Quote:
Originally Posted by Number 10 GI
I have stated this before on similar threads and will say it again. We have a violence problem and banning the tools used by evil people won't eliminate violence. If there was a way to confiscate all the guns in the country evil people would use another tool to commit mayhem. Bludgeons are used in more homicides than rifles. Have we forgotten the Boston Marathon murderers who used black powder taken from fireworks and packed it into pressure cookers to make bombs???
People in this country need to look at our moral values, the effect of social media on young children, the effect of fatherless families on young males and a host of other social failings. This isn't going to happen because it will require a lot of effort and soul searching. It is easier to blame an inanimate object and give into juvenile emotional responses.
Do a bit of internet searching and you will find many, many reports of violence not involving guns that result in death. To quote Jack Nicholson's Marine Colonel character in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"
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You are conflating all murders with mass shootings. Yes, violence will happen, but I feel safe saying zero out of the 300 mass shootings this year have been committed by Bludgeons.
The weapon of choice is AR-15. PERIOD. That is not debatable.
That said, I will agree with you that melting down every AR-15 in the country/world would not stop mass shootings, they would simply switch to another weapon.
I disagree with your comment that people don't want to look at morals and social media et al. I have read numerous reports on those issues. And for the most part they show that those "symptoms" that you list are represent in almost every country in the world. And the other countries do not have 300 mass shootings this year. So, the implication is they are NOT the cause.
I personally think the cause is a feeling of hopelessness by most poor and middle class Americans. I don't think I recall a rich person EVER committing a mass shooting in this country. They are typically by people with mental health issues (one could argue that to shoot 6 strangers for not apparent reason is a form of mental illness), or people that want to strike back at others that have bullied them, or men that feel they lives out of control and a significant number are coming from an abusive relationship where they abused their wives who finally left them and got restraining orders - again, a form of feeling like their life is out of control.
So, my question is why is it that so many feel so hopeless in the richest country in the world?
My answer is predatory capitalism, BIG corporations (not small ones) that control our lives, our government and our economy and leave broken people in their wake. That is what I think it is root cause.