Mass shooting in my state

[Terramirabilis]

Another mass shooting in the US and this one is close to home. Local media are saying 13 students dead and 20+ injured. When are people going to see sense on gun control. I just don't understand this.

twitter.com/hashtag/UCCShooting?src=hash

What was sad was the local preacher or whatever he was being interviewed on tv this morning basically saying "thank god for guns as if it wasn't for people having guns to be able to shoot the gunman, he could have killed a lot more people...." I just can fathom that ideology.

The answer always seems to be that we need more guns.

They are so prevalent now and I am sure that people have stockpiles of ammo that I am really not sure what the solution is. If you banned them and asked for them all to be handed in and melted then I am sure that would result in mainly the law abiding citizens handing in theirs,, but even then, the smart ones would obviously hang onto some knowing that the bad guys would still have theirs.

I don't believe it will ever change, it's too entrenched in America's way of life and history. The gun lobby is extremely powerful and is puppet master to a lot of politicians and influential people.

My sympathies go out to all the families of those who died

Assuming we haven't run out of space, and this is still readable in 50 years, then our great-grandchildren will see we had the same problems they're having. (I wonder if this post will be quoted ?).

I find it unfathomable that people can accept that (particularly) the murder of children in their classroom is an acceptable situation. And yet here we are.

NinjaLeprechaun, I don't buy the 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument. We have people in Europe too. Mostly they don't kill each other with guns. The idea that there is some moral or psychological deficit that makes Americans more likely to want to kill each other with guns .. even if it was true, surely that would mean the US should have stricter gun laws than elsewhere, not laxer ones. Not to mention a good proportion of gun deaths are accidental - the toddler in Wal-mart, the 9 year old astonishingly on a shooting range learning how to fire an Ouzi. If grenades were legal, it wouldn't make it safe to have them in the community. Or land mines for that matter.

In America it's not just about the guns, it's about the attitude to those guns. America, as a nation, accepts "collateral damage" as a given in situation with guns, whether that be the collateral damage of children and civilians being killed in wars abroad, or its own children being killed (accidentally or purposefully) so that its citizens can exercise their right to own lots of guns and shoot things.

Anyone seen "Bowling for Columbine" ?

There's a town in Canada with the same proportion of gun ownership as the US (buy guns in K-Mart etc). Michael Moore visits, and asks the police chief when the last shooting was. He can't remember.

As MM says - you can see the US across the lake from this town.

Bowling for columbine is very good, if harrowing. iirc MM & some of the injured students went to K-Mart to ask them to selling the ammo that the shooters bought so easily. They did - they announced that the sales of the bullets would be phased out within 3 months - I hope they kept to it.
I think a lot of Americans see school shootings as collateral damage to their God given right to bear arms. It's ingrained so deeply in the culture and constitution - I don't know what can be done. Obama is certainly having no luck.

I heard this morning this was the 45th school shooting THIS YEAR.

I mean, what the hell? That's about one episode a week. How do you send your child off to school or college knowing that approximately once a week someone somewhere in the States is going to go crazy with a firearm? I mean I know the USA is a huge continent but those are scary statistics.

I don't know what the answer is, but surely tighter gun control has to be a start.

I done my dissertation on the columbine massacre. It's shocking, the regular occurrence of these massacres. The NRA have blood on their hands

I heard it was the 45th this year too!

It's disgusting. Stop making bullets. Seriously, it can't be that difficult. Stop letting people buy these stupid things...

I think a lot of the shooters (clearly have issues but oftentimes) think they will get notoriety and become infamous due in part to the media. If they someone else (and I don't doubt that there will be more and more and more) do something in future just don't mention their names. Say whether they have been caught or killed thenselves but dont mention their names.They are cowards.
I have to say sandy hook is\was\and always will be one of the most disturbing images I have ever witnessed and i was entirely avoidable and utterly Heartbreaking

Do I think that Americans are inherently violent. No. But having something so deadly and so easy to get in such little time certainly gives them the capacity to be.

I thought bowling for columbine was brilliant also - just have to say

I see the reminders everyday of the (only?) UK school shooting - at least there was a proper swift action to that and whilst shooting occurrences were already rare - they have been even more so.

The BBC news has just said the Sandy Hook shootings were last April. That incorrect, isn't it? I'm sure it was just before Christmas

Tinternet says Sandy Hook was December 2012

Yep just checked and it was Dec 2012. Sloppy reporting.

I've just rewound on sky+ and the reporter even says, 'last year'. Totally insignificant compared to the wider issues on this thread but still sloppy from the BBC.

They are probably getting confused with one of the numerous other mass school shootings tbf. It's not like there has only been the one.

Yet again, a dreadful mass shooting. My Heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones.

When will the US get a handle on this? This is an interesting article www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9437187/obama-guns-terrorism-deathshere

"We spent over a trillion dollars, and passed countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so" Obama said. "And yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?"

What happens over there with guns makes me not want to travel to the country, how sad is that? Not because I would be scared but because I feel so strongly about the carnage that guns create and the normalisation of it, I just don't want to.

In 2012, 409 people were shot and killed by American police in what were termed justifiable shootings. In that same year, British police officers fired their weapons just once. No one was killed.

When will the USA start to take heed and do something? Whoever said there has been 45 school killings so far this year... well, there's been just short of 300 mass shootings so far this year.

Total madness.

there's been just short of 300 mass shootings so far this year

by my standards that constitutes a war almost :(

There's another gunman at Virginia Commonwealth University

Apparently after one shooting, I think it was Sandy Hook but prepared to be corrected, local shooting clubs were offering discounts for teachers, to prepare them to be able to defend themselves/students. but I have not heard of any "school shooters" being stopped by anyone but armed police. Surely taking a gun into a school "for defence" is just not practical on so many levels. It's so tragic and reminds me of Dunblane and other us school killings. My Heart goes out to those involved.

Not really a subject for humour, but watching a programme recorded in July, but intended for showing this week. It has a running gag about the topics discussed being forgotten about, by the time it's released. The host jokes that to be on the safe side, they should stick to "black person killed by US cops" and "US high school massacre", since they're never out of the news.

Many a true word said in jest

"We spent over a trillion dollars, and passed countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil

It's what you wanted. Why grumble ?

There was a thread very recently where an op was worried about glorified war violence being taught in schools here to her young child. An american lady posted that on there they are taught in detail about wars from kindergarten, and theres nothing wrong with american children because of it.

Not that i'm saying that causes it of course, just noticed the cognitive dissonance between "nothing wrong with our children" and there being 45 school shootings this year.

:(

It's too late to ban guns in the US. There are hundreds of millions of guns in circulation and many gun owners would not hand them over in the event of a gun amnesty. It would literally result in a civil war if they tried this.

I truly think that there is something deeply wrong with American society that makes people see mass killing as an option for them. It's more than just availability of guns IMO. I also live in the U.S. and am fearful for my daughter growing up here.

I read an interesting post on Reddit. It was an English person who had lived on and off in the US for years. He said that it was so different because Americans are running scared the whole time. You don't look at someone in a car who's cut you up, you are careful round the supermarket not to bash your trolley into someone else's, you don't answer the door just in case, you don't disagree with anyone when out and about - all for the fear of being shot. It seems to me that there are a lot of angry people over there.