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What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer (NYT)

Kimawolf

Member
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/...o-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

When the world looks at the United States, it sees a land of exceptions: a time-tested if noisy democracy, a crusader in foreign policy, an exporter of beloved music and film.

But there is one quirk that consistently puzzles America's fans and critics alike. Why, they ask, does it experience so many mass shootings?

Perhaps, some speculate, it is because American society is unusually violent. Or its racial divisions have frayed the bonds of society. Or its citizens lack proper mental care under a health care system that draws frequent derision abroad.


These explanations share one thing in common: Though seemingly sensible, all have been debunked by research on shootings elsewhere in the world. Instead, an ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion.

The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns


The United States has 270 million guns and had
90 mass shooters from 1966 to 2012.


No other country has more than 46 million guns or 18 mass shooters.

This is an important discussion which spawned out of the Texas shootings. Lots came into that thread with half facts and falsehoods. But we have some facts, and stats to back up the reason America has so many mass shootings compared to other countries.

The answer is simple. We have far more guns than other countries.
 

Nikodemos

Member
The article is flawed.

But the mental health care spending rate in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita and the rate of severe mental disorders are all in line with those of other wealthy countries.
Bad metrics. US healthcare spending is the most inefficient in the developed world (more dollars per 'unit' of healthcare), a fair number of its 'professionals' are quacks when compared to other developed countries and the rate of mental disorders is routinely underreported.

In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge.
This data counters the idea that the US doesn't have mental health problems which are exacerbated by gun ownership. People who commit suicide are mentally ill. If considering some of the homicides en bloc with at least some of the suicides (double murder-suicides, which are infuriatingly common when guns are involved), the picture is quite different to what it is claimed regarding mental illness and gun deaths.

The US has a severe public mental health problem, whose deadly effects are amplified by gun ownership, not the other way around. Which is why those militating against banning mentally ill from owning guns are thoroughly despicable people. Especially since they are aware of the link between mental ilness and gun deaths, through their action of forbidding the CDC from researching gun deaths as a public health issue.
 

luxsol

Member
I always wondered how European media handles mass killings.

Do they run it on 10 different channels, nearly 24/7, getting live updates on the killstreak, and boasting how the killer broke various records of past killers?

It's pretty fucking clear why mass killings were so damn rare pre-columbine, despite previous eras having way worse crime rates across almost every category and easier, FASTER, access to ACTUAL military weapons (pre-80s).

Why is this shit never brought up, especially when so much research is done about copycats?


And I'm serious about my question on how other countries handle coverage on murders.

20140525-113452.jpg
 
It's funny that the wording even needs to be that coy. It's completely obvious. You only don't see it if you don't want to see it.
 

Mohonky

Member
I always wondered how European media handles mass killings.

Do they run it on 10 different channels, nearly 24/7, getting live updates on the killstreak, and boasting how the killer broke various records of past killers?

It's pretty fucking clear why mass killings were so damn rare pre-columbine, despite previous eras having way worse crime rates across almost every category and easier, FASTER, access to ACTUAL military weapons (pre-80s).

Why is this shit never brought up, especially when so much research is done about copycats?


And I'm serious about my question on how other countries handle coverage on murders.

20140525-113452.jpg

If we had shootings like Vegas etc it would be news for weeks in Australia.

There would be nonstop pressure on the Government to know what they are going to do about it.
 

Neo C.

Member
I always wondered how European media handles mass killings.

Do they run it on 10 different channels, nearly 24/7, getting live updates on the killstreak, and boasting how the killer broke various records of past killers?

A mass shooting stays on the news for a very long time. Perhaps it's not as in your face as in the US, but I don't think you'll find the answer here.




The experts are right, it's the gun control, or the lack of.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
It's really unfortunate, but this is not gonna solve the problem..

I guess it's really all about perception, so if people really need to further regulate gun ownership I don't see the problem. As long as you don't wipe it out.

The issue with things like terrorism and violence is anything can be turned into a weapon.

Here's the thing: planes, cars, knives, forks, lighters, bare fists, even fingers all can be turned into lethal weapons. If all you feel and respond to is fear, it's easier to accept the notion that regulation is needed. But it isn't the answer. Frankly the top layer is glad to take more power if that's what you want, it's not rocket science.

