i have criticised Trump for all those things, and been the first to point the finger at him for some of the things he has said and done. The difference is that I acknowledge a problem is far bigger than Trump and an attempt to do something about it.

No... he needs to acknowledge that his actons so far in his presidency have been counter productive on this issue.
There were protections there to make sure that people with mental health issues had restrictions on aquireing firearms..and he removed them! In what universe should that be applauded?
He knows exactly what to do. . As it was already done :/ why is he asking for cross party action?

What does that even mean.. he acknowledges mental health is an issue, isn't that the most screamingly obvious thing ever?
It's what he isn't acknowledging that is the issue.

Agree with these.

The 'guns dont kill people, people do' defence is technically true, however without guns, these attacks would be much much more unlikely to happen. And yeah, stabbings may go up, but, without sounding harsh..less people would die from a psycho with a knife than one with a gun.

Wow..

What has he attempted to do about it?

...that’s it exactly for me...his words have no weight until and unless they become actions which start to address the cultural changes needed, the ones he himself refers to as being hard but being necessary...

Who took the blame for mass shootings pre-Trump? Because from 2009 - 2017 while Obama was in office there were 173 mass shootings in the USA. And that's not all....

2017 was the deadliest year on record for mass shootings. There were four times as many people shot in mass shootings in 2017 than the average of the eight years prior.

In at least one-third of mass shootings, the shooter was legally prohibited from possessing firearms at the time of the shooting.

In half of mass shootings, the shooter exhibited warning signs indicating that they posed a danger to themselves or others before the shooting.

Mass shootings that involved the use of high-capacity magazines resulted in more than twice as many fatalities and 14 times as many injuries on average compared to those that did not.

So who was to blame back then, the president?

I think all previous presidents have to share some blame for the state of it tbh (I know Obama did start trying to control it a bit, but it was not enough still IMO). Having said that, I am not to sure how much the president can do themselves? Is it all like our parliament, where people can bluster about, but ultimately have to get a majority vote from a large amount of people?

Get over gun control... have you any idea how ridiculous thst sounds?
If things have never changed they can't change .. so how has the modern world progressed since the writing of the constitution then, why is this the only thing that can't change..

Nobody is advocating preventing Americans from having firearms, yet at the time of writing that constitution were there military grade weapons capable of killing 100s of people? Had they been aware modern advancements would lead to mass murder then perhaps it may have been different.

Again nobody has said it's ALL Trumps fault, the right wing extremist killers have expressed trumps language in their ravings therefore it's fair to make a correlation there, but of course he's not accountable for every shooting and nobody is suggesting that.

My point here is that personally trump has undone more than he's done in relation to gun control, also in his summation of causality he refuses to accept the likely possibility that his words had some influence. Even though we have written evidence from the shooter themselves spouting the same right wing tropes against Hispanics as trump..

All he is trying to do is distance himself and his actions from any blame, and I'd like to say he's not fooling anyone but clearly he is.

Just to make things clear, Clinton banned assault weapons in 94, mass shootings reduced by 40%, Not perfect, but a start. That ban expired in 2004 when the republicans allowed it to because they controlled all branches of government.

Since then, mass shootings are up 245%

Laws in the US have to go through the house first, then the senate, then on to the presidents desk for signing into law. Republicans have blocked/tried to block all legislation even being voted on. Presidents don't make laws, but the one side of politics that receives the most funding from NRA (and the dems that do too), have refused to move forward on anything, despite what the American citizens want. It's actually extreme corruption, and shows the dangers of lobbying bodies, and the stupidity of supreme court for allowing unlimited money into politics.

Obama did try to get some form of reform to gun laws and restrictions, but he was blocked at every opportunity by the Republicans, the NRA are a massive problem in America, buying off politicians to keep guns as free as possible so they make money, people are being allowed to be slaughtered for the sake of companies making a profit.

They can issue an executive order which the next president along can revoke.

American people want guns, it's part of their constitution that they have the right to carry them. This isn't the UK, so we have no concept of why they want/need them.

No president has been able to do anything about the gun problem because while people are outraged by mass killings, they still demand the right to have them. Given that, and the fact that it would probably take 5+ generations to remove guns from circulation, the obvious thing to do is act on any red flags that appear that give warning to these potential events happening. There is plenty evidence that these nutters give notice that they are going to do something, that is what needs to be acted on .... and that is what Trump is doing ... or attempting to do

Why did he revoke the Obama measure?

Clinton got an assault rifle ban through in 1994 which had a huge impact on the number of mass shootings... it was temporary and needed to be renewed in 2004; Bush declined and allowed it to expire. Shootings jumped right back up to where they were previously.

The presidency can actually do quite a lot to address this but let's face it, for as long as US ploitics flip-flops between Democrat and Republican (which is likely to be forever) it will never stick. Enough Republican voters won't stand for it for it to swing politics to the Democrats for a generation and they know that.

Um liv.. Trump was president in 2017

The problem is bigger than him, but I dont expect him to go against RNA as his revoking of the Obama check confirms. Words are cheap and inadequate

It doesn't sound too much like it, given he is revoking orders that would help somewhat in stopping these people having guns readily available?

I don't really understand American politics at all tbh, hence usually ignoring USA threads. But this gun thing baffles me..completely.

I mean, while people who commit mass shooting are obviously mentally ill, mental health isn’t the direct cause of people dying, every country has mental health issues, America is the only one with weekly mass shootings, why? Because of the freely accessible guns, people with mental health issues, or who have a background of violence, should never be able to gain access to guns, that’s just common sense, nobody wants all guns taken away, especially not from law abiding citizens who have no intentions of killing anyone, but there needs to be steps put into place, Moscow Mitch has been stopping a vote on background checks because it goes against what he’s paid to stand for, it’s an absolute disgrace

blaming video games, social media, internet for these shootings

hmmm i can partially agree with Trump, but i must add that i think first person shooter video games can be considered not to be played by those who are mentally unstable

and yeah access to the internet, mentally unstable ( who for example might also have paranoia problems) that they have easy access to look up guns, also where to buy them


i don't like agreeing with Trump but he has a few good points

Exactly, I mean it's pretty ****ing obvious that Mental health issues + Access to guns is not going to end well

You're talking about an outright ban which, I agree, in the US is unrealistic or would take generations. However there is PLENTY of evidence, within the last few decades, to demonstrate that stricter checks and restrictions on certain types of firearm have a dramatic impact on the number of shootings. States that have stricter universal checks and a longer wait between applying and being able to walk out of a store with a brand new gun, have lower rates of death-by-firearm. The stats are available and very clear. Extending restrictions to include anyone with a history of violence also has a huge impact.

I believe you dont have to be mentally ill to commit crimes. Some of those people know very well what they are doing and what they want to achieve

See my thread about the nail bomb trump fanatic who got sentenced recently.

I agree with this. Its always put down to mental illness, but some people are just..not good people and mental illness has nowt to do with it. I guess some would argue that to kill someone you have to have mental health issues..but I don't see it like that. Mental illness is blamed way too often IMO.

I mean, we don’t give scissors to babies because we know they don’t have the cognitive function to realise they’re dangerous, but yeah, let’s give mentally ill people access to assault rifles, sounds perfectly fine

The internet, social media and video games are all available globally.

How come mass shootings are not happening on the same scale globally?

It's obvious that gun availability is the issue