US culture of mass killings
 

This is just one of my 'rabbit hole' runaway thoughts and would appreciate other perspectives and discussion on the topic. As a note, I believe that every mass killer has their own personal reason and story for their pathetic, horrible acts, but I do think we can make some generalizations.


Since Aurora and Newtown, there has been plenty of discussion of what factors are causing these school shootings (or mass killings in general) and more importantly, how can we reduce them. Not surprising, the usual suspects have been mentioned over and over: too many guns, too few guns, mental health issues, video games, media, etc.

However, I think it clear that these "solutions" can be checked with a simple thought experiment. Since these shootings really only occur in the United States, what possible factors are unique to America? This quickly eliminates video games, media, mental health issues, and lowers the argument for too many guns (there are other countries that have guns while very few if any school shootings). These leads me to believe that this has something to do with our culture (duh!).

Now, I don't believe there is any specific cultural factor in the US that leads to shootings or that it is solely cultural factors. I see it more in the sense that there are external conditions found everywhere (mental health issues, bullying, etc.) that makes a person unstable and something with American culture pushes these people over the edge. If I had a guess, it would be some combination of a need for "greatness" (I think we are only country where we tell our kids that they are expected to be successful...I can go into more detail about this later), copy cats, and pride issues. There are probably others as well.

To expand on copy cats, maybe its just my perspective (when the media started covering them), but it seems that these mass shootings have been occurring since Columbine or a bit before. It also seems that there is an "arms race" between some of these shooters. Each shooter using more powerful weapons and armor. This either implies that a killer's unstable thoughts are "validated" by seeing someone else do what they were thinking or there is a "glorification" issue. On the other hand, the first argument does not seem to hold since people in other countries besides America hear about the shootings here and do not act on any unstable feelings.


This leads me to my next question: why use guns? One of the arguments I've heard for banning assault rifles is that it is the most efficient way to kill people. I disagree with this. As an engineer, I can think of multiple way to kill more people and create more damage. However, I believe shooting someone is the most direct and emotional way of killing a large group of people. Unlike poisoning, bombs, etc., you need to look at the person and you need to pull the trigger to kill them. It is your direct action that is killing them, not some chemical substance. Also, it is one of the most emotional shocking ways of killing people. 30 students dieing from food poisoning isn't going to get the same amount of media attention as 30 students dieing from an assault rifle. It could be very well that these killers are trying to make some fucked up statement and they know shooting is the best way to "promote" their statement. So, are our mass killers sticking with guns due to a lack of creativity, the "emotional satisfaction", emotional shock, or some combination?

If it is for lack of creativity, then we have much bigger issues to worry about then guns but if it is for the "emotional satisfaction" or emotional shock, this can hopefully lead to some idea about the reasoning or what is pushing these people over the edge. I don't have any direct answers to what are causing these shootings or solutions, but these are at least my thoughts.

I examined the question of whether this is specific to the US, and in the process found some interesting things.

• If you expand out from "school shootings" to "whatever's called a massacre", it turns out that wacko groups and governments around the world are much more effective at killing than loners. This doesn't change the problem, except to maybe put it in some interesting perspective.

• If you only look at the US, in modern times, in the list of "whatever's called a massacre", the US government is the winner at 76 deaths (Waco) and killed more than Columbine (15), VA Tech (33), and Sandy Hook (25) combined. (However, it failed to commit suicide during the process.)

• If you look at the list of notable school shootings in the US you find that the great majority of events involves only 1 or 2 deaths, and one of them is usually the suicide of the shooter. Only 5 events go into the double digits, and the largest of these was in 1927, a suicide bombing killing 45. Three events happened since 1990, suggesting that this is a modern problem.

• Also, the number of listed events is greater in modern times, but one wonders how much news reporting comes into this; a death of 1 or even 2 was not major national news during times when wars were taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

Hey, don't question my initial assumptions! Those are imperative to my argument. :p:

That question walks and talks like a duck trap.

:lol:

Nah, the US prefers to kill itself by inches through legislation like the Patriot Act and jumping off fiscal cliff's.

My thoughts fwiw:

Back in the day, the US wasn't all that excited about jumping into wars - especially ones in far off places. When WWII broke out, the American people had at least an idea of how awful Hitler was. We knew our British "cousins" were fighting single handed, but we still didn't join Churchill fighting on English beaches. It took the stunning surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to get the US off its butt.

Fast forward to modern times, and the US is now part of the war of the month club. We invade other countries on the smallest pretext, and we don't care that carpet bombing and drones, etc take out the innocent along with the guilty. Kill 'em all, and we'll sort it out afterwards. And we all get to watch on CNN every day.

