Culture of Shootings , "Thoughts and Prayers" But No Solutions

The "culture" of shootings......covers all shootings.........not just t"mass " shootings ...........but I guess it is how you interpret it.

 

The culture of shootings boil down to violence. Some cultures in America romanticize more so than others. The American culture as a whole romanticizes violence more than some other countries as a whole. The idea that violence can resolve violence more so than the law can is one example. But I don’t think the problem will be resolved by regulation of arms. Many many countries stand as proof that’s not true. It most definitely is a culture problem not a legislative problem

 

Valid points, Joe. America and violence have been integrated since the beginning...........and violence/ shootings are now just part of the american DNA.

The gun "culture" is far too enchanted in this country now. If anyone tried to change that or reduce the number of guns around......there would be a revolt.

Weapons are that important to Americans.


You don't find this same thing in other free nations. Other nations have guns too......but they are not such a pronounced factor to them. Their values are different. ( less violent??)

Sometimes it it hard to understand why a free country needs that much weaponry. .... It seems counter intuitive. Other free nations don't..., so it seems it is about cultural / human priorities and conditioning.

 

As ever, there can be no solution as long as gun ownership is treated as a right equal to free speech. Too many mass shooters lack a criminal record for that to be a barrier, and it would be draconian and impractical for the government to go delving into people's mental health as part of a background check, and even then it would be no guarantee one way or another as far as someone's potential to become a mass shooter is concerned.

The only workable solution is the one that remains off the table, which is to rethink the underlying principles of the Second Amendment in line with the deadly efficiency of modern firearms. People imagine, quite falsely, that they need guns to stave off some kind of dictatorship. Of course, the same people largely support a certain former president who repeatedly abused the power of the office to benefit himself and try to remain in office illegitimately, but I digress. They like to imagine that guns are necessary for home defense and personal security, apparently failing to understand that gun control need not be a blanket ban on all guns, nor for that matter must be a total ban of any particular kind of gun. They also like to imagine that criminals will still be armed while law-abiding citizens will not, as they fail to understand that criminals abuse the freedoms afforded by the Second Amendment and our resulting lax gun laws to get hold of their guns in the first place. So much could be done to tighten requirements for gun possession nationwide and thereby limit access by all, including and especially criminals, if it weren't for courts and states so consistently shooting down any effort to do so on the basis of the Second Amendment, a law written at a time when no firearm had the kind of firing rate, reload time and accuracy to make a mass shooting feasible, let alone commonplace as it is now. People had more to fear from Native Americans, bears and rattlesnakes than they did gun-toting psychos looking to make a name for themselves through mass murder, and this country lacked a professional military and the kind of robust police force that we take for granted now.

That raises another important point, of course. If people really care about "blue lives" and truly believe that they matter, then they ought to think about the danger they are put in by all the damned guns in this country as well. So many officers are killed when responding to a call or pulling over a vehicle and being attacked by someone no more mentally fit to have a gun than a mass shooter is, but who can always get one anyway because our gun laws are so fundamentally limited and flawed thanks to how the Second Amendment is interpreted and applied.

 

Let there be a 'revolt.' We need this stupid culture to change, no matter how immature, irresponsible and selfish some gun owners may want to be about it. It's perfectly possible to appreciate and have guns without the kind of overreaching gun freedumb that we have now. Every other western country can easily serve as an example of this.

 

The American psyche has been conditioned for and by violence since the beginning. The pattern is long established now. Violence and shooting have bee normalized now. The fear factor is a component and that is a a powerful contributing factor in the whole guns. violence/ shootings issue. One of the biggest fears is that someone will try to take the guns away..........

Weapons are just that important to the collective psyche. ( the individual reasons may vary)

 

But not every country can serve as an example. You can’t limit your pool to the statistics you like.

 

Exactly.......... It seems to have gone so extreme now.....

It is concerning that folks would rather talk about guns, type of guns, how to handle a gun................than the victims o f each gun violent episode.

the "attitude" seems to be that the victims are just "casualties" of the event......... laws.......is a big factor too.

Other nations seem more humane in their concerns./ priorities ...... and they have weapons too........

 

I would be careful of speaking about Americans in such general terms. People are fundamentally the same as individuals and generally abhor violence and death. I don't have any love of violence and certainly don't regard it as normal. I'm a little numbed to all the news of shootings at this point, but I never stop being angry that it goes on and on with no solution because so many other Americans choose to ignore the problem. How many of them raise a fuss over fertilized eggs and zygotes being killed? It's just absurd.

