Mass Shooting in California

Pixie13 wrote:

I lived through IRA bomb attacks in the 90s and mass-shootings are much more analogous with those than knife attacks.

Did you try banning bombs?

Ha ha, obviously bombs were banned but you know what we did do? We removed every rubbish bin from train stations so bombs couldn't be left there and blow us up. If there was a piece of unattended luggage, you would freak out, the police would come and the whole station would be evacuated (was in 2 evacuation before I was 10, thanks for funding the IRA Boston) and some poor fool's backpack would be safely blown up. So no, we didn't ban something that was already illegal but we did take action to reduce citizens' deaths.

If something happens repeatedly, you have to start looking at taking measures to stop people dying. Why is that so hard to see?

And oh yes, the "mental illness" is the issue. How about not letting people with mental illnesses that make them prone to violence and self-harm get hold of guns?

Pixie13 wrote:

And oh yes, the "mental illness" is the issue. How about not letting people with mental illnesses that make them prone to violence and self-harm get hold of guns?

How about we help people with mental illnesses and not let them suffer in silence?

Nobody is saying you can't have gun control AND help people with mental illness. It isn't mutually exclusive.

Perhaps the NRA could start a charity to fund PTSD clinics for veterans rather than lobbying politicians,?

Tommy QTR wrote:

I don't why you had to bring race into this but okay. The problem with Mass Shootings in America is not with guns, it's with mental illness; if the guns are the real issue then how come there are no School/Mass Shootings in Switzerland, Serbia, Cyprus, Greece, Northern Ireland etc...? I think it's absolutely disgusting that whenever there's a new tragedy, people focus the blame on intimate objects and not the real issue.

If guns are banned a person with mental illness will probably have hard times finding them. There’s a chance this idea will be dropped (even if the chance is small). In the US literally everyone who has a gun can just go to a mall and start shooting. When guns are so easy to obtain a bullied kid can start planning a massacre when there’s a gun in his father’s room. You say there are no shootings in Switzerland etc, but there’re also no shootings in other counties with stricter gun controls. And also the population is so much smaller in Switzerland than in the US.
It looks like almost everyone in the US has visited a psychologist at least once. It doesn’t look like people don’t pay any attention to mental issues. I’m not saying guns are responsible for killing, but if a person with mental illness can get a gun so easily it’s scary.

Pixie13 wrote:

Nobody is saying you can't have gun control AND help people with mental illness. It isn't mutually exclusive.

Perhaps the NRA could start a charity to fund PTSD clinics for veterans rather than lobbying politicians,?

Or maybe David Hogg and the Marchforourlives kids could focus on mental health and not blame guns for everything?

lockerouch wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

I don't why you had to bring race into this but okay. The problem with Mass Shootings in America is not with guns, it's with mental illness; if the guns are the real issue then how come there are no School/Mass Shootings in Switzerland, Serbia, Cyprus, Greece, Northern Ireland etc...? I think it's absolutely disgusting that whenever there's a new tragedy, people focus the blame on intimate objects and not the real issue.

If guns are banned a person with mental illness will probably have hard times finding them. There’s a chance this idea will be dropped (even if the chance is small). In the US literally everyone who has a gun can just go to a mall and start shooting. When guns are so easy to obtain a bullied kid can start planning a massacre when there’s a gun in his father’s room. You say there are no shootings in Switzerland etc, but there’re also no shootings in other counties with stricter gun controls. And also the population is so much smaller in Switzerland than in the US.
It looks like almost everyone in the US has visited a psychologist at least once. It doesn’t look like people don’t pay any attention to mental issues. I’m not saying guns are responsible for killing, but if a person with mental illness can get a gun so easily it’s scary.

I can't even begin with how ridiculous this is.

1. If a person is determined to kill people, they're not going to abide by the law.
2. Not everyone in America has a gun, and it's not that easy to get one either.
3. A kid wouldn't be planning a massacre if the first place if he wasn't bullied.
4. Not every person in the US has visited a psychologist, considering mental health services in America are expensive.
5. Yes Switzerland has a smaller population than the US, but so does many other countries with strict gun laws yet anti gunners love point to them as examples.
6. A person with mental illness can also easily get a knife or a car, should we ban them as well?

Tommy QTR wrote:

I can't even begin with how ridiculous this is.

