The American mass shooting thread

[likesfish]

Possibly the expectation for success when that doesnt turn out decide to hurt the people you blame for your life not being great and EASY Access to serious amounts of fire power.
The idea that 5 round magazines would seriously make a dent in this sort of slaughter which is probably going to be pushed as a law or sort.
A) shed loads of magazines already out there
B) murderous cunt is just going to have to carry more.
Bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the titantic.

 

[catinthehat]

There are a lot of studies that show that wealth disparity equates to high levels of violent crime/homocide. The gun ownership/suicide thing is related to the certainty of method chosen - Vets and Doctors have a high rate as do farmers and part of that will be that they are able to determine methods that 'work'. I would not subscribe to this argument myself but some will argue that the US is a meritocratic society where failure to achieve goals is seen as wholly a personal failing - the American Dream and all that. I would more subscribe to a sort of chaos theory that leads to such events made more likely in a toxic mess of gun availability, economic goals trumping all other, religious nuttery etc- an soup of anomie.

http://www.dorseteye.com/south/articles/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think it is, the USA has a gun culture, this catastrophe is a direct result of that.
No guns, no amoklaufers.

So the guy wouldn't have taken a pair of hatchets to the school and started chopping instead? Don't be naive. Guns are tools for killing, but they're not the only tools. While "gun culture" facilitates easier, less bloody "arms'-length murder, it's not the enabling factor in this sort of spree killing. The enabling factor is the killer's state of mind.

 

[butchersapron]

Possibly the expectation for success when that doesnt turn out decide to hurt the people you blame for your life not being great and EASY Access to serious amounts of fire power.
The idea that 5 round magazines would seriously make a dent in this sort of slaughter which is probably going to be pushed as a law or sort.
A) shed loads of magazines already out there
B) murderous cunt is just going to have to carry more.
Bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the titantic.

Not at all - the US is not the titanic and the people in it are not doomed. Steps can be taken.

 

[frogwoman]

there've also been quite a few shootings in germany over the years and iirc their gun cotnrol laws are quite tight

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wonder what would happen if the media didn't cover this and any other massacre. I wonder if the shooter knew that his name wouldn't be splashed around, would he still do it?

Given that most spree killers turn out to have severe psychological problems, then the majority of them would still kill. Not everyone is a Charlie Starkweather, looking to kill for noteriety. For some of them it's some kind of payback on society for a real or imagined wrong.

 

[ViolentPanda]

there've also been quite a few shootings in germany over the years and iirc their gun cotnrol laws are quite tight

Availability of guns isn't difficult, but it's complex. You need a licence and a reason (in Germany, as in France, the reason is often hunting or target shooting), and you need secure storage, plus you're limited to semi-automatic weapons.

 

[magneze]

So the guy wouldn't have taken a pair of hatchets to the school and started chopping instead? Don't be naive. Guns are tools for killing, but they're not the only tools. While "gun culture" facilitates easier, less bloody "arms'-length murder, it's not the enabling factor in this sort of spree killing. The enabling factor is the killer's state of mind.

I disagree. Both are the enabling factor in a spree killing. With other weapons, as you have alluded to, you have to get up-close. This means that the killer has to get his hands bloody and it also means that the victims must be close enough - after the first incident surrounding people will flee making a mass killing difficult. A loner with a knife can take out a few people. With a gun, people running away can be killed. With a gun, people generally don't fight back.

 

[Manter]

Maybe the lifestyle and pressures of living in the US are greater in other countries, (eg the constant fear about paying for overpriced healthcare or people losing their homes over unfairly charged debts) play a factor in making people crack up that may not have done otherwise. This plus easy access to guns and the cultural factor (think how people are brought up with all that 'you can become anything you want' stuff) means that when the people do crack under the pressure they can easily get hold of some serious fire-power and go berserk.


You've just said that you accept that it can cause pressure on a person though. I think people who are likely to go off plot like this, well it may not matter an awful lot what the pressure is - the fact that it's there can be enough.

Yes, good points. I was saying I didn't recognise the bleak, dystopian view of a dysfunctional society with loners isolated in their misery and misogyny. It's a large and complex society, with large and complex problems, but it really isn't a land populated solely by nutters and freaks.

I think over here we also underestimate the good about some core American values- or even that they are honestly held. They do have a love affair with guns, but remember this is a society that was hewn out of some seriously inhospitable terrain. In relatively recent memory, it was a settler society- you looked after yourself. If your neighbour tried to steal your land, or wolves ate your livestock there was no government or social structure to deal with it- your family starved. It is almost a folk memory that you needed a gun to protect you and yours. Then you have British tyranny, the civil war- it is an article of faith for many Americans that authority is not especially trustworthy and you need to be able, if necessary, to strike out alone. Many genuinely fear that the government will come for their guns and then start on their freedoms... They aren't by definition bad, trigger happy etc..... They are working from a totally different starting point, we as Europeans see the outcome of their conclusions and find the whole thing insane (if I had a freedom that resulted in however many dead children, I'd be inclined to give it up....) we do have a totally different history and social context.

