The bullets are flying again

[Mendalla]

Two stories from different countries.

First, in Providence, Rhode Island, a shooting breaks out during exams at Ivy League campus Brown University.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/person-of-interest-in-custody-brown-university-shooting-9.7015222

Then Hanukkah celebrations in Australia came under attack with even worse toll. This one likely has anti-semitic origins.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/bondi-beach-shooting-hanukkah-9.7015208

I mean, the first one is kind of business as usual for the US. The Guardian is even reporting that two survivors of this attack also survived other school shootings. Sad but expected in a country that refuses to take even basic measures to control access to guns.

But Oz has similar gun laws to us and even a buyback program like the one the Liberals keep trying to bring in here. So gun laws are not proof against this, just reduce the likelihood and number of such attacks. Canada has had a few, too. We have just passed the anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique attack in Montreal and more recently there was the mosque shooting in Quebec City.

So is there, in the end, a way to stop these anymore? Does controlling guns do more than mitigate harm (witness things like the use of vehicles in attacks, including the murder of four people here in London)? Does controlling hate work, given our support for free speech often conflicts with hate speech laws? And hate speech laws just seem to attract more hate from the haters? We know that murder goes back to prehistory now (e.g. evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism was in the science news recently and there is archaeological evidence of humans killed with human tools going back a fair way). Is it just an inevitable part of human life that some humans are killers and all the rest of us can do is try our best to prevent harm and mitigate damage knowing full well they are going to happen again regardless of those efforts?

It's disheartening to see these headlines coming up again and again, not just in the USA but in countries like Australia that are much more like us in their attitude to "bearing arms".

 

[Waterfall]

Stop the NRA from creating their own laws through politically elected politicians that influence presidents and lawmakers to their own advantage with financial support.
Create a law that only one registered gun per household, ( to start with), and guns that are used for gun ranges are rented or owned but left on the gun ranges locked up after practice. Limit the types of gun sold to the public..eg: guns intended for wars.
Rewrite the amendment from the constitution to be more clear about the right to bear arms and what that actually means.

 

[Mendalla]

Stop the NRA from creating their own laws through politically elected politicians that influence presidents and lawmakers to their own advantage with financial support.
Create a law that only one registered gun per household, ( to start with), and guns that are used for gun ranges are rented or owned but left on the gun ranges locked up after practice. Limit the types of gun sold to the public..eg: guns intended for wars.
Rewrite the amendment from the constitution to be more clear about the right to bear arms and what that actually means.

But that only addresses the USA. The second shooting yesterday was in Australia who have done much of that. And we have most of that and still have shootings here from time to time. What else do you do when that is no longer enough?

 

[Waterfall]

But that only addresses the USA. The second shooting yesterday was in Australia who have done much of that. And we have most of that and still have shootings here from time to time. What else do you do when that is no longer enough?

I suppose we should also study other countries that are more successful at keeping their streets safe too.
Of course there are so many other influences that tend to cause a poor lack of judgement.
Drinking, drugs, homelessness, mental illness, gambling....even the internet creating unhealthy solutions to resolve life's unfairness or blaming " others" for creating problems.
I see Australia has put a ban on social media influences for kids and teens....of course there are many ways for the kids to work around that....I notice gaming sites are not affected and laws may not stop recreations of those sites like FB, Tic Toc, etc.......
Sigh, so many things that should never have been started without proper monitoring in place before being allowed in the world...
There is so much unstableness and corruption in the world, even by elected officials that want to create this out of control atmosphere.

 

[Mendalla]

I see Australia has put a ban on social media influences for kids and teens....of course there are many ways for the kids to work around that....I notice gaming sites are not affected and laws may not stop recreations of those sites like FB, Tic Toc, etc.......

Apparently, the law only applies to a short list of sites like the Meta sites (FB, Instagram), Tik Tok, etc. If we were in Oz, we would not be affected. And, yeah, it's kind of a pointless exercise. The older kids are going to quickly figure out how to bypass it (VPNs, overseas proxies, etc.).

I suppose we should also study other countries that are more successful at keeping their streets safe too.

Try China. Their streets are pretty safe. Why? Because they execute people at a rate that makes the US look positively soft on crime. Murder? Execution. Drug dealer? Execution. And so on. Having a society that values community and order and courts that are basically lackeys of the government helps, too.

The fact is, a lot of the gun violence in Canada is gang and drug related. London is having a record year for gun violence but it mostly gang violence, not random shootings. And the gangs are the ones who bring a lot of illegal guns from the US, bypassing our small arms controls. So how do we rein those in?

Sigh, so many things that should never have been started without proper monitoring in place before being allowed in the world...

Again, look at China. We would likely not be allowed to operate there. Most Western social media are blocked or censored. And their own social media are subject to both government and self censorship. That's what you end up with if you allow government control over media of any kind. Sure, it would be nice to have proactive monitoring and control but it carries an extreme risk because when you look at the countries that have actually succeeded at it, it's the dictatorships and oligarchies.