1. If a person is determined to kill people, they're not going to abide by the law.
2. Not everyone in America has a gun, and it's not that easy to get one either.
3. A kid wouldn't be planning a massacre if the first place if he wasn't bullied.
4. Not every person in the US has visited a psychologist, considering mental health services in America are expensive.
5. Yes Switzerland has a smaller population than the US, but so does many other countries with strict gun laws yet anti gunners love point to them as examples.
6. A person with mental illness can also easily get a knife or a car, should we ban them as well?

I don’t think other countries pay more attention to mental issues. I’ve been working for insurance and I noticed that most people have at least 1 medical record from a psychologist/psychiatrist in the US.
Bullying is a common thing in every country, you won’t do anything with it. But the majority of school shootings happens in the US.
We are talking about mass shootings, one will not kill so many people with a knife.

Anyway, there’s no point in discussing that. We’ll just have to agree to disagree

Tommy QTR wrote:

Pixie13 wrote:

Nobody is saying you can't have gun control AND help people with mental illness. It isn't mutually exclusive.

Perhaps the NRA could start a charity to fund PTSD clinics for veterans rather than lobbying politicians,?

Or maybe David Hogg and the Marchforourlives kids could focus on mental health and not blame guns for everything?

I don't like to get involved in debates about gun control and won't really discuss my opinions on it but I agree with Tommy about mental illness and the lack of help made available to mentally sick teenagers. Unless a teen actually addresses their own problems, no one will ever really know about it because teenagers are notorious for hiding their suffering and not wanting to talk about their problems or even go to their parents or any authority figure for help.

When I started high school, every single student in 9th grade had to have a physical by the school doctor. During that physical, they didn't even address mental health whatsoever. And I'm wondering why they don't? The statistics are ridiculous when it comes to mental illness among teenagers. Something like 20%. If you take a school like Columbine that had roughly 2000 students, over 400 of them suffered from some kind of mental illness and I bet that Columbine did absolutely nothing to address mental health, just like every other high school in America. How come mental illness isn't addressed and why aren't students having routine mental health checks? Mental health is just as important, if not more important than physical health when you're talking about teenagers.

I mean, guns have always been there. Since the constitution, guns have been there. Guns are not the only problem. Taking away guns is not going to fix a mental illness epidemic among teenagers. And I believe that the root of every single one of these shootings is mental illness because people who are mentally sound, do not go and murder others and then commit suicide. How is just getting rid of guns going to help teenagers who are suffering from mental illness? It's ludicrous to me that all we ever hear about is guns. What about helping out teenagers who are sick and suffering?

That's just my 2 cents on it anyway.

Jenn, I entirely agree that mental health is an issue in young people, it is in the UK too. The problems that people uses it as an excuse not to discuss sensible gun control (I'm not even talking about banning guns, you can still legally own guns in the UK) and at the same time nobody comes up with any solutions to the mental health epidemic. How it would help trouble teenagers, is it would remove the means they have from killing dozens on classmates before they kill themselves. It would also make it harder for them to successfully kill themselves.

As someone who works with under 21s in the UK, I think it is very much linked to the pressure of the education systems and a lack of resilience built into the younger generation. It is not something that should be medicalised but something we need to work on as a society from a young age.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Footage from inside the bar.

I just don’t think there’s any type of therapy in this world to really help people who have so much anger for whatever reason on that particular day or week or month. It’s just not possible.

And He made a Facebook post.. In it, the writer says: "I hope people call me insane... (laughing emojis).. wouldn't that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'.. or 'keep you in my thoughts'... every time... and wonder why these keep happening..."

There was some type of an agenda in play. The friends he did have are shocked. Minor brush ins with law enforcement dont warrant to be taken away. What could have been done? I really don’t know. I don’t think anything. If somebody is hell bent on sending a message or getting revenge or doing damage, they are going to by any means possible.

One of the victims mothers said exactly what he said in his Facebook post before he committed this act so in some weird and sick twisted way she’s backing up the shooters agenda.

Jenn wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Pixie13 wrote:

Nobody is saying you can't have gun control AND help people with mental illness. It isn't mutually exclusive.

Perhaps the NRA could start a charity to fund PTSD clinics for veterans rather than lobbying politicians,?

Or maybe David Hogg and the Marchforourlives kids could focus on mental health and not blame guns for everything?

