WHY?

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nigelb
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Re: WHY?

Post by nigelb »

Kevin Farnell wrote:
25 May 2022, 02:55

There is absolutely no need for the general public to carry guns. I saw a while back, after a shooting at another school, the idea put forward that Teachers should be armed. That is not the answer. Dis-arming the public is the answer......
Kevin, I could not agree more. The idea that a good guy with a gun is better than a bad guy with a gun because it prevent gun violence is a preposterous theory advocated by Wayne LaPierre, NRA head, at their convention just three days after Columbine.

The public should NOT be allowed to carry guns. Any idea that it is a constitutional right is outdated. While the US Constitution and the Amendments are no doubt remarkable documents, they should be considered in the historical context in which they were written. The Magna Carta is in a similar vein, except the interpretation of that 1215 document has evolved over time. The same should be able to be said about our precious Constitution. I am certain that Washington, Adams, Jefferson< Madison and the rest of the gang envisioned Aeroplanes, motor vehicles, radio, television and the internet back at the country's founding - NOT!!! Neither could they envision the modern gun and bullets, let alone AR-15s and the carnage they create. How many more innocent lives must we sacrifice to preserve a dubious rigt? That is why I believe it is time to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least seriously modify it to resolve the epidemic of gun violence in the US. I am not very optimistic that will happen but Winston did reportedly say "Americans will always do the right thing after exhausting all the alternatives."

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cstorey
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Re: WHY?

Post by cstorey »

I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed here . I would only add one thing : earlier there was reference to the UK now having little gun crime , but sadly that has now been replaced by a horrific increase in the use of knives, often lethally. We need to put a stop to that as well

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Kevin Farnell
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Re: WHY?

Post by Kevin Farnell »

cstorey wrote:
25 May 2022, 08:27
I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed here . I would only add one thing : earlier there was reference to the UK now having little gun crime , but sadly that has now been replaced by a horrific increase in the use of knives, often lethally. We need to put a stop to that as well
I totally agree and had been thinking of posting along those lines. Whilst we quickly condemn the US for their gun laws, we have to remember that other countries have their own individual problems. I just want an end to all these senseless killings.

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simondix
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Re: WHY?

Post by simondix »

It is even more shocking if you look at the total figures for a year who die from gun related causes.
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Nigel H-J
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Re: WHY?

Post by Nigel H-J »

Only heard about this last night and was deeply shocked, those poor children had a full life ahead of them but sadly that has been taken away, not to mention those parents who have lost sons and daughters. :((

I have read all the comments so nothing else that I can add or even want to add apart from what is written above.

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Chris Trott
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Re: WHY?

Post by Chris Trott »

Look, I know most of the people on here aren't going to agree with me, so I'm just going to put this here and move along.

1) This is a massive tragedy. There's no ifs, ands, or buts, to it. It shouldn't happen. But we keep blaming the tool as if it has a vote in the matter. The media does a great job of pushing the idea that "gun bad" instead of "bad person bad". They also do a great job of not reporting, or underreporting other mass casualty incidents that occur across the world, including attacks on schools and schoolchildren. Do we forget about the man who stabbed 29 in China in 2014? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26402367 Or the 37 kids in an elementary school in 2020? https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/asia/chi ... index.html Or the 2017 London Bridge attack? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack Mass casualty is mass casualty. It's always bad.

Also, look, student stabs multiple teachers in SWEDEN - https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2022 ... -suspected

2) "Good guy with a gun" presumes that it's legal to have the firearm in that location. This is conveniently left out all to often. Texas, like virtually (if not all) states, has laws that prohibit having a firearm on or in proximity of school property. It originally said you couldn't even have your legally owned firearm in your vehicle while on school property, even if you were sitting in that vehicle or the firearm was in a locked storage device. You were not allowed to have a firearm on school property period. It was changed to be a bit more consistent a few years ago, but the firearm has to remain in your vehicle and be locked within it if you are not in the vehicle. So, fallacy #1 - "Good Guy with a Gun" doesn't work when the good guy is a law abiding citizen who leaves their firearm off school property. "Bad guy with a gun" knows this. And thus knows it's an easy target.

3) "x shouldn't be allowed to have a gun." or "Anyone under x age shouldn't have a gun." Funny thing - we "trust" an 18 year old with a fully automatic firearm and even multi-million dollar weapon systems when they join the military, and often with *very limited* training on those systems. Yet instead of simply enacting laws to ensure proper training or encourage the continuation of responsible ownership and firearm safety passed down from generation to generation for over 200 years, the "only" solution is to remove them altogether.

4) We continue to ignore the *CAUSE* of the issue. Mental health and parental failure. We're seeing it right now in Detroit where the parents of the shooter in the Oakland school tragedy are trying to keep their kid's journal and evidence of their less-than-stellar parenting and personal choices out of the trial because it will "unfairly prejudice" the case. https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/parent ... from-court Dylan & Clebolt's parents were absentee parents who ignored multiple warnings from others that their sons had issues that needed to be addressed. The shooter in the Sandy Hook tragedy had been referred for treatment on several occasions but never got any. The kid in the Florida shooting - same thing.

