Why do mass shootings only happen in the US?

Great Debates
161

Thats right…they are both tools with specific functions. Within those functions they do the job they are meant to do. None of this has anything to do with strawmen on MY part, nor with anything you quoted. You can, of course, disagree with me…feel free.

Lets look at what you said again for drill:

What does the number of times I defended myself with a gun have to do with anything at all? As I said in the reply you quoted (that you call a strawman…to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, I dinna thin’ that word means what you thin it means, compadre), I haven’t used my air bags either…yet I still have them and still need them. I might NEVER use them in the lifetime of my car, never use them in my own lifetime. Does that mean I don’t need them? Only if I can somehow predict the future. Otherwise there are there as insurance for my possible protection.

Now…how is any of this a ‘strawman’? Please 'splain.

No, not other gun owners necessarily…in fact, most likely not other gun owners at all. You seem to be laboring under the impression that the US is some kind of armed camp…and that the war is between fellow gun owning citizens.

And as I’ve said, its not a hobby…thats your own obviously derogatory term. I explained as best I could the psychological, practical and symbolic reasons private gun ownership is important to SOME American’s…and you just blew it off or waved it aside. If you choose not to understand another nations historical and cultural idiosynchronies when they are explained to you then what can I say? You don’t have to AGREE with them…just absorb the fact that in Mongolia, they have a mania for riding horses and horse archery and in America there is a mania with personal gun ownership. Obviously not ALL American’s have this mania…but a significant percentage DO. Do, absorb that fact and move on. If you feel you must display what you obviously feel is cultural superiority, then feel free to look down your nose. Just remember that your own country and culture probably has some things that would look odd to outsiders. And remember when your first thought is ‘fuck them’, or some other such knee jerk thought, that this is kind of the attitude American’s have when outsiders criticize our own wierdness.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but you were the one who road in here on the high moral horse, hand waving aside the fact that you are making deterministic valuations based on your own subjective assessments…and acting all culturally and morally superior to us poor dumb rednecks here in the states. I never tried to force OUR culture down YOUR throat, nor said that, for other countries, heavy regulation or out and out banning isn’t the right thing for them to do. Its other countries and posters who are telling US what THEY think is right…for us. Without actually living here.

So, if I seemed ‘condescending’, consider that perhaps I was just responding to your initial tone. Or don’t consider it and think what you will. Makes no never mind to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, you can obviously do what you want. I would recommend strongly against telling such a joke in the wrong company.

(BTW, if you were trying to get my goat, you might want to know I’m hispanic, not black. I’m also very thick skinned generally speaking about race. If you REALLY want to piss me off though, in another thread a posters said I wasn’t a ‘real American’ because my family immigrated from Mexico…THAT would most likely set me off good. Just an FYI :wink: ).

Then why do you keep misquoting me, misinterpereting what I’m saying in the most lampoonish kind of way? Either you don’t understand what I’m saying or you are deliberately trying to set me off by doing so. If the latter its not working. :stuck_out_tongue:

This is a case in point. Either you didn’t understand what I was saying or you are deliberately…well, doing something. Gods know. I never said anything about warring nations. Here is what I said, for review:

To translate: Intermingled ethnic groups on the scale that exist in the US often lead to violence…with or without guns. <stop> Do you disagree? <stop> If so, what historical basis or national model would you use to disagree with the above statement with (out of curiosity). <stop>

<as an aside> Would you use countries in Asia to demonstrate this? How did it work out generally for the various Asian cultures when they came into contact and intermingled? Was it all peace and light? Was there any violence? Because, IIRC, when the cultures of just Korea, Japan and China came into conflict bad things tended to happen. <end of aside>

<lame attempt at scoring some laugh points…especially since I didn’t actually have a joke prepared>

