John (rockylizard)

You've got be to clear what you're talking about there. Whether it is gun violence and death in general in the US, which is overwhelmingly black, poor neighbourhood, gang and drug related, or so-called 'mass' homicides, which is a miniscule population of offenders and the number of deaths, while horrendous (all murder is!), is relatively small too. While on that, it is strange how mass homicide by other tools, such as by arson, bomb and so on, is being excluded from the 'mass' homicide narrative. Politics.


Number of guns and population? Correlation (or mere coincidence) does not imply causality.

To work back another way, the Howard gun laws did NOT reduce the overall number of suicides in Australia. They chose another way. Noting however that hanging is by far the most popular method of suicide in Australia. Notwithstanding Australia's (and NZ's) high legal gun ownership since the year dot, suicide by firearms was always very low, as was and is gun crime.

That is enough for me. I am quite convinced that the best way of discouraging the grubs committing the mass murder by firearm is for the media to report without the sensationalism that gives the offender what he wants, his name in lights, instant notoriety and celebrity for him and his stupid grievance/rationalisation for being a loser.

The media abroad and at home encourage these types. There needs to be ethical, principled reporting, at least where these incidents are concerned. It is all about boosting audiences to get more advertising dollars.