Gun violence in America

I honestly feel that the online video games like call of duty etc, have contributed to our increase. If any of you haven't been exposed to them, they desensitize the violence and make killing a human seem normal and everyday. I have played them and I can see where kids now can get the idea of mass killing. I'm not saying this is all of cause, but access to guns to teens, is partly to blame. If more parents locked up their guns better,we wouldn't have the same sprees. It's one thing for a gang member who is on the street to get a gun, but rural American kids should'nt have the access without parental knowledge. I know I had access growing up to any of our guns, but times change and we need to think of what could be done with our guns.
 
I suppose the victim mentality that seems to be growing in this country may relate to the OP’s question. It seems like more and more people are blaming others for their own failings and I suspect some are resulting to violence out of that sense of frustration.
 
One thing that is routinely glossed over in the mass casualty events that are so sensationalized is the mental health and medications aspect. These are part of the root cause and deserve far more attention then they get.

Once we remove the Gang on Gang teen and young adult offenders from this conversation we are left with the sensationalized mass casualty situations. Two glaring recent examples are Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech. Clearly these two shooters were "unbalanced" mentally. Not only were they unbalanced but it was pretty clear to everyone before these events unfolded that they were not in their right mind.

The SSRI family of drugs carries a FDA Balck Bax label / Warning of certain psychiatric effects; these include suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, et. al. These side effects have been known for quite some time. Over the last two decades, most mass casualty situations have two things in common......guns and SSRI drugs. A person either just on or just off of their drugs have been involved in these incidents. Certain un or misdiagnosed conditions coupled with SSRI drugs can / will result in one or more deaths resulting from a manic or psychotic state of mind. One thing about the US compared to many other countries is that we over medicate children and teens with these types of drug due to ADHD, Hyperactivity, Depression, etc. Even with a 1 in 1 million chance of problems, due to our numbers you will have some hits. It is only a matter of time that these hits involve using a gun with the subsequent results. A large issue is that many of the doctors prescribing these drugs are not mental health professionals. As such it is easy for them to miss important clues that something else is going on during their brief encounters with their patients. Look at how easy it is to get your child a prescription of Ritilan. That one drug alone has been shown to exacerbate issues in some people with Bi-Polar disorder, Anxiety disorders, and PTSD to name a few.

Also what many people fail to realize is that if you remove one tool (the gun) other tools will be used. What is often lost when discussing Columbine is that they also made and planted explosive devices around the school.

A little additional reading:
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Spree shooters & suicide....

While many "active shooter" & spree shootings end with the subject killing themselves, it doesn't occur all the time.
In my metro area a guy was convicted & sentenced for his "spree shooting" incident approx 3 years ago.
He fled the scene of his office rampage & was busted by a SWAT unit who went to his mom's house. :rolleyes:

People, even poor people do not always commit violent crime because they are broke or hungry. Most people know how to find food, public aid, cell phone programs, showers/grooming items, etc in many urban areas.
I spoke to a San Francisco CA resident last week(who works in the service industry not a high end job). He said the city & municipal services are top rated for homeless/poor people but many do not want to comply with the terms/SOPs. They want to roam around & prey on society. These people I have 0 sympathy for.
 
Why Americans shoot themselves, or others, more than any other Nation is a darn good question and I don’t know why.

Maybe our culture is just too violent.
 
Maybe our culture is just too violent.
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Culture and nature of the beast perhaps. Look at our history.

Native Americans get out NOW please or we'll kill you and yours including your food. We need guns to counter their archery and stone spears (BTW, never allow an Injun your gun or any gun sayeth the Mayflower travelers)

Brits v. French War with later taxation to pay for that war only to have revolution with one group down south saying we'll join but we're keeping our property, which of course caused a Civil War later on but only after another war with the Brits.

Meanwhile whoever was an enemy gave guns to the natives... hooboy, that didn't work so well for some, cause those cats got mad fast after being lied to time and time again.

Send the Marines to Tripoli to keep those crazy Barbary Pirates off our merchant ships backs.

Buy Territory from France that holds a lot of Native Americans within... sooooo
More Native American warfare added in. Need more guns please.

Mexico wants a piece of us huh? Invade them first please. We did.

That Civil War thing? Did you know that the US is the very first bi-racial culture in history of mankind? (or so I've read but I wondered about ancient Rome) That went over well and oh so peacefully (not).

Remember the Maine? need guns.

The War to End All Wars... Brits need us to make guns initially for their use, then HEY Lafayette we are HERE baby.

Women can now VOTE! :eek: You KNOW what that means. No booze for you and can we please stop killing each other and maybe take a bath every day in our new indoor plumbing? Maybe shave and brush your teeth while you're at it? :p

You can fill in the rest, but every wave of new immigrants was pooh-poohed by established immigrants who passed gun/people control laws because, well, they want to control the newbies and it's easier when they're unarmed.

Favorite sport nowadays? People are just now realizing it's kind of violent? Seriously? UFC/MMA, now that's not too violent is it?

We revere proper violence useful in controlled situations, in fact one can argue we need it to survive. It's the uncontrolled type of violence that the media loves to lead us on with and saturate our senses and that we here at TFL deplore.

But ponder this: More people today, less violence than ever before. Pretty frickin amazing for 330MM people to own +/-300MM guns and only have a couple hundred thousand shot each year with a mere 30,000+/- dying annually as a result. IMO.

Maybe the new ACA will help usher in a new era of statistics vis a vis health care. Because modern health care has kept a lot of people alive who were victims of violent behavior that probably would have died 30-40 years ago.

I could be wrong.
 
Violence is due to lack of morality and respect for others and self.
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It's really deeper than that. At the bottom of it all, we're still primates. Primates compete violently. In fact, on some level, we're programmed to enjoy violence.

Society teaches us to suppress those urges, and for the most part, it's very effective. It never even occurs to a healthy person to harm another over something trivial.

Of course, there are exceptions. What causes them? Lots of folks give lots of answers, but nothing seems to fit. Prescription drugs? Illegal drugs? Poor parenting? Video games? Twerking?

There are lots of experts who love to give succinct answers, but those cannot be accurate. When their theories fail to explain or fix the answer, they decide it's too hard to figure out, so they go after the instrument rather than the person.

That answer belies a certain intellectual laziness and dishonesty, but it certainly makes for a more memorable soundbite on the evening news.
 
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