The Massacre of the Innocents (again)

 Let me start by saying that I respect the decision of Americans to value the right to bear arms over the lives of children, the deaths of whom are an acceptable price for guns being available.  I just do not understand it. 

Another school shooting has taken place in the USA.  I am sure that there will be people who will blame this on issues of mental health, or transgenderism, rather than the issue of having decent gun controls. Living in the UK, we have legal firearms here. My job includes among other things, providing information on licences to the police who are responsible for the decision to issue them and I have no issues with legal firearms being used for hunting and also for sport.   

In the UK, in 1996, following a mass shooting killing primary school children and their teacher, a ban on handguns was imposed. Years before this, following a mass shooting in 1987, semi-automatic weapons had been banned. Since then, we have had incidents where the murder of more than one person has occurred, but these have been relatively rare, one example being, how Derrick Bird killed many innocent people, followed by the murderous rampage of Raoul Moat. But this was in 2010 and while mass murder has occurred since then on several occasions our most recent high profile case being in August 2021, we have lower rates of mass shootings than the USA. Gun crime exists here, but the rates are far lower than in nations like the USA, just like how the overall murder rate in the USA is higher than in other developed nations.

The call in the USA by many is for weapons like the AR-15 to be banned. Those who are against it cite the second amendment to the US constitution which allows the right to bear arms. But this was made in a time when a well trained person would take almost a minute to shoot three times. I have discussed this with my wife, and she is of the view that nothing will change in the USA. And to be fair, she may be right. Despite the murder of many young children in Sandy Hook, the AR-15 and similar weapons are still legal. This is probably due to the campaign contributions made by organisations like the NRA to protect the right of Americans to have them, though this has meant the continued murder of children in schools. Something that does not happen anywhere near as often outside the USA.

There is an argument for firearms to be used to defend schools in the USA, but they forget how Scot Peterson was the "Good Guy with a Gun" at the Parkland mass shooting affecting the Stoneman Douglas High School.

Basically, the only honest excuse for the USA allowing people to own more guns than the population of the USA is because guns are valued more than children.  I respect people who admit that, though obviously, I disagree with that equation.

And for those who point out the issues of knife crime in the UK, it is far easier to defend yourself from a knife than a gun.