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I just don't get why there has been no gun reform in the USA? One of the worlds superpowers can't even understand why gun ownership has to be controlled.

As above, can someone explain please? I'd love to learn why.

I can't really explain before but the failure to achieve reform after Sandy Hook suggests that there won't be any reform now. If 20 dead kids didn't do it 58 adults in Las Vegas aren't going to.

They seem to have got to the point where no tipping point is big enough.

No one really wants to take on the problem of what to do about all the guns. First mass shooting after the ban will destroy political careers. Imaging the blame. If only the good guys etc etc

On Another (musical) note, stand your Ground Tom... Stand your Ground....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipanM9TwPeU

:(

As of 23:10 it's unclear if he is dead or not. The police gave out incorrect (premature?) information and retracted, which has forced CBS (who lost everyone else has been citing) to retract.

Edit - it’s all confirmed this morning.

I just don't get why there has been no gun reform in the USA?

Follow the money...

http://splinternews.com/every-member-of-congress-who-took-money-from-the-nra-an-1819059582?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Splinter_twitter

I heard an interview on the radio earlier with a couple of Americans who were caught up in the shooting. After they had talked through their (terrible) experiences, the conversation turned to what could be done about it. They were both adamant that not that much could be done, and above all else that they valued their Second Amendment right to bear arms, so defend themselves against others, including those that use vehicles as weapons etc. It was incredible to hear it. It's just such a deeply entrenched belief.

And no amount of logic will convince them.

Mention Australia confiscating all the guns and it's met with 'But we're America, we're different. We'll still murder people, it's just one of those things. If you take our guns we'll just kill people some other way, it's in our nature.'

No. Most Monarch pilots aren't type approved to fly 737's and O'Leary is too tight to pay for them to be trained up.

The Monarch pilots should be OK as there's a lot of demand for pilots at the moment. Ground staff/cabin crew not so much.

Mate's an Aer Lingus pilot - he posted that they were holding one hour sessions all day yesterday for Monarch pilots who could fly Airbuses. Didn't take long to pick the corpse clean.

They interviewed the CEO of Monarch on the radio this morning. He mentioned that they had been working with other potential employers to try to secure work for their departing staff, and had set up sessions for various different roles (e.g. pilots). Perhaps he was putting a bit of a spin on it but it nonetheless sounded like a positive step in an otherwise unhappy situation.

Last night in Times Square

And from their Twitter

Bonkers. Absolute bonkers.

There was someone on the today program this morning who said basically the same thing, Canada and Australia are different from America because they "talked" their way apart from the British empire, while the USA got away via a gun...

guns that you could load with a single bullet and took about a minute to reload.

I've found an extract from the interview

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/915099661974884352

so defend themselves against others

Yeah because protection rifles are all the rage nowadays. Not so much assault rifles

My memory is a bit hazy on this but wasn't the second amendment a direct copy and paste from the English bill of rights from the 1600s? If so, that pretty much predates the widespread use of firearms by the military or militia.

With regards to "if only the good guys". Has there been a recorded incident of a non military/police affiliated individual taking down a potential mass shooter (difficult to assess I know)? Or stopping them midway through an attack?

Well, no, but only because the citizenry aren't well-enough armed yet.

just received this in my inbox thanks to an American namesake who constantly mis-types his email address... 'Glocktober' FFS America... #facepalm

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he's gonna plotz when he hears about Gaypril.

Only posting because I happened to spot this the other week so not making comparison to situation:
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/09/25/meet-the-good-guy-with-a-gun-who-stopped-a-mass-shooting-at-nashville-area-church/

I heard that story a while back and it was clear that the fact he had a gun in his car had no bearing on the outcome of that incident! The article I read indicated that he didn't even manage to retrieve his pistol from his car before the police turned up!

I seem to remember reading about a few, can't bring the details to mind though. In both cases though there were people other than the shooter injured by "friendly fire" from the armed bystanders.

I know its not relevant to the discussion at hand but I once saw a press helicopter video recording of an armed stand off in the suburbs of a US city.

There was one obviously very agitated man sitting on a plastic garden chair on a lawn with a pistol waving it around, threatening to shoot anybody who came near.

A police sniper shot the pistol out of his hand. Like in a shitty action movie. He took aim and actually shot the pistol on the side of the barrel causing the man to drop it and be arrested. How the man didn't get hurt I have no idea.

I don't even know where to start really. Doesn't strike me as sensible policing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVnwkDbeARw