19 children and two adults murdered in school shooting in Texas

It was not meant to be taken literally.

Hithere

Please do not generalize

Not all US residents like guns - dont let a bad apple ruin the crop

America is a continent, not a country.

I agree Hithere in the same way as all British people don't carry knives.

I am travelling to USA on Friday for my grandson's wedding, it will be interesting to hear how the American branch of the family feel about their gun laws.

Grammaretto

My American cousin wants to come and live here. She hates so many things about her country and this is her ancestral home. It was her gt grandparents who emigrated from Scotland in about 1880 for that better life..

My Gt Grandparents emigrated too in the 1850s when there was a high level of emigration from Europe to America.
They came back after a couple of years.

My son in law is American. He was in the US Navy, where as well as shooting he learnt useful thinks like arming nuclear missiles and making Napalm. DH was a competition shooter and they first met on a shooting range. SiL has been living over here for nearly 30 years now, he loved shooting while he was in the Navy but he hasn't touched a gun during that 30 years and is totally against the US gun laws or lack of them. He's found it perfectly easy to live without a gun but his family in the US tend to think he's a total lefty snowflake.

Lots of misinformation on this thread about American gun laws. Oh, well.

There are more guns than people in the USA. 74% of all the privately owned guns are owned in the USA. Why a would any private citizen, least of all a teenager with mental health issues, need to own an automatic military standard gun? I can’t believe anyone supports this yet they do. It’s funny that those who want to ban abortion are also the same ones who want the freedom to own any amount of weapons intended for killing they like. In some ways the USA is a very backward looking society with these sort of attitudes.

Veganrocks

Again, do not stereotype 329.5 million people

Some states are more backwards than others - what do you say about CA, NY, etc.
?

It is widely known this board disaproves of anything US (customs, language, etc) but please do use your common sense and stop painting everybody with the same brush

British people wouldnt like the stereotype that they get outside their country (racist, snobbish, unwelcoming to foreigners, horrible cuisine, etc)

It is a horrible situation and everybody is outraged

Oh the hypocrisy

www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101181842/nra-trump-speech-guns-banned-houston

Hithere

Veganrocks

Again, do not stereotype 329.5 million people

Some states are more backwards than others - what do you say about CA, NY, etc.
?

It is widely known this board disaproves of anything US (customs, language, etc) but please do use your common sense and stop painting everybody with the same brush

British people wouldnt like the stereotype that they get outside their country (racist, snobbish, unwelcoming to foreigners, horrible cuisine, etc)

It is a horrible situation and everybody is outraged

Understanding the differences between states is difficult but doesn't detract from the point that those 300+million people can't seem to protect their own children from anyone who chooses to purchase, and use the most destructive automatic weapon, which no citizen could possibly have a peaceful use for.

Does this board "automatically disapprove of anything US"? I don't think so. Many of us have family there. Much of our culture is linked with that country.
Do some of us dislike certain things about the US. Of course we do. And we know that sometimes those things spread across to this country and we feel free to say we don't like them.
None of this is "automatic"

Well said Glorianny

The NRA seems to hold sway in America, however many US citizens may disapprove.

British people wouldnt like the stereotype that they get outside their country (racist, snobbish, unwelcoming to foreigners, horrible cuisine, etc)


Of course, Americans are not racist, unwelcoming to foreigners (walls, anyone?) and their cuisine is renowned around the world!

glorianna I do not “automatically disapprove of anything US”, I could give you a list of things I like about the US. This wasn’t the discussion. But I certainly don’t like the laws that state it’s the right to own military weapons. Another statistic - more pre schoolers are killed by guns in an average year in the USA than police officers. That’s got to be wrong isn’t it? Over 40% of Americans say they have a gun , and many have more than one. Please don’t defend this - I know it’s not everyone but it’s a big enough percentage to stop any effective gun control from happening despite dozens of school shootings. How must parents feel in the US today sending their children into school?

It wasn't Glorianny who said that, vegansrock, it was another poster.
Gloranny was quoting that poster and in fact said much the same as you:
Does this board "automatically disapprove of anything US"? I don't think so. Many of us have family there

I read, this morning,that there have been 248 MASS SHOOTINGS in the USA in 2022 ,that not even 5 months !

Something really wrong with any government that believes this is OK .

The names of these atrocities blur because they are so frequent yet here we can vividly remember Dunblane all these years down the road.We dont want it to happen again .

Can we assume its just everyday life in the USA?

IF not why haven't the public done something to stop it?

Kandinsky

They want to ban abortion because a woman can’t possibly have control over her own body, yet they let any idiot ( usually male ) buy a gun.

This ^ is spot on. ?

I am not defending gun ownership.

It is not the high % of ownership, the main issue is different
2 or 3 decades ago violent attacks were rare.
Something shifted then and it slowly became what it is now

It is a smaller % of that 40% who is the problem - owning military equipment, not one piece but an arsenal, etc

I dont doubt this is tied with the uncertain and turbulent political environment in the last decade plus - the US is more divided than ever.
Trump emboldened and normalized dysfunction and dangerous individuals followed suit

Yesterday it was not only a guy with a AR 15 - it was the whole set of events that made this possible and failed to stop it
From posting in SM days before the attack, boasting to friend about making the news, to announcing the attack 15 min before, the school security failing to stop him, the police doing nothing for 40 min to 1 hour, the parents having to take matters into their own hands and break windows to save other kids.... the perfect storm

Apologies glorianna I should have addressed my previous comments to hithere

My daughter and grandchildren live in Texas. The children go to the local elementary school. Imagine how I felt when I saw these dreadful headlines. There is no need for automatic weapons, you don’t need one of those to shoot deer or whatever innocent creature you are blasting.

Yes, hithere but surely there should be controls over who is allowed to own a gun? Here in the U.K., a legal gun licence can only be obtained by jumping through hoops such as background checks, police interviews , checks with the GP over mental health and you have to have them locked up in secure storage, which the police inspect regularly. Only people with a good reason for gun ownership would be granted a licence. Military style weapons are not permitted for private ownership. Criminals can get hold of guns, but it is much more difficult and gun crime is not an everyday occurrence unlike in the US.

You nailed it!

Gun control measures are very much needed but interpreted as "interference of their rights by the state"

I have just read that some restaurants give a discount to you if you have your gun with you. Beggars belief.

I am shocked.How many more innocents are to perish.?
ACT NOW Mr President .

The gun lobby pay republicans to vote against the gun law reforms.
It's going to be an uphill struggle but so worth it.

A few years ago, I was in a Facebook piano teachers' group that had members from all over the world - many of whom came from the USA. I have never forgotten a post from one teacher who wrote that a seven-year-old pupil had asked her if she had a gun (l could not imagine a British child even thinking about the same thing. She said that she was reluctant to say that she did not possess one, nor because she was anti-gun but because all her neighbours had one and if she fell out with one of them they might well shoot her and she would be defenceless against them. Unbelievable! Unfortunately, this mindset seems to be all too common in the USA and until the collective mindset changes these dreadful tragedies will continue.

It wont happen, it didnt happen under Obama, I sincerely doubt it will happen under Biden.

I am sickened like everyone else on this thread. If they won't change their gun laws then security in schools must be stepped up to make it harder to get into them. Even then it's not impossible for such crimes to happen. It is dreadful to think of or imagine the level of security needed to prevent such outrages is such places where young people are sent to learn.
If they don't find a way to improve their gun laws then it is like giving permission for these appalling events to happen
I can't help thinking of the violence we see in films, computer games and on TV and how it affects vulnerable minds. What a reflection of the society mankind has created.