Today's mass shooting in the US

[Dis86]

That's a lot of background checking

Mass Shootings in 2025 | Gun Violence Archive

Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is a not for profit corporation formed in 2013 to provide free online public access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States. GVA will collect and check for accuracy, comprehensive information about gun-related violence in the U.S. and...

www.gunviolencearchive.org

Shame they can't do background checks on people in every state before they buy guns.

Well yes, that's part and parcel of criminal investigations.

 

[Felon]

It'll take a way a commonly used method of killing lots of people quickly

I don't think you can ban-your-way out of this problem, and I don't think there's a single simple solution to it. I think that America has become far too extreme, socially, politically - with the media stirring the cauldron at 100mph, pumping it into every eyeball of the populace, I think it's making people mentally ill in ways we don't understand yet.

I think it's a mistake to focus squarely on guns and nothing else, because I don't think guns are the primary issue, they're part of it - but not the driving force.

 

[something daft already!!]

Prayers really help don't they? Not education or banning guns.

 

[Tom_ed1987]

USA has many guns but so do many countries, & when you look at the statistics it's not like there are more school shootings which rise proportionally with gun ownership/access.

There's clearly other USA specific factors at play (culture/mental health resource etc) & to just blame guns is lazy. If it wasn't guns, it would be driving into crowds or mass stabbings or whatever.

 

[VincentHanna]

There's clearly other USA specific factors at play (culture/mental health resource etc) & to just blame guns is lazy. If it wasn't guns, it would be driving into crowds or mass stabbings or whatever.

I think it's a mistake to focus squarely on guns and nothing else, because I don't think guns are the primary issue, they're part of it - but not the driving force.

If you improved the laws on gun ownership, I guarantee there would be substantially less people killed though...Even if some people started using bombs or knives or cars instead.

 

[mrochester]

There are a lot of people in America that just want to see their own country burn, and they're all from the left. Expect more of these to happen.

Pointing fingers doesn’t actually solve anything.

The 2 sides of the political aisle need to work together for the betterment of the USA rather than stoking an ‘us vs them‘ mentality in the wider population.

Although I am afraid it’ll not change until something truly catastrophic happens and those in power get the wake-up call they need to rally together.

 

[fez]

Well that's the point isn't it.

By getting rid of the guns, you wouldn't actually be solving the problem at all, you'd just be moving it elsewhere.

As in this particular case: If a persons view of the world has become so warped and broken, to the point where they feel the need to go to a school and shoot children - what good is removing guns going to do?

They might just bomb the school instead?

Like they do in the UK....

The simple fact is that guns are a really easy to obtain and use method to exact your revenge on innocent people. Bombs are not. The average idiot would be far more likely to blow themselves up or attract the attentions of the government before getting one anywhere near a school etc.

 

[Felon]

If you improved the laws on gun ownership, I guarantee there would be substantially less people killed though...Even if some people started using bombs or knives or cars instead.

I somewhat agree, I'd be for legislation which banned high powered semi-auto rifles such as AR-15s, because it's just too much power for a civilian, they do much more damage than a handgun ever could - as a result you see fewer deaths.

But when it comes to mass shootings, I think there's a whole range of other factors at play which people are ignoring or don't want to talk about. Politicians are terrible in that they want to just push the blame squarely onto one thing, whether it's guns or violent video games. Yet none of them want to have a serious conversation about mental health, or issues of poverty equality and fairness.

Look at the state of social care in the US, yet if you have a conversation with the average American about social issues - it's like having a conversation with a space alien, they do not understand the idea of community, and the richer paying money to support the poor.

Like they do in the UK....

The simple fact is that guns are a really easy to obtain and use method to exact your revenge on innocent people. Bombs are not. The average idiot would be far more likely to blow themselves up or attract the attentions of the government before getting one anywhere near a school etc.

To be honest, I think you're fooling yourself if you think the person in the video posted further up - who went into a school tooled up with a map, plans, weapons etc - would have just stayed at home and done nothing, if guns were banned.

 

[GGizmo]

I think at the very least they should be putting in the checks and procedures we have over here.

I think Australia had a similar situation to the US until they had a mass shooting and they decided to do something about it, and the mass shootings stopped. They became an exception like it would be in any other country.

@Sankari probably knows more about how it works over there?

 

[Felon]

I think Australia had a similar situation to the US until they had a mass shooting and they decided to do something about it, and the mass shootings stopped. They became an exception like it would be in any other country.

I think this comparison with Australia is a bit pointless.

I think up until 1996 there were what, 13 or 14 mass shootings in the previous decade leading up to the ban.

In the US there are thousands and thousands of mass shootings.

They're problems of totally different magnitude.

Australia is also a small country, there are only what - 20-30 million people, you can never translate what happens there, into a country of the size and complexity of the US and expect it to work.

 

[Caracus2k]

If you improved the laws on gun ownership, I guarantee there would be substantially less people killed though...Even if some people started using bombs or knives or cars instead.

Changing gun laws would do very little to reduce the amount of people killed in the US, by firearms, in the short to medium term.

There's just too many firearms already in circulation.

You would only succeed in disarming the law abiding people who already only account for a very small minority of fatal firearms shootings in the US.

If the goverment tries to disarm people they will have multiple 'Waco' style shootouts on their hands that won't do anythingto reduce the amount of people shot.

We can already see that some of the worst places for gun violence in the US are area that often have some of the strongest restrictions on gun ownership.

It's a fantasy to say you can just change the law and expect gun deaths to consitently decrease thereafter.

 

[ebilcake]

Hmm, maybe authorities should start paying attention to these kind of posts, rather than wasting time on people being misgendered, dead named or someone saying trans women aren't women.

 

[Tom_ed1987]

You can also compare it to the UK and gun restrictions that came in after Dumblane.

