And another shooting spree

jonnyburgo

At a primary school in California, 5 confirmed dead so far. Gunman shot dead by police. 

joneve

Sending Thoughts and Prayers, because that seems to help. 

BRISTOL86

Phil_aka_Pip

How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

randella

Phil_aka_Pip said:

How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

Until anyone, anyone at all, gets off their arses and at least tries to get this gun thing under control in the US government, then these deaths are basically collateral for making money from arms.

I've tried to be rational about these things, but that's what I think it boils down to.

lustycourtier

Was this the one yesterday that had 4 confirmed or another? 

VimFuego

saw the other day (may have been here, can't be sure now) you can now buy bullet proof backpacks for kids, some people were incredulous that this is deemed OK, but the americans in the comments were all "yeah, 'murica baby, we rooooool". This is why they will never heavily restrict the sale of firearms, the positions are too deeply entrenched. This is the nation that is proud they elected trump, they take criticism as a sign that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

crunchman

I think I'm going to stay out of this one rather than rehash the things I've said over and over before.  Our comments sitting here on a UK based forum are highly unlikely to influence any US voters to see sense.  I've got better things to do than waste my time repeating it all again.

ICBM

VimFuego said:

saw the other day (may have been here, can't be sure now) you can now buy bullet proof backpacks for kids

Presumably only useful if the child is already running away…

VimFuego said:

This is why they will never heavily restrict the sale of firearms, the positions are too deeply entrenched. This is the nation that is proud they elected trump

Not really. He actually lost the election, in number of votes, and on a very low turnout - only about a quarter of the electorate voted for him.

I was also surprised to find that gun ownership is far from as universal as is often assumed to be from over here - only about 40% of Americans own guns. (Obviously that's still a lot.) There is also a majority in favour of at least some increase in gun controls.

The problem is the vociferous lobbying from the gun industry and the pro-gun owners.

Kilgore

It won't be long before they reclassify a 'mass shooting' as 10+.

boogieman

Phil_aka_Pip said:

How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

Won't happen. Last time I was in Walmart over there the gun section was literally next to the kid's toy aisle. (Yes, you can buy guns in the equivalent of Asda). Gun ownership is so normalised in the US nobody even thinks this is "a bit odd" anymore. 

Snap

ICBM said:

Not really. He actually lost the election,

Except he didn't though, he won, under their electoral system, and hence is the elected president.

dano

Iv'e just come back from a week in Michigan. There guns are the normal and everyone is armed to the teeth. They have a Carry and Conceal in that state.

I we other a sporting goods store called "Field and stream" about the size of a UK supermarket and the weapons were unbelievable. Hundreds of guns (rifles, pistols, shotguns) and hundreds of crossbows.

Tens of thousands of rounds of ammo on shelves, people.just putting cartons of them into their trolley. 

They had gun safes that hold 64 guns. 

It's not just the guns that are the problem, there is an underlying aggressiveess in American culture that the sort out with a gun. 

GoldenEraGuitars

I don’t tend to get sucked into reading crap on Facebook as I’ve gone to great lengths to block and/or remove all the stuff I don’t want to see. But I read a few comments under a news story shared by a friend. The original thread was full of people saying how awful it was... “thoughts and prayers”, as @joneve mentioned, was said a lot. The comment that I read that stopped me reading any further was a woman stating this wouldn’t have happened had the teachers and pupils been armed.

Now, that’s not an isolated opinion. A lot of Americans believe that if everyone was armed there would be less gun crime.

Well my friends... half the nation is armed and it isn’t going very well, is it?

Snap

@joneve, but defending the gun lobby's position is the incident in Texas, the church shooting, where an armed member of the public shot and injured the shooter, leading to his capture. For the pro gun group, this will be seen as a vindication of their gun laws.

tbh, it's not our business - their country, their laws, their problems. We've got enough going on here without fretting about what goes on in the US.

CHRISB50

VimFuego said:

saw the other day (may have been here, can't be sure now) you can now buy bullet proof backpacks for kids, some people were incredulous that this is deemed OK, but the americans in the comments were all "yeah, 'murica baby, we rooooool". This is why they will never heavily restrict the sale of firearms, the positions are too deeply entrenched. This is the nation that is proud they elected trump, they take criticism as a sign that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

You can make most back packs (as long as they are big enough) bullet proof by sliding a ballistic plate into it instead of a stiffener. To be honest, it's probably quite a good idea over there. At least it provides some protection. Better than nothing.

p90fool

ICBM said:

I was also surprised to find that gun ownership is far from as universal as is often assumed to be from over here - only about 40% of Americans own guns. 

If that's a percentage of the entire population rather than just adults that pretty much IS everyone...

randella

Snap said:

@joneve, but defending the gun lobby's position is the incident in Texas, the church shooting, where an armed member of the public shot and injured the shooter, leading to his capture. For the pro gun group, this will be seen as a vindication of their gun laws.

tbh, it's not our business - their country, their laws, their problems. We've got enough going on here without fretting about what goes on in the US.

You're right, of course - no American is going to see me pontificating on a guitar forum and think "shee-it, he's right, best destroy all my guns".

As for it not being our business though, fellow human beings are being needlessly slaughtered on a weekly basis so I kind of do consider it my business.  Shed load of good my empathy's going to do, but I can't just read about this crap and ignore it because I live in a country with its own problems.

Just my opinion like, genuinely not trying to needle.

VimFuego

when 'murica stops sticking its nose in the rest of the worlds business, I'll stop sticking my nose in 'murica's. 

Sassafras

Once they've all shot one another to extinction, we can recolonise the country and make up for the humiliating defeat we suffered during the American war of independence.

ICBM

Snap said:

ICBM said:

Not really. He actually lost the election,

Except he didn't though, he won, under their electoral system, and hence is the elected president.

Obviously, but if you hadn't deliberately shortened my post, the point is that he got almost three million *less* votes than Clinton, and the turnout was not much over 50%, so it's a mistake to say that he is popular or supported by a majority of Americans. He isn't even supported by a majority of those who voted.