Why do mass shootings only happen in the US?

Great Debates
181

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
You honestly can’t expect me to accept these arguments. You think that the ~11,671 gun homicides that happened in the United States in 2001 are entirely attributable to guns? That none of those homicides would have happened sans the murderer having a gun?

I doubt you believe that. If you’re going to stipulate some of them would have happened anyway, how do you differentiate. Should we go through all 11,671 cases and then have a panel of criminologists, and other experts in the field analyze whether or not those murders would have happened without guns? The U.S. has more bludgeoning and stabbing murders per capita than most other Western countries too, if it was all about guns, why is our murder rate, even sans-gun murders, higher?

If you, or others, think we should ban guns, why not alcohol?

In 2001 there were 802 accidental gun deaths, 11,671 gun homicides, and 16,869 gun suicides. That’s a total of 29,342 gun deaths.

In 2001 there were 12,207 cirrhosis deaths in which alcohol was listed a factor in the cirrhosis (about 1200 non-alcohol cirrhosis and 14,000 in which the cirrhosis cause was not specified), and 17,400 alcohol related traffic crash fatalities. That’s a total of at minimum 29,607 deaths in 2001 from alcohol. ASSUMING of course, that all gun homicides and ALL gun suicides were murders/suicides that would not have happened if a gun wasn’t present (which one can’t really assume–can you?)
[/QUOTE]

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Comparing alcohol (or cars) and guns is to me ‘creating room to hide the BS’. Alhohol (cars) can be used in many different ways, you can drink yourself into a stupor, and you can enjoy a cold beer on a sunny afternoon, A gun has only one use: Killing (oh wait; you can also practice killing).

I cannot in any way, shape or form grasp the working of the minds of people defending private gun ownership after such tragedys. Yes, the US is a very violent society, adding guns isn’t going to help.

182

[QUOTE=Nava]
Americans see having guns at home as a right. Many of those Swiss have guns at home only as part of their military duty. Completely different mindsets.
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Good point. The central question in this thread isn’t about gun laws, it’s about the mindset. I don’t think more restrictive federal gun laws stand a chance in the USA. The culture of a large part of our citizens cannot allow firearm restrictions. We’re too much like Afghanistan in that regard. Never happen.

I’m in the slightly unusual position of being a gun-hating leftist liberal pacifist who is opposed to gun control laws. If it can’t be enforced, maybe it’s bad law. If law is contrary to the values of the nation, it won’t succeed.

That doesn’t mean in general that we progressives should stop trying to enact progressive legislation. I think, for example, civil rights laws, desegregation, equality for women, etc. are in line with this nation’s values and that’s why these positive changes in society have been succeeding. I’m optimistic in that regard. But in the case of gun control, no. I doubt that will ever change. Anti-drug laws are massively failing to bring more benefit than harm to this society, so those laws will have to eventually be discarded too, the way prohibition failed, the way anti-abortion law failed.

The real problem is attitudes of maturity and responsibility. This goes to our integrity as human beings, as moral actors. Far larger philosophical questions than can be easily grappled with in sound bites. We cannot emulate Switzerland in terms of gun culture. Their arrangement is particular to their situation and doesn’t apply elsewhere. Both the USA and Afghanistan are endangering themselves by not managing to own lots of guns safely. In our case it’s lone nuts, in their case it’s bands of guerrillas. Either way the nation collectively suffers.

183

[QUOTE=Polerius]
I think the above may help explain the higher gun murder rate in the US, but it does not explain the higher wacko-shooting-spree rate.
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I think it explains it fine. Our wacko’s have access to guns…most other countries wacko’s (the ones who aren’t terrorists) don’t, so have to make do with more pedestrian means. So…they have to be more creative, or are just frustrated wacko’s, while ours, due to a variety of factors (copy catting, availability of weapons, etc) many times turn to a gun. Seems cut and dried to me.

[QUOTE=Polerius]
The higher ethnic diversity and poverty does not play much of a role. From what I recall, wacko shooting sprees are often committed by white suburbanites who are not particularly poor.
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In overall violence…or maybe I should say tension…it plays a role. In the kind of shootings we see in the OP, no. You are right (IMHO)…it doesn’t really factor in, except maybe in the background tension that finally made the person or persons snap.

[QUOTE=Polerius]
And the high availability of guns, while an important factor, does not fully explain the above phenomenon. I would assume that a psycho in any country who gets it into his head to do such a thing can find a way to get a gun, if even a simple hunting rifle.
[/QUOTE]

And we see that it DOES happen in other countries. But getting weapons is more difficult in other countries than you seem to acknowledge. In some its virtually impossible to obtain a weapon (legally). Here its relatively easy…which is the case being made by the anti-gun crowd for yet more controls. My understanding though that the gun used in this shooting was illegal (i.e. it was unregistered with the s/n filed off) already. I could be wrong about that…I haven’t kept up with current events on the case as it was seriously bumming me out to read about it…when it wasn’t setting me off to see all the anti-gun crowd litterally pour out of the wood work (from all over the world) to use this event to make political hay.

