Trayvon Martin: The Neuroscience of What Makes People Trigger-Happy (Barf)

Time Magazine ^ | March 26, 2012 | Erika Christakis

[Free ThinkerNY]

If you were handed a can of bug spray, you might start killing a lot of insects around the house. And if you had reason to believe that the bugs were poisonous — maybe because your neighbor told you there was an infestation, or you had seen a show about creepy crawly things on the Discovery Channel — you might even become convinced that the little piece of lint under your bed was a nasty spider, curled up just waiting to bite you.

Americans tend to overestimate both their risk of exposure to violent crime and their ability to judge dangerous situations with reasonable care. Unfortunately, these misperceptions are killing people, not insects.

These problems assumed special urgency with the killing last month of Trayvon Martin, the teenage boy who was shot by George Zimmerman, an armed neighborhood-watch volunteer, after buying a bag of candy and iced tea. Most of the outrage has focused on the potential racism, bias and incompetence of the parties involved. As we’ve learned more about what happened on that fatal night, it seems increasingly likely that Zimmerman’s reckless actions may have violated Florida’s lenient law on justifiable force.

But the particulars of this case obscure a larger concern. “Stand your ground” laws, which allow a person to use force as a first resort in virtually any setting in which a threat is felt, do not account for the significant limitations and distortions of human perception.

Psychologists have known for more than 40 years that possession of a weapon can increase aggression.

The link has been observed — in all kinds of lab-based and real-life settings — with different weapons and behavioral outcomes.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Time?

Is that the cute little 16-page pamphlet I saw at the dentist office last week?

[CharlesWayneCT]

Maybe he’s right, but about the wrong assault.

Maybe Trayvon Martin brutally attacked Zimmerman because all his life he has been taught by the race-baiters that all whites are out to get him, and that he is in danger of being shot or killed simply for walking through a neighborhood.

So when he was being followed by a big guy, he assumed the guy was going to attack him and therefore he lashed out and attacked first.

Is there any doubt that if Trayvon had owned a knife, he would have tried to stab Zimmerman to death? He was trying to break his skull, after all. And if Trayvon had a gun, that he would have shot Zimmerman?

And why? I mean, some assume he’s a thug. But what if he wasn’t a thug, but was just a typical black person who believes Al Sharpton and the entire democrat elected black political class that all whites mean to harm him or kill him?

That fear could have caused him to attack needlessly, and therefore caused him to be killed.

So, I believe Al Sharpton is responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Trigger Happy
by Weird Al Yankovic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4cDUp61PNI

[Niteranger68]

I think she is simply saying that it is wrong for victims to fight back. It puts an undue burden on the aggressor.

[gunnut]

Looking at this article makes my brain hurt. I fail to see real logic in this article. For example: In addition, Americans generally overestimate the risk of violent crime from strangers and from people of different races. In 2007, only 5% of assaults, 1% of rapes and 25% of robberies were committed by a person carrying a firearm. In 2010, strangers accounted for 39% of violent crime, and less than 10% of violent crime was committed with a firearm. What does the percentage of crimes committed with someone with a firearm have anything to do with the risk of crime? If I a robbed or assulted on the street with a knife, bat or fists, is that not a violent crime? I could just as easily say 100% of robberies are committed by a threat of violence. Another perception problem has to do with our risk of violence. Many Americans are unaware that violent crime has declined to levels not since the 1960s. In major cities, the decline has been the most dramatic, with homicide rates dipping from 35.5 per 100,000 in 1991 to 11.9 per 100,000 in 2008. Could this drop be from more law abiding citizen carrying guns and criminals fear them and don't attack? Psychologists have known for more than 40 years that possession of a weapon can increase aggression. The link has been observed — in all kinds of lab-based and real-life settings — with different weapons and behavioral outcomes. If someone regularly exercise their right to carry a gun, it becomes a tool like any other. My guess is their studies are on people who do not regularly carry a concealed weapon. This article is a bunch of bunk.

