Never mind I am too broken up to do this right now.
Translation mine:
El País: “at least 20 dead and 26 wounded in this year’s largest massacre in the US.”
When a death count which in most ountries would be part of a war is the largest massacre “of the year”, something is very fucked up 
It’s going to keep happening and happening again and nothing of substance will be done. Because there are no easy solutions we refuse to tackle the hard ones. Today you cannot go back-to-school shopping and not be safe from the lone gunman. You cannot go to school, to the movies, or church or to work. Someone somewhere is pissed off so be ready to hide.
We have to change a culture that resorts to guns and violence when its ability to reason is so inadequate to promote change. I don’t know how to do it.
But I an so angry at those who say nothing can be done.
People should have the right to go to the store and not die. We should isolate the violent racists before they kill a bunch of decent folks. We need to restrict access to guns for those with mental illness. Get rid of assault weapons. And then we need to talk in terms of healing, of having healthy friendly relationships and rivalries.
Is this really the largest this year? I am serious when I say that I didn’t know that and I’m surprised this is the biggest so far.
It’s so crazy. In no way do I want to become jaded about this. But it’s a horrible thing that I think it’s impossible not to. I’m sure that happens in combat to an extent. “Don’t get too close to any man in your unit,” said the grizzled Vietnam-era USMC drill instructor…
I imagine combat is completely insane. Nothing can prepare you because normal human actions and reactions are thrown out the window. With these shootings though it’s different. We DO react with normal human emotions. The USA is not a combat zone so this is cause for great alarm. If it happened once, or even 3 times over 20 years maybe it’s pretty normal to just be shocked each time and yeah… offer your thoughts and prayers.
It used to be a tired old TV news cliche: the local guy or gal who invariably says of the horrific crime: “I just can’t believe it. That kinda thing never happens here.” Ahhhh… nostalgia.
When it just happens again and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, the normal human reaction is to say: “Hey. This ain’t combat. So why are people dropping left and right as though it is? For FUCK’S sake. We GOTTA do something. NOW!!”
Clearly we disagree on the best way to handle this. But we are not even attempting anything that could be effective. I’m open to anything at this point. Maybe all adults SHOULD be trained to carry a weapon and then carry it at all times. I actually think this would be a huge mistake but if there’s even a 2% chance it could help, maybe we should try it.
Again, not really but… if those fuckers won’t try our ideas then maybe we should try theirs. If it goes like I expect it would there will be MORE handgun deaths, not less, but then maybe we could try our nuuuuuutttttty Socialist, Nazi, Commie, satanic, ideas.
There’s a new active shooter incident in Dayton, Ohio, right now. No information beyond that yet.
I believe you meant “cannot go back to school shopping and be safe”.
And you’re right. We do know what can be done to minimize this carnage: gun control.
Looks like this thread needs a title change from “Mass Murder” to “Mass Murders”
It’s probably a bad sign for my inner self that I take glee every time I hear they caught one of these bastards alive. But I am happy when it happens. Whatever I think of our criminal system, I do know that isolation inside a place more socially dangerous than the ‘outside’ is a greater punishment than simply being put down. If they hated regular life so much and felt so rejected, let’s see how they enjoy their new chosen lives as felons. Good luck at keeping up the tough guy attitude without an internet hate machine behind you cheering you on, assholes.
Although, of course, stopping them from hurting others comes first. But if the attackers can be caught alive, I want to see them live through the consequences of what they’ve done.
The solution is easy. Ban the fuckers, unless someone is a member of a gun club, a licensed wildlife shooter, or a farmer. Simples.
A lot of the rules aren’t so different on paper from the US (well, from each state) to other developed countries; what’s different is both how guns are viewed and the implementation. Both in the US and AFAIK in every other developed country, legal gun sales are registered; in other countries, these records are a database every police agency has access to. In the US, it’s kept by each store locally and doesn’t go to law enforcement until the store gets out of business :eek: at which point, even if it was previously digital, it can’t be kept digitally and needs to become a pile of paper :eek::eek::eek: (sorry I can’t find the bookmark; IIRC my source was an article from The Atlantic but I may have the wrong magazine). The US manages to combine the biggest hard-on for punishing those who have been caught doing something wrong while unable to afford a good lawyer, with barriers on actually catching the culprits (from budgetting to subcontracting labs who aren’t remotely qualified but who are cheapest to that weapons non-database) which are just… unbelievable. The kind of stuff that if you saw it in a movie you wouldn’t believe it.
That’s right, records are kept on paper, by law so the info can’t be shared. So Katrina destroyed a lot of paper records that can never be regained.
Records aren’t my main concern anyway, but the implementation of these half-measures is just stupid.
Agreed.
And I’ve said it before: I’ve been called a “gun grabber” here on these boards for every half-assed, fiddling-around-the-edges gun control measure.
So maybe it’s time to grab the fucking guns. What are they gonna call us then, gun grabbers or something?
Ban private ownership of semi-automatic weapons, and register everything else. For the semi-autos, a two-year buyback period, another year after that where you can turn them in without penalty. After that, it’s a felony to possess one, and if found with one, your premises are thoroughly searched for guns, and you lose them all, even the ones that are still legal.
There’s probably no way to prevent mass murders altogether, but it shouldn’t be so damn easy.
Of course I realize I’m pissing into the wind here. Even after two mass slaughters in one weekend, nothing’s going to change. I’m sure the Republicans will offer their thoughts and prayers.
And as a number of people on Twitter have mentioned, the Democrats’ ‘thoughts and prayers’ equivalent is: no, we can’t possibly kill the filibuster, so we can pretend to be for gun control as much as we want, but don’t worry about us ever being able to pass anything.
And even with all the turmoil inside the NRA, NRA celebrates ‘highly successful year’ in Texas.
Way to go, dudes. You’ve extended your winning streak there. :mad:
If only we could offer up our stoats and bears. As in, feed them alive to stoats and bears.
As always, not damn word from the SDMB gunslinger community, and they know who they are. Not a sign of any emotion or any thought at all. Not even the courage and integrity to admit they stand for what they stand for.
Oh, and now Dayton.
Even foam-at-the-mouth gun freaks know something CAN be done, they just refuse to entertain that.
Of course they know something CAN be done, but the way that rural and suburban white America views firearms is completely different than how people in the city tend to view them. My position on gun control is evolving to accept the fact that if we’re going to have meaningful gun control reforms, we’re going to have to address the cultural dimensions of firearms in this country. I honestly don’t know how we do that, but I think that’s what it will take.
One of the things that Trump has been able to exploit for his own gain is the growing divide between white rural and suburban America, and America’s urban centers. We’re increasingly living in these two different Americas, and the divisions are becoming toxic. On a range of political issues, with firearms control being among them, we have to convince the ‘other’ America that it’s somehow in their interests to buy into the idea of change and reform. This is true of gun control and other issues like labor rights and universal healthcare coverage.
We can start with getting the cowards to admit their purpose for buying AR-15’s and AK-47’s and the like is not about this “constitutional militia” nonsense, but to stroke their fantasies of killing, fantasies that some of them have the courage to make real. That’s what the related “resisting tyranny” nonsense actually means.