In this case, I don’t think it’s the Americans’ fault. It has been discovered that humans are evolutionarily geared towards small groups, extended families, clans, tribes, etc. (no cite because I can’t remember where I read this). Psychologically, we can’t comprehend more than 150 people, and emotionally, we can’t take in more than 30. That means it’s completely normal if hundreds or thousands of deaths don’t affect you. If a neighbor or relative is affected, it will certainly affect you. So it’s not you, it’s the human psyche.
In my post, I wanted to point out how much people in the US have had to get used to violent offenders and probably distance themselves emotionally for their own psychological protection, and how they then discuss the shooter’s boat in the thread.
The discussion of the boat came entirely because of statements in the OP’s first post:
So, Why-T-F would someone wealthy enough to own a boat float up to one of these places and open fire into the crowd…?
Jesus Fucking Christ, you’re already living in the wet dream of the top percentage of wealth. Why the hell would you throw that all away? Why the Hell would you murder people just trying to eat a nice dinner and have a good time…?
I started the discussion of the price of the boat because I doubted this very much. Huge numbers of people own boats and the vast majority of these are less expensive than a car.
And it turns out I was correct: that instead the shooter was a veteran with traumatic brain injuries owning a boat with a value of maybe $25,000 or so.
Yes, that’s all well and good. But who cares about the value of the boat the shooter used for his murders? Certainly not those most affected, i.e., the tourists who were killed.
I doubt any of them will be posting in this thread though.
To be fair, you’ve fallen victim to the ‘gun culture’ mystique with this line. “Helpless Nell” sings out to be saved while “The Cowboy” rides up with the magic wand gun to save the day is just an old plot line.
Yes, there are a lot of cowboy jerkoffs who own guns and seem to make them a part of their personality… and statistically more men own guns than women. That said, what Hollywood doesn’t show you is that there are one hell of a lot purses with guns in the bottom. The Drug Dealers… I’m sorry, I meant gun dealers, market entire lines of murder tools to women.
Maybe women handle stress or adversity better? Maybe they are better at picking their battles so shooting doesn’t have to happen? Maybe they’re better at not getting caught? Maybe it’s never used but treated like a tchotchke or the way a dusty can of Mace was back in the '80s? Who is to say?
That said, “Helpless Nell” is a trope that no longer has any basis in reality any more than “The Cowboy” and his magic wand gun.
I think the point was, this was not someone “wealthy enough to own a boat”. This was a guy who owned a boat, but not an expensive one, and who was not in great shape financially. Doesn’t sound like he was normally lounging on deck, sipping craft beer. It may even have been essential, like if he was fishing from it. Yes, the discussion veered away from the issue of the shooting, but thread drift happens.
Close to 20,000 people are killed in homicides each year in the U.S. There are probably 200 or more incidents where 3 or more people were killed in the incident. This is far too many for Straight Dope to discuss. So homicide incidents discussed here are unusual in some way (famous victim, at schools, or in this case shooting from a boat). So what tends to get discussed is the unusual aspects of the incident.
It was an assumption by the OP that thw boat must be expensive; we were correcting that assumption, aka fighting ignorance, which just happens to be the motto around here
More accurately, we were correcting the OP’s assertion that this was a crime by the well to do demi-fatcat set.
Nope. Those folks engage in various depredations upon the public, but blazing away at the public at random constitutes nearly none of that. The folks who take up guns and go out in a blaze of mayhem upon their fellow citizens tend to be mentally disordered economic failures.
The boats I’m familiar with were usually cabin cruisers and Boston whalers… and they surround the LI Sound and many parts of NJ like curb stone. Granted, I never lived in SC… but I was told that it was always high-end… and not Louisiana low class. Some pictures of boats have been shown here (for $15k?). Boats that size need a trailer, a truck to pull them, and the person generally can’t live on them (so they have a trailer home or a house). So… boat… trailer, truck, trailer home… add them together ( with the monthly expenses ) and you come up with a dollar figure that is a Lot more ( conservatively 5 times plus expenses? ) than $15k. Also, you feel free to look at that boat and then tell me how you’re going to fire a high caliber rifle out of it and not either tip over or rock/roll on the water enough that you’d never be able to aim.
The motto here was ‘fighting ignorance’, but of late it’s been more ‘fucktard gang up’ by schoolyard bullies who were never beaten enough in the Principal’s office.
Well, not my circus, not my poo-flinging monkeys. When you see posters automatically attack my posts it’s probably best to ignore their POV. Maybe they’ll go after the kid on the jungle gym next.
Maybe they’re in cahoots with all the celebrities who are after you.
Although you’re also possibly overlooking the factor of sheer population and territory size. Depending on where you live in Europe, the US has probably five to twenty times as many people as your country does. As you noted, the impact of the deaths of strangers decreases with the size of the group.
In fact, US firearm-homicide rates aren’t orders of magnitude different from those of some much less gun-happy countries. Sure, our annual average of about 4 firearm homicides per 10,000 people is forty times that of Switzerland or France. But it’s only about eight times that of Sweden, five times that of Canada, three+ times that of New Zealand, and half that of tree-hugging anti-military Costa Rica.
What makes the really noticeable difference in the US experience is not so much how many people get murdered. And not so much even how many people get murdered with guns. But how many people get murdered by guns essentially at random, because gun ownership is so unregulated here and pretty much any dangerous whackjob can manage to get hold of one.
That’s what understandably freaks out a lot of people like yourself from societies where gun use is more strictly controlled, even though such random mass-murder tragedies are still a very low risk in the US, statistically speaking.
Well, isn’t it nice to move the goal posts and change the subject you sub-human fuck-face? I’m amazed you have the balls without 50 people behind you.
Don’t you have some cock to suck somewhere else?
( Isn’t Carell free…? Nobody has shot him in the face have they…? )
Although, to take a counterexample, the 2017 Las Vegas shooter was a multimillionaire (albeit from a low-income background) who owned planes and houses, and gave his girlfriend $100K to buy a house two weeks before his shooting spree. I would class that in the “well to do demi-fatcat” category.
Why is “cock to suck” considered an insult to you?
Isn’t homophobic bigotry okay anymore?
Um, fuck no, asshole.
Totally sane response here.
I don’t know how you got that from a post which literally never mentioned women.
I’m an Army brat, raised by elite warriors and the women who love them. Every woman I knew either came in knowing how to shoot, or was taught by a husband who was away a lot and expected her to keep his children safe.
You are perfectly welcome to express your sick ideas, but never, never, ascribe your “helpless women” attitude to me.
Thanks for that corrective. I had no idea that dude was wealthy. Yeah, I’d call that a demi-fatcat or better.
Yes, indeed: if you have lived your whole life in countries where gun ownership is either completely prohibited or strictly regulated, the idea that, for example, your neighbors on the right and left have guns in their homes, that women and children are trained in the use of guns, is hair-raising. When I go to the supermarket, I rightly assume that 100% of shoppers are not carrying a gun (unless there is a police officer on duty among them).
However, it must be said that there have been an unusually high number of knife attacks in public places in the recent past. Knives have the disadvantage that anyone can easily obtain them. However, they can be used to attack fewer people and only at close range. It is almost always younger men who use them, and they are often traumatized by war (there are many war refugees in Europe).
Nevertheless the idea that anyone, regardless of their beliefs or mental health, can easily buy several powerful guns at will is simply terrifying. People in the US seem to be used to this situation. How do they feel in Europe where they are not allowed to carry their guns?