@Jennifer1984 Said
Oh well, it's different to the usual "pissed-off-teenager-takes-dad's-hunting-rifle-to-school-and-kills-a-dozen-classmates-because-Biff-stole-his-lunch-money" scenario.
I'm not trivialising what has been a horrible event, but frankly, these stories coming out of America are becoming so commonplace that they are slowly but surely dropping down the list of important things to cover.
We're more concerned with Brexit and Teresa May's latest display of incompetence than just the latest in a long line of shootings in America.
Yes, they will always be headline news for a day or so and because we're Britain we'll give them more prominence than most other countries but I'm picking up on my Euro-radar that across the continent these stories are starting to get a bit of a "It's another mass killing in America. Next item please," feel about them.
Whatever the reason for the attack it was horrible and we all feel sadness for the loss of life.
But when a wife of one of those killed is interviewed by a BBC reporter, within 48 hours of his killing and - with a happy smiling face - tells the camera that the Second Amendment must be protected at all costs and there must never be any change to the gun laws. When she absurdly says that it is the ownership of firearms that makes America the land of the free, then what are we to think..?
It's beginning to feel that it's almost a competition to see who can hold the record for the most deaths in one shooting. A sort of "Hey, Americans are #1 at killing other Americans. Don't no Goddam terrorist try to prove otherwise. Give us enough bullets and we'll show ya just how good we are at killing each other..!!"
I'm not being intentionally flippant or inflammatory, but you can see where this is coming from.
I think my record on this site will testify that I abhor firearms and violence, but these shootings are so commonplace that it's difficult to think of anything new to say about your insane addiction to guns, and the almost trivial, dismissive attitude towards human life, that anybody over there will listen to.
The only thing that's certain about this shooting is that another one will follow soon. It's inevitable. I wonder what price a bookmaker would give on the next one occurring before Christmas, I wonder.?
Quite how many people will die then can only be imagined at, but regardless of the deaths, injuries and the terrible pain that will be inflicted on the families of those affected, you'll never change.
It's being reported here that America has 112 guns for every 100 head of population. An insane figure, but I'm not sure it's correct. The number of guns per head of population is probably far higher than that.
And I doubt very much that there are many people over there who think there's anything odd about that.
Our constitution explicitly includes a right for ordinary citizens to possess arms, which was listed among other specific freedoms and prohibitions protecting citizens from governmental/military abuses that your British rule was imposing on us at the time right before they were written. They are called the Bill of Rights.
While this particular right may be outdated these days, to change any aspect of the Bill of Rights, this would require ratification by a two thirds majority, an almost impossible task in our nation these days as well. You are looking at an extremely divided nation, politically speaking, in which elections are won by a few percentage points in popular vote tallies, and certainly never go anywhere near a two-thirds majority, on anything.
Add to the fact that corporations rule our nation here, and the NRA is one of the largest corporate sponsored organizations in existence, if not the largest, and have a huge impact on Washington via lobbying on the political front and have a huge impact on shaping public perception via advertising, as all large corporations do. They can easily make or break candidates depending on where they stand with gun rights, and have done so. Many times. They can easily influence public opinion, and have done so. Many times.
This is why we still have guns.
Now, with that being said, this does not mean every American has, wishes to have, or even supports gun ownership. In fact, you may, like every other issue here, find that barely 50% of us support or don't support it here in America. I'm not sure which it is at the moment, but, again, it doesn't really matter - just call it a draw, whatever the issue is.