And yet…this shooter wasn’t a native born American. How does that factor into your theory wrt number 2?

Certainly I think that loner or outcast types are central to this kind of horrible shooting. I just don’t think that US has an exclusive license on the manufacture of such individuals…or even a majority. The factors that have made such things possible in the US is simply availability of weapons to the average citizen, large population (thus more probability of SOMEONE out there snapping sometime), and maybe the sensationalism of past episodes like this (copy catting). Thats all the deeper you need to go IMHO. I don’t think that US culture manufactures these things, that video games are the cause, that its America’s diet of movie/tv violence that is the key, etc etc, blah blah blah.

The rub here, IMHO, is that while these things ARE sensational and tragic, they really don’t happen all that frequently. Think about it. How many people have been killed in all the mass slayings in the country like the VT event through history? Take a wild guess (I don’t know either off the top of my head btw). Pick a number. Then go look it up. I’m guessing that most people will guess high. My own guess is…under 500 people have died in mass slayings like this throughout American history.

That SEEMS like a large figure. But even if it were 10 times that amount, its less than die world wide yearly simply mining coal for our power. Or in motor boating accidents if my earlier cite was accurate. Or falling off ladders yearly in the US. And its orders of magnitude behind some of the REAL yearly killers in this country.

Even coupled with our higher than world average crime rate, and with our higher than world average murder rate (by .01 per 1000 btw) it doesn’t seem (to ME) to be too high a price for our society to pay for a right granted to and held by us for over 200 years now. Especially since it seems that those rates (at least the murder rate) are going down already…WITHOUT massive gun control, and WITHOUT banning handguns.

-XT

184

[QUOTE=The Librarian]
A gun has only one use: Killing (oh wait; you can also practice killing).

[/QUOTE]

You, sir, are wrong.

185

[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
You, sir, are wrong.
[/QUOTE]

Very often, but in this case you’ll have to enlighten me. Why would you want to propel small pieces of metal at high velocity if not to hurt/maim/kill? Threaten to do so? What other uses does a gun have?

186

[QUOTE=xtisme]
IAnd yet…this shooter wasn’t a native born American. How does that factor into your theory wrt number 2?

[/QUOTE]

IIRC he has been in the US since he was 8 so I think it is fair to say his most formative years were at the hands of Americann culture.

187

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
IIRC he has been in the US since he was 8 so I think it is fair to say his most formative years were at the hands of Americann culture.
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I’m no psychologist, but I always thought the ‘formative years’ were like the first 3 or 4…that this is where culture or whatever is set. I’m prolly wrong about that.

I also didn’t know he had been in the country since age 8…as I said, I haven’t followed the story much since it first broke when there wasn’t a lot known.

-XT

188

[QUOTE=The Librarian]
Very often, but in this case you’ll have to enlighten me. Why would you want to propel small pieces of metal at high velocity if not to hurt/maim/kill? Threaten to do so? What other uses does a gun have?
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This wasn’t directed at me, but a couple of things. First off, you didn’t originally SAY ‘hurt/maim’…you said “A gun has **only one ** use: Killing (oh wait; you can also practice killing).” My emphasis. Only one use. So, consider yourself enlightened…you have found, all on your own, 3 uses now.

I’ll give you another. Deterrent. One can use a gun to deter someone from agression or violence…so you don’t HAVE to ‘hurt/maim/kill’.

Also, ‘kill’ has a wide variety of meanings…and its really not ALWAYS a bad thing. There is killing for the purposes of putting food on the table. Killing in self defense…or in the defense of others. Murder. The tool itself doesn’t decide right or wrong…thats up to the monkey pulling the trigger. The gun itself is neutral…its just a tool. Its up to the person to put it to good uses…or bad.

When you say its ONLY purpose is to kill, and as if thats of necessity a bad thing, then you show your ignorance of the tool and its uses throughout history. We wouldn’t have the civilization we currently have without that tool.

-XT

189

[QUOTE=xtisme]
I’m no psychologist, but I always thought the ‘formative years’ were like the first 3 or 4…that this is where culture or whatever is set. I’m prolly wrong about that.

[/QUOTE]

You’re probably right as regards childhood development but at what point do the pressures of socialization and awareness of the pop culture really set in? I expect that happens later in life.

190

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
You’re probably right as regards childhood development but at what point do the pressures of socialization and awareness of the pop culture really set in? I expect that happens later in life.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe one of the dopers who knows this aspect will wander in and shed some enlightenment. I know I came to the US younger than 8, and while I’ve become pretty much fully an American, my culture is still heavily hispanic. Of course, that could be because even once we moved here we lived in a hispanic community. Conversely, so could the shooter…i.e. lived in a Korean community (they are pretty tight nit when they come here, sticking together by and large in their own communities).