Fact is everybody has to grow up and stop fearing so much. If there is no sensible solution to a problem maybe it just has to be dealt with in a different way.
 
It's really unfortunate, but this is not gonna solve the problem..

I guess it's really all about perception, so if people really need to further regulate gun ownership I don't see the problem. As long as you don't wipe it out.

The issue with things like terrorism and violence is anything can be turned into a weapon.

Here's the thing: planes, cars, knives, forks, lighters, bare fists, even fingers all can be turned into lethal weapons. If all you feel and respond to is fear, it's easier to accept the notion that regulation is needed. But it isn't the answer. Frankly the top layer is glad to take more power if that's what you want, it's not rocket science.

Fact is everybody has to grow up and stop fearing so much. If there is no sensible solution to a problem maybe it just has to be dealt with in a different way.

I usually don't play this side of the debate but....'if there is no sensible solution'. what do you mean! We haven't tried anything lol, much less the obvious answers that the rest of the world uses.

and 'anything can be a murder weapon so regulating things is pointless' is just....I strongly advise not using that argument
 
It's interesting to read that big part of the Americans still act like they don't know why this is happening.

Is it the amount of guns? Surely not, guns don't kill, people do!

Is it our millions and millions of uninsured with no access to mental healthcare? Free Healthcare is communist! Bootstraps!

Let's compare it to other countries? YOU CAN'T. US is a very diverse country. Get away with your statistical logic.

Seriously, some of you are collectively delusional about this issue.
 
If we had shootings like Vegas etc it would be news for weeks in Australia.

There would be nonstop pressure on the Government to know what they are going to do about it.

This is correct and on top of that while it’s clear there is a media gamification of mass shootings, and this makes things worse, right now if there was any hint that the media was minimising coverage on government orders the conspiracy theorists would go NUTS. The ground is not fertile for any kind of authoritarian instructions on how to cover these things. The distrust of the media and of the fbi and experts and so on (thanks fox) is at al all time high,
Also coverage of terrorism events would also have to be minimised and can you imagine the wailing from the alt right if the media refused to glorify a Muslim refused to show pictures etc, and give isis what desire?
 

golfham

Member
It’s because there aren’t enough looney bins for nutcases like the Church shooter. Back in the day they were institutionalized, but now they roam the streets and can apparently buy a fucking AR.
 

luxsol

Member
A mass shooting stays on the news for a very long time. Perhaps it's not as in your face as in the US, but I don't think you'll find the answer here.
I think it shows a far more direct correlation though.
Again, there's been study after study about copycat crimes and many of the mass shooters did research on previous mass shooters.

Screen-Shot-2014-10-04-at-Saturday-October-4-4.53-PM-1.png



The experts are right, it's the gun control, or the lack of.
You ignore WHY NOW, when it would have been easier before?
Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns. There were FEWER mass shootings.
There were no background checks.
REAL machine guns could be bought easily.
No waiting periods, aside from getting your check to clear and if you were using a mail order catalog, waiting for your deadly military weapon to arrive.
5CYA18x.jpg


You want to claim the experts are right, but you're clearly ignoring the one that accurately predicts the future based on his own research and studies.

I wish there were actually more articles and research written about how much news time is spent on killings, because I know lots has been done in the US.
I myself have been looking shit up since the 90s and found fascinating articles written about how the news has been sensationalizing violence since the 80s, making people believe that violence is more prevalent than ever despite crime going down since the 90s. One of my favorites is "Kids and Guns" by Mike Males, since it calls out so much bullshit that the media does, including why you don't hear about the vast majority of mass shootings (see: https://cdn.static-economist.com/si...blogs/democracy-america/20150627_woc443_0.png)
 

aaronsan

Banned
I seriously doubt that Brazil, with five times the firearms murder rate the US has, did not have at least 18 mass shootings using the 'at least 4 people injured or killed' definition.

How about looking up the statistics then, and seeing if you are right?

Brazil, the "exception proves the rule" of gun apologetics.
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
You ignore WHY NOW, when it would have been easier before?
Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns. There were FEWER mass shootings.

That's a good point.

