Now a shooting in Copenhagen

No. It's not.

Not really.

No

That’s the first question I asked. It’s quite hard trying to be positive when there’s so much gloom.

Indeed Bellanonna and all of it man-made. Utterly depressing.

No. We just don't know where will be next

Just dreadful.
We have just booked to go to a Christmas Market abroad, and do you know what? An awful thought crossed my mind for a few minutes.
We also stayed in Nice in the same spot where there was the atrocity.
We even had a terrorist detonate a bomb in a restaurant here in Devon. He later hung himself in prison.
Nowhere is safe, I hate that feeling. It pervades daily life sometimes.
Evil.

It is not being treated as terrorist it’s a home grown person possible with mental health issues plenty of which we have on our home ground

I don’t think we should think everywhere is unsafe we just hear such instant news when I was 22 and living in the far east there were a lot of bombings, parcel bombs in the road, curfews, retaliation, a bit like Ireland my mum and dad back in U.K. knew nothing about the dangers I was living with because there was no social media no phones no instant news now we are party to everything instantly and it seems a very scary world but it always has been

I read the shooter is a right wing extremist. He’s of white Danish origin.

I can’t think of one ‘lone woolf’ terrorist who wasn’t found to have been seeking to have their distorted thinking confirmed on the internet. The majority have unusual personalities and diagnosable mental health problems. Drugs are often a factor.

I'm with you Bluebelle in that we shouldn't live in constant fear. Stuff happens. DH was coming home from work in the Kings X fire, I lived next door to Ross McWhirter when he was shot on the doorstep by the IRA. But there's no denying we don't take a gulp eveytime these things happen and shudder, or we wouldn't be normal human beings.

Another case of someone who has mental health problems being able to get hold of a gun. I'm not sure what the gun laws are like in Denmark. Unfortunately it seems that if one is determined enough anything is possible with the Internet etc.

Almost every single shooter/knife wielder, in Europe and in the USA, terrorist or non-terrorist, has first and foremost had drug and mental health issues.

Perhaps more should be done to deal with those, especially the drug issues. major campaigns to deal with the drug trade and drug abuse, might well be a start on dealing with the shooting and knifing incidents, that have become so fashionable, I use that word advisedly, as a means of the deranged, and drug addled to deal with their problems.

Good point MOnica, about the need to invest in drug/alcohol and mental health treatments.
I’ve never believed that legalising drugs is the answer but the level of violence associated with the illegal trade is spiralling. We have children used as mules, men with machetes having running battles on our streets. So many drug addicted babies born, so much domestic abuse and child neglect/abuse associated with substance misuse, do we need a re-think. De-criminalisation, could it help?

I don’t know, the other - or alongside issue would be investing in good services, including the police, to confront it

And another. A 4th July shooting in America.

I cannot see how decriminalisation can in anyway reduce incidents like the most recent one in Denmark, and another one in the USA.

In almost all these incidents, whether random or with a terrorist intent, the person wielding the gun/knife is a drug user and their rampage has no connection with criminal drug dealing, beyond that their suppliers are criminal. Just a history of drug use and mental health issues. Decriminalising their supply would probably make the problem worse rather than better.

But why the escalation of such events over the past 2 or 3 decades? Video games, social media?

Fashion. Crime goes in fashions just like anything else. It is a culturally relevant response, and of course, the more of these events that happen and are reported, the more likely it is that some other disaffected person will do what everyone else is doing.

Is there an escalation though? I dont mean in America which I think culturally is having all sorts of issues at the moment. But if you look at Europe my younger years had a backdrop of very regular terrorist attacks from the IRA.

Joseanne media I think, the dark web, disposed groups and individuals have an audience there, even ‘followers’.
I don’t offer answers

dispossessed

I don’t think there is an escalation I think it comes in batches and also we have so much instant news now We almost know the 3vent before it’s happened

I suspect the 24 hour instant news is one of the reasons fewer people are watching the news. I used to enjoy 7pm channel 4, it remains the best imo but, I’m no longer a nightly viewer.

Galaxy The IRA were an organised group with a planned pattern of violent attacks. The Basque separatist movement was similar.

What we are seeing now are random attacks by disaffected individuals, all over the world. These are a recent phenomina.

Why is this happening? I think it is a combination of the explosion of news availability, 24/7, that means the disaffected have constant access to what is happening world wide. Another cause is I think is movement of refugees and displaced people, not just across borders to a neighbouring country - and back, but flooding into other areas of the world, in countries whose cultures and life styles are different. (This is not anti-immigration argument). I am talking about the individuals who have been displaced. The adults usually cope, but the children are often torn between, parents keeping to their traditional lifestyle at home and the culture of the new country and whose mental health deteriorates or they escape into drug addiction.

I think the fragmented lives other children have, violence in the home, no stable father figure etc also contributes to mental health and addiction problems.

I was watching a short item on addictio on i player, where the presenter said that all addiction was a reaction to trauma, no matter how damaging the addiction, it was better than facing the trauma.

I think, not just in the UK, far more should be done to support children through and after trauma and schools and individuals should be more pro-active in helping them. it is no use saying after an eventnthat the perpetrator, was a loner, had an obsession with guns/knives etc, if no one saw these as warning signs of a youth with problems and took some aaction.

Good post MOnica and I think we have a perfect storm when you throw in drugs, violent video games, violent movies and the internet.

Unfortunately lashings of money can be made from all the above and the people who make these things don't care about the damage they're doing to society.