Why is this acceptable?
If “random violence” is defined as people shooting up multiple victims they have no prior bad blood with, for any or no reason, then no, this is not particularly common. I agree that the reason this incident has gotten so much attention is because political figures were involved, though.
Where in the quote that you posted in your OP does **DrFidelius **say that it’s “acceptable”?
Violence is violence. Random or not is is not acceptable, but I am confused what you are asking about.
I am not really following the OP either. Truly random violence is one of the last things we should be truly worried about because it is so uncommon and there is little that can be done to stop it that doesn’t seriously impact everyone’s freedom. The TSA pisses most people off with their security theater in airports. I don’t think we want or need those types of measures in place everywhere in America and it wouldn’t stop determined and deranged people anyway. People are born. People get hurt and die in various ways, some more tragic than others but the end result is always the same. Short of locking yourself in a concrete cell 24/7 there isn’t much you can do to stop odd events from happening in a country of 300 million people from time to time.
We should be more worried about media hype and 24/7 Internet connectivity constantly drilling it into our heads making us worried about stuff that always went on but never got on the radar 20-30 years ago.
I think America accepts spree killings as the cost of our gun laws.
This, plus free expression, and freedom of movement, and lack of welfare state ethics which provide better financial safety nets in more socialist nations.
Oh, also violent video games & heavy metal music. (Thank goodness nobody blames those anymore!)
Random violence is really, really rare.
From relatives in law enforcement, the rule of thumb was that for a killing, immediately assume that it was done by the surviving spouse/unmarried partner/ex-partner, or parent, or child – and you would be correct about 2/3rds of the time. You just had to gather up the evidence that would prove it.
And the remaining 1/3rd of cases where the evidence didn’t confirm that, just ask those people who had been fighting with the victim lately, or who benefited by the victims death – that would give you the killer in most of the remaining cases.
The cases where it was truly an unknown person killing someone at random were so rare that most officers could go their entire career without ever seeing one.
It’s “acceptable” in the sense that (arguably) trying to prevent it may not be effective and would create even more problems.
Seriously, what’s a good preventative measure against the Jared Loughners of the world? Involuntary commitments and treatments of people who “act weird” ? As far as I know, Loughner had a history of incidents at his community college that describe him as disruptive, obsessive and erratic but not violent, so at what point should the intervention have happened? What’s the threshold? How many non-schizophrenics will get caught up in it, including people who are playing pranks or just having a bad day?
Spree killings and mass murders are hardly limited to America.
Outlaw handguns & he can be as weird as he wants.
Ah…so now the OP is clear. You wish to debate gun elimination, thinking gun control just isn’t enough.
-XT
Quoth t-bonham:
And of course, some of those will be cases that would have fallen into the first two categories, too, and they just weren’t able to prove it. Although you probably also need to add a category for violence committed in the process of another crime: A burglar or mugger panicking and killing the person they were robbing, say. Which still isn’t exactly “random”, but closer to it than the domestic cases.
Even if random violence was common, it is, by definition, unpredictable. So what would worrying about it exactly do?
Anyone ever wonder if all the fear and worrying in our psyche is part of the damn problem?
I didn’t say they were.
Because the cure is worse than the disease.
I’d dispute the quote in the OP. This was not an act of random violence. Does anyone really think that Jared Loughner shot a bunch of random people and one of them happened to be a Congresswoman? Of course not - he chose his target.
One can argue the “random” element is Loughner’s delusions. He went after a congresswoman. He could as easily have shot up a McDonald’s or a school or anywhere the voices in his head told him to. I’d speculate that had the course of his illness been slightly different, he might have shot up Pima Community College (which he attended until late 2010) or someplace else, or possibly nowhere else, and exact prediction is impossible.
Because he couldn’t find any of the following?
M – Melee weapons, like knives, swords, spears, machetes, axes, clubs, rods, stones, or bare hands
O – Any other weapons, such as bombs, hand grenades, Molotov cocktails, poison and poisonous gas, as well as vehicle and arson attacks