StreetlightX — StreetlightX

Pro-Gun Culture in America is really sick is all I can say, it only makes sense to those who live here.

If you're a relative of a victim of a drunk driver, your point would be lost.

I asked you to explain to me why the 59 have such a powerful hold on you that you downplay and dismiss the horror felt by the loved ones of the victims of car crashes. If your neighbor's spouse got killed by a drunk on the freeway would you say, "Hey no biggie, at least they didn't get shot."

I'm asking you to explain this to me. Are you capable of pulling yourself out of the media haze and comprehending what it would be like to have a loved one die in a car wreck? 100 Americans every single day of the year. What if you stacked up all those bodies in a warehouse and brought in the media. Then you'd care, right? But if it's not on cable tv 24/7 you don't see it and you don't care about it and when challenged, you actually think the grief of the survivors would be less. And that the drunks themselves have no moral culpability. Not like if they used a gun, right?

This is precisely my point. Your thinking is clouded because you are being told what to feel by the media. You can't step back and imagine any horrors other than the ones you're told to care about.

This is EXACTLY the point I'm making, and you are demonstrating it. Dying at the hands of a drunk is an "accident." Because, you know, you can't really expect people not to drive drunk. It's an American right.

Everyone will die; 6,300 died in the last hour. Death is death. Big deal?

The are expected deaths (heart attack, cancer, infection, stroke, etc.) and then there are "excess deaths". The excess is death from preventable, unnatural causes--like murder, car accidents, and so forth. Mass shootings are "excess death". Death from flying debris in a tornado or hurricane are expected. That why people are evacuated before hurricanes hit -- deaths are expected.

Gun ownership is up, murders are way way down. But this week you can't even put facts in front of people because the media has everyone so hysterical.

So they'll ban butt stocks. It's like after Columbine when every school district in the country banned trench coats. Makes as much sense.

I asked you to explain to me why the 59 have such a powerful hold on you that you downplay and dismiss the horror felt by the loved ones of the victims of car crashes. — fishfry

as it happens my immediate family has been profoundly affected by car accidents. But this has no bearing on the appalling incidents of mass murder in America. As I said, it's a meme, and it appears to have successfully occupied....many people, who then begin to rationalise it.

quite a petri dish, this place.

But this has no bearing on the appalling incidents of mass murder in America. — Wayfarer

MURDERS ARE DOWN! Even freaking HuffPo admits that. You think they're up because the media want you to think that. The numbers say otherwise.

Oh good America's gun problem is not horrific it's only disgustingly awful. How consoling.

Exactly. It's just a crazy, incomprehensible response.

America is founded on mass murder. It's not an inexplicable aberration, but business as usual.

This partial list only includes mass killings of Native Americans. L A times tells me of some more incidents.

Rock Springs massacre: In 1885, a group of white men and women fatally beat and shot at least 28 Chinese immigrant laborers during a riot at a coal mine in southwestern Wyoming. Historians say the riot was sparked by growing displeasure over the mine’s practice of hiring Chinese workers and paying them a lower wage than American citizens.
Tulsa race riots: A white mob attacked black residents in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921 and burned down the Greenwood neighborhood, which was then the wealthiest black business district in the United States. Modern estimates place the death toll at 50 to 300 people, many of them shot.
Elaine massacre: Black men in Elaine, a small town in eastern Arkansas, met in the fall of 1919 to discuss how to collect more money for their cotton crops. During the meeting, a white man who was deputized was shot. In the riot that followed, as many as 200 black people were shot and killed.

What do you believe the difference is between irrational and evil? — praxis

"Irrational" has a definition that is more widely accepted than "evil".

Irrational is defined as not logical.

Evil is often defined as profoundly immoral. But then what is immoral? - as what is immoral for one group of humans, is moral for another. So, what is moral is the way you are expected to behave within a group of humans, and any other behavior would have a degree of immorality associated with it, on up to profoundly immoral acts being labeled, "evil".

So, acts that are irrational don't necessarily mean that they are also evil. Only if the irrational act has a degree of immorality to it, or hinders an individual or the group's goals in some drastic way, is it also evil.

