" -Yes, there is a strong link to mental illness. But other countries have citizens with mental illness and they do not have these mass shootings."
Some countries, I agree, they don’t have the mass shootings but do they have as many college students? Lots of these mass shootings are linked to young adult males, in college or not in college, or dropped out of college.
And for many other countries, they would not report 10 or 20 people getting killed, it is normal.
For example, I find the “Free the Chibok girls” campaign ironic when there are still continual rapes, kidnappings, and murders. Like, who cares about a few hundred girls when thousands and thousands are getting that and worse? And few if any in their own country care?
Supposed the song “I don’t like Mondays” is based on a female shooter in Canada who was asked why she killed so many people, and she said “I don’t like Mondays”.
(I would also venture that laws regarding the rights of the mentally ill do vary country to country. http://www.peteearley.com/2013/09/02/our-focus-on-danger-for-involuntary-commitments-is-out-of-step-with-the-world/ I feel that we should look at what should be done when anyone says they are going to kill themselves or others. I have a friend whose child says almost daily he wants to die/kill himself and in one case, kill or hurt others. But the mom is so afraid to let him go inpatient, she is willing to risk him hurting himself or others.)
Can’t we decide to just as greedy for a safe society, and make it our top priority? While we all feel terrible, has everyone out put and kept pressure on all their elected officials and financially supported counter balancing organizations?
rhandco, I thought it was obvious that jaylynn was talking about the developed world – countries who are our peers. Could you please post a link to something which documents that 10-20 gun deaths are “normal” in Canada or Switzerland or Australia or France, or any other developed country?
I don’t think there is any debate here… gun control needs to be tightened. The facts clearly show that places with tighter gun control laws have fewer of these incidents, despite having crazy people.
The pro-gun argument - Take away guns and only the criminals will have guns - doesn’t work for the simple fact that most of these mass shooters are seemingly normal, everyday people. These [most] aren’t mobsters with powerful connections and extensive underground networks.
There is a small gun shop in Rockville, MD. They unwittingly (but legally) sold a gun to a young man who then shot people in the Columbia shopping mall. The owner was horrified. A couple of years later, they wanted to be one of the first gun shops to sell guns with fingerprint ID trigger locks. As an optional safety feature. Uncontroversial, right? Wrong!
They had to abandon selling those guns because they got so many death threats from wackos who see any kind of gun regulation or safety feature as a sign that the big, bad, government is coming for their precious.
For the most part, Europeans never had the mass saturation of guns in their society that Americans have. It’s more practical to ban something when hardly anyone already has that thing.
If the US banned guns tomorrow, is the gov’t prepared to go door to door to raid everyone’s property to seize private guns?
GMT, no one is talking about banning guns. This is a bogeyman that comes up every time the topic of gun control is raised.
But it is an indisputable fact that in the gun-saturated United States, the states which have stricter gun laws have fewer gun deaths. Gun control works. Not perfectly, but it does work.
“Sheriff Hanlin had forcefully lobbied against gun control after previous school shootings, but on Friday he told CNN that now was not the time to discuss gun control.” A change of heart (a Judgment Day conversion?) by Sheriff Hanlin wouldn’t make me feel a whole lot better."
It’s never the right time with these people. They make me sick to my stomach. And all the phoney pray for the victims and their families are just empty words from these people.
Every gun in the U.S. was at one point legal. It is irresponsible gun owners (and there are obviously millions of those, despite cries from gun owners they are not irresponsible,) and states were all one needs is a pulse to buy a gun and then bring these guns into states with stricter gun laws, who are the cause for the U.S. having the most gun violence of any industrial nation.
The blood is on every gun owners hands and the hands of people who oppose strict gun control laws, They are as responsible as the shooter, imo. Until the gun owners in the U.S. stand up and demand stricter gun laws I will continue to blame them, and only them, for all these murder of all these people,
Thats what is so sad, poll after poll of registered gun owners, NRA members, favor some restrictions and the politicians still wont do anything! I swear if a different president proposed changes, I think more would be done.
GMT, you’re proposing mandatory mental health exams for every American? First, not necessary. Second, highly intrusive. Third, extremely expensive. And can you imagine the howls about “MAH FREEDUM!!” from the very people who most oppose gun control?
You know, every other developed country has figured this out, and not a single one of them has mandated mental health exams. Are you saying America is so stupid that we not only can’t figure this out, but we can’t even follow the example of those who have?
That’s one… 35 years ago. I am talking about banning guns – those that can fire more than a couple of rounds and clips that allow more than a couple of rounds fired at once by civilians.
Below are a few. There are others but I think the point is made that shootings can happen in any country regardless of their gun laws. It even happens in countries not nearly as diverse as the USA and not nearly as populous as the USA.