There's part of the problem right there. A certain segment of the American population has a kind of weird fixation with guns. Maybe the mythologising about the "wild west" and the founding of the nation has something to do with that.
Assault rifles have only one purpose - to kill people. You don't use an assault rifle for target shooting, or hunting or any other kind of "sport". An assault rifle's only use is for ... assaulting people.
For starters, instead of making inane and arrogant posts, how about doing your job and posting my previous post on this topic? Apparently the glitch that sporadically requires certain posts to be approved prior to posting still vexes the site. And despite two PMs to you requesting that you post my previous post, it has not been done.
I think your post here displays a great deal of cultural insensitivity, naivety, and arrogance. Our American history is our history, not yours. Our culture is our culture. It is not yours. Americans are proud of our history, traditions and culture and rightly so. I think you come off as being very snobby when you speak of American “fixation” with guns. America was born out of a very violent revolution against the very crown you now serve and guns have played an important role in the development of our country. Like it or not, that is the truth, that is reality. By the way, the Wild West is not mythology, it is fact. And settlers needed guns to defend themselves against brigands and animals and to put meat on the table and still are in certain areas of the country.
Additionally, your claim that assault weapons have only one purpose, to kill people is frankly just stupid and bigoted, there are thousands of assault weapons in the hands of private individuals in this country and only a handful have gone out and used them to kill people. Most assault weapons are used for sport and as collector items. Using your “logic” coin and stamp collecting are not purposeful either. Your denials and proclamations don’t change reality.
Tell me, joe. How many mass shootings of school children do you think are acceptable so that your brothers can continue to own their assault rifles? One or two a year? More?
That is silly. You are using a false dichotomy, yet another error in reasoning and logic with an inflammatory spin. If you had taken the time to really read my first and my second post (the one you failed to approve) you would have known my stance. But since you seem unable to read, for your edification I will rewrite my position. I didn’t take a particular position other than to say that the solution, whatever it is, must be effective.
After each and every shooting incident, we are besieged with a plethora of gun control laws. None of which has succeeded in controlling or even curtailing mass shootings. The solution to the mass shooting problem in the US is not simply controlling weapons. The problem is mass murder. It is not gun control, and the solution is not a simple one. Simply controlling weapons is not, and has not stopped the problem. It has been our experience that just making something illegal doesn’t stop the problem (e.g. the war on drugs, alcohol prohibition, prostitution, etc.).
As I previously and very clearly stated, whatever the solution is, it will be the solution that prevents this kind of thing from happening again. We should not as we have done in the past, pass another set of gun control laws to make us feel good until the next mass shooting. It should be a set of laws and actions that really resolves the problem. And to fix the problem, the solution must be a multifaceted solution and a big part of that solution is in educating the public and making mental healthcare more available and more effective. Just banning weapons is not the solution; it has not worked in the past with weapons, drugs or anything else.
It seems to have worked pretty well in Australia.
Has it? You are doing a bit of cherry picking here. The United States is not Australia. As previously stated, The United States is a different country with a different history, a different culture, and a different set of laws and a different form of government. What works in Australia, may not work elsewhere. To say as you have done, that it works it Australia therefore it should work in The United States, is either extraordinarily naïve or extraordinarily arrogant or both.
How many kids do you think this guy could have killed with a knife, before being stopped?
I don’t suppose you have heard of explosives or poisons or bow and arrows?
In most of these mass shootings, it turns out the shooter has no prior criminal record and has obtained his guns legally.
That was one of my points. As I previously stated, there is nothing in any of the existing gun control laws or any that are currently under discussion that would have prevented this incident from occurring.
And guess what? Mentally ill people generally don't go around blowing away scores of innocent people, either. But a small proportion, given the means to do so...
Isn’t that what I said? Had you read and posted my second post you should have known that.
It's also very easy to label mass shooters as mentally ill after the fact. How many times have you heard from neighbours and associates of mass shooters that "he was an ordinary guy. Kept to himself. Didn't bother anybody." etc.?
And in this case, the person who probably knew the shooter better than anybody - his mother - decided that it was just fine for him to live in a house surrounded by guns she had purchased, including assault rifles.
Not very often, looking at the last two most recent mass shootings, the shooters were known to have mental and social problems. The shooter in Aurora, Colorado was under psychiatric treatment at his school. And that care ended when he withdrew from the university. In the Newtown incident, the mother did know of her sons mental and social problems, others did. But I think we can assume she didn’t imagine her son would kill not only her but 26 other individuals as well. That is where the education part comes into the solution.
I read an article just yesterday about a couple in Florida who were convicted of second degree murder. The couple had a toddler and a pet python. They treated the snake like a member of the family. One day the snake killed and attempted to eat their child. The parents should have known the threat the python posed to the child, their relatives did, but the parents, to this day, don’t understand the threat the python posed to their child.
While I agree with you that Americans deserve a better healthcare system, when somebody shoots a bunch of school children with a gun, that's a gun problem, not a health problem.
I am glad we agree on the state of American healthcare. The good news is it should be getting better.
There's major problem number 2.
You people need to recognise that the 2nd amendment is a failure and repeal it.
Well that is your opinion and you are certainly welcome to it. But I don’t see that ever happening. The United States was born in a violent revolution. Guns are an integral part of our history. The solution to the problem of mass murder is not simply prohibition. The solution is must be comprehensive and it must be effective – not just more window dressing.