America is founded on mass murder. It's not an inexplicable aberration, but business as usual. — unenlightened

America was founded by the English, who began the slaughter of Indians and enslavement of Africans. Stephen Pinker (The Better Angels of our Nature) names the English cavalier class who established the southern colonies as the source of the southern values which resulted in high rates of violence in the south.

The British Empire, let us remember, was not an humanitarian operation. You all have been capable of quite brutal behavior. And, of course, I'm glad you have reformed your ways and became a peace-loving nation, after several hundred years of murderous, exploitative colonialism. How many people died during the Irish Famine? About a million, and then you got rid of two million more Irish through immigration.

The United States is a big country (3.8 million square miles) and 320 million people, not that size explains violence. It does, however provide the basis for significant differences around the country which have historical bases. This map shows the varying rates of violence in North America. Those parts of the country under the more benign influence of Puritans and NW Europeans (Germans and Scandinavians) have the lowest rates of violence, generally. The south has the highest rates--not just a little higher--they are a lot higher.

If you live in a northern tier state, you would probably be living in an area with murder rates only slightly higher than western Europe. Louisiana and Mississippi are a different matter.

Location, location, location. If you live in the NE part of Chicago, you will hear of very few murders in your neighborhood. If you live in the South Side of Chicago, chances are you will be related to a murder victim. So far there have been 545 homicides in Chicago (as of 8 October, 2017). There are still 83 days left to break last year's record, and if they put their minds to it, they probably will.

MURDERS ARE DOWN! — fishfry

Murders are down from the peaks between the 1970s and the 1990s. Our "base line" before and after the peak years is still higher than many countries'.

The British Empire, let us remember, was not an humanitarian operation. You all have been capable of quite brutal behavior. — Bitter Crank

Hey, we're all whiteys here. I am a fucking long way from proclaiming the innocence of the British, either historically or currently. The human race is a murderous race, and the more and bigger the weapons, the more and bigger the murders. If we all had personal nuclear weapons, we would all be dead. What i am saying is that wanting to kill is not rare or incomprehensible, it's what every patriot will gladly do for his country, his race, his religion or his ego, and be admired by his fellows for.

The idea that violent video games cause violence is real life is ridiculous. I can't believe it's still being used by the media so many years after the original case, the title of the game escapes me now, the one that generated violent video game hysteria. Easy sensationalism for the media I suppose.

It's much more likely correlation than causation. I doubt causation is impossible but then neither is violent video games reducing levels of violence.

It's more about violence being normalised, about it being so familiar through constant exposure that for at least some people, it is that much easier to resort to it. But it's only a subsidiary factor, in American's gun culture. 'In 2015, there were more than 13,000 non-suicide gun deaths in the United States; in Japan, there was only one.' 1.

Steven Pinker tweeted an open letter to the media about not giving the notoriety that a lot of these mass murderers seek after the fact: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Z7VkWcwLk-SjFJc00tdmI1eW8/view

I've brought this point up a few times as well.

Totally agree with him. They should keep their ID out of the news, not for the reason of censorship, but so as to deprive them of the motivation of post-mortem notoriety.

A lot of them outright say that's why they're doing it. I think we should go old school, and expunge their existence from the public record entirely. No graves, no nothing. Ensure that they are lost to history.

Wouldn't get any argument from me. That is like the traditional practice of burying someone in an unmarked grave. But there is zero chance of it happening, the media are fascinated by the personalities involved.

They aren't ignorant or stupid, they know the same things that Pinker knows about their motivations, but if even one media outlet is willing to reveal that juicy information, it will mean both that they will lose out on attention and revenue, and it will all have been for naught anyway. They operate on the same rationalization a lot of asshats do, and that's that if they don't do it, someone else will.

What can we actually do to stop such massmurders?... — Metaphysician Undercover

Stop wasting time and energy in uncivil discussions (see 70% of the posts in this thread if you don't know what I mean by that) over guns, violence, the NRA, "the mentally ill", the media, video games, the Second Amendment, the inferior character of the U.S. compared to "other industrialized nations", the inferior character of the state of Mississippi compared to states in the northeast, etc., etc., etc.

