Charles,

>>>Statistically, since the tragedy Friday over 100 people - including probably some cute kids, will be killed by drunk drivers. 2011 was considered a good year when the total dipped under 10,000 for the first time.
>>
>>I find it a bad taste and a very poor excuse to say that it is ok that the US won't do anything one the conditions of gun related crimes because there is another even greater problem. Every death that can be avoided is one too many and there should be put the effort into doing so.
>>
>>Besides that, in the US are arround 28.000, twentyeightthousand !!! gun related deaths EVERY YEAR. I can't see how on earth you can ignore that.
>
>Since I know your command of English is quite good I can only assume you are choosing to completely miss the point of what I wrote, which was to point out that media for selfish reasons chooses emotionally easy targets for massive coverage and manipulates a need for information on a particular subject. The death of Princess Diana was another example.

To be honest, I think I DID miss your points.

Anyway, that is how the media works. And whatever you might think of it, it allows us to get informed about things that are simply wrong in your, but also my society. Without the media, you and I would not have been informed about the dangers of the circumstances (not only guns, but as rightfully mentioned also the handling off mentally ill people) that made this possible.

You'll have to ignore the politics, and to be honest, I did not see much politics from your government so far. Obama was very carefull in the media not to make this a party political issue. I'm more worried about 'Gun right' groups are going to play the 'party politics' card as an argument to block any further pragmatic discussions (you and I know, they will play that card anyways).

The problem in this incidence is that it happened before, and each and every time the same voices are heard that something needs to be done about it. But in the end exactly zero has been done to prevent this from happening again. As Obama said: "We can't accept this to be routine." On contrary, How on earth can it be that the ban on Assualt rifles under Bill Clinton was reverted under Bush? Which nutcase was responsible for that? What, economic, social, secutiry or environmental importance does a (semi) automatic rifle have? And how does this weight against about one or two of these dramatic events each and every year, where young people lose their life because of the bullets out of such gun?

Because in the end, that is what it is, you'll have to weight the economic, social, security and environmental value against the risks, the dangers. When you see that the value of guns is so small and cannot be compared to things like cars, it is unbelievable that people still insist to compare the deaths of gun related events with car crashes, drunk drivers and more of that kind of silly excuses.

The only reason that gun control like implemented in most of europe has not been established in the VS, is because of exactly two points.

A. The US is addicted to guns.
B. Gun Rights special interest groups (like the NRA) have incredible power in your government.

It has zero to do with pragmatics, rational thining. Its about the strongly embeddedness in the american culture. The fact that tenths of thousands of live are lost every year, you totally take for granted.

> It is emotional pornography and emotional blackmail in that it labels those who do not grieve in the media approved fashion as being in favor of slaughtering children and is the same tactic used by our right wing nuts who would claim anyone who does not stand in the front yard waving a flag hates our country and is cheering for the terrorists.

I agree up to an extend, however it does not take away that this is real and can happen to your family just as easy.

>I never said or implied that nothing should be done about gun related crimes because of all the deaths due to drunk drivers.
>But it is also worth pointing out that psychotic episodes in which a gun is the tool of destruction is a different social problem for crime where criminals acting from motives entirely different from mental illness are using guns to commit those crimes.

Agreed, but the number of gun related deaths related to crimes is actually quite low compared to the unintentional gun related deaths.

>Twisting my words to suit your own agenda or attempt at a moral high ground hardly adds gravitas to your arguments.

I was not intending to twist your words. It was just a blind expression of my anger against (what I view) as plain stupidity. Perhaps from moral high ground, so be it.