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Shootings in Chicago. 12 shot.
Victorious
Grim Veteran
A three year old got shot in the face.
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/tolv-skottskadade-i-chicago/
Seriously you guys over there. When are you going to do something about this?
Why is it so hard to just forbid wepons in the USA?
Thoughtfully
Victor
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/tolv-skottskadade-i-chicago/
Seriously you guys over there. When are you going to do something about this?
Why is it so hard to just forbid wepons in the USA?
Thoughtfully
Victor
4
Comments
/Victor
@Victorious as much as I know something needs to change it is a very complicated situation, simply regulating guns will not suffice. The UK for example has very strict gun laws yet people still get a hold of hand guns some how.
If you have not watched the documentary 'Bowling For Columbine' I suggest you do. It will help to explain a few things to you.
Canada actually has just as many guns if not more per household than the US, yet nothing like this really ever happens and the murder rate is lower. I think the US has the highest murder rate for any developed country.
And again I got the headline wrong it seems everybody are still alive. I tried the Edit button for the discussion but I do not have permission to change the heading!
/Victor
Because of NRA.
/Victor
Mass shootings in the US seem to occur with depressing regularity. Is it just lax gun laws, or does it suggest a higher incidence of mental illness? Or what?
Look how high the USA is on this list!!!! Damn Americans!!!
Here is the article in english.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/22678686-418/10-shot-in-back-of-the-yards-park.html
I'm so glad some of you think it's appropriate to reduce both America's accomplishments and mistakes into a satirical cartoon and tout it as a legitimate 'history lesson' about America.
As for Columbine, Michael Moore isn't telling America anything it doesn't already know, and strongly disapprove of. We're working on it, people. Very few Americans are sitting around clucking their tongues and ignoring the situation with guns or any other civil rights issues happening now in America.
We're a very complex society with a complex government. And compared to all you "perfect" European and Asian countries, well we're just toddlers on the scene... your countries have been around for thousands of years longer, what's your excuse for all your faults and mistakes? Or do you really believe you have none?
Why do kids join gangs? Why do adults stay in gangs?
For love......for belonging.....to feel accepted.....to feel
taken care of.....for the 'brotherhood'....For things that are
not available at their home
Why are they not available?
Gun laws don't address the social and community issues.
That has to be done by us.
If you have the time....be a mentor to a child who needs
one. Teach and show respect of life.
Just my two cents.....
We can discuss other things that have happened around the world if you so wish, just pop up over there and make a thread..
Bowling
For
Columbine
That will help to give you a start to investigating why
Economics has alot to do with the gang culture here.
"A hungry man makes an angry man" --Bob Marley
However like I have previously said, tightening gun control in the US will have little impact and result in mass protests from the gun-ho trigger happy folk. That is not the answer IMO if there is an answer that is.
:-/
But seriously if reducing guns would stop even one killing. Why not?
I will watch the film since many here think it is good.
@MaryAnne it is just that from over here it seems the US chooses their love for their guns over their love for children a lot of times every year.
Maybe that picture is crazy media talkning but still the statistics also point to this. Is it not so?
Thanks.
/Victor
We have to investigate where this fear and insecurity comes
from. People who want guns, don't love them...they feel they
need protection from something or someone.
History of the country, thus far.
The reasons are different for gang bangers than for the
'conservative, southern' types.....
Edit: Although, if you get down to it...the base is probably the
same. Economics. One group is mad because they are kept from having something
and the other group is mad because what they have they fear is
in jeopardy of being taken.
The problem is vast and complex and if there was any majority group that believed "we could do THIS and it would have a significant impact on deaths" most likely it would be done already. The problem is, there is a REASON people shoot each other up, and it's not simply because they have guns available. Both the reasons, and the availability off guns has to be addressed. With how many guns we have, it would take a very *very* long time to get them off the streets even if they stopped making them today.
It has to do with our history of settlement of America, it has to do with fear and people buying into it. We really can't blame the media here, we TELL them what we want to watch. If people don't wanna watch about mass shootings, then they should stop watching instead of gluing themselves to the tv and then blaming the media. They are a *business* and their business is fueled by demand. It has to do with our poor mental health system and how it doesn't work with our criminal justice system. It has to do with drugs and the trafficking of them, and the control over them. It has to do with economics and people feeling they have no hope for a real future. It has to do with parenting and people who have children they do not take care of, love, support and so on. It has to do with many, many things, none of which is resolved by any one thing. And even if you could remove any gun that might be crime-causing, hunting rifles will never disappear from the American landscape. Obviously I realize this is not the case for places like Chicago, NY, LA, DC and so on, but when you spend your entire life in a rural area, people do still hunt for food. Often. Many of them rely on their hunted food to make it through a year, and they shouldn't have that taken away from them.
If Alexis was done in by our poor mental health system and the Navy not following up and getting him the help he needed, that is one problem. He used a rifle, not a handgun if I remember right. The people in Chicago, I understand it was a driveby, likely gang related. Most gangs have at least portions of them who are involved in drug running. Most people join gangs to feel respected and accepted. So there, you have economics, drugs, and parenting involved. You cannot say "this is what we have to do and it'll solve the problem." because it's not possible.