I don't like to get involved in debates about gun control and won't really discuss my opinions on it but I agree with Tommy about mental illness and the lack of help made available to mentally sick teenagers. Unless a teen actually addresses their own problems, no one will ever really know about it because teenagers are notorious for hiding their suffering and not wanting to talk about their problems or even go to their parents or any authority figure for help.

When I started high school, every single student in 9th grade had to have a physical by the school doctor. During that physical, they didn't even address mental health whatsoever. And I'm wondering why they don't? The statistics are ridiculous when it comes to mental illness among teenagers. Something like 20%. If you take a school like Columbine that had roughly 2000 students, over 400 of them suffered from some kind of mental illness and I bet that Columbine did absolutely nothing to address mental health, just like every other high school in America. How come mental illness isn't addressed and why aren't students having routine mental health checks? Mental health is just as important, if not more important than physical health when you're talking about teenagers.

I mean, guns have always been there. Since the constitution, guns have been there. Guns are not the only problem. Taking away guns is not going to fix a mental illness epidemic among teenagers. And I believe that the root of every single one of these shootings is mental illness because people who are mentally sound, do not go and murder others and then commit suicide. How is just getting rid of guns going to help teenagers who are suffering from mental illness? It's ludicrous to me that all we ever hear about is guns. What about helping out teenagers who are sick and suffering?

That's just my 2 cents on it anyway.

Couldn't have put it better myself. Addressing mental health in my opinion is only possible thing that can be done now with these types of things. People like to point out how American should change it's gun laws like England and Australia did but they completely forget about that Amercia's gun culture and lobbies is finitely 1000x more powerful and influential than compared to those in said countries, pro-gun control activists face a great up hill battle, it's just not going to work out for them. The first two american constitution amendments basically boil down to 1: You can talk, 2: You can own weapons, I know that's a very hyperbole and very basic way to put it but for America, it's pretty a core part of both their history and identity, no-one is going to be remove or limit that. Only rational thing to do now is to tackle this mental health epidemic properly.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Ian David Long began his adult life by enlisting in the Marines and getting married. Years after a divorce and a discharge and months after shouting brought a mental health expert to his door, Long killed 12 people at a country music bar outside Los Angeles.

Long, 28, was a former military machine gunner who apparently killed himself after the Wednesday night attack in Thousand Oaks, the quiet suburb where he lived with his mother.

Neighbors said Thursday they would hear loud, aggressive fights between the two. Authorities said they visited that ranch-style house only once, in April, after a neighbor reported yelling and crashing sounds.

Deputies found Long "was somewhat irate, acting a little irrationally" and called in a mental health specialist, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said. That specialist assessed Long but concluded he couldn't be involuntarily committed for psychiatric observation.

"The mental health experts out there cleared him that day," Dean told reporters Thursday, though they were concerned he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of his military service.

"Obviously he had something going on in his head that would cause him to do something like this," Dean said.

A next-door neighbor said he called authorities about six months ago when he heard loud banging and shouting at Long's home.

"I was concerned because I knew he had been in the military," neighbor Tom Hanson said Thursday, as federal and local law enforcement officers searched Long's house, where an American flag flew over the garage.

Hanson described Long as an introvert and said he was "dumbfounded" by the massacre.

Long's only other contact with authorities came after a traffic collision and after he alleged he was the victim of a violent encounter in 2015 at another bar in Thousand Oaks, the sheriff said.

Long enlisted in the Marines at 18 and was married as a 19-year-old in Honolulu in June 2009, according to military and court records.

His military service lasted nearly five years, and he was honorably discharged with the rank of corporal in 2013, the Pentagon said. He was part of the infantry, responsible for hauling and shooting machine guns.


During his service, Long's marriage fell apart. He and his wife separated in June 2011, while he was deployed on a seven-month tour in Afghanistan. The couple cited irreconcilable differences in divorce papers filed in May 2013, two months after Long left the Marines.

Later, he enrolled at nearby California State University, Northridge, last attending in 2016, the school said in a statement.

More recently he was living in a home where neighbors said they could hear frequent, aggressive shouting between Long and his mother, especially over the last year.

About 18 months ago, Don and Effie MacLeod heard "an awful argument" and what he believes was a gunshot from the Longs' property. Don MacLeod said he did not call police but avoided speaking with Ian Long.

"I told my wife, 'Just be polite to him. If he talks, just acknowledge him, don't go into conversation with him,'" Don MacLeod said Thursday.

