Only in America are gun massacres of this kind routine, acceptable, and certain to continue.

[kpete]

ONE MORE MASSACRE
Posted by Adam Gopnik


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/aurora-movie-shooting-one-more-massacre.html#ixzz21BrUR1z7

The truth is made worse by the reality that no one—really no one—anywhere on the political spectrum has the courage to speak out about the madness of unleashed guns and what they do to American life. That includes the President, whose consoling message managed to avoid the issue of why these killings take place. Of course, we don’t know, and perhaps never will, what exactly “made him” do what he did; but we know how he did it. Those who fight for the right of every madman and every criminal to have as many people-killing weapons as they want share moral responsibility for what happened last night—as they will when it happens again. And it will happen again.

The reality is simple: every country struggles with madmen and ideologues with guns, and every country—Canada, Norway, Britain—has had a gun massacre once, or twice. Then people act to stop them, and they do—as over the past few years has happened in Australia. Only in America are gun massacres of this kind routine, expectable, and certain to continue. Does anyone even remember any longer last July’s gun massacre, those birthday-party killings in Texas, when an estranged husband murdered his wife and most of her family, leaving six dead?

But nothing changes: the blood lobby still blares out its certainties, including the pretense that the Second Amendment—despite the clear grammar of its first sentence—is designed not to protect citizen militias but to make sure that no lunatic goes unarmed. (Jill Lepore wrote about the history of the Second Amendment in The New Yorker recently.) Make sure that guns designed for no reason save to kill people are freely available to anyone who wants one—and that is, and remains, the essential American condition—and then be shocked when children are killed.

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/aurora-movie-shooting-one-more-massacre.html

[blm]

1. spellcheck may have changed your word - it's acceptable

.

[kpete]

4. thanks

[Tejas]

2. Where were the police?

Poor planning.

[Lint Head]

3. To hear officials say this is rare. Massacres maybe rare compared to average killing with a gun but

In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms. Maybe 8,775 people weren't all killed at once but I would not call it rare. I read about shootings in my local paper every day. Not all are murders. Some are accidental. Some are in self defense. Murder is not rare whether you shoot one person or 100.

In our country one is too many.

[progressivebydesign]

5. the thing that confuses me, is that at least 100 people are killed by guns in US every day

but until more than 4 are killed in one place, there is no media coverage, no flags at half mast, no political campaigns on hold, no day of prayer.

We are accepting, apparently, that 100 people can be killed every single day by guns.. and many more wounded, as long as they're in different places when it happens.

I will never understand that. The shooting sprees are horrific, and tragic, and shocking. And it's also shocking that thousands of people are killed in America every year, collectively, by guns. But CNN and Fox would never do graphics and theme music to highlight that fact. It's sad for every victim, for every family, for every community.

[TouchOfGray]

6. Only in America?

When did Anders Breivik become an American and when did Norway become part of the USA?

[Hun Joro]

7. Routine, acceptable, and certain to continue.

nt

[onenote]

9. Not routine. Not acceptable. But likely to continue. Here. And elsewhere.

[Patiod]

8. Welcome to DU, Touch of Gray

Did you read the text? It mentions that these horrors happen, occasionally, elsewhere. It goes on to say that only here is it accepted as "routine, acceptable, and certain to continue"