8 ms·

Think outside the box. I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American

Think outside the box. I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American phenomenon. [1] So what is it so special about the US that makes this a recurring problem? Is it poor parenting, without much communication? Is it societal pressure, i.e. Mr Popular vs Mr Loser? Is it easy access to guns? Is it the disproportionate amount of media attention that these cases give to depressed folks with low self-esteem? Is it all of the above? None? I imagine severe depression happens everywhere, but there's got to be something in the US that turns depression into mass murder. I wish someone would analyze the problem from outside the box, not inside. [1] Before someone jumps the gun about international news, note that terror and drug/gang crimes are very different. They have clear, consistent motives. Columbine-like stuff is puzzling- their motives seem to be all over the place, hence why to this date experts are still trying to figure them out.

coenhyde 14y ago
I know American's do not like to hear this but I am of the opinion that it's easy access to guns which is the cause of these mass murders. Now that Australia has gun control, the crazy's just stab a few people. It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife. If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage.
- deleted 14y ago
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  - corin_ 14y ago
    Maybe... but two big differences. First: I live in the UK. I've never wanted to kill someone. If I could legally buy a handgun and use it on a shooting range I would. Let's say someday I, for some reason, become a psycho and want to kill people. Right now I don't have anything like a gun to use, best I could come up with is a kitchen knife. Under US gun law, I'd have a glock, even though when I purchased it I had no intention of using it illegally. Second: Imagine a psycho in a country where you can't own guns. He could buy a gun on the black market - hell, you can even do that online with bitcoins now - but a.) this creates a waiting time between when he wants to do it and when he can do it, during which he might change my mind and b.) there's a chance he might get caught while buying it - if it's legal to own and carry a gun, then he a killer isn't breaking a law until he starts killing, so a smaller chance of preventing him.
    - Frozenlock 14y ago
      Each time I'm amazed by the lack of imagination of imaginary killers. "I don't have a gun... well better take my kitchen knife then!" Really? REALLY? Take your car and ram into people. You will probably be able to kill the same amount (or even more). And while you're in your car, contrary to simply using a gun, you can't be stopped by someone else having a gun. Anyone wanting to stop you in a timely manner would have to sacrifice himself by driving into you. It's easy to point the gun, because its sole purpose is to cause harm (be it in defence or offence), but if someone wants to kill, he can do with or without a firearm.
      - corin_ 14y ago
        Give person A a gun and person B a car and I suspect I know which one would manage to kill more people. edit: Assuming they were both trying to kill as many people as possible.
      - Jach 14y ago
        There's also explosives, home-made or otherwise, and more mundane "domestic terrorism" that goes after food (I mean, grocery stores just put out all the food on easy-access display..), city water supplies, electricity, gas lines... It's fortunate that there are very few real psychotics who want to cause a lot of damage, and also that of those few only a few again are intelligent or imaginative. People have a good reason to suspect a lack of imagination of imaginary killers: real ones don't seem to have much of one. What intrigues me currently about Holmes is that his residence was booby trapped sufficiently that federal experts had to get involved, so he's more capable than the average spree killer. Yet he alerted the authorities about them, he didn't let them "figure it out" with the death of some cops. I don't see any sort of twisted logic in that. But I initially approach this topic with a gamer's "high score" mentality such that even Brevik's count seems small, the behaviors of killers are thus constantly perplexing from that angle.
      - corford 14y ago
        I often think exactly the same thing about terrorists. What kind of half arsed nutbag thinks "I know, I'll strap some explosives to my underpants and get on a plane. That ought to do it!" ?? If you wanted to do serious damage in a reasonably guaranteed way (i.e. not having to get past strict security checks), why not just walk in to a crowded arrivals hall and detonate yourself there? Same goes for large railway stations, shopping smalls etc. I mean, it doesn't take much imagination. Either we're very lucky that most terrorists are completely incompetent or the terrorist threat itself is hugely overblown. I think it's the latter.
  - nodemaker 14y ago
    Maybe a handgun, but I find it pretty hard to imagine a PhD grad student managing to buy a semi automatic assault rifle or 100 round drum magazines off the street. It is not entirely coincidental that Aurora and Columbine happened 20 miles from each other.
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    - 54mf 14y ago
      I agree with your first point. The "black market" isn't a place you just go to if you want to buy illegal shit. The fact is, if the shooter didn't have legal, easy access to an assault rifle, he wouldn't have been able to do the damage he did. Period. "It is not entirely coincidental that Aurora and Columbine happened 20 miles from each other." Well, yeah, it is. Assault rifles are legal in most states. What does being in Colorado have to do with anything?
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        No, not "Period." There are any number of other ways he could do the same damage. We all know that. So don't force in an absolute where it doesn't belong.
