Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left

I would really like to participate more in this particular line of discussion (why there are more mass shootings now when we have always had guns around), but I am totally slammed at work and will have to check in later. Meanwhile, consider these quick bullet points:

* More hate group inspired information and way easier access to it for pretty much everyone on the planet.

* Men are consistently called toxic and accused of being a major problem in society. I see this constantly.

* Broken homes without a strong, cohesive family unit based around a strong value system of some kind.

* More and accelerated moral decay in part due to the above bullet point, and also due to the rise of technology and the fact that it infests everyone's lives. This has an isolation effect. creating more lonesome/desperate people that feel disconnected from society.

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I don't have to be you to know an object requires speed to impact a force large enough to kill. A vehicle going from standstill to top acceleration requires distance and limited forces acting against it (Newton's third law), and crowds are a type of force. A bullet going from standstill to top acceleration only requires the pull of a trigger. This is why death counts from vehicular attacks are vastly smaller than a gunman firing indiscriminately into a crowd. Just look at the Charlottesville attack: one dead, 28 injured. That attack took place in the same amount of time as the Dayton attack, which killed 9 and injured just as many.

Physics and event planning just don't make this sort of thing possible, especially post-2017.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Thanks for the thoughtful reply...I've been thinking about the cause and solutions to mass shootings. I've concluded that while it's complicated of course, I do think part of the problem is that shooters do seek the anti-hero celebrity of it. The news media never misses a beat to turn each shooting into a media circus complete with live around the clock coverage, and complete with interviews of the survivors and profiling and history of the shooters. To someone who feels isolated and abused by society and is full of rage, these previous shooters then become like legends to be emulated.

It's known that some of the school shooters actively studied previous school shootings and had their favorite mass shootings. As sick as that is, it does seem to be a case of monkey see, monkey do.

A partial solution (and this will probably never be implemented) would be to restrict news media coverage of mass shootings to only having news anchors reading.

What in the world are you talking about? I never said anything about doing the attack from a standstill position. The scumbag in France killed over 80 people not that long ago.

Pre-2017. Large mass + high speed = Thank you for proving my point again.

I can do that now. When you have a job, you get access that the public doesn't have. I've been following the thread and I don't think you know what making a point is.

So your argument is that an individual can kill just as many people, if not more, with a truck? This assumes they have access to a cargo truck, a job that gives them passage in an area closed to public, an event with heavy crowds, and enough roadway to accelerate to at least 60mph. Whereas a mass shooter just needs a couple hundred bucks, a strong trigger finger, and a soft target accessible by foot, which there are hundreds of in everyday America.

OK, I concede to your point. This is why we need autonomous trucks so we can get all those workers and potential mass murders out of the driver seat.

I have no idea which is easier but the point was that there'd still be mass killings.

Oh. Well, in that case, why even bother?

there's where we divert opinions. i don't believe that's possible


it looks ridiculous, but really depends the angle your looking from
mass-shootings f.e are good each way, they'll either buy more guns for protection or fight against them

you keep talking about guns and the most important thing i saw in that meme was health care,
i couldn't care less if your killing yourselves, i mean, i care, but not to that extent,
i still don't agree with guns, i don't believe everyone/anyone should possess one, it's an opinion
i mean, when i see people glorifying america and there democracy and there are SO many problems
it amuses me and makes me angry at the same time,
amuses me when i see who actually said it, some patriotic guy that voted for trump because he insultes him without he even realize and makes me angry when is just some rhetorical gownsman with the same ambition and hypocrisy the president he decided to vote

i don't make an effort to go against the current, or have any pride in it, i just see hypocrisy,
i mean, that's what made trump elected, people got tired of masks, i'm tired as tired anyone can be

not really, but most sources that don't have, or at least i believe don't have an hidden agenda show information that goes together with the picture i made. on the other hand, you don't believe media is owned by the most powerful companies and there information goes together with the picture you made,
i might be expressing myself wrong, the information they give makes our pictures, and that's the problem i believe. and because i saw that problem i started to be skeptical, cynical about most information i see

like i said, i don't care about gun violence, i believe it would be worse if they were blades instead,
these are not independent, it was just a two minutes google search, and are from your newspapers,
new york times: nearly 40,000 people died from guns in u.s. last year, highest in 50 years
(didn't actually read the full article, might prove your point, or not)

i find amazing they let this guy run for president,
the podcast was 5 minutes long and he was already talking about free health care as a human right,
it's not free and more expensive, because it's created to profit to the drug and insurance companies
this guy is the personification of everything i believe in

Before I clicked the link, I said to myself "I bet this includes suicides."

From the article:

"There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides."

Those people would in many cases still be dead, even if there were no guns. Maybe not all of them, but a large portion of them, anyway.

The discussion so far has centered around gun homicides, just to be clear.

I'd wager that many of them would still be alive, depending on their choice of method. The only majorly successful method is a gun. Just about every other method has success rates that are lower than 20%. And not everyone goes on to try again if they fail. With a gun...it's easy to be successful the first time.

Plus, there's planning involved that allows for someone to stop you or to find you or you to back out. Suicide by gun takes all of 2 seconds.

Ran across this today, thought it was somewhat related to this discussion in a sort of meta way...

My Dad is a Right Wing A$$hole

"Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter."



That dude totally got pwned by that op-advice.

I am skeptical. Statistics can be so easily manipulated. This is why I try to stay out of these things. You're already are kinda looking at me funny I bet. A few years back we used to talk data points about climate change. You demonstrated that its pretty easy to manipulate data. And that's true. The problem I have with the Post and that recounting of facts is not so much their data but the way its portrayed. It may even be true that homicides are down. It doesn't really matter.

Shootings are not going down tho are they? I know its hard to track because all of the shootings that don't get reported. Mass shootings are happening more and more frequently too, can we agree? 3 people were shot within a few blocks of me just this week alone. None of them died, so no stats. But I read a story like that and wonder how we can have mass shootings at all? Homicide is down right? So naturally gun violence is also going down right? It paints that picture but that's not what's really happening is it?

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

I'd like to point out Joao has made some really good points in this thread. I think some of the disparaging remarks further illustrates our American arrogance. The dunning kruger effect is particularly high in America when it comes to guns.

two years ago this would be gold for me, it would be like christmas in august,
being in a discussion with american's about there polices and there country?- man, wow

you want the trued? america was always something i was/am very curious about,
so many different cultures in the same place, hollywood obviously helped a lot

but what i was/am curious about are the minorities, that's my real curiosity, not the american dream
my opinions are formulated on racism, gentrification, health care, wars of interest a culture of violence

it's like i lived there, my perspectives are there views because they're the people i'm curious about,
try to change there mind... never worked and neither will until you elect someone that thinks about them

but i empathize, i know we owe america for putting pressure on russia, china and middle east,
they're political correct all the time, but they're diabolic when we're talking about human rights

we owe america most of the technological advancements, and there view on a global world,
but we have to think what will come with all that and you, the creator, have to be open to criticism

What is it Powered Water that you specifically want to say about guns in America?

Sadly it’s behind a paywall but I read this article on Snapchat. Discusses the idea that violent video game communities that are far-right are a greater risk than the games themselves. I kinda wanna say duh but then I realize not many more places are talking about it. So I have to give The Telegraph some props.

Food for thought.