And yet again...another shooting rampage in the USA

I’m sure they didn’t want to see a mass shooting of fellow Americans.

Listen to yerselves!

So now it’s “fellow Americans”? I agree with that sentiment.

The guy was booked into a hotel the week previously next to a festival the headliners of which were Gorillaz, Lorde and Chance the Rapper. I think the country and western angle is a red herring.

He just seems to really want to kill a lot of people.
Then off himself so he didn’t face the consequences.

That is one twisted individual.

That’s just speculation, no one knows what his motives are, might as well be making up conspiracy theories of your own. See how that cognitive bias works? and is a bit more common than you might think.

I do have a genuine concern for people in Chicago. Many people read news headlines and for whatever reason Chicago violence isn’t making the headlines except for the Chicago Tribune. The gunman in Las Vegas was a sick bastard, and I hope he rots in hell. I understand people want to do something, but it’ll be hard to convince me that taking guns from law abiding Americans will work based on how it’s going in Chicago. I feel safer when the good guys have the guns. At the same time, I understand how people who grew up differently than myself don’t get my viewpoint. I’m asking for the same tolerance as others deserve who disagree. No attacks, name calling, generalizing.

Do you really believe the world is made of good guys and bad guys?
That’s interesting to me.

This guy was a good guy until a week ago. When was the point he became a bad guy?

I think this is an genuine and especially interesting philosophical question for our forum members to ponder.
At what point did Stephen Paddock become a bad guy?

Did he think of himself as doing bad or good is another one?

When he fantasised about killing people but hadnt actually killed people he was still a good guy at some point. It was all in his head and we can only judge by the actions. Certainly until last week his family and girlfriend thought he was a stand-up guy.

Now in the middle East there are whole countries at war because all the players think they are the 'good guys '. America has gone in as supposedly ‘the good guys’ and didn’t help one fucking bit. The Russians and Americans are going great killing loads of ISIS and thousands of civilians in the process. Nobody bats an eyelid.

Even North Koreans probably think their guys are the good guys !

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First they came for the country music fans…

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I’m not sure it matters. I’d leave it at “guys who kill people for no reason” and “guys who don’t”.

I’ll speak up for prohibiting the kind of quasi-military, semi-automatic weaponry that as we can see is capable with minor modification of killing large numbers of people at a long distance. Weapons like that aren’t needed for hunting or personal or home protection. The writers of the constitution couldn’t have envisioned them. There’s already federal law banning weapons like machine guns. It’s time to expand such legislation to keep such weapons off of our streets, just as we do with other highly destructive weapons.

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I guess you should be glad you teach English in Taiwan. A comment like that could get you fired if you worked at an American company.

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I think these comments are way off base (and downright rude as well). Mass shootings are a drop in the bucket compared to the overall numbers of shooting deaths in the U.S. each year. Most gun deaths happen in inner city areas like South Side Chicago, and not including them in a discussion about gun control makes no sense at all.

Alright, let’s see federal controls on automatic handguns too so that they can’t be bought in many places in the country and then be transported into Chicago to be used in crimes.

Yeah but the sudden concern for Chicago gangster deaths didn’t seem very real to me while studiously avoiding talking about how to prevent mass shootings such as happened in Nevada just now.

The only comment I see is that Paddock was a twisted killer. Yes we know that. But the difference is he killed 59 people and injured hundreds in 10 minutes with weapons he legally bought and owned. Paddock was a law abiding American. He didn’t need 42 guns to go.about his daily business. He did not need assault rifles to go about his business.

In many countries you are prosecuted for having a knife on your person. Those countries are safer than the US and have very strong human rights legislation and respect for democracy. In the US you can walk around with assault rifles which can kill hundreds hanging out of you and go into casinos and bars with them. What good is that doing for security and peace of mind?

Honestly the Chicago segue sounds like a media pundit ‘…but…’ talking point to move the conversation away.from the core discussion of how easy it is to purchase and carry around legal weapons of mass destruction in some states in the US.

Yes you need to have a conversation about removing some guns from ‘law abiding’ and ‘good Americans’.

Face the facts stop being so scared when the.boogie man has already appeared in front of you many times shooting up kids in schools and people having a good time at concerts and night clubs.and movie theatres. What about those good guys? Should they all be bringing their weapons to school or the concert or the movie theaters to protect themselves from the other good guys suddenly gone bad?

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My only point is that Fox is working an angle of the guy was an atheist who hated CnW, therefore anti-American etc. etc. When in all likelihood we’re dealing with a guy who took a hankering to kill lots of people for no reason.

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This is it, really, isn’t it just more of the same “we’re better on our side!” stuff. Everybody’s working an angle as they struggle to understand it and it’s not a surprise that their angle always conveniently lines up with their political views.

I haven’t seen anything about the Las Vegas shooter’s motives, but one random theory I just came up with 2 seconds ago is he thought he could bring conservatives and liberals together to realize we’re all the same.

Not bloody likely.

Check twitter comments on any political feed for confirmation. We hate all liberals because some dumbass CBS employee is an insensitive jackass, and we hate all conservatives and their gun toting Yosemite Sam ways. And there’s a million other ways we hate each other because of our political views. And if your reaction to this is “that’s what the left does!” or “that’s what the right does!” then you’re still missing the point. Whatever media you consume is going to colour your world like that.

But on guns themselves… most people have probably seen Jim Jefferies’ bit on gun control. He’s got a weekly show now and this week a lot of people tuned in to see what he’d say about it. He barely said anything, just stating that he’s got nothing to add, and Americans should go ahead and facebook “pray for Las Vegas” or put little love hearts on twitter, whatever. Just do nothing, let’s not even try to find a middle ground. I’m sure the senseless massacres will stop on their own somehow.

Same with climate change and a bunch of other issues that tend to turn on a party basis there. Seems to have become very polarised preventing rational consensus breaking out.

Not helped by Facebook or TV networks either!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/05/only-about-1-in-10-americans-have-a-lot-of-friends-of-the-opposing-political-party/

It’s like that in Canada too

Except that it has been proven time and time again that people perform poorly under stress. Unless you are constantly training in the use of firearms under a variety of stressful situations you may be as likely to do more harm than good.

Bump stock?

Sales surging…

Always a win-win situation for the gun manufacturers.

Increased fear of violence plus fear of new legislation = More gun sales.

Basically the gun manufacturers just have to make sure that mass shootings and terrorist attacks happen frequently and their business will be good. How to achieve that? Sell more guns, push legislators to change laws in their favor and/or avoid stricter laws. Make sure that politicians, talking heads, and the media take part in fear-mongering and this cycle will never end.

Bottom line is, in what kind of world do you want to live in? Knowing that everyone around you potentially has a gun, how does that affect your life? Are you willing to live in this kind of environment so that gun manufacturers can make more profits?

It goes further than that. The guns are mostly bought legally at shows, then sold illegally to gangs in and out of the States. Big business in Texas selling to mexican mafia, which si why border towns are such hell on earth. So you have a vicious cycle: the Latin American gangs that trade in drugs to the US, drugs are sold in the US to buy weapons to get more land and power to trade more drugs. This generates mroe insecutrity, more fear, more “excuses” to go shopping for more guns which are then sold… to the gangs. Ad nauseum.

So, if the US distributor of drugs, the one who is making the most profit, has an interest in keeping the trade of arms as free as possible, and has a lot of disposable cash that has to be “washed”, imagine the possibilities if they get a few legislators in their pockets …