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Looking for some help on this one. I started it after Parkland and it's just kind of sat in the unfinished folder. Feels like the last portion with possible causes needs to be built up more. Any suggestions?

In the wake of the shooting at Marjorie Stone Douglas High School and now Santa Fe thanks to all of these amazing kids saying #neveragain our society seems to finally be ready to do something about our children's safety. What frustrates me is that so many adults can't seem to grasp what these kids get so easily. This is a complex problem that needs a complex solution. As (name?) said on MSNBC “It's not about banning all guns, you can't just say it's about mental so fund mental health” I really wish I could say I had the answers, but instead I have a lot of questions. We're only going to figure this out if we start asking the right questions and stop accepting the easy answers. The most obvious question we need to answer is why the hell is this happening?? The stock answers everybody throws out there is it's the guns, it's mental illness & it's bullying. I do have an answer to all of those and that answer is BULLSHIT!

The argument that it's the guns is the most obviously ridiculous on it's face. We've had guns in this country since it was founded but we didn't have kids using them on each other in school like this until the last 20 years or so. I'm a child of the 70s and grew up when civilians could still buy fully automatic weapons and military explosives but we never had them used on us at school. My parents' generation didn't have this problem, nor did my grandparents. Gun regulations are tougher now but the violence is only getting worse. Does this mean we shouldn't pass tougher gun restrictions? Of course not. If people want to go out and commit mass murder we should make it as difficult as possible but to pretend that in itself is going to solve the problem or that the guns are the cause is ridiculous. Mental illness as an explanation is equally ridiculous unless you want to accept that our entire society is insane (and I think a good case could be made for that), again mental illness is nothing new. We've had people with assorted mental health problems for the entire history of the species and yes we have had people commit murders because of it, but are we really supposed to believe it has grown so drastically so quickly as to explain the astounding number of mass murderers our society is producing? This explanation seems to be really popular with Republicans and the GOP crowd because it means they don't have to take any responsibility or do anything. I find it really telling that the same politicians who blame it on mental illness (unless the shooter is Muslim or a person of color when they blame it on immigration and Islamic terrorists) want to cut funding for mental health resources. Bullying actually makes sense on the surface, but if you really think about it the logic falls apart. Again, this is nothing new but more to the point if these shooters are victims of bullying that get to the point where they can't take it anymore and snap why have all of them been straight white males? GLBT kids are bullied way more than straight ones, sometimes to the point of being beaten to death yet none of them have shot up their schools. Same goes for people of color. On top of the standard bullying for being “weird” or not having the right jeans, shoes etc. they also get targeted by racists so why aren't they shooting their oppressors? The list goes on and on, but you get my point. We need to stop looking for that magic bullet and accept that there is something systemically wrong with a society where so many of our youth want to kill each other.

Is it violent movies and video games? After all, most of the shooters partook of this fantasy violence. I don't think so. I think people are seeing a correlation and getting cause and effect backwards. I think kids that feel this compulsion for violence gravitate to fantasy violence as a way to satisfy their need. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe instead of helping them handle the desire it feeds it and the fantasy isn't good enough anymore. I don't know, but I think we should be looking into it. Maybe mental illness does play a big role, but if so, why has it become so common so quickly?? I don't buy the argument that it's the stress of living in the world we've created, after all my generation grew up during the cold war and my parents' generation had the Cuban missile crisis and Viet Nam but this didn't happen at either of those times. Part of the downfall of Rome was chemically induced insanity from lead poisoning. Could the chemicals in our food be driving the whole country crazy? I don't know but shouldn't we consider the possibility?

Masterdegenerate 5 May 21
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Some great food for thought here. Thank you both

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Personally I believe the problem comes from generation after generation of people brought up to believe they are more and more "entitled" with each successive iteration.
Entitled to have (and to be given)
Entitled to wants (as opposed over needs)
Entitled to greed (and not to be criticized for hoarding and obesity)
Entitled to superiority (rather than equality)
Entitled to respect (as opposed to earning it)
Entitled to be listened to (even when they have only lies and complaints)
Entitled to be rude (because manners are old fashioned)
And entitled to disproportionate revenge when upset (You called me a nasty name so I'll shoot you, you insulted my religion so I will blow you up, you hurt my feelings so, I'll blow your fucking head off!)

The UK and Europe are going the same way, and add to that the media generate fear of "The other" and easy access to powerful weapons and you have a recipe for a society that is purging itself in favour of the weak and pathetic.

If you look at whose doing the mass shootings, it’s not “people” generically, it’s white males who are angry because life isn’t going their way. And they have access to guns. Yes, to your point about entitlement, but there are entitled girls who aren’t shooting up schools. Toxic masculinity is one name for behaviors bred in a culture that teaches boys the only way to be a man is to react violently when things go bad.

@UUNJ interesting observation. Is there any victim profile?

@UUNJ true, but 4% of mass shooting is the average for female perpetrators of mass shooting, there are no statistics for women participating non actively that is to say initiating or instigating or encouraging, less intelligent men to "prove themselves real men".

Elsewhere in the world female shooters and terrorist , especially in the 1970s at the height of the female emancipation movement, were much more common. Large numbers of the Red Brigade, Baader Meinhof, Black September, the Weathermen and up to date Modern Islamist groups all had large and very active female contingents and even founders.
During world war 2 many resistance cells were solely run by women. This was because, I feel many women felt oppressed, without a clearly defined role in a modern world and so adopted the only role model they had, that of the warrior male. They fought back on the men's own ground, with their own weapons.
Today I believe the current trend for such acts being greatly the province of men, is that American men, especially young men are the group feeling threatened and oppressed, without a place in the world that is clearly defined for them and they are striking back in the only way they know how, the supposedly oppressed lashing against the source of their pain.
This is not "Toxic" masculinity, it is frightened and confused masculinity, that is on the one hand being told to soften (by women and SJWs) and on the other to toughen up (by older men and the sort of women publically demanding "real men" as mates), a no win situation for those without the educational equipment to deal with such turmoil, or the maturity to be themselves.

However, all that aside. if anything your point does add weight to my proposal that as the most "self entitled" group in US society are white men, brought up and encouraged to prove themselves superior, by previous generations to whom might makes right was a doctrine are the main perpetrators because of the ideology of entitled youth, not in spite of it.

@PontifexMarximus Very often it's a girl who rejected him and whoever else happens to be handy when the shooting starts

@Masterdegenerate I wonder how the mad shooters pick their targets. Do they stay within a certain range of their home or pick schools or area that they are familiar with?

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There is also social inequality. Previous generations also had rich and poor, but the DIFFERENCE was not so massive, and there existed a gradual incline in differences of wealth between people. Now the slope of the incline is so steep as to be more akin to a staircase with high steps up to each level, and there aren't many levels.
This leads to a society that has deep schisms, which in turn affects the thinking of most members of that society, and this manifests itself in various ways, one of which is to turn upon the society, violently.

Petter Level 9 May 22, 2018

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