How can we possibly think we're still the "good guys" when we employ torture and use drones that kill children? Our "culture of violence" starts at the top and far from trickling, it roars down from there.

If there's a cultural problem to school shootings, it's that we are addicted to the drama of reality. The most dramatic, horibble thing we can imagine is schoolchildren being shot. We are glued to the coverage of it. Like driving past the traffic accident, we cannot turn away.

And these days, there isn't that much else that draws us together. This is, weirdly, one of those things. But it feels a little like we used to draw together over accomplishments. Like the moon shot, dramatic events such as the ending of M.A.S.H., artistic endeavors such as the Beatles, medical advancements like the end of Polio.

These days we are depressed, and have little in common, and only news of horror unites us.

Oh and Gangnam Style.

Only news of horror, and Gangnam Style, unite us.



It's like, "Hey everybody! We figured out AIDS and people don't have to die from it any longer!"

"Yeah but the medicine is so expensive."

Almost like everyone forgot what was so obvious in "Bowling for Columbine". Go across a bridge. Where fear is not promoted. Across from Detroit is almost no gun crimes. People need not even lock their doors. Where many if not most violent crimes were by people from where fear is promoted to increase profits.

Today in America, we need even bigger weapons to protect us from fears that did not exist ... until we had big guns to protect us from those once mythical fears.

Only useful statistic - how many dead per shooter? A number that increases as number of assault weapons increase. And a number that decreases with less guns. Well documented in history.

We need bigger weapons to protect ourselves from our fears. A bogeyman invented to increase profits.

Recently, down the road from the Cellar, a Council Rock High School student (Newtown PA) planned to attack his school the next day. Police invaded that house. Found two 9 mm handguns on his nightstand. Even his parents had to be arrested for obstruction. They full well knew their kid had these guns, was not properly securing them, and was only a minor. An adult who is not a child would not be so irresponsible. And then deny their responsibility using profanity.

Every kid should have weapons - the parent's attitude. A potential disaster averted only a week after Newtown CT. Necessary because every student must protect himself from his peers. An attitude even in parents.

Other nations do not promote mythical fears to their mentally weakest. Therefore do not have these problems every month.

Relevent number: deaths per murder. A tiny number in nations when industry does not invent fears to increase sales and profits. It works mostly on adults who still think like children.

A sidetrack completely but, from a distance at least, Americans seem to have a different relationship with their guns from people elsewhere on the planet. Perhaps it's a kind of love. Even where guns in other parts have proliferated they seem to be considered as nothing more than tools but I often see something appoaching worship displayed by many an American on websites. My daughter and I were laughing at a recent article in a newspaper until we looked at each other, realising at the same time that the folk in it were for real.

There's a popular thread here in the Cellar, which I admittedly don't closely follow, I wish could've been called 'Interesting Weapons' - I've always found its current title a little creepy, but that's just me.

I'm happy that guns are a rarity here.

I agree with you Rhianne its the old mentality of who can piss higher on the tree, my gun is bigger than yours> penis envy

Almost certainly, there are many factors involved.

The relative availability of guns, especially handguns and high capacity rifles, in the US is almost certainly one.
But there is also the attitude towards them, as already mentioned. Switzerland has lots of guns, but they're regarded as mundane, kept at home. In the US, it approaches a fetish or even a religion. "Guns keep us safe from tyranny!" etc. To the mentally ill, the idea that Guns Are The answer is easy to absorb from the pro-gun statements regularly and loudly made.

The media's fascination with these events is another factor. For the mentally ill, the saturation coverage of events like these soaks in and makes it seem like a normal or reasonable act. I wish I had saved it to share here, but I recently saw an infographic of the shooters of the last dozen or so mass shootings. Each shooter had a little box with name, date, types and legality of weapons and number of victims. They looked like baseball cards. The shooters were listed, not by name or date, but by number of kills.
What better to motivate some insignificant-feeling psycho to try to top the list?

And yes, culture. Think of all the wild west folklore, the western movies, where one or a few "good guys" with guns defy and defeat a bunch of crooked land barons/ rustlers / outlaws / corrupt officials etc. There are so many cases where this happens. After a few hundred such movies, the idea is unconsciously absorbed that, if you're repressed and downtrodden and the system won't help or is in fact the problem itself, armed defiance is the correct response.

There is no single factor that is "the" explanation, and so there is no single action that will fix the problem.

