Texas shooting

[Boss]

Nothing's going to change. The NRA pay for their election campaigns. They are the reason why these politicians sit in Congress in the first place. They give the same bullshit, pre-rehearsed answer every time this shit happens.

 

This is why lobbyists and unfettered capitalism is so dangerous.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

The orangutan has spoken -

Trump: gunman had a 'mental health problem'

 

Responding to a question from the media about gun control in the wake of the shooting, Trump has said the gunman had a “mental health problem” and that this “isn’t a guns situation.”

 

 

He also said. Thank God someone had a gun and returned fire, otherwise it would have been a lot worse. 

 

Now that may be the case, but he is only saying it to strengthen the current gun laws and to add fuel to the weapons v weapons argument.

 

He's a fucking cunt. 

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Thank fuck someone with a gun scared off the loony with a gun. Just as well we have guns because without them he wouldn't have fucked off.

Imagine how many more could have been killed if the loony hadn't have been scared off by the person with a gun.

Thank goodness for guns, they keep loonies from being loonies and save lives.

Long live USA and praise the Lord.

[Denny Crane]

I don't think us Europeans can understand America's barbaric fetishation with guns. Even in the aftermath of these tragedies there is a spike in gun sales. You could go on about constitutional rights and keeping guns to keeping you safe etc but the bottom line it is so deeply embedded in their culture maybe even part of their national identity that even with legislation things aren't likely to change in the short to medium term. 

 

They have a huge problem because governments consciously and unconsciously remind us the first rule of the state is to keep it's citizens safe but if this level of deranged homicidal activity was going on in countries around Europe I do wonder what the response would be. 

 

The last line seems to sum up quite a few Americans views.

 

Tasmania knows what it’s like to have a community brought to its knees as media swarm for quotes, scoops and then disappear as the more fixed pain sets in. But when Australia witnessed dozens of its citizens murdered one weekend afternoon, it did something rather foreign to America: it enacted change. Australians turned in nearly 700,000 guns and laws were tightened. There were 11 mass shootings in Australia the decade before 1996. There have been no mass shootings ever since.

 

When I ask my international friends why they don’t own guns, I get blinks of confusion. “I’m not a hunter,” an Australian co-worker suggested. “It’s just not our culture,” my friend in Japan shrugged. Australia’s former Prime Minister John Howard explained in a New York Times op-ed last year that in his country, “The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing. Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role. But nothing trumps easy access to a gun.” 

 

Gun Owners of America’s Larry Pratt responded to Australia’s initiative: “We’re not interested in being like Australia. We’re Americans

[Strontium]

This is why lobbyists and unfettered capitalism is so dangerous.

What does capitalism have to do with it? Gun rights are guaranteed by the constitution.

 

Venezuela has no capitalism and no lobbyists, and there are way more shootings there.

[Jairzinho]

Christ.

[M_B]

Nothing's going to change. The NRA pay for their election campaigns. They are the reason why these politicians sit in Congress in the first place. They give the same bullshit, pre-rehearsed answer every time this shit happens.

 

This is why lobbyists and unfettered capitalism is so dangerous.

 

I agree that nothing is going to change, but I think its too easy to blame the NRA (although they certainly don't help). The real problem is that there is widespread popular support throughout the US population for civilian gun ownership.

 

As a nation they choose to live with guns. As a nation they need to accept the consequences of that choice. Live by the sword etc...

[cloggypop]

They love weapons so much they made one President.

[Bjornebye]

I think Trump might be referring to his own mental health. 

[Rico1304]

I agree that nothing is going to change, but I think its too easy to blame the NRA (although they certainly don't help). The real problem is that there is widespread popular support throughout the US population for civilian gun ownership.

 

As a nation they choose to live with guns. As a nation they need to accept the consequences of that choice. Live by the sword etc...

3% of Americans own over half the guns and 22% own them all. So the vast majority don’t own a gun.

[s(k)aturation]

3% of Americans own over half the guns and 22% own them all. So the vast majority don’t own a gun.

 

 

Just over a 5th of Americans have a gun or guns?

 

That's more than 50 million people, isn't it?  

 

That's a pretty vast minority.

[Denny Crane]

3% of Americans own over half the guns and 22% own them all. So the vast majority don’t own a gun.

 

I think America's relationship with guns is far more complex than that stat highlights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Denny Crane]

According to this even 35% of non gun owners see owning a gun as essential to their own sense of freedom. 

 

[Moctezuma]

https://splinternews.com/texas-attorney-general-offers-worst-possible-response-t-1820165089?rev=1509931176388&utm_campaign=socialflow_fusion_facebook&utm_source=fusion_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 

Haha it had to happen sooner or later after this mass murder. The Texan AG has said people should carry concealed guns to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.

 

Yup, because that would have worked with the Las Vegas mass shooting. This has become as much a culture war issue as anything else (though of course significant piles of cash and lobbying by the NRA et al. help keep the status quo).

[Guest Pistonbroke]

It'll be like the Wild West before you know it, people whipping guns out faster than pissed up Brits whipping their knob out in Ibiza. 

[Anubis]

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

It'll be like the Wild West before you know it, people whipping guns out faster than pissed up Brits whipping their knob out in Ibiza. 

 

If they've been on the garys their guns will be little pea shooters.

[magicrat]

What does capitalism have to do with it? Gun rights are guaranteed by the constitution.

 

Venezuela has no capitalism and no lobbyists, and there are way more shootings there.

 

I have been to Venezuela a few times and wandering round Caracas at night is not for the faint hearted, Better to stay in the hotel with the armed guards and listen to gunfire. I would say its nearly all gang related stuff not lone wolf nutters gunning down soft targets in shopping malls and schools. Capitalism I agree is absolutely irrelevant ,   

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Bet they'd have Kinder AK47's

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Be a free Magnum junior with Kinder meals in Maccie D's next. 

[Jairzinho]

I have been to Venezuela a few times and wandering round Caracas at night is not for the faint hearted, Better to stay in the hotel with the armed guards and listen to gunfire. I would say its nearly all gang related stuff not lone wolf nutters gunning down soft targets in shopping malls and schools. Capitalism I agree is absolutely irrelevant ,   

 

Of course it's relevant. Almost every single aspect of American society is dictated by big money interests. Gun crime happening in other economic systems isn't proof of capitalism not having an impact on America's.

 

The NRA, and their accompanying media presence, are a huge reason why so many Americans have such a ridiculous attitude to guns. I don't doubt that it's cultural as well, but this sort of backward mentality from America has been purposely retained in no small part down to money interests.

 

The prison industrial complex, gang culture, etc, etc, all influenced by capitalism. 

 

This shit could have been wiped out decades ago if anyone with any power in the US had any intention of doing so. They don't. Because it's big money.

[Section_31]

I reckon America should split up, the differences between views there seem irreconcilable. They need one country with all the reasonable people and one with all the weird bastards.

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

I reckon America should split up, the differences between views there seem irreconcilable. They need one country with all the reasonable people and one with all the weird bastards.

 

The bad aids side would just nuke their neighbours and wipe them both out in one final act of idiocy.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

I reckon America should split up, the differences between views there seem irreconcilable. They need one country with all the reasonable people and one with all the weird bastards.

 

Trump could build two walls. Instead of North, Central and South America you could have North, fuckwits, Central drug band and South America. 

[Trumo]

Bet they'd have Kinder AK47's

 

Now that would be a hell of a surprise.