As yet another school shooting has unfolded here in the states, among the sadness I feel I often question why this continues to happen and what are the solutions?
Please find this in utmost respect for those affected. Tragedy creates clarity for some.
Not just more gun control, but nation wide laws so that you can't just cross state lines to skirt the issue. We will never stop this, but we can, should, and must try to minimize it. We did not tolerate tampering with Tylenol bottles, we forced auto makers to add seat belts and many other safety features, why is the NRA so damned untouchable?
The $7mil lets him use someone else's money to get reelected.
Mentally disturbed people will use all manner of tools to hurt others. Address the illness is more important than restricting access to tools.
Yes, mentally impaired people could find other ways. Let's say you are in a park and a raging, obviously disturbed person is advancing on you. Would you rather he have a rock or an AK47 in his hand?
Would you rather he had a flamethrower or an AK-47 in his hand? How about an NFO bomb or an AK-47??? Only the AK-47 is at risk of being outlawed and most gun deaths in the us are due to pistols, not assault rifles, BTW.
How about we put everyone in jail after they are born until they first prove they should be allowed access to dangerous tools of any kind? I'm sure the tools won't stage a rebellion without us.
@diabhal It pretty much amounts to the same thing in the end. Some central authority will determine what tools you can have access to. What are the criteria for the decision? Who elects these people? Is this really what we want for a government? It seems like a dangerous slippery slope to me.
@diabhal I believe it is also what prison systems and mental health institutions do, is it not,?
Actually all of the first three would be both helpful and reasonable. But as Churchill said, you can count on Americans to do the right thing after all the wrong things have first been tried.
Yes - the witty Winston - "Mr Churchill, you are drunk!" 'Yes, and you are ugly but I will be sober in the morning"
Yes, everytime a school shooting tragedy, happens, I feel sick and helpless! (I usually feel sick for all the shoot-ups). I think I feel so angry that I feel sick! It is the people that we vote into our government that is supposed to help us come up with a solution to this killing problem! But, we get nothing! It does not seem to matter that these beautiful young people and their teachers, are shot to hell! If it isn't one of our politician's child...it is to far off, to matter! Well... It matters everytime a child is shot to death, I feel the pain of those parents! I have beautiful children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and my friends and my comminity has beautiful young people! But, no! The NRA, and the gun manufacturers, don't care! Our elected officials need their money to keep their office, so lots of dead people here and there...is just collateral damage in the course of everyday business! We have become a social order that cares little about dead people until it happens to one of them...and then it is too late! Yes, America is sick with something...as it is no longer bothered by it's 'shot up' dead citizens!
No matter the ‘background check or psych profile,’ the problem would remain, if ‘dad’s’ an upstanding sensible and diligent man ...and his teenage son’s an Antisocial mess.. That kid’s going to get his hands on Dad’s weapons.. It’s the Hardware, the semi-automatic military assault weapons & ammo clips - not ‘the rules.’
...and everytime there’s mass murder.. The far-wrong just know that ‘after this - they’re definitely going to ban guns’... So, they buy more! Prices escalate, ‘guns’ appear to be a fantastic ‘investment’ … ammo & body armor too.. Now there’s even more! …piled away under some ‘law abiding’ mom or dad’s bed … just waiting for their son to stage his suicide by mass murder.
File a lawsuit against the family of this expelled student with a grudge against his school much like Sandy Hook there the mom's estate and dad should both be lawsuit drained of all assets for enabling the mental illness with gunplay
And watch the NRA march in three killer attorney’s for the defence…
@Varn we won millions from big tobacco for false advertising of cancer cigarettes and families who enable shooters can be sued to surrender assets including expensive guns to be sold to lawful militia
@Akfishlady I have a right to life on the highway and it takes all my professional driving skills to prevent dangerous drivers from killing me SO FAR 40 thousand people die preventable deaths on roadways and zero car bans are being legislated only guns to retro address 19 recent school shootings
The United States is not at war with itself,therefore no need for citizens to be with guns. The Federal government should repeal.all law guns and reclaim them. The security of the people should be in the hands of the federal Government.
