On Wednesday 14th February 2018 at 2.25pm, 19 year old Nikolas Cruz wearing a gas mask, went to Marjor Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, near Miami, Florida, with a powerful AR-15 Semi-Automatic rifle, and killed 17 innocent students, it is a reflection of what is very seriously wrong, with the American society today.
This was the 18th, school shooting in the US so far this year, taking the overall death toll to 23 so far this year. There ahve been 6,572 shooting incidents, 1,826 deaths, 3,142 injuries, 30 mass shootings and 215 unintentional shootings. There have been 290 school shootings in the US since 2013, an average of about one a week, according to ‘Every town for gun safety support fund campaign group.
An average of 96 people are shot dead in the US every day, more than 15,000 gun members per year - a rate 25 times higher than other developed nations, the total gun deaths in America including suicides, are steadily increasing - from 33,563 in 2012 to 38,658 in 2016. Most of the people who commit murder have been on drugs.
People suffereing stress take drugs as a relief, instead of trying to solve the problem that is causing the stress. If you think positive, your body produces a hormone, which makes you feel good, if you think negative, your body produces a hormone which makes you depressed and getting well is a long time.
Family break down, is a major contributor to stress. Children in the first two years of their birth, if they do not receive love and affections from both their parent, then they end up suffering attention seeking illness, with self harm and harm to others.
Suitable gun control, along with a ban on the sale of automatic weapons, would certainly reduce gun crime, in the US, along with suitable treatment for mental health, for example mental illness in England and Wales - in 2014, costs the NHS £105 billion per year.
The AK-47 assault rifle alone, is used to kill over 250,000 people a year, in the world, and more and more countries want to manufacture the AK-47 assault rifle, yet if a country wishes to manufacture nuclear weapons in order to defend their independence, then UN sanctions is placed on them, how can this be right specially when countries such as the US with thousands of nuclear weapons, are very keen to enforce sanctions on other countries.
Jal Framji,
Wilmslow, Cheshire
