[News] American mass shootings

[zefarelly]

Sad to say I honestly don't find it shocking in the slightest.

Nothing changed after Sandy Hook how can you be shocked now?

These deaths are the price Americans pay for fetishising a poorly worded, out of date, piece of paper.


Many of the same Americans who have allowed this to happen are currently doing their utmost to protect the rights of a fetus.
It's hard to find the logic in that.

Spot on, not in the slightest bit surprising from a nation overloaded with uneducated brainwaashed knuckle draggers. At least the majority never leave their own state for fear of falling off the edge.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

And where exactly are they going to fact check to discover that inequality hasn't grown enormously in all advanced economies over the last 2 or 3 decades, opportunities for youngsters abound and that the environment is in fine fettle

Over here businesses are closing down because they can't find staff. It's an employees market. That's visible every where. Never seen so many businesses with signs on their windows looking for workers.

Yet all those opportunities are being passed over because many (not all) young people seem to have a terrible work ethic and want the easiest way to money possible.

Inequality up, work ethic down?

 

[Insel affe]

"Politicians recognise this a problem almost unique to America, where guns have overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of death for children and teenagers"

Just take that in for a minute....

 

[Simster]

Reading about the latest NBA play off, I came across this video on the BBC.

Amazingly emotional outburst from an NBA coach. Can you imagine a football manager expressing similar outrage at some of the injustices we see here? Well I thought it was amazing anyway, and not before time.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Over here businesses are closing down because they can't find staff. It's an employees market. That's visible every where. Never seen so many businesses wth signs on their windows looking for workers.

Yet all those opportunities are being passed over because many (not all) young people seem to have a terrible work ethic and want the easiest way to money possible.

So whose fault is that? They seem to love to blame everyone but themselves for their situations.

So you are suggesting that they should use the ramblings of people such as yourself and what you think is happening in your town to 'fact check' whether rising inequalities and opportunities are real or not across the advanced economies, and whether there are looming environmental issues.

Okey doke. I'll let this thread get back on topic

 

[Simster]

Like in all neo-liberal countries, market regulation is considered the most evil thing on the planet.

That said, the prevalence of guns is just a small part of the issue. Its not difficult getting a gun in most countries. I could take the bus to Malmo right now and buy one, with ammo, for less than £200. Not sure if its the case in the UK but you could do the same thing in Netherlands, France etc. If you want to shoot people in a school, you can.

The main difference between the US and pretty much anywhere else is that people actually do these things over there. The issues are far more deeply rooted than just gun control.

100% correct. It is definitely a cultural problem. That said, they need to do something about that culture, and perhaps temporary draconian measures on fire arms would be a start.

There are many other countries where people have big mental health issues - and where healthcare is not great. I don't see regular gun massacres anywhere else, though

Indeed - mental health issues don't manifest themselves in the form of gun massacres elsewhere. Other countries have different cultural problems, but in the USA an unstable inadequate can make himself feel like a big man by shooting innocent people.

I feel for the 90% of Americans who want change - it highlights how flawed their democratic system is. (I don't think ours is a whole lot better, mind)

 

[Bold Seagull]

Over here businesses are closing down because they can't find staff. It's an employees market. That's visible every where. Never seen so many businesses wth signs on their windows looking for workers.

Yet all those opportunities are being passed over because many (not all) young people seem to have a terrible work ethic and want the easiest way to money possible.

So whose fault is that? They seem to love to blame everyone but themselves for their situations.

Heaven forbid previous generations ever wanted an easier way to money possible. Or pensions. Job security. Job satisfaction. Career prospects. A few signs in local shop windows forms a global view. Funny. At least you can blame the young for being feckless. Certainly not your problem.

 

[Weststander]

These shooters have many different backgrounds and sick reasons. Similarly Michael Ryan and Thomas Hamilton here. It can be racist, Alt-Right, off-gridders against Big Government, revenge for being bullied at school, revenge for being shunned as a paedo, ‘political’, ‘religious’, and/or egged on by an dark-web community of haters. In common, they’re evil.

How did thread morph into the stereotypical have and have-nots row, with a UK accent?

 

[METALMICKY]

Thoughts and...

Just checked my supply of ' thoughts and prayers ' and was empty. Tragically cynical I know but we'll have all the usual posturing and words but nothing will change. God bless America eh!

 

[BadFish]

Heaven forbid previous generations ever wanted an easier way to money possible. Or pensions. Job security. Job satisfaction. Career prospects. A few signs in local shop windows forms a global view. Funny. At least you can blame the young for being feckless. Certainly not your problem.

They should be banging down the door for those minimum wage zero hours contracts. Lazy ********!!