        54mf 14y ago
        He rigged his apartment with, supposedly, 30 or so IED/IIDs, and had full body armor during the assault. As far as I can tell, he pulled out all the stops. If he could have done more, I'm pretty sure he would have.
      - nodemaker 14y ago
        Yeah to a great degree it is coincidental I believe. My point being that it happened in a state with lax gun laws as opposed to a state like NY. But yeah I would like to know more about what else is amiss with that area.
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- kiba 14y ago
  If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage. Taking away legal access != eliminating easy access to guns. It still may well be the case that it is easy to buy guns on the black market. On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer.
  - base698 14y ago
    It works so well with drugs. I mean they are illegal and you can't buy them on the street--oh wait.
  - pronoiac 14y ago
    On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer. Has a massacre in the US ever been stopped by someone with a gun, who wasn't a cop?
    - nixme 14y ago
      Possibly the Appalachian School of Law shooting, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_sho...
- kabdib 14y ago
  A blanket ban will (a) have a miserable compliance rate, (b) dramatically increase the value of firearms, and (c) help ensure that law-abiding citizens are defenseless against criminals (who generally don't care if they're already breaking the law). In the 1990s, California attempted mandatory registration of "assault rifles." Compliance was about 10 percent, and was officially acknowledged a failure. I can't imagine what a total ban would look like. House to house patrols? With whom, the army? I'm guessing that nobody would want that job. I conjecture it'd be unconstitutional, or appear that way to enough soldiers and policemen that they wouldn't enforce it. There are 300+ million guns in private hands in the US, in 50M+ households. This is a "wicked problem" if you're looking at a gun ban as the solution. Estimates I've read put the time to effectively zero guns in private hands in the 200-250 year range. A ban just isn't going to be pleasant; it might result in /worse/ violence, both immediately (in reactions and protest) and over time (through creation of victims) -- of course this is not testable, so it'll have to remain rhetoric. I'm going to guess that arming lots of citizens isn't the answer, either. States with concealed carry permits /appear/ to be safer than those without, but a rational deterrent is not going to stop someone who's irrational. In an ideal world we don't need guns, and everybody has a pony. We don't live in an ideal world. tl;dl; Firearms bans in the US are really really hard.
- evan_ 14y ago
  > It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife. The Rwandan genocide was largely carried out with machetes.
kiba 14y ago
I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (with few exceptions) an American phenomenon. [1] Um, what? I can cite two mass murder incident in Japan off the top of my head. There is the Osaka school massacre and the Akihabara massacre.
- rweba 14y ago
  "with few exceptions" I can't back it up with facts but I do have the impression this sort of thing is significantly more common in the US than in any European, Asian, African or South American country. I guess you would have to compile statistics for "Mass murderers with no clear motive per capita" and compile all the incidents going back at least 20 years and you might have evidence for or against. For example, I can imagine this happening in any African countries I am familiar with, so to me it is clear that there is an element of culture involved.
  - kiba 14y ago
    The thing is, a mass murder incident is significantly rare enough to warrant media coverage. The American may simply be unlucky.
- _delirium 14y ago
  I can think of several in Europe as well. Germany alone has suffered two double-digit-victim school shootings in the past decade, despite having a population 1/4 that of the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre. It's interesting that the German media, at the time of Winnenden, often asked an analogous question to the one being asked here: whether it was becoming a particularly German phenomenon. Population-adjusted, it would be as if the US had had eight mass school shootings since Columbine, which it hadn't had.
olalonde 14y ago
I personally don't have an opinion on gun control but it is pretty clear to me that easy access to guns is what stands out.
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  - olalonde 14y ago
    I'm not sure the "middle class individuals who turn out to be lunatics calling them self the Joker or trench coat mafia" in Brazil and Columbia have the necessary street smarts and contacts to buy assault rifles from the black market so easily. Furthermore, as access to guns is a factor amongst many others, it would be more useful to compare the US with countries more culturally and economically closer like the UK, Australia, Germany, Canada etc.
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      - olalonde 14y ago
        I guess we would have to first settle the debate of whether shootings are a more strongly American phenomenon. I tried to do a bit of Googling and couldn't find a satisfying answer.
- epo 14y ago
  I am not an American and it is clear to me that without essentially unrestricted to guns that crimes like this would be less frequent (and probably just not happen). Guns kill things, it is their purpose and easy access to guns makes the killing of people more likely.
objclxt 14y ago
I don't think it is clear at all that "Columbine-like shooting are an American phenomenon". The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. The same is true in other countries around the world - I'm just citing those I'm most familiar with. The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun.
