thats my point exactly.

after dunblane happened they made handguns illegal, after hungerford they mad automatic rifles illegal. why doesnt america follow suit? they can change the constitution for anything they want and have illegal wars etc so why not this. granted it would not be a good vote winner which probably why not.

who said generation X, i said generation Y (1979-1997), thats the generation the birthed the people that went on to commit the columbine massacre and this massacre.

Well, how come after all the atrocities that happen anywhere, not just in the USA, nothing is done either? That's really stupid too, isn't it?

X or Y, nonsense they are.

hungerford - automatic rifles illegal
dunblane - handguns illegal
stephen lawrence - knife crime dealt with very harshly

i see your point but some things do happen.

i just made a whole school work about this matter. it's not that americans own so much more guns, it's more like they use them quicker.. and this has to do with the idea of 'protecting your family' and the fears that's being pumped in through the media. sickening.

it's really horrible that things like this can happen. it doesn't happen in america only, but seems to be much more common there. any opinions on the reason?

yes i would say its the state of fear that america lives in. when i was there the news was like a comedy show. i laughed so much.

also i guess it is engrained into the culture with things like the legend of cowboys and indians and gangsters etc. its become part of society which is very sad.

Yes, but hasn't gun crime risen quite a bit in England? Have race-hate crimes decreased? Has crime generally decreased anywhere, and not just in Britain? For real? Has it really?

but you dont get as many people with ak47's as in america do you?

So what you're basically saying is that everything needs to be compared to what is done in the USA, in order to make you feel good? They kill more people, therefore there's nothing wrong over here.

no i am not saying that at all.

That's the way it came accross. A bit like worrying about what's happening in your neighbour's garden while the landmower is going mental into your own.

A good short-term plan, maybe, but that's always a slippery slope.

Really the only thing that could help would be a 180-degree societal turnaround. And we all know that won't happen. I'm not saying it to be bitter, it's just reality. It's nothing that one person or one policy could ever solve.

So it's just going to happen again, and everyone will Boo-hoo over it for a while, and then they'll get on with their lives, after internalizing absolutely none of what just happened.

I remember when Columbine happened and how freaked out I was afterward because I could easily put myself in the place of both the shooters and the victims. The social aspect of school has never been an easy thing for me, but I could say that for at least a dozen other kids I've known. So really, after Columbine, a lot of kids were being singled out as future potential murderers basically, and were really kept a close eye on by the school faculty. My own parents sat me down and had a talk with me because they knew I was being teased in school by certain people. It made me feel like I had done something wrong. The teachers of course were trying to cut down on bullying, but you could still tell they were frightened of the kids who were being bullied. So all of their good intentions were for naught. It just created a deeper divide between the bullies and the bullied. In grade school this was a bigger deal than in high school, I would think. Although people do become meaner in high school, there are more outlets for kids there too, which offers some escape. I just can't help but think about all of the kids I knew in grade school who were routinely picked on. Most were from broken homes (which eventually included even myself I suppose), some had older brothers/sisters who were into hard drugs, others were just quiet or didn't fit in because they had been moved up in school and weren't the same age as everyone else. A lot of school policies changed after Columbine, but nothing else did, which may be part of the problem.

pork, you said nothing gets done and i said that after dunblane etc they banned hand guns. i feel safer knowing that not just anyone has them.

that is not comparing america to anything.

well fucking said.

Sure, but do you REALISTICALLY expect that what was done is going to stop anything like that happening again? In fact, wasn't there another case of someone going mental with a knife near a school after that? I'm not sure if i remember well, so excuse my memory.

For the record, I don't really like to hold or even look at guns. My mom made my dad stop hunting as soon as I was born. I watched Bambi a lot as a kid. I'm probably a big softie. Marilyn Manson rules. Etc, etc.

You didn't catch my blatant sarcasm did you?

Oh plus

*devil's advocate* that's speculative *devil's advocate*

How can sarcasm be really sarcasm if it's blatant? That's the recipe for mass murder.

no and i am not saying that.

there will always be people who go crazy and do terrible things but do you think its a good idea if they have easy access to firearms?

having seen first hand what guns can do i dont think it is.