Texas School shooting 19 children and 2 adults murdered

Gatling

@McFly85 America feels too far gone for any real systemic change. They have had 27 school shootings this year and about 250 overall. It has become part of life in the US and seemingly an accepted cost of gun ownership.

There has been something like 2000 school shooting since the 70's and many more before that .

Just shows how under reported it is.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112451#Comment_119112451

Gotta love the way they squeeze in another GOP talking point - "Public Schools are terrible and a waste of money".

Everyone should just be able to choose their own school for their kids and pay for the privilege.

Rampant profiteering and utter disdain for the poor wrapped up and hidden behind "Personal choice and Personal Freedom"

Horrible horrible people.

Gatling

It might be easier to ban schools rather than Guns

JP Liz V1

These tragedies happen so often in America with guns rife everywhere

RIP the victims

salmocab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112556#Comment_119112556

Certainly the more likely outcome

Charrychar

The land of the free, where you need a gun to feel safe.

j2

Anyone here think American gun ownership laws are a good idea? Or would be favour of similar laws here in Ireland?

Charrychar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112463#Comment_119112463

Maybe the problem with school shootings is not guns (although easy access to guns doesn’t help) and more to do with bullying and isolation within the schools. Bullying is rampant across American schools, some teens are treated so bad that they lose all sort of empathy towards their fellow students which conditions them to be able to do such a thing.

French Toast

A bit OT but jemember there was a poster called MadsL who used always weigh in heavily on US gun threads? Possibly even were a Yank themselves.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112641#Comment_119112641

Guns and access to them is obviously not the complete reason these things happen , but they certainly make them more likely to have extremely tragic outcomes.

US society definitely has significant issues , one of the big things for me is what I'd call "toxic individualism".

In the US the pervasive view is that everything about your life is singularly down to you.

You aren't successful , wealthy etc. that is 100% your fault - You are a loser and all your failures are your fault , you didn't work hard enough , you didn't pray hard enough etc. etc. etc.

Also , if you are one of those "left behind" you are literally thrown on the scrap heap - No Social Supports , No Access to healthcare , Limited access to Education opportunities and so on.

It naturally leads to anger and frustration among people about the life they think they deserve and because they have no supports they seek someone to blame , leading to horseshit like "the great replacement theory" and groups like the Incels.

If you're not a "winner" you're a loser and not worthy of attention or respect and so on and so on.

It's not surprising that these pressure cookers eventually burst - And when you couple that rage with ready access to weapons , tragedy ensues.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112183#Comment_119112183

The problem is that saying that "something is batshit crazy" is an emotional, unsupported argument. Statistics and figures are far more empirical. Although my initial emotional reaction is that 'constitutional carry' as it exists in over 20 States is asking for trouble and some form of licensing should be necessary, I am compelled to admit that the statistics as determined by observing results of regimen changes do not back up my emotional response. I may not 'like' it (emotional), but I have no supportable/factual argument against it.

So what if they were machetes? I always wear a knife on my belt. Granted, smaller than a machete, but it's highly useful. I wore a skrama on my belt on the public bus in Helsinki last week (think bush knife with a 25cm blade), no particular hassle was caused. It was given as a gift, I had no other way of getting back to the hotel and after checking with the locals as to legality, what else was I going to do with it? Has there been a rash of stabbings somewhere recently that I'm unaware of? What harm does it do?

As to the last paragraph, carriage and sales of firearms are far different matters. The federal government cannot regulate the carriage of firearms, with or without the federal 2A. That's been tried and tested in the Supreme Court (Lopez pre-dates Heller, it was not a 2A case). Just how much it could practically affect sales is (a) an open question given the hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation, and (b) is academic as there is basically zero chance of 2A being repealed anyway, so any discussion on such a matter is pure fantasisation anyway.

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119109741#Comment_119109741

Did you see the headbanger that had a "shower gun"? Basically he had a gun in a tupperware in his shower in case he was broken into while showering. Turns out he was right!

https://pluralist.com/richard-winegardner-shower-gun/

Edit - I agree with your general point though.

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119109522#Comment_119109522

What about when you are the loon ?

America is so fooked up and getting worse, and I know for instance some of our resident Yanks and wantabees will laud it for their own personal reasons.

I dopped off two of my kids this morning and watched them go into school with their class mates and I shudder to think what it is like to do likewise in a country where you know there is a growing sizable chance those kids will be slaughtered and will never make it home again.

