations and, quite frankly, rude assumptions people is insulting and ignorant. My biggest hope is the next generation who are the ones who have actually had to live through losing their friends in this way. I hope beyond everything that they learn from the mistakes me and the generation before me made, boot as many of us who argue against them out of power and be the generation I believe they have the potential to be.

I think people are coming to terms with the idea that it won’t change and will keep happening.

Although it’s not just us who hope that would not be the case, whenever it happens you get a flurry of it has to change from US too. I recall the actor doing the speech re the child’s converse which was extremely sad and moving,

So people are exasperated and demanding change there too.

What we are saying (repeatedly and apparently with little impact) is that it is not an easy as a bunch of people saying we don't like this, let's change the law. The us is one country with 50 different smaller countries and hundreds of mini countries all of whom have some influence over the laws in their geographic area. So to make significant change, laws have to be changed at all levels and that is pretty much impossible within the current system.

And yet your Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe vs Wade.

Change is possible for the worse it seems.

But there is a large percentage of Americans who belive it's not embarrassing , ridiculous or inappropriate, the gun laws. They want what laws to stay. They have their guns and they have a right to them and that's it. Regardless of children dying. And dont want anything changing. Obviously including congress. And a few people on this thread seemed to have this view.

@Ktime

I completely agree that much change is for the worse at this moment, but it's apples and oranges because while there are constitutional rights around Roe, they centre around more generalised, less clear-cut issues and are not specific to abortion. Unfortunately, guns are a much thornier issue.

@Rainbowsandbutterflies1990

But there is a large percentage of Americans who belive it's not embarrassing , ridiculous or inappropriate, the gun laws. They want what laws to stay. They have their guns and they have a right to them and that's it. Regardless of children dying. And dont want anything changing. Obviously including congress. And a few people on this thread seemed to have this view.

Over 70% of Americans, even including those who own guns, want some form of gun control. However, the states where this is not the case have an outsized influence over politics.

Where is that statistic from please? Im not sure what "a large percentage" actually is. I did find a link to the latest Gallup polling on gun control which says that 57% of Americans want better gun control.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx

This snippet of a Jon Stewart interview with an Oklahoma state senator (different from the senators in DC) is very revealing and well worth watching

Ignoring the fact that Roe v Wade wasn't a law but a supreme court ruling which meant the same body could overturn it fairly easily, you've kind of proved my point that it's the system that works against popular opinion. Access to abortion and guns share the same underlying issue. Both have majority support amongst the people but both the political and legal system have been manipulated to ensure that the minority are making the laws.

I haven’t read all the replies but just wanted to make a point. All the people here who “don’t understand the culture” - have you ever considered that Americans have different values to us? Just because they speak a similar language doesn’t mean they share our values or culture. Are you calling for tighter gun control in Colombia? In Sierra Leone? In Jordan? In Tajikistan? Probably not, because you probably think their culture & values are very different from ours. I think US gun laws are nuts but I also think their racism, incarceration culture and attitudes to women are nuts.

@sorrynotathome - excellent summary, and you're completely correct. We think Americans have a similar culture to us because of the "special relationship" but they absolutely do not. I'm not saying ours is better or worse - just that we are very different. I do agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence, though.

Rainbowsandbutterflies1990
What I think will happen is mass shootings will still keep happening more children will die. Nothing will be done but in 20/30 years maybe longer, from now u will get the first generation who have actually had to live though this either from trauma from being at a mass shooting and witnessing their friends die or know someone who has been in one.

Unfortunately taken in a population of 300,000,000, the fewer-than-300 killed in mass shootings at schools are not going to make a very big dent.

There are quite a few survivors old enough to be worrying about their own children already. Columbine was in 1999, Red Lake in 2005, Virginia Tech in 2007, Sandy Hook in 2012, Parkland in 2018, Santa Fe High School in 2018, Oxford High School in 2021, and people caught up in those are mostly/many of them old enough to vote by now. Many university campus shootings have happened, too, and everyone from those has a vote at a guess.

I'm not sure of percentage either. But it's definitely not none, as the person was suggesting all of Americans want change. I think a lot r happy with how things currently are and surely politicians wouldn't be able to make laws like open carry restently if they didn't have a lot of general public agreeing with them. Republicans seem to be trying/succeeding to make laws even more lax they obviously must have supporters beliving current laws are to restricted

I'm not thinking of writing on mumsnet about them because they haven't been in the news and isn't a current topic rightly or wrongly.
And I'm guessing that American in genral clearly pretty obviously has different values to us I mean mass shootings keep happening. So the people in power (very clearly aware of the difficulty to change law as a citizen.) decide the laws on gun very clearly has different values to me, im shocked that they do and it angers me. I dont think being upset that Innocent children dying in schools is a massively out there value, i would kinda hope most of the world would not want innocent children dying regardless of reason. So it's not for the reasons u suggest.

And I also 100% agree with ur last statment.

I don't see anything changing anytime soon. There's been mass shootings in America for many, many years. The man who shot people from the university tower was in the early 60s I think so 60 years ago.

U of Texas 1966

There were an average 40% fewer gun-related deaths per year during the years 1994 to 2004.

That might suggest that something was going on during that decade which acted as at least a partial solution to the problem of angsty adolescents buying assault rifles on their eighteenth birthdays and going on shooting sprees shortly thereafter.

@newyorker74 sigh away. Like the rest of the world are dim and just don’t get it, while your children practice shooter drills in primary school, your politicians argue that the answer is more guns for the ‘good ’ guys and in the mean time, fuck all changes and the rest of us just wait for the inevitable need that there’s been another, yet another, Mass shooting with assault weapons.

Right now the Ar-15 is the fav assault weapon of choice for the American people, but what happens when a faster, more powerful one is developed? Does everyone get to own that one too?

@StarmanBobby - your outrage is noted. Now please suggest how we stupid Americans actually bring about the reforms that so many of us want while staying within the limitations and practical possibilities of our constitution and political system. And when you've done that, suggest how to get millions of people to hand over previously legal guns while making sure that criminals also comply with the law.

Any of us who live here and agree that the situation is awful are already support the politicians who might be prepared to introduce legislation to ban assault weapons and tighten up the law otherwise. If only we could get the politicians who disagree with us and the people who vote for them cooperate as well, and then get an ultra right- wing Supreme Court to not knock such legislation down...

Frankly your outrage just comes over to us as virtue signalling.

You are dealing with people who think the solution to school shootings is to arm teachers.

Can’t argue with stupid.

Instead, the three-term congressman from Tennessee suggestedthat Americans should focus on more thoughts and prayers

Fucking hell, there was me thinking that "thoughts and prayers" was just a meaningless platitude typed on Facebook so that people can ensure that they're publicly seen to care about something (a form of virtue signalling), but here we have a congressman who actually thinks that it'll solve anything.