Gun Control thread (merged many)

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Anyone looking for reasons should start with the killers own words:

"I have noticed that so many people like him (the Virginia news crew killer) are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight."

These monsters feed off each other and the media, eager for ratings and damn the consequences, are happy to provide the fodder.

I think that's definitely part of the problem, but not the whole problem.
Our media is just as bad, take a look on youtube at clips from all the programs that were aired during and after our last mass-shooting:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Raoul+moat
I mean, this was treated as a big thing in the UK, even though by American standards it was pretty small fry, 2 dead and 2 injured.
Admittedly, I think part of the focus was because it happened only one month after another nutjob went postal in a much bigger way, and here's the same media frenzy:
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...bria+shootings

Ok, it's perhaps not quite as frothing at the mouth as the US media gets, with all their special graphics and talking heads, but between that and twitter, it's not that far off. The end result is the same, the guy gets their name out there for a good time, gets their own wikipedia entry and eternal fame.

So...why does it happen with such a frequency in the US as opposed to elsewhere? What are the differing factors? If the US and the UK has similar media treatment of spree killers (you should have seen the fuss over the Ipswich Ripper incident never seen so much press in Ipswich before) then why does the UK not see more spree killings?

Personally, I think that there is a trifecta of issues, the firearms, mental health care and the press. Unless you treat all three of the issues, then the other two will mean that the issue won't go away but will just morph into another way. Ban the press from reporting it, and people will go on the internet where you can't ban it, ban firearms and people will probably switch to knives, fix mental health care and you might reduce the number but probably not by as much as would be possible under a three pronged approach.
Of course, the 1st and 2nd Amendments are the key factors in two of the three issues and those will be the hardest to examine and deal with.

However, just writing the problem off as being natural or just a part of life, becoming numb and normalised to it...I don't think that's a healthy way for a country to go.