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It would be better if cloudflare terminated service for all media outlets. Every time you turn a mass shooting into a national spectacle, it inspires copycats i

by umvi 7y ago

It would be better if cloudflare terminated service for all media outlets. Every time you turn a mass shooting into a national spectacle, it inspires copycats in rapid succession as we've just seen. Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically). Keep it local news, don't publish the name of the killer, basically keep the story away from the front lines. By turning every mass shooting into a hysterical emotional maelstrom, you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention.

duxup 7y ago
I believe the research is more nuanced. The murderers like the idea of their face on TV and their words read to the world. And content that shows chaos. They don't like stories about the victims portrayed as people with lives, scenes of community comming together, and etc. NPR did some stories about that research and shortly after you saw more stories about the victims lives.
mhh__ 7y ago
> you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention. As pointed out by an ever prescient Charlie Brooker almost ten fucking years ago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4). On a similar subject, The Samaritans publish very specific and thorough guidelines as to how to report and publish suicides (https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/ https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines...) which are still ignored by many even if unknowingly.
tomlockwood 7y ago
All around the world people listen to and see the same news stories. I woke up yesterday thinking that the media was reporting on the same mass shooting, but I figured out it was another new and predictably American assault rifle massacre pretty quickly.
- cyberferret 7y ago
  I don't know why you are getting downvoted. It is the same here. Every time I see a US city name in my Twitter sidebar here in Australia, I just know that it is another mass shooting without having to click. I hate that it has become so common now that I have just stopped clicking to find out more about them. This sort of thing used to horrify me, but nowadays I just feel so numb about it, and that scares me because I feel that I am becoming less empathetic and more cynical.
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    I also wonder if Americans who think this is a problem with the media inspiring more shootings would take the same tack on reporting terrorist incidents. Wouldn't it make sense to say we shouldn't report on them, given that attitude? I'm a US/AU dual citizen and I've visited America quite often over the last few years, and it feels like we hear about the shootings only very slightly less in Australia than in the US. Here they're still front page news, and my co-workers are all talking about them. Had some friends from San Diego and Houston over in the last few weeks and the commented on how safe Sydney feels, even in the grimy parts. They said that they had a need for situational awareness at all times in the US, but here it feels like it wasn't so necessary. At this point I'm certainly not looking at America as the safe haven of liberal democracy or freedom. I feel freer walking around the streets near public housing here than I do in the financial district in SF. But I guess in America you get to own guns with a high clip capacity, bump stocks, and get to post white nationalist manifestos on message boards? Cool.
    - madamelic 7y ago
      How do you feel like "mental illness" argument holds up between AU and US? I think most people's fears are around unhinged homeless than random shooters.
      - tomlockwood 7y ago
        I feel like if America has a mental illness problem, surely it would be addressed by providing more mental health services perhaps cough universally to the populace somehow. But, it's all rhetoric. If claims there was a mental illness problem were in good faith, we'd see American action on mental health.
zzzeek 7y ago
by not reporting on it, the public is not made aware of this very tragic problem which can in fact be improved by several orders of magnitude with the return of some simple political will. Political will requires media publicity, so in that sense, the media is doing the right thing here.
- Erudire_Genius 7y ago
  Spoken like a true fascist.
- hi5eyes 7y ago
  *so in that sense, the media is juicing its numbers thats all they're doing >public is not made aware of this very tragic problem everyone is quite aware of what the problems are, many view the children murdered during Sandy Hook as the end of the conversation. The decisions were made. most first world countries have solved these problems, the US meanwhile... ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
  - internet_user 7y ago
    Think about this event for 1 minute: He drove for -9- hours. NINE HOURS. Do you think it would take less than 9 hours to pour some diesel fuel on fertilizer and flatten the entire WalMart? People will just move on to other weapons: knives, bombs, etc. Norway has very restrictive gun laws. Breivik managed to get enough fertilizer to make a bomb that was mostly a distraction, but still sent 8 people to grave and injured hundreds. UK is having a knife problem: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48186035 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48186035 You are at 10x higher chance of death by vehicle. The -only- reason it is seen as a tragedy because people feel those deaths were somehow avoidable.
    - millstone 7y ago
      What's your prescription for reducing US homicide death to European levels?
untog 7y ago
> Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically) Logic like that is usually applied to forces of nature. Or at least things that provide utility in return for this risk (e.g. cars). Mass shootings don't really fit that mould. "stop telling people things" strikes me as a strange response. We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying under the radar entirely. Sometimes issues need to faced head on. (and even if the national media didn't say a peep, 8Chan would be all over it, tracking the number of deaths for their high score board. It's a forum for radicalisation that's been ignored for a very long time)
- roenxi 7y ago
