One kids said “We’re not asking to repeal the second amendment, we’re asking for common sense, like more intensive background checks. It’s always a troubled young man, in our case somebody who’s been expelled, reported to police 39 times, and he’s still able to buy a weapon of war without anybody flinching. It’s just not viable any more.”
The line "it wouldn't have happened if the students had guns" has had me thinking a little while.
This is victim blaming. In a sense at least it says the victims died because they were unarmed.
If they were armed they would not be dead, their death is their own fault in the mind of the NRA, because they chose not to carry life ending weapons...
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
The line "it wouldn't have happened if the students had guns" has had me thinking a little while.
This is victim blaming. In a sense at least it says the victims died because they were unarmed.
If they were armed they would not be dead, their death is their own fault in the mind of the NRA, because they chose not to carry life ending weapons...
Apparently they need their guns to protect themselves from their government.
Read somewhere that total of the NRA political lobbying/donations to politicans over last 10 years is something like $300m
Surely some of the socially responsible multi billionaires can say 'we will replace any current NRA funding you receive dollar for dollar' to help negate this power they seem to hold.
Alternatively, the American public need to speak out and mobilise and push for big businesses to demand better gun control from the government. Am sure someone can come up with a catchy slogan along lines of 'we wont give you another cent, until you push for gun sense'
The line "it wouldn't have happened if the students had guns" has had me thinking a little while.
This is victim blaming. In a sense at least it says the victims died because they were unarmed.
If they were armed they would not be dead, their death is their own fault in the mind of the NRA, because they chose not to carry life ending weapons...
Apparently they need their guns to protect themselves from their government.
The line "it wouldn't have happened if the students had guns" has had me thinking a little while.
This is victim blaming. In a sense at least it says the victims died because they were unarmed.
If they were armed they would not be dead, their death is their own fault in the mind of the NRA, because they chose not to carry life ending weapons...
Apparently they need their guns to protect themselves from their government.
The mind boggles at the stupidity, but this does come from someone called TrumpGirl4Life, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise.
Who says in that very tweet that the government is so corrupt that we needs guns to protect ourselves from them, as she dedicates herself, for life no less, to the corrupt fact of that very government. I know they say American's don't get irony, but that is a masterclass!
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
While I don't agree with the sentiment you express, that sort of thing has already happened. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a practice session for the Congressional baseball game.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
While I don't agree with the sentiment you express, that sort of thing has already happened. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a practice session for the Congressional baseball game.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
I'm assuming it would require the whole of congress and their families to be wiped out in a gun attack for a debate to be had.
It is deeply troubling to view the pain of those who have suffered from this latest massacre of the innocents.
For all the magnificent efforts of the young woman's pleas recorded above if change did not happen after Sandy Hook why will it happen now? If Sandy Hook did not hit a nerve or ten with people then just what exactly will?
For all the shirt rending after the Las Vegas massacre, if it did not hit a nerve or ten then just what exactly will? Will this worthy impassioned plea on behalf of her fallen classmates with it's direct embarrassment of a President bring change?
Anybody who chooses to put their personal, corporate or political interest above the safety of their community has to look in their mirror hard each and every day. Will they? Maybe for a day or two but after a few days of thoughts & commiserations, a few water cooler moments, a church prayer or two, another rebuttal of the argument for control, it will likely be out of sight out of mind until .........the next time and so it goes on.
Her words carry many truths. It is ultimately a matter of personal deflection. It's not my fault. Why should I give up this or that? What about my/ my families protection? It is MY right!!! I blame A. B, C, ........X, Y, Z.
So another day sees another avoidable tragedy for many more American families where people were simply going about the "business of life" and whose lives now will never be the same.
Still, shit happens right!!
Guns are simply a fact of life in America.
America is a society of black, brown, "red", yellow, off white, white, north and south, east and west, rural and metropolitan, have and have nots, straight and gay, democrat and republican, religious and secular. Such labels are common to most societies, change a few descriptors and they could apply anywhere.
They create issues in every country. We all struggle to manage them. It is a matter of where you set your social barometer. The extra challenge is the worlds' "greatest democracy" allows/ promotes the extremes of of life, from obscene wealth to abject poverty, to the best medical treatment you can buy, to the poorest provision of social healthcare in the developed world. No matter the life & death impact the latter is governed by insurance & pharmaceutical moguls.
The US is a melting pot of humanity. They happily determine their own labels; African American, Mexican American, Latino, the Jewish community, Asian American, Korean American, even Irish or Italian American. They have Bible belts.
It is a vast country. Such identities, differences and "divisions" can survive happily within their own enclave. Once the values of the enclaves have to mingle there is friction, mistrust, fear and a retrenchment into stereotypes. Inter community judgement abounds even between "nerds" and "jocks".