I was working for a broadcaster in the UK through the 1980s, and it was very noticeable that the expansion in channels and the extension to 24x7 programming changed the entire industry from being constrained by the broadcast time available (so having to pick and choose what to broadcast) to being desperate to find stuff to put into all those vacant hours.

News syndication, and the decline of local news was all around the same time IIRC.

I guess that before then, mass shootings in, say, Oregon would attract very little, if any, attention in, say, Arkansas - and the national news would have been mostly Washington and Hollywood related. So the fame-and-attention aspect just wasn't there except on a local relatively local level.

Of course that is all history now, and it is yet another genie that won't get put back in the bottle.
 

highrider

Banned
All the elements the op listed are relevant to the problem, but if I were to say what I think the biggest contributor it’s definitely white paranoia. Looking at Trump, there’s a huge group of whites that feel disenfranchised and paranoid. It’s easy for me not to see it living in a liberal place like DC,but if I drive out 30 miles in any direction..
 
Hey, luxsol... can it be both?

Maybe mass shootings are on the rise because of media coverage, but our gun control (generally a lack thereof) facilitates those crimes.

People focusing solely on mass shootings are missing the forest for the trees. When you look at overall gun crime related deaths, it's pretty obvious our country has a problem shared with no other country in our peer group in wealth and development.
 

luxsol

Member
People focusing solely on mass shootings are missing the forest for the trees. When you look at overall gun crime related deaths, it's pretty obvious our country has a problem shared with no other country in our peer group in wealth and development.

I think it's you who's missing the forest for the trees.

Violence is down since the peak in the 80s/90s. Even gang violence, which makes up more than a significant amount of murders/mass killings every year, is down, despite all those dangerous guns being oh so easy to get.

Yet the mass killings the media and you care about proliferate... and you want to blame that on gun control that you believe is weak?
You might as well be blaming it on video games and violent movies.

Something seems to be working to lessen gun violence, because it sure isn't gun control, and it isn't gun control that is increasing high profile mass killings.
Do you not notice how these move inversely with each other?

History shows that gun control does nothing to curb gun violence, at least in the US.

Homicide%20Rate.jpg

Sorry for the unsourced chart, but i like how it highlights certain eras and it does match up with the actual homicide rates (at least after the 50s).

The only thing more gun control will help out with are suicides and accidental shootings. Everything else is pretty much out there for well past your lifetime even if there was a sudden ban.
You can't wish guns away, but you sure as fuck can do something about how the media handles coverage on mass killings.

As phisheep said, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but there is a lot of sound advice that can probably make a huge difference with the media and their helping along copycat killers. something something magic bullet or something. I'm tired.

Just so you know, a lot of newspapers and local stations already don't run stories about suicides, because reporting that shit also causes a jump in copycat suicides (is it not a coincidence that most mass killers on the news are suicidal?).
High profile suicides? Reporters gotta eat, right? meh.
Still, it just shows how much the media has an effect on us and they know it. It also shows that they know how to rein themselves in.
 

Shmuppers

Member
I've always thought that because we've been dealing arms for the better part of a century, and that we're bordered by Mexico, that it would be nearly impossible to keep illegal guns out of the US. People cite countries like Australia, Japan, etc as evidence that gun control works but I don't think they take geopolitics into account at all. Both Australia and Japan are islands, and don't export arms to the extent that we do. I'm an idiot tho so take this post with a grain of salt
 
How about looking up the statistics then, and seeing if you are right?

Brazil, the "exception proves the rule" of gun apologetics.

http://fogocruzado.org.br/

This is just for Rio and in the last 8 weeks after a few minutes of clicking the cases:

Oct 23, Rocinha, 1 dead and 3 injured
Sept 25, Rocinha, 5 dead, 6 injured
Oct 6, Rocihna, 2 dead 2 injured
Oct 31, Toriteio, 2 dead, 3 injured
Nov 2nd, Toriteio, 3 dead, 1 injured
 
Well... here in Brazil we usually don't have mass shootings, but we had almost 62,000 homicides last year alone. And guns are banned.
 

prag16

Banned
Yawn.

As others have pointed out, gun violence and death rates have been overall FALLING for decades.

I know this article is specifically about mass shootings. But with the "overall" issue improving, pointing to one aspect of the issue which seems worse and working ourselves up into a frenzy doesn't seem reasonable.

