19 children and two adults murdered in school shooting in Texas

It might not make a scrap of difference to ban guns tomorrow but it would be a start. I can't see any purpose in saying "it will never work"
Machine guns first, obviously.
A lot of Americans are law abiding. Make a law and they will most likely want to obey it.
It is far too easy to access weapons. In Scotland knives are the usual weapon of choice but although they are lethal it's not easy to kill a classroom of children with a knife.
The massacre of children at Dunblane, led to tighter gun law. In New Zealand, after the mosque shootings, their gun laws too were changed
Thumb screws were banned and those grim medieval weapons aren't used anymore. I think Madame Guillotine is in a museum.

The law that forbid to sell weapons like ar-15 expired in 2004 - after being valid for 10
years

The government has not been able to put it back into effect since then - despite multiple tries.

This is how military guns are in the hands of civilians- greed, lobbyists and fanatics are a horrible mix

Republicans won’t even approve of laws which increase background checks when buying a gun. My OH owns a couple of guns. He had to get a note from his GP, have the police visit the house to check where he would keep the guns and have a firearms certificate. The police are at liberty to call at any time and do a spot check that the guns are locked away safely.

If America changed gun laws tomorrow it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference because there are already more guns than people in the USA. I can’t see a gun amnesty happening any time soon. You can buy a gun at 18 but can’t drink alcohol until you’re 20?! Utter madness.

400 million guns in America apparently and you can legally own a gun at 18 in most states but not allowed to buy alcohol until 21.
Guns kill more children there than Cancer or road accidents.
I heard an American man interviewed this afternoon and he said the problem is that there are not enough guns to protect people, that all school staff should have guns, be prepared to use them and have them within reach at all times. Absolutely sickening.

I have just read that the husband of the older teacher to be killed, has died two days after the shootings, of a heart attack, leaving 4 children orphaned.......

My thoughts too Chestnut. One gun per adult, the gun to be below a certain calibre and a minimum age requirement of 21 although older may be preferable, surely wouldn't be an infringement of the constitution.

How many guns does someone need to own?

The right to bear arms doesn't need to include automatic rifles does it? These are military weapons. Why not restrict the type of gun to hand pistols only? That doesn't infringe on their damn constitution.

I recall Charlton Heston making much of the right to carry arms; he announced on TV in his very best Ben Hur fashion that his gun would have to be prised out of his 'cold, dead hand', amidst great cheering. Those poor cold, dead children; it is absolutely horrific, and they were picked off one by one. Thinking of the terror they endured is unbearable, but what will change in America?, and how many massacres of this nature will it take before they do something to control the number of guns so freely available?

I was interested to see a "local" person interviewed about their views on owning guns in the USA.
They said that it is the legal right for US citizens to bear arms and they didn't want that right to be taken away !
What about the right of those young children and teachers to have a fulfilled life to it's own natural conclusion ?
I think that if it doesn't directly affect them (ie relative being one of those that were basically murdered) they seem quite happy to turn a blind eye - absolutely appalling!

kjmpde

will somebody please explain why it is against human rights to restrict access to guns as claimed by the NRA. It is claimed that a child is killed in the USA nearly every hour by guns. A lady that had her child killed by a gun stated 120 families a day have their life devastated by guns . I wonder where their human rights fits into the picture?

I don't think its Human Rights that they talk about, I think its Constitutional Rights.

In my sad experience kjmpde it is always those with the loudest voices who are listened to while the quieter folks are ignored.

will somebody please explain why it is against human rights to restrict access to guns as claimed by the NRA. It is claimed that a child is killed in the USA nearly every hour by guns. A lady that had her child killed by a gun stated 120 families a day have their life devastated by guns . I wonder where their human rights fits into the picture?

Seems ridiculous 18 year olds can buy guns with ease yet cannot legally buy a beer until 21 years, Kindle eggs are also something they can't buy in case they choke on the small toy inside!!

Another loss of innocent lives, due to idiotic laws. He could legally buy a gun at 18 yrs of age, but it was against the law for him to drink alcohol until he was 21. Ridiculous.

Most of Europe has access to the same films and TV as the USA, strangely enough they dont have mass school shootings. It's a mystery what the difference could be.

I don't approve either of the ease with which Americans can legally own practically any firearm they want.

However, restricting that freedom, if indeed it can be done without altering the American constitution, is apparently very difficult.

Sadly, even if new laws about ownership of weapons ever does come into force, they will not entirely solve the problem.

This is not just about being able to own a gun.

It is also about a society that has a lot of people, some legally in their right mind, others not, and a category who may be legally sane, but are certainly maladjusted, or desperate through what they perceive as injustice they have suffered.

Not only the US but all of us need to consider solving the underlying problems behind these atrocities. This means changing a long, long list of attitudes and opinions, from racism to the fact that violence is regarded by film companies, TV producers, writers and a very, very large section of the general public as acceptable entertainment.

For years we have been told that all children and youngsters can distinguish between fiction and reality and that violence in films is not harmful.

Surely it is time to consider that this is obviously not so, and is one of the reasons that the very thought of marching into a school or a supermarket and killing as many as you can before you are yourself killed occurs to so many people, not only as a sick fantasy, but as something they are willing to carry out.

Probably said previously, but the President is really powerless unless Congress backs him, and there are too many that do not. It was the same with Obama. He said on leaving the position, that his biggest regret in office was not changing gun laws. My grandchildren are moving from New York state (not city) to Iowa, and I would like to think they will be a bit safer there but there are nutters all over the country. If it weren't for family, I would never set foot in that country again. (Other reasons as well.)

Until the self-serving politicians funded by the gun lobby are voted out nothing will change. They know who they are. The American people know who they are. A determined effort must be made to equate their actions to hush-money payments they will not be voted out and nothing will change.

Democrats and the public have been begging for gun control measures for decades

We are not even asking to ban guns

Sadly, not sure how much Biden can do under these circumstances

I dont think people living outside the US see how at odds dems and reps are - it is a war about to explode for years, it is like are heading to another civil war

The coup d'etat on Jan 6th 2021 - if you hear it from some reps fanatics' pov, they are the victims and they were only expressing their opinion.

Couples have divorced for political differences, families have had rifts, lost friends....

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.

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

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.

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

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