Paul,
I’ve met Stephen quite a few times over the past few years, nice young bloke and I wish him well. He’s got tons of ability and was doing well at Apple.
I don’t bet on individual seats because I don’t gamble and, frankly the money isn’t there.

The USA may have a low comparative global rate for murders but this does not not include the total number of gun-related deaths, such as suicide and accidental killings.

They also have the largest prison population,the highest percentage of gun-related killings and the highest number of mass shootings .

In 2020 alone, more than 45,000 Americans died by gunfire, whether by homicide or suicide, more than any other year on record. The figure represents a 25% increase from five years prior, and a 43% increase from 2010.

The notion that gun ownership makes the population safer is ridiculous.

I heard the was a two police stations in this town and that one was less than a kilometer from the school, and that the shooter was out the front of the school for at around 12 minutes firing shots at a nursing home before jumping the fence and entering the school, and that when police arrived, some of them went in not to confront the shooter, but to get their own kids (and left the other kids)

Hi Issy,

I say, despite having a high gun ownership rate America has a lower murder rate than a place like El Salvador. Gun ownership is not the reason to murder, but it does facilitate the means to murder. If you have a great deal of social disorder, and parts of America does have that, just like most of El Salvador, then adding guns to the mix simply exacerbates an already over heated amount of social problems.

Someone put up the idea of arming the teachers, well in theory that might work, providing teachers were all calm and calculating dead-eye dick straight shooters. Unfortunate in the heat of battle, there may be a large amount of collateral damage as teachers shoot teachers, as teachers shoot students, as teachers shoot anyone who moves, including the school gardener, all accidentally of course. The Dodge City Syndrome only works in the movies.

There may have been an ethnic component to the Texas shooting. As Candice Owens says about black families- one of the biggest issues in black families is the mother is often single.

Hey Rache, the controversy surrounding all this is based on the second amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Why is this important?

"According to the Declaration of Independence, the only legitimate governments are those with the consent of the governed. When a government becomes the enemy and not the defender of human rights, the people can withdraw their consent and set up a new government."

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/22/12559364/second-amendment-tyranny-militia-constitution-founders

Thomas Jefferson once said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The founding fathers knew that the system they created might one day be compromised, and its for this reason the right to bear arms exists and is fundamental to American ideals.

So there's a line in the sand you see, the right to own guns is meant specifically so that the people can overthrow a tyrannical government if one becomes the enemy of the people.

All the gun deaths in America, is more or less build around this idea.
Given that many of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights have already been infringed, a situation already exists where the government HAS become tyrannical.

Even worse is the way the US acts towards other nations.
If you click my link above, you'll hear them talk about the US being in a death spiral of militarism.

The country has actually been captured by the military industrial complex and has become a war nation, something that Eisenhower spoke about in has farewell address in 1961.

- So part of me wonders what the point of all these needless deaths if the people can't get rid of the system that now exists and build a better one.

People often talk about the peace the West has enjoyed since WWII and that capitalism has also given us the liberty to choose our own paths in life.

[Cont.]