Maybe it's just the news media, or just me, but it seems like there are so many mass shootings, bomb threats, and other similar things happening this past year. Is it just me, or has anyone else felt the same way. Just recently, there was ANOTHER shooting in California at a Christmas party, there aren't many details on it, but from what I can gather it was two Muslims who were 'offended' by the party's Christian nature, so they went and got tactical gear and explosives. That sounds a little off to me in terms of details, but the gist of it is there, I'm sure. So now 14 more people are dead :/
I'm pretty sure this is just overcoverage by the media. Terror attacks and bombings have been a pretty prevalent thing for a few years now but organizations like ISIS are finding more and better ways to get their ideas out into the general population. ISIS was actually formed in 1999 but pretty much nobody knew who they were until a few years ago. With their newfound media coverage they just (metaphorically) blew up into what they are now. If enough people take them seriously then more will join in. It kind of reminds me of the deal with the Spanish-American War. It was short, overhyped, and fought by people sitting at homes reading the paper and thinking "Yeah, take that you Spanish bastards!" every time they were reminded it was happening. Bigotry and racism has been around since forever, I just blame the media for what it's become today. Half the stuff wouldn't even happen if they knew nobody would know about it.
Yeah, things have been bad somewhere and somehow for the history of the human race, but in the past few years the United States population has covered its own shootings more comprehensively and in doing so has revealed that things are pretty messed up here. It's enough to make anyone scared; we have a pretty serious -- and unique, among post-industrial western countries at least -- problem. Well, take into consideration that there have been more shootings of >4 people on American soil than there have been days in 2015 so far.
I feel the same way you do. I've recently heard about the shooting in California. What I find ridiculous is that a lot of it keeps happening so much it's starting to become a serious problem now. I think is has to do with people that they think they can do what they want and have their own way. Which leads to a lot of drama and eventually ends up pretty bad in the end. Some people take things way too seriously as well. It's unlikely for it to stop. It'll just keep happening forever, no matter what.
Hmmmm... Maybe, just maybe, people should take a look at what all of these killers have in common. Just sayin'.
There are plenty of solutions to stop mass shootings. There's just one problem that stop most of them: THE NRA.
Funny thing, that. I've been around guns my whole life, and I've never seen a gun kill anything without somebody there to pull the trigger. That's why these stories about guns going around killing people are so confusing to me.
Okay... someone is free to tell me I'm wrong, but weren't more killing in Chicago this weekend than at the mass shooting? Doesn't Chicago have strict Gun control laws. Do control laws do jack *squee!*?
They keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. Criminals, who by definition don't pay much attention to laws in general, are undeterred by such laws.
A real push towards stricter gun control would solve the mass shooting problem. In the UK, we have very strict gun control, and hardly any gun crime, let alone mass shootings, so saying gun control would have no effect is wrong. Localised strict gun control laws will always have limited effect, due to the widespread availability of guns, both legal and illegal, in the country in general; if a prospective mass shooter lives in a county or a city with strict gun control, there's not much to stop them simply buying what they want online, or at a gun show elsewhere. To buck this trend, access to guns from any avenue would have to be more heavily regulated, and the number of illegal guns on the streets reduced, which is obviously an enormous task. Stricter gun control, if done properly, isn't necessarily a bad thing for gun owners though; as I said, the UK has very strict gun control laws, by international standards, but there is still a considerable community of gun owners; as long as you store it safely, can prove you have a legitimate reason for owning it (ie, target practice,) and pass the psychological and background checks, you're perfectly entitled to own a gun here. What this means is, the only guns in this country (aside from those owned by the police, military, and a handful of criminals in major cites) are owned by enthusiasts, who treat them with the care and respect they deserve. I get that the whole 2nd Amendment thing muddies the issue for you guys, even when not just being waved around by uncomprehending morons, and I guess the real question is whether it really represents your national identity and values, or whether it should be seen as an obsolete piece of legislation drafted for a different world. I don't see people coming to a consensus on that any time soon. (Sorry, I know this was slightly off topic from the OP)
The couple in this case had pipe bombs even if we had the gun laws you suggest people still would have been killed. If the laws in place were followed, if the *squee!*ing FBI did they're job things would be safer. The problem isn't the laws it's the enforcement of them. It's also the bloody PC crap being shoved down out troats. This guy had so many *squee!*ing red flags he should have been under watch. His neighbor saw multiple possible co-conspirators entering and leaving his garage but she didn't report it because she was afraid to be accused of being a bigot. I'm really sick and tired of people blaming guns. It's not the guns it's the slagging mentality of the nation. A cop killed a kid who was charging him and already tried for his gun and everyone blames him for use of force. In Chicago, Boston, and New York people are killing each other left and right but hey the problem isn't gangs, the problem is the cops.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Crime The result of a general inaccessibility of firearms. Lowest crime rate of any metropolis in North America, despite bring the fourth largest city. Very hard to argue with raw numbers.