Mass shootings in UK went from a very rare occurance (Hungerford, Dumblane)... to a very rare occurance (Raoul moat, the more recent one in Plymouth)

 

[Dis86]

You can also compare it to the UK and gun restrictions that came in after Dumblane.

Mass shootings in UK went from a very rare occurance (Hungerford, Dumblane)... to a very rare occurance (Raoul moat, the more recent one in Plymouth)

I don't think moat counts as a mass shooting. Especially since he was a third of the victims!

Edit: confirmed, it doesn't.

 

[bjorkiii]

Place explosives in every doorway window any entrance point in every building in the usa and vehicles ships boats etc. That wont go wrong.

 

[Caracus2k]

I somewhat agree, I'd be for legislation which banned high powered semi-auto rifles such as AR-15s, because it's just too much power for a civilian, they do much more damage than a handgun ever could - as a result you see fewer deaths.

AR-15 style weapons and rifles in general account for a rather small amount of the overall deaths from shootings in the US. The evidence does not support the proposition that a ban in rifles would achieve any meaningful result.

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

www.pewresearch.org

In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available, according to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”

 

[Sankari]

I think at the very least they should be putting in the checks and procedures we have over here.

I think Australia had a similar situation to the US until they had a mass shooting and they decided to do something about it, and the mass shootings stopped. They became an exception like it would be in any other country.

@Sankari probably knows more about how it works over there?

Funnily enough, Australia already had pretty good gun laws before our big mass shooting in 1996 (the Port Arthur Massacre) and mass shootings were already extremely rare. Port Arthur was different because it had a massive death count (35) and left the entire nation reeling. I was living in Tasmania at the time, and the massacre was utterly devastating to the entire state, which is an island with a population of just 500,000. Almost everyone knew someone who was affected by it.

The biggest problem with pre-96 gun laws was that they varied considerably between states and territories, so there was very little consistency. But the Australian federal government does not have power to create nationwide gun laws, so it just had to put up with the situation.

The Port Arthur Massacre changed this because it led to a massive demand from the Australian public to tighten gun laws across the entire nation. At that time we had a very conservative federal government (the most conservative in decades) and the Prime Minister was determined to make his mark by addressing the issue. So he worked quickly to establish a bipartisan solution by negotiating with all the state and territory governments until they agreed to adopt more uniform gun laws.

The PM introduced a national firearm buyback program, under which guns that were soon to be banned under the new laws could be handed in to the federal government, which purchased them at full market rates and immediately destroyed them. Starting in 1997, a total of 650,000 firearms were purchased over 12 months. The program had a budget of $500 million, but ended up costing $367 million, which was great news for taxpayers. A 2003 buyback program (for handguns only) retrieved 68,727 firearms.

Australia has only seen 3 mass shootings since 1996, with a total death count of 16 people (including perpetrators). During that time, state and territory governments have relaxed their firearm laws to varying degrees, but consistency across the nation remains high, and the firearms banned in 1996 are still illegal. The rate of firearm ownership has also increased, contrary to predictions by gun lobbyists that Australians would be 'completely disarmed' (a completely spurious argument anyway, since unlike America, the Australian constitution has never granted citizens the right to own and bear firearms).

So to recap the Australian situation:

* big mass shooting
* tighter gun laws
* >700,000 firearms bought and destroyed by the government
* firearm ownership increased but firearm crime did not
* no corresponding increase in non-firearm violent crime
* mass shootings remained extremely rare

AR-15 style weapons and rifles in general account for a rather small amount of the overall deaths from shootings in the US. The evidence does not support the proposition that a ban in rifles would achieve any meaningful result.

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

www.pewresearch.org

In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available, according to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”

Handguns are also the most common weapon in US mass shootings.

 

[Caracus2k]

Just to add some more context to the whole 'scary AR-15' let's ban them argument.

I think a lot of people misunderstand rifles and their efficacy in a 'mass shooting' scenario.

In a lot of cases a mass shooter would be more lethal using a pistol vs a rifle.

You can carry far more pistol ammo than you can rifle ammunition. Extended capacity pistol mags can carry as many rounds, if not more vs rifle magazines.

And you don't need the increased over penetration characteristics of rifles if you goal is to shoot a large number of unarmed and unarmoured civilians.

Also handguns are far easier to conceal, lighter and easier to handle with/ swap to another firearm vs swapping from using a rifle to another firearm.

A rifle only really becomes more relevant if you end up in a shootout with the cops wearing some body armour and armed with their own firearms

 

[StriderX]

Hmm, maybe authorities should start paying attention to these kind of posts, rather than wasting time on people being misgendered, dead named or someone saying trans women aren't women.

When a group of people who believe their innate character is being isolated and assaulted then it's highly likely to result in violence as it has done innumerable times before, undoubtedly the reaction will be entirely cynical and highly counter-productive since the acceptance of exploiting political violence to push agendas is now baked in.

 

[fez]

To be honest, I think you're fooling yourself if you think the person in the video posted further up - who went into a school tooled up with a map, plans, weapons etc - would have just stayed at home and done nothing, if guns were banned.

Of course they would, because they would have no power. When was the last time we had an attack on a school? When was the last time someone made a bomb and took it to a school. When was the last time someone took a knife or any other weapon into a school to try and kill multiple people. Do you think that kids in the UK don't have the same issues they have in the US?

The reason guns are so ******* dangerous is because some scrawny little kid can walk into a school and start murdering people and play out their power fantasy with easy. If all these school shooters in the US didn't have guns I wouldn't expect even a single one to happen.

Guns are the core element of all these things. You can take your maps, plans etc wherever you like but if you don't have a gun you ain't getting far. Someone comes into a classroom with a gun and its a massacre. Someone comes in with a knife and everyone picks up a chair and beats the living **** out of them.