School shootings... how awful

[simonineaston]

Pandora's box - I imagine that were there a god, he/she might be toasting both Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov until they squeak... meanwhile in the UK we suffer multiple incidents of death or injury caused by out-of-control knife sales. It's harder to pin the development of a hard pointy hand-held tool on any one individual - apart from Rambo, that is - in order that they should be held over a fire too.

[francovendee]

I continue to marvel at the Americans. Really innovative people and able to put a man on the moon and at front of the computer age but when it comes to control and ownership of guns they refer back to the frontier age and the right to have arms.

The gun lobby continues to call for teachers to be armed! What good would this do? The teachers are there to educate not protect. What sort of messaging would this give the students? Seeing the teacher wearing a pistol may make some unruly pupils take notice though.

[Stradageek]

I'd recommend 'Another day in the death of America' by Gary Younge. He picks a random day and does a detailed investigation of the 10 children killed by gunfire on that day. All individual cases, no mass shootings and spread across the USA.

Without easy access to guns most of them couldn't have happened

[reohn2]

Just how bizarre is this Christmas card photo posted on line of the congess man's family who represents the district and school where the these people were shot.
The video is 8 minutes long but you can view the photo at around 1 minute in :- https://youtu.be/wFHmFNRcFHU

[Vorpal]

Seems to have gone up dramatically in the past few years though, from the data in the OP's link.
Has gun accessibility also gone up dramatically?

The biggest differences in gun accessibility that have occurred in the last 20 years:
1) the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004
2) the US government passed a law protecting gun manufacturers from liability for crimes committed using their products
3) over the years since, laws requiring background checks and making 'concealed carry' or certain firearms illegal have been struck down repeatedly by state and federal courts, including some long-standing laws in places like New York City.

Part of the reason it has become increasingly difficult to pass or maintain any gun control laws is that the courts have gradually become biased. This has been due to a long term Republican & NRA strategy to focus on judge elections and appointments.

[Nearholmer]

The shooter who killed six people at a school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday bought seven guns legally and hid them at home, police say.
Investigators say the suspect's parents felt the 28-year-old should not own weapons, and did not realise the guns had been concealed in their house. BBC.

One can only weep.

That’s what you get if half the nation is intent on tooling-up for the next civil war.

[briansnail]

Absolutely. I was never sure if the USA gun lobby is the manufacturers of assault rifles or the people in rural USA areas who need guns for protection eg against bears.What is crazy is the idea of giving more guns to Teachers.
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