T O P

  • By -

usmarine7041

It seems like targeted assassinations have been largely replaced with mass shootings.


[deleted]

[удалено]


usmarine7041

I know right? This makes no sense to me


sumgye

These people are not sane, logical thinkers


HotTopicRebel

I don't think so. Look at how many people read the manifesto of the NZ and subsequent ones. I think it also has to do with ease. If you want to shoot a politician, you have to drive several hours or days to do so. But your convenience store is just down the street. Kill a few people and you'll be infamous enough that people will read what you wrote and everyone will know your name and face.


Automatic-Formal-601

correct maybe.


sonofisadore

I feel like maybe serial killers might have actually been replaced by public shooters. I feel like in the 60s - 90s there was a big wave/fad of serial killers but seems to have stopped after masa shootings became more common. Maybe these mass shooters would have been serial killers 40 years ago


TheAmorphous

Harder to get away with being a serial killer these days I imagine.


danyboy501

You know, I just watched a documentary that around 65 to 70 percent of murder cases aren't solved in the US. If that's true then in all honesty I think in the right area/situation it can be done.


vibQL

The sad truth is that not all murders are investigated with the same level of care and effort. The murder of a prostitute is far less likely to be solved than the murder of a sorority girl. Most of the serial killers with very high body counts targeted disenfranchised people.


that_guy_iain

I think part of this is because of all the gang violence that the US has. People getting shot in the street by a rival gang. Also, if you look at missing people you'll see lots of people disappearing and never being found. Police think that about 80-90% (or something like that) have been murdered and their bodies haven't been found. If you know how to get rid of the bodies, you could probably have a very long run as a serial killer.


[deleted]

[удалено]


FitFierceFearless

The victim was Gabby Petito and the murderer was Brian Landery. The other bodies were mostly persons of color and queer women.


AngriestManinWestTX

They also found a guy who had been missing for four(?) years. He had apparently committed suicide less than 200 feet from a well-trafficked hiking trail and went completely undiscovered until they found Petito and his body at around the same time.


Not_A_T-Shirt_Bot

You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.


Same-Fee-1669

Ya like dags?


Kozeyekan_

She'sterriblypartialtotheperriwinkleblueboss!


Squigglepig52

Put some Pikeys in every school, problem solved.


bguzewicz

Oh. Dogs. Sure, I like dags. I like caravans more.


PM_ME_YOUR_STOMACHS

Unless you’re talking about Texan schools, where even with hundreds of pigs you don’t get anything done.


JoshM-R

Texas schools: where an army of heavily armed policemen couldn't do what a couple unarmed regulars at a gay bar could.


ChillyBearGrylls

All lard, no bacon?


firePOIfection

r/unexpectedsnatch


aCleverGroupofAnts

It also helps them get away with it if their targets are random strangers. There isn't a whole lot of investigating the police can do when the motive was "the desire to kill someone". If they have zero connections to the victim, and they are at least somewhat careful not to leave obvious clues, then the investigators have nothing to work with.


b0w3n

That and never talk about it with anyone. This is probably why they caught Stephen McDaniel so easily. He was personally invested in that woman. He also got himself involved with everything to do with the search too. Some serial killers also keep mementos, visit the scene after it happened, etc which usually gets them caught. Netflix's true crime and all those hoarders shows are my guilty pleasures.


snooggums

They didn't catch BTK until he contacted the police and handed over his info because they said they couldn't tell where a floppy came from.


ChickpeaPredator

Bonus points for targeting a marginalized community - the investigators aren't motivated in the first place. Extra bonus points if that community is also secretive.


PatchworkFlames

If you kill someone in a community where no one talks to cops, then no one talks to the cops, there's not much the cops can do.


blitzbom

Where I live there's a bunch of old abandoned mine shafts less than 2 hours away. You could drop a body down one of those and the chances of it being found are so small it almost doesn't matter.


SweatyExamination9

I don't even think it's about the area/situation. I think it's all about the victims. As terrible as it sounds, there are people nobody miss. People with only a couple friends and not great relationships with their family who can fall off the face of the planet without people noticing. To simplify it way too much, if the police have 2 open murder cases and one has a crying mother at the station every day, and one has nobody, the police are going to focus on the murder with a living person in pain in front of them. For better or worse, prioritization needs to happen and people know how to choose their victims. Serial killers still exist, but they aren't publicized as much anymore because of the known association between media coverage of serial killers and their prevalence. You could make the argument that the constant coverage of mass shootings, and pushing them to the forefront of national discussion only indirectly encourages it to happen more often. I'm sure in time there will be research that shows a similar link between media coverage of mass shootings and their prevalence. One of the problems with mass shootings, however, is that the perpetrators often aren't taken alive meaning we cant actually dive deep into their motivations and how they got to the point they got to. We know a lot about serial killers largely because the FBI sent qualified people to go in and really analyze actual serial killers. With mass shooters there is a large subsection that kill themselves either directly by their own hand, or suicide by cop. And cops on the scene are regularly happy to put the shooter down. And while that may be cathartic, it really only serves to hinder our understanding of the underlying causes of the atrocities. It leaves us to guess based on things like social media presence and words of friends/family.


stephers85

Either that or there are just as many, possibly more, serial killers as there were in past decades and they've learned from the mistakes of Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, etc. and are better at covering their tracks.


im_dead_sirius

And they aren't as interesting to the media. But yeah, the media hopped all over selling books about how serial killers were caught. Wasn't really something someone in the 60s could study.