- kiba 14y ago
  The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun. In Japan, one mass murderer kills 8 Japanese schoolchildren with a knife. In another incident, a mass murderer kills 3 people with a truck and then killed 4 individuals on foot. They were eventually arrested and sentenced to death. If somebody was there with a gun, they could have engage the murderer in a firefight instead of defenseless people getting knifed or getting shot.
  - leot 14y ago
    The amount of determination required to do that much killing with a knife would have had its effects amplified by the ready availability of a gun. You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle?
    - kiba 14y ago
      You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? It would not be certainty a fair fight. Even so, a murderer is forced to engage civilians who are shooting at them rather than civilians who are simply defenseless. The only thing a person with handgun can do is buy time for a SWAT team to arrive and the slower the SWAT are, the more likely for death. (See the North Hollywood shootout as an example of this) Nonetheless, I consider the defenders having guns to be an equalizer. In the Virginia Tech massacre incident, the murderer have only two handguns, but he was able to kill 32 individuals.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
The US has a large population and media that tries to scare people. I don't think it's any more common in the US than elsewhere, we just hear about it more from the US since it has a larger population.
- protomyth 14y ago
  Worse, we hear about it 24/7 until the next thing comes along to peak the interest of the media. We don't hear a lot about the 14 things higher on the list of things killing people in the USA (which affects their funding in Congress). Hell, the rush in the media is so obscene that major news networks make stuff up. ABC seems to be the most guilty party this time, but we have had other incidents. We have a no attention span media and it does hurt because we cannot get a good idea of what actually went on, and will never no if there is some warning sign that could of tipped people off (like the whole AZ shooting seems to be a collection of not my problems). I have no idea how we get past this. Concentrating on the object (gun in this case) will not work (check out IED or actual crime rate statistics). Looking at the stats, your safer today then 10 years ago and much safer than the 1970s.
  - bsg75 14y ago
    > I have no idea how we get past this. We won't, as long as "journalism" is a profit driven business, where revenue is based on ad viewership. The result is more entertainment and editorial than education, where the need to be first, even with inaccurate stories, overrides any sense of integrity.
zyb09 14y ago
Probably because US events get a lot more media attention. But no, this is happening all around the world. Just look at this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
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InclinedPlane 14y ago
Right, except for Utoya, Liege, Florence, Alphen aan den Rijn, Bratislava, Cumbria, Sello mall, Winnendon school, Kauhajoki school, Akihabara, Jokela school, Linchang school, Kauhajoki school, Shiguan kindergarten, Rio, Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, Siakago, the Chengdu bus fire, and others. Yup, entirely an "American phenomenon". These aren't terror attacks predominantly. These aren't drug crimes predominantly. These are by and large very comparable to the Columbine or Aurora incidents. The fact is that this is not in any way remotely an "American phenomenon", and the fact that so many people believe that to be the case is an indication of gross ignorance of the existence of these events around the world. I only listed examples of non-US spree or massacre events within the last 5 years, and this isn't even a complete list. Look at the lists on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers Read through the incidents. Even just the ones within the last 10 years. And then tell me with a straight face that this is some sort of especially American event. Edit: If there's one thing I've realized more than anything from reading up about these types of events it's that following the media is a poor substitute for research. I think most people would assume that if you were an avid consumer of news over the last 5 years you would have heard about, say, every worldwide rampage killing that involved more than 5 fatalities, right? But that is far from the truth. A lot of these events received almost no news coverage. I don't think people realize how incredibly selective and incomplete the view of the world through the lens of the global news media is.
- vacri 14y ago
  It's not uniquely American, sure. But Europe has 2.5 times the population of the USA, yet has only 12 listings in the last 10 years in your first link, against the USA's 10. In the second link, the page points to individual pages for rampage killers, which give 19 for the USA in the last 10 years against 13 for Europe. But really, arguing about spree killers isn't really the way to do it, even though they are symptomatic. Much scarier is the US's overall homicide rate - currently at 4.8/100k. Compared to other anglo countries (1.1-1.8k) or western European countries (0.8-0.9), the US is far in excess of these. I think a large part of the problem is that in the US, there's much more focus on resolving problems through the use of firearms - it's manly, it's patriotic, it's in all the movies. Check it out - the highest rate in a western first-world country (= similar culture base) that isn't the US is Israel at 2.1, less than half the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Jach 14y ago
Meta, but this is a great example of the availability bias.

