Just fix your gun laws.

Good luck with that Banno. Those who are financially vested in gun/ammo have money and power and people who write the laws as well as people who pass them...

Fix the monetary corruption by virtue of passing anti-trust laws. We, as Americans, cannot assume that those in power are good actors. Our laws do not reflect this. The facts do not support it. Unfortunately, those in power write their own rules.

Ce la vie...

We, as Americans, cannot assume that those in power are good actors. — creativesoul

That's why you need massive arms stockpiles, to defend yourselves from those in power. Seems like paranoia.

it's always men... — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Dollars to doughnut, you won't find 5 female shooters in a hundred gun rampages.

Of course, we can, we should. But it might not make any difference There are around 150 - 250 million guns already in the hands of Americans (depending whose count one goes by). How does one "control guns" when there are so many? Stop selling ammunition? That would eventually help, but not immediately -- maybe not for quite a few years. It's worth doing, still.

In a sense, the number of people killed by guns here is remarkably low, given how many people are in possession of arms.

I read an article in which a forensic psychiatrist who had examined a number of mass killers, said he found that by most standards, at least half of them were not mentally ill, crazy, or insane. They were "normal". Some of them were unhinged, of course.

Good luck with that Banno. Those who are financially vested in gun/ammo have money and power and people who write the laws as well as people who pass them...

Fix the monetary corruption by virtue of passing anti-trust laws. We, as Americans, cannot assume that those in power are good actors. Our laws do not reflect this. The facts do not support it. Unfortunately, those in power write their own rules. — creativesoul

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that corporations are persons with rights; that, I believe, monetary contributions to politicians are free speech protected by the First Amendment (I say that it is bribery); etc.

Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court have also upheld the gun rights of private citizens.

Which one do you see activists spending a disproportionate amount of their resources trying to undo?

Which one do you see the news media--FOX notwithstanding--frequently casting in a negative light?

Dollars to doughnut, you won't find 5 female shooters in a hundred gun rampages. — Akanthinos

The point is that it not always men, and that I forgot about maybe the most infamous one where the shooter was a woman.

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that corporations are persons with rights; that, I believe, monetary contributions to politicians are free speech protected by the First Amendment (I say that it is bribery); etc. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

In doing so, they neglected to act in a way that guarantees the equal rights of all citizens. By virtue of allowing undisclosed amounts of money to be used as a means for expressing free speech, the Supreme Court granted tremendous power to the rights of only those with financial means.

Corporations include multinational entities. — creativesoul

It is yet illegal for multinationals to donate money to political parties in the States (and most legislatures).
Legal personhood is a fiction which has mostly for effect to allow the corporation's agents to act legally only under the name of the corporation. This was already possible, with the agents of a corporation being protected before by the entrepreneurial veil, which could however be lifted in certain circumstances of high-level malfeasance.

Corporate personhood is a lobbying issue, and because lobbying has a terrible reputation, corporate personhood is seen as a terrible thing. Of course, this is based mostly on sentiment, because lobbyism is indispensible in the type of states we all live in nowadays.

The point is that it not always men, and that I forgot about maybe the most infamous one where the shooter was a woman. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The point is null if it's trying to base itself on heavy outliers. No one in their right mind dispute the possibility that women commits a gun rampage. They have all the required parts for it after all. What no one in their right mind should dispute is that the absolute discrepancy between the tendency to commit gun rampages is a relevant factor in the analysis of the phenomenon.

We, as Americans, cannot assume that those in power are good actors.
— creativesoul

That's why you need massive arms stockpiles, to defend yourselves from those in power. — Metaphysician Undercover

All the guns in the world won't protect one from some kinds of harm. Rather, using arms in such cases makes one a danger to society.

It makes one wonder how somebody can plan such crimes without anybody else noticing. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

‘Somebody else noticing’ is what gun regulations are for. In case you hadn’t noticed, nearly all of them have been abolished. Hence, the problem.

lobbyism is indispensible — Akanthinos

Why?

I read an article in which a forensic psychiatrist who had examined a number of mass killers, said he found that by most standards, at least half of them were not mentally ill, crazy, or insane. They were "normal". Some of them were unhinged, of course. — Bitter Crank

I've always found the topic concerning whether a particular mass murderer was mentally ill or not to be intriguing. To my simplistic mind it would seem as though anyone who plans and follows through on the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of human beings must be, ipso facto, mentally ill.

