Another Mass Shooting

[Tank]

Insane.

[billy rubin]

open carry is pretty idiotic. but there are places where it makes sense. i knew a cowboy once in california who carried a pistol whenever he was out on the grass. i asked about it, and it turns out he was once working cows and a puma showed up. his horse threw him and ran away and the puma didnt. ever since then he's carried a gun while out there.

open carry is routine in arizona. i worked a cash register in a convenience store, and sidearms were everywhere. my wife worked alone in the arizona mountains living in a tent, and she carried a 357 very prominently to encourage people to leave her alone.

but its problematic for city defense. i prefer people not to knbow that i am carrying a weapon, because that way it doesnt freak them out and it also means nobody is going to grab for it. mostly open carry in towns seems to be a macho thing. trained people carry concealed.

[Icarus]

The macho guys are the ones who worry me Billy, There are a gazillion males out there with an overload of testosterone and a significant deficiency of common sense. They seem to take offense at the slightest disagreement. Beware of the ones who wear cowboy hats. They all seem to believe that they are Wyatt Earp

The most dangerous part of it is that so many of them are Trumpers.  Famous words: "I could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th avenue and not be arrested"

[Tom62]

I'm more concerned about mentally ill guys owning guns. Most of the time the weirdos with a screw loose are the ones who are involved in mass shootings.

[billy rubin]

how do you decide who is mentally ill?

clearly youre correct, but how nuts is nuts?

[Icarus]

Lots of responsible people have one on more of their screws loose. 

I agree that there are some serious mental acrobatics going on inside the brain of serial shooters. Aside from the cerebral gymnastic sessions, many of those shooters seem to display reasonable, even responsible,social behavior.

Most of the shooters are male, between 18 and 26 years old. Typically, they have some sort of grudge against gays, blacks, Jews. Even more likely, they have in the past or presently, endured bullying or perceived social rejection by an individual, group, or institution.

[billy rubin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok

this would happen fairly regularly when i was a kid

i dont understand why western psychologists have never picked up on the connection.

[Tank]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok

this would happen fairly regularly when i was a kid

i dont understand why western psychologists have never picked up on the connection.

Not invented here syndrome.

[billy rubin]

i cant even keep all the mass shootings straight anymore

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/louisville-kentucky-shooting-04-10-23/index.html

[Asmodean]

how do you decide who is mentally ill?

clearly youre correct, but how nuts is nuts?

They do have flowcharts and latin words for such.

I'm pretty "pro-gun" in the sense that I do think that the default position should be that yes, you should be able to legally possess enough firearms to lay siege to a major military base. However, I think that the interests of the wider society may be well-served by gun licensing that requires routine maintenance, a part of which really ought to be a psych eval.

My approach is not unlike that to operating motor vehicles; yes, you may, but there are strings attached.

[Icarus]

Swiss citizens are heavily armed and evidently responsible. They have almost no mass murders even though they have the hardware that could make mass murders easily accomplished. I think that the Finns are also well armed but have little or no propensity to kill one another.

A substantial percentage of Americans are mentally, emotionally, and responsibly fucked up.

 

[MarcusA]

Because this thread is pinned, it probably always will be relevant until dumb Americans grow a brain.

[Asmodean]

I think it's more because otherwise, there would be a new mass shooting thread for every mass shooting, and we'd end up talking about "little else." Ok, maybe not quite that grim, but this thread has become a bit of a probe into the potential reasons and remedies for it all.

[billy rubin]

i dont see a remedy. we cant do a new zealand, because people wont cooperate-- only the sensible, non dangerous ones will give up their weapons.

[Asmodean]

I don't have the answers either, hence I call it a "probe into" rather than an "attempt at."

I think that while ultimately, it's the shooter who makes the choice to proceed, there is probably a lot of blame to be had "all around" long before the fact. Cultural value of human life. A conflict between self-perception and experience. Mental healthcare. The parents. It's always the parents. There's a lot of variables there, and I think preventing a potential shooting would take changing several of those in most cases - or a lot of luck. Or "always" being prepared to react to an attempted mass shooting and being well-trained in that regard.

...So yeah. I can pretty-much point out what the solution is not, and for what reason, but what, if any, it is... A different matter.

I wonder if it's a bit like "cure for cancer." They exist, and yet we will probably never find one (barring perhaps "omnimedical" nanobots or some such Sci-Fi), because ultimately, we are trying to treat different illnesses, and perhaps there is no "one jab to cure them all."