• CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          You used to be able to purchase brand new military machine guns right off the wall until 1986, yet I struggle to prove that more than 3 people have died to civilian-owned machine guns. Semi-automatic rifles were widely available for decades before anything really happened. Here is the question: what changed between then and now that started the trend of mass/school shootings?

          • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Rush Limbaugh. Fox News. Fear and Hate being pumped into stupid, hateful peoples head every day and night. That’s what happened. Easily available high capacity assault weapons make doing what they want to do obscenely easy.

            • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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              5 months ago

              Rush Limbaugh had only been on the air for a little over 10 years when the Columbine shooting happened. For News started that year I think. Other news agencies also did 24 hour coverage of the various big shootings and blasted the killer’s identities everywhere, just like the media used to do for serial killers before they were blamed for causing more serial killings.

              I think the media is certainly complicit but I think people need look deeper, back to when gang violence, poverty, and the ruining of the American worker began to come back. Neoliberalism has been a cancer infecting the Western nations for decades now, governing over the decline of our industries and the rapid growth of wealth inequality. You can track all the increases in gun violence and mass killings right back to it and its consequences.