In many of these mass murders there were red flags well in advance of the crime and opportunities to intervene were missed. Virginia Tech is the best example that I know of.

Again, these recent (the past 20 years or so) mass murders are always highly politicized by people everywhere on the political spectrum.

We can't predict when and where they will happen. We do not know why they happen.

But I have never heard of anybody spontaneously carrying out a mass shooting. Therefore, I am probably not going out on a limb by saying that each mass shooting is the culmination of many things. Red flags are probably there well before the end a lot of the time. Every second and every unit of energy spent ideologizing and disrespecting and verbally attacking each other over statistical, historical and psychological split hairs are resources no longer available to learn to recognize the red flags and intervene before lives are lost to senseless violence.

For which statement do you want scientific proof? — Bitter Crank

No specific statement.

What science is there that supports your thesis that violence and murder are inherent features of firearms?

People kill other people with guns because that is what guns are made for. People kill on a massive scale with guns like assault weapons because guns like assault weapons are made for that purpose. Where is the science that specifically addresses those specific propositions?

Every second and every unit of energy spent ideologizing and disrespecting and verbally attacking each other over statistical, historical and psychological split hairs are resources no longer available to learn to recognize the red flags and intervene before lives are lost to senseless violence. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Right! So discussing gun violence is now one of the underlying factors behind gun violence!

Again, these recent (the past 20 years or so) mass murders are always highly politicized by people everywhere on the political spectrum. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Gun ownership is a political issue! It's the failure of effective legislation which is the single largest contributing factor to this. In case you missed it, earlier I reported that in 2015, there were approximately 15,000 non-suicide gun deaths in America, and 1 in Japan. How is that not a political problem?

What science is there that supports your thesis that violence and murder are inherent features of firearms? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The fact that they are designed to kill and maim?

Yep. The more politicization the better, until America's ridiculous death-by-gun stats come down. Would prefer it politic'd to death than, uh, actual deaths.

I'm not entirely sure I'd trust the statistics coming out of Asia in general... Japan's conviction rate is also almost 100%. The statistics they release make it appear like they're fucking perfect at their jobs...

People kill on a massive scale with guns like assault weapons because guns like assault weapons are made for that purpose. Where is the science that specifically addresses those specific propositions? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Forensic science.

Here's the story the Japan statistic came from, detailing how owning a rifle takes a four-month long process, including various forms and interviews.

Obviously a polar opposite, not a serious suggestion for anything that might happen stateside. But how about this? Everyone blathers on about the 'right to bear arms' but the very same paragraph states that this pertains to a 'well-organised militia' - like in Switzerland, where gun ownership is very high, but the controls very strict. (And, ok, everyone there is Swiss.) But imagine if you had to store your legally-owned weapons in an armoury and could only access them for a valid reason. I'm sure that's much nearer the intent of the Founders.

It's the failure of effective legislation which is the single largest contributing factor to this. In case you missed it, earlier I reported that in 2015, there were approximately 15,000 non-suicide gun deaths in America, and 1 in Japan. How is that not a political problem? — Wayfarer

I have, and will continue to, stuck to the issue that you made the topic of this thread: public mass murders. Things like individual suicides, accidental gun deaths, etc. are a separate issue.

I would say that you are right. Legislation is needed. The state of Virginia scrutinized its policies after the Virginia Tech shooting and asked why many opportunities to intervene were missed. I do not know if the Virginia legislature responded. I do not know if they increased funding for mental health services, required educators to learn to recognize red flags, or anything​ like that. I have not researched it.

But you are right, legislatures have an important role to play.

However, private organizations and private citizens also need to take some responsibility in being more aware of the behavior of others, recognizing the warning signs of a potential mass shooting, being aware of suspicious behavior, etc. and knowing how to intervene.

I have had many different employers. Right now I have two employers. The contrast in their policies and practices says a lot. One of my present employers is proactive and spends a lot of resources on training everybody in the organization about preventing the kind of violence like the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas. None of my other employers offers any such training. The difference is not because of laws. The priorities and sense of responsibility that private organizations and citizens have in their private lives are as important as the actions (or non-actions) of legislatures.