The point I was trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to make, was that many of the US’s problems stem from our very strength…from how culturally intermixed and intermingled we are. Most nations are more homogonous wrt ethnic populations and cultures. They may have 2 or even 3 minority cultures in their country (or maybe several religious sects)…but in the US we have dozens. Hundreds. Even out here in the desert that is my home we probably have 6 or 7 major ‘racial’ or ethnic groups just in my neighborhood. There are several hispanics, like me, several white families, several black families, 2 (American) Indian families that I know of, 3 oriental families (I know one of them is Vietnamese…not sure of the other 2 as I haven’t met them yet, but I’m fairly sure one is probably from the US…just has oriental heritage), and a few people from places like Pakastan. And the couple across the street is from Poland. This is in my one development, on my block. And this doesn’t even get into the REGIONAL differences (some of the folk are actually from other countries, some are merely from other parts of THIS country).

All that causes tensions not really seen in most other countries.

The point was pretty much what I said above. Despite the fact that the US allows (with regulation mind) our citizens to own firearms, while many of the countries ahead of us in line DO regulate access to their citizens to weapons (in some cases rather heavily…and in some totally) and despite the obvious pressures on our society from a clash of so many cultures (and some other factors such as, perhaps, a disparity in wealth for instance), our per capita murder rate is high…but its not off the scale. Nations like France were just down the list from us (despite having gun control AND a more homogonous population). Your own South Korea was only 10 or so places down, again this despite the fact that THEY have gun control and a nearly uniform cultural and ethnic society (I know, broad brush).

To conclude, the guns aren’t what make America ‘violent’…they are just the tools used by American’s when they get violent. Taking away our guns won’t make us more peaceful people…unless you figure out a way to crush the minor ethnic groups and force everyone into one cookie cutter size fits all for culture and mores. You said so yourself…taking away the guns isn’t going to stop the violence. said violence will just take other forms.

And speculating that you COULD do so, could take away all the guns and somehow quiet down the ethnic tensions, to make us good little Euro-sheeple would get us what? A difference of .02 dead per 1000 so we could be just like South Korea? A wooping .023 dead per 1000 so we could be like France? .03 per 1000 to be like Norway? Small price to pay for our identity?

To really do so would be a blow against pretty much what it means to BE an American from a traditions and historical perspective, IMHO anyway. Its the choice vs whats chosen for you (for your own good of course). (for instance, this will probably shock you but I don’t actually own a gun…or, I should say, I don’t keep any guns at my house. The point is…its my choice. Because I live here, as an upstanding adult citizen I get to BE an adult citizen and decide for myself about something like a firearm. I don’t have the nanny telling me what to do…for my own good. I currently keep several guns locked up in a vault at my folks house, and a prized pistol in a safety deposit box. I DO have a nice sharp and very useable Katana (ironically, unregistered…and before you ask, the only thing I’ve defended myself against with it so far was some bundled straw wrapped bamboo poles) however…in case you were thinking of coming over to rummage through my stuff. :wink: )

Think of it this way if you would…how would giving up freedom of speech feel? How about freedom of religion? And yet, you are blithely talking about one such pillar of our citizenship being a ‘hobby’, and simply snatching it away. Tradition you say? Pah! We don’t need no stinking traditions (appearently)!

-XT

162

I think the #1 tool for defending one’s self against harm is the phone. I just used it myself yesterday to call 911.

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Boy has this thread gone off-topic!

In the OP, I wasn’t interested in how many gun deaths per year there are, or how those deaths compare with deaths from other sources, or in other countries.

Mainly, I wanted to answer the following: When you hear that some nutjob went into a public area and methodically shot many people whom he didn’t know and had done nothing to him, just because he was ‘pissed at society’, ‘angry’, ‘depressed’, or whatever, the odds are high that this occured in the US.

And I’m not comparing US to Canada or any other single country. Yes I know the US has more people than Canada. I’m comparing the odds of this happening in the US versus the rest of the world.

Maybe my news sources are biased, or maybe I am not remembering correctly, but whenever I hear of a story about one of these fuckers, it is very likely this happened in the US.

How often do these things happen in China? India? France? Put together all these wacko shooting sprees from the US and compare to the rest of the world (300 million vs 6 billion), and it seems that most still happen in the US.

