Look at a larger sample of nutcase gunmen, not just this one. This fits the description of almost every one of them. Why is this?
Because there’s been a noticeable uptick in this trend. And it seems somewhat US Centric vs Asia. So possibly worth discussing. I think both of those comments are addressing the broader issue and not this specific case.
^ The answer to your question has escaped black folks for years…“Whats up with these crazy crackers?” My theory: Just some spoiled white kid. who never had a good spanking as child.
Just import some Tiger moms from Asia and you’ll be set.
Can we agree that all races are crazy in their own way? Black people are crazy too. One thing I’ve never understood about black people is why they decide to react to racial prejudice the way they do. A couple of years ago a young black man was wrongfully slain in Oakland while handcuffed face down on the ground by a police officer who “accidentally” grabbed his gun instead of his tazer and shot the man (even though the man wasn’t resisting). Understandably, the black community was very upset about this (I was pretty upset about it too). But what’s crazy about that is to show their anger and frustration, these people decided to riot in their own neighborhood. Way to go black people, your own neighborhood has now been looted and burned, way to score one for racial equality. Crazy. And it seems to happen repeatedly… So white people go on shooting rampages / mass killings Asian people off themselves for failing to live up to impossible standards Black people burn their own neigborhoods And Hispanic people fight over drugs and cut each others heads off and leave them by the side of the road There’s plenty of crazy to go around, don’t feel left out if you’re not white
Not sure. But I bet access to assault weapons is one factor. Do you 1) buy rifles because you expressly want to commit mass murder, or 2) suddenly feel like shooting people, and conveniently, there is a closet full of assault rifles right there? Adam Lanza was case 2). I don’t think inner city gang youths stockpile assault rifles. Maybe they have concealed weapons. However, it’s these somewhat affluent rural gun enthusiasts who have the unnecessarily potent weapons. Also, do inner city people even have a lot of guns? What is the overall gun ownership rate in the area where your brother worked? There is probably also a copycat element. If the first mass shooter is a white middle class suburban male, than he might inspire people who have the same background. Maybe the first case was random, but this sparked a chain of non-random copycats. Anyway, all this is speculation. Maybe there is some “disillusion with US suburban culture” or something else that is too deep for me to comprehend. However, there has to be a more logical explanation than “all these white kids are just crazy”.
whachya talkin about willis?
^This. Black folks do dumbass things, but us folks ain’t crazy for the most part.
I get the point that responsible gun owners have their rights and so on, but can somebody explain to this lowly Argie why is civil ownership of assault rifles justified again? Edit: not familiar at all with correct firearms terms, so probably the term assault rifle is not correct, but you get the point.
I read BS’s mention of this as “hard economic times creates stressful situations that make it even more likely that someone who’s just barely keeping it together will go over the edge.” To the extent that ordinary peoples’ lives are getting better, society can tolerate people messing up a bit more without those mess-ups feeling that they need to blow everyone away. A definitive conclusion on this point requires a lot of data that is probably hard to find and analyze cleanly, but the hypothesis certainly seems plausible.
Gunownership is mandatory in Switzerland i think…if white kids are crazy…then why is there no tangible gun crime there…it doesn;t get more white than the land of banking,chocolate and luxury watches.
Assault rifle is actually correct. Anyhow, coming from a long line of gun wielding farmers, the argument is this: Basically, assault rifles allow for home protection (we don’t have viable police forces that can respond quickly in the rural areas as it’s so spread out) and also for government accountability. I’m not sure how much water this second point holds in a modern context, but what most NRA guys will tell you is that they believe the founding fathers put the 2nd amendment in so that the government would be held accountable to the people and to protect against totalitarian abuse. Oddly enough, in the country areas, these guns are extremely common yet you don’t have these sorts of instances.
@Alladin Does that mean the corollary is that we should make more people carry guns where they traditionally don’t in the U.S. (malls, theaters, schools)?
Yep every Swiss male of service-age is required to keep a *fully-automatic* rifle at home. If you object to gun ownership on religious grounds (like the Quakers), there are special things you can do to get exempted, but gun ownership is the norm. Iteracom thinks that there aren’t enough Swiss around to shoot up schools, but figuring that the population is about 8 million people, half are women, that means that there are between 3 and 4 million Swiss males who have easy access to fully automatic weapons and have to practice with them at least once or twice a year. But gun violence seems not to be not a problem in Switzerland. Presumably out of 3.5 million, somebody must be angry or depressed or something. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s certainly worth exploring.
lol i don’t think so!
The second ammendment says this: “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.” So this is not about how hunting is fun and shouldn’t be penalized. It’s about the security of a free State and the need for Militias to able to muster when needed. This is because of the observation that when a despotic State needs to extend its authority, restricting access to arms is one of the first steps taken in rendering society helpless. In particular, Jefferson (under whom the amendment was passed) was concerned about citizens’ ability to resist a government that had become despotic or also (as was a concern in that time) an external invader at a time when there was no standing army. By the way, this is the same Jefferson who said: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” So he was really thinking that governments always become corrupt and therefore people need to have the means to overthrow them from time to time. Also in frontier areas (and rural areas today) where there may not be a readily available police force, Militias and posses may have had to take on these responsibilities as a result. There is a debate about whether the second amendment protects individual rights to own whatever weapons you want (could you own a nuke, for example), or whether it is a collective right of communities - so that arms are only allowed when carried in the service of or under the direction of an organized militia (which might need to be recognized by some state authority). These seem to be reasonable kinds of things, which is why - as much as my first reaction might be “let’s ban the darned things” - my instincts tell me that doing that is probably not the right reaction and a band-aid for a deeper problem. It’s also why the idea that “we won’t ban hunting rifles, just military-grade weapons” doesn’t really seem like a solution to me. If the reason for protecting this right is to be able to resist the state when needed, some hunting rifles won’t work when the military is armed with assault weapons. I’m much more in favor of regulating the context in which they are owned and accessible, rather than an outright ban. I’d be up for greater regulation, and perhaps making some kind of militia involvement required for ownership. But there are still very wild and wilderness-y areas in the US (and Canada), where having an ordinary gun (not assault rifle) is an occasional necessity. My friends in Alaska tell me if you are out in the wilderness and see a polar bear, if you’re unarmed and don’t have a getaway vehicle, all you can do is hope it didn’t see you.
I suspect it is a lot more difficult to have a mass shooting when every other guy around also has relatively easy access to an automatic rifle and has been trained to use it.
You’re assuming rational thought. But the “nutcase” shooters almost always off themselves at the end, and presumably know that this is coming. Those that leave notes behind seem to know that this is coming. So if you’re going to kill a bunch of kids, and then shoot yourself (or let yourself be shot), then the presence of lots of other armed people who have to run back to their homes to grab their rifles shouldn’t really affect things that much. It’ll all be over by the time they can get to you.
But it’s not like the Swiss bring the assault rifles into theaters or elementary schools. Someone could still theoretically shoot up those places with little resistance. It does seem like the Swiss are just not particularly inspired to commit mass violent acts, unlike US people. Now, this does not mean that regulating firearms would not prevent many cases of violence in the US. It’s a different society - maybe the Swiss show that they can be ok without strict gun regulation. The US is showing again and again that it does need more gun regulation.