We went to Lowe's on Sunday and there wasn't a mass shooting.

[Dream Girl]

But there could have been. It was a beautiful warm day and the garden center was quite busy. As my husband and I were looking at outdoor furniture, A thought crept in...someone could drive up and storm in here and mow down a bunch of shoppers in about two minutes. This thought has never occurred to me when I was out and a out and about before. Now is seems like a real possibility. How is this allowed to continue? How is this normal by any stretch? Should we start wearing bullet proof vests? There are just too many mentally unstable people and too many guns, coupled with an extremely violent, toxic culture. It is truly mind boggling.

[Croney]

1. I dropped two teenaged girls at a huge mall yesterday and had the same thoughts.

It's a mad world.

[masmdu]

11. Correction. It's a mad "country".

[Diamond_Dog]

2. This is from 2019

[EX500rider]

3. Statistically extremely unlikely.

Mass shooting are a very tiny subset of homicides.

All homicides by rifles (not just mass shootings) in the US avg 300-400 a year.

Things MUCH more likely to kill you that I bet you aren't afraid of:

Per year:

Unintentional poisoning deaths
Number of deaths: 65,773

Unintentional fall deaths
Number of deaths: 39,433

Motor vehicle traffic deaths
Number of deaths: 37,595

In other words you are about 160+ times more likely to die from accidental poisoning or over 100+ times more likely to die accidentally falling down.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm

[AndyS]

5. Yeah so lets just ignore the 40,000 or so guns take from us.

Can't possibly pay attention to GUNZ for any reason.

[EX500rider]

6. Well suicides (about 30,000 of those 40,000) and homicides will have very different solutions.

And if lack of guns made a big difference Japan would not have a higher suicide rate then the US.

[AndyS]

7. Yeah so lets just ignore the 40,000 or so guns take from us.

Good to see you right out there in the open showing people how much gunners give a shit about the rest of us.

[EX500rider]

12. I don't blame suicide by guns on the gun any more then I blame suicide by hanging on the rope..

...or by jumping off a high bridge on the bridge.
It's a mental health issue that will have different solutions then homicides.

[Claire Oh Nette]

9. Japanese Culture is not like US culture

Japanese live under very different pressures for work, academics, support of elderly parents...

The Gun crowd does not care about suicides. The GQOP only pointed to faux concern for suicides because they were asked to shelter in place and stay home. Suddenly, the Right was up in arms about the children, the increased suicides. WHICH NEVER PANNED OUT.

Australia manages to get rid of the guns.

We choose not to. We choose to pretend the Founders were absolutists, while we drive cars and use cell phone technology that we've managed to regulate. We pretend the 2A has anything to do with self defense.

The NRA extorted the GOP, ginned up fear in conjunction with Fox and the other Anglo Saxon white nationalist racists, to sell guns, ammo, and gun accessories. They cling to archaic language and ignore the history and demand their right to shoot native Americans on the frontier and free roaming Black people with impunity.

It's the guns.
Duh.

[Dream Girl]

8. Of course it is. Which is why it's never occurred to me before. I was surprised to even have that

Thought. The truth is, it can happen anywhere, any time. Some fucked up person can just decide to take my life or the life of a loved one and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it.yes statically speaking the chances are infinitesimally small, it happens nearly everyday. And dead is dead.

[AndyS]

4. How indeed?

More guns in the country than people.

19 states have no license for concealed carry, no extra training, no extra criminal background check and no questions asked.

23 states have Stand Your Ground laws even though homicides go up by 15% where these laws are passed.

What could go wrong?

[Claire Oh Nette]

10. No one should have to worry about that...

in a Lowes, or a Safeway, or a Target, or a school, or a church, or a concert...

Where should we, as citizens, feel safe from gun violence? The pursuit of happiness and right to life and liberty seem to outweigh someone's right to be trained and ready to serve in a militia.

Gun free zones, an asinine label if ever i heard one, should be the norm. Wanting to carry in public, concealed, to shop and go about your day to day demonstrates a kind of paranoid fear that's dangerous to others.

Mental health check should not be limited to "that guy looks crazy..."

Most of the truly irrational, delusional ones look just like you and me.