For example, Boots Riley argues that much of the gun violence in the US is, when you boil it all down, economically motivated. People who can't survive by legal means, through conventional employment (whether because there aren't enough good paying jobs available or they have some impediment to gainful employment like a previous criminal record, etc.), are often involved in illegal businesses to survive, and gun violence is a natural outgrowth of illegal businesses regulating themselves. "All business regulates itself with violence or the threat of violence. For legal business that called the police. For illegal business, there has to be force. You can't go to the zoning commission, or to small claims court over some dope." And this, he continued, has an impact on culture. "Some folks say 'yeah but some gun violence isnt economically motivated'. Most of it is. But like any form of survival, it creates a culture How we materially survive creates the culture around it. Fishing villages create fishing songs- not the other way around (sed that before). If fighting gun violence that happens on the street is ur calling- your only hope is a mass, militant, radical labor mvmnt that raises wages"
He also notes the historical shift in how the left in the US treated the issue of gun control, and how in his view gun control today is more about cultural allegiances of progressives attached to the Democratic Party: "The left used to champion striking miners fighting back against Pinkerton security with their guns. The first gun control laws came about from media created hysteria about the 'Negro crime waves' of the 1920s. Cops went house to house, kicking in doors of Black families and taking guns away. Gun control laws aren't aimed at White people in the country side. It's Black and Brown folks that get locked up for having guns."
And that doesn't even address problems such as mental illness, which plays a role in many of these mass shootings. All in all, though, no matter how you view the issue of gun control (for or against), it's a complicated issue. Gun ownership is enshrined in our Constitution and there are a lot of them out there, both legal and illegal. Trying to ban guns and confiscate the ones that are already out there is political and practically impossible; and even if it wasn't, I think the government trying to do so would cause a serious and most-likely violent backlash. The way I see it, there's no easy solution, really.
A combination of things like better funded and easily accessible mental healthcare, stricter gun control laws, and gun safety programs may help to reduce incidents like this, but they'll never be able to completely stop them. Part of this, I think, is because the roots of much of this kind of violence within society goes much, much deeper than crazy people or prevalence of guns, and they won't be uprooted until we take a long, hard look at the society of fear and violence we've created, or that we've allowed to be created for us—a society where things like a basic guaranteed income and universal healthcare (including better funding of, and easier access to, mental healthcare) are fought against tooth and nail, and starting wars in the name of peace and dropping bombs that routinely kill innocent civilians seems as easy as buying a gun at Walmart.
It's sad that things like this happen, and I really hate hearing about them. As for what I'm doing about it, there's not much I really can do besides continuing to support things like universal healthcare in the short term, and fight for a healthier and less volatile society via progressive socio-economic changes in the long term. Beyond that, though, I don't know what else I can do.
The WORST thing that our country can do is 'forbid' weapons. There're over 1 million gang members in the U.S. and no matter what, they're GOING to have weapons. And since Law Enforcement is constantly being depleted, no one is going to check up on the gangs and try stopping them from having illegal items.
The ego that we meet in meditation is a reflection of that.
We choose to meditate, which is a direct challenge to that conditioned form of self protection but look at how many folks wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. Look at how long we ourselves fostered our own egos when there was so much evidence of the harm that resulted in living that way.
The answer to why a gun culture continues, is no further away than your next meditation period.
Of course you know what the U.S. demand for drugs is doing to Mexico.
Those guns you claim to be moving from Mexico to the U.S. are manufactured where?
It has little to do with the media. It has little to do with the availability of psychiatric care.
It has, unfortunately, to do with a flaw in a mostly brilliant document -- our Constitution. The right to bear arms -- put in their as part of a militia concept in post-Revolutionary War times has been misinterpreted and seized upon by organizations (particularly the NRA). It has become an expression of anti-government angst in recent years.
Politically, at this time, more significant gun control just isn't going to happen in the U.S.
It has, unfortunately, to do with a flaw in a mostly brilliant document -- our Constitution. The right to bear arms -- put in their as part of a militia concept in post-Revolutionary War times has been misinterpreted and seized upon by organizations (particularly the NRA). It has become an expression of anti-government angst in recent years.
Good point to add to the mix.
Back to the fear that 'big government' is trying to take things away.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkcgc.html
It is relevant even though it is over 20 years old.
Because of our constant feed of news from hundreds of sources that update by the second about everywhere in the world, we have been tricked into thinking things are worse than ever. News organizations know that fear sells and we no longer have journalists giving a fair and balanced story. its now a race to see who can report the next incident first. We are living in the best time in human history. Obviously that statement wont apply to everyone on this planet but as a whole people are living longer and more people have access to clean water and medical care than ever before. I could go on and on. Yes there have been incidents that should be looked at and possibly have laws changed accordingly but it is a great time to be alive.
Also I'd like to add that we should redo the us constitution. It's not unheard of for a country to do so. We could solve a lot of problems if we could agree to it. We for all intents and purposes are living in the future. The framers of our constitution could have never foreseen automatic weapons, internet, or any of the other huge technological steps we have taken in the last 400 years. Its time for a change but unfortunately we have all been brainwashed into thinking these words written on paper are infallible.