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Who cares: Guns in America

A few weeks ago, I wrote about guns and mass shootings in America, and I wrote that really mass shooting was the outcome many Americans wanted.  Not really wanted, but at least didn't care about in terms of national policy.  I remain of the opinion, that for many Americans the fear they hold of the Federal Government makes them want to be heavily armed in case, the Federal Government comes for their guns (I know, I understand how it sounds).

So last week I was speaking to an ex-colleague who apparently reads my blog (He was born in Russia, but has lived nearly his entire life in America -- I think he told me that he arrived in America in 1981, he was 11 years old).  He is a proud American, a heavily armed one at that.  Ridiculously smart, and for an American really well read, despite everything (Ha Ha Yuri...) but he took umbrage to my commentary.  I told him that like him, for mass shootings, I don't care about his opinion but really we had an honest conversation, and I said, look Yuri say what you want but America has 1.5 mass shootings per day (mass shooting is when more than three people are injured).  There is nothing that can be done!

In one of the recent ones, a 17-year-old kid was not popular in school, he was definitely odd looking with some facial tattoos (in what universe do these young people think that will look cool in even three years) but he had access to his dad's massive collection of firearms.  Why should police officers risk their lives unduly for something that is part of the American system?

My point to Yuri is that the police are well aware that these mass shootings will never go away, and the now accepted social aggressiveness you are seeing everywhere is an indication of how Americans see their society.  Road rage that results in gun shoots has risen by 500% in the past decade.  Someone cuts you off, possibly unintentionally you pull your 9mm gun and shoot at him. 

This was my point all along, America doesn't care, they know what goes on in the rest of the world and they just don't care!  BTW it's not the only selective blindness.  Virtually all metrics show that America's healthcare system not only costs nearly twice as much as anywhere else in the world, but it invariably has worse outcomes by almost any metric.  Granted if you are very rich America's healthcare system is great, but for most Americans, its healthcare system is not geared to them but to treat the 1% like Gods, and the rest, well too bad!


 



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