Slightly rambling post, but I guess what I am saying is that if we dismiss these atrocities as the product of a sick culture, we are not really understanding them

 

[ViolentPanda]

Thing is I don't know what they can do about it legislatively now. Banning firearms will clearly be impossible and futile because the country is already awash with weapons. The number of weapons out there would make a ban pointless and just drive gun ownership underground.

Not helped by the fact that the 2nd Amendment has been accepted by legislators as granting "the right to keep and bear arms" while ignoring the element of the amendment that prefixes the right with "regarding a well-regulated militia...". There's pretty much a large structural/legislative blockage in the way of any meaningful reform, let alone a ban.

 

[dylanredefined]

And large hunting knives.

For got those. Basically take a British crowd of any particularly male hobby ,fishing model making etc at a show for that hobby and replace the sellers with tables full of weapons and ammo.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Densely populated buildings - to kill as many as possible in a short space of time?

Yup.

 

[ViolentPanda]

For got those. Basically take a British crowd of any particularly male hobby ,fishing model making etc at a show for that hobby and replace the sellers with tables full of weapons and ammo.

Used to own firearms myself, and buying a gun was more like going to an "adult bookshop" to buy porno than anything else. Long mac and turned-up collar included!

 

[Ax^]

there've also been quite a few shootings in germany over the years and iirc their gun cotnrol laws are quite tight

clearly not tight e-fucking-nough...

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's all about the guns. Big guns. Small guns. Ones designed to kill as many people as possible.

I don't see the States as being that different to many other places, but the simple fact remains: if that sick fuck didn't have easy, legal access to as many guns as he wanted, a lot of young children would be alive today.

Possibly.
Alternatively, the sick fuck could have mixed up a couple of gallons of homemade napalm from household products, and killed even more. You're second-guessing based on your view on firearms. That's understandable, but means you're making assumptions that aren't necessarily sustainable.

 

[Ax^]

Seriously are we doing the


"Guns don't kill people
,People do"

Stick

 

[editor]

Possibly.
Alternatively, the sick fuck could have mixed up a couple of gallons of homemade napalm from household products, and killed even more.

Don't be silly. Guns are the most efficient killing machines. They're easy to use, easy to get hold of, very accurate and horribly effective on the human body. That's what they're made for, and that's why these school mass murdering sprees almost always involve them and not napalm attacks.

 

[Manter]

Seriously are we doing the


"Guns don't kill people
,People do"

Stick

No. We're dong the guns wielded by people, kill people

 

[rover07]

Yes, good points. I was saying I didn't recognise the bleak, dystopian view of a dysfunctional society with loners isolated in their misery and misogyny. It's a large and complex society, with large and complex problems, but it really isn't a land populated solely by nutters and freaks.

I think over here we also underestimate the good about some core American values- or even that they are honestly held. They do have a love affair with guns, but remember this is a society that was hewn out of some seriously inhospitable terrain. In relatively recent memory, it was a settler society- you looked after yourself. If your neighbour tried to steal your land, or wolves ate your livestock there was no government or social structure to deal with it- your family starved. It is almost a folk memory that you needed a gun to protect you and yours. Then you have British tyranny, the civil war- it is an article of faith for many Americans that authority is not especially trustworthy and you need to be able, if necessary, to strike out alone. Many genuinely fear that the government will come for their guns and then start on their freedoms... They aren't by definition bad, trigger happy etc..... They are working from a totally different starting point, we as Europeans see the outcome of their conclusions and find the whole thing insane (if I had a freedom that resulted in however many dead children, I'd be inclined to give it up....) we do have a totally different history and social context.

Slightly rambling post, but I guess what I am saying is that if we dismiss these atrocities as the product of a sick culture, we are not really understanding them

The settlers also needed guns to steal land from the Native Americans and to guard the inmates of their slave farms.

 

[Ax^]

Unless of course you look a colombine..

Where they unsuccessful attempted to marry the 2

 

[elbows]

Spree killings happened back in the days before instantaneous news. It's not about publicity IMO, it's about social and psychological forces. it's a lovely facile argument for the media to make, but I'm not sure it holds much more water than "listening to Ozzy Osbourne made my son kill himself" upon investigation.

I wouldnt dismiss media factors so easily. And its not an argument the media itself makes enough really, since they dont point the finger at themselves very much.Certainly people are capable of going on a rampage without getting the idea from the media, but that doesnt mean there are no issues to explore here. Especially when it comes to younger shooters, 'fame', and concepts that capture the popular imagination. Its given rise to a particular form of 'revenge fantasy' for the unimaginative, which thanks to the easy availability of weaponry is much easier to turn into reality than it is in many other countries. A world of fantasy is one refuge from isolation and lack of self-worth and feelings of impotence, just as for example conspiracy theorists may imagine themselves uncovering the truth and basking in glory.

