Reporter/camera man murdered.

[robvalue]

It seems to me that the average American only "needs" a gun because every other fucker has one too.

I don't get what's different about the US, plenty of other countries get by without guns being available to everyone. At the very least, you should have to go through serious background and competence checks every time you want a gun, in my opinion. And you should need an actual reason too. That's how it seems to be in England; some people do have guns, but they have a reason for it. The fact that "self defence against everyone else who has guns" is considered a reason is the problem. I don't consider "I like guns and I want one" a good enough reason either.

But that's just me. This isn't about oppressing people, it's about keeping needlessly dangerous items out of general circulation.

[abaris]

This will sound callous but when this happens I find it hard to care anymore. The US knows what the problem is, they simply refuse to solve this problem. A large section of the American population seem to have decided that these incidents are a perfectly acceptable price to pay for keeping guns.

I care when I'm confronted with the victims, with their unfinished lives and what they have left behind. That hardly happens in these shootings. The media focusses on the shooter and the victims become numbers. It's hard to identify with numbers or to care about numbers.

More recently this happened with the black church massacre and I'm even hard pressed to remember the town where it happened. You got to know next to nothing about the people being killed. Focus on the shooter, his background and his picture with the racist stickers all over his clothing and his car.

[Napoléon]

I care when I'm confronted with the victims, with their unfinished lives and what they have left behind. That hardly happens in these shootings. The media focusses on the shooter and the victims become numbers. It's hard to identify with numbers or to care about numbers.

More recently this happened with the black church massacre and I'm even hard pressed to remember the town where it happened. You got to know next to nothing about the people being killed. Focus on the shooter, his background and his picture with the racist stickers all over his clothing and his car.

This.

What sickens me the most is the glorification that comes after the shooting. I woke up this morning to news reports about how this "Vester" character posted his deeds on social media, and Sky News were pouring over it, going on about his motives and his life story. His name comes to mind faster than the victims. They even put on special programmes about who the killer was. I'd much rather they did such programmes for the victims.

They do this with all major killings. After the Tunisia attack all they spoke about was who the gunman was. After the Boston bombings they literally put the killer on the front of Rolling Stone.

Fuck the media. They share a lot of responsibility for atrocities like this.

[Ashground]

I care when I'm confronted with the victims, with their unfinished lives and what they have left behind. That hardly happens in these shootings. The media focusses on the shooter and the victims become numbers. It's hard to identify with numbers or to care about numbers.

More recently this happened with the black church massacre and I'm even hard pressed to remember the town where it happened. You got to know next to nothing about the people being killed. Focus on the shooter, his background and his picture with the racist stickers all over his clothing and his car.

Distance and frequency play a part too. The same as when you hear 'a bomb has gone off in Iraq, many dead', this happens thousands of miles away, in a different culture and fairly often. To be deeply moved about strangers I usually have to be somewhat surprised. In these cases I only have grim acceptance.

[ignoramus]

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems to me that the average American only "needs" a gun because every other fucker has one too.

I don't get what's different about the US, plenty of other countries get by without guns being available to everyone. At the very least, you should have to go through serious background and competence checks every time you want a gun, in my opinion. And you should need an actual reason too. That's how it seems to be in England; some people do have guns, but they have a reason for it. The fact that "self defence against everyone else who has guns" is considered a reason is the problem. I don't consider "I like guns and I want one" a good enough reason either.

But that's just me. This isn't about oppressing people, it's about keeping needlessly dangerous items out of general circulation.

Walmart runs a background check at point of sale (it's usually done in minutes but -can- take days and you just don;t get to leave the store /w the gun until it;s handled), -on this form..they actually do ask you the purpose for the purchase, and they're not exactly bastions of good policy and responsible merchandising.  Doesn;t seem to hurt their sales, and it;s not something that people picket walmart over - so I don't see why that couldn't be a reality everywhere....since it already is in every walmart.  The only place you can get a gun scott-free, as it were, is a P2P sale.  That's why guns shows are so big, it's a P2P tent sell, essentially, so they're allowed to circumvent laws and standard industry practice - and even as a "gun nut" myself I can see that this needs to be changed. It shouldn't be possible for me to point to walmart as a beacon of responsibility in firearm sales, relative to the rest........eh?

[Thumpalumpacus]

It seems to me that the average American only "needs" a gun because every other fucker has one too.

Well, I'll be buying a pump-action shotgun here someday, because I live out in the country. Has nothing to do with other people, has everything to do with wildlife -- coyotes -- being literally in my yard on occasion.

[Napoléon]

Well, I'll be buying a pump-action shotgun here someday, because I live out in the country. Has nothing to do with other people, has everything to do with wildlife -- coyotes -- being literally in my yard on occasion.

And the immediate thought of an American is "shoot it".

How typical...

[Exian]

Well, I'll be buying a pump-action shotgun here someday, because I live out in the country. Has nothing to do with other people, has everything to do with wildlife -- coyotes -- being literally in my yard on occasion.

And the immediate thought of an American is "shoot it".

How typical...

This is the disconnect I was talking about. I'm assuming you live in a densely populated area, if not then I'm wrong all the way around. I'm pretty uncomfortable with guns, but it's different in the country, and that's hard to get across. Guns have uses in the country other than to murder or protect yourself from humans. I think there should be a greater distinction placed on gun ownership in the city vs. the country when the discussion is brought up. And that goes for both sides of the argument. When a shooting occurs in some town or city, all my country friends get all up in arms about how it wasn't the guns fault, or how they have to pay for the mistakes of the few. They aren't even considering the type of gun used or the location, and they end up defending handgun ownership in densely populated areas.

[Napoléon]

This is the disconnect I was talking about. I'm assuming you live in a densely populated area, if not then I'm wrong all the way around. I'm pretty uncomfortable with guns, but it's different in the country, and that's hard to get across. Guns have uses in the country other than to murder or protect yourself from humans. I think there should be a greater distinction placed on gun ownership in the city vs. the country when the discussion is brought up. And that goes for both sides of the argument. When a shooting occurs in some town or city, all my country friends get all up in arms about how it wasn't the guns fault, or how they have to pay for the mistakes of the few. They aren't even considering the type of gun used or the location, and they end up defending handgun ownership in densely populated areas.

I honestly don't see what difference it makes and what bearing it really has when there's countries that exist that have sparsely populated areas. Plenty of people cope just fine without guns in such places. Saying "they have uses other than to murder people" is besides the point entirely if they end up being used for such.

Or are you suggesting that guns in the country are immune to being used as such? Because that's obviously a big wad of horseshit.

Your point doesn't really make much difference from what I can see.