Do they happen just as often in the rest of the world and we simply do not hear about them? Or do these events truly happen much more frequently in the US? If the latter, why?

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That guns can be used in self defense is clear. I’m all for defending oneself and ones family. Someone came in to cause me and mine harm I have no issue with stopping that person by whatever means I can.

However, what we do not get from that number of 108,000 cases (and again I admit I did not read it although I tried) is what all constitutes use of a gun in self defense? Certainly some were serious cases but then couldn’t some be a farmer wondering what the ruckus is out by the barn and carries a gun to check it out and runs some kids off partying?

Add to that gun injuries. I do not mean accidents but so far we have been on about deaths. I did the math earlier and will pull the cites again if you wish but gun deaths and non-lethal injuries from guns adds to something over 80,000 people a year. That 108,000 seems less impressive in that light.

I think my real issue is that having a gun at hand enables violence in a way few other things do. Certainly people will stil whack each other over the head or stab them or whatever in the abscence of a gun but are far less likely to. There is a disconnect you get with a gun that I do not think is as easy to maintain when you are up close and personal trying to kill someone.

Admittedly I have not been in a position to fight someone to the death. But I was raised with guns and still remember the first time my dad had me fire his pistol. Long time ago now and I suspect it was a small caliber but I recall how (at that young age and small stature) the thing kicked like a mule in my hands. Growing up further I shot rifles and some handguns. I can still sense the feeling of empowerment holding one gave me. It’s weight, its attractive form follows function lines. To be honest while it felt good to hold it was vaguely disconcerting…it felt too good in some weird sense.

I think it is this that worries me about guns. They grant a sense of power to the user that is addictive and in the hands of a person without wisdom or just plain good sense that can be a dangerous cocktail.

I realize that most gun owners are responsible and view their weapons with suitable respect but you cannot count on that from everyone. Growing up I have found myself in numerous scrapes and although I am about as non-violent as they come I have had my moments of rage. While most times even if a gun was available I am certain I would not have made use of it I can think of one instance in my youth where I might have been dumb enough to brandish it in a fit of bravado. No intent to shoot anyone…just an attempt to be the big man and yes, I realize how foolish that would have been and thankfully no gun was handy.

In another instance I had a very close friend commit suicide a year ago with a gun to the head. One of the best people I have known and a friend to everyone (really…he’d chat up homless people all the time in Chicago) it was a brutal shock to everyone. While I will never “know” I cannot help but think that if the gun was not available it would not have happened. In a moment of despair (moments I have felt on occasion) the gun was handy and all of a sudden the unthinkable became thinkable. Had he not had that option I believe (do not know) that opting for another way to do it would have taken too much time/effort and he might have snapped out if his funk and gotten on with life.

The point of all that story is that I have personally felt how a gun makes me feel and sensed how if one was handy things could have gone from bad to worse all too quickly. I have felt moments of despair that while I cannot think I would ever commit suicide at those moments I am glad one was not handy.

I really do not see the gun’s benefits in light of all that. Or rather, I view their downsides to be far steeper than their upside.

I suspect the schools happen because kids/young adults who aren’t especially well known for their good judgement are often the shooters. I do not think they are after schools because they are gun free zones. I think they are after schools because they view them as a large source of the angst they feel that drove them to that point. They are they to exact vengenance on those who “wronged” them. Same with courthouses (although there are police there usually so doubt that is a good choice to attack if you are worried about the police). Churches and some others who knows…certainly just some plain sickos after an easy target. But I really do not think that these places are chosen because there are no guards or a mass of well armed people.

A swimming pool death is a tragic accident (probably). Someone capping me on the street with their .45 is not an accident so yeah…much more scary and evil.

Not sure about this. In a sense I agree but then you have to start somewhere. Of course guns would not disappear overnight. If the US outlawed all guns tomorrow it would take decades for the effect to trickle through. Over time though as criminals were caught guns would slowly be taken out of circulation. In time they would get more and more rare and thus more and more expensive (not to mention ammo as well). The poorest criminals would be the first to lose access to them and over time it would work its way up the ladder. Of course some criminals would likely always be able to get their hands on them but perhaps some student with a bug up his ass wouldn’t.

