@dope Once a meme hits mainstream consciousness it is tough to get it to go away. Columbine out school shootings in the mind of every child of that generation, and since then toxic online forums filled with trolls have kept the idea alive be it "an hero" "unalive yourself" and just generally the nihilistic attitude of if you feel bade enough about yourself to consider killing yourself, you might as well take out some others you hate with you. This is mental illness at its core, but with the enablement of technology and toxic online "community" culture.
Then there are spin off effects of this mentality combined with the impression of the efficacy of terrorism from a psychological imprint perspective, and some narcissists will mass kill for "the cause". Again mental illness at its core, with a different "community" dynamic.
In both of these cases it is the meme, in the original sociology sense of the word, that has caused the rise of the behavior. The cultural condition of alienation and anonymous communication on the rise, combined with overall eroded access to in-person and in-patient mental health services due to the privatized health system, keeps the meme breeding in the alienated cultural class.
@Siegfried and there have been mass shootings outside the USA, don't forget what happened in Norway for example. In the US the mental health and social support infrastructure is weak, so the meme is actualized more often.
A weird fetish for guns and a completely unregulated gun lobby.
In Switzerland every male between 18 and 40 that hasn’t actively decided against it, has an assault riffle under their bed (for some that’s meant literally…). Althoughwe don’t let them have ammunition as well.
Anyway, you can buy guns here and people do. It’s just not that we think we need them to defend ourselves against the government (which judging by the power of the us military is totally ridiculous anyway). We also don’t allow you to carry it around, let alone loaded ones.
America is a ridiculous cesspool of stupidity, missed educational opportunities and weird, culty patriotism that guns are somehow a part of. The internet made it easier tk spread this and so conservatives have been more successful in spreading their crap around.
The US military hasn’t ever won an asymmetrical guerrilla war, so it’s not as absurd as you think. In that Instance, millions of people would likely die, but it’s still more likely that guerrillas survive for decades than it is the US wins.
The US has won against guerrillas before. They won in the Philippines and had mostly won in Iraq before the Iraqi government pissed off their Sunni minority and ISIS spilled over from Syria. The US also crushed the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive and most of the war after that was fought by regular North Vietnamese Army units not VC guerrillas.
Most insurgencies fail Max Boot wrote a book called Invisible Armies where he analyzed insurgencies throughout the 20th century and determined that only about a quarter of them succeeded and more than half failed outright. Not only that, many of the successful ones took place in the context of colonization and the Cold Warz where they had weak imperial opponents, super power backers, or both.
It’s also unlikely the US Military, being citizens of the United States themselves, would have a high degree of adherence to such orders to bomb and destroy their fellow man.
That anyone thinks such is realistic is indicative of the depth of delusion.
And this fact would be true regardless if their populations had guns or not, which means once again, the guns dont factor in all that much at success of resistance of government
I mean the US has a history of bombing city blocks from helicopters, commiting unethical human experimentation, both on individual people and by releasing poisonous agents into the air around their own cities and generally not being particular human rights focused with their own citizens.
Believing that the US army is above turning on their “fellow man” seems a bit optimistic to me.
The naivety there isn’t so much that soldiers would be incapable of fighting the US citizenry in a large scale war, but more that the framing of the question is false to begin with. It’s way easier for soldiers to commit small scale acts of terror than large scale genocides, and it’s always easier to commit acts of terror on minorities or the “other” rather than on the gen pop. If we were to see any domestic american guerilla warfare (I find this kind of unlikely compared to the rising amount of lone wolf, stochastic incidents), then it’s likely that even the regular population would get fed a ton of bullshit about the opposition being subhuman, or something to that effect. Larger scale versions of how, every time a black guy gets shot by the police, everyone trots out every encounter he’s ever had with the police within like 12 hours of the incident. Character assassination, but at a group level, instead of on the individual level.
In the context of the Ukraine war i’ve read something akin to “once someone close to you, a fellow friend and comrade is killed, it is less about the original how and why, but just about revenge.”
Using cult of personality, the in-group mentality that is strongly advanced in the military, dehumanising of the enemy and other tactics have shown very effective time and time again in human history. There is many countries in history and today, where the military is turned against its own population and i fail to see any moral highground the US could claim to protect against that. The US society is too hungry, too injust, too tribalist and too violent, for there to be effective safeguards. Heck we all saw what happened January 6
Hollywood powered violence desensitization baby. The US army police force has bombed civilian cities in US soil. They were against black communities, but it has happened. No one in the chain of command even protested the order. Anything is possible when you have R A C I S M
EDIT: corrected the state security force involved, but the explosives were provided by the army.