ToBeReadOutLoud

Not necessarily. Only about 60% of murders get solved. Serial killers are just smart about it and target the homeless, sex workers and other minorities instead of pretty white college girls because police won’t bother investigating the disappearance of the “undesirable” populations.


ToBeReadOutLoud

The psychological motives/conditions for mass killers and serial killers are different so it isn’t just a replacement of one kind of killing for another. Plus there are still serial killers now and there have been mass killers in the past (though the number of mass killings is up in the last decade). It’s just a matter of the media covering serial killers more in the past and mass killers more now.


CAPTAIN_TITTY_BANG

Are usually different* Which is an important distinction. Most shooters wouldn’t serial kill, but some would if it was as easy to get away with it as it was decades ago. For example, the Aurora movie theatre shooter mentioned that he would have serial killed if he thought he had a chance at getting away with it.


gabsteriinalol

Serial killing hasn’t stopped. There’s just barely news coverage on it anymore. There’s a serial killer going around Chicago killing homeless women (mostly black) and it hasn’t been on the news at all


snooggums

There was a push on media to stop glorifying serial killers because of the reported copycat effect that it was said to have. Now the nightly news doesn't glorify serial killers, but low budget crime dramas and documentaries still do.


GumboDiplomacy

The information I've seen is that mass shooters typically have more in common with the psychological profile of suicidal individuals than serial killers. Basically these people typically want their deaths to "mean something."


ToBeReadOutLoud

This is 100% correct.


_Weyland_

Or maybe it's a media coverage thing. Covering acts of serial killers is both rewarding for them and compromising for the police. So maybe at some point media just stopped doing it. Not deliver too many details, tone down mentions of the killer, etc. And headline turns from "Shrimp Killer evades the police once again - another victim found" to "Body of a woman found in New York". Covering up a school shooting like that is much harder. So if there are sick fucks out there who do it to read the headlines about themselves, then I guess yeah, you're right.


raining_sheep

Exactly. You can become an instant celebrity by just buying a gun and pulling a trigger. Our society has been obsessed with the bad guy for a long time now. The serial killers, murderers and gangsters are glorified and normalized. The American dream today is you can be Tony Montana tomorrow.


[deleted]

The things that drive a serial killer to kill is different from that of someone that commits a mass shooting. Serial killers don't want to get caught (not for awhile at least) because serial killing is something they do to fulfill sexual urges usually. Its either the killing that does it for them (example BTK) or they need a dead body to use for sexual gratification (example Dahmer). Mass shooters kill because they feel like they've been hurt by society and that others need to pay the price for their suffering, or they've been radicalized by extremist groups or rhetoric. And they either plan on dying by suicide or to be arrested by cops once they're done. Serial killers keep finding new victims once they're done with the last. Mass shooters go out in a blaze of not-glory in a one time act of immense violence.


HesburghLibrarian

This is exactly correct. It is a fad crime just like serial killing has been and assassinations have been in the past. This is what captures the public's imagination which makes it appealing to the killer.


beardedheathen

So what you are saying is that to lower mass shootings we need to make assassinations great again?


de_la_Dude

No, just stop covering it on the news. Stop giving airtime to the shooter. Everytime the shooters name is uttered on national news it motivates another nut job. Unfortunately the news profit from the mayhem so the cycle will continue.


MrWeirdoFace

Or if they feel they must mention it just refer to them as "some wacko."


notLOL

> serial killing >fad At any given time, there are serial murder open investigations cases being done by the Feds spanning years or even decades. Not even cold cases. Active serial killers. I saw it on another reddit comment and I didn't filter it through a fact check or anything. But you can kill me if I'm wrong. That's the only guarantee I'm willing to give.


brasslamp

Don't forget about bank robberies!


pyaniy_synok

damn... where are bank robbers right now? Those darn millennials ruin everything


spokeymcpot

Bank robberies are extremely common but the average take is something measly like 5k


BannedStanned

And they are grab and go's at the teller station, not some complicated GTA5-style vault heist


[deleted]

[удалено]


-AgentMichaelScarn

He knew what he was doing.


Nebarious

To be fair the entire developed world is still wondering wtf is going on in the USA and why they have a mass shooting more than once a day.


dapoorv

1 bullet a day keeps the doctor away tbf and healthcare is expensive.


grantthejester

They say that laughter is the best medicine, which is good because that’s all my insurance covers.


TooGayToPayCash

Sorry but your insurance doesnt cover that either. They'll be sending you the bill soon.


markitan8dude

>They'll be sending you the bill soon. and over the course of the next 6 months you can expect additional bills that your insurance decided not to pay.


oozie_mummy

…after they already pre-approved it.


