I grew up in the boonies too - went to school in the next county over, and even then our graduating class was only 42 kids. And everybody had gun racks in their trucks, and so on and so forth. But here’s some food for thought: in 1970, our national homicide rate was 8.8 per 100K. In 1980, it was 10.4. Today, even with the huge uptick of the past two years, it’s 7.8.

Also, while there are *many* more guns in circulation, the percentage of gun-owning households has dropped, i.e. there’s fewer gun owners, but they own lots more guns.

Lastly, even given the lower homicide rate, there’s far more mass shootings today than before…and not many people owned assault-style rifles (however anyone wants to twist the definition thereof) back then.

Lastly, every other democracy on the planet has just as much exposure (and often more) to social media as America. Everyone in those nations are just as human, and just as prone to mental illness…but it’s a lot more people getting killed *here*. The only real difference is the insane amount of guns we have here (and right wing media telling people in so many words that one can’t be a Real American without owning guns).