To date, 355 “mass shootings” have occurred this year alone in the US — more than 1 mass shooting per day. IMO, any debate around gun control is short-sighted and only serves to distract from the root problems at play. Many of these shootings employ automatic weapons that are already deemed illegal and would continue to be readily available whether ‘gun control’ legislation was in place or not (not to mention this whole debate becomes increasingly moot as 3D printing continues to make small arms weapon manufacture as simple and accessible as downloading a torrent file).
What is actually at issue here has less to do with gun control and much more to do with systemic pressures: increasing inequality/wealth gap, unemployment, lower wages/purchasing power and a general hollowing out of the middle class, inaccessible affordable housing, healthcare, education and even food — the US spent $76 Billion on food-stamps in 2014 to provide nearly 50 million Americans with $123 per month to survive.
These are all warning signs of an economic system beginning to crack under the weight of decades of rolled-over debt and corrupt financial politics. Unless these root problems are addressed at a systemic level I wouldn’t expect the symptoms of a strained/broken system, such as mass shootings, to decline. Efforts such as a crackdown on gun control are futile attempts to this end and ultimately serve as a temporary distraction from the core problems at hand.