coenhyde 14y ago

I know American's do not like to hear this but I am of the opinion that it's easy access to guns which is the cause of these mass murders. Now that Australia has gun control, the crazy's just stab a few people. It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife. If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage.

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- corin_ 14y ago
  Maybe... but two big differences. First: I live in the UK. I've never wanted to kill someone. If I could legally buy a handgun and use it on a shooting range I would. Let's say someday I, for some reason, become a psycho and want to kill people. Right now I don't have anything like a gun to use, best I could come up with is a kitchen knife. Under US gun law, I'd have a glock, even though when I purchased it I had no intention of using it illegally. Second: Imagine a psycho in a country where you can't own guns. He could buy a gun on the black market - hell, you can even do that online with bitcoins now - but a.) this creates a waiting time between when he wants to do it and when he can do it, during which he might change my mind and b.) there's a chance he might get caught while buying it - if it's legal to own and carry a gun, then he a killer isn't breaking a law until he starts killing, so a smaller chance of preventing him.
  - Frozenlock 14y ago
    Each time I'm amazed by the lack of imagination of imaginary killers. "I don't have a gun... well better take my kitchen knife then!" Really? REALLY? Take your car and ram into people. You will probably be able to kill the same amount (or even more). And while you're in your car, contrary to simply using a gun, you can't be stopped by someone else having a gun. Anyone wanting to stop you in a timely manner would have to sacrifice himself by driving into you. It's easy to point the gun, because its sole purpose is to cause harm (be it in defence or offence), but if someone wants to kill, he can do with or without a firearm.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      Give person A a gun and person B a car and I suspect I know which one would manage to kill more people. edit: Assuming they were both trying to kill as many people as possible.
    - Jach 14y ago
      There's also explosives, home-made or otherwise, and more mundane "domestic terrorism" that goes after food (I mean, grocery stores just put out all the food on easy-access display..), city water supplies, electricity, gas lines... It's fortunate that there are very few real psychotics who want to cause a lot of damage, and also that of those few only a few again are intelligent or imaginative. People have a good reason to suspect a lack of imagination of imaginary killers: real ones don't seem to have much of one. What intrigues me currently about Holmes is that his residence was booby trapped sufficiently that federal experts had to get involved, so he's more capable than the average spree killer. Yet he alerted the authorities about them, he didn't let them "figure it out" with the death of some cops. I don't see any sort of twisted logic in that. But I initially approach this topic with a gamer's "high score" mentality such that even Brevik's count seems small, the behaviors of killers are thus constantly perplexing from that angle.
    - corford 14y ago
      I often think exactly the same thing about terrorists. What kind of half arsed nutbag thinks "I know, I'll strap some explosives to my underpants and get on a plane. That ought to do it!" ?? If you wanted to do serious damage in a reasonably guaranteed way (i.e. not having to get past strict security checks), why not just walk in to a crowded arrivals hall and detonate yourself there? Same goes for large railway stations, shopping smalls etc. I mean, it doesn't take much imagination. Either we're very lucky that most terrorists are completely incompetent or the terrorist threat itself is hugely overblown. I think it's the latter.
- nodemaker 14y ago
  Maybe a handgun, but I find it pretty hard to imagine a PhD grad student managing to buy a semi automatic assault rifle or 100 round drum magazines off the street. It is not entirely coincidental that Aurora and Columbine happened 20 miles from each other.
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  - 54mf 14y ago
    I agree with your first point. The "black market" isn't a place you just go to if you want to buy illegal shit. The fact is, if the shooter didn't have legal, easy access to an assault rifle, he wouldn't have been able to do the damage he did. Period. "It is not entirely coincidental that Aurora and Columbine happened 20 miles from each other." Well, yeah, it is. Assault rifles are legal in most states. What does being in Colorado have to do with anything?
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      No, not "Period." There are any number of other ways he could do the same damage. We all know that. So don't force in an absolute where it doesn't belong.
      - 54mf 14y ago
        He rigged his apartment with, supposedly, 30 or so IED/IIDs, and had full body armor during the assault. As far as I can tell, he pulled out all the stops. If he could have done more, I'm pretty sure he would have.
    - nodemaker 14y ago
      Yeah to a great degree it is coincidental I believe. My point being that it happened in a state with lax gun laws as opposed to a state like NY. But yeah I would like to know more about what else is amiss with that area.
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kiba 14y ago
If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage. Taking away legal access != eliminating easy access to guns. It still may well be the case that it is easy to buy guns on the black market. On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer.
- base698 14y ago
  It works so well with drugs. I mean they are illegal and you can't buy them on the street--oh wait.
- pronoiac 14y ago
  On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer. Has a massacre in the US ever been stopped by someone with a gun, who wasn't a cop?
  - nixme 14y ago
    Possibly the Appalachian School of Law shooting, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_sho...
kabdib 14y ago
A blanket ban will (a) have a miserable compliance rate, (b) dramatically increase the value of firearms, and (c) help ensure that law-abiding citizens are defenseless against criminals (who generally don't care if they're already breaking the law). In the 1990s, California attempted mandatory registration of "assault rifles." Compliance was about 10 percent, and was officially acknowledged a failure. I can't imagine what a total ban would look like. House to house patrols? With whom, the army? I'm guessing that nobody would want that job. I conjecture it'd be unconstitutional, or appear that way to enough soldiers and policemen that they wouldn't enforce it. There are 300+ million guns in private hands in the US, in 50M+ households. This is a "wicked problem" if you're looking at a gun ban as the solution. Estimates I've read put the time to effectively zero guns in private hands in the 200-250 year range. A ban just isn't going to be pleasant; it might result in /worse/ violence, both immediately (in reactions and protest) and over time (through creation of victims) -- of course this is not testable, so it'll have to remain rhetoric. I'm going to guess that arming lots of citizens isn't the answer, either. States with concealed carry permits /appear/ to be safer than those without, but a rational deterrent is not going to stop someone who's irrational. In an ideal world we don't need guns, and everybody has a pony. We don't live in an ideal world. tl;dl; Firearms bans in the US are really really hard.
evan_ 14y ago
> It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife. The Rwandan genocide was largely carried out with machetes.

