What the Fuck is Wrong with you America?
Every other developed nation faced one mass shooting and said 'never again'. America faces them weekly and shrugs.
Nearly 50,000 Americans die each year from gun-related incidents. More than half of these are suicides, but the rest are homicides, accidents, and spree killings. Thatâs 50,000 sons, daughters, parents, and friends. Every. Single. Year.
Americans are 26 times more likely to die from gun violence than people in other developed nations. The U.S. firearm homicide rate is 5.5 per 100,000. In the UK, itâs 0.04. The numbers donât just speak for themselves â they scream.
And yet, every time the inevitable happens, U.S. politicians trot out the same hollow line: âOur thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.â
Thoughts. Prayers. Corpses. Repeat.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
Hungerford: Britainâs First Wake-Up Call
August 1987. A 27-year-old named Michael Ryan armed himself with a Beretta handgun, a Chinese Type 56 assault rifle, and an M1 carbine. He shot a mother thirteen times in a forest, returned home, killed his own mother, set fire to the house, and then went on a rampage through the town of Hungerford.
By the end, 16 people were dead and 15 more wounded. Ryan eventually killed himself when surrounded by police.
It was Britainâs first modern mass shooting, and it was a national shock. The randomness, the sheer public nature of it, felt alien. This was the kind of madness we thought only happened in America.
The response? Swift and decisive. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 banned all semi-automatic and pump-action centre-fire rifles, including those used at Hungerford. No fucking around, no excuses, no âsporting rightsâ arguments. Just action.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
Dunblane: The Day Britain Wept
Nine years later, March 13, 1996. A 43-year-old man named Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland, with four legally-owned handguns. Inside, twenty-eight children aged five and six were getting ready for PE.
Hamilton opened fire. Within three minutes he had fired 105 rounds, killing sixteen children and a teacher, and wounding many others, before turning the gun on himself.
The public outcry was immediate, overwhelming, and unstoppable. The Snowdrop Campaign â led by grieving parents and furious citizens â forced the government to act. Within a year, Britain had passed laws that effectively banned private handgun ownership.
Never again.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
Port Arthur: Australia Grows a Spine
April 1996. A 28-year-old with a festering sense of grievance and the IQ of a turnip wandered into the Port Arthur historic site in Tasmania with two semi-automatic rifles. He killed 35 people and injured 23 more.
Australiaâs Prime Minister, John Howard, a conservative, didnât offer âthoughts and prayers.â He didnât hide behind lobbyists or mutter about mental health. He acted.
Just twelve days later, the government introduced the National Firearms Agreement. They banned semi-automatic rifles and shotguns outright and launched a mandatory national buyback. Around 650,000 weapons were taken out of circulation.
A national solution to a national problem. Funny that.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
Christchurch: Six Days
March 15, 2019. A white supremacist armed with semi-automatic weapons stormed two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He murdered 51 people in cold blood while livestreaming the atrocity.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern didnât wait. She didnât hesitate. Six days later, she announced a ban on all military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. Within a month, parliament passed it by 119 votes to 1.
Six. Fucking. Days.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
Norway: Slow but Real
22 July 2011. Anders Behring Breivik set off a bomb in Oslo, then travelled to the island of Utøya where he hunted down and murdered 69 young people attending a political summer camp. In total, 77 Norwegians were killed that day.
Norwayâs response wasnât immediate â it took years of debate, committee wrangling, and political resistance. But eventually, they tightened gun ownership laws, banned certain semi-automatic weapons, and restricted access to high-capacity magazines.
It wasnât perfect, and it wasnât fast. But Norway still did what America refuses to: they looked at the horror, admitted the problem, and took action to prevent it happening again.
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?
And Then Thereâs You, America
Hereâs the difference. For Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and even Norway â one mass shooting was enough.
America has had hundreds. And done nothing.
Columbine (1999): Two teenagers kill 13 people at a high school in Colorado. Thoughts and prayers.
Virginia Tech (2007): 32 killed, 17 wounded. Thoughts and prayers.
Sandy Hook (2012): Twenty children, six and seven years old, slaughtered in their classroom. President Obama, visibly shaken, close to tears, pushed hard for reform. The ManchinâToomey bill, a modest plan to expand background checks, actually won a majority in the Senate. But because of the filibuster it needed 60 votes, and it fell short. Even with grieving parents standing in the chamber, even with the nation horrified, the Senate killed it. Thoughts and prayers. Nothing more.
Las Vegas (2017): A gunman fires from a hotel window into a music festival, killing 60 and injuring hundreds. The deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Thoughts and prayers.
Parkland (2018): 17 dead in a Florida high school. Students begged for change. Lawmakers offered prayers.
Uvalde (2022): Nineteen children and two teachers murdered while 400 armed officers stood outside for over an hour, too paralysed to act. Thoughts. Prayers. Cowardice.
And between those? Hundreds more. Nightclubs. Churches. Supermarkets. Cinemas. Workplaces. Daily shootings that donât even make the news because America has normalised the carnage.
Every other developed nation faced this nightmare once and said never again. America faces it every week and says better luck next time.
The âGood Guy With a Gunâ Myth â Buried in Uvalde
The NRAâs favourite slogan died in Uvalde, Texas.
âThe only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.â
There, 400 armed officers, local police, state police, federal agents, even tactical units, stood in a corridor 20 feet away from a classroom where a teenager was murdering children. They waited. They dithered. They sanitised their hands. Kids bled out on the floor while the so-called âgood guys with gunsâ listened.
For over an hour, nothing.
If nearly four hundred âgood guys with gunsâ couldnât stop one teenage killer with an AR-15, then the slogan is bullshit. Itâs marketing. Itâs blood-soaked fantasy.
Guns, Not Prayers
America doesnât have more people with mental health issues than anywhere else. It just sells them better weapons, then acts surprised when the body count goes through the roof.
Nor can you fix a public health epidemic with âthoughts and prayers.â You canât hug your way out of a massacre, or light enough candles to keep classrooms safe.
And letâs not kid ourselves, in parts of America, you can literally walk into a Walmart, pick up an AR-15, and get a discount coupon for the ammunition on the way out. Thatâs not freedom. Thatâs state-sponsored madness.
Bought, Rigged, Complicit
And yet America clings to this insanity, because the alternative, actually changing gun laws, is politically toxic. Not because voters donât want it (poll after poll shows overwhelming public support for background checks, waiting periods, and bans on assault weapons) but because money speaks louder than corpses.
The NRA and its affiliates funnel millions into political campaigns. Gun manufacturers make billions from every spike in sales after a massacre. Politicians pocket donations, shrug, and send out another tweet about âthoughts and prayers.â The system is bought, rigged, and complicit.
The Bottom Line
Britain, Australia, New Zealand proved it can be done. Norway too, eventually. All it took was the will to say enough.
America has had Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Parkland, Uvalde, and countless others. Enough to fill a cemetery the size of a city. And yet nothing changes.
Because in America, the lives of children are worth less than the next campaign cheque from the gun lobby. This is not a mystery. It is a choice. A calculated, profitable, and bloody choice.
So once more, with feeling:
What the fuck is wrong with you, America?