  > We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying under the radar entirely. There are published statistics. They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving and worrying about bad habits that have health impacts. We'd know if there was a problem and the evidence is that your greatest enemy is you. It'd be interesting to get statistics on how many of these shootings are linked to drug abuse though. > Logic like that is usually applied to forces of nature. Good decisions that feel bad will get a better result than bad decisions that feel good. Politics is almost always improved by people taking deep breaths and not focusing too much on what is happening today - ideally using logic although simply sticking to process is good enough for me.
  - untog 7y ago
    > They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving And it has been. Look at the data for car death over time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... For decades the government has passed laws and regulations that have forced car manufacturers and owners to prioritise safety over all else: seat belts, air bags, crumple-resistant frames... the list goes on and on. The results have been a massive success. It's an example of effective government. They could do the same for guns, if they had the political will. The only way they get the political will is if voters demand it. The only way voters demand it is if they are aware of the problem.
samstave 7y ago
I am completely against not publishing the name of the shooter. I want to know who these shitbags are. I want their entire family shamed. Who was the shitty ass parents who raised the murderer? Who were his failed doctors or teachers of friens who failed to help prevent. I want to know every god amn detail about this person.. Look at vegas. Look at the failed police/FBI/CIA/whatever investigation that has provided ZERO detailas about Paddock and how he carried out a killing of 58 people, shot over 500 people and we have ZERO details. So fuck this idea that we shouldnt be revealing their names. We should be shaming the ENTIRE POPULATION in his orbit if they had any indication. We also need a full toxicology report FUCKING ONLINE and compared to every single other person who has done this. Are they all taking Zoloft for example? Where is big pharma in here. The aurora shooter looked like a freaking mental patient in court. Why was he allowed to dye his hair AFTER his arrest. The idea that we need to be some sleepy apologetic society is bullshit. This is some shady shit going on. My personal opinion is that the pedo world is distracting from the epstein case with this. PLEASE FUCKING DOWNVOTE ME, because you have NO argument against what I have just said.
- illuminati1911 7y ago
  I this sarcasm? I honestly find it hard to believe someone would post something like this on HN seriously.
  - samstave 7y ago
    Then youre an idiot to think that after being on HN for over a decade and paying attention to stories from the full spectrum that somemone on HN is going to compartmentalize so fucking hard against a major flaw in our society. Look at your username - and you dont think that someone who has been online since 1993 and on HN for as long as I have isnt going to pay attention to the shit that is going on in our world. Give me a break. I speak my mind on HN - and have for many years. Sometimes Dang gets mad at me - but I participate in this community daily for more than a decade. and I pay attention. There is something shady going on. and its all related to epstein and his dead mans switch.
  - christoph 7y ago
BoiledCabbage 7y ago
> Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically). Keep it local news, don't The problem is there is a simmering domestic nationalistic terrorism threat to the country - and that is news. The killer in TX directly referenced it, as did very many of the prior mass-murders of recent. That is noteworthy, and fundamentally different from people killed in a gas station robbery. This rising domestic terrorism is fed and incited by nationalistic groups who have explicitly stated this as their plans and goals. Yes the media could adjust how they report it, but that's not the root problem here. It's an intentionally fostered growing domestic nationalist terrorism.
- colordrops 7y ago
  Can you cite evidence for this? My understanding is that deaths due to mass shootings hasn't really changed since the 70s, but rather the media coverage has expanded.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - RobAtticus 7y ago
    That seems unlikely. The first graph[1] on this Wiki[2] article shows from 1982 until 2017 -- so not the exact range you mentioned -- but it shows that mass shooting deaths are higher today than decades ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Total_deaths_in_US_mass_shootings.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Sure, but the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 "killed at least 168 people, [and] injured more than 680 others".[0] And annual traffic deaths were 50K-35K during the 90s through the 01s.[1] 0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT...
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
While this may be a contributing factor, it seems obvious that a major problem with these mass shootings is that The USA Government is doing nothing to even attempt to prevent the next one. Correct me if I’m wrong, would definitely like to change that opinion.
kennywinker 7y ago
Every other country in the western world reports mass shootings in roughly the same way - yet shooting happen at a much lower rate per capita.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
yongjik 7y ago
In every other, let's say, G20 country, someone shooting up a shopping mall and killing 20 will absolutely make national news - they will talk about it for months and it will be ranked "top ten worst news for $country in 2019", if not the absolute worst. In some countries (let's say, Korea) reporters will probably dig into the shooter's elementary school transcripts and interview second cousins. In other words, if anyone is aiming for notoriety, shooting up people in Seoul or Tokyo will give you an eternal place in national zeitgeist, while in America you will be famous until the next shooting: A few months? Weeks? Yet nobody's (thankfully) taking up the opportunity in these other countries. Certainly not every week, or even every year. It's not the media. It's not attention-seeking. It's not games (duh). Maybe it's a bit about mental health, but other countries also have problems with crazies and they don't just shoot up schools and nightclubs. Can we stop beating around the bush?
