America can prevent shootings like Jacksonville. But it must come to terms with its gun problem.
Have you noticed that the Voxen’s default prescription is always more gun control? Go figure . . .
We don’t yet know why this particular shooter carried out a horrific act of gun violence. But we do know why this keeps happening in America.
Guns. America has the laxest gun laws of any wealthy country in the world, and it also has by far the highest number of privately owned firearms. The easy access to guns makes it easy for anyone to escalate just about any encounter into deadly violence. This means not just more mass shootings, but gun violence in general, which the US has a lot more of than its developed peers.
The US can do something about this. But to understand that, it’s crucial to grasp five key points about America’s gun problem, from how unique it is to why it might take more far-reaching solutions than anyone is proposing in mainstream politics.
Guns are destroying community in America
And yet we’ve managed to make it for 242 years so far with far weaker gun laws than we have now for much of that time . . .
There is no place where people gather in America that is safe from gun violence. In fact, large gatherings are becoming dangerous targets for the angry and unhinged. As that ugly realization slowly settles in, and gun advocates stand their ground in refusing any new regulations on the ability to possess and use weapons of death, there will only be one option for people concerned about their own safety and the safety of their loved ones: retreat from the public square.
This isn’t a totally new phenomenon. We’ve been collectively growing more alienated for years now. Nearly two decades ago, Robert Putnam made the case in his book Bowling Alone that Americans were abandoning community activities in favor of individual activities. In the years since, online culture has exacerbated that trend: People who live in the same town, or even the same neighborhood, can spend years interacting over Twitter or Facebook without ever bothering to have an actual face-to-face meeting.
Amazingly, the participants in the Madden NFL 19 tournament had managed to fuse their online lives and their real lives, and had gathered to compete and enjoy each other’s company. It should have been a grand, joyful time. But then, a gun was added to the mix, and the event became a death trap.
The Gunman In The Deadly Video Game Tournament Shooting Had Legally Purchased Two Guns Recently
What, no claims of Tea Party or NRA membership? . . .
David Katz, the 24-year-old man who shot and killed two people and injured 11 others during a video game tournament in Florida, recently purchased two guns legally from Maryland, authorities said Monday.
Katz carried two handguns, a .45-caliber and a 9 mm, and extra ammunition to the GLHF Game Bar at the back of a pizza restaurant in the Jacksonville Landing mall Sunday where he opened fire on gamers competing in the two-day Madden NFL 19tournament.
Katz walked past patrons in other areas of the restaurant and “focused his attention on the gamers,” Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said. He used only one of the guns in the shooting, Williams said, but “clearly targeted” gamers who were in attendance.
Thieves replace Paraguay police rifles with toy replicas
Fake FN FALs flummox Paraguayan flatfoots . . .
Thieves in Paraguay have stolen 42 powerful rifles from the police armoury.
During an inspection, officers found that the FN FAL battle rifles had been replaced with wooden and plastic replicas.
The inspection had been ordered after the rifles started appearing a year ago on the black market, where they can fetch up to $10,000 (£7,785).
If the Left Treated Immigrants the Way They Do Guns …
Here’s a little thought experiment . . .
Any horrific shooting that makes national news brings a predictable cacophony of calls from progressives for gun control. But what if the Left applied that logic to immigration?
We’d be hearing a lot more demands for “immigrant control” and “common-sense immigration restrictions.”
Instead, liberals tend to emphasize what they claim to be the relative rarity of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, even as they treat much more unusual events — like police killings of unarmed black people — as a national crisis.
Here is a look at how the immigration debate might play out if the Left thought of it in the same terms as guns.
David Katz shooting prompts MSNBC analyst to claim ‘automatic’ weapons a problem in U.S.
The mainstream media continues to distinguish itself . . .
MSNBC viewers over the weekend were told multiple times by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey that mass shootings in America were committed with “automatic” weapons.
At least nine people were wounded and two others killed at a Jacksonville, Florida, video game tournament this weekend before 24-year-old gunman David Katz took his own life. The man used a handgun, but MSNBC’s coverage included a segment that falsely framed “automatic” weapons as a national problem for law enforcement agencies.