Despite my love of Westerns, I think Django Unchained will go unwatched. We are programming ourselves to accept violence. I think we are a pretty sick country. Our constant war-making, our exposure of young (often previously damaged) kids to violent media, our founding mythology, our crazy religious, our intolerance for each other, our sick school culture, our economic stress, our embarrassing political culture, its all in there how much each thing weighs in cracking some loon is not knowable. What I know is I spend every working day teaching children peaceful conflict resolution and everything I teach can be wiped away by shitty culture.

Religious dedication seems to creep in everywhere in one form or another. The Pontifical Swiss Guard provides armed bodyguards for the Pope and requires that their members have completed basic Swiss military training in good standing, be Catholic and take an oath of allegiance to the Pope.

I saw what you did there, implying that Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Paladin and not even the Cisco Kid can save us. :D

At risk of repeating myself, I admit I did that automatically, and I apologise for the breech of etiquette.

So, that explains it! The reason why about a dozen or so Swiss Guards in a largely ceremonial position don't run amok and kill busloads of children visiting the Vatican is because they're afraid a nun will rap them across the knuckles.

Works for me.

So what's the skinny on all the rest of the non-Catholic Swiss fondling their military issued weapons back home in the Alps?








dropped off since it was along the way, anyhow by a Navajo on the war path

Your information is outdated. While there is still the pageantry, the Swiss Guard also functions as does our Secret Service with both uniformed and plainclothes officers numbering 110 (Company sized unit) last I read. Personal protection officers have high capacity semi-automatic pistols and fully automatic submachine guns for armament. Don't be messin' with no Pope.

Okay, so it's closer to one hundred and twelve rather than just twelve Catholic Swiss Guards who are afraid of nuns hitting their palms with a ruler.

Still doesn't answer my question about all those non-Catholic Swiss back home with a sophisticated military weapon close to hand in almost every one of those cute little mountain chalets (BTW, not a doubt in my mind that the Swiss being Swiss, have the finest weapons available with all the latest military specifications).

As I recall, there actually has been ONE mass murder in Switzerland in recent times. Some nut case had an on-going dispute with the Swiss government and ended up shooting 70 people to make his point. Don't know if he used a weapon issued by the military or one of his own, but either way he certainly made sure everyone knew about his displeasure.

Still, given all that fire power laying around, if the Swiss were like the Americans, the population of Switzerland should be half of what it actually now is.

So what makes Americans a nation of mass murderers and the Swiss a nation of neutral eldelweiss pickers?

The Swiss expend massive quantities of ammunition redirecting their anger into putting holes in their cheese.

Hmm, penis envy. You may be on to something, the Newtown shooter murderer, used guns that belonged to his mother who was an enthusiast. Maybe she was envious.

The press has a lot to do with it. It’s been proven mass shootings will get lots of coverage. And school shootings work especially well, remember the Beslan school siege? That was one of the few stories from Eastern Europe that made headlines around the world.
The media will make you a star, man, everybody will know your name, know your face, you’ll be remembered forever, like Jesse James and Black Bart. woot! woot!
That period in our history being depicted (inaccurately) in hundreds of movies, only lasted about 25 years, too. But it still makes money.

tw, using inaccurate terms to elicit an emotional response is shameful. tsk tskhttp://cellar.org/2012/nono.gif
Not "assault rifle", large magazine rifle.

I think these adverts says a lot:

http://whyevolutionistrue.files.word...ad-maxim_0.jpg


http://whyevolutionistrue.files.word...rfun_500-1.jpg

Why can Canadians be exposed to the same violent media and games, and have access to guns, manage to stop themselves from mass shootings?

Things are changing in the UK, but mostly guns are a kind of exotic, American addition to some of the inner city gangs. There's always been a few sawnoff shotguns about used in armed robberies and the like, but the weapon of choice for your average criminal/gang member/psycho tends to be a blade of some sort.

Now that's partly because guns are much harder to get, and carry much harsher penalties. It's also a lot easier to quick ditch a blade than a gun, I would imagine. But there's also a different relationship with blades. I know people who fetishise swords and switchblades. And the amount of smalltime wannabe drug dealers with machetes or knock off samurai swords is pretty high.

They're much more embedded in our culture. Or they were. These days the proliferation of US tv shows where guns seem ubiquitous may be changing those relationships. As indeed the decades of conflict and 'terror'.



[eta] there's also the country/hunting set of course. But they're not the same as US country folk :p

Lower population numbers and density, slightly more homogenous politically, actual respect for political / lifestyle differences, decent education system, can't leave house due to snow drifts...?