kiba 14y ago

I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (with few exceptions) an American phenomenon. [1] Um, what? I can cite two mass murder incident in Japan off the top of my head. There is the Osaka school massacre and the Akihabara massacre.

rweba 14y ago
"with few exceptions" I can't back it up with facts but I do have the impression this sort of thing is significantly more common in the US than in any European, Asian, African or South American country. I guess you would have to compile statistics for "Mass murderers with no clear motive per capita" and compile all the incidents going back at least 20 years and you might have evidence for or against. For example, I can imagine this happening in any African countries I am familiar with, so to me it is clear that there is an element of culture involved.
- kiba 14y ago
  The thing is, a mass murder incident is significantly rare enough to warrant media coverage. The American may simply be unlucky.
_delirium 14y ago
I can think of several in Europe as well. Germany alone has suffered two double-digit-victim school shootings in the past decade, despite having a population 1/4 that of the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre. It's interesting that the German media, at the time of Winnenden, often asked an analogous question to the one being asked here: whether it was becoming a particularly German phenomenon. Population-adjusted, it would be as if the US had had eight mass school shootings since Columbine, which it hadn't had.

olalonde 14y ago

I personally don't have an opinion on gun control but it is pretty clear to me that easy access to guns is what stands out.

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- olalonde 14y ago
  I'm not sure the "middle class individuals who turn out to be lunatics calling them self the Joker or trench coat mafia" in Brazil and Columbia have the necessary street smarts and contacts to buy assault rifles from the black market so easily. Furthermore, as access to guns is a factor amongst many others, it would be more useful to compare the US with countries more culturally and economically closer like the UK, Australia, Germany, Canada etc.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    - olalonde 14y ago
      I guess we would have to first settle the debate of whether shootings are a more strongly American phenomenon. I tried to do a bit of Googling and couldn't find a satisfying answer.
epo 14y ago
I am not an American and it is clear to me that without essentially unrestricted to guns that crimes like this would be less frequent (and probably just not happen). Guns kill things, it is their purpose and easy access to guns makes the killing of people more likely.

objclxt 14y ago

I don't think it is clear at all that "Columbine-like shooting are an American phenomenon". The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. The same is true in other countries around the world - I'm just citing those I'm most familiar with. The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun.

