And I don’t mean why do they happen at all, I mean why have there been so many more in 2012 than previously? The availability of firearms hasn’t changed significantly, so what’s the deal? My w.a.g. is that the more these shootings are publicized, the more maladjusted losers out there decide that the best way to end their worthless lives is to go out in a blaze of glory. Significantly, almost all of these save their last bullet for themselves.
Well, it’s kind of hard to use the third to last bullet on yourself.
The ongoing bad economy most likely. That puts stress on a great many people, and some of those people are going to be pushed over some psychological edge that they we already teetering on. Bad economies have historically led to all sorts of crazy behavior.
I’ll be the jerk : Cite?
NPR had a representative from Mother Jones magazine on this afternoon and he stated that this year there have been 7 mass shootings, defined as 4 or more dead not to include the shooter. He asserted that this was the highest in 30 years.
Now, on to the point that was raised earlier:
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The ongoing bad economy most likely. That puts stress on a great many people, and some of those people are going to be pushed over some psychological edge that they we already teetering on. Bad economies have historically led to all sorts of crazy behavior.
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Agreed. Crime correlates almost perfectly to economics in that the vast, vast majority of people who commit crimes perceive that they have no hope, no future, etc., all problems of money or other economic stresses. The way to largely end these shootings? Fix the economy.
I’d also assume that bad economies lead states to cut stuff like, say, mental health care, and for individual families to not be able to afford said care on their own, especially if they don’t happen to have insurance.
Spot-on username/post combo.
Except the violent crime rate hasn’t gone up in the current economic slump. Its just the incidence of mass shootings. And the perpetrators haven’t generally been in strained financial straights, and to the extent that they have, its generally been due to their own psychological problems rather then the poor economy.
Bad economics and cultural changes making people feel trapped and wanting to lash out. Plus the more mass shootings there are arguably the more it gives incentive to people who want to do it but aren’t willing to go through with it. That is why newspapers don’t publicize suicides, it can be seen as something that makes people on the brink go over the edge and do it themselves.
But this latest shooting was done by a 20 year old. He shot his mom in the face then shot up a school. I don’t know if the economic argument would apply to him.
Well, it is the end of the world next week. Gotta ramp up somehow.
People see how much fame and publicity that can be had by shooting up a school/theater/whatever and figure it’s a good way to go out in a blaze of glory.
ETA: Yes, that’s a guess.
Lumpy, it’s awareness and publicity.
I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, but (and I’ve told this story here before a few times) back in the 80’s or early 90’s there was a wave of high school suicides in the Twin Cities. Some of the first ones rates 4-6 dedicated pages of the StarTribune hand wringing, interviewing kids and psychiatrists, blah blah blah. And after each one, there would be another, and another.
The parents of the kids started to get really concerned that this was getting too much news coverage, too much public head space. They banded together and went to the media and said “Fucking enough already. Each time you do this there is another suicide. You need to stop NOW.”
The media listened, and stoped publicizing every incident and traumatizing the fuck out of every community and high school.
And the suicides stopped.
It’s somewhat the same here. Massive publicity, handwringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth begets still more incidents, as sick and unbalanced individuals see all the attention that can be had and decide that maybe, just maybe, this is their ticket too.
Only I don’t think the media will ever stop at this point. There’s too much money to be had, and too many news companies without a microgram of ethics or personal responsibility.
I suspect it is easier to find the figures in recent memory. This article - from April 2009 - claims 8 in 2009 (first four months):
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/t/story?id=7288842
They define it as five or more dead INCLUDING the gunman (which is almost the same as four without - unless there is no suicide).
So, what is it about 2012 that has pushed so many of those crazy people over the edge?
I’m not convinced it has. To some extent, you’d think mass killings would simply scale with the population, so you’ll have half again as many in 2012 as 1980 just because we have 1.5 times more people to go nuts now as compared to then. But that doesn’t represent any change in the rate of people going on murder sprees.
Then there’s statistical noise. If you only have a few events a year, some years will seem to have a lot just because one or two extra incidents will represent a sizeable fraction of the total.
Finally, no one seems to have compiled a particularly great database of mass killings, so its sort of hard to figure out if their really are more this year then in previous years. As the appropriately named DataX points out, claims that this year really has the highest rate are suspect. I think its really easy to get a few in a row just by chance and decide that we’re at some sort of high point of mass killings, when in fact there hasn’t really been any statistical change in the rate of killings at all.
Recall the phrase “going postal” was coined back in the 80’s. So not only were there enough spree killings back then for people to come up with a phrase for it, but the specific phenomena of postal workers going on spree killings was frequent enough to deserve its own name.
I’m sure there was more than just the economy prompting this case. But maybe it played an indirect role; I could see how a young adult might look at today’s economy and think “This is it, this is all my adult life will ever have in store for me.”. Not the sole (or even major) cause, but one more element leading to a generalized sense of hopelessness and failure.
An empire in decline imploding, perhaps?
No.
My serious answer to the OP: random variation.
Hard to say, but here are 2 articles.
Why are mass shootings becoming more common? by Brad Plumer.
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States by Ezra Klein.
I quote from both: 1. In the United States, there have now been at least 62 mass shootings in the past three decades, with 24 in the last seven years alone. This has happened even as the nation’s overall violent crime and homicide rates have been dropping.
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Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
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Incidents of mass murder have gained considerable media attention, but are not well understood in behavioral sciences. And a bonus from the conservative legal blog, the Volokh Conspiracy. Do Civilians Armed With Guns Ever Capture, Kill, or Otherwise Stop Mass Shooters? 4. [After citing 4 iffy but relevant examples.] In what fraction of mass shootings would such interventions happen, if gun possession were allowed in the places where the shootings happen? We don’t know. In what fraction would interventions prevent more killings and injuries, as opposed to capturing or killing the murderer after he’s already done? We don’t know. In what fraction would interventions lead to more injuries to bystanders? Again, we don’t know.
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Finally, always keep in mind that mass shootings in public places should not be the main focus in the gun debate, whether for gun control or gun decontrol: They on average account for much less than 1% of all homicides in the U.S., and are unusually hard to stop through gun control laws (since the killer is bent on committing a publicly visible murder and is thus unlikely to be much deterred by gun control law, or by the prospect of encountering an armed bystander). All 3 links are recommended, and penned by respectable analysts of varying ideological affiliation, IMHO of course.
Here’s the Mother Jones article that people have been citing as proof the rate of mass shootings has increased. For starters, even just going by that list, I think its pretty debatable that this year has been particularly mass-killing heavy. We’ve had five this year, which was equalled in 1999, and they have several years with four incidents listed.
More damming, it took me all of five minutes to google up a case that meets their qualifications, but was not included on their list. I think Mother Jones listing is far from complete, and that it favours more recent years just because those were the ones the people compiling the list were likely to remember.