When we were all teenagers and in our 20’s we had the usual angst and there were plenty of guns around. Most of us knew who the troubled kids were but this type of thing didn’t happen in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. Something is very wrong. It’s easy to blame the internet, violent video games, etc. but it has to be confronted. It’s not just about guns. It’s about hatred and mental illness and apparent despair. It’s not going away.
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level. Sure, there was the occasional mass killing, but they weren’t perpetrated by very young people. This is a more recent trend going back to the 90s and is targeted at random people (typically). It’s sad and I don’t think we have any short term solutions. Something’s rotten in America.
We brought in our .22s, in cases and unloaded, and checked them in with the shop teacher. After school we would go out back where we had a makeshift range. The shop teacher taught hunter safety and how to shoot. When we were done, we put our rifles in our cases and took them home. There were probably 25 of us.
Can you imagine that happening today?
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I do know that growing up we mostly had intact families with one parent earning a living wage working one job.
We also didn’t have the internet, video games, or social media. Music generally didn’t glorify violence and killing.The long guns that were around were deer rifles and shot guns for hunting. No one had military style weapons. No one lived on their computers or devices like today. It’s a completely different world.
The sociopaths are now able to get reinforcement of their deranged thoughts via the internet. The El Paso shooter referenced NZ. He would likely have never heard about it 30 or 40 years ago and if he did would have not read his manifesto. I’m all for first amendment rights and personal liberty but it may be time to have a task force monitor these sites and visit dangerous posters and at a minimum confiscate any guns available among family and friends and put them on a watch list. It’s sounds extreme but it may be the only solution.
There is just so much there.
Every country has the internet. One has mass shootings.
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Sure easy access to weapons is part of the problem. But even if you banned so called military style weapons there are so many out there and so many ways to use other weapons to do the same thing.
My semi auto shot gun is a legit bird gun. It will do the same damage or more quite nicely.
I’m okay with your assault weapon ban. I doubt it will solve the issue though.
No gun control measure would have prevented these shootings.
But in the long-term, it could help.
Don’t use those things anyways.
I am an avid gun owner and my "collection" (I don't view it as a collection any more than toolbox full of tools) has representatives of all types except one, military style semi-auto rifles. I bought an AR lower once with the intention of building one, but ultimately I sold the lower as I couldn't determine what use building such a rifle would be to me other than for wasting ammo at the range. Honestly, I'd feel like a jackass hunting with one and it goes against my heritage of hunting and the principles of one shot one kill, humane and ethical shots, etc. I am also a bit of a purist, I prefer revolvers, lever and bolt actions, double barrel shotguns and wood stocks.
Now, I realize some people like to collect military style weapons, this isn't who I am talking about. I collect other things, just not guns. And a sidenote, it is a bit of a thrill to shoot a semi-auto with a high cap magazine, but for me that thrill quickly wore off. But what I've noticed is that there is an element within the gun community that gravitates towards these types of guns. I've seen them at gun shows (I no longer go to these "rallies" because of this element) and at the gun range. I try not to judge on appearances, but combined with behavior, some of these people definitely scare me. There's a stark contrast at the range between the folks like me with our revolvers and traditional rifles and the ammo burners/zombie apocalypse preppers.
Again, not trying to offend people who own these, but there's definitely a profile which includes ownership of such a weapon.
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everything from tommy guns to Kalishinkovs. It was fun. I understand it and understand there are also legit collectors.
Agree there are far to many of the types you describe at the range today. Far too many people not brought up with a respect, and appreciation for the weapons and their capabilities and uses.
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gun owners today who either weren't brought up with them, or just don’t care enough to respect what they have in their hands, and what it can do accidentally or intentionally.
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New Zealand had a mass shooting, so they followed Australia’s lead and took major gun control action.
China and Japan have just as many nuts are we do. The difference: the best they can typically do is stab people.
There is no short-term solution to this. But gun control could be a long-term solution.
But it’ll never happen.
Will the casually number be lower? Sure but you don’t address the core issue. Those 10 people stabbed at a station in China are still dead.
There will always be nuts. But there doesn’t have to be heavily armed nuts.
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“The author adds that he isn’t racist and insists his opinions predate Trump and his campaign for president.”
We have failed miserably as a nation.
Link: https://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-america-sandy-hook-gun-violence
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Quality of parents/teachers/mentors, availability of guns, violence on TV/video games, the internet, social media, bullying, cyber-bullying, child abuse, prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, the 24/7 news cycle, mental illness/psychosis/sociopathy, perceived lack of opportunity, etc...surely I missed some.
But, overall, violent crime is way down from the 70s, 80s and 90s. But the perception is that it is ever increasing because of the 24/7 news cycle. Also, an interesting podcast I listened to recently talked about abortion and a reduction in unwantenness is the cause for the reduction in violent crime.
