15 ms·
U.S. Mass Shootings On Rise No Matter How You Define Them
- micahdeath 4y agoI wonder if the data correlates to recessions and/or inflation.
- wahnfrieden 4y agojust a lil economic anxiety eh https://theintercept.com/2018/09/18/2016-election-race-class-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/09/18/2016-election-race-class... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economi...
- MSM 4y agoInflation has been at a historical low until very recently, and this stat is comparing 2017-2021 vs other 5 year periods: "There were more mass shootings in the past five years [2017-2021] than in any other half-decade going back to 1966" So no, I don't think it correlates to recessions and/or inflation.
- XorNot 4y agoBack in 2015 Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article which posited that the issue with mass shootings is perhaps that they're more like the threshold theory of action in a riot[1]: within any large group, there's a smaller group are willing to do something - i.e. say a soccer riot where one group starts throwing stuff. Then there's a group of observers who see "a lot" of people doing this, and decide to join in. And then the people who see those people and think "everyone's doing it" and continue it. Ergo mass shootings are on the rise because there are more mass shootings, and no circuit-breakers to interrupt "the riot". [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-...
- thrown321 4y ago
- bushbaba 4y agoI’d assume there were more readily available guns post ww2. If not for guns they’d be making pipe bombs or other weapons.
- blizdiddy 4y agoThat's a totally baseless assumption, and it's wrong. But yeah, just spout whatever comes to your head to the internet and move on.
- scottLobster 4y agoGiven that you could order guns in the Sears catalog with no background check whatsoever back in the day, it's not baseless. Access to guns was demonstrably easier. It's a baseless opinion that there are "too many guns", without even an attempt to define a range for what constitutes "too many". The implication is "there should be no guns", but that's a moral opinion to be debated, not a fact.
- XorNot 4y agoBecause something took time to evolve into a problem doesn't mean it wasn't always a problem.
- bushbaba 4y agoIt’s not. Percentage of Americans owning at least one gun has trended downwards over last 50 years. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-... https://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun%20Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf https://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gu...
- 4y ago
- scottLobster 4y agoI'd say the more clear correlation is social media. Not only can weak-minded people be pulled down various conspiracy rabbit holes that allow them to rationalize their actions, it's also never been easier to become "famous". Given that these shooters are almost always social outcasts craving extreme levels of attention/validation, social media lubricates their fantasies on both ends of the process. Plus the copycat factor from other mass shooters. That said there's no doubt there's in my mind economic conditions contribute. The paths to middle class prosperity in the US are fewer and further between than they used to be. That deprives many of even the aspiration of a better life, leading to nihilism, which can be witnessed in many contexts outside mass shootings (what media is popular, sentiment polls, etc). I also wonder if our Architecture itself contributes. A lot of bedroom community suburbs seem designed to create social isolation. They're just collections of crash pads for long commutes with no communal gathering places.
- kordlessagain 4y agoLoss of tradition through communal, in-person gathering sounds about right to me. Maybe what we need is a version of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer?
- mentat 4y agoThat was designed as a fundamentally subversive set of lessons. I doubt we even have the will to make an accurately subversive movie version of Diamond Age (look at what happened to Altered Carbon), much less create that sort of "book".
- ryandrake 4y agoRecessions, inflation, social media, and loss of communal gatherings also are present in other countries, where mass shootings are rare. In fact, almost all proposed causes of mass shootings fall apart when you consider that the "cause" is also present in other countries that don't have USA's mass-shooting problem. Almost all, but not quite all...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoI wish this was explored more deeply. I used to think that social media was just another facet of the old media, but I am slowly changing my mind on this. There is a vast difference between how FB, Linkedin or other social media operates and interacts with its audience when compared to print, radio or TV. Look at HN. We discuss various events the same way ( process-wise anyway ) as people on FB discuss stuff. It is very interactive and we did not seem to develop appropriate firewall rules for social media yet ( as in, just because TV shows a guy running on water, doesn't mean its possible ). For some reason, we take informal social media utterance with more gravity than official White House statement. I think you are really onto something.
- dragontamer 4y agoInflation of the 1970s was 12%, and in the early 1980s it was 14% YoY.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- everforward 4y agoI don't think it does. I was looking at [1], and it doesn't seem to line up particularly well with inflation charts. Nor do the charts I could find based on number of shootings rather than fatalities. It looks to me like they heavily correlate with presidential elections. Columbine and Virginia tech were the year before an election, Sandy Hook was the year of an election. Even now, it seems like we peak on shootings before elections. 1: https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/fatalities3.png?w=990 https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/fatalities3.p...
- incomingpain 4y ago>I wonder if the data correlates to recessions and/or inflation. The FBI investigated this and found only a minor correlation. Whereas there is a high correlation between financial crisis and depression. Including suicide which accounts for a very large proportion of gun violence. Which made the FBI discovery rather shocking. Social media is also minor correlation, something like 17%. I think the point discovered is that mass shootings are not statistical. They are microscopic in terms of homicide, Mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of homicides in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016, which spans the dotcom bust and financial crisis. They aren't even close in terms of gun violence or even gun crime in general.
- hatware 4y ago
- wahnfrieden 4y ago[flagged]
- chitowneats 4y agoEverybody knows Americans are just uniquely evil people. That's the explanation. Access to weapons obviously has no bearing on the issue. Edit: /s
- hbn 4y agoI don't think anyone would say that. But many young people were quite recently thrown into a situation where they're feeling like even after they did everything right like they were told to - graduated, went to college, got a degree - they're hopeless slaves to student loan debt for the rest of their lives and have no hope of ever owning a home, being able to afford to raise a child, retire at a reasonable age, or live as worry-free as the past few generations. Meanwhile majority of the mainstream political discourse is banal, pointless arguments over stuff that doesn't matter. So obviously nothing is going to change. I wouldn't be surprised if that contributed to people losing their minds and shooting up parades.