Sparse pictures on social media showed a happy Long family. His mother, Colleen, posted Facebook photos of her son in his military uniform in 2010 and 2011.

"My Son is home, well sort of, back in Hawaii, soon to be in Cali come January, hooray!" she wrote on Dec. 14, 2012.

Another photo from 2014 shows Ian Long with his arm draped around his mother in front of Dodger Stadium. The two were wearing Dodgers T-shirts and smiles.

Authorities haven't identified what motivated Long to open fire during college night at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, around 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The city of about 130,000 people is consistently near the top of lists ranking the safest places in California.

The dead included 11 people inside the bar and a veteran sheriff's sergeant who was the first officer through the door.

The Marine Corps said Long earned several awards, including a Combat Action Ribbon and a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.




It's clear he was struggling with something. Maybe it was PTSD or something else, or PTSD AND something else.

That specialist assessed Long but concluded he couldn't be involuntarily committed for psychiatric observation

Another one where this should have happened. Maybe we need to look at this and see if there is any way to improve. Just how erratic can you act before a mental health intervention of sorts is appropriate? It a funny area though because allot of people may just be having a bad time but are of no threat. However when you look at someone like Cruz it seems the leash may be way too long.

W.A.R. wrote:

That specialist assessed Long but concluded he couldn't be involuntarily committed for psychiatric observation

Another one where this should have happened. Maybe we need to look at this and see if there is any way to improve. Just how erratic can you act before a mental health intervention of sorts is appropriate? It a funny area though because allot of people may just be having a bad time but are of no threat. However when you look at someone like Cruz it seems the leash may be way too long.

True. It is a very fine line to walk for sure trying to decide if someone is only having a temporary anger induced meltdown, or the problem is something much darker and deeper rooted.

That’s a question I don’t see brought up. How do you differentiate between people having a momentary anger issue and someone who has a very deep seated range that will explode into something catastrophic

Also not everyone lashes out like an Eric, a lot of times you have someone like Dylan who’s been angry years and explodes

How can you decipher that? I just don’t think you can. I don’t think you can predict what somebody will do. Humans are too complex. Minor brush ins with law enforcement and outbursts don’t warrant prison time.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] A tool is not responsible for mass murder its the Person behind it, People say guns are the problem and are too lethal to have in the hands of civilians but History says otherwise, HGVs and Crude shrapnel bombs are just as lethal as firearms if not more devastating, Remember Nice where a Truck plowed through crowds killing 84 injuring 100s, The Knife attacks in china that kill and injure many, What about the 2001 China Shijizhuang bombings where one man disgruntled over his ex wife killed 108 by blowing up 4 apartment buildings with high explosives in shopping bags, How about tokyo in the 1990s, a country where guns have nothing to do with the population, A religious cult killed 13 and injured 1000 with Improvised Sarin Nerve Agent, The Daegu subway fire caused by a man with a bottle of gasoline and a lighter that ended with the deaths of 192, the examples are infinite and could go on forever, If someone wants is going to kill a large amount of people they dont have to use a gun. Tools are not the problem its Mental Health and something wrong in todays society that causes and contributes to it more than any other period of history. You say how removing bins in British train stations was a great prevention of fatal bombings but what about 7/7 where the assailants carried crude high powered bombs in hiking rucksacks onto the trains where they blew themselves up killing 52 injuring 700 plus, The manchester bombing. Dont follow the narratives of agenda charged mainstream media and trending political movements over Logic, Mental Health, the suffering lost and isolated in their own thoughts and internal depraved Hell, Insanity is the Problem and the catalytic force behind most Massacres, Not an inanimate object

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] couldn't have said it better myself.

We should probably legalise access to bombs and chemical weapons then, as obviously they are just the tools not the people behind it that kill people. After all, that follows your logic.

Tommy QTR wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] couldn't have said it better myself.

im sure you could of tommy, i just think about now everyone is fed up with the stupid politically correct trend, culture and mode of warped thinking so prevailent today, Its dangerous, its making things more dangerous for everyone banning tools and enforcing fake illusions of safety in which the Killers and especially the Insane dont give a care about at all. For example Gun free zones, just like this bar shooting a well calculated killer will just move in take out armed security first in a suprise attack and then will shoot down easy unarmed hysteria stricken targets. i dont get involved with politics and am not saying everyone should be armed like the wild west but banning tools that themselves can be used to stop attacks and ignoring Mental illness does not work for you arent actually getting rid of the problem, we are just making excuses and restricting our human freedom and will whilst Killers still Kill.