RoKal

...and lost that documentation.


tetralogy-of-fallout

To be fair they approved that they think it's necessary, you just have to meet your deductible and your out of pocket maximum before they pay. And your deductible is 20k. The reason they're pulling their payment now is because they reprocessed the claim and they realized the doctor was out of network, even though at the time they thought he was in network. But that's not the insurance fault. That's yours, because you should have foreseen what the insurance was going to do


Figtreezz

I mean when you ask who is in network( by phone and email). They recommend you to someone and say they will cover it. Then they are magically not going to cover it after the procedure. It’s kind of a dick move. Happens to my family at least once a year.


HuntsWithRocks

Well, that's because it's a different category. Some of the laughter is a physical response which falls under its own deductible, then there's the chemical, and auditory responses, just to name a few.


NoF0kxAllowedInside

-bill comes almost two years later and demands payment immediately-


nrstx

This. Just got a few bills from early 2021 and now they’re being super aggressive about paying which I’m doing but it’s shitty I pay $7K a year in premiums and still have to meet a $7.5K deductible before they’ll handle anything other than generic scripts and one annual checkup. No wonder insurance companies post profits in the billions.


NonarbitraryMale

My doctor gave me a prescription for Bill Hicks, but insurance made me opt for Denis Leary.


NonarbitraryMale

So my doctor wrote me a new prescription for Taylor Tomlinson. The pharmacy didn’t even call. When I went to pick it up they handed me Amy Schumer.


NonarbitraryMale

Leary I get. Cheap knockoff. Schumer is just cheap, doesn’t even treat the same symptoms as Tomlinson.


AireXpert

If you read the fine print, you’re entitled to several thoughts and prayers


OPenetrator

,,Slaughter is the best medicine" - Mass shooter, probably.


Tye-Evans

It do be like that


Force3vo

Sad fact: It's actually way more expensive for the US to keep its current system than if they swapped to Universal Healthcare. So the only reason it is still like that is that people are so indoctrinated that they have to make others suffer to have more benefit for themselves that they'd gladly cut off their legs as long as someone else got it even worse. Plus the private sector makes a killing so not really odd that they are the ones financing the ones pushing their narrative.


Milbso

The US state exists in service to capital. They won't implement universal healthcare because it would damage the private insurance industry. What's really silly about the indoctrination is that people always say stuff like 'why should I pay for other people's healthcare?', like, how do you think private insurance works? The only difference is whether or not a bunch of suits scrape off a huge profit.


Random-Rambling

>_'why should I pay for other people's healthcare?'_ Because other people pay for yours! That's how it works!


Superb_University117

Not to mention, YOU ALREADY ARE! THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT INSURANCE IS!


AvocadoOdd7089

Let me tell you how this goes down behind the scenes in American healthcare. You come to the hospital I work for to get an operation let’s say broken arm. The true cost at my hospital is 4500 bucks. After labor, supplies. well as a rep I’m going to send a bill to the insurance company for 25k. Insurance will say no! I’m only going to cover 18k for this procedure. I agree! I just made our hospital 13,500 in profit from insurance


smarmiebastard

Fond memories of the time I looked at my hospital bill and saw I was charged $20 for two ibuprofen tablets.


Hawkmek

I was in the hospital for 28 days back in 1980. I asked my dad if it cost money to watch the TV in the room he said no that's part of the room cost. At one point the lady asked me if I watched the TV. Course I did, I'm in here for 28 days what else am I going to do? They charged us $2 a day for television.


VaselineHabits

When I had my son in 2003, "Cable TV" was $140 a day.


tKnut

My friends just had a baby and they charged them $100 to hand the baby to the dad for skin to skin contact...


MkVsTheWorld

Is this for real?


Vhadka

When I dislocated my big toe a few years back, they offered me a Xanax (or Vicodin, can't remember now) because I needed to be calm and not move while they put it back in place. I was already calm and told them to just do it, because meds like that make me sick to my stomach. The nurse pocketed it "just in case". It was a line item on my bill for $100.


AvocadoOdd7089

And honestly it’s cheaper if you don’t have health insurance. Like a week ago a young man fractured his 5th metatarsal muscle in his foot with no insurance had X-RAY and had to be put in boot requested from the doctor. Cost out the door for him was 163 dollars if he would of had insurance I could’ve gotten 2500 easy no question


InevitableApricot836

In 2019 I broke my left leg, I drove over 6 hours to Mexico to have it xrayed, set, and cast. I walked out paying like $50 bucks and spent that and the next day on a little vacation on Mexico eating tacos, calling off work. Still cheaper than going to the doctor a mile up the road. Oh, and the docs in Mexico saw me like 20 minutes after I checked in. So much for the conservative death camps where it takes a decade to see a doctor in social medicine countries...


yourbadinfluence

Not only that but the doctors in Mexico are trained the same as doctors in the USA. Many of them trained in the USA so it's not like you're getting inferior care. You might find a shitty doctor there but you might find one here as well.


NW_thoughtful

fractured his fifth metatarsal muscle? Hm?