Sent from my M2010J19CG using Tapatalk

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

So you are suggesting that they should use the ramblings of people such as yourself and what you think is happening in your town to 'fact check' whether rising inequalities and opportunities are real or not across the advanced economies, and whether there are looming environmental issues.

Okey doke. I'll let this thread get back on topic

Well they could listen to you and your doom and gloom and think the world is ****ed ramblings.

That'll do them well.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

Every time there is an incident like this all the news channels spend hours pontificating on the motive - crazy loner, bullied kid, white supremacist etc. They always ignore the elephant in the room, the means, the ridiculously easy access to guns and assault rifles.

I remember going into a book store in NYC and the adult magazines were in brown wrappers on the top shelf whilst the easy access middle shelves were full of a different type of porn, gun magazines. Talk about screwed up priorities.

 

[Swansman]

Over here businesses are closing down because they can't find staff. It's an employees market. That's visible every where. Never seen so many businesses wth signs on their windows looking for workers.

Yet all those opportunities are being passed over because many (not all) young people seem to have a terrible work ethic and want the easiest way to money possible.

So whose fault is that? They seem to love to blame everyone but themselves for their situations.

If an entire generation behaves in a certain way it is obviously a systematic failure. You're saying there is nothing wrong with the system, the young people are at fault - but who creates the beliefs and the ideas of the youth?

Kids realise early that there are three options:
1. You become some kind of greedy bloodsucking w*nker inventing some shitty tech company or taking the risk on some crypto currency or whatever, become filthy rich and increase your wealth the Amazon way - not paying your workers enough to make a living, or buy a lot of property and raise rents to make more money while those you're abusing will struggle to get by.

2. You "work hard" and "make sacrifices" (also known as sacrificing your life to create profits to the people in the first category) to barely be able to make a living and perhaps, if you're really frugal, you'll be able to buy a house when you've worked hard for 30 years. No time for family, no time for play, just endless work to make ends meet so you can afford a house (partially through the help of a loan that you will then spend the rest of your life working equally hard to pay off).

3. You look at the options above and think "you know what, I can't become a vampire and I don't want to be a modern day slave" and give up.

Work ethic for the older generation is to knuckle down and work hard because the advantages were imaginable and within reach, something that is increasingly difficult when costs rise more than wages, because those who are rich wants to make even more profits than they did in the past. How is this not a systematic flaw?

Older generations have always moaned about the lazy youth. Well, maybe it is because you're failing to understand how the world change. You're proud and self-victimizing at the same time and simply can not understand how the game has changed because it would disturb the narrative that you're much better and had it a lot worse schelotto than the lazy youths of today.

But the game did change. If you had grown up in a society where the value of your work is always decreasing and any change it could make to your life is always 30 years away, and society demands you to be connected to a world where smug celebrities and Elon Musks are able to psychosodomise you 24/7 about how they made money from doing **** all, you'd understand that society and the systems it is built on is seriously flawed. But you don't want that. You want to think that the system is perfect and that the real difference is that you are better than the struggling youngsters.

 

[Danny Wilson Said]

Every time there is an incident like this all the news channels spend hours pontificating on the motive - crazy loner, bullied kid, white supremacist etc. They always ignore the elephant in the room, the means, the ridiculously easy access to guns and assault rifles.

I remember going into a book store in NYC and the adult magazines were in brown wrappers on the top shelf whilst the easy access middle shelves were full of a different type of porn, gun magazines. Talk about screwed up priorities.

It's easy to trot out accusations such as 'Americans love their guns more than they love their children' but as someone who has worked in the USA it is things such as you describe - the normalisation of mass gun ownership - which is the shocking thing. And it can never be changed while so many legislators are funded by the gun lobby. Campaign donations from the National Rifle Association to senators and members of the House are frightening.

 

[portlock seagull]

Every time there is an incident like this all the news channels spend hours pontificating on the motive - crazy loner, bullied kid, white supremacist etc. They always ignore the elephant in the room, the means, the ridiculously easy access to guns and assault rifles.

I remember going into a book store in NYC and the adult magazines were in brown wrappers on the top shelf whilst the easy access middle shelves were full of a different type of porn, gun magazines. Talk about screwed up priorities.

This. In Georgia you now don’t even need a permit, they passed this new law only recently so if anything things are going backwards in some states. I was always shocked how you could go round a store with a trolley and buy weapons whilst stocking up on groceries. Surprised they don’t have them at the checkout alongside chewing gum at this rate “Anything else Sir?”, “Yes, I’ll take a Bazoka please…” (and not the gum we bought as kids in the 70s’)

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Think I posted this somewhere else but I was in the US a few weeks back and went to a museum , got chatting to people at the front desk, both in their 60s and happened to be former firefighters who were volunteering.

