I wish someone was brave enough to ban semi automatic weapons.
1 Like
My family live in Texas and some of the stories they tell me are horrendous,albeit they do live in the more affluent northern part. Only last week my daughter contacted a pupil by video call (online education) to ask why she had not attended the local centre for exam testing as they do once per year.The answer came back âthey are all deadâ. The police were alerted as were social services and nothing has been heard since but that sort of reply is nothing unusual at all. My SIL went to the local shooting range and had a go but not with the AK47 they had there! He wonât go again, it horrified him and he had the pick of weapons from a hand pistol to that with noprevious experience of any firearm.
1 Like
Thatâs apparently the 174th mass shooting in the USA in 119 days.
1 Like
Do you think there is a genuine fear of being unarmed in NRA members or is it just machismo (and whatever the female version of that is)?
Think itâs probably machismo too in Amerika 
1 Like
Brainwashed is a more likely explanation - or keeping up with the Joneses. NRA warnings came first about âMexican drug gangsâ invading the neighbourhood, now itâs - âthey have a gun, I need one tooâ. More to do with politicians stoking fears.
I went to an outdoor shop in Chicago to get some fishing tackle for a friend. Bit like a Decathlon, selling everything from boats to boots. An entire floor was dedicated to guns, bow/arrow, knives. I was fascinated by little UZI machine guns available in colours of the rainbow. As a European I will never understand the need for so much weaponry.
2 Likes
Itâs about one every 16 hours.
Over 48,000 people died due to gun violence, the majority by suicide but almost 21k homicides in 2021
Seven times the number that died on 9/11 *every* *year*.
Until the US does something about the legal ownership of semi automatic assault weapons this death toll will only continue to rise.
But they wonât.
2 Likes
Definately from hearing about their friends who keep guns in their trucks and always off shooting at something or another. However, these are the dyed in the wool texans, god fearing christians and abhore these senseless murders whilst all in high profile jobs too. Family wonât go to parts of the state because it is just so volatile now.
1 Like
I remember staying in Houston 35 years or so ago and a group of us decided to walk to the nearest shopping mall from the hotel.We passed through a little estate and the houses and gardens all looked well cared for.No signs of delinquance but on reflection no signs of anyone outside apart from us(But then not many people walked anywhere ,car was king)
On the way back a police car picked us up asking us what on earth we were doing walking through one of the most dangerous areas of Houston which had only recently had a gang shoot out .
Appearances were very deceptive.
1 Like
Yes all those big cities in the south of Texas are practically no go areas in most parts now. El Paso being the worst followed by Houston and then S.Antonio.
Some years ago I encountered a road rage sort of person in San Francisco. I stayed behind him until he had to commit to downtown or the Golden Gate and when he took the Golden Gate ramp I zoomed on straight into Town. A lady behind me then flashed me down and kindly told me she had his antics on her dashcam and gave me her number in case I wanted to press charges. I wasnât going to waste time doing that but on reflection later I thought I may have been lucky the nutcase didnât have, or at least didnât produce, a gun. Itâs frightening to have to think that way, isnât it? Who knows whoâs carrying a weapon.
A few years ago I was having a beer in a bar/restaurant in Sandton, an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg, and got talking, as one does, to the bloke next to me. He was a bit pissed but chatty. We started talking about crime (a constant topic in South Africa) and he said he wasnât too worried and pulled out a bloody big automatic and started to wave it around.
He then pulled out the magazine and explained he used a range of different type bullets to ensure heâd stop whoever he needed to. I donât know anything about bullets but he popped them out of the magazine, sort of one soft nose, one something else and another something else in a repeated pattern throughout the magazine. He explained that a 9mm was a waste of time and while a 45 had maximum stopping power it had too few bullets in the magazine. So, on balance, a Glock 40 S&W was your only man 
On another occasion I was accompanying one of my team on a customer call to a downtown bank in Johannesburg. We went into the Bankâs lobby and there were what looked like little lockers on one of the walls. My colleague asked me to hang on a minute and he went over and popped his gun into one of them. We went into the Bank, had a good meeting and on the way out he retrieved his gun. Heaven knows how many of my colleagues were walking around the office with guns 
I was looking up Glocks to make sure I remembered correctly and found this nutcase another 40S&W fan. Banning this sort of rubbish from Youtube could be a start.
At the Standard Bank branch in sleepy Grahamstown (which nevertheless had a guard with a pump action shotgun) customers could queue for the teller with their 9mm automatics in shoulder holsters that were usually worn over very bland short-sleeved shirts from middle class department stores like Edgars or Stuttafords - a strange conjunction of the anodyne and the scary.
1 Like
No itâs the Constitution, which gives them the right to bear arms and was designed for very different weapons, but, hell, who cares.
[quo te=âJane_Williamson, post:13, topic:43348â]
but, hell, who cares
[/quote]
For me, there are too many innocent victims for your post to be a morally acceptable stance. A situation may appear irreversible (and I believe this one is), but that doesnât mean it should be regarded as acceptable
@DrMarkH
Jane is being sarcastic.
3 Likes
Thanks, but her sarcasm is lost in the medium - unfortunately itâs too close to what others might say sincerely
Donât agree with your take on that in the slightest and I doubt any other regular readers would either!
4 Likes
Whatever - there are all sorts of posts on SF from all sorts of perspectives, so to my mind contextualisation helpsâŚ
The exact interpretation of the 2nd amendment and whether and to what extent it conveys the right to gun ownership is the subject of much debate.
Sacrasm aside I think one should care about tens of thousands of almost certainly preventable deaths per year. Sadly the situation is out of control and it seems that anyone in power in the 'States either doesnât âcare or is too frightened of the consequences of suggesting any reining in of unfettered gun worship to change the situation.
Until they do Americans are probably going to continue shooting each other in large numbers.
1 Like
Itâs now far too late, the situation is irreversible - there are too many guns to be withdrawn and American society is too polarised for significant change to occur.
To quote the Jefferson Airplane in an admittedly different context , âHorror grips us as we watch you dieâ.
1 Like