My two pennies: We had a generation of people raised by baby boomers, people notorious for their inability to manage emotions, or empathize with different or morally ambiguous people. It’s intergenerational trauma from such an upbringing, manifesting as mental illness and marked by delusions of grandeur, paranoia, victim mentality, and stunted emotional and social development. That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above, acceptable.
That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above.
Are you under the impression such things were ever not accessible?
At what point did we start regularly testing and proving out water? When did we start ensuring school bake sale food must be store-bought? You seem incredibly short-sighted.
Right on. Part of the weird fetish is that perceived need to defend themselves from the government.
It’s as stupid as it is antiquated and was never a thing among patriots and decent Americans, only among people who were literally rebels: slavers and separatists, the exact people the Second Amendment was written to protect against.
The words “security of the state” are the express, stated purpose of the Second Amendment, right there in the text, and rebellion was expressly cited at the Convention by the framers.
Ah - I see we’re not only cherry-picking, but we’re depending on a preamble e.g. a preparatory or introductory statement as somehow limiting of scope or indicative of audience to which a right was granted.
It’s part of your army kit. As we have a mandatory military service. But, soldiers have now the option to leave it at their military Base.
Which was introduced to lower the risk of suicide. No idea the impact of this policy though.
One important point is that, swiss people aren’t strongly divided or proudly displaying their, political affiliations. I think their are fights, protest and riot. But never it would come in the mind of anyone to bring a gun to such events.
Mass shooting are very rare and even though OP says people buy guns. I dont know anyone who has one. Beside for hunting.
We also have a pretty good social security and different safety nets. So this help.
All great information, but none of it really answers the original question.
Not meaning that as an insult, but I was also wondering what point it serves to have the weapon at home but to not be allowed to have ammunition for said weapon.
It being part of the “army kit” certainly makes sense, but that only reinforces the validity of the question; if the rifle is part of the kit, surely the ammo is too. And if the ammo is part of the kit but has to stay on base, then it seems nonsensical to have the weapon stored in a different location…for the same stated reason.
Well, they’re both wrong. If you have a permit to own a particular type of weapon, you can buy the ammunition. Military rifles are a weird category of their own. Up until fairly recently, you were given a sealed, 50-round box of ammo for your service rifle, so that you could respond quickly if the militia was called up. That’s been discontinued. But you can still quite legally buy ammunition for your service rifle as long as you have permits for that type of firearm otherwise. (This is based on what I can find and read regarding gun regulation in Switzerland, although some of this may have changed since the EU imposed new restrictions on member states.)
There is some variance in application of gun laws, as many of the permits are ‘may issue’ rather than ‘shall issue’.
I could be wrong. I would suggest consulting with someone that specializes in Swiss firearms law, as some writeups are giving contradictory answers.
Regardless: Swiss gun ownership is estimated to be among the highest in the world, with the US being highest by far. Despite their very high rates of gun ownership, they also have a very, very low homicide rate in general, and their rate of gun crime is microscopic.
Assuming the guns are target trained, it is much more easy to store a pile of ammunition somewhere and tell everyone to come and get some in an emergency, than having to transfer the rifles whenever someone decides to move. The alternative of course is no personal ownership of the rifles, but aside from the familiarity and training it also adds a symbolic sense of responsibility and association. The scene in jarhead comes to my mind where they are told to make this “there is many like this, but this one is mine” chant over their marksman rifles.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to as a “fetish” or an “unregulated” lobby. If you were referring to nonsense like the NRA and their fundraising efforts, you’d be obligated to highlight Everytown etc. and their blue-aligned fundraising. You can’t point out a wedge issue and one side without recognizing the other side and its equivalent benefit.
If one has a clean criminal history, is a legal adult, and - in most states - has undergone some additional scrutiny or proof of proficiency, then sure - they can buy a firearm.
Given how Afghanistan turned out, I’m not sure how you think the concept of resisting the armed forces of a government as a distributed and well-armed populace is somehow unthinkable.
It’s fair to say we’ve a cesspool of stupidity - but only due to our politicians continued neglect of actual underlying issues in favor of partisan wedge-driving and profiteering of the ad revenue of sensationalized violence.
