Reply to post: @AnonCow

@AnonCow

"Despite hysteria, mass shootings aren't a real problem though - they are completely buried by background noise. For USA in 2016:"

For a start, that is a distraction fallacy since this story isn't about mass shootings, it is about SWATting.

Secondly, I challenge the BBC sources for 2016 as inaccurate. The BBC cite the CDC and Mother Jones for 2016 mass shootings without a supporting link. The CDC, while normally highly credible, is specifically banned from researching gun violence. They have no especial authority or credibility in this area, due to legal constraints designed by NRA funded politicians. And Mother Jones is meh.

The Gun Violence Archive lists 382 reported and verified mass shootings in 2016. Why the discrepancy? Presumably definition. The official definition of mass shootings had recently changed from four or more deaths to three or more deaths. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

You'll note that the total number of gun deaths in the US reported by the GVA is far lower than the BBC unlinked CDC/Mother Jones figures. That again will be methodology - the GVA relies on "reported and verified". It is the 'Iraq Body Count' of US gun deaths. The true, higher, figure would require an epidemiological study which the CDC is capable of but legally unable to do.

Your link also minimises total gun deaths as often suicides. I would argue that gun ownership increases suicides due to it's easy, convenient and often instant attributes, so that is still an argument against gun ownership. Several times I have thought, "Just shoot me / Put a bullet in my head", and if I had a gun to hand then I would have. Other methods are slightly more off putting - the prolonged agony of hanging or even more prolonged slitting of wrists; the pain of gas poisoning; the social distress and risk to others of a traffic death, well, the knowledge of those things gives pause for thought. And even a slight pause for thought can save a life.

I support voluntary euthanasia as some European nations permit it - after a period of commitment and with drugs rendering the suicide unconscious.

This level of detail is distraction from the ongoing mass slaughter in the US which is unique in the developed world. It is wrong to call the US a third world or developing country, but you are a fractured nation whose allegiance to a misinterpretation of a poorly worded historic document helps slaughter an amazing amount of yourselves each year.

There was a tendency in the UK to ignore US suicidal/homicidal stupidity as 'yank on yank violence', and that was a mistake. Your current idiot in chief has inspired the pseudo-fascist Italian government to lower gun controls, and currently Italians can travel to the UK.