To finish I will say I appreciate the calm and decent way you are approaching the subject in this thread (indeed many people are doing well whatever side they take). It is a nice departure as often these can devolve quickly into shouting matches.

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“Whats your point exactly? A gun will only be useful to defend myself if I actually used it to defend myself? But…you don’t want me to have a gun, so if I DID need it, I’d be fucked…right?”
There’s your strawman.
Let me draw it out for you.
me: you can’t compare guns and cars because one serves a purpose other than to kill.
xtisme: Guns and cars are equally practical because they’re used for different things.
me: How can you say two things are of equal practical value when you’ve never used one for its intended purpose but you use the other probably everyday?
xtisme: It’s just in case (ignoring your previous assertion)

If not other gun owners, then what?
I’ve read your argument on why guns are important to Americans. You can stop repeating it. The question is, why do you value guns so much despite the harm it’s doing. If Koreans were packing pipe bombs and killing each other because it’s our ‘cultural heritage’, feel free comment.

I actually do live United States. I don’t recall shoving anything down anyone’s throat. I expressed my opinion and the opinion of many other non-Americans. I’ve been fairly cordial up to this point, never asserting that “you don’t get it” or “You state this as if you are saying something”. So far it seems like the only way you can attempt get your point across is by being a prick and with your ‘clever’ smilies.

You missed the point entirely. A Korean may joke about the shortcomings of Koreans (much like Chris Rock can about joke about blacks). It’s uncouth for anyone else to. Unless of course, you’d think it’d be funny to hear me tell 9/11 jokes. (If you want to say it’s uncouth for anyone to tell 9/11 jokes, the same could be said about jokes about violent demonstrations and racial injustice.)

Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese have never been united under one flag. The situation you’re describing is internal racial tension. Conflicts that have happened in Asia could be accurately described as warring nations. Apples and oranges.

I’m in stitches.

This has nothing to do with guns, but prove to me that diversity is a source of violence.

If my tradition is the source of avoidable violence, then I’d be pretty keen on questioning it. I’m awestruck that someone could write so much and say so little. So please, stop repeating what you’ve said and respond to my question. Are guns and the tradition and whatever other purpose it serves, worth the violence? Or is your argument that there is no ‘gun problem’, which is something that you seemed have tacked on in this post. Also stop saying everything’s subjective because you can say that about anything and we wouldn’t need a GD section. And learn to spell for fuck’s sake.
I’m going to bed but I’ll be checking this thread tomorrow. Have fun with your katana.

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There were a bunch of answers to the actual OP question up thread. I answered it myself somewhere up there… waves vaguely No one really responded to any of the answers to the OP, so the thread drifted into more interesting areas of discussion.

Thats true. The odds are that the average man in Outer Mongolia probably won’t be killed in a car crash with the same probability as one in Europe…or in the US. Conversely, a man in mongolia is probably more likely to be killed in some fashion related to a horse than your average American…

While this may seem counter intuitive to some, it has to do with the fact that there aren’t as many cars and that not as many people own or drive cars in Outer Mongolia…and there are a hell of a lot more horses in Mongolia than even people! Crazy I know, but there you go. :wink:

Its probably a combination of all of the effects you list here. News sources in general are biased to providing sensational news from the US in preference to many other countries, you are obviously not remembering several sensational shootings that DID occur in other countries that turned out not to be the US, and these things do happen in the US from time to time. And when they do, they get a LOT of press, lots of pontificating by foreign heads of state about our ‘gun culture’ and such, and lots of pious statements about how we are letting down the world by tarnishing our image, blah blah blah. It tends to seep in.

Then there is the fact that while most of the rest of the world has quite extensive gun control and their citizens have very few guns, this isn’t the case in the US. See the Outer Mongolian car crash example above.

