I was reading last night about the Hungerford Massacre, I vaguely remember it being on the news but I was a 14 year old kid at the time. I was quite surprised that in the 80s it was possible for him to legally own a Type 56 (Chinese AK47 basically). I'm also thankful that the immediate response to the massacre was to ban ownership of all assault rifles and pump action shotguns. The same thing happened after Dunblane resulting in the ban of hand guns. You'd have to be mad to think the answer to stopping mass shootings was more guns......
I was working in the US when Sandy Hook happened. There was 48 hours of shock, which then turned into “meh, what can you do”. General perception that the country is too hard and the problem is too big to sort out. (See also: healthcare). Kind of shocked me, was asking colleagues what happened to the ambitious country that united behind the impossible aim of putting a man on the moon with post-WW2 technology. If Sandy Hook didn’t change things then nothing will. The cult of guns is too entrenched. There is a lot lower level of engagement in interest in how things are run over there, and very little appetite for campaigning to make things better. Lots of “I’m alright jack” amongst the professional folk I worked with. Whereas over here, we are much more likely to say “I’m not having that” and complain (to the council, to our MP, to consumer rights groups, to unions, to HR...). We’re also much better at having marches and demonstrations and even throwing the odd riot. Not that I condone violence, but sometimes you need to get the attention of certain folk and remind them of what democracy means.
Some of the excuses for keeping guns would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. I've heard it argued it's their right so they can raise a militia against a corrupt government. Erm, good luck with your rifle against tanks and nukes. Maybe campaigning for measures to oust corrupt regimes would be more achievable and involve less tragedies.
Yes, here’s a list of all the Western, developed countries you are more likely to be shot in than the US:
Venezuela, with the highest oil reserves in the world and a country Corbyn said we should aspire to be like, is a third world country? Or the Bahamas, along with other Caribbean hot spots is third world?
There are plenty of places in the American continent with higher murder rates than the USA. Are you saying countries which have held World Cups more than once are undeveloped?. Higher rate of murders in the Bahamas. Are you saying they are not Developed?
They don’t live in caves, but they’re nothing like as developed as the UK, US, Japan, France, Germany et al. I’ve been to Morocco, nice country, but not as developed as we are. It doesn’t need a daft comparison. We aren’t talking about general murder rates, we’re talking about mass shootings. All other developed western nations have strict gun control laws to prevent things like his happening. It works. Americans haven’t grasped the concept of lives being more important than their constitution, which, could be changed.
saw a stat the other day that said if baltimore was a country it would have the third highest murder rate for any country.
If a country had 600,00 yes. It’s murder rate per 100,000 is 56 which at one stage would have put it second per 100,000 behind Honduras with 90, overtaking Venezuela with 53. But you can’t compare a city to a country, there are a lot of cities around the world with higher rates than Baltimore. In fact with a murder rate of less than 5 people per 100,000 the USA is a long way down the list. A lot less than say Russia which doesn’t have guns freely available. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/murder-rates-by-country.html