- gruez 7y ago
  >In other words, if anyone is aiming for notoriety, shooting up people in Seoul or Tokyo will give you an eternal place in national zeitgeist, while in America you will be famous until the next shooting: A few months? Weeks? Good luck buying guns in Korea/Japan (or any country[1] for that matter) as a tourist, or smuggling them in. It's significantly easier to get guns where you normally reside. [1] Except maybe the US. Is the gunshow exemption still around?
  - javagram 7y ago
    There’s no gun show exemption. There’s a private sale exemption, because the law doesn’t allow private sellers to access the background check system. Registered FFL holders selling guns at a show have to do the same background checks they’d do anywhere else.
  - ufmace 7y ago
    There never was a gunshow exemption. Federally licensed dealers must follow the same process to sell a gun no matter where they do it - at their brick-and-mortar store, at a gunshow, or in a parking lot. Individuals can sell a personally owned firearm to anyone in the same state with no check, and where the sale is made has no relevance.
dghughes 7y ago
I disagree. News reports what happened. These days people seem to see news organizations as the enemy or at least the news organizations they don't like. Although one thing I have noticed about news these days is it tends to voice personal opinion openly much more than years ago. Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings wouldn't spout their own opinion they'd tell you what happened, and that's it. Show the bodies, name the attackers, send reports to the NRA, government officials don't take no for an answer hound them day and night for a reply. Make it uncomfortable for everyone so much so that everyone wants to prevent another event from occurring. There is no way to hide what happened or who did it in this age of information. If information lacking people just make up their own story or create conspiracy theories to fill the void.
- ojbyrne 7y ago
  https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M
- airforce1 7y ago
  > News reports what happened. selectively reports what happened, and only if it tells the right narrative and/or generates clicks, yes. Mass shooting where 3 innocents die = clicks and correct narrative and will therefore be reported. DUI crash where 5 innocents die = boring, wrong narrative; no report Civilian kills police officer = boring, wrong narrative; no report Police officer kills civilian (esp. with different color skin) = clicks and correct narrative and will therefore be reported
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > Civilian kills police officer = boring, wrong narrative; no report You're kidding, right? Cops getting doused in water got national news coverage. So'd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_killings_of_NYPD_officers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_killings_of_NYPD_officers
    - jlawson 7y ago
      The case you cited isn't just a civilian killing a cop at a traffic stop or during a random crime. It's a targeted assassination of two police officers for politicial reasons. It's more terrorism than crime. This makes it very newsworthy. Equally, if a cop went out purely to kill some black men for reasons of political revenge, that would be newsworthy in a way that a random death at a traffic stop is not. The status quo, however, is that random traffic stop deaths of white guys are not newsworthy, but random traffic stop deaths of black guys are national news. That racist double standard is what's being called out.
rdtsc 7y ago
> By turning every mass shooting into a hysterical emotional maelstrom, you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention. I can see that point. There is also something odd about what shootings get publicized and which don't. Some shooters, seem to be getting more media attention than others. Is it the manifestos or maybe the number of victims? I remember the Congressional baseball shooting, but I think there was no manifesto so it wasn't talked about as much, even though it involved members of Congress. The Christchurch one was publicized and was very visible, and there was a manifesto. The youtube shooter was a strange case. Given what media likes to do, I would have expected that one to be front page news for a long time since it had a manifesto in her videos and it involved a major tech company. However, it disappeared from the news cycle relatively quickly. Now, I would rather they all not be publicized as much. There needs to be legislative action about guns, what resources, especially mental health, are available, etc. But, it is probably better if that is handled after some time and not in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
- ufmace 7y ago
  It's the politics. If it helps the narrative of the left, it gets wall-to-wall coverage. If it hurts the narrative of the left, it goes down the memory hole as fast as possible.
- 01100011 7y ago
  What do you think is more likely: 1. News media decides how long to keep a story active in the news cycle in order to push a narrative. 2. News media reacts to the attention a story received and keeps popular stories active longer to sell more ads.
  - rdtsc 7y ago
    Actually not sure. I guess even for 2, why is there more attention received for some vs others? So it's a bit tautological / recursive. The media is in the middle of the feedback loop, it can both generate attention and react to it. Given that position they push a narrative if it gets more ad views.
- 7y ago
TheCondor 7y ago
You’d have to establish that they are copycats, definitively.
anigbrowl 7y ago
The idea that the problem will go away if we talk as little as possible about it isn't borne out by experience. Why wouldn't you just expect independent media outlets to fill the information vacuum? I hear this argument a lot after every terrorist incident but in ~30 years nobody has ever provided any solid evidence to back it up.
lasagnaphil 7y ago
The problem is, mass shootings generate a lot of revenue for media companies in terms of clicks, so when one major online newspapers posts something about it, the rest of them would follow. (Capitalism can really commoditize anything, right?)
guywhocodes 7y ago
Hey, now that might actually work. Can't have that