I think, if we leave terrorism, local gang violence, paramilitary clashes, corrupt government friction, revolution, inter-tribal warfare, ect out of the picture, most such incidents as happened at VT DO happen, statistically speaking, here in the US. You asked why in your OP…and you were given several answers to this. I’m unsure what problem you had with those answers to be honest, so not sure how to answer this again. They happen mostly here in the US because we have more guns, more citizens with their own private guns, and we have a very ethnically (and perhaps economically) diverse population which causes tensions. Its not hard to extrapolate from this the answer…strictly from a probability perspective, if you have more guns available you are more likely to have something like this happen.

That it actually happens so relatively rarely is the only real mystery. Well, to those folks who think the US is an armed camp bristling with guns and citizens high on testostorine anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

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Sorry, Polerius, I got all involved in the OT debate.

This is certainly in the right forum, since there’s just no way to definitively answer your question.

Here’s my theory…

The reason it always seems to happen in the US, and usually involves a nut (or, like Columbine, a pair of nuts) who rail against society, or jocks, or whatever, is because we’re very, very spoiled. Think about the US, where even our poor folks have cars to drive, cable TV, food on the table, running water, and other luxuries that, when compared to the poor of a lot of other nations, make them seem incredibly wealthy.

It’s pretty rare for the poor folks here to snap and go shooting, probably because they’ve got other things on their minds, like feeding the kids or paying for a clinic appointment.

The names that stand out are Kip Kinkle, Klebold and Harris, Charles Whitman, and, of course, this guy that shot up VT. They seem to be middle to upper-middle-class people, folks that aren’t on the hunt for the next dollar just to get by. They’re able to sit down and examine their personal and social lives in minute detail, and pick apart any shortcomings in themselves and others. In the case of the kids, they’ve been provided with everything they’ve ever wanted from their parents (in Kinkle’s case, even the guns themselves.)

In a World History class in college, the professor made the point that people who have nothing really don’t tend to be all that unhappy, because they don’t know they have nothing. It’s not until they see something better that they revolt against their situation.

By extension, once we reach the point of affluence, what else is there to do but stop, look around, and find something to bitch about?

The other thing, and I have a feeling it will only get worse, is the “I am special” mindset. When you really believe that you’re a beautiful and unique snowflake, and you don’t seem to be getting enough credit for it (because, as I’ve mentioned, you have the time to pay attention) you will do whatever it takes to demand recognition. Shooting up a soft target is a very easy means to that end. Notoriety gets all jumbled up with fame, and here we are.

I think Hollywood (and its portrail of the gun culture) are possible ancillaries, but only because we devote so much of our aforementioned free time to the entertainment industry. I don’t think banning violent movies, music, and video games would make any difference (besides which, I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m not a big fan of banning protected rights and freedoms.) But it’s possible that seeing “Natural Born Killers” makes a shooting spree seem “cool” or a way to gain…whatever it is they think they’ll gain. Would Harris and Klebold have shot up Columbine without having been exposed to “Doom” and Marilyn Manson? I’m very confident they would have. The entertainment industry just provided them with a measure of comfort, if you will.

Here’s a question for you: should we lump people like McVeigh and Kaczynski in with mass shooters? The mentality seems to be the same even if the methodology isn’t. If we do include them, does that then make more sense overall? Maybe mass shootings and bombings are basically the same, with America’s preference being the former, and the rest of the world’s preference being the latter…I don’t know.

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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.

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.

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.

Personally, I think the phenomenon results from a deadly combination of

  1. high availability of guns

  2. a culture where, for some reason, there are a lot of people who are psychologically isolated from other people, and slowly turn into ‘loners’, and who see themselves as ‘outcasts’.

I wonder if there are studies showing whether people in the US face more psychological isolation than in other countries.

Interesting, you are essentially saying that this is all caused by the high availability of guns, and yet you are OK with the current situation and are willing to accept the current level of gun deaths in order to keep guns as available as they are today.