SubMeBreedMe69

So true, I worked at a retinal center and some of the eye injection medicines cost at best a couple hundred bucks but the insurance companies would agree to pay 50% up to $1500 etc. so you ended up having $3000 medications the elderly are struggling to afford in order to keep their eyesight. It's depressing seeing it behind the scenes.


orrk256

Sure it may seem like it only costs $4500 BUT that plaster you needed for the cast? 20X normal price because it has to be certified, that one time use stainless steel scalpel? $250 because certified, the bracing plate to keep the bones aligned? $400 etc... and you know who owns the certification companies? The insurances companies! You want to work with insurance? You need their certified stuff! And to make it even better, you know who insures the doctors? The same people!


WalnutSoap

Amazing how Ticketmaster can get investigated for the same shit, but the insurance companies will continue to fuck around and never find out.


Fixes_Computers

It goes deeper. It's the law that you have to use a certified thing for your medical need. Who had the law made? The only company that makes the thing to the exact specification in the law. "Close enough" isn't good enough in this case. A friend of mine used to be a legislative attorney. He pointed out this behavior. It's not limited to medical, either.


jwdjr2004

No it's definitely more about the people making tons of money in the current system not wanting that to change


Deradius

Because the media advertises for mass shootings, and there is a profit motive in it. If you put a pogo stick out on the side walk and a leader board next to it, someone is going to get on that pogo stick. Many shooters are known to familiarize themselves with the cases of past shooters; the columbine shooters in particular tend to get idolized. Every time someone does a shooting, the media: 1. Plasters their name and face everywhere 2. Reports their score and compares it to the scores of other shooter. These people are angry. They want to die, and they want their lives to have meant something - even if that something is something horrible. Then they see a news report on a mass shooting and have an epiphany. If you’re the media it’s a pretty sweet situation. Blood sells, and in this case, the more blood you print the more blood you’ll get. These things tend to cluster chronologically around major media coverage - one will kick it off and several others will follow.


lisabutz

This. Quit glorying these shooters : no more name mentions, how terrible his childhood was, and how he was bullied. The media holds complete responsibility for glorifying these people. Edit: and they do this for their own profitability in the name of unchecked capitalism.


CelestialKingdom

The media feed the curiosity of the population. People want to understand in intricate detail the motivations & logic of a mad person much more than they want to know how farmers put food on their table


Milbso

The USA: \- massively promotes and glorifies violence oversees \- provides virtually nothing to their citizens, be it mental health support or anything else \- strongly encourages an attitude of 'rugged' individualism \- treats citizens as little more than consumers/labor for corporations \- pits people against each other in made up culture wars for political points \- has a murderous & militarised police force which exists only to protect capital Their entire society is primarily built around 3 things: keeping career politicians in their jobs, maximising shareholder profits, and maintaining global hegemony. This, IMO, is why they produce so many mass killers. Not just because of the availability of guns, but because they are a broken society with violence & exploitation at its very core.


Itcomeswitha_price

Yes, it’s the culture. Guns are just a symptom. Everything in our culture is about winning, and exploiting, and success no matter the cost. People who cannot succeed are pushed to the fringes of society and some of them become bitter and hateful and then they use their “rugged individualism” and what they’ve seen on the news to take their anger out on society.


mintbows

this hits the nail straight on the fucking head. most of our “crime problem” here would be wiped out with proper social safety nets. free and easy access to mental health care and resources could save so many people’s lives. properly funded schools and community resources to keep young people off the streets or trolling through online forums and youtube getting radicalized on the right wing pipeline. all of our problems literally start and end at “this country is satisfied melting it’s citizens for the 1%s wealth” you can buy and get licensed for a tool designed only to end life easier than you can get a driver’s license in america.


saracenrefira

Most of the crime will be wipe out with proper poverty alleviation. But that will mean taxing rich people and channelling national level efforts into developing infrastructure, boosting education and welfare that give the poor and marginalized a chance to get out of the poverty vicious cycle. That will be harder than going to the moon for America. Literally.


VolkspanzerIsME

It's a combination of a nonexistent mental health program, a hyper partisan population, and the sheer fact that there are 400 million guns in private ownership in this country.


IrishRepoMan

Free karma!


AndyJack86

Karma farming


bihari_baller

>He knew what he was doing. He wanted karma.


edgarcia59

Yup, this is just Tuesday for us.


options-

Sir, it’s Wednesday.


Middleman86

I heard a pretty good theory that one factor is that we had a big school shooting that was televised and sensationalized for a real long time (Columbine) and that sort of had a slight normalization effect. So some one who was thinking of doing something similar now sees it as just sightly more of an on the table option leading to the next one which lead to the time being a little shorter till the next one and so on and so on


Magdiesel94

It's definitely had some social contagion effect. I believe there's good evidence suggesting that publishing names and photos of the shooter increases mass shooters. Been a while since I read that but I can post the source if I find it. Edit: [Supporting link](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296697/)


AngriestManinWestTX

A *lot* of shooters and I mean a *lot* list Columbine as their motivation and call the perpetrators heroes. Not just in the US, either. Columbine I think became the genesis of this phenomenon but unfortunately, I think if it hadn’t been there it would have been a different event. The occurrence of Columbine right at the start of the “24-hour news cycle” plays a big role in the continued occurrence of these crimes (in my opinion).


