This time it was Santa Clarita, third-largest city in Los Angeles county. The victims aged between 14 and 16. The perpetrator had just turned 16 – it was his birthday.
Before school started as students gathered in a quadrangle, he pulled a semi-automatic .45 calibre handgun from his back pack and opened fire on fellow students killing a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl and wounding three others. He then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head. He was one of the wounded taken to hospital.
It’s far too early to speculate on what might have been behind this latest atrocity in the US, but there are some factors that need no research, no interviewing and no further fact-gathering.
Once again, a gun has been involved in a violent incident at a school in the US and the logical conclusion is that if there were no guns there would be no shootings, which is a fair enough assumption, though totally ridiculous and unattainable.
There will be calls for the demonisation of guns and gun owners and indeed, it might well be that the anti gun lobby in the US will hold up New Zealand as an example of what should be done to fix this. After all, our leaders moved immediately to bring this major problem under control by announcing massive gun reform. Reform that will do nothing to prevent further gun atrocities in NZ or anywhere else but will seriously impact on the rights and freedoms of every New Zealander. But never mind those minor matters. It is in the greater public good and there will be long, loud calls for gun bans and they will get majority public support.
It can surely come as no surprise that we are experiencing more violence of every kind world wide. When we keep shifting the boundaries of what is and/or isn’t acceptable behaviour, it has to be expected that the lower bars will be jumped more often.
New Zealand really doesn’t have a gun violence problem but on the basis of one action, by one foreigner, who was legally licensed to have the firearms, our government is prepared to tip our world upside down.
The USA does have a gun problem. They also have a major mass mental health problem.
As of September 1 this year, there had been 283 mass shootings in the U.S. and 37,662 total shooting incidents, resulting in 9,932 gun deaths and 19,868 injuries.
There have been at least 30 shootings in schools in the US so far this year.
The Americans will think long and hard before they introduce draconian controls on those who aren’t involved. Shame our government doesn’t have the ability to see what’s staring them in the face. One can only conclude they have some other agenda.