So I see there’s been another massacre in America, Santa Barbara California to be specific, concerning an automatic weapon and a guy who lost his shit and went insane. Yeah, I know that asshole only had handguns and not an automatic rifle but I’d still consider three Glock 34’s automatic weapons.
See, this shit is just going to keep happening time and again for a few reasons.
1. The United States Constitution allows “the right to bear arms” but what policy makers seem remarkably unaware of is that in 1787 (when it was written) a ‘firearm’ was either a Musket or a Flintlock Pistol that could only be fired once, twice at best per minute. Now they have weapons capable of 600 rounds or more per minute. The constitution has been amended before so there’s absolutely no political excuse as to why it cannot again. They don’t need to outright ban guns, they need to make it so only small caliber firearms and pistols are available and much harder to get. Maybe they should consider the Swiss model where firearms are not as potentially lethal and even then are largely only available to those who have served in the military and therefore have a greater understanding as to what it means to carry such a weapon. Oh, the Swiss also have a better health care system but I’ll get to that later.
2. The NRA has far too much lobbying power. This is why #1 will almost never come to pass while there is so much money in American politics.The NRA, understandably, has vested interests in the firearms industry and will therefore block any and all attempts by politicians to restrict their manufacture and sale. The NRA utilizes American history in the form of the Constitution to appeal to conservative politicians and grass roots right-wing movements such as the Tea Party to garner more support beyond the Oval Office. I see that the NRA has already come out with their obligatory idiotic comment on these tragedies; “If more people were armed then they could have shot this lunatic themselves”. Trying to solve this problem by arming more people, while also helping your corporate bedfellows (kerching!), is not helping anyone that matters in this instance you morons: That’s literally akin to throwing gasoline onto a fire because it’s liquid and you think it might put the fire out.
3. The health care system in America, if you can call it that, leaves the most vulnerable out in the cold. In this case people on low incomes cannot access mental health treatment but can access automatic weapons and enough ammunition to keep Stallone occupied. This is a mixture for absolute disaster for obvious reasons. What do all of the murderers of all these mass killings in recent years have in common? Adam Lanza, James Eagan Holmes, Elliot Rodgers, Seung Hui-Cho, and many others: What do they all have in common? They all went off the chain because they had pre-existing mental issues and a lack of support, while having easy access to guns and ammunition. This is not rocket science people, this is common sense.
4. American media induces insane levels of fear into people and makes them searingly paranoid, resulting in more gun sales and a proliferation of the problem. For a nation that prides itself on being “home of the free, land of the brave”, Americans scare really easy. There’s not much that can be done about this issue as a media ultimately reflects its audience and vice-versa, but it remains part of the problem. Scared people with a lack of universal health care and an abundance of weapons and ammunition? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately it seems there is no end in sight for mass killings in America for these reasons and more Mr Johnny Foreigner like myself cannot grasp. These massacres need to stop, or at least slow down in their frequency.
Talekeeper 
Reblogged this on MI Hygienist NZ – Speaking for Myself and Oral Health and commented:
Nicely put