Well... here in Brazil we usually don't have mass shootings, but we had almost 62,000 homicides last year alone. And guns are banned.

No way dude. Brazil is the exception that proves the rule. Or something. -_-
 
Read that article the other day.

Lots of words just to point out the fact that we have all these mass shootings because we have all these guns.

Some folks will not accept this fact empirically or otherwise, and it's a shame.
 
Obviously, the prevalence of and easy access to firearms in the U.S. is a necessary condition for the mass shooting trends observed here. But it is not a sufficient condition and does not provide a satisfactory explanation taken on its own. We all know the ole "guns don't kill people..." adage. Mental health issues are clearly another contributing factor here. While gun control measures can help guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, it's hard to see what they can do to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill individuals who have never been diagnosed and have no criminal record. On the other hand, I don't see how taking away the nation's citizens' 270 guns is even remotely practicable, or how that would guarantee that guns don't continue to be sold on the black market and fall into the wrong hands. I guess we're fucked.
 

llien

Member
Read that article the other day.

Lots of words just to point out the fact that we have all these mass shootings because we have all these guns.

Some folks will not accept this fact empirically or otherwise, and it's a shame.

25% of Swiss have guns, but not even remotely as many shootings. There clearly are more factors at play.

PS
Don't take my comment as pro-gun, I am strongly against.
 

gioGAF

Member
@luxsol

Great posts! Glad to see someone here is posting stuff that makes sense instead of the same tired old bullshit.
 
I always wondered how European media handles mass killings.

Do they run it on 10 different channels, nearly 24/7, getting live updates on the killstreak, and boasting how the killer broke various records of past killers?

It's pretty fucking clear why mass killings were so damn rare pre-columbine, despite previous eras having way worse crime rates across almost every category and easier, FASTER, access to ACTUAL military weapons (pre-80s).

Why is this shit never brought up, especially when so much research is done about copycats?


And I'm serious about my question on how other countries handle coverage on murders.

20140525-113452.jpg

Well when the Breivik thing happened in Norway it was a big deal for more than a year, in Sweden.
 

aaronsan

Banned
Yawn.

As others have pointed out, gun violence and death rates have been overall FALLING for decades.

I know this article is specifically about mass shootings. But with the "overall" issue improving, pointing to one aspect of the issue which seems worse and working ourselves up into a frenzy doesn't seem reasonable.



No way dude. Brazil is the exception that proves the rule. Or something. -_-

And how many gun deaths does Japan have? I can provide "guns are banned" countries that have the opposite results of Brazil. So you have to demonstrate that it is the illegality of guns that is the problem in Brazil, or you are indeed blowing smoke.

In the meantime, logic will be allowed to prevail by the rest of us: less guns, less shootings.
 
25% of Swiss have guns, but not even remotely as many shootings. There clearly are more factors at play.

PS
Don't take my comment as pro-gun, I am strongly against.

1. 25% of Swiss does not have handguns.

2. Military service is MANDATORY in Switzerland.
 

SpartanN92

Banned
Based on current gun laws the Texas shooter should not have been able to purchase a gun.
Gun control laws didn’t do shit.
 

mantidor

Member
I seriously doubt that Brazil, with five times the firearms murder rate the US has, did not have at least 18 mass shootings using the 'at least 4 people injured or killed' definition.

Gun violence in Brazil is 100% linked to crime, mainly drug trafficking, you remove that and the number of mass shootings reduces to basically zero.

Mass shootings in the US on the other hand are never about crime (except the murders themselves of course), there is no robbery, gang violence or anything related when talking about those 18 mass shooters.
 

Ubername

Banned
You ignore WHY NOW, when it would have been easier before?
Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns. There were FEWER mass shootings.
There were no background checks.
REAL machine guns could be bought easily.
No waiting periods, aside from getting your check to clear and if you were using a mail order catalog, waiting for your deadly military weapon to arrive.