Rather than fearing people taking guns away, why don't they come to the table and seek a mutually acceptable solution to the problem? Even if it's one that only reduces the frequency of shootings and gun-related accidents, it would be well worth it.

 

and example of what??? A serious gun violence problem?? A nation obsessed with guns?? The world is very aware of the violence in the USA.........

 

In your view......what would be the best compromise that could be achieved that could have a impact on the amount of gun violence??

Yes.....most people do a abhor violence and death.......... but they still seem to have a strong affinity for weapons.......... and have their reasons for same. If you read the thread about the Baldwin shooing..........one gets a distinct feel for the level of gun importance for many. ....

 

Having a more proactive mental health system would more than cut the numbers in half.

 

Absolutely!! You nailed one of the most important components of the issue.

 

I don't know. I could throw out some ideas, such as requiring gun safety training and a license for people to own a gun (at minimum, really), limiting the types of guns that people are legally allowed to keep outside of designated shooting ranges (especially what are commonly called "assault-style" rifles) and likewise restricting handguns. Criminals usually opt for rapid-fire rifles and handguns, and they do a lot of damage with them in a short period of time. That is what these weapons are designed to do, after all, is be highly efficient tools for deadly combat. They belong on a battlefield and a shooting range, not in homes and on the streets, so that's where I would start. Criminals are likely to move to other types of weapons or find ways to get hold of such weapons anyway, but at least it would make it harder for them to obtain those weapons or to cause the kind of mayhem that they seek to, and it would very likely save a lot of lives as a result.

 

Highest rates of gun violence? Libya, Mexico,Brazil, Jamaica, Venezuela, what do you want to compare?

 

OPINION: Kyle Rittenhouse sobbing on the witness stand shows what's wrong with America, writes author and professor Issac Bailey

"Many white Americans probably see themselves in Kyle Rittenhouse — even if some don’t want to say so out loud, writes Issac Bailey, author of “Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man in Trumpland,” for NBC News THINK. That’s why, in many ways, Rittenhouse has already won before his trial is over, Bailey writes."

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/polit...stefO05lbg6310nKlNRWQJI1YbmImzqs/5IWfnxMBAAA=

 

3 killed, 6 injured in Michigan high school shooting; suspected shooter is 15-year-old student

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...d9091aa0bbf4ef284dc0ddf7d4abb252027c596581efa

A kid that just ruined his life at a very young age.............while destroying others.


There is a social "sickness" in this country........and it is not just the pandemic. The PATHOS of violence runs deep now.

 

You don't want solutions. You want something easy to feel like you are doing something.

A solution requires more than just political slogans and an air of superiority.

You don't want solutions you want to feel better.

 

It doesn't though these are isolated incidents and rather uncommon. We live in a resplendent society where violence if you ever experienced it is a mugging but the vast majority of it happens in the home. And I'm betting the that's the root to this.

The solution requires us to examine ourselves and what we do and how we treat each other. It requires a very honestly centered apolitical assessment of family and values. I know broke scoff at this because it was adopted as a political slogan but you have to put that out of your mind. That's what I meant about apolitical. Society ends and begins in the home.

These are realities that you would simply must accept if you want any solution if you can't do that then you don't want a solution.

 

unfortunately introspection and self assessment and even societal assessment is not a strong suit. The culture itself glamorizes violence .......via movies, games etc. Sometimes it seems like the lines between fiction and reality is blurred.

There have been 651 gun shooting this ;year............. so these are not "isolated" or rate incidents. It is endemic.

 

that's a weak excuse it isn't anything you or I can do it's the evil video games with evil movies or the devil made me do it it's all the same crap.

And this is why the problem persists nobody wants to take responsibility for it because it's not my strong suit.

So until you quit with that cop out in those pleas to blame it on someone or something else. Nothing will ever change

And it's all videogames too.

You don't want solutions you just want to wring your hands and cry out. It's a virtue signal it's self centered and it sickens me.

 

I've logged something like 3,000 hours in Call Of Duty. I own multiple firearms. So why haven't I killed anyone? Because I'm not a piece of **** human being....

 

Ok.......let's talk solutions..........

expand on what you think would be solutions.

What I stated is not"excuses"........but can be contributing factors..........as I see it. If we don't fully understand why all these "incidents' happen.........in what is supposed to be a progressive culture.......... solutions can be challenging to find.

 

You are probably a responsible adult.........who exercises good judgement............and has a strong / consecutive value system.