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Avoidable Tragedy – 294th “mass shooting” in the US this year

BBC Gun Report

… PLUS the Oregon Shootings


Roseburg, Oregon shootings: How common are such attacks?

Check out this report from Rajini Vaidyanathan of the BBC, and watch the video by clicking here or on the image above.


The killing of nine people in an Oregon college is the 294th “mass shooting” in the US this year, according to one definition of such tragedies.



The 26-year-old gunman opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg on Thursday morning and was killed in a police shootout.


But how often do such attacks take place?


BBC Washington correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan has been finding out.




My comments:



Gun or Egg?

Which is more dangerous in the US of A – a gun or a chocolate egg?



American legislators trust their citizens to carry guns, but don’t believe that they are smart enough to avoid choking on a plastic toy found inside a chocolate egg that sells so well for the very reason it contains . . . er . . . a plastic toy! That is really not at all funny.


To the rest of the civilized world, the USA is a very bad, very sick joke of a nation. Their President speaks great sense on gun law, but they choose to ignore him.


It is easier to buy a gun in a High Street store than it is to buy a chocolate egg. A friend of mine even got fined $25 for bringing an apple into the country in his suitcase.


Any crazy American citizen can own as many guns and bullets as they can afford.


The US government spends hundreds of billions on nuclear armament programmes in the name of defense, yet they are blind to the fact that all the nuclear weapons in the world will not deter any vicious terrorist attack or college shoot-up perpetrated by one of their own citizens.
Wake up America and impose gun controls!

It won’t stop attacks completely, ‘cos if some bad person wants a gun they’ll get one, but why don’t you just make it more difficult?


The State of the Nation?

My verdict: Absolutely nuts!


Which is the killer? Gun or Cheese?

Quiz: Which is the killer? The Gun or the Cheese?


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Published on October 02, 2015 07:53
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message 1: by [Name Redacted] (new)
Oct 02, 2015 06:54PM

[Name Redacted] One of the weirdest things is that actual murders & attacks with guns have been (and still are) steadily declining for decades -- this is according to the CDC study report issued at the behest of President Obama. Mass shootings, however, seem to be on the rise and part of that appears tied to how we report them. It not only encourages people to see mass-shootings as a viable way of expressing their anger, but assures them they will get nationwide attention. The increase in "gun violence" in the US is actually almost entirely the result of a massive increase in gun-related suicides. Which, one of my neurologist friends suggests, is likely the result of our culture assuming that taking anti-depressants stops depression right away, when in fact the biggest risk of suicide occurs shortly after the suicidal/depressed have been initially medicated -- suddenly they have all the energy and motivation which they lacked while un-medicated, but their thought-patterns are still stuck in the depressive cycles. It takes a while for their thoughts to catch up with their chemistry. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy would likely help with most of those cases, but we tend to just throw drugs at our problems and assume they solve everything on their own. Another element of that is likely, ironically, the de-stigmatization of depression and suicide. People don't feel the need to hide what they're doing or report their loved ones' suicides as "accidents" anymore.

Also, the regions in which gun violence is highest are the regions with the strictest anti-gun laws. Those on the Political Left attribute this to the ability of criminals to get guns from regions which do not heavily restrict firearm purchase & ownership (a repeated complaint, for instance, from my friends and loved ones in Chicago), while those on the Political Right attribute this to both the inability of non-criminals to defend themselves and the fact that criminalizing gun-use & -ownership results in guns developing a sort of "glamour" and people not understanding how to use them properly.


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