This is hard to reconcile
 

Bleepey

Member
[QUOT= luxsol ]You ignore WHY NOW, when it would have been easier before?
Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns. There were FEWER mass shootings.
There were no background checks.
REAL machine guns could be bought easily.
No waiting periods, aside from getting your check to clear and if you were using a mail order catalog, waiting for your deadly military weapon to arrive.[/QUOTE]

So fewer guns, more gun control has lead to fewer shootings overall but increased media coverage have made mass shootings more common?
 

prag16

Banned
In the meantime, logic will be allowed to prevail by the rest of us: less guns, less shootings.

So where does your logic take you in explaining why Australia violent crime rate rose after the ban and remains at or above pre-ban levels?

And how about the fact the the US's violent crime rate fell over the same span, even while guns-per-person steadily increased?

As usual, it's not so simple as zealots (on either side) make it out to be.
 

luxsol

Member
So fewer guns, more gun control has lead to fewer shootings overall but increased media coverage have made mass shootings more common?
There are more guns today. There are fewer households with guns.

From what I've read, the studies done on the scary guns ban in the 90s and the CDC study done from a few years ago, gun control laws/policies have no positive impact or was negligible.
It's mostly a social and economic responses, that don't have to do with guns, that has lead to the decline of gun violence (banning of leaded gasoline probably led to the decline of violence overall). None of the bans/policies really did anything, because the vast majority of crimes happen with weapons that aren't affected by them or don't affect the people that do gun crimes.
In other words, the policies put in place did nothing and shit got less violent just because.

Social factors have WAY MORE influence than anything else and the media has a positive effect on mass shootings (as in, the correlation with the increase in large scale shootings).

To Martinski43:
So how many channels do you have that are dedicated toward 24/7 news?
Were there any attempts by copycats?

Also, Australia is fucking nuts. You can't even buy Transformers that transform into guns there.
I'd also like to point out there was a big spike in gun violence in Australia after their ban. It calmed down since then, but that's the trend going on with the rest of the world anyway, including the US.
 

Bleepey

Member
There are more guns today. There are fewer households with guns.

From what I've read, the studies done on the scary guns ban in the 90s and the CDC study done from a few years ago, gun control laws/policies have no positive impact or was negligible.
It's mostly a social and economic responses, that don't have to do with guns, that has lead to the decline of gun violence (banning of leaded gasoline probably led to the decline of violence overall). None of the bans/policies really did anything, because the vast majority of crimes happen with weapons that aren't affected by them or don't affect the people that do gun crimes.
In other words, the policies put in place did nothing and shit got less violent just because.

Social factors have WAY MORE influence than anything else and the media has a positive effect on mass shootings (as in, the correlation with the increase in large scale shootings).

To Martinski43:
So how many channels do you have that are dedicated toward 24/7 news?
Were there any attempts by copycats?

Also, Australia is fucking nuts. You can't even buy Transformers that transform into guns there.
I'd also like to point out there was a big spike in gun violence in Australia after their ban. It calmed down since then, but that's the trend going on with the rest of the world anyway, including the US.

chart3a-deaths-resulting-from-firearms-data.jpg


Gun homicides dropped like a rock. Also any sources on your claims about gun van effectivenesss. My graph' source:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2013-08-23/katter-wrong-on-gun-deaths/4904576
 

Wiped89

Member
In this thread: Americans desperately try to pick holes in the article or find search for other reasons (it must be media coverage!).

Face it: you have a gun problem because you have too many guns. If you're honestly defending this, you have been brainwashed by American gun culture.

The whole world is laughing at you and thinks your gun laws are ridiculous.

An Onion article I sae last week was titled: "No way to stop this says only nation where this regularly happens'

In the UK guns are illegal and we have had fewer people killed with guns in the past 30 years than in America in 2017 alone.

Based on current gun laws the Texas shooter should not have been able to purchase a gun.
Gun control laws didn’t do shit.

Gun control is not enough. They have to be illegal full stop. In the UK you cannot buy a gun. The shooter would not have been able to get one.

There are black markets here but it's VERY hard to find guns and both buyers and sellers get sent to jail and any guns are seized and destroyed. We don't have mass shootings here.

It's not just the laws it's the culture. In the US, someone enters your house, you can shoot them dead and don't even get into trouble. This is wrong. In the UK if you shoot someone dead for entering your house, you get sent to jail for murder, for disproportionate force. But the trespasser wouldn't have a gun either. Very different culture.
 

luxsol

Member
Gun homicides dropped like a rock. Also any sources on your claims about gun van effectivenesss.]
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/weaponUseTrend.html

Again, gun violence rose up sharply.
Violence in general went up, including homicide.
It took well over a decade for it to go below levels before the gun ban, but it rose to as much and more as before.

