There is a point where I no longer know what to say, when a problem persists in a specific country, and only people in that country seem willfully oblivious to it actually being a problem unique to them.
Once again, there was another horrific mass shooting in the United States. We just had one in Buffalo with obvious racial overtones. There, a young 18-year old white supremacist shot and killed black people exclusively. It was reminiscent of the mass shooting years ago by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
Now, not even two weeks later, there was another horrible shooting. This one was in Texas, which has seen a number of other awful mass shootings in the past. This one was more reminiscent of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut, which happened almost a decade ago. The most recent reports have it that 2 adults and 19 students were killed in cold blood.
It began with the young man - a teenager who had turned 18 and evidently had just qualified to legally obtain firearms - killing his grandmother. Then apparently, the young man went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He barricaded kids inside of a single classroom and went on a murderous rampage. Much like with Sandy Hook, these kids were very young. Pretty much defenseless little kids. And staff members, who surely got their jobs without thinking that it might one day lead them to be victims in a high profile murder.
Again, there is a point where the details differ - names and locations and number of victims - but which fundamentally seems to be an ongoing crisis throughout the country. It seems that either too many Americans do not believe or, worse, do not care, that this problem seems to be specific to the United States. In no other country in the world do they regularly have mass shootings like we have here in the United States. They happen from time to time. Australia had a horrific mass shooting in 1996. Britain has had a few horrible mass shootings over the span of many years. France has had a few mass shootings, again, across the span of many years. The same with Germany, and Canada, and Norway, and other countries. But only one country seems to have these kinds of horrific incidents so frequently. The only time that I can remember, specifically, not hearing about a mass shooting for the span of months dating back to the nineties would have been during the nationwide Covid-19 shutdown.
That's it. And I'm sorry, but that is not normal. And it's a problem. It's a problem all too clear to everyone around the world....except a number of Americans. Not a majority of Americans, mind you. Most Americans actually do recognize that this is a huge problem in the country. But there are some Americans who seem to go to extraordinary lengths to deny that this is the problem that it has become.
Earlier today, I read the comments from one American who is blind to this being such a uniquely American problem. This personal shall remain anonymous. In a frankly tiresome, and frankly immature argument (surely he does not see it that way, but frankly, I'm calling a spade a spade here), he suggested that people killed in DUI accidents were killed by cars, so ban the car.
Here's the first thing about that: when it's a car, it's an accident. Yes, the driver might indeed be irresponsible. And when that happens, that driver is held accountable by the law, whether or not they have caused an accident. They have their driving privileges revoked. Also, you have to pass tests and meet certain qualifications to earn those driving privileges. So yes, by all means, let's make ownership of guns much like driving, with conditions and restrictions and all. Because the main difference that I can see, and not some small or irrelevant point, is that people drive cars for a functional purpose. People do not buy assault weapons or semis for any functional purpose, other than to kill. When someone buys such weapons with the express intent to kill as many people as possible - something that happens in particularly here in the United States far, far, far more often than anywhere else in the entire world - then it is not an accident.
Somebody who's been abusing substances and gets behind the wheels likely has an addiction problem, but they also likely are not specifically going out there to kill people. They are not murderous, and empowered by their cars to do as much damage as possible. Can the same be said about mass shooters? Can we say that today about this Texas school shooting, or the one last week in Buffalo? Can we say that about the Las Vegas mass shooter, or the Orlando night club mass shooter, or the Parkville shooter, or the Columbine shooters, or the Virginia Tech shooter, or the Sutherland mass shooter, or on and on and on? Really, if I wanted to do the research and not just go with examples off the top of my head, I really could go on and on and on. And again, that's unique to this country, mostly because idiots like the one who was comparing this to DUI's keep making frankly mind-numbingly stupid arguments like these. That's the difference between people killing others with cars in DUI accidents, versus somebody calculating a mass murder, and enabled to carry it out because of the lax gun laws in this country. Certain guns in particular are not for hunting, but serve only one function, and that is to kill. Period. Sorry, but that is the one and only purpose that those kinds of assault weapons serve.
Another common argument that I hear these days is that schools should be armed. Many of the people who argue this feel that teachers should be armed. In other words, that one of their responsibilities should be to receive instructions on killing kids as a prerequisite to being able to teach kids. So not only do teachers here in this country have to deal with being underpaid and underappreciated, but now, they will be tasked with literally life and death matters. If, for some reason, they fail to shoot the bad guy dead, then they likely will be pointed to again as responsible for what happened. Ridiculous. And once again, I find myself reflecting on the words, so often repeated in a very different context when I was younger, but which I use here for very different, and far less flattering, reasons. Here are the words:
Only in America
These days, when I hear news like this, of yet another horrible mass shooting that comes on the heels of another horrible mass shooting just days before, like this one followed shortly after the Buffalo mass shootings, I can only think of one thing. Frankly, the level of repetition of these tragedies is unique to the United States, and that makes me feel ashamed to be an American on days like this. And when I see the comments by certain lawmakers - mostly but not exclusively Republicans - and idiots like this guy, who will find any and every excuse for why this should be passed off as normal and, for all intents and purposes, nothing should be done, then it becomes tragically obvious that this uniquely American problem is not going away anytime soon.
LIVE Texas shooting: Children killed were barricaded in classroom Updates from BBC correspondents Sarah Smith and Angelica Casas in Uvalde, Texas
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-61576584
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