by umvi 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

I believe the research is more nuanced. The murderers like the idea of their face on TV and their words read to the world. And content that shows chaos. They don't like stories about the victims portrayed as people with lives, scenes of community comming together, and etc. NPR did some stories about that research and shortly after you saw more stories about the victims lives.

mhh__ 7y ago

> you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention. As pointed out by an ever prescient Charlie Brooker almost ten fucking years ago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4). On a similar subject, The Samaritans publish very specific and thorough guidelines as to how to report and publish suicides (https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/ https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines...) which are still ignored by many even if unknowingly.

tomlockwood 7y ago

All around the world people listen to and see the same news stories. I woke up yesterday thinking that the media was reporting on the same mass shooting, but I figured out it was another new and predictably American assault rifle massacre pretty quickly.

cyberferret 7y ago
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. It is the same here. Every time I see a US city name in my Twitter sidebar here in Australia, I just know that it is another mass shooting without having to click. I hate that it has become so common now that I have just stopped clicking to find out more about them. This sort of thing used to horrify me, but nowadays I just feel so numb about it, and that scares me because I feel that I am becoming less empathetic and more cynical.
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  I also wonder if Americans who think this is a problem with the media inspiring more shootings would take the same tack on reporting terrorist incidents. Wouldn't it make sense to say we shouldn't report on them, given that attitude? I'm a US/AU dual citizen and I've visited America quite often over the last few years, and it feels like we hear about the shootings only very slightly less in Australia than in the US. Here they're still front page news, and my co-workers are all talking about them. Had some friends from San Diego and Houston over in the last few weeks and the commented on how safe Sydney feels, even in the grimy parts. They said that they had a need for situational awareness at all times in the US, but here it feels like it wasn't so necessary. At this point I'm certainly not looking at America as the safe haven of liberal democracy or freedom. I feel freer walking around the streets near public housing here than I do in the financial district in SF. But I guess in America you get to own guns with a high clip capacity, bump stocks, and get to post white nationalist manifestos on message boards? Cool.
  - madamelic 7y ago
    How do you feel like "mental illness" argument holds up between AU and US? I think most people's fears are around unhinged homeless than random shooters.
    - tomlockwood 7y ago
      I feel like if America has a mental illness problem, surely it would be addressed by providing more mental health services perhaps cough universally to the populace somehow. But, it's all rhetoric. If claims there was a mental illness problem were in good faith, we'd see American action on mental health.