But then again I don't know what specific standards 'experts' in the field use to determine whether or not these labels fit. I know these aren't completely arbitrary designations, but there does seem to be an element of arbitrariness in them.

Can a 'normal', ostensibly stable and sane person engage in these types of acts? If so then what constitutes insanity? Hearing voices? Having hallucinations?

Why? — Benkei

Because meaningful relations between the constituency and its representatives are otherwise reduced to voting and 2 minutes addresses before the Parliement. We live in a time of professional politicians. We therefore needs professionnals to engage them meaningfully to express our interests.

Dollars to doughnut, you won't find 5 female shooters in a hundred gun rampages. — Akanthinos

According to this, "8 percent of perpetrators of firearm homicides are female". Although this includes single-victim shootings.

According to this, 2.27 percent of mass shooters (which I assume is what you mean by "rampage") are women.

Your claim checks out.

^* Figures are for the U.S. Only includes homicides, so there's room for error if women shooters are less "successful".

According to this, 2.27 percent of mass shooters (which I assume is what you mean by "rampage") are women.

Your claim checks out. — Michael

Thank you so much for putting the effort into it. (Y)
So, I'm sure anyone should realize that 97.73/2.27 shows that, in some meaningful way, gender is at play here.

Something I have noticed about these mass shootings — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I was surprised as to what the definition of "mass shootings" is and wonder how often the definition is used accurately in firearm statistics.

Because meaningful relations between the constituency and its representatives are otherwise reduced to voting and 2 minutes addresses before the Parliement. We live in a time of professional politicians. We therefore needs professionnals to engage them meaningfully to express our interests. — Akanthinos

Different discussion but that appears a bit defeatist; we have a sucky system so we need sucky lobbyism to engage politicians and make everything worse for those who cannot organise themselves to lobby or don't have the resources to do so.

To my simplistic mind it would seem as though anyone who plans and follows through on the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of human beings must be, ipso facto, mentally ill. — Erik

You are not being 'simplistic' in thinking that mass murderers must be mentally ill. Most people think mass murderers are either crazy or evil. I suppose that psychiatrists find that they are capable of effective planning and careful execution of plans, are not delusional as a psychiatric definition--hearing voices, for instance, have a clear understanding of their actions, and so on.

I agree with you that they are, ipso facto, mentally ill--mad, crazy, insane--whatever term one prefers.

I'll use Erich Fromm's formula: In an insane society, insane people are going to seem normal; mentally healthy people will seem insane. Fromm judged at least the American society to be insane. He wasn't excluding other societies from his diagnosis, but he was writing about this one.

Lemme rephrase that: you agree that they're not necessarily mentally ill by any real, official, accepted standards and the accepted meaning of the words mentally ill, but despite that and with no further arguments, you agree that they're mentally ill?

So they are planned! So what?
Another thing I have noticed is that they all involve guns never imagined by the people writing the constitution at the time of writing.
I also note that automatics are "illegal" but a kit to turn a gun into an automatic can be legally bought at exactly the same time as the gun.
I also note the high yield of morons in the USA generally, and in the gun lobby in particular.
Any thing else you want to say?

Yes. By official forensic psychiatric definitions, many (not all) are functioning normally. They may be very bad people, but bad people can be mentally normal.

Most people in the world think that killing a batch of people for no particular cause is insane. The same way that it is insane to establish a policy of increased fossil fuel use, when sustainable clean alternatives are available (wind, solar), given the bad outcomes of global warming: climate change, sea rise, increased forest fires, storms, floods, heat waves, increased risk of disease, and so forth.

Are US policy leaders schizophrenic, psychotic, unhinged in some way listed in the DSM? Probably not, but their policies are decidedly crazy.

So they are planned! — charleton

That is not what I said.

I said that they often seem to be planned well in advance .

Another thing I have noticed is that they all involve guns never imagined by the people writing the constitution at the time of writing.
I also note that automatics are "illegal" but a kit to turn a gun into an automatic can be legally bought at exactly the same time as the gun.
I also note the high yield of morons in the USA generally, and in the gun lobby in particular. — charleton

Anybody who more than casually keeps up with politics and current events is reminded of such superficial elements in the gun issue all of the time.

