Its not so much about a loose cultural attitude towards firearms and weapons, but a loose cultural attitude towards violence.

Small but decisive difference.

Ah yes, being German - a foreigner I mean - is of course the issue again.
Also, I didn't promise anything, I merely apologized so you don't feel attacked right away, as usual, when some pesky europoors dare to speak on that matter.

Let's just ignore the topic as usual... we'll speak again in a week or two...

:ping::ping::ping:

I tend to agree, but most people have been taught to fear guns from an early age, and thats a big part of the problem. I grew up around guns, I was given a 22 marlin LR for my 5th birthday, I was taught that guns were tools used for a specific purpose nothing more, nothing less. Guns are not dangerous, It's the monkey on the trigger thats dangerous.

Don't get all defensive, sheesh. You forget i've not only lived in your country for three years i'm also half German with hundreds of relatives still living over there so I know well what they're like.

Right, let's pretend that your "apology" wasn't dripping with self righteous sarcasm. See you in a few weeks! :up:

Hi Jim! :salute:

And when that monkey on the trigger has been grown in a cultural climate that has a high tolerance for violence, displaying it and almost celebrating it in its entertainment media all day long, and at the same time making it subject of sensationalist and endlessly repetitive news coverage that hammers home the message that life is dangerous and that you need to protect your self by - guess what: violence and its tools, then you end up where I said "loose cultural attitude towards violence".

People tend to be affected by the cultural climate they live in. One cannot really escape it, one way or the other you react to it. And the American cultural climate is not suspicious of being a non-violent one - quite the opposite.

Its one of the things that "Bowling for Columbine" - think of Michael Moore whatever you want, but that one movie (his first, I think) was a good one - got very much right in describing it. One must not even refer to social psychology to get causes and effects together on this issue. Plain reason and an open mind should already be enough, one would assume. Shootings like this happen in other countries, too.

But in no way one could compare the frequencies of occurrences.

And this can be explained.

A rather somber coincidence. Apparently in 1968, shortly before his own assassination, Robert Kennedy campaigning for president made an appearance in the same town where this latest mass shooting took place advocating for gun control.

http://koin.com/2015/10/05/robert-f-...oseburg-in-68/

In the 47 year old video in which the senator is heckled, you hear so many of the same issues we remain deadlocked over today.

I think you and others like you are operating under the fallacy that the U.S is just like the one depicted in the old Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. not to mention you are getting the "facts" from people and organizations that have agendas.

take a look at the numbers for 2013 without any commentary.

U.S population
316,000,000

total deaths (disease, accidents, murder, & old age, etc)
2,596,993

Total gun deaths
34,048

gun deaths from murder
12,253

gun deaths from accidents, suicides, and justifiable killings
21,795

1.3% of all deaths that year can be attributed to firearms.

that's not an epidemic, thats a statistic. When that number hits 5%, then you start looking at solutions to deal with the issue. If that number hits 10%, you then implement those aggreed upon solutions.

So, basically, unless more people die then it's not worth trying to make things safer. :hmmm:

Ya its kinda like weapons technologies, car safety, food recalls, vaccines, childrens toys, etc etc. Unfortunetaly with gun control their is no science behind it which says implementing it will make anyone safer. Doing so will not in anyway make the crimminally insane sane. If they are motivated they will no doubt just seek an alternative method to carry out their intentions.

Because haters are gonna hate maybe we can start doing psych evals on the world population and put down the the trouble makers, humanly of course. Now THAT would make the world a much safer place, wouldn't it? Think of the children!

There are over 20,000 gun control laws on the books already in this country so please don't imply that nothing has been tried. Especially when what the controllers want to try is universal background checks which would have done nothing to prevent any of the recent mass murderers and they refuse to even consider getting rid of the so called "gun free zones" that these nuts seem to prefer so much as their killing grounds.

Maybe we also get rid of our right to privacy and the requirement for the cops to obtain a search warrant as well? After all if the cops were to search the homes and bedrooms of everyone in the country they just might find evidence of someone planning one of these crimes. To you that'd be worth ditching our constitution for right?

The truth is, it takes not much to aim a gun at someone and pull the trigger, that is a fact.
Someone argued "duh he would have used a knife if there would not have been a gun!"
Let us assume that is true, even though there was no indication for that.

Ever used a knife on a human being, child or not?

It is close, messy, personal, takes time and a completely different level of determination to really, REALLY kill that person, while with a gun all you need is a split second of an impulse, that is enough.
The victim struggles, fights back, screams, you see the panic and fear in their eyes, you feel the blade going in, feel your victim dying, hear it gasping for air, moaning, maybe pleading for his/her life - and that is surely not easy to pull off, except in the state of complete rage or when the person is indeed a friggin psychopath.

That is why people use guns. It is easier, a lot easier... and that is the problem and why some stupid tree-hugging-libfags think it might be time for stricter restrictions and why it is a bad idea that guns are so easily accessible in most of the US at this time AND why in most functioning countries of this planet guns are being restricted more or less (besides the obvious FACT that they only want to be sure they can create the next dictatorship soon and enslave the population in their nazi-dentist-death-camps... because reasons.)

It's not so much TEH CRAZIES that are a problem, that's not to say I would like a certifiably insane person to have a gun. The problem is violent people.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/mass...ental-illness/

A rather depressing graphic:
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-shootings.png

FB I statistics for 2011 list 12,644 murdered with guns accounting for 8,583 and 4,081 other means.