Shooting at HS in Parkland Florida

As someone that lives in another country, reading through this thread has shocked me.  I'm dumbfounded that there are people here saying it's not about gun control.  Of course it is.  And if you don't actively try it, how can you make those comments.  Continuing to make excuses and do nothing means that this is just going to continue as it is.  Is this what you want for your children?   I've just read that this is the 18th school shooting this year.  In what world is that considered ok?  I'm heartened to see so many that feel it's time to do something but the excuses of others are ridiculous.  No it won't stop illegal gun sales, but i'd put money on the fact that not too many teenagers know where to go to buy an illegal weapon.  They certainly don't here.  And these school shootings are taking place with legal weapons.  I have just read a comment from a Facebook friend that its time that gun carrying security were placed in all schools.  This shouldn't be necessary.  Introducing more guns to a situation that has a gun problem is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. 


I'm sorry if my comments are taken as harsh to some, but this just makes me so angry.  It's not acceptable and you need to do something about gun control.  I'm glad I live in a country that has strict gun control and that my children can be confident that they are safe from this at school.  They are prepared in case it does happen.  But it's certainly a hell of a lot less likely.

We DO have gun control.

 
We have a lack of enforcement, not a lack of gun control laws. Those we have.

And so have guns been around forever and we didn't have this problem. Students had them in the back of their truck on a rack and people weren't shooting up the schools. something has changed and it isn't available guns. They've always been here.

 <<< I too have seen this meme pop up everywhere.  While I get what it is trying to say, the first thing that popped into my head was the doctor oath "first, do no harm" and I wouldn't think that in relation to weapons.  Apples and oranges, to me.

    One of the big reasons in my opinion is the NRA has changed and become a fear promoting, gun pushing terror organization funneling millions of money into congress' pockets to stop everything from studies on gun deaths to any reasonable gun control laws like universal background checks which 80% of the population want. Were they like that back in the 1970's? I don't know. I grew up in a family that didn't own guns so I didn't pay any attention to the NRA, they weren't a part of my life.  I too went to a high school for 3 years that was in a rural area and the young men had pickup trucks with gun racks in the back.

You can keep saying it's something else, it's this or that. But almost every day people are dying. Do we really have the years it's going to take to figure out exactly what it is? Every week 2 school shootings are happening. Are those children's death worth it to figure out how long it's going to take to pinpoint exactly what it is? I don't think so! I don't think any human life is. I say we do something drastic now like Australia did in the aftermath of Port Arthur and see if it works. If it doesn't than we know that isn't the solution. But if it does than we know it is and that's so many lives saved every day instead of waiting and waiting arguing what is the problem and what is the solution. The selfishness of wanting to own an object that has no other purpose but to kill something isn't worth the lives of our fellow citizens and children. My favorite band has a lyric that goes like this "We've decided to risk melting our guns as a show of strength". I love the sentence. I'm not calling for a total ban of guns like I mentioned up post.  

You think that Trump is a tyrnnical dictator AND you think it's a good idea to get rid of the protection we have against tyranny? And you think if you're wrong about that being the solution, then the dictator will just let everyone have their guns back?

Who said anything about new laws? This problem won't be solved by new laws. This problem will be solved by a sea change along the lines of MADD. In my opinion, this isn't at its most basic level, a gun problem. It's a lack of caring and compassion problem. It's an us against them problem. At this point, if after all these mass deaths, people are still clutching their guns this tightly, (look at this closely: choosing a metal inanimate object over human lives) there is something wrong there; sadly, it seems these people are basically flawed in their capacity to care for other people if at this point, they still want to argue semantics and statistics rather than saying, "This needs to stop. We need changes."


This problem will be solved by abandoning the reliance on intellectualizing and debate as a way of deflecting and distancing from the pain of this problem. This problem will be solved when gun romanticizers recognize that they are stuck in one or maybe two untenable world views and are willing to look outside them:

1) They honestly want change but don't really want to have to change anything they think or do. In some sort of magical thought reality, this strategy is reminiscent of the person who wants to lose weight but doesn't really want to change any of their habits. Instead of entertaining new possibilities and ideas, they busy themselves with coming up with reasons why things won't work, and getting bogged down in debates with people who want more gun restrictions. If they are doing this, they don't spend one instant imagining fragments of bloodied bodies in classrooms, parents' agonies at the time they are informed that their child will not be coming home again, and all the negative fallout that will impact these families forever. If they don't feel it, if it's not real, there is no real impetus for change. The victims are just some random, anonymous people in some town somewhere, and and the gun romanticizer knows that eventually the news cycle refreshes and they can relax and move on. Until the next one.

2) They believe they are good people, daresay perhaps even believe they are people of God, and say they want change (while offering hopes and prayers), but secretly are so afraid, so caught up in some bizarre gun-brandishing self-identity, bolstered by a Constitution that offered the right to carry muskets as part of a militia, that is part fear, part bravado, part frontier justice/manifest destiny fantasy that to abandon that, would be to expose an intolerable vulnerability. Hard nuts to crack.

This problem will be solved by involving people on an emotional and personal level, where victims are actual people with actual families who have actual ramifications from their loved ones' deaths in mass shootings.

Huh?! What in the blueberry fuck muffins are you talking about?! That has always been the collective rallying cry forever. "We don't want to come for your guns, don't be paranoid! We just want more gun laws, better laws, laws that will be effective." So I can't imagine why you would say "who said anything about new laws". That just blows my mind that you would say that, have you been living under a rock?