It’s also worth noting (though Lemmy is a horrible venue for discourse on the topic) that the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
So many of the measures that could, immediately or eventually, be used either directly or as a legal springboard, to move toward gun restrictions or confiscations see immediate and stiff resistance from the GOP, gun lobby, and most importantly big chunks of the population who are fun owners, who are basically given a personal stake and being incentivized to do so.
So many of the gun control measures being proposed would be dead on arrival due to the dual truths that guns are already widespread in the country and that many such laws would make criminals out of law abiding citizens. This makes it hard or impossible for them to gain any traction whatsoever.
While I agree that the “I need my guns for when the government turns on its people next week” crowd is delusional, I also feel that it’s a chicken/egg situation: part of the reason why that’s an unreasonable threat is because guns are so ubiquitous. The government doesn’t even attempt to go down that rabbit hole partially because it’s such an impossible feat.
I also think that while yes, that doomsday scenario isn’t happening anytime soon, that it certainly could happen, after many decades of gradual change and gradual decline. And while personal gun ownership may not do much good against the government now, in the event that the course of the future took us down that dark route, personal firearms could very well do a private citizen a lot of good then in resisting any opponent, government or otherwise. But of course they wouldn’t be able to get their guns back in that scenario if they allowed them to be taken away beforehand…and prevalence of ownership and political resistance is the best and easiest insurance against all of that.
the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
No, it was 100% intentional. All able bodied men below a certain age were legally obligated to muster with their local militia, and they were likewise legally obligated to provide their own firearm. The gov’t had already granted itself the right to raise and equip an army, so the idea that 2A applies to the gov’t being allowed to arm itself is patently ridiculous. No, the idea was that individuals would own firearms, and would undertake some form of training (or regulation) in their use, and that would make them fit for militia duty.
From that perspective, it’s clear that the founders intended the people to have access to and own weapons fit for military service.
I agree that it’s unlikely that the people should need arms to resist the gov’t, buuuuuuuuuuut it’s happened, and it’s happened in recent memory. The Bundy clan had an armed standoff with the gov’t in the 2010s over their illegal grazing on BLM land, and the gov’t ended up being the ones to blink first. (Also, the Bundy’s won in court over that; the gov’t did some pretty egregiously illegal things, and te judge tossed the whole case out with prejudice.) You can also go back to standoffs and insurrections by Native Americans in the 70s, standoffs that the Native Americans ultimately won. Moreover, we have a strong current of fascism running through our current politics; IMO, the idea of willingly giving up arms when the fascism supporters control the House, and have overrun the judiciary is madness.
If you’re under the impression that the military could win against the armed populace of the United States, you really shouldn’t be commenting on this topic due to your lack of knowledge.
And you are going to do what exactly against an F-35 or drone strike with your guns? Please explain how you would stop the US military with any amount of guns.
You’re one nuke away from getting proven how shit your take is.
This isn’t the 1800s. War isn’t just whose side has the biggest numbers or the fanciest guns or the smartest strategies. You will die in a full-on confrontation against your government. You and your quickly propelled metal hold no power in the face of the type of destruction that has now been possible for decades.
But yeah, go ahead and hold on to those guns, it seems like it helps you sleep at night.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Oh yeah, America is totally gonna use that second amendment to rise up against an oppresive government, not just buy guns from corpos and be distracted from any form of oppression because they just have to stand in line to get the newest iphone /s
That would really depend on some kind of big event that riles everyone up. That’s precisely why the goalposts are moved slowly.
The important thing I think is to be able to defend against crooked cops on a smaller scale as well as the crack heads problem they’re not really fixing.
en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Crime_in_the_United_States has a few sources and an easy to consume table. Per its table, rates since 1960 peaked in the 80s at 10.2/100k population; Columbine was in 1999, when the rate was 5.7 per 100k, and until at least 2018, the rate has never exceeded that.
www.macrotrends.net/…/murder-homicide-rate has slightly different data and shows that the murder rates increased past that rate during COVID. However in 2022 the rates dropped - source and were expected to continue dropping at that rate or even faster. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/…/674290/ confirms that theory - rates for the 90 reporting cities were down 12% as of May of this year.
I see the data you’ve linked, but find it fascinating what the parent comment is implying.
OP is asking: “guns have been around for so long, why are mass shootings more common only recently?”
Parent comment’s answer is “total murder rates used to be higher before, and the rate is now less than what it used to be before”
Even looking at your homocide data, what does that mean? Why have mass shootings increased?
