For anyone that has facebook. Just search Jonathon pies response from February. It won’t apply to right wings like Cronus but the rest of us it hits home

Regards

King James

What a sh!tty situation. There are 2 depressing things that occur to me with each shooting.

1. It's 'standard' news. Horrific, but not a shock any more. Ok, so apparently there's been some wedding on this week but the shooting was headlines for half a day and soon faded. A massacre of kids should be at the forefront of all our minds.

2. Unfortunately Trump and the NRA cockwombles might actually be right on the schools solution. Hear me out. Guns reform is not going to happen - at least not to any meaningful degree that would remove of most of the 300+ million guns in the US or even just the infamous AR-15s and other civvy assault rifles. And that's before you begin to consider the millions of nutjobs willing to die before the Feds get their hands on their toys. The sad truth is that unless a miracle occurs and true reform begins, and now that school shootings are pretty much the norm, the only real option to protect kids in schools is to provide more protection. Airport-style security doesn't work. An occasional armed guard clearly isn't effective. Until there's a true political solution nothing the only desperate option is a rapid response, which means, sadly, more people on the spot with guns, or access to them.

The horse has probably long bolted on the US guns problem.

Cronus wrote:What a sh!tty situation. There are 2 depressing things that occur to me with each shooting. 1. It's 'standard' news. Horrific, but not a shock any more. Ok, so apparently there's been some wedding on this week but the shooting was headlines for half a day and soon faded. A massacre of kids should be at the forefront of all our minds. 2. Unfortunately Trump and the NRA cockwombles might actually be right on the schools solution. Hear me out. Guns reform is not going to happen - at least not to any meaningful degree that would remove of most of the 300+ million guns in the US or even just the infamous AR-15s and other civvy assault rifles. And that's before you begin to consider the millions of nutjobs willing to die before the Feds get their hands on their toys. The sad truth is that unless a miracle occurs and true reform begins, and now that school shootings are pretty much the norm, the only real option to protect kids in schools is to provide more protection. Airport-style security doesn't work. An occasional armed guard clearly isn't effective. Until there's a true political solution nothing the only desperate option is a rapid response, which means, sadly, more people on the spot with guns, or access to them. The horse has probably long bolted on the US guns problem. I also don't think you can ban gun ownership in the US, but you could restrict who has one, make it difficult to get one, and certainly ban the sale of semi automatic weapons. No one except a soldier needs an AK47. The NRA lavishes cash on members of congress, and they are scared stiff of losing that cash. But it should be obvious that some sort of control is needed. After all they have it next door https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada

Cronus wrote:What a sh!tty situation. There are 2 depressing things that occur to me with each shooting. 1. It's 'standard' news. Horrific, but not a shock any more. Ok, so apparently there's been some wedding on this week but the shooting was headlines for half a day and soon faded. A massacre of kids should be at the forefront of all our minds. 2. Unfortunately Trump and the NRA cockwombles might actually be right on the schools solution. Hear me out. Guns reform is not going to happen - at least not to any meaningful degree that would remove of most of the 300+ million guns in the US or even just the infamous AR-15s and other civvy assault rifles. And that's before you begin to consider the millions of nutjobs willing to die before the Feds get their hands on their toys. The sad truth is that unless a miracle occurs and true reform begins, and now that school shootings are pretty much the norm, the only real option to protect kids in schools is to provide more protection. Airport-style security doesn't work. An occasional armed guard clearly isn't effective. Until there's a true political solution nothing the only desperate option is a rapid response, which means, sadly, more people on the spot with guns, or access to them. The horse has probably long bolted on the US guns problem. I also don't think you can ban gun ownership in the US, but you could restrict who has one, make it difficult to get one, and certainly ban the sale of semi automatic weapons. No one except a soldier needs an AK47. The NRA lavishes cash on members of congress, and they are scared stiff of losing that cash. But it should be obvious that some sort of control is needed. After all they have it next door https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada

One thing I find interesting is how non Americans feel free to comment on gun control (and other issues) in the US as though we actually have some say in it (including me). If anything I expect a bunch of Europeans/others crying over such events probably strengthens nutters' resolve to keep guns in place. After all, a minority of such people claim these shootings are fake.

The bottom line is that after witnessing the horror of these events there just isn't the same reaction as in the case of say the UK following Lockerbie. Even Sandy Hook didn't get the same national reaction, and in many ways it was just like Lockerbie.