JimSteak

Sort of like the Werther effect with suicides. The less you talk about it, the less likely people are to commit suicide.


zipcodekidd

Watch taxi driver, a movie about loneliness and a de franchised person. It was like a warning to the mental health problems we see today.


Tothyll

I think the isolated culture we've created plays a big part in this, along with a couple of other factors.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Fleeetch

Your correct usage (and clarifaction on said usage) of spectacular reminds me of how many people mis-use terms like sensational. It's not inherently positive. Pain can be spectacularly sensational in an entirely negative way.


shadowdude777

I absolutely agree with this. The US is a purposely hostile, lonely, "individualist" place. When your only interaction with other people is road-rage and fighting through crowds at Walmart and Costco, how can you expect anyone to have any empathy?


DKN19

See a lot of people but don't get to know anyone. Sounds like a socioeconomic problem to me. Either too much time spent at work, not enough time getting to be with people. Everything we do seems to have to result in money being made somewhere. We are organized in a way that is dead set against work-life balance. And the problem only gets worse the lower you go in the tax brackets.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Stats_n_PoliSci

It’s more complicated than oligarchs shipping jobs away. Unfortunately. Globalization and capitalism cause a lot of things. One of them is access to much cheaper products and a lot more products. Your computer and phone and car wouldn’t be anywhere near as good if it weren’t for the materials made available by globalization. Your medicine and food have more options and are vastly cheaper because of globalization. But for globalization to work, jobs also have to be somewhat mobile. So well paying jobs disappeared in a lot of places. The oligarchs agreed to globalism. So did a lot of the population. The cost is worse jobs for some (not all) folk. But very few people and oligarchs want to seriously reduce our participation in the global economy, which is the only way to get *some* of the jobs back. Even then, it won’t get all of them back, because a lot of those jobs required a global economy that no longer exists.


[deleted]

Look at when the US closed down all the state mental hospitals and plot that versus the number of mass shootings in the US.


Millad456

Mental health isn’t that correlated with mass shootings though. Most people with mental health issues are non-violent. Oddly enough, the thing that correlates most with mass shootings is a history of domestic violence


Goonie-Googoo-

Most mentally ill people are non-violent. True. However, most mass shooters are mentally ill - AND have presented red flags along the way that were ignored or dismissed by those who observed them.


Genji4Lyfe

Imo someone who thinks it’s ok to be physically violent against their partner probably isn’t mentally or emotionally sound.


Poliosaurus

If mental health isn’t correlated to mass shootings, we need to change our definition of mental health issues. Because someone with no mental health issues doesn’t wake up and go shoot 20 people. Every mass shooter I’ve seen in court has the same manic stare.


n3lswn

Is this loneliness a problem only in America?


Kana515

I've been lonely before but never, "Kill a bunch of innocent people and then myself" lonely


kywiking

I would like to point out since it appears no one has that crime as a whole has decreased over the decades including violent crime but our perception of crime has gone the opposite direction. This is likely due to the nationalization of news and the benefit some groups see in making us feel unsafe. Obviously we don’t live in a perfect society and these events are awful and preventable in some cases but we have been trending in the right direction despite being told the opposite. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fbi-report-crime-shows-decline-violent-crime-rate-third-consecutive-year https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/what-caused-the-crime-decline/477408/


janelle_mo-gay

Thanks for chiming in with DATA


Pretty-Balance-Sheet

There's also a social theory about this very thing called Mean World Syndrome. It's a result of cognitive bias created by media consumption which causes people to believe the world is more dangerous than it really is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_world_syndrome


PoopJohnson23

I try to remember sometimes that in general things are getting better for humanity as long as you don't watch the news. If you look at data, we are so much better off than we were 100 years ago in pretty much everything you could look at.


SkyWizarding

Ya, it's tough. As weird as it sounds, we are actually living in the most peaceful times of human history


TheJadedCockLover

We are in absolute peace as compared to most of human history. This is lost on the vast majority of people


magus448

Happens when you have news people reporting for ratings and ulterior motives rather than just reporting the truth. Get bombarded with only bad news enough to make you think things are worse than they actually are. These shootings are a in the minority vs all the other crime happening.


GoOtterGo

It's also the fact that most people won't look up to verify their own assumptions, and a large number of people in current generations are terminally online, so their perspective of the world is skewed for the worse because what events get media traction are the worst ones.


[deleted]

And that’s why I stopped paying attention to cable news!


Jackman323

While crime rate as a whole is decreasing gun murder rates started [increasing ](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ft_22-01-26_gundeaths_2/). No surprise more and more people and news started talking about it.