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While I agree with your assessment that this is the case for many of those who go on mass shooting rampages I think the vast majority of gun violence occurs among the poor.

Columbine, VT and so on are certainly shocking but in terms of raw numbers aren’t all that much. What gets people in a fit about it is it is impacting the middle class. I think there is some acceptance (not saying it is good or nice) that the poor shooting up each other isn’t of much concern to the Average Joe, middle class suburbanite. When that violence reaches in to their comfortable world all that changes fast.

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Some very interesting points.

I don’t think we should.

The motivations behind McVeigh and Kaczynski’s actions, while reprehensible, were different from the motivations behind the actions of, say, the Columbine guys or the VT guy.

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Well, then we’re back to where xtisme was, I’m sorry, but your values judgment about guns shouldn’t really get to determine the rights of American citizens, citizens who by the virtue of our humanity have a right to defend ourself and a right to keep guns. The Constitution enshrined this right but did not create it. We had this right from the day our forebears put their boots down on the beaches of the new world, because without that right, we never would have survived in the New World–and we barely did even with it.

It’s very important to note that in Europe guns have long been tightly regulated, as has hunting. Traditionally, European nobles wanted all the power. They wanted to be able to conscript their peasants and yeomen when they needed them, but they did not want them to have the means to take care of self defense or military matters themselves. By putting a monopoly on “protection” they ensured their own power for a millennium, and when guns became widespread they endeavored to keep them out of the hands of commoners because it was realized for the first time something existed which could change the scales. No longer did someone need years and years of training and expensive equipment to be lethal. An accomplished gunman could be more deadly than archers who were trained extensively, and far more effective than mounted knights and heavily armed men-at-arms.

Likewise, European nobles generally restricted hunting rights, both because they wanted the best hunting lands for themselves but also because making the peasants futures, and the ability to feed their families tied to the land they tilled was beneficial to said nobles.

Sure, I can’t impose my will upon you with alcohol, but if I wreck into you while tanked and paralyze you for life, I honestly wonder if you’ll hate me more or less than someone who shot you in the back. I know if it was me, I’d be pretty upset at the person responsible either way. In some ways, I’d almost have more sympathy for a bank robber–at least they’re working with a clear motive. Drunk drivers on the other hand are doing it out of sheer indifference to human life and out of simple convenience.

And you can impose your will on me or I can impose mine on you without guns, people have done that for centuries. With knives, clubs, broadswords and et cetera. Don’t you find it at all interesting that the rise of civil liberties didn’t exactly progress very far when the weapons of the day were swords and clubs? In many ways the presence of cheap, easily used weaponry broke forever the backs of the European monarchs–look at the French Revolution, quick access to firearms was critical. That Revolution never could have happened with a bunch of peasants storming a feudal armory and stealing swords and chain mail, because those weapons were very hard to use and one would be more likely to cut one’s foot off with a sword rather than actually be a threat with it if you were totally unschooled in its use. (Of course, having the help of part of the military didn’t hurt, but a lot of that can be traced to the King fleeing Paris out of fear of the mob)

There were peasant uprising in medieval Europe, and by and large they were put down so viciously and with so little effort by the powers-that-be, it’s amazing they weren’t even rarer than they were.

European rulers slowly began to realize that no more did they have a monopoly on power, and nothing sent that message as clearly as the French executing their King. The 19th century is a history in Europe of monarchs slowly ceding their power across Europe, do you think this was done because they felt like it or because they started to fear their ability to simply say “no?”

I certainly don’t think guns were the only factor, but I think they were a factor.

To answer an earlier question, today there is, just like at the height of the Middle Ages, such a discrepancy in relative military effectiveness between standing armies and the populace that no amount of guns are going to keep a people free from totalitarianism. My above paragraph wasn’t me arguing any different, it was me making the point that imposition of will happens regardless of guns. It has been done throughout human history and arguably it has been done most effectively in the pre-gunpowder ages by European lords who in some areas ruled over peasants almost like chattel slaves and were unaccountable to none. On paper that may seem a lot different from someone holding you up with a gun, but isn’t, really. European lords held up their peasants with threat of forcing them off their lands and starving them to death every single day, and thus the peasants had to send in part of their labor to the noble every so often for the simple right to live. And of course, if you’re smart, and someone walks up to you with a knife and asks for your wallet, you’re going to hand it over. Just because a gun is “more threatening” than a knife, doesn’t mean the situation can’t happen with a knife.