[tumblindice]

http://themadjewess.com/2012/02/23/feminist-fascist-erika-christakis-catholic-bishops-should-be-imprisoned-for-opposing-obama-care-mandates/

More from Erika. She’s a trip, so’s this site.
(Just whipping the Catholics into a lather. Is Lent still on?)

[gunnut]

Looking at this article makes my brain hurt. I fail to see real logic in this article. For example:

In addition, Americans generally overestimate the risk of violent crime from strangers and from people of different races. In 2007, only 5% of assaults, 1% of rapes and 25% of robberies were committed by a person carrying a firearm. In 2010, strangers accounted for 39% of violent crime, and less than 10% of violent crime was committed with a firearm.

What does the percentage of crimes committed with someone with a firearm have anything to do with the risk of crime? If I a robbed or assulted on the street with a knife, bat or fists, is that not a violent crime? I could just as easily say 100% of robberies are committed by a threat of violence.

Another perception problem has to do with our risk of violence. Many Americans are unaware that violent crime has declined to levels not since the 1960s. In major cities, the decline has been the most dramatic, with homicide rates dipping from 35.5 per 100,000 in 1991 to 11.9 per 100,000 in 2008.

Could this drop be from more law abiding citizen carrying guns and criminals fear them and don't attack?

Psychologists have known for more than 40 years that possession of a weapon can increase aggression. The link has been observed — in all kinds of lab-based and real-life settings — with different weapons and behavioral outcomes.

If someone regularly exercise their right to carry a gun, it becomes a tool like any other. My guess is their studies are on people who do not regularly carry a concealed weapon.

This article is a bunch of bunk.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

My guess is their studies are on people who do not regularly carry a concealed weapon.

Bet you're right - lotta junk science around nowadays.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Is Lent still on?

Until Easter.

[driftless2]

"bunch of bunk"

Do the anti-gun nuts ever think about how many women might be alive today if they had been armed? Women on average are smaller and weaker than men. Men often don't need firearms to murder women...raw strength is enough much of the time. Firearms are great equalizers as Colt noted more than a century ago.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

My guess is their studies are on people who do not regularly carry a concealed weapon.

Sure enough, the paper she linked studied 18 undergrads with no indication that the authors even considered degree of familiarity with firearms - so odds are none of the previous studies cited did so either (or else these authors would have followed in those footsteps).

Good call! Bad science.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The “Weapons Effect” hypothesis suggests that guns can psychologically control people and cause them to be violent. In this article, Paul Gallant and Joanne D. Eisen analyze previous research about the weapons effect and examine more recent studies to test their agreement with the hypothesis. The authors conclude that evidence does not support the “Weapons Effect” hypothesis

[longtermmemmory]

junk science. from the same people who said video games are violent by using the operative definition of violence means each time the button is pressed.

[TigersEye]

If you were handed a can of bug spray, you might start killing a lot of insects around the house.

If I were ten years old or a liberal I might, Erika. I own many guns but I have never shot anyone with one. FWIW I don't have any bug spray and I capture all bugs alive and toss them outside where they belong. I don't kill things unless they are an immediate threat to my health and well being.

[longtermmemmory]

since Skittles (tm) were present at this violent incident then Skittles (tm) are associated with violence.

Skittles (tm) should be outlawed immediatly!!! (its got the children..)

[TigersEye]

Psychologists have known for more than 40 years that possession of a weapon can increase aggression.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have many things to say...

Articles that explain how modern liberals suffer from a mental disorder.

• Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals "Think"
• Idiot Compassion
• The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind
• Democratic Realism
• Swedish Moonbats Suppress Knowledge of Communist Genocide
• Is Liberalism Political Madness?
• Liberals clinically mad, concludes top psychiatrist
• Liberalism and the two roads to nihilism
• Liberalism is a Psychology
• A Theory of War by Other Means
  Political Thought as Evolutionary Psychology
  (a book written by FReeper AnonymousConservative)