And again, it's hard to attribute the decline of crime in general to gun control, because that was already declining.... aside from that jump when the gun ban hit.

Also, the US had a similar drop in homicide related deaths as well.
SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-1-2.png

Still higher than Aus, but it's a pretty similar steep decline without banning even toy guns.
It only goes to show the trend would have happened without it, because it's also true for other countries as well.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...y-after-decline-in-90s-suicide-rate-edges-up/
Between 1993 and 2000, the gun homicide rate dropped by nearly half, from 7.0 homicides to 3.8 homicides per 100,000 people.

Also also also, this is interesting
Despite these trends, most U.S. adults think gun crimes have increased. In our 2013 survey, more than half (56%) of Americans said the number of gun crimes had gone up compared with 20 years ago

Oh, and gun ban effectiveness? The vast majority of gun crime happens with pistols. Guess what almost all bans are about? Not pistols. It's almost always about scary machine guns you only see in the movies, because this is where most of our knowledge about guns comes from.
 

aaronsan

Banned
So where does your logic take you in explaining why Australia violent crime rate rose after the ban and remains at or above pre-ban levels?

And how about the fact the the US's violent crime rate fell over the same span, even while guns-per-person steadily increased?

As usual, it's not so simple as zealots (on either side) make it out to be.

It's certainly not simple when you try to bring in other crimes and fail to consider that many other factors drive crime, by gun or otherwise, than the current status of gun ownership legality.

Speaking of zealots on either side, I wish each of you so desperate to say guns aren't the problem would explain why you are so OBSESSED with allowing no change to gun laws.

Because to the rest of us, it really looks like you value guns more than human life.

Why can't legally owning a gun be as restrictive as legally driving a car? I've never heard a satisfactory answer to that one. Aside from a poorly written Second Amendment that has been agreed even by conservative judges to still allow for restrictions on gun ownership, so try a different path, please.
 

aaronsan

Banned
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/weaponUseTrend.html

Again, gun violence rose up sharply.
Violence in general went up, including homicide.
It took well over a decade for it to go below levels before the gun ban, but it rose to as much and more as before.

And again, it's hard to attribute the decline of crime in general to gun control, because that was already declining.... aside from that jump when the gun ban hit.

Also, the US had a similar drop in homicide related deaths as well.
SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-1-2.png

Still higher than Aus, but it's a pretty similar steep decline without banning even toy guns.
It only goes to show the trend would have happened without it, because it's also true for other countries as well.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...y-after-decline-in-90s-suicide-rate-edges-up/


Also also also, this is interesting


Oh, and gun ban effectiveness? The vast majority of gun crime happens with pistols. Guess what almost all bans are about? Not pistols. It's almost always about scary machine guns you only see in the movies, because this is where most of our knowledge about guns comes from.

So, if I could try to condense your point here, you're saying gun violence in America is improving when we have nearly one mass shooting per day? And, as a corollary statement are you also saying we don't have a problem with gun violence?

I apologize for trying to cut to the chase, but all the chaff you guys are throwing up really confuses the main issue. Which, I suspect, is the point.
 

luxsol

Member
Because to the rest of us, it really looks like you value guns more than human life.
You're just sticking your fingers into your ears, wrongly attributing data to prove the cause of a problem, ignoring shit that actually makes way more sense because it has been studied, monitored, and repeated by experts for decades.

And if the stats say that gun violence is lessening, who are you to disagree with the numbers? Don't pretend I'm ok with gun violence just because I'm pointing out what's actually going on and pointing out how flawed attribution of stats is.

Why can't you question WHY shit is happening so much now (or post Princess Diana's death, when live coverage really fucking boomed)? You're ignoring a much more important factor, just because.
You point toward high profile mass killings, thinking it proves crime is increasing just because the media runs stories on it more often... which increases the chance for more copycat killers.

Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns.
There were no background checks.
REAL machine guns could be bought easily (and hardly any were used in crimes for the past 100 years).