The only (small) glimmer of hope for any sanity coming into the gun control debate is if the kids themselves use social media etc to outflank the NRA, which started to happen after the last big one in Florida.

The only other thing that could (maybe? hopefully?) help is changing the way these things are reported. As an example school shootings in the US has a wikipedia page. It lists all the events, number of fatalities and injuries etc. Its like a league table for troubled teens with access to firearms, and there are any number of articles examining the killers themselves. In a horribly distorted way some of these kids clearly think that they want to be famous/infamous like the Columbine killers.

Totally agree.
Until there is at least some desire to try and change, these events will become ever more commonplace and at some point their president has to stand up and say that enough is enough and try to turn the tide.
I agree that it's too late but, even a late start may start to turn the tide.

They are so well practiced at the post massacre apologies and "anger", that they have lost any hint of true meaning.
It would take a huge laying down of arms and a gun amnesty plus huge political will to even make a start and Trump is not the guy for this.
At least Obama seemed to want to try and do something.

[At least Obama seemed to want to try and do something.[/quote]

All the more reason for Trump to do nothing.

I certainly don't have an easy answer but more arms is not a start. That will just inflame the situation. Nutjobs already know there are armed guards at schools & that doesn't stop them. I think it will just make the initial confrontation even more violent & put teachers at even greater risk. Teachers aren't John McClane as much as Trump & large sections of USA might think.

The answer, if ever there's to be one, lies in the corruption at the heart of US politics, and how campaigns and parties are funded; lobbyists in US politics pump billions into the candidates that will advance their particular interests - and those representatives become bought and paid for.

From what I can see, the NRA is far from one of the biggest spenders - but it also has a very sophisticated PR wing that can mobilise the large numbers of citizens who want to retain the right to bear arms; politicians who speak out in favour of gun control are targeted and trashed, with the enthusiastic support of Fox News, which makes the BBC look positively independent.

It's a bizarre cultural phenomenon - and it would take a seismic shift to get them to lay down the guns; clearly, the deaths of hundreds of kids is not sufficiently serious to change enough minds.

That's obviously sadly true, but an entire cultural shift is needed. Kids pick up guns because they are easily available, but what sort of society makes people actually want to do that? There are plenty of countries with relatively high gun ownership but only a fraction of the gun deaths. What is it about America that makes kids so unhappy/dissatisfied/angry? I think that a nation that every 10 or 15 minutes bombards its kids with false advertising of happiness through buying unnecessary crap shouldn't be surprised when kids aren't happy.
“Happiness for me is just being; just being at any given moment. If you are searching for happiness, you are not happy.”
Benedict Cumberbatch

An interesting piece by Gary Younge, written straight after the Las Vegas mass shooting. This paragraph is telling: "In a society that fetishises self-reliance, the gun speaks to rugged individualism – each person should be responsible for saving themselves. In a political culture that favours small government, the gun stands as a counterpoint to a lumbering and inefficient state – defend yourself, because by the time the police get there you’ll be dead. It underpins a certain sense of masculinity and homestead – a real man should be able to protect his family and home." How you break down that culture, given that the right to bear arms was written into the constitution after they kicked us out, I really don't know; I can't see any meaningful change in my lifetime. To the point about why American kids are so unhappy and resort to mass shootings - I don't think they're any more unhappy than anywhere else - they just have easy access to military grade weapons; where a disaffected or mentally unstable kid in the UK might be delinquent, difficult, violent and aggressive - a US kid can get hold of an AR15 and mow down dozens of people?

An interesting piece by Gary Younge, written straight after the Las Vegas mass shooting. This paragraph is telling: "In a society that fetishises self-reliance, the gun speaks to rugged individualism – each person should be responsible for saving themselves. In a political culture that favours small government, the gun stands as a counterpoint to a lumbering and inefficient state – defend yourself, because by the time the police get there you’ll be dead. It underpins a certain sense of masculinity and homestead – a real man should be able to protect his family and home." How you break down that culture, given that the right to bear arms was written into the constitution after they kicked us out, I really don't know; I can't see any meaningful change in my lifetime. To the point about why American kids are so unhappy and resort to mass shootings - I don't think they're any more unhappy than anywhere else - they just have easy access to military grade weapons; where a disaffected or mentally unstable kid in the UK might be delinquent, difficult, violent and aggressive - a US kid can get hold of an AR15 and mow down dozens of people?