What is a "mass shooting"? The definition keeps changing, and there is no consistency. Whomever is using the term gets to define what it is, or WHICH definition they cherry pick, depending on their political views of gun ownership.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...icates-media-coverage/?utm_term=.874a5bff33ef
The most pressing issue related to gun crimes, IMO, is categorizing them accurately and properly. There is a vast, vast difference between a child who encounters a loaded and unsecured firearm, accidental hunting shootings, terrorist mass shootings, shootings by the criminally insane/ mentally ill, suicides, and garden variety gang and criminal shootings. Each category has a DIFFERENT cause, and a different strategy for preventing the shootings. Accidents are vastly different than purposeful shootings.
Again, it is the HUMAN part of the equation that is most pressing-- the problems and motivations of the PEOPLE who cause the shootings. A gun is just a tool. But it's much easier to simply blame the tool and people who have them. Someone like Adam Lanza should have been found legally incompetent and profoundly disabled years before his mass shooting. Nancy Lanza should never have been able to shield him for so many years. She rejected all attempts to have him properly treated. IMO, he should have been institutionalized on a long term basis. He was clearly so mentally and socially compromised he should never have been in society unsupervised. That's my opinion. Sandy Hook is a result of Nancy Lanza's extreme pathological denial about Adam's mental and social disabilities, and society's apathy. AL could just as easily have run over a bunch of kids on a playground using Nancy's car, or slashed kids with kitchen knives. But he had access to Nancy's guns, and incessant priming/ OC behaviors playing violent gun and killing video games sequestered for months on end, so that's what he used when he finally homicidally acted out. If it wasn't guns, it would have been another tool he used.
It's outrageous that a poster above wants to imprison *victims* of theft, robbery, and home invasions. Using that same logic, shall we also imprison or execute the families of all criminals and murderers? Shall we also deport, imprison, or execute all of the extended families of immigrant terrorists? No. Because America is not a place like North Korea or Iran, or dozens of other barbaric dictatorships.
Many people have no concept of why our 2nd amendment exists. It exists not only to allow citizens to protect themselves and their families from violent crimes, but to allow citizens to protect themselves against a government that becomes fascist, brutal, or dictatorial. That's why settlers came here in the first place--seeking freedom from *too much government* intrusion into their lives. Those who wanted to remain under the crown of England migrated north-- they valued security and goods over freedom, and were willing to have less freedom for more security. Those who became Americans valued freedom from excessive government over security, and preferred personal responsibility for providing for their needs, over dependence on the government.
These same values define first world societies around the world today. Europe is the way it is, because of it's history and geography, *more* than its values. America is the way it is because of its history of settlers, and because of their values. IMO, of course. That's why America has personal gun rights other countries do not have, and things like our 3rd Amendment, not compelling private citizens to house soldiers. (Vastly simplified explanation, of course.) It's no accident the content of the 3rd Amendment is where it is-- all the early amendments were to guarantee
rights of the people separate from things "bestowed" or granted by the current rulers to citizens.