I just don’t think that its American CULTURE that causes this kind of random attack…unless its the sensationalism of past attacks (i.e. this guy was a copy cat).

-XT

191

[QUOTE=Polerius]
I think that most people in Switzerland have guns at home. Yet I don’t think there have been many Swiss or Canadian mass shootings.
[/QUOTE]
As mentioned before, a Swiss citizen that is in the army will keep his weapon at home, but the weapons is supposed to be stored away and never used except during military service. The only mass shooting I can think of in Switzerland was this one (bbc.co.uk) in which a Swiss man, upset that the state was refusing to do anything about his complaint against a bus driver, bust into the state parliament building in the canton of Zug and killed 10 people.

192

Having once been a ferocious advocate of gun control, I’m weighing in with the opinion that we need to take access to gun ownership out of the debate. It’s not that they’re that easy to get; or rather, making them harder to get wouldn’t change things; it wouldn’t, as one Doper suggested, raise the bar any.

Rather than compare U.S. massacres with foreign ones, perhaps we should compare recent U.S. massacres with previous ones. Death machines with high cycle rates have been around ever since the Thompson submachine gun was invented. But there weren’t massacres like this in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. This is a recent phenomenon.

The heart of the problem is the gun culture; that is, the cultural assumption in America that gunfire is a viable solution to a problem. How many times have we seen, in popular media, villains getting their come-uppance from the business end of a gun? How many times do you think a child has to see the good guy going “budda-budda-budda” before he gets the idea that this is a solution to problems? Why are video games in which the gamer shoots and kills an enemy so much more popular than strategy or mental acumen games? It isn’t the game-maker’s fault, it isn’t the movie maker’s fault, it isn’t the gun maker’s fault.

Who’s fault is it, really? Find the answer to that question, force every parent in America to face it, and the U.S. will become a much safer place.

193

At last! Back to the real question.

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
Rather than compare U.S. massacres with foreign ones, perhaps we should compare recent U.S. massacres with previous ones. Death machines with high cycle rates have been around ever since the Thompson submachine gun was invented. But there weren’t massacres like this in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. This is a recent phenomenon.
[/QUOTE]

Well, the Texas Tower was in the 60’s, but I think this is a valuable insight nonetheless. Mass random murder to redress perceived personal slights does indeed seem to be more and more common. What is really different today, if it isn’t simply the presence of rapid fire guns?

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
The heart of the problem is the gun culture; that is, the cultural assumption in America that gunfire is a viable solution to a problem. How many times have we seen, in popular media, villains getting their come-uppance from the business end of a gun? How many times do you think a child has to see the good guy going “budda-budda-budda” before he gets the idea that this is a solution to problems? Why are video games in which the gamer shoots and kills an enemy so much more popular than strategy or mental acumen games? It isn’t the game-maker’s fault, it isn’t the movie maker’s fault, it isn’t the gun maker’s fault.

Who’s fault is it, really? Find the answer to that question, force every parent in America to face it, and the U.S. will become a much safer place.
[/QUOTE]

I think Sunrazor has something here. Recourse to violence, even blind recourse, is indeed so much more popular than strategy or acumen. We see it in entertainment, we see it between individuals on the streets-- why are we surprised we then see it on the news?

So, what do we as a society do about it?

(I probably shouldn’t, and please pardon the hijack, but just one little tiny hint that the second sentence in the paragraph above might also be seen in foreign policy? No, sorry, I don’t want to go there after all…)

194

Surely everyone will agree that there should be some checks added in place to keep a person who has undergone a psychaitric evaulation from being able to buy a handgun.

As for the “if you want it bad enough” argument…no. I have honestly wanted to try LSD all my life, but as yet never have, becasue I know of no one who has it to give me.

195

To a point. But I worry about how far this could go.

I don’t want guns denied people who are on mild antidepressants, for example, if this is the sole thing wrong with them.

196

[QUOTE=CannyDan]
Well, the Texas Tower was in the 60’s, but I think this is a valuable insight nonetheless. Mass random murder to redress perceived personal slights does indeed seem to be more and more common. What is really different today, if it isn’t simply the presence of rapid fire guns?
[/QUOTE]

:smack: I knew that! Damn, I hate getting old!

Even the rate of fire isn’t that much of a factor, really. Whitman took time sighting in his targets from great distances, but to him the victims were still just targets. I can’t help but think that he, Cho, Klebold and all the others still got a huge thrill from seeing the effects of their work. What was going on in their minds as they watched their victims crumple to the ground, or pieces of their bodies fly away? Was it joy? Was there ever a “what the hell have I done” moment, or did they just commit suicide because, well, it was the easiest way out? (Whitman didn’t actually commit suicide, though, did he?)

