Turns out he bought the guns legally, as the US Air Force forgot to tell the authorities about his convictions. He bought guns twice in San Antonio without raising any red flags, along with buying two guns in Colorado. It's no wonder so many people get blown away, it's bloody ridiculous.
Some bullshit on this thread , nobody is saying ban guns but just have a look at the law and see what can be done to improve things and just perhaps reduce the number of these incidents where innocent people die
The gun issue is seen as too big and too hard to fix. I travel to the USA often, and I was there when Sandy Hook happened, and after the initial reaction, the response of my colleagues after a couple of days was "meh, what can you do" and a shrug of the shoulders. Absolutely shocking for me, more than the event itself. It's very frustrating - fifty years ago, Americans were in the process of putting man on the moon with less computing power than my mobile phone. From within the country the feeling was that they were they were leading the world economically, culturally and in technology. Americans could achieve anything. I don't know what's happened since then, but there is no Kennedy, no leader that can break through the apathy to say "look, we can do this". I've had many conversations about it. I point out that it took the cumulative effects of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs to get to the Moon. They aren't going to solve the gun issue within a generation, and they need iterative steps to get there. It's almost as if Watergate and Vietnam vets coming home broke the naive optimism in the 70s and American society has withdrawn and become scared. Nothing is going to change short term - the appalling gun death rate is seen as the price they pay for "freedom".
From what I’ve seen, most Americans see it as their right to own a gun. Has anybody pointed out the correlation between their gun laws and the number of shootings? I mean mass shootings have become an annual event over there. Nobody seems to suggest taking the guns away. Because it’s their right to own one. But they can’t really explain WHY they need a gun, they only seem to have it because they are allowed to. We don’t have guns. We don’t tend to get shot much. We don’t need guns. Why do they? Who’s coming to get them that aren’t coming for us? (Phrasing. Boom.)
Why wouldn't they? The second amendment catagorically states that US citizens 'have the right to keep and bear arms'
They have the right to a lot of things in America, but the only reason they have the guns is because it's their right to have one. They have the right to remain silent when under arrest, they don't seem to do that very often. They trot out the line 'it's my right to bear arms', like that's an acceptable reason to own a firearm. Why exactly do they need to be able to do that? We don't have that right and we don't need guns, even our regular police and security don't carry guns. Do people in America not commit crimes in case of guns? Or are those people in their overcrowded prison system there because they won a cake weighing competition? It isn't much of a deterrent for crime, easier access to weapons has a direct link to the amount of gun based crime. I fail to see what Americans actually need a right like that for. If they were a war torn country beset on all sides by dangerous people, fair enough. For a so called world superpower, they are making themselves out to be a set of ****ing pussies.
They don't need a right, but somebody thought it was a good idea 200 or 300 years ago so obviously it's still a great idea in the modern world where a national threat is likely to come in the shape of a big warhead falling out the sky. Without those guns it would be easy for a nuclear bomb to waltz into the US and conquer. They're just so commonplace and widespread as well as Americans exciteable attitudes make any real form of regulation all but impossible. The best solution IMO is to just make it a legal requirement to carry a firearm and ammo and put any people with mental health issues to death.
An excellent post and exactly the arguments I put to Ellewoods who argued it was a waste of time trying. This problem needs a long term, incremental strategy, not an immediate big brother ban.
It's like there is a collective mental block - there no magic wand perfect instant solution, so why bother trying? I've never been able to convince someone on the other side of the argument that even if the first tiny step saved 10 lives a year, it's worth it. Maybe the second step would save 100, the next 1000 etc etc. Until there is a visionary leader, it will never happen. American society in general is getting so polarised and people's views so entrenched, it's difficult to see how it would change. I have asked colleagues who carry all the time they are permitted outside the office why they feel the need, considering they are in a nice middle class, safe town. The answers I get are usually "an armed society is a polite society" and "I've never been mugged". It didn't go down well when I pointed out I've never been mugged either.
However ... The US state(s) that bans sparklers but not guns http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41811499 & it's priorities ... The Americans who can't read The US has more citizens who are illiterate - some 16 million people - than many of its developed counterparts. Why is that? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-41754308/the-americans-who-can-t-read
The leading killer of American people is heart disease. But their government spent 6600 times more on defense and war than it did on healthcare in the last 5 years. Says it all really. Jeff Bridges says it best here.
