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Has the USA gone totally crazy?

Long Sean Silver

I just saw a statistic for 2023. 201 mass shootings in the first 127 days of this year. That's 1.58 per day.

Even by US standards that's seems beyond crazy to me. Contrast with Serbia who had 2 mass shootings and immediately take action to curb gun ownership, the USA seems to be caught in a downward spiral of gun insanity where the "debate" now is about "Good guys with guns Vs Bad guys with guns".

Will they ever learn?

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[Deleted User]

These crime waves happen every 50-60 years in the United States.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120570505#Comment_120570505

Road deaths are accidents. Mass shootings are not. They're not comparable really.

Mass shootings are deliberate acts of murder and they definitely should be discussed.

BrianD3

The US homicide rate is lower than it was in the 1970s-1990s period so they must have been even crazier then. Also the gun laws are obviously far from the only issue they have, there are the major problems with poverty and inequality which itself is probably a contributor to gun violence and homicide.

Also, road deaths are much higher than deaths from homicide and much higher than road deaths in most European countries. Ireland 2.9 road deaths per 100k population, US 12.9 per 100k. Yet there isn't a thread every second day on this website about the tens of thousands killed on US roads every year.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058295599/has-the-usa-gone-totally-crazy

It's absolutely beyond comprehension how much it's escalating. We were talking about Columbine for a very long time after that happened in '99, it had a huge media presence, films created, lots of deep analysis...

It's almost become part and parcel of US culture now. I always wonder do many Americans worry about it on a day to day basis? Not sure how I'd feel about living in a country where I could be blown away just going about my business. It's such a surreal concept.

Manic Moran

It is my perception that the spree shootings are happening with increased regularity, and if so, it's not because of the firearms, it's because of the apparent increase in appeal in conducting the act. It is unlikely a coincidence that Serbia came across the news feed with two shootings one right after the other last week. Had the first not happened to global news releases, would we have seen the second?

It seems to me that the coverage we are giving these incidents is beginning to 'normalise' them to the people who might be considering it and removing any last social barriers to their actions or in some cases (such as those with political agenda) the publicity may even be encouraging them. We obviously cannot clamp down on the news reporting when these things happen, they are newsworthy events and we have freedom of press. But there may be a way of dampening the news that it reduces the sociological effects which are resulting.

Most importantly, though, we have to get back to the idea of 'respect for life', which seems to be dropping more and more from the US consciousness.

Long Sean Silver

Sandy Hook was what really did it for me. i felt, naively as it now appears, that after those 7 and 8 year old kids were blasted to eternity, things would surely change. i looked at their photos, their innocent little faces. i was wrong. it's beyond psychosis.

BorneTobyWilde

I think the issue with the whole planet, not just the USA is there are simply too many people on it to please and feed. US population has doubled since the 50's , that's an extra 150m to keep happy, and another 150m with their rights to bear arms

Strumms

It can’t be underestimated how great a damage it seems that Trumps presidency did to the US domestically, not just internationally.

A completely divisive, shît stirring, malevolent, childish ghoul.

he enabled and validated a lot of these crazies.

using varied questionable language to encourage violence against counter demonstrators at rallies… and varying other language of stoking the embers, fanning flames and indeed on the other hand being very silent when his own crowd could not be bothered playing by the rules…

Long Sean Silver

America enjoyed a golden age after WW2. the 50s, 60s, & 70s were particularly good as their standard of living was improving almost constantly, and they could (justifiably) laud it over the rest of the planet. that has now ended and other countries have caught up and in some cases overtaken them. this has rankled them, and the far-right and lone nutjobs have turned that sense of anger and perceived failure into violence.

as a kid i recall seeing Yanks come back to "the old country". we would literally look up to them. the were well-dressed, tall, prosperous, open and generous. we were waiting at our gate for our flight last year, when an incoming flight from Ohio (i think) disembarked. as they walked past, they looked so down at heel, dowdy, unfashionable, overweight, unfit. my kids starting making fun of them. i had to tell them to shush. i actually felt kinda sorry for them in a funny way.

add to the mix serious but untreated mental health issues, a gun obsessed culture, a nation that was built on violence (genocide & slavery), an abundance of useless politicians who seem to be either afraid of or are in hock with the gun lobby, and you got a ticking time bomb.