 

[Waterfall]

Apparently, the law only applies to a short list of sites like the Meta sites (FB, Instagram), Tik Tok, etc. If we were in Oz, we would not be affected. And, yeah, it's kind of a pointless exercise. The older kids are going to quickly figure out how to bypass it (VPNs, overseas proxies, etc.).


Try China. Their streets are pretty safe. Why? Because they execute people at a rate that makes the US look positively soft on crime. Murder? Execution. Drug dealer? Execution. And so on. Having a society that values community and order and courts that are basically lackeys of the government helps, too.

The fact is, a lot of the gun violence in Canada is gang and drug related. London is having a record year for gun violence but it mostly gang violence, not random shootings. And the gangs are the ones who bring a lot of illegal guns from the US, bypassing our small arms controls. So how do we rein those in?


Again, look at China. We would likely not be allowed to operate there. Most Western social media are blocked or censored. And their own social media are subject to both government and self censorship. That's what you end up with if you allow government control over media of any kind. Sure, it would be nice to have proactive monitoring and control but it carries an extreme risk because when you look at the countries that have actually succeeded at it, it's the dictatorships and oligarchies.

There's Australia, New Zealand, Nordic Countries, Japan, ...there are some out there.....they still get some mass murders But it's low.

 

[Mendalla]

There's Australia, New Zealand, Nordic Countries, Japan, ...there are some out there.....they still get some mass murders But it's low.

And we are on that list, really. As I said, most of the gun violence in Canada is gang and drug violence. The last mass murder in London was done with a truck.

As for mass shootings in Canada, Wikipedia defines a mass shooting as being 4 or more victims not including the perps themselves. There have been 3 incidents meeting that definition this year but one was a targeted attack on an indigenous nation so could have been domestic or gang-related. The other two were in Toronto and reading CTV's account of it, it sounds like the second one was probably gang-related (attackers speeding off in cars and such). So only this one really seems to be the kind of random attack we are talking about and even it feels like it could be gang-related in some respects.

So I think we are actually doing okay on that front. We need to get a handle on gang and drug violence (and no amount of gun control will help with that) but mass shootings for political or mental health reasons remain comparatively rare.

 

[Waterfall]

And we are on that list, really. As I said, most of the gun violence in Canada is gang and drug violence. The last mass murder in London was done with a truck.

As for mass shootings in Canada, Wikipedia defines a mass shooting as being 4 or more victims not including the perps themselves. There have been 3 incidents meeting that definition this year but one was a targeted attack on an indigenous nation so could have been domestic or gang-related. The other two were in Toronto and reading CTV's account of it, it sounds like the second one was probably gang-related (attackers speeding off in cars and such). So only this one really seems to be the kind of random attack we are talking about and even it feels like it could be gang-related in some respects.

So I think we are actually doing okay on that front. We need to get a handle on gang and drug violence (and no amount of gun control will help with that) but mass shootings for political or mental health reasons remain comparatively rare.

Which is why I tend to focus more on the US statistics who have the highest murder rate and mass murders in the world...and we happen to live next door.

 

[WhyCzar]

Amid the chaos, a video surfaced of a brave man who disarmed one of the Bondi attackers.

Ahmed al-Ahmed is a 43-year-old Sydney father of two and owner of a fruit shop in the Sutherland Shire. On December 14, 2025, during an antisemitic terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach that killed at least 11 people, he heroically tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen from behind, wrestling away the rifle despite no prior firearms experience. He was shot twice (in the arm/hand and possibly leg/shoulder) by a second attacker but is expected to recover after surgery. His actions are credited with saving many lives, earning praise as a "genuine hero"

 

[Mendalla]

Which is why I tend to focus more on the US statistics who have the highest murder rate and mass murders in the world...and we happen to live next door.

But Canada has to deal with Canada's issues, not the US's. Our problems are different in this regard. We have enough gun control for the most part. We need other forms of control (gangs, drugs, smuggling of stolen US weapons, etc.). US statistics don't help with that, Canadian statistics do. They show us where our problems lie. Sure, the US actually clamping down would help reduce the supply of weapons available to be stolen and smuggled. But absent that, we need to deal with our own problems, not just sit back and smugly criticize the US situation. Ditto healthcare. Just saying "it's better here than there" doesn't recognize the problems in our system or try to fix them.

 

[Waterfall]

But Canada has to deal with Canada's issues, not the US's. Our problems are different in this regard. We have enough gun control for the most part. We need other forms of control (gangs, drugs, smuggling of stolen US weapons, etc.). US statistics don't help with that, Canadian statistics do. They show us where our problems lie. Sure, the US actually clamping down would help reduce the supply of weapons available to be stolen and smuggled. But absent that, we need to deal with our own problems, not just sit back and smugly criticize the US situation. Ditto healthcare. Just saying "it's better here than there" doesn't recognize the problems in our system or try to fix them.