And the further question that brings to my mind is: are people putting these 2 pieces of unrelated data together, to draw the conclusions that support their own bias? Great that overall murder rates are down compared to the 70s and 80s…but that doesn’t mean the country doesn’t have a gun problem, or that mass shootings aren’t unnecessary and avoidable deaths and a sign of some underlying unhealthiness in a community.
Mass shootings weren’t even defined before. We didn’t talk about them because they weren’t tracked. Even now the definition of mass shooting isn’t settled, with some definitions having about a dozen per year, and others having about 2 per day.
I’m not in the US but just a few weeks back I was listening to a podcast where, in my country, although violence against women still occurs (their were focusing on murder) while this year there had already been around 16 cases, thirty years back that would be the number for a single quarter. And from that point on, it was a general talk about violence in society.
Late Stage Capitalism: Poverty is worse than anytime after slavery, wealthy people have never been wealthier, police brutality is at the highest since slavery, workers rights are trending back towards the second Industrial Revolution, politics recognizes corporations as people (thus robbing those who cannot compete with billions upon billions of dollars), civil rights are receding, basic necessities are becoming scarce, the environment itself is being poisoned for profit, etc.
Misdirection of values. We tell children there’s a path, go to school, get a job, find a spouse, get married, get a house and have kids, but life isn’t that simple. As life introduces chaos into the path, people fall off and some have a hard time getting back on. We’ve spent so much time on developing social media and marketing platforms that idolize those that make it through the path that no one looks out for those that fall off, making them feel isolated and unheard. Niche social media and mass marketing for weapons has made it easy for lone wolves to seek revenge on the system that let them down.
I think we can generally say the above is true across all political spectrums. The below might be rejected, but it’s my view.
The right has made increasingly extreme statements to pull in these vulnerable people in order to make them feel heard, but it’s just for show and votes. We’ve seen how politicians like Trump are really just using them for his own gains and as the NRA funnels more money into the “system”, it really takes huge government action to curb this cycle.
Fox News was founded October 7th 1996, just over 27 calendar yesrs ago. Remember when all the racists were emboldened by Trump being elected, Imagine the slow and steady change after giving them their own justification media machine that spreads FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) for profit of everyone who pays them including weapons manufactureres.
There weren’t many school shootings, and suddenly Columbine happened.
The thing is - Columbine wasn’t really a school shooting.
It was a failed bombing. The shooting was to get everyone into the cafeteria where they’d set up barrel bombs which luckily didn’t go off. In fact, the largest casualty attack in a US school remains a bombing from 1927.
As a school shooting, Columbine was also quite atypical, with two perpetrators.
But as soon as you now had what was really a failed bombing being covered by the news as a school shooting, suddenly thereafter were a ton of school shootings (that fit the normal archetype of a mass shooting with a lone perpetrator).
And each of those got a ton of coverage and the numbers of mass shootings went up yet again.
If you suddenly prohibited covering mass shootings in media (impossible because of the 1st amendment, but hypothetically), I am certain you’d see mass shootings drop by double digit numbers.
The fact that Columbine was so atypical of what events followed in its planning but was so close to what followed in how it was covered in the news tells a pretty damning story of the role of mass media in this phenomenon.
Also see:
Towers, S., Gomez-Lievano, A. Khan, M., et al. (2015). Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings. PLOS One. 10(7): e0117259. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117259
Lankford, A and Tomek, S. (2017). Mass Killings in the United States from 2006 to 2013: Social Contagion or Random Clusters. The American Association of Suicidology. doi: 10.1111/sltb.12366
As massive consumers of American news media that includes the extensive covering of mass shootings, I wonder what is keeping Canadians from a rise in shootings that is equally meteoric.
Coverage - since so much media comes from America - would seem to be the same, but the results are different.
Far from gun-avoidant, Canada boasts the longest rifle hit on a target, both for moving and stationary.
Canada has fewer guns per person than the US, but still many more than most countries. I think there are a couple of other differences though. The types of guns are very different. Handguns are extremely restricted, and ownership is rare. Many (most?) semi auto rifles are either prohibited or restricted, and there are mag limits (5 rounds) for all centrefire rifles. This doesn’t exactly prevent people from committing shootings, but a lot fewer people have those types of guns because they’re kind of a pain in the ass get, store, and use. Safe storage is legally required, and much more encouraged by the gun-owning community.
The other factor might be what guns are used for in Canada. Concealed carry is practically non-existent, open carry is severely restricted, and while self-defence with a firearm is technically legal, ownership for that purpose pretty much isn’t.
