[News] American mass shootings

[Lyndhurst 14]

An American friend told me it really hit her when one day her 6 year old daughter came home from school and told her they had been asked to practice what to do if there should ever be an 'active shooter' in the school.

In the rest of the world kids practice fire drills should the worst ever happen, in the States they practice lockdown

 

[doogie004]

So so sad heartbreaking
RIP to those effected


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[beorhthelm]

To say "the mentality over there is ridiculous" is like saying "English football fans are moronic thugs".

The fact is that 90% of Americans want FAR tighter gun laws, but unfortunately their opinions don't seem to count for anything.

if it were 90% they'd have done something. its far more split than than and numbers in favour of stricter controls has surprising declined recently.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/17/fewer-americans-want-stricter-gun-control

 

[Stat Brother]

Sandy Hook was only 10 years ago - this has rather confused me.
In a lifetime of 'wow was it that long ago, it feels like only yesterday'.

To me Sandy Hook actually seems like it was a lot long.

The conclusion I've come to is that Sandy Hook feels so long ago because that tragedy has been referenced so many other times since, it just feels like it was 20 years ago.


How can a society allow that to happen then exactly the same 10 years later.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Unfortunately we live in a society where many teens spend much of their time on video games where the object is to slaughter as many people as possible, in graphic detail. When you couple this with an unstable psyhe that erodes the line between reality and fantasy and easy access to guns, the possibility of a nutjob snapping at some perceived slight and going on a killing spree is grteatly increased.

 

[METALMICKY]

Do US schools still have signs up saying ' No running in the corridors '?

 

[Badger Boy]

https://youtu.be/HtCjLG8VMm4

Good points, well made.

The speech from the Senator Chris Murphy is extraordinary, given it was on the fly;

Mr President, there are 14 kids dead in an elementary school in Texas right now.

What are we doing? What are we doing?

Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands.

What are we doing?

There were more mass shootings than days in the year.

Our kids are living in fear. Every single time they set foot in a classroom, they think they're going to be next.

What are we doing?

Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority?

As the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing.

What are we doing?

Why are you here?

If not, to solve a problem as existential as this.

This isn't inevitable. These kids weren't 'unlucky'. This only happens in this country, and nowhere else.

Nowhere else do kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day.

Nowhere else, do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do, about why they got locked into a bathroom and got told to be quiet for five minutes, just in case a bad man entered that building.

Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue.

What are we doing?!

In Sandy Hook Elementary School, after those kids came back into those classrooms, they had to adopt a practice in which there would be a safe word that the kids would say if they started to get thoughts in their brain about what they saw that day.

If they started to get nightmares during the day, reliving stepping over their classmates' bodies as they tried to flee the school.

In one classroom, that word was "monkey".

What we know about the Texas school shooting
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas is the deadliest primary school shooting in the US since Sandy Hook a decade ago.

A woman cries surrounded by a group of people
Read more
And over and over and over through the day, kids would stand up and yell, "monkey!" And a teacher or paraprofessional would have to go over to that kid, take them out of the classroom, talk to them about what they had seen, work with them through their issues.

Sandy Hook will never be the same.

This community in Texas will never, ever be the same.

Why? Why are we here?!

If not to try to make sure that fewer schools and fewer communities go through what Sandy Hook has gone through, what Uvalde is going through.

Our heart is breaking for these families.

Every ounce of love and thoughts and prayers we can send, we are sending.

But I'm here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues.

Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way, to pass laws to make this less likely.

I understand my Republican colleagues will not agree to everything that I may support.

But there is a common denominator that we can find.

There is a place where we can achieve agreement. That may not guarantee that America never ever again sees a mass shooting.

That may not, overnight, cut in half the number of murders that happen in America.

It will not solve the problem of American violence by itself.

But by doing something, we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers, whose brains are breaking, who see the highest levels of government doing nothing.

Shooting after shooting.

What are we doing?

Why are we here?

What are we doing?"

 

[vegster]

Saw a twitter post today " Despair is seeing another mass shooting in the US but not commenting as you know that nothing you can ever say will make a difference "

 

[Bold Seagull]

Unfortunately we live in a society where many teens spend much of their time on video games where the object is to slaughter as many people as possible, in graphic detail. When you couple this with an unstable psyhe that erodes the line between reality and fantasy and easy access to guns, the possibility of a nutjob snapping at some perceived slight and going on a killing spree is grteatly increased.

This sounds exactly like what an evangelical gun lobbying US Senator would say.

 

[Swansman]

This sounds exactly like what an evangelical gun lobbying US Senator would say.

It is a lazy take but the old "if video games had any effect on people we would all be Pac-Man now" is also a pretty lazy take. Afaik we don't really know the psychological consequences of spending six hours a day shooting people in virtual worlds and it is one of many (many, many) things to look into.

 

[rippleman]

As Swanny and Simster have already alluded to, this is a cultural issue. Kids in the US are taught that guns are a good thing from an early age. They have no respect for guns and the damage they can do because of that upbringing.

