At least 16 people dead and suspect at large after multiple incidents in area of Lewiston, Maine

yeah if he was a mentally ill person in another country maybe he attacks somebody with a knife or runs someone over in his car. But because he’s in America he can kill 18 people with an AR15.

 

I’m sorry. You are right.
It was the guns. The guns made him do it. They spoke to him. He has no option, no choice. It’s the guns fault.
His clear and well documented mental illness had nothing to do with it and I should be ashamed of trying to stigmatize an innocent individual caught in the grasps of GUNS.

 

good god how are you not grasping that it’s the guns AND mental illness? Nevertheless without an instrument of mass murder, he’s not a mass murderer. Mental illness is WHY he did it. Guns are HOW he did it.

 

There are no laws that could prevent people from owning guns. How many millions of guns are already owned by US citizens? Same with drug laws. People still use drugs at will. Trying to enforce such laws is a waste of time and money.

 

Well there's no doubt he wanted violence, yet there is no reasonable removal of the tool for that violence from this equation. Easy access to guns, a cultural obsession with them, and a culture of violence and/or glorification of it are all part of the story.

FWIW, mass shootings have been tied to suicidal ideation and what seems to be a growing milieu in which this idea of taking others down in a blaze of glory is becoming ever more present in the minds of those who might want to off themselves.

 

How can you claim such a thing? (Rhetorical - we all know why).

Can't it be a confluence of issues? (Rhetorical - deep inside we all know the answer)

 

There's at least one gaping hole in this logic.

 

Which is why tracking and enforcement of regulations around licensing is the answer. While we can't prevent people from owning guns, we can at least know who owns which guns so that we can more easily determine when somebody has done something wrong with a gun (such as selling it to somebody who shouldn't have one) or take them away when somebody shouldn't have them (in issues like this one).

 

Nukes don't kill people, people kill people. Let North Korea and Iran have what they want.

 

So it’s how many are killed that matter.. not that there was a mentally ill
Man willing and wanting to kill a bunch of people. Got it. As long as he didn’t use a gun.. no big deal.
As long as only a few people die .. all good. Jusr to be clearif he had used two 9mm handguns, or a shotgun with extended magazine.. would you fill different?

 

If they didn’t have crazy asses leaders willing and wanting to do damage to us… no one would care at all.

 

Sigh
Yea, a difference of opinion so let’s add insults to the mix well done. I’ll admit I like guns. I will also admit mine have never ever shot someone all on their own. They are not the issue. They sit quietly in their safe or case and do zero harm. I guess mine are just well trained or I got some good ones.
I have agreed that we need red flag laws. I ah e agreed we need ways to keep guns out of the hands of mentally deranged.. and yet some here cannot find it within their common sense to see that mental illness played the major role here.

 

No kidding. I have already said we need red flag laws, already said we need ways to keep the guns out of the hands of mentally
Ill.. I see all of that and know
We can do better.. now notice how few here on the other side say anything about blaming the mental illness… in a case where the perpetrator had a long and well documented history of violent mental illness… instead it’s just blame guns blame guns blame guns.
So who needs to expand their view point?

 

Perhaps it's because you continue to completely discount the role of guns themselves as factoring into gun violence when it's accessibility to those guns by those intent on doing harm that is unarguably central to the problem?

 

At what point does me saying.. literally typing over and over in this very thread
WE NEED RED FLAG LAWS!!
WE NEED TO FIND A WAY TO KEEP GUNS FROM THE MENTALLY ILL…
Not translate into me recognizing access to guns by these people is an issue?
Now notice how very very few from the other side are willing to give an inch? Are willing to admit that the MENTAL HEALTH of this deranged person.. the long and well documented mental health issues are the main reason this atrocity happened.
The fact I have admitted that time and again in this thread makes think some don’t actually want to hear anything else than the fact that I don’t blame guns for the actions of people… and that’s all some see. It’s not me that needs to
Open my eyes.