O/T What’s the bloody world coming to.

[sota]

Sounds like you're ready to move back CA. I also hate the gun culture here but it's not going to change. I sort of get the concealed pistol carrying bit and the right to defend yourself and your property.... but not with automatic weapons.
After 20 years here on the Gulf Coast I still don't own a weapon and have never felt the need to do so.
Believe me, I've lived and worked in some dangerous places, including West Africa and Eastwood.

[CAMiller]

Sounds like you're ready to move back CA. I also hate the gun culture here but it's not going to change. I sort of get the concealed pistol carrying bit and the right to defend yourself and your property.... but not with automatic weapons.
After 20 years here on the Gulf Coast I still don't own a weapon and have never felt the need to do so.
Believe me, I've lived and worked in some dangerous places, including West Africa and Eastwood.

It wouldn't be the reason I'd move back but to be away from it would certainly be a big plus. Barnsley may not be the most glamorous location in the world but I'm glad my grandson is in school there and my daughter works in a school there rather than here. My wife is the administrator in a Jewish school here and that is a constant worry on two levels of firstly being a school and secondly it's denomination. They already have razor wired fences and security but if the day comes that they ask Mrs. CA to carry a gun it'll probably be the last straw. No way I'm having her armed around the house

[sota]

CA, this latest event is too horrific for words. I feel numb. I'm still trying to get my head around what one human being can do to another whether it's by guns, knives, bombs, planes, invasion etc. Sometimes I wish I was a goldfish.

[sota]

This is what a good friend of mine here thinks and why guns will never be banned here. You wouldn't believe what he does for a living.

"Okay here’s the thing. This goes for you or anybody who would blame the NRA for what happened yesterday. You people are clueless. People who get background checks and carry guns legally are not the ones who go out committing atrocities. All liberals at this point need to really forget they know me, because you people have lost all sense of reality. You ignore the true bad guys, you refuse to punish the bad guys severely, and you come after good citizens cool who exercise their right to legally bear arms. All of you are in some sort of dreamworld. I’m finished. I’m really finished with all of you."

[ragingpup]

This is what a good friend of mine here thinks and why guns will never be banned here. You wouldn't believe what he does for a living.

"Okay here’s the thing. This goes for you or anybody who would blame the NRA for what happened yesterday. You people are clueless. People who get background checks and carry guns legally are not the ones who go out committing atrocities. All liberals at this point need to really forget they know me, because you people have lost all sense of reality. You ignore the true bad guys, you refuse to punish the bad guys severely, and you come after good citizens cool who exercise their right to legally bear arms. All of you are in some sort of dreamworld. I’m finished. I’m really finished with all of you."

Is he a Priest?

[John2]

This is what a good friend of mine here thinks and why guns will never be banned here. You wouldn't believe what he does for a living.

"Okay here’s the thing. This goes for you or anybody who would blame the NRA for what happened yesterday. You people are clueless. People who get background checks and carry guns legally are not the ones who go out committing atrocities. All liberals at this point need to really forget they know me, because you people have lost all sense of reality. You ignore the true bad guys, you refuse to punish the bad guys severely, and you come after good citizens cool who exercise their right to legally bear arms. All of you are in some sort of dreamworld. I’m finished. I’m really finished with all of you."

I'd guess policeman? But even a teacher wouldn't surprise me.

America is completely broken as country. It's starting to fall apart. Right-wing ideology in particular around guns and abortion etc has taken a quite religious fervour and balanced discourse isn't possible anymore.

Some of my good friends from my time in Ohio have got sucked in, there is no room for reason anymore. One of my friends who is a policeman really worries me with some of the stuff he posts on online. My military friends too.

I'll be visiting later this summer, will be interesting to see how much has changed since I was last there in 2019.

[CAMiller]

I see on the BBC website that arrests were made after a 20 person brawl at a Jubilee party in Leicestershire. Shocking!

Meanwhile here in the US I counted over 50 killed this weekend in shootings across a variety of cities and at a variety events from parties, high school graduations and yes, even a funeral. Not all of them made the grade to be a 'mass' shooting with 4 or more deaths. It's a good job that the philosophy of arming everyone so that 'good people with guns can stop bad people with guns' is so effective

[Townerslovechild]

Looking on from over here the American obsession with guns seems absolute madness.
How is it in reality Cam ?

[Robus]

A Rotherham thread about how Yanks are terrible at protecting their children.

You can't make it up.

[great_fire]

If I lived in the USA I'd want a gun too since all the criminals have them.

How do you get around that?

You can't.

In this country you can't even legally use pepper spray, you're 100% relying on the police turning up and increasingly they don't.