Shooting, Killing, Murder!!!
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What about the ghetto? Where everyone has a gun? You think most of those places they guns are even registered? Lol…
There are ghettos and poverty in Australia too, just as there are single parents and people with a mental illness. But they don’t have regular mass killings. Most of the unregistered guns are used in gang crimes and not in school shootings. In the USA culprits bring their own legally purchased ones or their parents’ ones to engage in their murder sprees. They are just too easy to acquire.
There is no reason to think that the rest of the world is any better a place to live. The urban parts of Australia are not much different to the urban parts of the USA. Both have their ultra-wealthy 1%. It is just in most of the rest of the “western” world we do not have general gun ownership. Criminals have them and they mostly just kill each other with them. Even here in Dublin an ongoing feud has killed over a dozen of them in the last year.
I can’t remember the exact case here but there was an island in the Pacific (I think it was) where for generations suicide was unheard of. Then one day a young man committed suicide and left a note to say he saw it as the only solution to his problems. Within 3 years several other young men had followed suit. What had happened was that a way of “solving a problem” was made available to everyone. It is similar in America where disturbed people and people who bear a grudge against society know that “school shooting” is an option open to them. I suspect it is a case of “suicide by cop” for many of them while giving the world the finger.
It will keep happening as long as guns are given out so freely without any check-ups. It would seem that most of these school shootings are carried out by people with legally held guns – (I have not researched that point).
I agree we need to change our gun laws. I’m all for that. But what I’m saying is there’s a LOT of other issues that are getting completely ignored. For example what was the reason why this kid got expelled? If he was depressed why did he have a gun? Why didn’t the adults in his life step up and help him? Why don’t we have a mental health system that actually helps people? I’ve seen it firsthand. This kid was a total threat to himself and others and should have been locked up. But they didn’t deem him “dangerous enough.” That is the problem. In the United States once you turn 18, it is very difficult to get any type of mental health services until you actually do try to kill yourself or someone else. People just turn a blind eye otherwise. There were so many things that set this kid’s life on a really bad trajectory and it’s really sad that no one had the fucking balls to intervene. There were so many things that could have been done for him that just weren’t. What are we gonna do about that? What are we gonna do about the hundreds of thousands of boys just like him that may not go and shoot up a school, but maybe they’ll start a fire for fun. Or start selling drugs. Beat up on their girlfriend….
and what are we going to do about the other victims of gun violence where young black and Hispanic boys get killed DAILY… just because it’s gang related doesn’t mean kids don’t get caught in the crossfire. They do. And they have. Or they start playing with daddy’s gun and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else..
We need gun reform but we also need to look beneath the surface of the problem and address the other deeply disturbing issues in our society.
Belle, I think you have made an important point. Western countries don’t invest enough time and resources into mental health. And the USA, with its lack of universal health care, and in many states, barely funded social programs…that Americans (especially poor ones) are hit the hardest by it. As well as their families. And that those constantly ignored and left to brain rot, may become homicidal. Throw guns into that picture and here comes disaster.
So yes, a lack of mental health awareness and public funding is horrible. But that is not what “this is all about”. It’s a major part of it, but, as Strega said, people suffer mental problems in other countries (in Canada you can refuse treatment) and yet mass shootings are rare, and not just shootings but mass stabbings or mass murder in general. Take away the tools of fast and easy murder and it makes it a whole lot harder to pull it off, especially when you develop a sudden rage or have a snap homicidal episode. This isn’t to mention the fact that not all people with serious mental health problems go murdering everyone, even those who have been far more mistreated than this boy. Ones who can just as easily get guns. And then, not all people who commit mass shootings have mental problems. Ideological ones like woman hating or religiously motivated ones are far far far more prominent. In that case would we say:
This isn’t about guns…it’s about religion!!!!
No. That would be ridiculous. Certain states of the USA have multiple problems ranging from: underfunded social problems, dismal mental health care, high levels of poverty and homelessness which contribute to high levels of crime, easy access to tools of instant murder and especially in the last couple decades…a sudden shift towards ideological extremism (on both sides). And yes, there is a high prevalence of single parent families, as well as broken families. All of these mean mass shootings are inevitable. And all of these factors contribute towards it. However, in places like Belorussia or Kosovo, where they face the same problems, yet not have easy access to assault weapons…you don’t see many mass murders.
It’s not all about rapid firing guns, but it is an essential element which is relatively easy to stop…if people are intelligent enough to want to stop it. That, in tandem with better funding to programs, attacking mental health, homelessness, poverty, under-education, religious extremism…will certainly help things. However it is not “all about mental health”.
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