Any thing else you want to say? — charleton

In other words, if you want to look below the surface and try to identify the underlying causes of gun violence, do it alone and keep it to yourself. Only narrow, everything-is- black-or-white, superficial ideology will be respected.

10-4.

Rubber Duck!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56492541

Second mass shooting in 2 weeks in the US.

Is it my imagination or did there seem to be much less mass shootings during Trump's presidency? If so, why was there a low incidence rate compared to (apparently) now.

I'm not a Trump supporter by the way, so not looking to score political points.

Finding some possibly conflicting data.

https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-incidents-graphics

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2019-042820.pdf/view

Shows 2017 (30), 2019 (28), and 2018 (27) as the highest number of active shooter incidents since 2000. Note the term “active shooter.”

However, when looking at “mass shootings” I find the following.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2021

107 so far this year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2020

615 last year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019

434 in 2019.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2018

322 in 2018.

You can follow the wiki links to other years, but I’m confused about how there are more mass shootings than active shooter incidents. The second link states that of the 28 active shooter incidents in 2019, 12 met the definition of “mass killing.” Are there mass murders that don’t meet the definition of active shooter? But more to your point, mass murders have increased since 2018, but the same isn’t true for active shooter incidents, which have hovered around 30 since 2017.

The main takeaway point being that you actually hear about them. :cool:

Heard this several times. It is recency bias. The El Paso, Dayton, and Garlic festival shootings were right on top of each other. Las Vegas, etc.



Moneyed interest groups are part of it, but I'd argue not a huge part. The fire arms industry isn't THAT big. It's not like tech or oil. The security costs imposed by their business on other businesses is probably larger than their current net profits.

IMO it comes down to: (in rank order)

A. Identity. Somehow guns have become a pillar of Republicanism, and our politics are very tribal. Gun owning households went Trump in every state except Vermont I believe. It's part of conservative identity. Part of some forms of Christian identity. It's part of rural identity. That makes it more emotionally charged.

It also ties into individual identity. The average American male is almost 200lbs. 24% body fat in their early 20s. If you can't run a mile or do a pull up, a gun and a truck become valuable tokens for masculinity. The weapon itself is a signal of strength in one's ability to defend oneself, particularly because anyone can use it.

B. The US is a low trust society and getting more low trust due to political tribalism and very rapid demographic shifts. People's perceptions of the need for defense are driven more by trust than real crime. Assault weapons have boomed even as violent crime has plummeted. Last summer's civil unrest probably intensified this.

C. General feeling of crisis. Global warming is unaddressed. Massive sovereign debt. Sloppy half assed coup attempts. Terrorism. Candidates screaming fraud when they lose. If your world is unravelling, better to be armed.

D. Police response times on rural areas are very slow. There is a real practical value to a gun. Part of why I have them. The opiate epidemic has sent rural crime above the national average (ironically given the rhetoric, San Diego and other major cities with huge undocumented populations have below average crime). Gun violence is also way less common in rural areas. Our political system highly favors us rural voters. If something is less of an issue for us, it has less chance of being addressed (although this fails to hold for water pollution because the GOP has somehow tied getting posioned by industry and not caring about your land to masculinity: "drill baby drill!").


Tribal identity is the key to the political deadlock. Masculine identity is probably the key to the rise in assault weapon ownership and mass shootings.

I think researchers are sleeping on the plunge in young males' sexual activity in recent years, and the effects of the dynamics of internet dating. Inability to find mates is identified as a major factor in the radicalization of Islamist terrorists. Far-Right sites are awash in references to their poor prospects and the fear of "cuckolding," whilst "incel" is a common insult.

However, you do end up in a bit of infinite regress, since that begs the question, why are young men, but not women to nearly the same degree, seeing this drop off in relationships?

You can also add to the whole problem feelings of self worth. The modern economy is not producing a lot of jobs for people without degrees, yet a state worth of people, mostly low skilled competing for the same shrinking pool of jobs, comes into the market each year through migration. The result is low labor force participation, low wages, and high competition.