Got into chat about a few things and they couldn’t believe our police were not armed fully and those that were had tasers.

Got into Dunblane, U.K. gun laws and when I said I can’t believe how bad gun crime is (and we had come from NY. which is currently experiencing some of the highest gun crime in recent history) their opinion was basically they would never not have a gun - because until they could be 100% sure ‘the bad guys’ didn’t have them, then they needed them.

Again this seemed like a perfectly normal retired couple of people, who had spent their life in the fire service - but totally warped opinions.

On this issue - the US is ****ed and will never be fixed

Yep.

There is someone I have on ignore on NSC who ten years ago argued that it was common sense that the best way to deal with gun crime at schools was to ensure that all teachers are armed. It isn't just pickup truck-driving yahoos who think like this. In America it as normal as believing the earth dropped out of god's arse six thousand years ago.

There is literally nothing, no amount of children's blood spilled, that will change the mindset.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

If an entire generation behaves in a certain way it is obviously a systematic failure. You're saying there is nothing wrong with the system, the young people are at fault - but who creates the beliefs and the ideas of the youth?

Kids realise early that there are three options:
1. You become some kind of greedy bloodsucking w*nker inventing some shitty tech company or taking the risk on some crypto currency or whatever, become filthy rich and increase your wealth the Amazon way - not paying your workers enough to make a living, or buy a lot of property and raise rents to make more money while those you're abusing will struggle to get by.

2. You "work hard" and "make sacrifices" (also known as sacrificing your life to create profits to the people in the first category) to barely be able to make a living and perhaps, if you're really frugal, you'll be able to buy a house when you've worked hard for 30 years. No time for family, no time for play, just endless work to make ends meet so you can afford a house (partially through the help of a loan that you will then spend the rest of your life working equally hard to pay off).

3. You look at the options above and think "you know what, I can't become a vampire and I don't want to be a modern day slave" and give up.

Work ethic for the older generation is to knuckle down and work hard because the advantages were imaginable and within reach, something that is increasingly difficult when costs rise more than wages, because those who are rich wants to make even more profits than they did in the past. How is this not a systematic flaw?

Older generations have always moaned about the lazy youth. Well, maybe it is because you're failing to understand how the world change. You're proud and self-victimizing at the same time and simply can not understand how the game has changed because it would disturb the narrative that you're much better and had it a lot worse schelotto than the lazy youths of today.

But the game did change. If you had grown up in a society where the value of your work is always decreasing and any change it could make to your life is always 30 years away, and society demands you to be connected to a world where smug celebrities and Elon Musks are able to psychosodomise you 24/7 about how they made money from doing **** all, you'd understand that society and the systems it is built on is seriously flawed. But you don't want that. You want to think that the system is perfect and that the real difference is that you are better than the struggling youngsters.

You seem to be making plenty of excuses there.

My Grandparents went through a Depression and a World War.

There was no work, then there were millions upon millions dying in an horrific war. They didn't grow up in some paradise. That life was brutal.

And yet listening to them I learned many valuable lessons. The advice they gave was sound and sensible.

Still works well today.

If we had grown up in a society where the value of your work is always decreasing you ask?

Hey champ, many of us grew up in a society where our job skills and experience saw us made redundant by technology. And that's relevant for people in their late 40's and 50s.

No system is perfect, who is even saying that? No doubt if you suggested a system people could pick holes through that too.

Any person including you and I is only as good as we make ourselves. Relying on any shit arse Politician to make your life better is a waste of time.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

There has also been a huge rise in ghost guns which can be legally purchased on line. These are guns which are supplied in parts and sent by post where they are assembled by the purchaser.

They have no serial number so are untraceable

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The BBC reporting that guns have replaced car accidents as the leading cause of death for children and teens in the US since 2020.

Biden " sickened and upset " by the latest atrocity but the pro gun lobby are dug in already. We know the solution but sadly, we will be here again and again. RIP those poor kids.

[tweet]1529314680254001152[/tweet]

 

[mikeyjh]

Every time there is an incident like this all the news channels spend hours pontificating on the motive - crazy loner, bullied kid, white supremacist etc. They always ignore the elephant in the room, the means, the ridiculously easy access to guns and assault rifles.

Quite - And people will bang on that you can guns in whichever country easy enough etc etc but as you rightly point out, you can't get semi-automatic rifles with high volume magazines, bullet proof jackets and limitless amo by popping down to B&Q. You can't buy a semi-automatic rifle back from big Dave in some dark alley and then bring it home on the bus.