Pixie13 wrote:

We should probably legalise access to bombs and chemical weapons then, as obviously they are just the tools not the people behind it that kill people. After all, that follows your logic.

Well bombs are not a tool except for in Combat and Chemical weapons are WMDs and they are Banned yet people can still easily craft them for use to kill people. Banning Firearms that have a justified tool use because Killers use them is a false narrative. The 9/11 hijackers didnt even need to craft anything or access a weapon of combat, all they did was buy a flight ticket and smuggled cheap plastic boxcutters onto a airline flight... 3000 dead 6000 injured, Rip.

I hope this has not been posted earlier in the thread.

Here are the victims of this shooting, according to this article:


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Dominique Colell hadn’t heard Ian David Long’s name in years when it suddenly popped up on every news channel on Thursday.

Long, a 28-year-old former Marine, was identified by authorities as the mass shooter who killed 12 people at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Wednesday night. Colell spoke to CBS Los Angeles afterward and revealed that she remembered Long as the student who assaulted her when she was his high school track coach.

“I turned on the news and I was watching it, and when they said his name my jaw just dropped,” Colell told CBS.

Colell said her confrontation with Long happened his senior year of high school. When she was trying to figure out whose phone someone had found, Long started yelling at her that it was his, she claimed. She said he “started grabbing me,” allegedly groping her stomach and behind.

“He attacked me. He attacked his high school track coach,” she told CBS. “Who does that?”

She regrets not filing a police report back then, saying that other coaches and the school encouraged her to simply accept his apology.

Though Long served in the Marines from August 2008 to March 2013, CNN reports, experts caution against blaming the shooting on PTSD.

“It’s not PTSD,” Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, a psychiatry and behavioral science professor at Emory University School of Medicine, told USA Today. “This is whatever else, what other pathology would cause someone to do this.”

Colell also stated this belief because of her personal experience with Long, which happened before he served in the military.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people with PTSD,” she told CBS. “They don’t go around shooting people. This kid was mentally disturbed in high school. There were signs and the administration knew it.”




Just getting worse and worse!

Sane One wrote:

And He made a Facebook post..  In it, the writer says: "I hope people call me insane... (laughing emojis).. wouldn't that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'.. or 'keep you in my thoughts'... every time... and wonder why these keep happening..."

There was some type of an agenda in play.

I think in this case the agenda was "do something other than sit on your asses to stop people like me", at least based on the wording.

QuestionMark wrote:

Sane One wrote:

And He made a Facebook post..  In it, the writer says: "I hope people call me insane... (laughing emojis).. wouldn't that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'.. or 'keep you in my thoughts'... every time... and wonder why these keep happening..."

There was some type of an agenda in play.

I think in this case the agenda was "do something other than sit on your asses to stop people like me", at least based on the wording.

I'd say so. It seems like he wanted people to act like responsible adults and defend themselves rather than relying on the cops to magically appear on the scene whenever a crime occurs.

Vallutaja wrote:

You muricans really need to overlook your gun laws. When even someone diagnosed as autist can easily get a gun and go on a shooting spree, you gotta expect things like this happen over and over.

Why should an autist be stopped from getting a gun?

Pixie13 wrote:

We should probably legalise access to bombs and chemical weapons then, as obviously they are just the tools not the people behind it that kill people. After all, that follows your logic.

Guns can be used for hunting, target shooting and self defence.

Ziamber II wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

hvernon wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

One of my friends lost a family member. Just saw it on my FB feed.  

My condolences.

Thanks.

I lived in SoCal for 8 years about 30 mins away from Thousand Oaks

You'd probably be safer moving to Canada, or UK where they have gun controll.

What about car attacks?

What about car attacks? We've put in barriers and preventative measures, thank you for asking.

Far less likely to be murdered in London than 50 of the USA's largest cities. Stop listening to Trump's lies.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Pixie13 wrote:

What about car attacks? We've put in barriers and preventative measures, thank you for asking.

Far less likely to be murdered in London than 50 of the USA's largest cities. Stop listening to Trump's lies.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Not all places have barriers. And what exactly do we do about bombings? Just yesterday we had an attempted bombing.

Where was the attempted bombing.