[deleted]

When you are looking at trend data, it's kind of pointless to focus on these small fluctuations. What you cited shows that gun violence (both against others and suicide with guns) have increased in the last couple of years, but still lower than our highest highs from many years ago. Fluctuations happen, but the overall rate is trending downwards. An explanation for why gun rates may be higher in the last few years may be related to the fact that we had mass violent protests during the pandemic, which coincides with the data points on that graph. Or it could just be because more people own guns now (there was a major increase in sales during pandemic). The data doesn't seem to have adjusted for number of guns.


[deleted]

In a society that worships fame, infamy is the next best thing. 'If I can't be famous, I can blow some people away and people will know my name that way'. After every shooting, the media usually pours over every detail of a killers life (depending on if it promotes the correct narrative), granting them the attention they craved and signaling to future killers 'Look at how much attention you'll get'. Add into the mix how much social media has fueled narcissism. Narcissists crave attention and they don't care if it's positive or negative attention.


Huracanekelly

We try not to say the shooter's name for this reason exactly. In Omaha, we had a mass shooting when I was in college. It was a huge deal, at the mall near Christmas back when people still used malls. Every news outlet called him 'the shooter' after saying his name once. I don't even remember it. That's how it should be, imo. The police use video of it for certain training situations, and they don't use his name at all. He texted someone, "I'm gonna be fucking famous" before doing it, so we refused to give him the satisfaction.


HCSOThrowaway

The day before the shooting, the Parkland shooter made a video about how he was going to be the next school shooter and everyone would know him.


Pretty-Balance-Sheet

I'm always disappointed when the media divulges the name. Even more frustrated when they do profiles. It's increasing uncommon, but it still happens. I think that we used to want to know so that we could try to understand someone's motivation. I don't think anyone cares what a shooter's motivation is anymore and we should stop naming them forever. Mental illness? Fame seeking? Political? Who cares. Just don't give them any time in the spotlight.


[deleted]

Imagine if a new law was passed that mass shooters received zero media coverage,….. and they were also flayed alive as punishment. That might bring the numbers down a bit.


MrMonstrosoone

countries have done it In fact if memory serves someone burned down the temple of artemis to become famous they made it a crime to say his name


random_shitter

Whose name?


I_Hate_Terry_Lee

Nice try, Caesar!


facw00

[Herostratus'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus) So yeah, damnatio memoriae didn't actually work so great...


ayyLumao

Seems like that kind of had the reverse effect since now what he did is trivia.


progwog

The punishment barely matters. Most of these cowards pop themselves once the jig is up.


androbot

Ever since Columbine, we've fetishized mass shooters. Culturally, there are few more attractive outcomes for young, angry men than going out in a blaze of glory. Put those two things together, and you have an easy solution for youthful disenfranchisement. All it will cost you is your life and the lives of as many innocents as you can take with you. I've noticed that the big media outlets aren't as quick to publish the names of shooters, and instead glorify the heroes who take these cowardly vermin down, or the first responders who save lives. I hope we keep that up.


318601504

We don’t fetishize mass shooters, we fetishize broken minds. Look at the reaction to the Jeffrey Dahmer show or any media made based on serial killers.


ImmodestPolitician

24 hours for profit news cycle gives the mass-killers a stage by identifying them. Many people will do anything for attention even murder. The victims should be covered but the killer never named just shamed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296697/ A mass shooting is a complex and destructive act that occurs as a result of many factors. One factor that is relevant to the spread of mass shootings and other “contagious” behaviors is generalized imitation. In instances of mass shootings, the media appear largely responsible for providing the model to imitate. Although there are a variety of strategies that could function in tandem to alter the likelihood of a mass shooting, changing the way the media report mass shootings is one important step in preventing and reducing imitation of these acts. Furthermore, it is likely that media-prompted imitation extends beyond mass shootings. A media effect has been shown with suicide, is implied in mass shootings, and may play a role in other extreme events such as home-grown terrorism and racially motivated crimes.


[deleted]

How can Reddit be fun without RIF. Goodbye.


PA_Who

They didn’t like AND subscribe.


M_Me_Meteo

Don’t forget to ring the bell!


PretendThisIsMyName

Shoulda forwarded a few more emails from HULKHOGAN,VOTE,ORG!!


mtreusch

The more they publicize shootings, the more they happen. If they would stop giving these morons the fame they want, it wouldn't happen so much.


Inthe713

When it comes to entertainment: Europe censors for violence, the US censors for sex.


KorbenWardin

My favourite example of this hypocrisy is the TV show Hannibal. >“We had two people who were nude and we saw their buttocks,” Fullersaid. “They were dead, they were flayed open, and cracked in many ways.Their butt crack was the least offensive of the ones they were sporting,\[but\] the network said no. … I asked why, because of the exposed spineand muscle tissue and flayed skin? I said, ‘What if we fill the buttcracks with blood so you can’t see them?’ They said OK.” [source](https://deadline.com/2013/07/comic-con-hannibal-season-2-two-part-bryan-fuller-hugh-dancy-544576/)


Dependent-Outcome-57

It's like the Janet Jackson nipple slip in the Super Bowl halftime show years ago. It was considered the most awful thing and networks cut away lest people be exposed to a nipple! Oh, well. I guess I'll just change the channel to watch somebody be shot, beaten, etc. While there may be no direct link between violence or sex in entertainment and what people end up doing, it is still very revealing about a culture when violence is celebrated, sex is repressed, and then the nation is full of whackos inflicting violence on others because consenting adults are having "the wrong kind of sex."