zzzeek 7y ago

by not reporting on it, the public is not made aware of this very tragic problem which can in fact be improved by several orders of magnitude with the return of some simple political will. Political will requires media publicity, so in that sense, the media is doing the right thing here.

Erudire_Genius 7y ago
Spoken like a true fascist.
hi5eyes 7y ago
*so in that sense, the media is juicing its numbers thats all they're doing >public is not made aware of this very tragic problem everyone is quite aware of what the problems are, many view the children murdered during Sandy Hook as the end of the conversation. The decisions were made. most first world countries have solved these problems, the US meanwhile... ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
- internet_user 7y ago
  Think about this event for 1 minute: He drove for -9- hours. NINE HOURS. Do you think it would take less than 9 hours to pour some diesel fuel on fertilizer and flatten the entire WalMart? People will just move on to other weapons: knives, bombs, etc. Norway has very restrictive gun laws. Breivik managed to get enough fertilizer to make a bomb that was mostly a distraction, but still sent 8 people to grave and injured hundreds. UK is having a knife problem: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48186035 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48186035 You are at 10x higher chance of death by vehicle. The -only- reason it is seen as a tragedy because people feel those deaths were somehow avoidable.
  - millstone 7y ago
    What's your prescription for reducing US homicide death to European levels?

untog 7y ago

> Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically) Logic like that is usually applied to forces of nature. Or at least things that provide utility in return for this risk (e.g. cars). Mass shootings don't really fit that mould. "stop telling people things" strikes me as a strange response. We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying under the radar entirely. Sometimes issues need to faced head on. (and even if the national media didn't say a peep, 8Chan would be all over it, tracking the number of deaths for their high score board. It's a forum for radicalisation that's been ignored for a very long time)

roenxi 7y ago
> We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying under the radar entirely. There are published statistics. They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving and worrying about bad habits that have health impacts. We'd know if there was a problem and the evidence is that your greatest enemy is you. It'd be interesting to get statistics on how many of these shootings are linked to drug abuse though. > Logic like that is usually applied to forces of nature. Good decisions that feel bad will get a better result than bad decisions that feel good. Politics is almost always improved by people taking deep breaths and not focusing too much on what is happening today - ideally using logic although simply sticking to process is good enough for me.
- untog 7y ago
  > They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving And it has been. Look at the data for car death over time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... For decades the government has passed laws and regulations that have forced car manufacturers and owners to prioritise safety over all else: seat belts, air bags, crumple-resistant frames... the list goes on and on. The results have been a massive success. It's an example of effective government. They could do the same for guns, if they had the political will. The only way they get the political will is if voters demand it. The only way voters demand it is if they are aware of the problem.

samstave 7y ago

I am completely against not publishing the name of the shooter. I want to know who these shitbags are. I want their entire family shamed. Who was the shitty ass parents who raised the murderer? Who were his failed doctors or teachers of friens who failed to help prevent. I want to know every god amn detail about this person.. Look at vegas. Look at the failed police/FBI/CIA/whatever investigation that has provided ZERO detailas about Paddock and how he carried out a killing of 58 people, shot over 500 people and we have ZERO details. So fuck this idea that we shouldnt be revealing their names. We should be shaming the ENTIRE POPULATION in his orbit if they had any indication. We also need a full toxicology report FUCKING ONLINE and compared to every single other person who has done this. Are they all taking Zoloft for example? Where is big pharma in here. The aurora shooter looked like a freaking mental patient in court. Why was he allowed to dye his hair AFTER his arrest. The idea that we need to be some sleepy apologetic society is bullshit. This is some shady shit going on. My personal opinion is that the pedo world is distracting from the epstein case with this. PLEASE FUCKING DOWNVOTE ME, because you have NO argument against what I have just said.

