Holy shit, we’ve had our 130th mass shooting just THIS YEAR ALONE. And it’s still March!!
What do you all think about that? It’s been going on for SO long and after every shooting it’s always the same, “thoughts and prayers.” No one EVER does anything. No one EVER funds the desperately need mental health services. Hell, I’m not even a fan of the US mental health system and I think it needs more funding and better access (especially the therapy and support part, not the meds/psychiatry part).
Therapists and counselors also need better training bc right now, most are shit. That’s why so many people who’ve tried therapy still are depressed. But then again, if therapists were allowed to “heal” us, there wouldn’t be any more money for them.
Mass shooting is defined as at least 4 ppl shot in 1 attack.
Have to get the news on BBC bc American news sure af won’t tell us the stats:
Anybody still think we live in a sane world? We aren’t. We are living in a sick society and it just keeps getting worse. People are overworked, underpaid, struggling with bills, lack healthcare, lack mental health care, there is so much anger and angst, and it manifests itself into mass shootings.
You don’t get this shit in other countries.
Yep, America is still #1….in Mass Shootings!
America is still #1…in creating and funding foreign wars
America is still #1 in Military Spending
But god forbid we spend a dime on fixing homelessness, or giving ppl healthcare, or funding mental health services. Or helping clean up East Palestine OH. “Nooo, there’s no money for that!” Yes we have BILLIONS to send to Ukraine, but no, we have NO MONEY for the poor people in the US.
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It’s something on my mind as well, especially this latest one. For one I visited the city where it happened the first time ever this January (during which there was another episode of civil unrest, not unpacking that right now). For another; waiting for the other shoe to drop I guess, as in this was the shoe I’ve been waiting for.
Actions don’t occur in a vacuum (a corollary of follow the money is look for who profits) and these past few months attacks on trans people have amped up. One has to wonder why, or one did. I think this was part of their bullying and otherizing the trans community. They knew if they cultivated enough hatred, someone would be sensitive enough to act on it.
Or maybe I’m paranoid there. I wish it seemed more realistic that lawmakers act in the public good.
But then there is the second thing, among all the countries with access to guns (excluding third world), we’re the only one that puts up the numbers we do. I rewatched a few documentaries about it, one of them pointed to the highly emotional and devisive rhetoric, and I think that’s partially correct.
I think there is a more subtle relationship with easy access to guns and our present mental health crisis. I think, like how our current case exploited the trans community, that access to guns and poor mental health set things up for the creation of criminals. Criminals have been used to justify some of the worst policy in American history…. so there’s motive, and there’s profit.
I think we, the ones who talk about it, who try to resist, are overlooked here. We for whatever reason won’t kill ourselves, or anyone else for that matter. We are the defects in the criminal manufacturing engine.
I also think the gun violence thing often overlooks the amount of suicides associated with it, how many shooters are suicidal? We’re the only country on the planet with modern healthcare, but that healthcare is less accessible than a gun…. and it makes most of us angry, and anger plus a gun is just the recipe for murder.
Then I also think about how long it has been going on. It sometimes appears like a recent development, but there have been mass shootings as long as there have been guns. They just keep increasing in frequency, which follows the trend of increased access and ease of use.
That would be my idea for gun control. Easy as you want to access, but it has to be an 18th century musket. So that means you’ve got to take it apart every few shots, and it takes about ten minutes to load. It’s the exact kind of gun the founding fathers would have been thinking of, and I dare say it would stop most mass shootings.