- chitowneats 4y agoWow. The mental gymnastics required to contort oneself into the position that student loan debt is more a primary driver of mass shootings in America than access to weapons. People all over the world subsist on a few dollars a week. And you expect me to whip out the world's smallest violin for little Johnny who murdered 6 people and wounded 20 others because he had to take out a loan for college?
- jaywalk 4y agoAccess to weapons in the US is tighter than it ever has been. This stuff wasn't happening in the 50s-70s when mail-order catalogs sold rifles with zero background checks, and kids routinely brought them to school.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- dionian 4y ago
- wahnfrieden 4y ago[flagged]
- bannedbybros 4y ago
- colpabar 4y agoyou could try engaging with an actual argument instead of plugging your ears and shouting
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
- colpabar 4y agowell, don't be surprised if that never works and the site never changes, because comments like this just make people dig in rather than open their minds. great job!
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
- 300bps 4y agoImage you're desperate to feel special. You want to be famous but every crazy thing you've done has gotten no attention. And then you see a mass murderer's face plastered everywhere. Links to their rap songs. Long new stories about their lives. There are several campaigns that argue that this is what is causing the proliferation of mass murders. https://www.dontnamethem.org/ https://www.dontnamethem.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion
- wahnfrieden 4y agoexposure may be a factor but you're willfully ignoring rampant far-right online radicalization
- seanw444 4y agoJesus. The radicalization is happening everywhere. Cut that out.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
- seanw444 4y agoYou absolutely obliterated me. Congrats.
- krapp 4y agoBut only one side's radicals keeps going on shooting sprees.
- pandaman 4y ago
- 4y ago
- stevenjgarner 4y agoInteresting to see the rise with respect to population. The article shows mass shootings increasing 158% (19) from 12 in 1982 to 31 today. In the same timeframe, US population grew by 46% (105,328,915) from 229,476,354 to 334,805,269. [1] [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/population-growth-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/popu...
- sprayk 4y agoDid I miss something? Title was "What You Need to Know About The Rise in U.S. Mass Shootings," but seemed to only tell me "number of mass shootings go up" and "lack of consensus on what qualifies as a mass shooting." The title I saw on HN, "U.S. Mass Shootings on Rise No Matter How You Define Them", seems way more appropriate for an article that never even tries to get into determining causal factors or solutions.
- seanw444 4y agoI find it funny that so many people of other countries have something to say on the matter. You don't understand the U.S. culture, and you probably never will. I will not concede on red flag laws that prop up false accusation. That's like having a backdoor in your encryption, willingly. And I know how 95% of the people on this site feel about that. I will not concede on increasing the age to own firearms. There is no other right in our bill of rights that is only given in full well after legal adulthood has been reached. "You're allowed free speech, but only once your mind has developed enough to where you don't say as many stupid things." Sounds terrible to me. I will not concede on banning certain types of firearms, nor firearm accessories, as the primary point of the 2nd Amendment was to be able to overthrow our own government if it became necessary. "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government (...) it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." ~ Thomas Jefferson "A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies." ~ George Washington The government will not abolish itself. It will go kicking and screaming. Jefferson probably wasn't talking about peacefully abolishing an entire government. You're being disingenuous if you think so. Washington wasn't talking about the Federal army having sole monopoly over the military supply manufactories, otherwise how would a militia function to keep a rogue military and Federal government in check? They wouldn't. There is a problem with violence in America today. I'm not disputing that. The solution is not to ban certain firearms. Or to raise the legal age. Or to ban all firearms. Or to require the government's permission before obtaining a firearm. We need to take unnecessary government spending and put some of it towards training people to be comfortable with firearms, and to respect them. We need to fix society to understand the importance and beauty of life. We need to promote having fathers in the home to teach these kids how to behave. I support fixing the mental health and societal problem. But when it comes to "gun laws", you can "come and take them."
- orwin 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pristineshatter 4y agoI think we have a masculinity problem. I think we need males to do traditionally male things and they need to keep doing these things through high school and beyond. Less therapy, more team sports, competition, exploration, adventure, and craftsmanship.
- nathanaldensr 4y agoExactly. Female approaches to male schooling is disastrous and is the primary reason why my wife and I homeschool our two boys. At school, they were saturated by too much feminine energy; at home, we can balance that out between us.
- pristineshatter 4y agoMy dad passed away and I was raised by an older sister, mom, and maid. I didn't like watching sports, never caused any trouble, and listened to anything I was told. My mental health was shit. It wasn't till I started playing basketball, pushing around and making shots on 'Jocks' who were bigger and more athletic than me, that I felt my mental health completely cured itself. Basketball is an amazing game because you can go to almost any court in the evening and you will find guys who want to play. I often play with scrawny, pimply faced guys who I don't doubt have had thoughts of violence at one point or another, but on the basketball court they ball hard and earn the respect of everyone on the court through teamwork and hustle. It's totally evident to anyone who has experienced it how one good play can do away with anger, resentment and doubt, do the work of years of therapy.
- wizofaus 4y agoIs there actually any real evidence that males brought up without exposure to that particular vein of masculinity are more likely to suffer mental health issues? It's a testable enough hypothesis, though I'd be pretty surprised if a significant correlation was demonstrated, based on my own observations (including of friends with mental health issues that at least partly stem from toxic relationships with their dads. Curiously, one of them was a basketball player).
- Pakdef 4y agoDo they kill more people then police every year (only including shootings)? Police shoots more then 1000 every year...