You’re aware of course that road brigands made it very dangerous to travel the roads of Europe in the middle ages, long before guns. When a few tough guys with knives or clubs come at you, you’re not in a good position to do anything but hand over your money.

I’m honestly not sure what your point is about “imposing will”, someone mugging you is illegal, whether they use a gun or a knife. And a mugging will most likely be successful whether they use a gun or a knife, because when someone comes at you unawares most people just aren’t able to defend themselves. Your whole point smacks of a “gut-level” reaction to guns. And again, a drunk driver is pretty much just as bad, sure they aren’t “holding you up” but they’re putting your life in mortal peril simply because they’re indifferent to the danger they are presenting to society.

Do you actually think people couldn’t impose their will on you without a gun? Because I know that’s not true. I really just don’t get why it’s relevant that a gun is often used to do so–lots of tools can be used that way. You make a lot of true statements to which I ultimately have to reply, “tough shit.”

That’s life, bad things are going to happen and just because guns are used to make bad things happen doesn’t make guns evil, nor does it make guns responsible. People trying to ascribe it to guns are living in a fantasy land and living with the dream that if somehow they could take all the dangerous things away from everyone, the world would be a better place. Well, it wouldn’t, most of the things that make life living carry with them some risk. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where I couldn’t have a drink, or couldn’t go skiing or rafting or mountain climbing.

What do you mean you’re in no way threatened by my car? Are you likely to be afraid if you see someone driving a car down the road? No. Or if you see another car in your rear view? No. And are you likely to be afraid if you see someone brandishing a gun near you? Certainly. But that’s an emotional response, and the truth of the matter is that car in your rear view mirror is a greater danger to you than a gun, as is that bottle of whiskey on the shelf at the store.

This kind of emotional reasoning is the same reason some people are scared to death of flying but will fly down the interstate going 85. You’re fine with what you’re familiar with and uncomfortable with what you are not.

To me, such arguments have absolutely no place whatsoever in a public policy debate, what does have a place is societal impact. Emotional bullshit has no place in a public policy debate, real facts do, and the real facts suggest if we could stop drinking and smoking we’d have far less dead Americans each year than if we could somehow get rid of all the guns.

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Very astute. I was trying to find some data in the gun violence stats about how it all breaks down - how many victims, for instance, were killed as a result of gang affiliation or drug activity. Just watching the news out of Shreveport, most of the murders are drug or gang related, which of course corresponds with the poor. And I think you’re spot on about the attitude of the Average Joe - what harm does it do to me when a dopehead kills a dopehead? I’m probably guilty of that, too.

You know, now that I think about it (and not to drag the thread off topic again) your point also extends to drugs. We never really heard much about meth until it started hitting that suburbanite, comfortable world.

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Anecdotal evidence:
In most coffee shops in the US, like Starbucks, or even trendier ‘cool’ places, you see a large percentage of the customers sitting alone and typing into their laptops, while sipping some coffee.

On the other hand, in some mediterranean countries I’ve been to, you go to a cafe and no one has their laptop with them, even though the cafe has WiFi. They are there with one or more friends chatting, sipping coffee, and enjoying the view.

Anyway, not sure if the above ‘counts’, just an observation that I felt was related to social isolation in the US.

174

I think this is a big difference between American and the rest of the world. Much of the rest of the world expects government to know best, government to take care of you and et cetera, and any move by government that would set people onto a path of more self-sufficiency is met with by violent protest. Look at what happens in a European country when a politicians talks about scaling back the welfare state because of economic realities, you have riots in the streets.

