I might get crucified for this but I have to comment. Note that my post is about raising what I feel are valid points, your culture is your own and you will do as you please. But for the sake of widening our horizons, I would like to introduce some concepts that might not be part of the conversation and that puzzle a lot of people around these parts (Europe).
The point I want to make is this. Mental health problems exist in every country on earth, and those countries use medication to treat those people. Some more than others but places like Iceland and Australia have similar number of prescriptions per capita.
The only anomaly here lies with the US. It has 5% of the population but has been the subject of 31% of the mass shootings worldwide.
It is also BY FAR the country with highest gun ownership globally (Americans own about 48% of the estimated civilian-owned guns), the second is Yemen, who has been deep in a civil war for 3 years.
I know correlation is not causation and all that, but the numbers are compelling. Every time a mass shooting has occurred in Germany, Australia, UK, etc. regulations have been toughened to increase gun control and most of these places have had 0-2 mass shooting in the last 15 yrs....
Believe when I say, neither mental health issues nor medication are at the centre of this crisis, and I am a healthcare professional that works to take people off medication favouring other forms of treatment.
Simply put 'crime is more lethal in the US' regardless of the crime (and that can be extended to suicide BTW) and it is not because of illness, it is because of the easy availability of lethal weapons.
If you are actually interested in a good video looking at the numbers related to gun violence I recommend this...
Thanks for the input and feedback. I'm glad you move people away from pharma drugs. Do you think it's right that only a certain group of people can have weapons and others can't, while they often treat each other as being above the rest of citizens and blindly follow orders as part of their jobs above doing what is moral/right? Do you support globalization and a greater centralized authority of world government to decide things for all nations?
Thanks @krnel for a constructive response. To answer your first question; I do not support anyone having a lethal weapon such as a gun. Blindly following orders would not be lethal if they did not have a gun.
Now that you bring up the subject of morality... Do you think each individual holds enough knowledge or information of what is morally right in the short moments it takes to decide whether to pull the trigger or not? Are civilians better equipped for this and why? And doesn't owning a lethal weapon put you in a place where you have to place a value on a human life everytime you feel you must use it? Is that life worth less than your possessions, or your cattle? Is it worth less than your right to owning property? How about 17 children's lives are they worth less than your right to own a gun? These are important questions to ponder. It is basically a debate between individualism and what is good for society as a whole.
In answer to your second question, no, I do not support globalisation but I do not believe that it is 'centralised' governments that are concentrated power. Can you tell me which government is indeed in charge of this world government? From where I stand it is global corporations and large financial institutions that are doing that and their weapon is money. Not guns. More people follow their dictate through believing that doing what the corporations tell them to do is an advantage to them and that is because of advertising and the corruption of morally guided cultural values. Only in extreme cases (like the central African mines) do they use actual weapons to achieve their aim. The rest of the time their means are a lot more underhanded than pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to sign a mortgage contract.
Sorry but I really struggle to grasp this concept that one day we will all be marshalled into cells by people holding guns and that is why we must own them. The way the people in power benefit is by making people believe they are on their side, not by pointing a gun at them. At least in Europe rebellion is quashed by your peers because of the misconceptions that are spread in MSM and by politicians make people turn against each other, ostracising and alienating people within their communities are much more effective approaches than outright violence...
Are guns the reason for violence? It's a tool/invention that allows violence to be amplified. Not the source/cause.
Yes lots of people die of many things in the US every day, however, you could avoid 374 of those deaths. In Europe we have, and while we still have a lot of people dying through all those other means we have negligible numbers, in comparison, dying of a gunshot (be it a pistol, a rifle or a shotgun). Aren't those lives worth the effort? This is what I don't understand, the low value that is placed on 374 lives.