How do you govern such a society? If France, a nation of 57 different cheeses, was once described as ungovernable how do you manage a society with cliques of every nationality, religious persuasion, financial and social demographic on the planet?
The answer is you don't. The less government you impose the more people feel empowered to live their lives without interference. The lighter the control the less friction you generate. It plays to the "nobody tells me/ us what to do" syndrome. This freedom plays to the excesses where you do have the chance to live the dream where God loves America, and the freedom to live in poverty, ill health, often without hope buoyed by minimal social "fail-safes".
In truth that there is so little conflict in US society is testimony to the humanity of people of every description, but in a population of 300mn any number will abuse their society by taking their freedoms to excess .........and overriding it all .........is the gun which forged the country in obliterating the indiginous population, in separating it from its colonial masters, in defending it from Mexican incursions and in forcing an uneasy accord after a bitter north-south civil war.
To argue the relevance of archaic gun law ignores history where many still rankle over a civil war ending 150yrs ago. A conflict defined by the abolition of slavery still registers as a corruption of the right of state self determination. The sense of injustice remains.
For all the joys of the cosmopolitan multi cultural communities across the US, a 4hr drive on the country roads between Dallas and Austin will still reveal the fading facades & tumbledown streets evidencing the challenges of local economies struggling to survive.
Just last month provoked memories of a violent past with the death in prison of the one person convicted of the real life racially motivated murders of 3 student volunteers as fictionalised in the film Mississippi Burning when the KKK was in its prime ........just 54yrs ago.
The Civil Rights act was passed in many of our life times in 1964.
I do not allude to any racial motive in this latest tragedy but to suggest much of America has readily moved on from such a violent history is I fear an assumption too far. Thus the right to bear arms will remain enshrined in the US constitution.
The NRA will defend with religious fervour the rights of the "common" people to defend themselves. It as an archaic argument but if Government take away the right to bear arms what next?
Did not those who saw themselves as the forgotten & ignored communities of America reject the hated political establishment to elect Trump? Are they all white supremacists? No, many have a legitimate political argument but the rhetoric plays to the excessive fringe.
The consequences are tragic but the gun is as American as Apple Pie or the Stars & Stripes. How you manage the excesses attached to gun ownership argues to the same corruption of a political system as seen in the life & death healthcare system. It is governed by money & privilege and subject to the most expensive and powerful undue influence of a lobbying industry second to none.
Insurance, Pharmaceutical or Gun Company, the message is the same, money doesn't so much talk as shout, scream and stamp its foot. Is there an appetite to change the US political landscape? How do you overturn the entrenched abuse of privilege within the political establishment?
Just maybe this time the voices of children will be heard but in terms of gun control how would it even be achieved? Any attempt to even computerise gun registration is positioned as a challenge to civil liberties. You really think you can secure & enforce alignment across federal, every state and every county judiciary & law enforcement authority in 50 states?
What about the 300 million guns supposedly already in circulation? It would take 20 yrs and millions of dollars to play catch up. For every control procedure you enhance the prospects of the illegal gun trade. With probably the largest natural borders on the planet you would face prohibition all over again.
For my daughter an inhabitant of New York, the fear of loss of life or life changing injury/ trauma through gun violence in America is as natural as that through natural causes, a traffic accident or a man made/ natural disaster be it air, fire, water or wind. You just do not think about it. It is a risk to some degree you can manage by where you live and how you live your life but, as with every other challenge, life comes with no guarantees.
So the horror, the commiseration, the tears, the anger, the prayers, the railing against the injustice & tragedy of it all is today the best we can do and frustratingly and shamefully most likely the best that will ever be done.
Inevitably the sun will come up tomorrow and we will all simply get on with the "business of our lives".
To quote a fine young woman it is BS but such it seems, is the nature of the human animal.
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
While I don't agree with the sentiment you express, that sort of thing has already happened. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a practice session for the Congressional baseball game.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
Hope is putting it a bit strongly, I will admit. And I agree that Sandy Hook was the nadir, and if that didn't do it, nothing ever will.
But i do wonder if these idiots were targeted systematically whether a sudden change of stance might be apparent in some quarters.
Ironic that a reason for taking up arms against the government might be to get the government to do something about how easy it is to take up arms in the first place.
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
While I don't agree with the sentiment you express, that sort of thing has already happened. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a practice session for the Congressional baseball game.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
I'm assuming it would require the whole of congress and their families to be wiped out in a gun attack for a debate to be had.
Even then, I'm not sure it would make any difference!
The arseholes that govern America will do what they always do - wait for the fuss to die down and keep banking the gun lobby dollars. I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
While I don't agree with the sentiment you express, that sort of thing has already happened. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a practice session for the Congressional baseball game.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
I'm assuming it would require the whole of congress and their families to be wiped out in a gun attack for a debate to be had.
These politicians that take money from the NRA are a shining example of them working for the companies that line their pockets instead of the people that voted them to power.
If Trump wants to really 'drain the swamp' he should start with the gun lobby. But as they fund him and represent his base we all know that's not going to happen. Good to see him coming under pressure now from the survivors: hopefully it will be the start of a major movement that says enough is enough.
If Trump wants to really 'drain the swamp' he should start with the gun lobby. But as they fund him and represent his base we all know that's not going to happen. Good to see him coming under pressure now from the survivors: hopefully it will be the start of a major movement that says enough is enough.
Unfortunately this will soon become just yesterday’s news and forgotten until the next time when they go through the hand wringing and crocodile tears and on it goes.
Each child should have their own armed guard and set of nuclear warheads to ensure their safety.
Interesting use of the word "... effectively defending our kids" in that nonsense. How many times has a school shooting incident been stopped through the armed intervention of a teacher does anyone know?
Why is it they don't see that most of these shootings are carried out by people with little or no criminal history and most are assumed to have mental illness issues.
The availability of guns IS the issue. If you can't own a gun (unless a farmer etc) & have a gun against the law, prepare to be arrested.
The only people that should be armed in the WORLD not just America are the law enforcement and the military.
This so-called logic also ignores the fact that if criminals have guns and you don't they probably won't need to shoot you!. Sure, you might get robbed but at least you'll still be alive. And how many of the mass shooting involved weapons that were not acquired legally?
Comments
Has some great comments made by kids who are just looking for a common sense approach to gun control and for intensive checks before handing out guns.
One kids said “We’re not asking to repeal the second amendment, we’re asking for common sense, like more intensive background checks. It’s always a troubled young man, in our case somebody who’s been expelled, reported to police 39 times, and he’s still able to buy a weapon of war without anybody flinching. It’s just not viable any more.”
This is victim blaming. In a sense at least it says the victims died because they were unarmed.
If they were armed they would not be dead, their death is their own fault in the mind of the NRA, because they chose not to carry life ending weapons...
I hope every single senator and congressman refusing to even consider sensible controls on reducing the easy availability of guns to the mentally unstable, putting their political comfort before the lives of children, is shot in the head by a psychopath with an assault weapon for which no background checks were needed.
That's absolutely fucked.
Surely some of the socially responsible multi billionaires can say 'we will replace any current NRA funding you receive dollar for dollar' to help negate this power they seem to hold.
Alternatively, the American public need to speak out and mobilise and push for big businesses to demand better gun control from the government.
Am sure someone can come up with a catchy slogan along lines of 'we wont give you another cent, until you push for gun sense'
Twitter message: Government is corrupt
What a moron.
Even though he was nearly killed, Scalise remains a card carrying NRA member and staunch defender of the right to bear arms. I've said it before, if Sandy Hook didn't change the US attitude to gun control, nothing ever will.
For all the magnificent efforts of the young woman's pleas recorded above if change did not happen after Sandy Hook why will it happen now? If Sandy Hook did not hit a nerve or ten with people then just what exactly will?
For all the shirt rending after the Las Vegas massacre, if it did not hit a nerve or ten then just what exactly will? Will this worthy impassioned plea on behalf of her fallen classmates with it's direct embarrassment of a President bring change?
Anybody who chooses to put their personal, corporate or political interest above the safety of their community has to look in their mirror hard each and every day. Will they? Maybe for a day or two but after a few days of thoughts & commiserations, a few water cooler moments, a church prayer or two, another rebuttal of the argument for control, it will likely be out of sight out of mind until .........the next time and so it goes on.
Her words carry many truths. It is ultimately a matter of personal deflection. It's not my fault. Why should I give up this or that? What about my/ my families protection? It is MY right!!! I blame A. B, C, ........X, Y, Z.
So another day sees another avoidable tragedy for many more American families where people were simply going about the "business of life" and whose lives now will never be the same.
Still, shit happens right!!
Guns are simply a fact of life in America.
America is a society of black, brown, "red", yellow, off white, white, north and south, east and west, rural and metropolitan, have and have nots, straight and gay, democrat and republican, religious and secular. Such labels are common to most societies, change a few descriptors and they could apply anywhere.
They create issues in every country. We all struggle to manage them. It is a matter of where you set your social barometer. The extra challenge is the worlds' "greatest democracy" allows/ promotes the extremes of of life, from obscene wealth to abject poverty, to the best medical treatment you can buy, to the poorest provision of social healthcare in the developed world. No matter the life & death impact the latter is governed by insurance & pharmaceutical moguls.
The US is a melting pot of humanity. They happily determine their own labels; African American, Mexican American, Latino, the Jewish community, Asian American, Korean American, even Irish or Italian American. They have Bible belts.
It is a vast country. Such identities, differences and "divisions" can survive happily within their own enclave. Once the values of the enclaves have to mingle there is friction, mistrust, fear and a retrenchment into stereotypes. Inter community judgement abounds even between "nerds" and "jocks".
How do you govern such a society? If France, a nation of 57 different cheeses, was once described as ungovernable how do you manage a society with cliques of every nationality, religious persuasion, financial and social demographic on the planet?
The answer is you don't. The less government you impose the more people feel empowered to live their lives without interference. The lighter the control the less friction you generate. It plays to the "nobody tells me/ us what to do" syndrome. This freedom plays to the excesses where you do have the chance to live the dream where God loves America, and the freedom to live in poverty, ill health, often without hope buoyed by minimal social "fail-safes".
In truth that there is so little conflict in US society is testimony to the humanity of people of every description, but in a population of 300mn any number will abuse their society by taking their freedoms to excess .........and overriding it all .........is the gun which forged the country in obliterating the indiginous population, in separating it from its colonial masters, in defending it from Mexican incursions and in forcing an uneasy accord after a bitter north-south civil war.
To argue the relevance of archaic gun law ignores history where many still rankle over a civil war ending 150yrs ago. A conflict defined by the abolition of slavery still registers as a corruption of the right of state self determination. The sense of injustice remains.
For all the joys of the cosmopolitan multi cultural communities across the US, a 4hr drive on the country roads between Dallas and Austin will still reveal the fading facades & tumbledown streets evidencing the challenges of local economies struggling to survive.
Just last month provoked memories of a violent past with the death in prison of the one person convicted of the real life racially motivated murders of 3 student volunteers as fictionalised in the film Mississippi Burning when the KKK was in its prime ........just 54yrs ago.
The Civil Rights act was passed in many of our life times in 1964.
I do not allude to any racial motive in this latest tragedy but to suggest much of America has readily moved on from such a violent history is I fear an assumption too far. Thus the right to bear arms will remain enshrined in the US constitution.
The NRA will defend with religious fervour the rights of the "common" people to defend themselves. It as an archaic argument but if Government take away the right to bear arms what next?
Did not those who saw themselves as the forgotten & ignored communities of America reject the hated political establishment to elect Trump? Are they all white supremacists? No, many have a legitimate political argument but the rhetoric plays to the excessive fringe.
The consequences are tragic but the gun is as American as Apple Pie or the Stars & Stripes. How you manage the excesses attached to gun ownership argues to the same corruption of a political system as seen in the life & death healthcare system. It is governed by money & privilege and subject to the most expensive and powerful undue influence of a lobbying industry second to none.
Insurance, Pharmaceutical or Gun Company, the message is the same, money doesn't so much talk as shout, scream and stamp its foot. Is there an appetite to change the US political landscape? How do you overturn the entrenched abuse of privilege within the political establishment?
Just maybe this time the voices of children will be heard but in terms of gun control how would it even be achieved? Any attempt to even computerise gun registration is positioned as a challenge to civil liberties. You really think you can secure & enforce alignment across federal, every state and every county judiciary & law enforcement authority in 50 states?
What about the 300 million guns supposedly already in circulation? It would take 20 yrs and millions of dollars to play catch up. For every control procedure you enhance the prospects of the illegal gun trade. With probably the largest natural borders on the planet you would face prohibition all over again.
For my daughter an inhabitant of New York, the fear of loss of life or life changing injury/ trauma through gun violence in America is as natural as that through natural causes, a traffic accident or a man made/ natural disaster be it air, fire, water or wind. You just do not think about it. It is a risk to some degree you can manage by where you live and how you live your life but, as with every other challenge, life comes with no guarantees.
So the horror, the commiseration, the tears, the anger, the prayers, the railing against the injustice & tragedy of it all is today the best we can do and frustratingly and shamefully most likely the best that will ever be done.
Inevitably the sun will come up tomorrow and we will all simply get on with the "business of our lives".
To quote a fine young woman it is BS but such it seems, is the nature of the human animal.
But i do wonder if these idiots were targeted systematically whether a sudden change of stance might be apparent in some quarters.
Ironic that a reason for taking up arms against the government might be to get the government to do something about how easy it is to take up arms in the first place.
Why is it they don't see that most of these shootings are carried out by people with little or no criminal history and most are assumed to have mental illness issues.
The availability of guns IS the issue. If you can't own a gun (unless a farmer etc) & have a gun against the law, prepare to be arrested.
The only people that should be armed in the WORLD not just America are the law enforcement and the military.
(Not you, Canters, for the avoidance of doubt)