In the United States, we don’t believe government knows best. Not everyone liked Reagan, and to some degree he was kind of full of shit when he said it, but when he said, “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem” he was saying something Americans in general identify with. Our Founding Fathers talked of government almost as a necessary evil any restriction on liberty was seen as bad, and government was seen as such (and it is), but unfortunately necessary. The idea that government should take our guns away because they’re unsafe and we can’t handle them ourselves is incredibly patronizing to Americans.

Do I think a gun is worth a human life? Of course not. Do I think the right to defend oneself, the right to try and achieve self-sufficiency and safety, the right to own and possess arms is worth a human life? No, I think it is worth many human lives and Americans have fought and died to protect that very right when General Thomas Gage attempted to seize the weapons of our militias to pacify the countryside.

175

I also wanted to mention Bowling Alone (http://www.bowlingalone.com):
"
In a groundbreaking book based on vast new data, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures

Declining Social Capital: Trends over the last 25 years

  • Attending Club Meetings: down 58%
  • Family dinners: down 33%
  • Having friends over: down 45%
    "

I wonder how these trends play out in different countries, and if they have any effect on the wacko loner phenomenon?

176

The entire thread should have taught you something. We’ve covered that, like in everything else, major events tend to get more coverage in the United States than in the rest of the world. That many notable mass shootings have gone by relatively unknown. One poster even mentioned a mass knife/machete slaying that was virtually unreported in the United States and the world at large.

The simple fact of the matter is, there’s no way to quantify total number of mass murder attacks in the world given our resources at present. There’s some that would be easily compiled by googling, and others you’d have to work hard to find out about. I doubt that any go totally unreported, but I bet many in Africa or other “hot zones” where the rest of the world has long considered massacres to be common place and not worthy of serious attention would be very hard to find because AP and other major wire services wouldn’t give them much coverage.

If it truly does happen more per capita in the United States, I wouldn’t know what to say, nor would a team of 500 criminologist, 500 psychologists, and 500 sociologists. We don’t know near enough about the motivations of these people. But what it usually boils down to is you have someone with sociopathic tendencies who elaborately plans and executes a brutal assault on society in a fit of rage and with a lack of empathy. Whatever the case, one may wonder WHY it may happen more often in one place than another, and I’d say there’s no way you can link it to guns because many parts of the world have virtually unrestricted gun ownership because the governments in those countries are barely even in control of the country.

How many mass school shootings have we heard about in Africa or, Pakistan or Afghanistan, where governmental control over large parts of the country is suspect? I don’t know, I’d be interested to find out, I’m sure it must have happened. Yet some of those countries have roving bands of people armed with automatic weapons, so if it was related to gun ownership you’d expect lone gunmen to go on rampages all the time in those places, but most of the violence there seems to be factional in nature.

Which is basically to say I think patterns of violence are societal in nature and very difficult to explain in a manner that is satisfactory.

177

I think it very well could. Like I said about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and much of the violent areas of Africa like Sudan and Rwanda, you have a well armed populace, yet no notable mass school shootings that I can think of–exceptions would be school massacres by military forces, which are not really the same thing. I think part of it is, in these cultures everyone is part of something, you aren’t really a loner in the tribal areas of Pakistan, you weren’t raised in a culture that allows such a thing. You have responsibilities in life and to your family such that you wouldn’t really become a loner.

178

Because you’ll shoot your eye out?

179

I’m a few pages late, but just in case anyone’s interested, we have had a couple since then. One that springs to mind is David Bain, who allegedly killed both of his parents, his brother, and his two sisters back in 1994. He made the news recently because he finally made it all the way up to the Privy Council (the highest court of appeal available to him) and there’s considerable speculation that he is, in fact, innocent.

The most recent one happened in January this year, when paroled murderer Graeme Burton went on a rampage. He only managed to kill one person, so it might not count as a “mass shooting”, but it looks like it was pure luck that more people didn’t die.

I’m sure there have been others, but I can’t remember them offhand.

180

Ho ho ho. :wink: