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[smjjames]

Uh. Last I checked this latest guy was straight up trained by a white supremacist group, which so far as what amounts to normal influences for a murder spree goes is fairly unusual, near as I can recall. Don't think it was specifically for the attack, iirc, but yeeaaahh. What happened might not have had too terribly much to do with the school situation and whatnot, per se. Know more later, I guess.

Link? I haven't heard anything about that.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah, I'm aware of that.  But the discussion following doesn't focus on the one incident.  Everyone's talking about how there are so many school shootings.  And to the best of my knowledge, it's normally students berserking under years of emotional baggage or mental illness.

[smjjames]

Paradoxially though, the Republicans talk up a storm blaming mental illness and yet want to decrease funding for the very things that would do what they say they'd like to do.

[nenjin]

Uh. Last I checked this latest guy was straight up trained by a white supremacist group, which so far as what amounts to normal influences for a murder spree goes is fairly unusual, near as I can recall. Don't think it was specifically for the attack, iirc, but yeeaaahh. What happened might not have had too terribly much to do with the school situation and whatnot, per se. Know more later, I guess.

Isn't that the whole white supremacist schtick though? That their country is being taken away from them, that it's being given over to brown people rather than "native" Americans? That they're being squeezed out of their own idealized world by forces they hold contempt for?

[sluissa]

Bullying and fist fights didn't prevent school shootings in the past, and it's not like either of those don't still exist. It's not the lack of a relief valve, it's that the pressure builds so much faster and more violently than it did in the past. There is a mentality out there in some that they have nothing to lose, that their "cause" is more important than human life. Whether we're talking about Brevik or your garden variety school shooter. They want to punish someone, anyone, for something. Whether that's how fucked up they think the world is, or for how fucked up their life is, someone has to pay. Doesn't matter if the victim is guilty of anything, that's not the point.

I think it comes down to a sense and fear of powerlessness. If you don't like the politics you see around you and can't change them (or more likely aren't willing to put out real civic effort to do so....), you can change the conversation with a gun. If you don't like the society you live in, if you feel it doesn't have a place for you or doesn't give a shit about you, if you feel like you have been victimized by it....you could internalize your struggle, like most adults end up doing, and learn to navigate your emotions in a world you don't control.

Or you can just buy a gun and shoot some people and immediately you've made your case. No one will sympathize with you, no one will mourn you, but they will know you. You won't be invisible anymore by virtue of the number of lives you've ruined.

Put another way I guess: as people's sense of alienation from the culture they live in increases, the more contempt and fear they will hold for that culture. Dial the fear and contempt up high enough, and have someone who doesn't have anything else to really live for (success, goals, a family, loved ones), and you will get someone that will take out their feelings on the rest of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings_in_the_United_States#Comparison_of_historical_shootings

They're very much a modern thing. The did happen in the past, but in much fewer numbers. Now this may be related to something else in the modern era. Social media and the 24hr news cycle are other easy targets. But the dramatic uptick was in the 1990s when "zero tolerance" policies in schools started really becoming widespread.

[Frumple]

Isn't that the whole white supremacist schtick though? That their country is being taken away from them, that it's being given over to brown people rather than "native" Americans? That they're being squeezed out of their own idealized world by forces they hold contempt for?

Like, sure, but it's a fair bit more focused than the more passive, for lack of a better word at the moment, pressure you seemed to be talking about. Difference between looking at the world around you and coming to the conclusion it's gone to shit, and being around people actively pushing the message and training you to kill, y'know?

Link? I haven't heard anything about that.

First thing I found looking it up again. Some other links in there, and it's probably usable as a springboard to hunt up other sources if you feel like it.

[smjjames]

Bullying and fist fights didn't prevent school shootings in the past, and it's not like either of those don't still exist. It's not the lack of a relief valve, it's that the pressure builds so much faster and more violently than it did in the past. There is a mentality out there in some that they have nothing to lose, that their "cause" is more important than human life. Whether we're talking about Brevik or your garden variety school shooter. They want to punish someone, anyone, for something. Whether that's how fucked up they think the world is, or for how fucked up their life is, someone has to pay. Doesn't matter if the victim is guilty of anything, that's not the point.

I think it comes down to a sense and fear of powerlessness. If you don't like the politics you see around you and can't change them (or more likely aren't willing to put out real civic effort to do so....), you can change the conversation with a gun. If you don't like the society you live in, if you feel it doesn't have a place for you or doesn't give a shit about you, if you feel like you have been victimized by it....you could internalize your struggle, like most adults end up doing, and learn to navigate your emotions in a world you don't control.

Or you can just buy a gun and shoot some people and immediately you've made your case. No one will sympathize with you, no one will mourn you, but they will know you. You won't be invisible anymore by virtue of the number of lives you've ruined.

Put another way I guess: as people's sense of alienation from the culture they live in increases, the more contempt and fear they will hold for that culture. Dial the fear and contempt up high enough, and have someone who doesn't have anything else to really live for (success, goals, a family, loved ones), and you will get someone that will take out their feelings on the rest of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings_in_the_United_States#Comparison_of_historical_shootings

They're very much a modern thing. The did happen in the past, but in much fewer numbers. Now this may be related to something else in the modern era. Social media and the 24hr news cycle are other easy targets. But the dramatic uptick was in the 1990s when "zero tolerance" policies in schools started really becoming widespread.

Theres also a whole lot of other things that happened in the 90's, there'd have to be a study on whether the zero tolerance stuff really is a factor. I know what you said, but correlation doesn't neccesarily mean causation.

Isn't that the whole white supremacist schtick though? That their country is being taken away from them, that it's being given over to brown people rather than "native" Americans? That they're being squeezed out of their own idealized world by forces they hold contempt for?

Like, sure, but it's a fair bit more focused than the more passive, for lack of a better word at the moment, pressure you seemed to be talking about. Difference between looking at the world around you and coming to the conclusion it's gone to shit, and being around people actively pushing the message and training you to kill, y'know?

Link? I haven't heard anything about that.

First thing I found looking it up again. Some other links in there, and it's probably usable as a springboard to hunt up other sources if you feel like it.

That's one guy claiming it. Might as well have ISIS claim that they trained the guy, it's just a claim with no proof backing it up.

[Frumple]

Eh, for what it's worth the guy's also apparently tried to backtrack on the claim since I had last seen mention of it. Have a better idea later, I guess, if it stays in the news et al long enough people care enough to find out.

[Baffler]

First thing I found looking it up again. Some other links in there, and it's probably usable as a springboard to hunt up other sources if you feel like it.

That whole article is hilarious. I was going to quote the highlights but that ended up being all but the first two sentences. Not top quality guys, for sure.

[Max™]

Regarding Vandals sacking shit: the US has oceans on both sides, some good people (I'm sure) on one side, and shifty maplesuckers on the other. That alone makes the idea of a decline > invasion > collapse laughable before we start talking about the idea of trying to conquer a nation with more guns than people and a strong sense of "fuck you, this is my land" inculcated in said guns... err, people.

[SaberToothTiger]

The more powerful/richer you are the more you are afraid of.

I am extremely sure that isn't the case, heh.

Oh, but when you're wealthy you suddenly realise those damn dirty plebs are terrifying and you must separate yourself from them. Now you also have property you must take care of.

The ultra-rich are very detached from reality at this point, which is why they don't seem afraid. However, all it would take to make an ultra-rich mogul's day worse is one man with a gun in the right place and time. I'm somewhat surprised and dissapointed there are so little attempts on the lives of the modern day moguls, considering they are largely to blame for many of the world's problems.

[Starver]

Yeah, if I'd have clicked to the next page, I would have seen this said already. But Beiber must be mentioned!

They're very much a modern thing. The did happen in the past, but in much fewer numbers. Now this may be related to something else in the modern era. Social media and the 24hr news cycle are other easy targets. But the dramatic uptick was in the 1990s when "zero tolerance" policies in schools started really becoming widespread.

Corrleation does not mean causation¹. The uptick also happens alongside the mass public-deployment of the Internet. And Justin Beiber was born in 1994, the first year with a double-digit total noted (9 during the year of his conception, thrn settling down for a few years as the infant Beiber obviously learnt how to moderate His unholy powers in preparation for his own school-years), so obviously that should be noted as relevent!

¹ It could be argued that there's a reversed causation, but I won't.

[Frumple]

Oh yeah. Dunno if it's been mentioned yet, didn't see it. Actually saw mention walking by the TV, so hey. First(?) indictments of russian individuals for 2016 election tampering. I liked how the news people were talking about how this administration was going to prevent further interference, like the answer wasn't a two word response that started with "fuck" and ended with "all"

[bloop_bleep]

I'm somewhat surprised and dissapointed there are so little attempts on the lives of the modern day moguls, considering they are largely to blame for many of the world's problems.

The last time we tried to kill the rich simply for the fact that they are rich, we ended up with several oppressive totalitarian governments that put the world on the brink of nuclear war for the better part of a century. Passing regulations and defeating corruption produces far better, albeit slow, results. And that's just considering the practical aspect of it, and not the ethical ramifications of murdering people simply because they happened to make some money.

[JoshuaFH]

God do I want to know what is causing the uptick in shootings, just out of anthropological interest. Overall, I'm sure the total number of crimes is decreasing, and society is technically safer than it's ever been... but then we have the rare, but possibly increasing, chance of truly heinous atrocities happening seemingly at random, and there's definitely a recurrent cause to it all.