....can't leave house due to snowdrifts *snorts*

And a lot of french that throw their guns away.:p:

Does anyone think that the media coverage of Sandusky and Savile will cause more people to molest children? :eyebrow:

.

anus - LOL

Access to handguns is more difficult. I had no trouble getting a firearms acquisition certificate twenty years ago but there was a five-day wait. Of course, there were no online databases; I don't know what the regs are now. But there have been mass shootings in Canada - especially the Montreal shooting. One-tenth the populations, one-tenth the number of shootings ... I suspect Canada isn't so very different. And believe me, respect for political differences doesn't exist. Elementary and high school education in Ontario, at least, sucks. University and professional schools are very good to excellent. That will change the longer the lower levels continue to fall below mediocrity.

Yes. :(

*snort*

heard about the lady who took her gun to her 5 year old's soccer game a few years back (2008?)

yeah, she took that sucker everywhere, even grocery shopping.

Her hubby (parole officer) killed her and then killed himself.

THAT'S irony. You're welcome.

Sexobon, you're on very good form just lately.

I'm not familiar with the story. Did her husband take her weapon and kill her with it? If not, I'm missing the irony.

She was protecting herself from external threats and missed the internal threat.

Yeah, right, "imagine". You ain't foolin no-one, grrrl.

:lol:

And don't forget, it really slows down a killing spree when you have to apologise to all your victims as you go.

Plus, I just realized there's another reason. As we all know, US citizens have the right to run around with assault weapons because:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

A nice thought from the founding fathers, but - "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

All those people out there who are enraged with the government and are busy stockpiling Bushmasters are hardly members of "a well regulated militia" - rage filled and angry - yes; well-regulated - no. The coon hound faction is busy arming themselves to the gills and hanging on to every word Rush Limbaugh lets fall from his lips.

These people - far from being a militia - are actually a crowd of rabble rousers - the last group of people who should be running around with semi-automatics and endless rounds of ammunition. And somewhere within their ranks, the next Timothy McVeigh is quietly biding his time.

Switzerland is another country with an armed populance. You may find any of the following in many Swiss homes:

Sturmgewehr 90 assault rifle (171,283)
Sturmgewehr 57 battle rifle (2,392)
Pistole 75 semi-automatic pistol (27,831)
Pistole 49 semi-automatic pistol (1,360)
FN Minimi
Heckler & Koch MP5 submachinegun
Brügger & Thomet MP9 machine pistol
Tuma MTE 224 VA machine pistol
Remington 870 multipurpose shotgun (known as Mehrzweckgewehr 91)
Sako TRG-42 8.6 mm anti-personnel sniper rifle (Scharfschützengewehr 04)
PGM Hecate II 12.7 mm anti-materiel heavy sniper rifle (Präzisionsgewehr 04)

Bubba would be green with envy.

The difference is that Switzerland actually has a well-disciplined militia - its own citizen's army. At age 19, all Swiss males are called up to be evaluated for military service. Each potential Swiss soldier is subject to a barrage of tests - including ones for emotional and mental stabiliy - before being called up to serve. After they are inducted, Swiss citizens will spend about 300 days going through military training. A few decide to stay on and become career military, but most just go into the reserves where they will be called up every couple of years or so for military refresher training. And they keep their weapons in their homes. They can do because they are a select group of trained members of the Swiss citizen army.

While Hans was getting his training, Bubba was out shooting frogs in the swamp and thinking about conspiracy theories. Which one of them is more likely to turn into a mass murderer and which more likely to relax by shooting holes into cheese?

yes, but why punish the cheese?

Couldn't find a better clip than this, but Jon Stewart was great on gun control last week:

My opinion only. I think sexual desire and sadism is mostly born, not made. And if it is made, it's forged by trauma and pain and hurt.

Subject a child to an upbringing where violence - even gun violence - is the norm then yes, I think the child will be more likely to become violent and use a gun. Subject a child to sexually inapproprite behaviour and I think it will affect the child equally.

Of course there are many. many exceptions. I am not suggesting that an abused child automatically becomes a rapist or paedophile. But children do reflect the the norms they grew up with.

Well said Sundae. It is a good time to reflect on our societal norms.

The more I consider it though, the less I see any real solution. The breakdown is along regional and political lines, but the real friction points are not between rural and urban. The friction is in the suburbs. People moved out of the cities to, among other things, escape the violence. The burbs grew up in areas without gun restrictions because there was an existing culture of ownership for hunting and defense of private property in the absence of effective policing. The suburbanites bring their paranoia about other peoples intentions into a once "free" environment. They've set aside all other forms of self-reliance once native to the rural area but cling to the gun as a symbol of self-reliance in a world dominated by under-water mortgages and soccer moms. The people the press would like to put forth as the gun nuts, survivalists and the like, are much more likely to be killed by ATF agents than to go off on a rampage.