An all powerful federal government in control of all the guns would be extremely dangerous! Not to mention it would take a civil war to seize all of those guns! Millions would likely die in the attempt.
The USA may not be at war with its self but there many elements out in the world that wish nothing good for this country. The islamic terrorists are just one of many that would like to see the USA grounded down. I can assure that I'm not being paranoid. You just have look to outside and see that we are not well liked in this world. It has gotten worse due to the past administration and the present one.
Stricter gun laws can't stop all bad people from doing bad things, but I don't believe that means that we shouldn't try. The thing that tighter gun restrictions can do though is to limit the number of casualties if someone does flip. Also if easy availability to handguns wasn't the norm, a lot of people might get the ten or fifteen minutes they need to cool down and not engage in violence. It would also stop this almost sexual attraction to the weapons if it wasn't being normalized and fetishized. I grew up around guns all of my life and I've shot them and gone to gun ranges. I even did some shooting down at a range in Florida. I would never want to see all guns made illegal or even the majority, but there is middle ground. A big step forward would be psych screening for all potential gun owners. There are also many other proven methods for reducing gun crime. I may be wrong on this exact number, but it really doesn't matter, you can still see the point, but I believe that Japan only had one gun death in all of last year and no mass shootings. Again I apologize if I got the exact numbers wrong, I didn't want to stop and look it up, but I think all can agree that there are a lot better ways of dealing with the gun issue than what we're doing. Basically we aren't doing anything and if the NRA and the gun profiteers have their way, we never will. We'll just have to accept 13,000 people killed each year, and 27,000 injured by guns. That doesn't count all of the suicides committed with guns. We also need a national universal healthcare system that includes mental health as well. Many more people would actually see their primary care physician and a lot of mental health issues could be caught and dealt with that way. I also believe that if we had a national healthcare system it would help alleviate the overwhelming sense of anxiety that permeates our culture. That anxiety translates into violent behavior. The answer is a multi-pronged approach and for goodness sake let's study what other countries are doing that have all but eliminated this problem. We don't always have to reinvent the wheel.
I think we are headed in the right direction with anti bullying. I think the children who are taking our other children are because they are bullies and gem they have no other recourse and have psychological resentment to the "cool kids" and they feel this justifies their means. I don't condone it, I'm just, like everyone else, trying to understand.
A major factor is Reagan closed many of the institutions and organizations that helped people with mental health issues. Also, insurance companies don't cover mental health well, and treatment is very expensive. Also, many people do not respond well to many of the medications. Couple this with a lack of supervision and you gave a recipe for disaster.
@diabhal, the difference is the US has no real treatment facilities, programs, and no universal healthcare do everyone who needs treatment that is more involved than taking some pills. Also, of course, we have no reliable way to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable individuals.
Gun control is not the answer. The problem is this country's mental health programs have been cut so severely that people who need help can't get help when they need it. You can blame a lot of people but the two biggest reasons is government not wanting to spend the money and people who feel it is not PC to even discuss mental health as it may offend someone.
From personnel experience I know that there isn't really any help out there. My daughter had adopted two boys whose mother had had five kids taken away because of her drug use. The oldest seems be okay but the youngest is a terror. It had gotten so bad that my daughter went into joint conservativeship with the state just so he could receive help.The process took more than a year but he was finally place in a controlled environment.
@Akfishlady car drivers safety training must be increased to prevent 40 thousand roadway deaths annually. ...every veteran is trained in gun safety. .... true believers blame guns not people for gun crimes
I think we should have a right to bare arms, it should be a essential right, I agree the second amendment states in a well regulated militia, however joining a militia will receive great scrutiny from big brother, and that's the militias job to protect us from the government when it gets out of hand.
The only reason we have the second amendment is because of the french revolution.
I think we should both be able to bare arms and bear arms. Nothing being proposed about gun control has anything to do with either. They are all common sense proposals. The 2nd amendment did not contemplate automatic or semiautomatic weapons. If we dither around about this another 50 years, we will be arguing about whether we have the right to bear laser canons or not, as nutjubs lay waste to whole cities with them.