Related to that, we continue to allow mass media (social media, TV, radio, internet, etc) to sow hate and division instead of trying to find solutions. We see it not just in domestic issues, but international ones too. How much does the peddling of hate in much of the Middle East against "the West" self perpetuate? How much does our own peddling of "us or them" create more hate within itself? We continue to teach hate. We continue to teach division. We continue to abdicate parenting to the "government" because apparently they know better yet can't provide simple services in *any* country. No government is perfect and no person is perfect, but when everyone is against each other, no one wins and that's what continues to happen.

This kid is an 18 year old who's needed help for *YEARS* and hasn't gotten any. Not from the government, not from his parents/guardians/whomever was supposed to be caring for him. Now he's taking that tragedy and made it a far bigger one and the response is to blame a thing, not a system and a community that failed a *PERSON* and how that failure has real consequences and how fixing that problem is going to be so much harder than anyone, especially politicians, wants to deal with.

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Paul K
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Re: WHY?

Post by Paul K »

All countries have people with mental health problems, including those who have never been able to obtain treatment, or are let down by their community.
All countries have people who are poor parents.
All countries have social media sowing hate and division.
All countries have people of 18 years old, entrusted with weapons in the military.
All countries have people of murderous intent.

Every single point you raised applies equally to every other modern developed country in the world.

Yet only in the USA do you suffer mass casualty shootings so frequently. Why the USA and not other countries ? The availability of guns - the blindingly obvious elephant in the room.

You quote mass casualty incidents in other countries e.g.the London Bridge attack ( 2 dead ) which happened 5 years ago, the stabbings in China in 2020 (37 injuries but no fatalities - maybe because he only had access to a knife, rather than an AR-15 ). How many people have you lost just this year, and how frequent have the attacks been ?

The American satirical paper The Onion carries a bitter headline every time it happens: "No Way To Prevent This," Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

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AllanL
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Re: WHY?

Post by AllanL »

Hi Chris,

Well, thanks for putting your viewpoint across. At least we agree that most this side of the pond are unlikely to see things your way on gun control!

Paul has pretty much summarised the opposite arguments, so I won't waste time going over them.

One thing that I do agree with is your point about the ever more virulent polarisation of the press and politics in the US, which we are seeing to a lesser extent over here. Sadly once the political parties in the US have taken opposing views on the gun issue then the chance of progress seems vanishingly small.

When I visited Boston in 2014 a bus tour driver commented on the fact that the leaders of the two parties in the Senate used to dine together in an apartment block on our route to discuss ways of progressing legislation. Even then he commented on how unlikely such an event happening again would be. Thanks to the invective spread by Murdoch Group companies, and social media, no-one seems able to move to find a common ground for progress in any field.

In the latest incident three members of the police attempted to engage the gunman before he entered the school and failed to stop him before he started the slaughter in one of the classrooms. So much for the "good guy with a gun" theory. :'(

Cheers,
Allan

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Re: WHY?

Post by nigelb »

Chris Trott wrote:
25 May 2022, 14:29
Look, I know most of the people on here aren't going to agree with me, so I'm just going to put this here and move along.
Oh, I can certainly agree with that statement. However the following NRA/RepubliTWIT talking points nonsense I cannot agree with you. Paul and Alan have already posted very effective rebuttals of your arguments but I would like to add one point.

I am old enough to remember 1 August, 1966. I was in Uni at the time but thankfully, far away from Texas. On that date, a gunman entered the Bell Tower on the campus of The University of Texas and in 96 minutes, managed to murder 14 people and injure another 32 - mostly students. Guess what Chris? Believe it or not, there was no internet back in 1966, no social media so you can't blame anything but the insane gun culture and lax gun laws that existed then. Unfortunately, nothing has changed since . The most lax gun laws in the entire country. Your politicians continue to value guns higher than lives and that is insane. They say everything is bigger in Texas, does that include asylums?

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Re: WHY?

Post by nigelb »

Chris Trott wrote:
25 May 2022, 14:29

This kid is an 18 year old who's needed help for *YEARS* and hasn't gotten any. Not from the government, not from his parents/guardians/whomever was supposed to be caring for him. Now he's taking that tragedy and made it a far bigger one and the response is to blame a thing, not a system and a community that failed a *PERSON* and how that failure has real consequences and how fixing that problem is going to be so much harder than anyone, especially politicians, wants to deal with.
I believe your governor stated at his press conference that there was no known history of mental illness. Actually even if their had been a history the 18 year old probably would not have been helped. The hypocrite Texas politicians elected not to participate in the Medicaid expansion program that may have provided help to that 18 year old. Remarkable that he can buy assault rifles at 18 but cannot buy a beer until he was 21.

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