Also, and I don't want to sound cold, but you're far more likely to die from someone texting while driving than in a mass shooting. The 4,637 people who died as a result of texting and driving last year are hardly reported on.
It's a symptom more than a problem on the grand scale, IMO.
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There are psychological theories out there that suggest between 2-5% of any society have sociopathic tendencies. Good, heathy societies get the percentage down low.
But it’s part of the human condition, and will never go away. We can’t blame parents or TV or schools or social media (though obviously in some cases these things make the problem worse).
It’s probably all caused by the reefer.
This next generation is the most connected (electronically) but the most disconnected (in the real, wet, physical world) and therefore the most lonely, and therefore in the most desperation and left to their own devices in that desperation.
My high school socialization was often dysfunctional by my parents' standards, because it involved binge drinking, cigarettes, etc. And yet, when I was doing that, I was still making connections to real friends in real life. I was getting out of the family home, and learning to interact with friends (and become closer to them, and gaining more to live for), and how to interact with assholes (and know when to fight and when fighting wasn't worth it). I was forced to get a date if I wanted to go to a dance, so I was forced by society to learn how to interact with the opposite sex before I was 25, so I was much more likely to have kissed one, and done more with one. This generation? They are much more likely to be "friends" with someone in Calgary through Fortnight...if they did go to a school dance, they are much more likely to have gone by themselves (a girl in a group of girls...a guy as a solo guy in a group of girls...fewer and fewer as an actual date). They are lonely. They retreat into electronics. Would not be surprised to find out these shooters have very few real life friends, if indeed they have any.
Social media gives people a distorted view of the world and especially their place in it. "Why is everyone else so much happier than me?"
The 24/7 news cycle and the internet provide a constant stream of negativity.
Drugs and alcohol and certain prescription drugs are emotional amplifiers.
It's actually surprising it doesn't happen more often.
I have seen potential employees come in for a job that lack the ability to have interpersonal relationships. Another strange aspect is that they don’t make eye contact. Very strange how much social media has warped their communication skills.
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We have other dangerous factors, like political parties (both...don't deny it) that encourage division as a means for holding on to power.
We have a non-homogenous society that is becoming more non-homogenous, sometimes by designed goal, not mere toleration (again, for political power).
And so on.
Japan has the same loneliness issues, but their homogenous society has more (and a different type of) inherent community, and they don't deal with it through mass shootings. They deal with it through suicide. They have honor to hold them back. We have religion to hold people back, but we are working hard to undo that societal limiting factor. Look at Switzerland: Every person over the age of 18 in Switzerland has an automatic weapon ("worse" than the US), but they deal with their problems in their own way as well.
Each society is its own cocktail, and responds to their own ingridients in their own way. We have to stop thinking we can be like others, and solve our problems our own way.
Are sociopaths born or created?
At some level, it doesn't matter if they are born or created (I think it is a combination, once again). But, they definitely exist. I would argue that the issue is for society to provide fewer opportunities for them to change from being trouble makers in the office place to being shooters in a Walmart.
I think of problems like this with set theory. Think of a big circle (with radius R) representing people who aren't shooters. There are people in the middle of the circle (at a radius of near zero) that will never become shooters. There are people right at the edge of the circle (radius = R-.0001), and it takes one of 20 possible factors for society to shrink the circle a micron, effectively placing them outside the circle. Society needs to work on all 20 factors. We shouldn't pretend that these are normal people (radius = R/2) who are suddenly deciding to move outside the circle.
Our leaders should not use one of the 20 factors in a cynical process to divide people at R/2 so that one group or another can retain power...without worrying what is happening at the edge of the circle.
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Or imprison them.
But they will always be with us. Lots of serial killers and mass shooters have perfectly loving parents.
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Doesn't your 2-5% with better societies on the low end indicate that there's a nurture component? Bad things that happen to us as our brain develops certainly shapes us, though nature predisposes as well. Or maybe nurture is the difference between becoming a CEO or a mass murderer. It's a topic I am interested in, and the research I've seen indicates it's up for debate.
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There's several really good documentaries out there, it's a sad case. I can't help but feel sorry for the guy.
Even in really unhealthy or dirt-poor societies, the vast majority of people remain good citizens.
But when there is perceived injustice or some other ideological inspiration, some of those potential sociopaths will act.
But the potenial crazies will always be with us.
I just don’t know how such a thing can be addressed.
I think we are in the middle of a wave of copy-cat shootings, people essentially committing suicide-by-cop, sometimes motivated politically and sometimes not.
And for all the talk about solutions (esp. the highly charged gun-control debate), there’s really not a damn thing we can do about it, at least in the short term.