And did they use those pipe bombs? They did not. Because it's a lot easier to kill people by just bursting in and shooting them. Bombs and other weapons that have the potential to be used in mass killings require a degree of expertise to build and then use, just look at the Paris attacks; those terrorists were pretty professional, by terrorist standards, and even their bomb vests were ineffective at killing anyone but themselves. The problem with guns is that they make it very easy for anybody to just go off and shoot anybody else. If you have the right gun and enough ammunition, you don't really need any training, which is why the majority of the mass shootings in the US aren't organised acts of terror, but people making pretty spur-of-the-moment decisions to go out and kill other people. You're correct in saying that tighter gun control isn't the only solution to the problem; most if not all these shooting could probably have been predicted, if someone had taken a proper look at the perpetrator's mental state before the attack; but controlling access to guns is far more practicable than constantly monitoring 318 million people's desire to kill other people. Exactly. Another example of what I was talking about with the UK. If you look at other countries that are similar to the US in every regard except gun control, you will find that none of them have gun death rates, and therefore murder rates in general, that come anywhere close, even proportionally: US Canada UK Australia & New Zealand
That goes both ways. It's kind of hard for a person to riddle children's bodies full of bullets if all they're doing is throwing those bullets with their bare hands.
'As far as mass shootings, there's credible sources stating that after almost every "mass shooting" (FBI defines as 4 or more people) is covered heavily by the media, there's a 13 day contagion period where it's actually contagious and a shooting will most likely happen in the next 13 days. Shooters are usually inspired by other shooters. Several have "given credit" or flat out said they were "inspired by" a past shooter. I'm not saying that reducing media coverage and not naming the shooter would eliminate all mass shootings, but it's definitely not helping.'
This has been going on for years. However compared to before we are living in a more and more connected world.. to top it all off sensationalist news ads to that.. tv media has to compete with the online media now and it's steep.. so all happenings going on might even seem worse then they are.
We kill each other in the US faster and more often than ISIS does to us. I'm more scared of my neighbour than I am of an ISIS attack. :v
This argument pushed by anti-gun activists is intellectually dishonest; the UK has a far higher rate of violent crime than even the United States: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...73/UK-is-violent-crime-capital-of-Europe.html Of course, since guns aren't being used, these facts are conveniently brushed underneath the carpet. Additionally, the UK already had a low rate of gun crime before the 1996 ban was enacted. Did Norway's strict gun control laws prevent Anders Behring Breivik from carrying out his mass shooting? Did France's strict gun control laws prevent the recent terrorist attack? Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people and injured over 600 others without firing a shot. A wide array of firearms in the UK is in fact illegal (semi-automatics, handguns, etc.); this isn't a "good" thing for responsible gun owners if "done properly." Millions of people in the US, myself included, own and care for these firearms without going on killing sprees. Additionally, violent crime in the United States is in fact on a downward trajectory: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-fbi-idUSKCN0IU1UM20141110 Keep in mind that this drop in violent crime has continued in spite of the expiration of the ban on "assault weapons" in 2004 and the proliferation of concealed carry legislation across in the United States. The culprit in question here clearly isn't guns. In fact, when it comes to the question of guns causing violent crime, the data is inconclusive. While it is true that Japan has a very low rate of violent crime and strict gun control, the UK has a high rate of violent crime and strict gun control. Additionally, while the US has a higher rate of violent crime than many industrialized countries and more relaxed gun control (with some exceptions, e.g. California, New York, etc.), Switzerland has a low rate of violent crime and more relaxed gun control laws vis-à-vis other European countries. Income inequality and a lack of genuine universal healthcare (not the crony capitalist ACA that requires people to buy the same broken product the US has always had in terms of health insurance) are playing a key role in what we are seeing in the United States. As I pointed out above, there is no reliable evidence that firearms are responsible for violent crime. These "mass shootings" account for only a tiny fraction of murders in the US; the sensationalist media is playing a role in making it look like the US is experiencing a surge in violent crime when it has actually been dropping. Additionally, while Switzerland does have some restrictions lacking in a logical basis, I do admire the universal firearm training that nation has. On the one hand, these terrorist attacks have been used to push an anti-gun agenda (nevermind the fact that the evidence is against what anti-gun activists are pushing). On the other hand, they have also been used to push an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab agenda by racists and xenophobes everywhere (nevermind the fact that the predominantly Muslim Kurds are perhaps the finest anti-ISIS force in the region). It's much easier to find a bogeyman than to actually analyze the factors that fuel such things.
Thank you. I knew a lot of that stuff because who I listen too(Mark Levin), but I didn't have the sources to back it up.