AR-15s existed long before the ban and people didn’t much care for them. They use an intermediate round which hunters consider too low-power to be humane, and I believe it’s illegal to hunt with those rounds in some states. Anybody could get one, only few people did.
So what happened? Democrats said, “You can’t have these!” and Americans, predictably, flipped out and bought tens of millions once available. Hell, I wasn’t interested until everyone was screaming BAN after Uvalde. Figured if I was ever going to get one, might as well get grandfathered in. The long-standing joke is that Democrats are the best gun salesmen of all.
Also, the media hype. Have you noticed the media salivates over “assault weapons” given the opportunity? ALL long guns, of which AR-15’s are a subset, are responsible for only 4% of the killing. Our media has beat it into our heads that the best way to kill a bunch of people is the AR-15.
There are so many other gun death related issues we should be beating the drum about. That’s another long post. :(
Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents^[1][5][6]. During the ten-year period of the ban, there were lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception[1][5][6]. However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths^[1][5][6]. Between 2004 and 2017, the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 25, compared with 5.3 during the 10-year tenure of the ban and 7.2 in the years leading up to the prohibition on assault weapons^[1][5][6]. It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups^[1][5][6]. Nonetheless, the data suggests that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents, while the expiration of the ban was associated with an increase in mass shooting deaths^[1][5][6].
Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents
Correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real significance, there would need to be a drop in mass shooting counts.
That aside, your own citation shows any change in deaths is questionable at best - it looks as if the average may have even increased, by the included graph.
It also seems to pretend that _merely banning the sales of more “assault weapons” would have nullified the impact of existing assault weapons.
However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths.
Again, correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real meaning there would have to be only one changing factor… and the trend would have had to been consistent with a near-elimination of the count of events.
Can you truly think of no other changes? No, say, incredible spike in the media glorifying and sensationalizing such events, inadvertently promoting them as a means of getting violent retribution as one commits suicide?
It boils down to this: was there any direct scaling of such values with the actual count of owned “assault weapons”? Of course not.
It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups
Wow. So, you dilute the value of your own correlation by highlighting factors known to be common underlying issues, yet double-down on “suggest” and “decrease”.
In order to judge the effectiveness of the assault weapons ban, we need to look at if the usage of the banned weapons themselves decreased in mass shootings. If mass shootings dropped by half, but the banned weapons only compromised a third of the shootings prior to the ban, then clearly there is much more at play.
As is most mass shootings are committed using handguns, not rifles. Even on the higher-end of causalities, handguns comprise about 50 percent of the biggest mass shootings. (Incidents like Orlando and Virginia Tech were committed entirely with handguns, Ar-15s aren’t actually advantageous in most shooting incidents, it’s purely aesthetic).
This is simply wrong. Many of the worst mass shootings in the last decade were committed with low power rifles and handguns. I’m actually pretty sure the two worst mass shootings (by count of those who were killed) in the US were done using .22 ammunition. Those weapons were not covered by whatever ban you’re talking about
It’s not about “assault weapons” and it’s not even about guns. It’s about the inability of our government to pass meaningful legislation around gun ownership and mental health and especially where those two topics intersect
The problem is that human suffering is normalized because the wealthy political class and those who fund them are not going to let things change for the better if it means less money for them.
50 years ago you could shock the city, maybe the country. Now you can livestream it for the whole world and media makes a huge profit from these incidents I bet. So in short; attention. If you’re nobody and want everyone to know your name tomorrow - this is the way.
Modern societies crush people. It breaks them. There are huge contradictions too: the idea of working to succeed when it is actually not working. The idea of freedom vs the wage slavery. The idea of being in a powerful and advanced country but still poor as fuck.
And then you have this culture of guns and violence. They go togethet: you get guns because you believe it can fix problems. Because you believe that killing people can fix problems.
Add 2 and 2 together: you have these life crushing problems, and guns as problem solver. Society provoque the problem. Kill them. Kill them all. Maybe they’ll understand after that and change something.
Far right and conspiracy theory give a theoric foundation for people to focus their rage or despair too.
And this is exactly how the system is designed to work. The purpose of the US gun madness is to keep the population scared. Scared people are more likely to agree to having their rights taken away in the name of “safety”. Having constant mass shootings just helps keep up the atmosphere of fear that authoritarians thrive on.
The world has been pretty shit for the entirety of history. Working conditions are better than they ever have been. People make more than they ever have. Crime is dropping year-over-year.
Arguing that this is occuring because everything is getting worse is just completely and utterly wrong. Quality of life is increasing greatly for the average person.
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