illuminati1911 7y ago
I this sarcasm? I honestly find it hard to believe someone would post something like this on HN seriously.
- samstave 7y ago
  Then youre an idiot to think that after being on HN for over a decade and paying attention to stories from the full spectrum that somemone on HN is going to compartmentalize so fucking hard against a major flaw in our society. Look at your username - and you dont think that someone who has been online since 1993 and on HN for as long as I have isnt going to pay attention to the shit that is going on in our world. Give me a break. I speak my mind on HN - and have for many years. Sometimes Dang gets mad at me - but I participate in this community daily for more than a decade. and I pay attention. There is something shady going on. and its all related to epstein and his dead mans switch.
- christoph 7y ago

BoiledCabbage 7y ago

> Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically). Keep it local news, don't The problem is there is a simmering domestic nationalistic terrorism threat to the country - and that is news. The killer in TX directly referenced it, as did very many of the prior mass-murders of recent. That is noteworthy, and fundamentally different from people killed in a gas station robbery. This rising domestic terrorism is fed and incited by nationalistic groups who have explicitly stated this as their plans and goals. Yes the media could adjust how they report it, but that's not the root problem here. It's an intentionally fostered growing domestic nationalist terrorism.

colordrops 7y ago
Can you cite evidence for this? My understanding is that deaths due to mass shootings hasn't really changed since the 70s, but rather the media coverage has expanded.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- RobAtticus 7y ago
  That seems unlikely. The first graph[1] on this Wiki[2] article shows from 1982 until 2017 -- so not the exact range you mentioned -- but it shows that mass shooting deaths are higher today than decades ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Total_deaths_in_US_mass_shootings.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Sure, but the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 "killed at least 168 people, [and] injured more than 680 others".[0] And annual traffic deaths were 50K-35K during the 90s through the 01s.[1] 0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT...

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

While this may be a contributing factor, it seems obvious that a major problem with these mass shootings is that The USA Government is doing nothing to even attempt to prevent the next one. Correct me if I’m wrong, would definitely like to change that opinion.

kennywinker 7y ago

Every other country in the western world reports mass shootings in roughly the same way - yet shooting happen at a much lower rate per capita.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

yongjik 7y ago

In every other, let's say, G20 country, someone shooting up a shopping mall and killing 20 will absolutely make national news - they will talk about it for months and it will be ranked "top ten worst news for $country in 2019", if not the absolute worst. In some countries (let's say, Korea) reporters will probably dig into the shooter's elementary school transcripts and interview second cousins. In other words, if anyone is aiming for notoriety, shooting up people in Seoul or Tokyo will give you an eternal place in national zeitgeist, while in America you will be famous until the next shooting: A few months? Weeks? Yet nobody's (thankfully) taking up the opportunity in these other countries. Certainly not every week, or even every year. It's not the media. It's not attention-seeking. It's not games (duh). Maybe it's a bit about mental health, but other countries also have problems with crazies and they don't just shoot up schools and nightclubs. Can we stop beating around the bush?

gruez 7y ago
>In other words, if anyone is aiming for notoriety, shooting up people in Seoul or Tokyo will give you an eternal place in national zeitgeist, while in America you will be famous until the next shooting: A few months? Weeks? Good luck buying guns in Korea/Japan (or any country[1] for that matter) as a tourist, or smuggling them in. It's significantly easier to get guns where you normally reside. [1] Except maybe the US. Is the gunshow exemption still around?
- javagram 7y ago
  There’s no gun show exemption. There’s a private sale exemption, because the law doesn’t allow private sellers to access the background check system. Registered FFL holders selling guns at a show have to do the same background checks they’d do anywhere else.
- ufmace 7y ago
  There never was a gunshow exemption. Federally licensed dealers must follow the same process to sell a gun no matter where they do it - at their brick-and-mortar store, at a gunshow, or in a parking lot. Individuals can sell a personally owned firearm to anyone in the same state with no check, and where the sale is made has no relevance.