@mordant nut jobs are in denial gangs with guns are streaming over our borders. ...the militia = citizens ready to defend Pennsylvania from Virginia invaders and California defending from dope dealing gun running gangs invading our border
@GreenAtheist In fact most undocumented immigrants are merely flying into our airports and not leaving; the vast majority don't come over the physical border on foot or in vehicles. We can't address these issues unless we correctly define them to begin with. As for drug-related violence, for example -- could that have anything to do with needlessly criminalizing addiction instead of treating it? Look at the experience of countries that have addressed the issue in this way.
@mordant addicts get illegal dope from illegal aliens. ...our troops are guarding the opium poppy fields in Afghanistan. ...the problem is a corrupt government that enables arms proliferation globally and murders Muslims for their oil
@GreenAtheist Addicts get "dope" (which, foolishly, we make illegal) from a combination of US citizens, legal and illegal aliens, and they are coming into the country in a variety of ways including hidden in ocean shipments from Asia and elsewhere. I don't see any point in over-simplifying this at the expense of immigrants as if they bear 100% responsibility for it. My maternal grandmother was an illegal immigrant / stowaway 100 years ago (swam ashore in Chicago). Maybe that was okay because she was a white european??
@mordant your grandmother did not shoot innocent Americans nor enslave sex trafficking victims nor sell illegal weapons to gangs in Southern California
@GreenAtheist Neither do the vast majority of illegal immigrants today. The VAST majority. Nor are all (or even the majority!) of shooters illegal immigrants. The shooter at the Florida high school was not (in fact he is a Trump supporter) and the shooter at the church in Texas was not. He was a white US citizen.
Your constant attempt to link mass shooters with illegal immigrants without citation / substantiation is reprehensible. If we're actually going to solve these problems we have to correctly and accurately identify the actual problem, the common denominators, and the things that will best address them. It's easy (and for some, perhaps enjoyable) to point to some class of Hated Others as easy scapegoats but thinking people don't do that.
@mordant obfuscation of invaders to our nation cannot stand under the fact that most illegal aliens are refugees and workers sending money home to their nations.....ONE GUN ONE DOPE DEAL ONE PIMP is too many crossing open borders. ...telling lies about my posts is proof of incompetent bias
To begin with, the 2nd amendment does NOT say that everyone in this country can own as many guns as they want to. Ask any English teacher and they will tell you the 2nd amendment says if you are part of a state militia you have the right to own a gun. That is ALL it says.
There is no easy solution, if there was we would have done it already. It is going to take some time before anything we come up with starts to make a difference.
More guns is NOT a solution, all that will do is get people shot on both sides of the room. Nobody knows how they are going to act with someone shooting at them until it happens and then it's to late. So having people in the room with guns not knowing how they are going to act if someone shows up and starts shooting
There actually are drop-dead easy solutions, we haven't done them because money talks and bullshit walks. The NRA controls elections in enough areas that they have enough legislators in their pocket to have their way. And legislators have become so craven and morally bankrupt that they care more about re-election than about doing their actual jobs.
Too many people don’t know how to treat others with respect and understanding, maybe the school system could take on the task of teaching real life skills.
@Akfishlady and not everyone has a good home life, but people are forced to go to school thankfully.
Both mental health and less media coverage. I love the style of the Ancient Egyptians. Erease their names from history. They don't deserve to be remembered.
I also say this as a relative of someone who was murdered at Virginia Tech.
Yes, thank you ~
License guns and regulate them like cars. You must be trained, you must have insurance, you must have a clearance for your mental health. Look at the rest of the nations of the world, especially Australia. No one has gun violence like the US does.
There is no Constitutional Amendment ensuring the right to own a car. Also, do a search on the numbers of gun murders in the central and South American countries...all of which have strict gun control. As for Austrailia, they do not have 315 million guns in civilian hands nor did they ever, unlike the U.S.A. So, you cannot compare a gun ban in Australia to the U.S.
Yes here, You need a licence, you need to be trained, you need to update your licence every year, Your gun needs to be kept in a safe and there are random checks, and if you have not done something correctly your licence will be provoked. The police don't even carry guns on their body here, but in saying that it is only a small country.
The USAs gun control is out of control.