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Everybody 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Wow. 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 ago
    Access 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.
  - hbn 4y ago
    We're discussing why shootings are on the rise in America. The fact that they have guns has remained constant. Stop your bad faith arguing.
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      They are a precondition for what is happening. I'm not arguing it's a 1:1 ratio of guns to mass shootings. I'm also not arguing in bad faith. I could accuse you of communicating in bad faith for not mentioning any of the other countries on Earth. But I believe that would be counterproductive.
krapp 4y ago
Not uniquely evil, but one could make an argument that America's culture does worship violence in ways other cultures don't. The US was founded in violence, after all, by founding fathers who waxed poetic about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. The US famously (and infamously) has the Second Amendment, and a widespread belief amongst its citizens that gun violence is part of a sacred and noble duty, in that it is an expression of the necessary component of liberty for a free state. The US is deeply divided along racial, class and political lines, with a long history of violence along all of those lines. The US never really learned the lessons that other countries did after World War 2, about the dangers of nationalism and militarism. American movies and television are known for their gratuitous violence. The US is the country with the most serial killers. America's pop-cultural fascination with, and romanticizing of violence makes it easy to consider, it's massive amount of easily available guns make it easier to plan, and its cultural preference for individualism over community creates a tendency towards alienation and a lack of empathy which makes violence easier to commit. When one considers that mass shootings tend not to be a problem even in countries with high gun ownership, then one needs to look at the culture for answers. And access to firearms but, of course, this is the US and literally no matter how high the bodies pile up, that will never seriously be on the table. I wonder why?

hbn 4y ago

I 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 ago
Wow. 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 ago
  Access 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.
- hbn 4y ago
  We're discussing why shootings are on the rise in America. The fact that they have guns has remained constant. Stop your bad faith arguing.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    They are a precondition for what is happening. I'm not arguing it's a 1:1 ratio of guns to mass shootings. I'm also not arguing in bad faith. I could accuse you of communicating in bad faith for not mentioning any of the other countries on Earth. But I believe that would be counterproductive.

krapp 4y ago

Not uniquely evil, but one could make an argument that America's culture does worship violence in ways other cultures don't. The US was founded in violence, after all, by founding fathers who waxed poetic about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. The US famously (and infamously) has the Second Amendment, and a widespread belief amongst its citizens that gun violence is part of a sacred and noble duty, in that it is an expression of the necessary component of liberty for a free state. The US is deeply divided along racial, class and political lines, with a long history of violence along all of those lines. The US never really learned the lessons that other countries did after World War 2, about the dangers of nationalism and militarism. American movies and television are known for their gratuitous violence. The US is the country with the most serial killers. America's pop-cultural fascination with, and romanticizing of violence makes it easy to consider, it's massive amount of easily available guns make it easier to plan, and its cultural preference for individualism over community creates a tendency towards alienation and a lack of empathy which makes violence easier to commit. When one considers that mass shootings tend not to be a problem even in countries with high gun ownership, then one needs to look at the culture for answers. And access to firearms but, of course, this is the US and literally no matter how high the bodies pile up, that will never seriously be on the table. I wonder why?