dghughes 7y ago

I disagree. News reports what happened. These days people seem to see news organizations as the enemy or at least the news organizations they don't like. Although one thing I have noticed about news these days is it tends to voice personal opinion openly much more than years ago. Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings wouldn't spout their own opinion they'd tell you what happened, and that's it. Show the bodies, name the attackers, send reports to the NRA, government officials don't take no for an answer hound them day and night for a reply. Make it uncomfortable for everyone so much so that everyone wants to prevent another event from occurring. There is no way to hide what happened or who did it in this age of information. If information lacking people just make up their own story or create conspiracy theories to fill the void.

ojbyrne 7y ago
https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M
airforce1 7y ago
> News reports what happened. selectively reports what happened, and only if it tells the right narrative and/or generates clicks, yes. Mass shooting where 3 innocents die = clicks and correct narrative and will therefore be reported. DUI crash where 5 innocents die = boring, wrong narrative; no report Civilian kills police officer = boring, wrong narrative; no report Police officer kills civilian (esp. with different color skin) = clicks and correct narrative and will therefore be reported
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > Civilian kills police officer = boring, wrong narrative; no report You're kidding, right? Cops getting doused in water got national news coverage. So'd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_killings_of_NYPD_officers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_killings_of_NYPD_officers
  - jlawson 7y ago
    The case you cited isn't just a civilian killing a cop at a traffic stop or during a random crime. It's a targeted assassination of two police officers for politicial reasons. It's more terrorism than crime. This makes it very newsworthy. Equally, if a cop went out purely to kill some black men for reasons of political revenge, that would be newsworthy in a way that a random death at a traffic stop is not. The status quo, however, is that random traffic stop deaths of white guys are not newsworthy, but random traffic stop deaths of black guys are national news. That racist double standard is what's being called out.

rdtsc 7y ago

> By turning every mass shooting into a hysterical emotional maelstrom, you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention. I can see that point. There is also something odd about what shootings get publicized and which don't. Some shooters, seem to be getting more media attention than others. Is it the manifestos or maybe the number of victims? I remember the Congressional baseball shooting, but I think there was no manifesto so it wasn't talked about as much, even though it involved members of Congress. The Christchurch one was publicized and was very visible, and there was a manifesto. The youtube shooter was a strange case. Given what media likes to do, I would have expected that one to be front page news for a long time since it had a manifesto in her videos and it involved a major tech company. However, it disappeared from the news cycle relatively quickly. Now, I would rather they all not be publicized as much. There needs to be legislative action about guns, what resources, especially mental health, are available, etc. But, it is probably better if that is handled after some time and not in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

ufmace 7y ago
It's the politics. If it helps the narrative of the left, it gets wall-to-wall coverage. If it hurts the narrative of the left, it goes down the memory hole as fast as possible.
01100011 7y ago
What do you think is more likely: 1. News media decides how long to keep a story active in the news cycle in order to push a narrative. 2. News media reacts to the attention a story received and keeps popular stories active longer to sell more ads.
- rdtsc 7y ago
  Actually not sure. I guess even for 2, why is there more attention received for some vs others? So it's a bit tautological / recursive. The media is in the middle of the feedback loop, it can both generate attention and react to it. Given that position they push a narrative if it gets more ad views.
7y ago

TheCondor 7y ago

You’d have to establish that they are copycats, definitively.

anigbrowl 7y ago

The idea that the problem will go away if we talk as little as possible about it isn't borne out by experience. Why wouldn't you just expect independent media outlets to fill the information vacuum? I hear this argument a lot after every terrorist incident but in ~30 years nobody has ever provided any solid evidence to back it up.

lasagnaphil 7y ago

The problem is, mass shootings generate a lot of revenue for media companies in terms of clicks, so when one major online newspapers posts something about it, the rest of them would follow. (Capitalism can really commoditize anything, right?)

guywhocodes 7y ago

Hey, now that might actually work. Can't have that