Bingo.
America has made a choice. Thoughts and prayers with people who were thinking and praying when they were shot dead with an assault rifle. America needs to live with its choice and it has chosen mass killings by shooting versus changing a 300 hundred year old document.
America needs to live and indeed Americans need to die as a result of that choice. It’s not news now. It’s a shrug of the shoulders and a roll of the eyes. It is not shocking or newsworthy anymore than a massacre in the Middle East or some war zone.
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America is much more violent than other western democracies.
Murder rates per 100,000:
Norway 0.56
UK 0.92
France 1.58
US 4.88
If you are interested in countries that have serious murder rates, have a look at Latin America and Africa.
Brazil 26.7
South Africa 34.27
El Salvador 108.6
It’s not newsworthy. It happens all the time. As I said America has made a choice to tolerate mass shootings on a point of principle.
How do you know what the numbers would be if the deterrent was not there?
America will have to decide whether it is a Western Democracy or Latin American bandit country.
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Would be a lot less if you let people put landmines around the perimeter of their property.
You could reduce home invasions by a significant percentage in houses. Maybe not apartment blocks. Could instal lasers there in the corridors.
A simplistic argument. There are a few of these attacks per year, where say a few dozen people are killed. They are all committed by nutcases, so the only viable solution is to ban assault weapons and keep weapons of any kind out of the hands of nutcases. Overturning the 2nd amendment isn’t going to happen.
It’s a bit of both.
Anybody who buys an assault rifle for their personal use is by definition a nutcase.
Anyway America has made its choice and needs to get comfortable with that. It’s an amazing achievement that the union has survived this long really.
What a line from Donald Trump.
“This is a mental health problem at the highest level.”
It sure is, Donny, it sure is.
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Misinformed by fake news it seems. A nut case, shooting babies ffs. They should ban all automatic weapons, but the horse is long bolted.
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That’s disturbing.
And dipped in Chlorine
Jaysus
Background checks were done on him.
John Holcombe
Lost his pregnant wife
And
Three of his children
And
His brother
And
His infant nephew
And
His mother
And
His father
People in normal sane societies go to driving ranges. Americans go to gun ranges. And they go with their kids in tow. A gun is like an heirloom passed down through generations most of the time kept under lock and key which heightens the mystique behind them. I dont know what would possess people to go to a gun range for recreation. A nation of hypocrites. I wonder when a Hollywood producer will be brave and make a film about a mass shooting like they did about Boston bomber with patriot day.
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I was flicking through Saturday’s Irish Times today and I chanced upon an obituary for Mick Grimes, who I was sad to find out had died at the age of 90.
I remember seeing Mick speaking from his seat in the audience during Gay Byrne’s final Late Late Show.
Mick lost his wife, his daughter, his granddaughter and his daughter’s unborn twins in the Omagh bomb.
His forgiveness for the perpetrators of that bomb and his complete lack of bitterness was touching and profoundly moving.
A remarkable man who showed true goodness in the face of unimaginable grief and a situation which would drive normal people to a lifetime of bitterness.