Another Day in the US

[NightDragon83]

Mar1217 said:
The fact that this kind of event is becoming normalized by a portion of Americans is the most shocking thing.

Letting hundreds of people die just to conserve the right to get guns in the most easiest way possible is probably one of the most selfish act you could partake in.

Regulations need to be applicated (And no, I'm not talking about outright banning guns ...)

The only thing that's becoming "normalized" is young males deciding that it's OK for them to take whatever issues they have in their personal life and use it as an excuse take their violent thoughts / fantasies out on others.  Since Columbine in 1999, there have been dozens of copycat style mass shootings at schools / universities, and similar shootings in public venues like the Aurora CO movie theater, all perpetrated by young men (mostly white, middle class I might add) in their teens or 20s.

Despite all the hysteria, the violent crime rate in the US, especially the murder rate, has gone down significantly from what it was just a mere 20-30 years ago.  Just take NY the most populous city for example... annual murders peaked in 1990 at a whopping 2,245 in the city alone, and by 2017 that number has dropped nearly 90% to just 290, the lowest number of murders recorded in NYC in the post-WWII era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#Murders_by_year

Guns alone aren't the issue here.  They've been part of the fabric of American society for centuries now.  The real issue is what the hell is going on inside the minds of our youth today.  You didn't see high schoolers shooting up their schools back in the 50s and 60s or going to movie theaters dressed up like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood during the "spaghetti Western" days and opening fire on the audience back in the day.  But take a look at the overall list of recorded school shootings in the US below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Note how the incident rate goes from merely a handful a decade up to the late 70s/early 80s, to steadily becoming more frequent during the 80s and 90s, and then rapidly increasing in the 00's and '10s in a post-Columbine world.  Mass shootings on the scale of Columbine, Newtown and Parkland are still rare, but it's how these attacks were planned ahead of time and carried out that are really disturbing, and this trend seems like it will continue until we can drill into the heads of our young men that it's not OK to go on a murder spree just because you have mommy / daddy issues or can't get a date to the prom.