When asked about the latest (unfortunately not last) mass shooting in USA, sheriff Geoff Dean said these words: “I don’t know if it happens more in the United States or doesn’t. I would have to read the stats.”
If that is the case, he must have lived in a cave. I wonder if he is telling the truth here, or if he is just feigning ignorance, because to find out that mass shootings are predominantly USA phenomenon takes less than a minute on google.
Further he states “If I knew the answer to that, I would do something to stop it.”, which is also bullshit. It is blatantly obvious that the easy availability of firearms in USA in combination with its violence-glorifying culture leads to this discrepancy, and anyone who takes just a few seconds to think about it honestly knows that.
But the sad truth is that this sheriff could not have done anything about it even if he honestly wanted to, because there is no legislative will in USA to enact sensible gun regulation laws for him to act on. And with SCOTUS packed with partisan conservative judges, I fear that current pace of a mass shooting nearly every day will be the defining feature of American culture for decades to come.
Well, at least in this regard”USA #1!”, a slogan so beloved by MAGAhats is true. Only it is not a good thing.
Sheriff Geoff Dean is just waiting for someone to publish a graph correlating the rise in darker skinned immigrants to the rise in gun crime, then he can do something to stop it.
I suspect a lot of Americans have absolutely no idea what goes on in the rest of the world so the attitude of this sheriff doesn’t surprise me a bit. Neither does the lack of insight. Thoughtful reflection requires an open mind and an ability to challenge your own assumptions and it can give you uncomfortable feelings and mark you as an outsider. It’s so much easier to just stay inside the echo chamber and have another sip of Koop-aid.
I remember after the school shooting in Florida this February American youth were fighting for gun control legislation, but that’s all gone quiet now. I wonder if they stopped being activists or if the news just stopped covering it?
I’ve noticed that reports of mass shootings in the USA always start the same way here, “And yet another shooting took place in the US…” There is no other country in the world from which a mass shooting would be reported like that in the news. Clearly this sheriff is not aware of how the rest of the world sees his country.