A close friend's grandson was being taken to the woods to shoot things (for the sake of shooting things) when he was 5 or 6. He grew up to acquire his own collection of guns - all quite lawful.

The day he died, at the age of 17, his mother had bought him a revolver as a present. He was showing off to his girlfriend in his car. She said "it isn't loaded is it?". Having emptied the chamber earlier he grinned, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He had overlooked the one up the spout.

My friend will never get over the loss of her beloved "sunshine". And now another 19 little sunshines have gone because of the Americans perverse obsession with guns.

So sad. RIP

 

[Simster]

Unfortunately we live in a society where many teens spend much of their time on video games where the object is to slaughter as many people as possible, in graphic detail. When you couple this with an unstable psyhe that erodes the line between reality and fantasy and easy access to guns, the possibility of a nutjob snapping at some perceived slight and going on a killing spree is grteatly increased.

I don't actually agree with that any more. It was always perceived wisdom, but if what you're saying is right then how come kids don't do this in Canada, Czechia, Serbia, Estonia and Lithuania - where access to violent computer games and access to guns aren't significantly different from that in the USA? I really do think the biggest contributory factor to mass shootings in the USA is their culture.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I don't actually agree with that any more. It was always perceived wisdom, but if what you're saying is right then how come kids don't do this in Canada, Czechia, Serbia, Estonia and Lithuania - where access to violent computer games and access to guns aren't significantly different from that in the USA? I really do think the biggest contributory factor to mass shootings in the USA is their culture.

Before computer games it was because they listened to too much Marilyn Manson.

 

[JBizzle]

Unfortunately we live in a society where many teens spend much of their time on video games where the object is to slaughter as many people as possible, in graphic detail. When you couple this with an unstable psyhe that erodes the line between reality and fantasy and easy access to guns, the possibility of a nutjob snapping at some perceived slight and going on a killing spree is grteatly increased.

I've played an awful lot of games like the ones of which you speak and have never felt he need to kill anyone. To me, it's less of an issue people playing games, more the prevalence of ideas and prejudices that lead to people taking those extremist decisions because they see it as the only way to get heard.

Combine that with the gun laws and you'll get these things continuing to happen.

 

[Pavilionaire]

These lone shooters are always men. What I would like to see is Vice President Kamala Harris - a woman - reach out to all of the mothers out there and create momentum for significant gun law change. The Democrats need to get this done and she is the one best placed and with time and energy to drive it through.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Moral high ground - I asked you a question which you've just misdirected. Anyway, I'll let you carry on not taking the moral high ground with [MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION].

I answered your question directly by explaining that people consider many things including the young when casting their vote. You are making the mistake of thinking that your choice is, by definition, the correct choice for the young; hence my ‘taking the moral high ground’ comment. I can give you lots of reasons why I think my political choice is better for the young than yours but I won’t derail the thread and I won’t dismiss your choice as easily as you appear to be doing in reverse.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

These lone shooters are always men. What I would like to see is Vice President Kamala Harris - a woman - reach out to all of the mothers out there and create momentum for significant gun law change. The Democrats need to get this done and she is the one best placed and with time and energy to drive it through.

Good idea. In addition, in my opinion there is a reason these shooters are male and it is this that needs more and better directed resources.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I answered your question directly by explaining that people consider many things including the young when casting their vote. You are making the mistake of thinking that your choice is, by definition, the correct choice for the young; hence my ‘taking the moral high ground’ comment. I can give you lots of reasons why I think my political choice is better for the young than yours but I won’t derail the thread and I won’t dismiss your choice as easily as you appear to be doing in reverse.

You're not going to derail the thread any further by giving a full answer before saying you're not going to derail the thread. Well done. Moral high ground indeed.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

You're not going to derail the thread any further by giving a full answer before saying you're not going to derail the thread. Well done. Moral high ground indeed.

So I need to spell it out. You made a wildly sweeping statement implying that people who vote a different way to you do not take account of the future and young people’s interests. You took a moral high ground. That is irrelevant to a thread about a mass shooting. That should, I hope, be a little clearer but feel free to tie yourself in knots again

 

[Dave the hatosaurus]

The National Rifle Association will be holding their annual seminar/conference/trade show in the next week. Apparently both Biden and Trump are due to address the delegates.

Don’t hold your breath, nothing will change, and even if it does there are more guns than people in the USA. They are royally f.x.x.k.e.d for at least another hundred years.

I would not give that country the steam off my piss, I would never spend money in a country that is just sooooo stupid.

In the past i have holidayed and travelled a good deal in the U.S. and met many good people as well as a few ********s .
Whilst i fervently hope you are wrong about nothing happening ( AGAIN ) i do have to agree that the biggest problem even if stricter gun control is passed is the amount of weapons already out there in that nation as a whole . The fact that the stable door has virtually remained wide open since the boomtown rats were singing about " i don't like mondays " despite repeated incidents means the horses bolted long ago and rounding them up will be a virtually impossible task .
Still " every journey begins with a single step " so i remain hopeful , if not optimistic , that finally some action will begin .