Right, but I was addressing the claims that the media is causing more mass killings by reporting them. That's ludicrous in its simplistic attempt to blame something other than guns coming out of our collective ass.

Great Stewart clip, Dana!

Fair enough. Subtle point I completely missed :blush:

Beck. He's the leader of the club that's made for you and me.
B... Because he's crazy
E... Easy to see he's crazy
C... 'Cause there's money in being crazy
K... Krazy can be spelled more than one way

I saw a very amusing cartoon about the coming new Civil War. It showed a scared of his own shadow tree hugger vs a morbidly obese gun nut riding a scooter. Maybe we are not that close to total annihilation.

I love how professorial Beck is, taking himself oh so seriously.

It also failed to be trying to kill lots of people.
Government agents didn't shoot 76 people. They attacked an armed compound, and most of the casualties in a two-way gun battle died due to a fire.

If you expand "massacre" to include situations where a bad call results in deaths, rather than just attempts to kill as many people as possible, then Firestone Tires (at least 200 deaths) killed more than Columbine, VA Tech, Sandy Hook, and Waco combined.

Eh hem... don't forget Philadelphia's Mayor Goode bombing his own citizens.
C'mon, thats gotta win a Political Darwin award of some sort.

Which proves what? Not even one conclusion posted. Why does a Philadelphia Move confrontation justify the massacre of school children?

Police raided a house full of assault weapons held by people who were intentionally threatening the citizens of Philadelphia. Who were stocking assault weapons and ammo in mass quantities. Clearly the police must have been wrong because Move was a biggest threat to the population? Clearly Move was right because they had the more and biggest guns? Did you forget reality while not even posting a conclusion?

Move confrontation proves why people do not need assault weapons. And why the most violent and anti-social types crave more guns. Move proves why assault weapons have no useful purpose. Move was mentioned without even saying why it is relevant. Because once the 'why' is posted, then a Move confrontation becomes bogus and irrelevant here.

That 'Darwin award' belongs to John Africa. Awarding evil for being evil is, well, irrelevant to this discussion. What does Move really prove? Notice a post that includes a conclusion. Move demonstrates why the most evil and criminal need everyone to have access to more assault weapons.

It was humor. Go away.
Conclusion - you are still an asshole.

The NRA publicly demands government enforce existing gun laws while adding riders to bills that make enforcement difficult or impossible. For example a latest rider is defined by the Washington Post on 18 Mar 2013: The NRA only represents the gun industry. Even gets consumers to sign up and pay like it was a celebrity fan club. Even passes laws to subvert research into gun violence. Then blames everyone else for the massive increase in gun violence predicted by a corresponding increase in the number of guns.

Most of the laws going unenforced is simply a lack of funding/manpower.

well you know Gods first family killed each other so there might be some rather well lets says spiritual explanation.. perhaps the ground is cursed cause we did the same thing to the engines...

Did you mean "in'juns"? Amazing how the most devote Christians massacre other 'tribes', protect pedophiles, and even advocate a massacre of children by assault weapons. God save us all? Or do most Christian secretly crave 50 virgins that await us after we massacre all them "in'guns" … for the "greater glory of god".

Secretly, we more respect Socrates than the pope. People have more respect for Michael Jackson that for Charlton Heston who delivered ten commandments, big guns, and plenty of death both in and out of the movies.

Reality: God's chosen people are atheists. They're harder to brainwash.

I'd rather die at the hand of God than live at the hand of the devil... I secretly hope for the curse of sin to be lifted the day I die... fact: Jesus is the most powerful of all men to ever walk the earth and now we are all just tripping over our selves trying to figure out why we killed him and begging him to return soon... Christianity has it's flaws I'm just glad I'm not bound to live in utter darkness... personally I don't favor organized religion but it's better than the alternative.. that is to let the devil rule over my life....

It could be worse. You could live at the feet of a devil. Devil does not use soap (even though his satanic symbol is rumored to be on Procter and Gamble boxes).

BTW, French devils use perfume to mask their aversion to soap. And four inch heels so that you can die beneath their foot.

Devils don't need big guns. Only their agents do. Ie the cold dead hands of Charlton Heston.

Did The Gatekeeper just hook up with The Keymaster?

Hahahahahahahaha.

Zen that is teh funneh.

You could not possibly have posted next.


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There is no Dana. Only Zuul!

Ha! I read that on my phone at the time and meant to post a response when I got home to a proper computer. I laughed out loud. Which was mildly embarrassing as I was on the train home at the time :P


The Daily Show has been truly magnificent over the gun control debate. In particular the ongoing series John Oliver has been doing has caught my attention.

Part 1:



Part 2:

This is my favourite part so far. The political bravery of those involved is really impressive.