The Best Explanation for Our Spate of Mass Shootings Is the Least Comforting

National Review ^ | 5/18/2018 | David French

[Blood of Tyrants]

On another terrible day, I hate to introduce even more pessimism, but when we discuss mass shootings, one of the first questions we ask is the simplest and also the hardest to answer. Why? Why does this keep happening? Those who advocate for gun control have an immediate answer — the prevalence of guns in the United States. Yet guns have been part of the fabric of American life for the entire history of our republic. Mass shootings — especially the most deadly mass shootings — are a far more recent phenomenon.

Writing in 2015, Malcolm Gladwell wrote what I think is still the best explanation for modern American mass shootings, and it’s easily the least comforting. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, essentially he argues that each mass shooting lowers the threshold for the next.

[NittanyLion]

Gladwell’s original article (linked within the referenced article) is well worth the read. Lengthy but the best theory I’ve read to date on the rising number of mass shootings.

[ctdonath2]

My working theory:
This category of shootings is by white male progressives who realize that the next genocide by progressives will be white males. The cognitive dissonance proves dramatically terminal.

[kaehurowing]

Cause of mass shootings =

Satan

Seriously

[Dilbert San Diego]

The only one earlier than Columbine which comes to mind, is the San Ysidro massacre of 1984, near San Diego, where a nut shot about 20 people.in a McDonald’s.

It does seem that there are more mass shootings. But there s also more saturation coverage on news channels of such events too.

[Hojczyk]

Violent crime is not a mass shooting...

Less crime because the person in the house or business you want to rob may have a gun...

And it is broadcast on tv..

Rubbers are making sure no one is home if there smart...

[firebrand]

It wasn’t that the institutions made sick people feel bad. The politicians started closing them as a onetime budget trick. The problem was that the next year, more of them had to be closed to accomplish the same thing.

“Community-based mental health care” became the magic phrase, as if these people fit right into the community.

We dealt with this in the 1990s but it started slowly before that.

[northislander]

How about UT, Lubys, San Diego Macdonalds...to name a few. This is the fake news engaging in trauma based mind control and if you feed into it, you are adding to the wizardry...

[BunnySlippers]

Bookmark

[northislander]

San Diego 1984 Macdonalds shooting involved 40 victims...

[Cannoneer]

Good article and an omen that confirms my exasperations.

A gun-violence restraining order can allow a family member (or school principal) to quickly get in front of a local judge for a hearing (with full due-process protections) that can result in the temporary confiscation of weapons from a proven dangerous person.>

Practically not a solution since the genie is out of the bottle.

[GOPJ]

Social processes are driven by our thresholds—which he defined as the number of people who need to be doing some activity before we agree to join them. In the elegant theoretical model Granovetter proposed, riots were started by people with a threshold of zero—instigators willing to throw a rock through a window at the slightest provocation. Then comes the person who will throw a rock if someone else goes first. He has a threshold of one. Next in is the person with the threshold of two. His qualms are overcome when he sees the instigator and the instigator’s accomplice. Next to him is someone with a threshold of three, who would never break windows and loot stores unless there were three people right in front of him who were already doing that—and so on up to the hundredth person, a righteous upstanding citizen who nonetheless could set his beliefs aside and grab a camera from the broken window of the electronics store if every one around him was grabbing cameras from the electronics store.

If Gladwell's right we need to look at how the 'Charlie Manson' crap was stopped dead in it's tracks. Gladwell would know or have an idea how that happened. The 'snooprng on every young man is not the answer. And it leads to the totalitarian stuff that's worse. Intelligence has a hammer - everything looks like a nail to them. Let's put thought into this one...

[firebrand]

I think the Left wants to make sure they have our guns before the inevitable civil war starts. There was a threat of an enormous march if the cop who arrested Eric Garner is not fired. We are close to it. The shootings are planned so that they can gin up the public to take the guns away.

[northislander]

1966 UT tower shooting had 15 fatal and 30 wounding hits...stop adding to the wizardry of fake news hyperbole!

[northislander]

Does not drive the leftist identity politics and gun grabbing narratives...simple

[Retvet]

Have we need to look at our TVs for the answer. Certain channels make criminals stars. Video games teach killing is fun. Parents don’t parent anymore.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Why does this keep happening?

Because Satan knows his end is near. He is driving those who listen to his voice relentlessly to violence. This includes mohammedans and leftists of all stripes.

[Bodega]

Yes, that very thought has been going around in my mind. If the shooter is a Dem that isn’t a popular idea, but if the shooter is a Rep or conservative, that would be a grand idea. And so we have the Dayton Killer.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I had completely forgotten about John LaDue.

[Joe 6-pack]

"In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

~C.S. Lewis

[xp38]

That one is the true beginning of the modern era of these things. I think prior to that they were almost unheard of. There was violence of course but it was of a different flavor.