The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed, fostering apathy to finding solutions rather than galvanizing communities to act.
Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met this past week with family members of some of the 18 people killed in October at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine by a U.S. Army reservist who later took his own life.
He said people must not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life.
I live in a Canadian city, and I recall some years back there was an incident where some guy from Texas got in trouble for carrying a handgun while visiting. He raised a huge fuss on social media and went back to the US as soon as he was able, ranting about how he couldn’t feel safe in Canada because they wouldn’t allow him to have the ability to shoot anyone who might attack him while he was there. I wish I could find one of the news articles, there was a lot of head-shaking amusement from the locals at the time.
Really goes to show how diametrically different people can be sometimes.