It's a known fact we are highly influenced by the US....It seems we catch up after 15-20 years.
Just look at Toronto and Vancouver....cities that now have a crime rate out of control, where as they used to be relatively safe cities to walk around in at one time. It's wise to watch out for what may come too. Do I solely blame the US, no but the influence is there.

 

[Luce NDs]

Face it folks ... we cannot imagine anything different because with hostility and violence you can do anything ... even bring down an empire as if a self-intolerant process that provides an out-portal ... that's how Egoes ... Dunne Gone ... inexistent ... minimalized?

Everything must come down after the come-uppance .,.

 

[JayneWonders]

the shock of the situation in australia speaks to the positive impact of gun control. Shootings don't happen there regularly -- not like the US.
They are now speaking of even tighter controls.

There will always be those who wish to do harm. The goal is to minimize the amount of damage they can do and hopefully slow them down until someone can detect them or stop them.

I don't think we can ever get rid of those who are a risk to others. Having a knife or a car instead of a gun tends to reduce loss

 

[Luce NDs]

the shock of the situation in australia speaks to the positive impact of gun control. Shootings don't happen there regularly -- not like the US.
They are now speaking of even tighter controls.

There will always be those who wish to do harm. The goal is to minimize the amount of damage they can do and hopefully slow them down until someone can detect them or stop them.

I don't think we can ever get rid of those who are a risk to others. Having a knife or a car instead of a gun tends to reduce loss

There is that alien (strange) old saying: "there is evil amon gus"! Mon, did you see that go by?

It all depends on the writ and how laid out ... relaxation term ... absent momentum ... folly as inertia when the pen swirls! That's the word ... to a populace it means little ...

 

[Mendalla]

There will always be those who wish to do harm. The goal is to minimize the amount of damage they can do and hopefully slow them down until someone can detect them or stop them.

I don't think we can ever get rid of those who are a risk to others.

But we also need to recognize that gun control isn't an end in itself (and I think Canada is realizing that, to be clear), it's a means to the end you are describing here. There comes a point where more gun control only delivers incremental harm reduction. There's more to be done. I sometimes get the feeling some people think that the only difference in violence between here and the US is gun control. It isn't. Stronger social supports (that conservatives in some parts of the country seem determined to undermine) and a stronger willingness to put order ahead of individual rights, as reflected in various parts of our constitution, are part of that equation, too. And there's more. The Aussie situation, where gun controls are arguably even stricter than ours, points that out. I am all for gun control as part of a broader strategy. On its own, it is not enough.

 

[Mendalla]

We have not talked about the heroes on Bondi Beach yet. There were at least three. 2 are dead and one is wounded. It goes to show that there are still people willing to take risks for others even in our seemingly narcisstic world.

There's fruit seller Ahmed al-Ahmed. That's an important one in this case since as a Muslim who protected a Jewish gathering, he offsets the fact that the attackers were apparently Islamic State supporters and presents a positive image of his faith in a situation where they are likely to face attack. He was still in hospital with gunshot wounds last I heard.

‘It was a matter of conscience’: Ahmed al-Ahmed’s family reveal why he risked his life to disarm alleged Bondi shooter

Family say al-Ahmed ‘doesn’t discriminate’ and would have done anything to save lives during the attack

www.theguardian.com

And then there's the more heartbreaking story of Boris and Sofia Gurman, who were killed trying to stop one of the gunmen.

Hero couple tried to stop gunman before being killed in Bondi attack

Boris Gurman, 69, "charged straight towards the danger" and grabbed one of the attacker's guns, a witness says.

www.bbc.com

Hats off and a moment of silence for them.

 

[WhyCzar]

We have not talked about the heroes on Bondi Beach yet. There were at least three

Make that four.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000770357230494019

 

[JayneWonders]

Mendalla, it's kinda like breaches.
The frequency of breaches goes down based on the # of layers of protection that you put in place.
Gun control, to me, is a key control; however, to your point, it is only one.

We can maybe reduce the frequency of attack by working with those who are most likely to be filled with hate or desire to do harm.
We have reduced the level of damage that folks can do by addressing gun control
Then there is the attention to specific situations to stop an individual who gives clues..

Lots of areas to work on. My sense, based on the frequency rates is that Australia has done a decent job. Canada has also done some good work.
US has a long long way to go

 

[Mendalla]

US has a long long way to go

Amen. And they are currently hamstrung by a number of factors including political polarization and an obsession with the 2nd amendment. Having Trump in the White House is one, too, but that's somewhat a product of the polarization.

 

[Luce NDs]

Anger and fear control play a big part in the cycle of freedom ... it is complex when anger is no where in control and source of false retribution for imagined intrusions on power factors ... I have lived around several folk that lose all control when in such states ... expect frightening outcomes that must be faced and something learned from them! Non-intelligence is not all that good ... balance must be cared for!

The angry and naturally fearful of intellect and the tree of wisdom are usually war mongers or such gods of hostility ... it has to be experienced and thus the come-down!

Thus I broached ide ... A? Idea masters word ...