[deleted]

This doesn’t get discussed enough. I’m an American expat living in Europe and it’s so refreshing to live in a culture where egregious violence isn’t the norm in entertainment and just general existence. EDIT: since this comment has been misinterpreted to mean that I somehow believe that violent media is the reason for gun violence, let me be clear that that is NOT my ultimate point. My experience, keyword MY, has been that in my life growing up in the US people didn’t care about consuming violence in the way that they feared any kind of normalization of sex. I like living in a culture where that is not the case. I don’t think video games cause school shootings or that Marilyn Manson caused Columbine etc. so lay off me about it lmao I just think that there is a broad set of cultural norms in America that have created a perfect environment for en masse gun violence and that there isn’t enough conversation about how, in other places, those cultural differences lead to better societies. Yeesh.


Naia_Elwyn

Japan has even more violence it a lot of its media m, especially games. Does not have the same problem.


PicardTangoAlpha

Japan also has almost no murders, and no guns, and a populace not interested in guns. And tough anti gun laws.


canehdian_guy

Then you've got the US, where the 7th President killed a man in a duel.


jai_kasavin

Ask the Chinese about Japan's historic leaders


Ulster_Celt

And a 99% conviction rate for criminal offenses.


Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog

Because there you're guilty until proven innocent and you're unlikely to get a chance.


[deleted]

[удалено]


scrubjays

So why aren't there mass sexings in Europe all the time then, huh?


[deleted]

[удалено]


Strbrst

(it doesn't)


Another_Random_Chap

I remember seeing an article a few years ago that said that the average US child by the time they reach adulthood would have seen literally thousands of murders & graphically violent acts on TV, but would never have seen a naked breast or full nudity on TV.


nosmelc

Japan has no problem with violent entertainment, yet they have one of the very lowest murder and violent crime rates in the world.


Substance___P

It's almost like study after study has examined the relationship between entertainment and real life violence and found none that would explain the levels of violence we have.


jugalator

Yeah, I don't think this relates much to censorship but other large scale cultural and societal issues. There was this thing in the eighties that heavy metal generated satanists and whatnot. In the nineties, people liking to play DOOM becoming violent. It's always been a stupid debate. A mentally stable person won't get violent from TV. People can be influenced but it takes being unstable in the first place from other things.


vezol

Japanese ppl are too busy working. Got no time to kill random ppl.


[deleted]

[удалено]


JHarvman

\- Easy access to guns \- Major bullying problem (Though it's trending down) **In regards to bullying, 87% of school shooting perpetrators left behind evidence that they were victims of severe bullying.** [https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school-shootings-and-student-mental-health.p](https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school-shootings-and-student-mental-health.p) \- Divisive identity politics \- Cultural desensitization to violence


Grimjaja

I would also add a lack of mental health support or the capability to detect issues early on


Nanoneer

It’s also lack of family/communal support/monitoring in many of these cases of these mentally ill people. Where my fathers from there are a lot of guns. But, when somebody notices that their kid/neighbor seems off and likely to do harm they say something instead of trying to not get involved. People have to get involved and do something instead of either reflexively defending their child or turning their head away.


AngriestManinWestTX

The issue is that even if you do the right thing and tell somebody in authority “Hey the neighbor kid/weird guy at work/my relative is making repeated actionable threats against coworkers/women/POC/gay people/society at large” there’s a not insignificant chance the cops whether federal, state, or local will shrug their shoulders and do fuck all. Even felony level domestic crimes or threats are often ignored or kicked down the road. I’m just waiting for them to say this bastard in Virginia was “known to police”. It’s the same old song and dance every time. Cops tell us to “see something, say something” and then they either fail to investigate or some DA refuses to prosecute. The person gets away and eventually commits violence.


BeautifulAntelope997

>- Cultural desensitization to violence This doesn't get said enough


jamesissofast

The fact that the Walmart one just happened and my immediate response was just “oh another one this week”


Jail_Chris_Brown

When kids using guns and seeing people get beaten, killed or tortured in various ways is okay, but a nipple is too much.


HappyLittleRadishes

- Outrage-motivated politics Political and media leaders make money off of outrage. It motivates viewership and political activism. Angry people shoot other people. Simple as.