One other thought: It would be great if, some time in the future when this happens again – and it will, in some form or another – the sonofabitch miscounts his ammo and doesn’t have one left for himself. It would just help a lot, I think, to know that he had a very long “Oh, shit!” moment before the cuffs went on, and then he could contemplate his eminent demise for several years. Oh, I know, it’s just a fantasy!

197

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
Damn, I hate getting old!
[/QUOTE]

Beats the hell out of the alternative!

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
snip… the victims were still just targets… snip… What was going on in their minds as they watched their victims crumple to the ground, or pieces of their bodies fly away? Was it joy? Was there ever a “what the hell have I done” moment, or did they just commit suicide because, well, it was the easiest way out?..snip
[/QUOTE]

Is that the real basis of the problem? Are we personally disconnected from our fellow humans (“just targets”) to such an extent? I’ve wondered about that for some time.

Is it also because we are disconnected from the realities of life and death? In our modern, relatively safe society where meat comes from a store rather than from an animal? Where people die in a neutral hospital buffered by “professionals” who are really strangers instead of at home or otherwise right in front of their friends and families?

I recall reading Mark Twain describing a childhood experience with death-- a townsman was gunshot, and the effects were both well drawn out and on display to the entire community. From the bible placed on the doomed man’s chest to his final (now rather constricted) breaths, everyone nearby participated on some emotional level in his tragedy. Made me wonder if our present separation from such events is entirely good for society. When we see truly horrific events only third hand on the nightly news, does this desensitize us to such an extent that we can accept them? Do we allow ourselves to believe that these events cannot reach us, that they are somehow fictional like so much else on television? On both a conscious and a subconscious level, we seem to take no ownership of the troubles of fellow humans. We are then horrified (but not instructed) when some certain event makes us realize that we are not so separate after all.

198

[QUOTE=CannyDan]
Is that the real basis of the problem? Are we personally disconnected from our fellow humans (“just targets”) to such an extent? I’ve wondered about that for some time.

Is it also because we are disconnected from the realities of life and death? In our modern, relatively safe society where meat comes from a store rather than from an animal? Where people die in a neutral hospital buffered by “professionals” who are really strangers instead of at home or otherwise right in front of their friends and families?

I recall reading Mark Twain describing a childhood experience with death-- a townsman was gunshot, and the effects were both well drawn out and on display to the entire community. From the bible placed on the doomed man’s chest to his final (now rather constricted) breaths, everyone nearby participated on some emotional level in his tragedy. (snip)
[/QUOTE]
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I remember going to see “Saving Private Ryan” in the theater. There wee junior high kids all over the place. My wife and I were horrified (as we should have been) by the depictions of combat, especially in the opening moments. The kids around us, however, were titillated by it, energized by it. Toward the end of the movie, when a German commando slowly overpowers a GI, sinking his beyonet into the man’s chest, the kids cheered, for God’s sake!

Contrast that with my childhood movie experiences, most of which my parents participated in. When I was junior high age, I was conditioned to recoil in horror at scenes of scalp-lifting (which weren’t nearly as gruesome as the slasher stuff on screens these days.)

the movie makers up the ante because audiences want to see it. Why do we want to see that? What has happened to us as a nation, as a people?

199

You do realize that most of the movies you are refering too are seen pretty much all over the world…right? Granted, they are probably seen MORE in the US…but most of my friends abroad have seen, for instance, Saving Private Ryan (since you gave that example).

I have to admit, from what I’ve seen of European TV however, ours is more violent (but their’s has more sex…which I’m all for :)).

I dunno…point to TV, movies and video games just seems so pat…

-XT

200

[QUOTE=xtisme]
You do realize that most of the movies you are refering too are seen pretty much all over the world…right? Granted, they are probably seen MORE in the US…but most of my friends abroad have seen, for instance, Saving Private Ryan (since you gave that example).

I have to admit, from what I’ve seen of European TV however, ours is more violent (but their’s has more sex…which I’m all for :)).

I dunno…point to TV, movies and video games just seems so pat…
[/QUOTE]

You’re right, teens from most other developed countries watch the same movies, play the same video games, etc, as US teens, so that can’t be the whole answer.

I think the reason the answer isn’t simple is that maybe it is the lethal combination of a whole bunch of factors. Some factors are in some countries, and other factors in other countries, but maybe the US has all the factors in place.

  1. Easy access to guns
  2. Violent movies + video games
  3. Culture with less ties to family and friends, making people feel isolated
  4. Even when the family is there, maybe ‘family values’ seems passe in our modern culture, so proper values are not instilled in kids
  5. “Copy-cat syndrome”, where past massacres ‘inspire’ new ones
    …