[giraffe_lady]

uhhhhh I don't think the video games are the reason but boys shooting up schools did turn out to be a big problem you know. So, idk, they were probably worried about the wrong thing but it seems they were right to be worried about that outcome.

[josephg]

Sure - and as an Australian I find America’s tolerance for school shootings utterly baffling.

Here in Australia we play all the same video games as American kids do, and we don’t have school shootings. The problem isn’t the video games.

[monetus]

> tolerance for school shootings utterly baffling.

I hang out with fewer gun owners than many but I am from Tennessee. It is kind of like getting people to recognize the need to do something about climate change. Most everyone recognizes it as a problem now, but solutions are someone else's business. "The ability to affect the problem is upstream, what am I going to do about it? What am I supposed to do about schools, sell my gun and be without it when something crazy happens?" That is even before addressing that they can be fun, like a collectible or a sport.

The ideas tossed around are often regulations at the consumer level, and the societal momentum is thoroughly against those in general.

If an uncharacteristic law was introduced along the lines of, "no more new guns" then some in my area would begin manufacturing themselves. I already see cardboard signs advertising squirrel rifles.

[josephg]

I've lived in the USA and I believe you. I just find it unbelievably depressing that the "best country on earth" can't find a way to stop their own children getting shot by other children in government run schools. As far as I know, the USA is the only country in the world with this problem.

Climate change might be exactly the right metaphor. Despite widespread public support for action, the australian federal government is still doing very little about the problem. Its not a good look.

[wombatpm]

But you do have football, sunshine, beer and Australian women which probably goes along way to resolving problems with young men

[josephg]

America has all those things in spades too.

The Christchurch shooter was an australian (to our eternal shame). But he shot up a school in New Zealand instead of in australia because it was easier to buy guns in NZ. (Was easier. They pushed through stricter gun controls after that incident).

[ggfhvt6yyghvhuf]

Um. No. Assuming you read what he wrote, he stated clearly that he got it and did it there not because of convenience, but because it would cause NZ to clamp down on guns ( and serve as an example ). He was actually a successful terrorist, which is presumably why CNN asked everyone not to even think of looking at it, because it can corrupt you.