kiba 14y ago
The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun. In Japan, one mass murderer kills 8 Japanese schoolchildren with a knife. In another incident, a mass murderer kills 3 people with a truck and then killed 4 individuals on foot. They were eventually arrested and sentenced to death. If somebody was there with a gun, they could have engage the murderer in a firefight instead of defenseless people getting knifed or getting shot.
- leot 14y ago
  The amount of determination required to do that much killing with a knife would have had its effects amplified by the ready availability of a gun. You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle?
  - kiba 14y ago
    You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? It would not be certainty a fair fight. Even so, a murderer is forced to engage civilians who are shooting at them rather than civilians who are simply defenseless. The only thing a person with handgun can do is buy time for a SWAT team to arrive and the slower the SWAT are, the more likely for death. (See the North Hollywood shootout as an example of this) Nonetheless, I consider the defenders having guns to be an equalizer. In the Virginia Tech massacre incident, the murderer have only two handguns, but he was able to kill 32 individuals.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

The US has a large population and media that tries to scare people. I don't think it's any more common in the US than elsewhere, we just hear about it more from the US since it has a larger population.

protomyth 14y ago
Worse, we hear about it 24/7 until the next thing comes along to peak the interest of the media. We don't hear a lot about the 14 things higher on the list of things killing people in the USA (which affects their funding in Congress). Hell, the rush in the media is so obscene that major news networks make stuff up. ABC seems to be the most guilty party this time, but we have had other incidents. We have a no attention span media and it does hurt because we cannot get a good idea of what actually went on, and will never no if there is some warning sign that could of tipped people off (like the whole AZ shooting seems to be a collection of not my problems). I have no idea how we get past this. Concentrating on the object (gun in this case) will not work (check out IED or actual crime rate statistics). Looking at the stats, your safer today then 10 years ago and much safer than the 1970s.
- bsg75 14y ago
  > I have no idea how we get past this. We won't, as long as "journalism" is a profit driven business, where revenue is based on ad viewership. The result is more entertainment and editorial than education, where the need to be first, even with inaccurate stories, overrides any sense of integrity.

zyb09 14y ago

Probably because US events get a lot more media attention. But no, this is happening all around the world. Just look at this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Right, except for Utoya, Liege, Florence, Alphen aan den Rijn, Bratislava, Cumbria, Sello mall, Winnendon school, Kauhajoki school, Akihabara, Jokela school, Linchang school, Kauhajoki school, Shiguan kindergarten, Rio, Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, Siakago, the Chengdu bus fire, and others. Yup, entirely an "American phenomenon". These aren't terror attacks predominantly. These aren't drug crimes predominantly. These are by and large very comparable to the Columbine or Aurora incidents. The fact is that this is not in any way remotely an "American phenomenon", and the fact that so many people believe that to be the case is an indication of gross ignorance of the existence of these events around the world. I only listed examples of non-US spree or massacre events within the last 5 years, and this isn't even a complete list. Look at the lists on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers Read through the incidents. Even just the ones within the last 10 years. And then tell me with a straight face that this is some sort of especially American event. Edit: If there's one thing I've realized more than anything from reading up about these types of events it's that following the media is a poor substitute for research. I think most people would assume that if you were an avid consumer of news over the last 5 years you would have heard about, say, every worldwide rampage killing that involved more than 5 fatalities, right? But that is far from the truth. A lot of these events received almost no news coverage. I don't think people realize how incredibly selective and incomplete the view of the world through the lens of the global news media is.

vacri 14y ago
It's not uniquely American, sure. But Europe has 2.5 times the population of the USA, yet has only 12 listings in the last 10 years in your first link, against the USA's 10. In the second link, the page points to individual pages for rampage killers, which give 19 for the USA in the last 10 years against 13 for Europe. But really, arguing about spree killers isn't really the way to do it, even though they are symptomatic. Much scarier is the US's overall homicide rate - currently at 4.8/100k. Compared to other anglo countries (1.1-1.8k) or western European countries (0.8-0.9), the US is far in excess of these. I think a large part of the problem is that in the US, there's much more focus on resolving problems through the use of firearms - it's manly, it's patriotic, it's in all the movies. Check it out - the highest rate in a western first-world country (= similar culture base) that isn't the US is Israel at 2.1, less than half the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Jach 14y ago

Meta, but this is a great example of the availability bias.