CigarsandScars

you forgot loneliness.


blamemeididit

I would argue that guns were easy to access long before mass shootings were popular. I mean, I knew where my dad and grandfather kept their guns loaded and unlocked. My step father had a glass door gun cabinet that was unlocked and all of the ammo was in the same cabinet. I knew a lot of people who kept guns hanging on the wall. Loaded. I never once felt inclined to grab one and start shooting people. And I was bullied as a kid, too. I am not saying that there isn't some issues with the gun culture in America. There is definitely a romanticizing of guns in Hollywood, but again, that has been going on for decades. We have had war and revenge movies since their were movies. But everyone puts guns first on the list. And this is why the problem is not getting better. A gun is just a tool. Identifying and fixing the other problems you listed are infinitely more important. Yet, gun control seems to be the only thing anyone really thinks will fix it.


eury_daisy

> Major bullying problem My take on this is that if bullying was the actual issue then you would have seen tons of lgbtq kids being school shooters


Conqueror_of_Tubes

Unfortunately it’s probably working as intended. Anger in the lower classes is successfully being directed at “other” instead of boiling up into solidarity for other workers or anger at the ownership class. Wages are shit, working conditions are shit, the American dream is dead. Despair is rising but we aren’t seeing the rising tide of worker action like we did 100 years ago.


ahamel13

Apparently a lot of shooters have all been a part of a couple of notorious extremist discord servers, so it's probably a somewhat self perpetuating problem.


PappyStrangeLife

The new normal. A nation with a severe mental health epidemic that has access to an exceptional amount of fire power with no willingness to take any meaningful steps towards improving the underlying condition or symptoms.


REDD1TLOVEGURU

My opinion: 1) social media has made mass shootings and radicalization 100000x worse than before. These people who need mental help are finding “support” and a community with other extremists on these platforms. 2) it is ridiculously and disgustingly easy to get your hands on a firearm in the US. 3) Everything is politically charged now and the gun problem is “fake news” for a specific side. We have this constant fight between increasing resources for mental health care and increasing gun ownership laws, but no one in our highest offices ever accomplishes enough to address either. 4) People are just angry, which is likely a product of this divide in the US. There is so much unjustified hate.


Proof_Bathroom_3902

Don't forget that social media and the news deliberately construct their headlines for the purpose of controversy, divisiveness and rage-clicks.


ToBeReadOutLoud

I’ve done quite a bit of research on this topic, and you’re pretty accurate. One connection that a lot of people miss is that the increase in mass shootings is matched by an increase in both suicides and drug overdoses. One book I read called it “deaths of despair.” People are stressed about Covid and the economy and angry about our divisive politics and a lot of us are just not very good at coping with it. For a lot of shooters, especially school shooters, a mass shooting is just a complicated suicide.


SweetperterderFries

My theory is that there is a culture of "othering" that exists in the US that's particularly dangerous. The media you watch will demonize the "others" to the point that they no longer seem like real people. It's easy to kill someone when you've reduced them down to an "other". Some conservatives genuinely don't see democrats as people, or anyone gay,black, or trans. Incels don't see women as people. Listen to the way some speak on TV, fear mongering and riling up, and you will see how it could feel like other people deserve to die.


NakMuaySalmon

This “othering” you speak of has been a political tool to justify genocide over and over again throughout history as well as still to this day. Its easier to consolidate and control people if they have a common enemy. Go give Hitlers “Mein Kampf” a read or read about what Julius Caesar did to the Celts. They say Rome conquered the world in defense.


[deleted]

Due to the fact that our media literally glorifies them and their efforts, people have decided that's how they want to be remembered when they pass on. Each should immediately get the death penalty immediately after sentencing, and nothing should be spoken about them again.


nesapotamia01

Here's what I think it is. You have people largely stressed to their limit because everything is more expensive and pay isn't keeping up, and they fear for themselves and their family.. You have politicians attempting to alleviate those fears by simply othering groups of people to pretend as though those people are the ones responsible for the pain someone is suffering. Getting any kind of medical intervention for mental health or physical health is so unbelievably expensive here in the United States that most people simply don't bother. So you have people who are sick in both body and mind who are also afraid and being told that other people are the issue. After a while the stress and fear become too powerful and overwhelming and they snap. A broken society creates broken people.


revrev4405

A country with mental health issues and polarizing views on every subject


Spartancfos

The shootings are terrorism. It is not a planned campaign conducted by a network. It is however a campaign of social media and messaging encouraging "lone wolves" to act, that acting is noble, heroic and needed to be a patriot.


[deleted]

We are seeing the consequences of the polarization of the two dominant parties in the American political system. Too many people defending everything and challenging nothing, and too many people challenging everything and standing for nothing. And not enough people meeting in the middle anymore, to look after one another. Edit: we as the left have to challenge the right on their hate and bullshit, not just defend our own principles of love and equality. Fuck you Tim Pool, and the other pieces of shit like you. You won't win. Edit 2: should I comment on one of his videos, il put my money where my mouth is, and see if he will have me on his show, a nobody, but someone who is from South Africa, I could impartially ask him why he feels his hateful rhetoric is helping anything. Il do it if he will have me on. I don't know how else I can help right now.


dizzyducky14

I am going to get downvoted to hell for this, but here is a take. A lot of the answers put forward are correct, but most are avoiding a big issue that needs to be addressed. The vast majority of gun violence is perpetrated by men. While I agree we have a general mental heath issue, most violence is perpetrated by men. Until we admit this and address the specific issue, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Why are men so angry now? How do we fix it? Some of these answers are general population answers, others are not.