Its only one factor, so I wouldnt want to overstate the point. Other factors may include a variety of pressures others have mentioned in recent posts, a claustrophobic suffocating form of community, excessive moral or religious double-think, uptight refusal to look at issues, eg of parent-child relationships on a less superficial level. Plus the geography of the nation (eg isolated communities), a variety of authoritarian tendencies in wider society and state organs, oversubscription of inappropriate psychiatric drugs and a 'quick fix pop a pill for that' attitude, a failure to make the most of certain forms of humour as a self-preserving lifeline, immature idealisation that reality cannot live up to, the superficial disconnected form that gun-related violence takes as opposed to more physical forms of violence. I'm even tempted to include the higher age limits for drinking alcohol as a small part of the mix, when considering isolated youth who lack other outlets for their frustrations. And if Im going to go that far I may as well thrown caffeine in there.

Obviously there are economic and political factors at work too, though I'm not dwelling on those so much in this particular case because of how young the perpetrator was, and other apparent demographic features of this case.

Some of my above points can be tested by considering what factors the UK has in common with the USA, and which ones are different. Obviously the largest practical difference is in terms of gun culture & politics, but in some other regards we may be closer to the USA than many parts of Europe when it comes to certain economic, media, violence and explosive mental meltdown factors. But our coping strategies vary, more likely to find rivers of vomit here than rivers of blood.

 

[Ax^]

No. We're dong the guns wielded by people, kill people

Ok cool can we settle on "people wielding guns are far more efficient at killing people"

 

[Manter]

The settlers also needed guns to steal land from the Native Americans and to guard the inmates of their slave farms.

In certain areas at certain times, yes

 

[ViolentPanda]

This is where I struggle.... What you are describing there bears no relation to the America I lived in or where I spend about a third of my working life. To take one, community, I see much stronger community in the US than here. Apart from small town life, there seems to be a much stronger network of church or other social based community, it is still normal to know your neighbours, and actively socialise with them, etc. I wonder if the polar opposite os true- with no social safety net, there is strong economic pressure to stay within a community- you can't escape as easily as here, so you are trapped, as a mom conforming member of society, to stay stuck within a sort of pressure cooker. Not sure, but I really don't recognise the great American dystopian cliche that is bandied around Europe

Well, the US is hardly homogeneous, is it? Socially it runs the gamut from rigidly hierarchical communities (religious or otherwise) to something akin to the Hobbesian paradigm of "everyone /vs everyone". Add to that various cultural and religious factors, "the American Dream" and a handful of historic US-specific issues such as the legacy of slavery and the pioneer culture, and you get a potent ferment which can produce both fine wine and firewater.

 

[Manter]

Ok cool can we settle on "people wielding guns are far more efficient at killing people"

Yup, ok. No argument from me there.

I hate guns- really hate them. Pics of people posing in gun marts and new posters attention seeking by fellating replicas on here make me feel faintly ill. But I am also aware that is a very European response- to most of us over here guns aren't sexy or cool, they are a dangerous tool, to be used in a very limited way when absolutely necessary. I do think the issue in the US as well as availability, is sexualisation of violence, particularly gun violence

 

[rover07]

In certain areas at certain times, yes

More like most areas most of the time.

 

[weltweit]

So the guy wouldn't have taken a pair of hatchets to the school and started chopping instead? Don't be naive. Guns are tools for killing, but they're not the only tools. While "gun culture" facilitates easier, less bloody "arms'-length murder, it's not the enabling factor in this sort of spree killing. The enabling factor is the killer's state of mind.

Indeed there was a kindergarten attack in London iirc where the perp used a machete.

But there *seem* to be more of these attacks in the USA, there are more guns there I think that is indisputable, but if your argument is valid there are also more people there with that state of mind. One would have to ask why?

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

 

[Manter]

More like most areas most of the time.

Sorry, not true

 

[ViolentPanda]

I disagree. Both are the enabling factor in a spree killing. With other weapons, as you have alluded to, you have to get up-close. This means that the killer has to get his hands bloody and it also means that the victims must be close enough - after the first incident surrounding people will flee making a mass killing difficult. A loner with a knife can take out a few people. With a gun, people running away can be killed. With a gun, people generally don't fight back.

Well, you're making a few assumption in your disagreement, IMO. 1) that the killer would be at all bothered by getting their hands bloody, and 2) that they wouldn't have planned their massacre and subsequent suicide well enough to, for example, enter the classroom and then chock the door closed behind them so that no-one can escape. Not every spree killing is in a shopping mall or cinema with plentiful convenient exits.