Pixie13 wrote:

Where was the attempted bombing.

Melbourne.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

"I told my wife, 'Just be polite to him. If he talks, just acknowledge him, don't go into conversation with him,'" Don MacLeod said Thursday.

This line is awful. While I can't blame them too much because I don't know myself how I would react if I were scared, it is sad that people have become so much focused on themselves and their family only and society buries it's head in the sand. It's too easy to cry for gun control when you ignored the perpetrator-to-be. In fact I even start to think that the call for more gun control is just because unconsciously or consciously people don't dare to take responsibility for what they haven't done.

Just like what Emma Gonzalez said:

Emma Gonzalez wrote:

Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter. Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him? You didn’t know this kid, OK? We did.

You did know him, so you had to do something!

Pixie13 wrote:

Stop listening to Trump's lies.

Wha-? Why are we bringing Trump into this?

Where was this kind of man when they needed him the most?:

Image.

Devil wrote:

Where was this kind of man when they needed him the most?:

Image.

You can thank California's strict gun laws for that.

QuestionMark wrote:

Pixie13 wrote:

Stop listening to Trump's lies.

Wha-? Why are we bringing Trump into this?

I wouldn't even bother with this person, they make idiotic statements like saying bombs and chemical weapons should be legal and think mental health isn't an issue.

At no point did I say that mental health wasn't an issue (although if you look at studies the correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths is there but not in studies where you look at mental health. I'm not the author of the studies, I have just read them) and of course I don't believe bombs and chemical weapons should be legalised. I was just pointing out what a flimsy argument that "Guns don't kill people" is.

Trump regularly points to the UK's knife crime epidemic as an excuse not to look at him control, where if you look at the statistics knife crime and gun crime are both lower in the UK.

But hey, keep sending thoughts and prayers, tutting about mental health, each time kids are gunned down. That's all Americans ever do.

There was a good guy with a gun. He was called Ron Helus and he is dead.

Pixie13 wrote:

At no point did I say that mental health wasn't an issue

Yes you did:

Pixie13 wrote:

And oh yes, the "mental illness" is the issue. How about not letting people with mental illnesses that make them prone to violence and self-harm get hold of guns?

By putting Mental illness in quotations you were clearly saying it's not important and not an issue. Don't lie when people call you out.

Quote :

I was just pointing out what a flimsy argument that "Guns don't kill people" is.

A gun doesn't walk into a place and pull it's own trigger, a person has to do that.

Quote :

Trump regularly points to the UK's knife crime epidemic as an excuse not to look at him control, where if you look at the statistics knife crime and gun crime are both lower in the UK.

Gun crime in the UK rose by 20% last year, so Trump's right.

Quote :

But hey, keep sending thoughts and prayers, tutting about mental health, each time kids are gunned down. That's all Americans ever do.

And you keep blaming inanimate objects for the crimes of people and ignore the real issue which is America's dreadful Mental Health services.

Pixie13 wrote:

There was a good guy with a gun. He was called Ron Helus and he is dead.

Yes.

However, he was not at the scene when the shooting commenced. He was one of the first responders from law enforcement.

Neah wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

"I told my wife, 'Just be polite to him. If he talks, just acknowledge him, don't go into conversation with him,'" Don MacLeod said Thursday.

This line is awful. While I can't blame them too much because I don't know myself how I would react if I were scared, it is sad that people have become so much focused on themselves and their family only and society buries it's head in the sand. It's too easy to cry for gun control when you ignored the perpetrator-to-be. In fact I even start to think that the call for more gun control is just because unconsciously or consciously people don't dare to take responsibility for what they haven't done.

It would seem this is another case where clear issues and other problems were overlooked, downplayed, etc. I think it all boils down to the fact that many don't want to get their hands dirty, or be nosy, etc.

But it does make it hard to find the people who NEED help if everyone just turns their head in order to say "Well I didn't notice anything" in order to keep a semi clear conscious.

Gun crime may have risen but it still represents less than 100 deaths in 2018. Trump is talking out his arse.

Pixie13 wrote:

Gun crime may have risen but it still represents less than 100 deaths in 2018. Trump is talking out his arse.

Sure, whatever you say.

You can check last year's murder statistics here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Pixie13 wrote:

You can check last year's murder statistics here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Obviously the UK murder rate is going lower than the US, it's a smaller country and therefore will have less murders.