Mass Shooting in Alabama - 31 Aug 2019 - 10 Teens injured

[Edgar Allan Pillow]

You can do all kinds of things to reduce the availability of weapond and explosives yet people can still make napalm from gasoline and frozen orange juice. It's Band-Aid stuff. Until we can figure out how not to alienate people and deprive them of the things that all humans need (love, kindness acceptance, affirmation etc) we're going to experience these violent outbursts.

I think guns are not the problem on their own but easy availability certainly do exacerbate the underlying problem of need for violent outbursts as you say. I doubt if access to guns got restricted we'd see the same amount of incidents transferred to knife or homemade bomb rampages.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

I think guns are not the problem on their own but easy availability certainly do exacerbate the underlying problem of need for violent outbursts as you say. I doubt if access to guns got restricted we'd see the same amount of incidents transferred to knife or homemade bomb rampages.

Yes, absolutely. The Yanks need to make guns harder to acquire than they are now (and make people store them securely so they can reduce the number of suicides by firearm and accidental shootings). Just wanted to point out that these incidents are not just because guns. People are driven to violent acts by other factors. Guns are the tool they choose. If guns weren't available some of these people would turn to other means of destruction, some of which are ridiculously easy to concoct.

The problem with the US is the number of guns in circulation. 300 million plus. They're not going away, ever, so the need to tackle the root causes of these outbursts is paramount.

 

[Fully Fledged]

The difference to Japan is amazing. There was a guy that did a road rage here and pulled up and punched a guy and it was on the news for nearly a week. This is barely covered.

That happened over here as well the only thing was that the person being accused of road rage was Roy Keane.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

It's not one or the other and we obviously need to improve social circumstances for people who tend to get influenced and are in a vulnerable mindset, but at the same time tightening access to weapons will only improve the situation, and in my opinion on a considerable level. There's no denying the fact that having over the counter weapons is the biggest factor in allowing literally anyone to turn into a mass killer overnight. Like I said crime will not end with it but it will be a lot harder for anyone to actually act on his emotions/whatever on a whim.

At the end of the day it is the same situation as with global terrorists, except in this case the culprits are inside the US where they can be governed into not being able to implement any harm onto others.

I disagree. Tightening controls will help in other areas (suicide, accident shootings) but there are so many guns in circulation in the US that if you can't get one legally or have to wait a few days, it's easy as pie to get one from the trunk of someone's car.

Not to say they shouldn't tighten restrictions but the root causes can't be ignored any longer because the way society is going it's just going to get worse.