And any country where at 18 you can join the military and die for your country, where you can go in and buy as near to military grade weapons as possible, but can't go and buy a beer is one fooked up country.

Overheal

Police say the shooter was engaged before they got into the school but to no avail

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/sergeant-says-police-engaged-gunman-before-he-entered-texas-elementary-school-to-no-avail/

Topgear on Dave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112715#Comment_119112715

I thought it was mad till I read it.

Ya know if I'd already been broken into 4 times then I'd have a shower gun too!

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119110249#Comment_119110249

I have six, they're all different.

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112637#Comment_119112637

We have firearms here , just not open carry and having the ability to buy one off the shelf no questions or background checks

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112713#Comment_119112713

Yeah why get emotional about the topic that results in the totally unnecessary slaughter of 9 and 10 year old kids whilst in school.

You can blatter on and on about statistics and figures, but the bottom line is no other country in the world, especially westernised modern country has the penchant for weapons and mass killings that the US has.

It is a seriously sick society.

And some of those hundreds of millions of guns only came into existence in the last ten or twenty years, some of that time people like you and others have argued about rights to gun ownership.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112244#Comment_119112244

Googling 8 times 35 times and firearm I found this. Seems like that you read this or a similar.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html

A couple of points. It's the US, not Ireland (as you said in 2nd post). It handguns, not firearms, so a much smaller subset of legal firearms in Ireland. and it says gun owner, not household. Very different to what you said.

The other study you like is actually advocating for storage laws like we have here , and in Australia etc.

nevertheless the only non-media knowledge I have of people being killed by weapons is suicide

Well sure, but that's a product of our very low rates of homicide. Outside of ganglang feuds, gun crime and homicide is very low.

The only non-media knowledge of people being strangled is also suicide.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112772#Comment_119112772

Good guy with a gun fails to deliver yet again. Maybe one of these days he'll come through.

I think it was this thread that it was mentioned that 300,000 children in the US have now been victims of a mass shooting incident.

That's not "have seen someone fire a gun" or "been aware of gun violence nearby", but "have been in a building while there was mass shooting incident taking place".

That's 1 in every 200 children in America. And it's only getting worse. This feels like a death spiral. These children will grow up as traumatised adults leading to deeper and deeper paranoia about violence and ever more and more weapons, and more and more violence.

monkeybutter

we are weirdly out of kilter with the UK on guns deaths for the population size, but directly in line with gun ownership and the curve continues up to the US

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112715#Comment_119112715

If im breaking into a house and suddenly im charged by a naked man with his floppity flipping out in the breeze its not going to matter much if he has a shower gun or the soap on a rope. I can think of few things that would scare me more.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112862#Comment_119112862

How do they compare rate-wise?

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112786#Comment_119112786

You can get emotional all you want about it, but is the preferred solution something which makes people feel better, or something which has practical effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

We've had ten pages of posts, and, what, two or three posts which have a reference to possible actions or causes which are apparently both feasible and supportable?

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119113025#Comment_119113025

like 4 times the number

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119113034#Comment_119113034

Well yeah, tends to be the case when a group can prevent any change from happening. They can't even pass a law for background checks so what are they going to do? That measure has the overwhelming support of the public yet the GoP obstruct it. So there's really very little that's "feasible" at the federal level regardless of how "supportable" it is.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119112713#Comment_119112713

These posts always come across as oh well. Nothing to be done says only nation we're this happens.

Other countries have guns but none have the sheer level of fetishisation as the US. The national psyche in the UK and Australia was how can stop this from happening again and there is a large core of the US I just don't see that in. It is just excuses after excuses with no real will to change anything.

Guns are not the only reason for this attack, I think gun culture is a bigger part of it but until that changes it is obvious the US needs less guns. You can argue about what restrictions are appropriate but do something.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119113034#Comment_119113034

There are only a few limited solutions, its obvious the political will aint there

I dont think wearing a knife is one of those solutions as the stats aren't there to support it, unless you want to replace gun deaths with machete ones

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119113065#Comment_119113065

I never realised it was that bad. Is this something recent because of all the gangland killings or a longer term trend?

rob316

Horrible but I just have no sympathy anymore.

Google a picture of an AR15 riffle I ask why anyone outside of the military/police would need one? How can the people of Texas cry when they think its ok that an 18 year old can buy 2 military grade assault riffles for their birthday.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119113117#Comment_119113117

maybe the aftermath of Dunblane, although the gun laws are similar to here, gun ownership is lower too, which is weird, would have thought it higher