In Germany we have on average more privately owned guns than most US states. Still... we had just TWO mass shooting in 20 years.
Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GbT5ZEs08
In short: You have to qualify to own a gun. Assholes don't get guns. And by fullfilling the laws to own a gun you actually earn respect in your community.
I am member of a German gun club where the local population, the regional police and a couple of NATO soldiers train. It took me nearly one year before I even was allowed to touch a loaded gun, all through my 14th year I was basically just taught how to clean and repair my rifle, how to handle it, how to NOT use it, only then how to use it. And after ten months I was finally given a single bullet.
I am now 30. Nowadays my family owns and shares a Sig Sauer 200, locked inside the gun club. Everyone except my Mum shots around 25 bullets per month, once a year the whole gun club repeats basic training which includes mental health checks.
And after basic training we have special events. For example six years ago a local NATO garrison was massively downsized and so they offered us to use up their overaged surplus ammunition. I got to shot pretty much anything from 9mm to 7,62mm for basically free - we collected money for the victims of a local house fire so I put €50 into the collection.
Did I ever shot a gun outside the gun club?
Actually: Yes. When I was in the US I joined my Uncle on duck hunt. He was like "ok, hold the big rifle while I show you how to shot a duck using 12gd bird shot." - he misses, I aim and shot the duck mid-air with a .308. I didn't know ducks could explode, but yes, they can. I paid with a badly aching shoulder, I wasn't used to those powerful cadridges any more. He looked angry at me and grumbled the plan was to eat the duck not turn them into fine mist. The other three ducks he left for me to shot and wondered where I had learned to operate a gun like that.
When I told him a US lieutenant taught me to operate exaclty the same rifle in my gun club he was like "WTF?". I might mention the lieutenant immediatelly settled down in my town after his duty was over because he liked Bavaria so much and wanted his kids to grow up in a less crazy nation.
While we should have better access to mental (and physical) health care, that's probably not going to fix the too frequent "Someone knocked on my door so i shot them" murders that happen too often.
It also won't solve the "and then the police shot him" murders.
There are a lot of things wrong with the US and its dominant culture. I'd say most of the blame and the blood is on conservatives. Which makes a kind of sense - if you have a shitty system and you are fighting to keep it as is, you're probably a shitty person with shitty takes making the world worse.
If someone just thanos snapped away the conservatives, or at least the authoritarian subset of them, many problems would vanish overnight.
Republicans know multiple causes and contributions that lead to mass shootings, but none of them will support doing anything to address those causes because muh socialism.
Simple way to stop mass shootings is to ban guns like anywhere else on the world.
pretend all victims are in a better place while pocketing NRA dues like no tomorrow
You'll even see them all get together and celebrate with a picture of them pushing a bill that will only add more to the fire we are trying to put out...
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PSA: about 2/3 mass shootings are domestic violence related. If you want to fix mass shootings, start at fixing the household.
https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0