Run Forest Run

Gun control gets the headlines, but in reality the nation is extremely violent and full of very angry disenfranchised people.

Guns of course make very convenient tools if you're motivated to harm people. But I'm convinced that America would still be a very violent place even without the proliferation of guns.

There will come a time when people will be able to create cheap untraceable guns on 3D printers etc... (in fact crude examples are already possible now) so even if you could get everyone to agree on strict gun control, it would never work in the long run. People will always find a way to get what they need, just like with drugs or anything else really.

This is why the debates around gun control are a bit pointless really. It obfuscates the real root of the problem, and allows people to avoid asking the serious questions about what is going wrong in society to create so many unhappy people who want to lash out at society and harm innocent people. Without really digging deep into these questions, and figuring out how to stop people from getting to that point... good luck even attempting to stop any of this.

And as we can see in Serbia and elsewhere, trends that become big in the US very often migrate to many other places. Making everything about the tool these people are using, is a cop out... and of course it's heavily motivated by political and ideological differences. Making the whole thing into an ideological tribal conflict in the US, has done absolutely nothing to help resolve the problem. In fact, it has made it a whole lot worse.

Sgt Hartman

It's a mess of a country from what I can see. Serious divisions along the lines of wealth class and race. They seem to be totally obsessed about race over there.

Also, It calls itself a democracy but no other candidates stand a chance up against the ridiculous might of the two main political parties and the billion dollar corporations that support them. It's practically an extreme capitalist state.

Certain conservative areas, especially in the deep south have a terrifying level of ignorance and narrow minded thinking. The NRA is a super powerful lobby group made up largely of people of this mindset so sadly I can't see there being proper gun control laws any time soon.

godtabh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058295599/has-the-usa-gone-totally-crazy

Just learned that my sister in law was there the day before the Allen shooting. Crazy to think what might have happened.

Lionel Fusco

IMO America is a doomed country slowly descending towards an inevitable civil war and what a nasty bloody civil war it will be considering the amount of weaponry at the disposal of anyone who wants one.

whisky_galore

It has always been crazy, just different kinds of crazy from time to time.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568445#Comment_120568445

Murdoch has a lot to answer for.

The UK has similar discrepancies in their print media. But thankfully, with the exception of GB news, the broadcast media is a lot better.

We're at the stage where people in the US can't agree on basic facts. And politicians go along with it.

eggy81

There will be a war there yet. Or a split. The ununited states of America.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568371#Comment_120568371

The people that have problems with the likes of RTE and BBC news are exactly the type that would flock to the something like Fox News. They're only interested in hearing their preconceived notions and opinions repeated back to them. They are interested only in their own biases, and when that isn't being fed to them, they'll scream like children.

For what it's worth, I happen to find RTE news to be pretty straightforward and bereft of the opinion based efforts of most so called "news". And it's the news programme I'm talking about here. I generally don't watch much else on TV. RTE News generally just delivers headlines about events that happen and opinion is usually parked at the door. This most definitely isn't the case with the likes of US (so called) news media, especially in the case of the news channels, who usually are trying to appeal to a particular section of audience. Of course we are now seeing efforts to repeat that nonsense across the pond as well with the likes of GB News, which is little more than trash propaganda aimed at the simple minded.

ancapailldorcha

Of course not. It's just an extremely individualistic society where nobody gives a sh*t about anyone else. The response to every school shooting perfectly encapsulates this. Immediately, the usual bad actors poison the well and cynically use the still warm bodies as political props and masses of people welcome this.

I think they'll endure as long as enough people are comfortable. Once that point is crossed, they're screwed.

screamer

No, it’s always been ****. A country founded on violence, taking what you want and of course slavery, sure what could have gone right?

kneemos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568361#Comment_120568361

Republican states won't vote for anyone that supports gun control. I'd hate to see the shitfest if any Government did impose any meaningful gun control.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568361#Comment_120568361

I think the biggest thing they need is media regulation. Make sure that they are given unbiased facts. I know people have problems with RTE and BBC and say there's bias, but compared to US news, they're amazing.

Lewis_Benson

It's been fucked for a long time now.

Trump did it no favours at all either.

Time for a big shift in their political system, bring In fresh young blood and get rid of all the old men, we could do the Same here in fact.

Grayson

We could do an experiment where every single country, except one, implements firearms controls. Then we can see if one of them has loads more firearms deaths than the others.

Oh wait....

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058295599/has-the-usa-gone-totally-crazy

It's always been crazy. It's a nation that was built on the slaughter of a people that was already living there by Europeans. Later it became a melting pot of some of the worst that humanity has to offer. The fact that they off each other in record numbers should come as no surprise really. There is a deep psychosis that runs through the American psyche. One which is violent through and through and one that also boasts a truly appalling political situation that's a quagmire of pettiness manufactured to appeal to most childish of minds. A situation that has only become worse even during my limited time on the Earth.

And yet, it's the one country on the planet that was (ostensibly at least) designed with the pursuit of happiness baked into its very being and it has a genuinely agreeable constitution...for the most part anyway.

Unfortunately that "happiness" comes at very costly prices. And one of those prices is people dying at the end of a gun. Talking about this earlier with real people in the real world, I mentioned that it was hard to give a shit any more and I've been feeling that way for some time. They won't make any real efforts to even minimise this issue or mitigate it. So why should the world outside waste their sympathy on a nation that would rather use gun control as a cheap political football rather than an important societal issue that should be tackled in a reasonable manner?

As for "will they ever learn", well they have learned. They've learned the hard way. The problem is there's an element over there that doesn't give a fuck, and until the day arrives where they are directly impacted by this issue they'll continue to not give a fuck.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568296#Comment_120568296

So what you think they should just add two more people to the meaning so they can statisticly have a lower number of mass shootings? The problem is the amount of guns in the country and changing the stasticts will not solve it people will still die. I think 3 or more is right.

Oh and yes America is gone to sh1t and the American dream too. I do not envy anyone living there. However what I did not yesterday on the news is that the 4 states along Canadas border in the North middle seem to be the safest. No idea which these states are but not one of them had a mass shooting.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568296#Comment_120568296

Massaging the statistics to conceal the problem is not the same thing as solving it. It's pretty much the opposite, in fact.

Quantum Erasure

they need to redefine 'mass shootings',

mass shooting, also called active shooter incident, as defined by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an event in which one or more individuals are “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of a firearm.” The FBI has not set a minimum number of casualties to qualify an event as a mass shooting, but U.S. statute (the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012) defines a “mass killing” as “3 or more killings in a single incident.” For the purposes of this article, both sets of criteria will be applied to the term mass shooting, with the distinction that the shooter or shooters are not included in any fatality statistics.

up it to at least 5 kills, see the numbers plummet... (well, maybe not plummet, but at least decline for a while)

Piskin

American Society has been in decline since the Vietnam War. The optimism is gone and communal life is no more. 9-11 Scam really affected the people badly.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568220#Comment_120568220

I’d say that any presidential candidate who in the lead up to an election, called the second amendment and it’s appropriateness into question would just be taken out with a rifle…

the gun control bill which to even the most half witted heretic must have seemed like common sense only passed with ok a bit of bipartisan support, but with just 14 Republicans joining Democrats in the House to approve the bill by….234 to 193 votes…. Not exactly a landslide…or close to one.

kneemos

The second amendment puts the right to bear arms in their constitution,any attempt to remove it now would likely be seen by the rednecks as an attack on the country.

Bit of a self perpetuating problem in America,the more guns there are the more guns you need for protection,though they do seem to have a particular problem with mass shootings.