Comparison of Gun Violence in US and Europe

by Frank Thomas

 

Gun-slaughtering and injuring of school children and adults goes on as our society and politicians continue to be held hostage by the gun lobby led by NRA's standard insidous argument .... "It's NOT the guns that kill; it's the mentally sick who kill." Of course, mass selling using automatic weapons makes mass killing MASSIVE!  

 

Our insanely endemic culture of gun violence will never stop until all private ownership and purchases of automatic guns (even for police agencies) are legally BANNED and strict mental checks are conducted, including of people buying more than one gun. Australia did this! UK did this years ago! Citizens on all sides of the political spectrum should stand up and vote against politicians funded by gun lobbies and who are known to oppose such common sense reform.

 

John Lawrence and I wrote a Three-Part series on America's epidemic gun violence published by the San Diego Free Press (SDFP) January 2013, republished in 2017:

 

• "A Cultural Comparison: Gun Violence in the U.S. and Europe - Part 1,"  by F. Thomas and J. Lawrence, Jan. 8, 2013, SDFP
• "Some Factual Gun Statistics - Part 2 of A Cultural Comparison: Gun Violence in U.S. and Europe,"  by F. Thomas and J. Lawrence, Jan. 9, 2013, SDFP
• "Some 'WHY' Questions - Part 3 of A Cultural Comparison: Gun Violence in U.S. and Europe,"  by F. Thomas and J. Lawrence Jan. 10, 2013, SDFP 

 

These writings plus those of many others, and outcries to politicians, seem to do little good. Nothing is done. Hundreds of school children and adults have been killed and injured in mass shootings the past 20 years; in just the first seven weeks of 2018 EIGHT school shootings have taken place!  At this rate, we'll immediately need well-armed policemen and body checks in every high school and college just to protect ourselves from our own self-made deadly "terrorism."