So why are there more mass killings today than there were before?
Why is there less gun crime when there are more guns being bought today? ... and i don't think anyone can answer this one easily.

You want to wish guns away and focus on that, instead of actually caring about an actual solution.
I'm only trying to raise awareness on what is likely the cause for the increase of mass shootings.
 
You're just sticking your fingers into your ears, wrongly attributing data to prove the cause of a problem, ignoring shit that actually makes way more sense because it has been studied, monitored, and repeated by experts for decades.

And if the stats say that gun violence is lessening, who are you to disagree with the numbers? Don't pretend I'm ok with gun violence just because I'm pointing out what's actually going on and pointing out how flawed attribution of stats is.

Why can't you question WHY shit is happening so much now (or post Princess Diana's death, when live coverage really fucking boomed)? You're ignoring a much more important factor, just because.
You point toward high profile mass killings, thinking it proves crime is increasing just because the media runs stories on it more often... which increases the chance for more copycat killers.

Again, before the rise of 24/7 media coverage, there was LESS gun control. There were MORE households with guns.
There were no background checks.
REAL machine guns could be bought easily (and hardly any were used in crimes for the past 100 years).

So why are there more mass killings today than there were before?
Why is there less gun crime when there are more guns being bought today? ... and i don't think anyone can answer this one easily.

You want to wish guns away and focus on that, instead of actually caring about an actual solution.
I'm only trying to raise awareness on what is likely the cause for the increase of mass shootings.
Well said. But regarding the media coverage, in shootings involving so many people, there's just no way to avoid it. It can't be ignored. Some people have said that the names of the killers shouldn't be published, but that's realistically not going to happen and could lead to other problems and conspiracy theories. I agree that some of these shootings seem to be copycat killings. But, how to seriously avoid that? Media blackout?
 

luxsol

Member
But, how to seriously avoid that? Media blackout?
Treat it as local news.

My local news station reports on murders that you won't see shown on worldwide/nationwide or 24/7 news stations.
What is so important about their deaths that requires them to be shown elsewhere?

Still, even if you think killing 3 or more people at once is that important to you, why have it shown for hours at a time for weeks?

If you still think it's so fucking important that you need DAILY updates, why even run it live with halfassed guesses, making announcements on the fucking kill count while it was happening?

It's fucking sick and morbid. And it's dangerous as fuck.

If you want to know more, make it so you can read the manifestos and kill counts through the news outlet's website.

Freedom of the press still existed before 24/7 news (and without the internet), so what's wrong with doing it like they did before? Shit like these shootings did not get top billing every fucking hour way, muchless minute.
You're so conditioned to get these ultra detailed sensationalized reports that you can't even imagine what it's like without them.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I always wondered how European media handles mass killings.

Do they run it on 10 different channels, nearly 24/7, getting live updates on the killstreak, and boasting how the killer broke various records of past killers?

Every time a horrific spree killing has occurred in another country, it has had extensive media coverage, and the end result has usually been the introduction of stricter legislation to prevent such a thing happening again.

It happened in Australia with the Port Arthur massacre, and it happened in the UK with Dunblane.

The difference is that in the US people think "oh, surely something is going to happen now? better buy more guns while I can" then nothing. fucking. changes. thoughtsandprayers.
 
?

A few people shooting multiple people across seveeal years has nothing to do with how many guns are in the United States.

Not only that mass shootings are not UP from official statistics. The reason why it seems like mass shootings are up is because of deception by shit press like this one constantly reporting them on the news as if the killers broke a new record in a video game.

Also clearly for nonsensical comparisons to countries that run things completely different than the us.
 
Every time a horrific spree killing has occurred in another country, it has had extensive media coverage, and the end result has usually been the introduction of stricter legislation to prevent such a thing happening again.

It happened in Australia with the Port Arthur massacre, and it happened in the UK with Dunblane.

The difference is that in the US people think "oh, surely something is going to happen now? better buy more guns while I can" then nothing. fucking. changes. thoughtsandprayers.

No they do not cover it as insanely as the u s. "You got the high score" news cycle.

Also there have been complains in some western European countries about the media selectively avoiding reporting some killings due to uh... Not making groups look bad. But I think all killers should be known regardless. Lives are only once
 
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