Guns / ARs not driving gun crime, but mental health & social media are.

[stagpanther]

Studies I saw over 20 years ago when I was in college showed that the meds alter the way the brain structurally develops.

So do many toxins that all of us were exposed to--and still are--in our day-to-day living. I have no doubt we still have the most formidable, professional and capable military in the world.

 

[HiBC]

There are many wonderful school teachers out there. My respect to them.

But I recall someone wrote a book about the idea that most grade school teachers are women,and they are most familiar and comfortable with the young girl students.

Many boy students come into the classroom as a different ball of energy than the teacher comprehends or wants to deal with.

In some cases the teacher wants to medicate the student for being a boy.

There are many different situations. In some cases,meds might be a legit answer.Maybe.

But in many cases, 15 or 20 minutes of playing dodge ball or other physical activity will have more benefit on the boys in a class than anything in a pill bottle.

I listened to a Man named James Hillman explain " A Spruce tree is a perfectly wonderful tree. An Oak Tree is a perfectly wonderful Tree..
But don't try to change a Spruce to an Oak. Let the Oak grow as an oak, and the Spruce a Spruce. A Spruce will make a poor oak.

50% of the teachers are below average. A Teacher who wants all students to be little girls can damage your son, especially if drugs are chosen to make her day easier and more manageable rather than the CHILD having a serious need for the drugs.

Pharma profits and teacher unions make up their own echo chamber.

 

[reynolds357]

There are many wonderful school teachers out there. My respect to them.

But I recall someone wrote a book about the idea that most grade school teachers are women,and they are most familiar and comfortable with the young girl students.

Many boy students come into the classroom as a different ball of energy than the teacher comprehends or wants to deal with.

In some cases the teacher wants to medicate the student for being a boy.

There are many different situations. In some cases,meds might be a legit answer.Maybe.

But in many cases, 15 or 20 minutes of playing dodge ball or other physical activity will have more benefit on the boys in a class than anything in a pill bottle.

I listened to a Man named James Hillman explain " A Spruce tree is a perfectly wonderful tree. An Oak Tree is a perfectly wonderful Tree..
But don't try to change a Spruce to an Oak. Let the Oak grow as an oak, and the Spruce a Spruce. A Spruce will make a poor oak.

50% of the teachers are below average. A Teacher who wants all students to be little girls can damage your son, especially if drugs are chosen to make her day easier and more manageable rather than the CHILD having a serious need for the drugs.

Pharma profits and teacher unions make up their own echo chamber.

Fully agree. School called my wife in last year, so I went instead. They wanted to discuss ADHD evaluation and possible medication for one of my sons. I told Asst Principle "That ain't happening. You have a legal obligation to educate him. He has a documented learning disability and has a program for it. You will educate him by whatever means necessary or I will pursue legal remedy. You will NOT have him medicated. He will not be medicated, and you will teach him in a manner in which he will learn." That was the end of that. They implemented actions that allow him extra breaks, extra time, etc. By years end, he was above grade level in everything except writing.

 

[44 AMP]

My Granddaughter just graduated High School...which now puts us into the second, or third (perhaps 4th??) generation of people who have been taught, and mostly believe that you can fix almost everything with a pill.

I know there are some things that can be fixed with a shot, and proper placement is the key..

"Mother's Little Helper" (look it up, kids, ) is both a boon and a bane of our modern age. Along with the attitude that using them is the right thing to do, all the time, for every problem.

and now we have a new kind of "pill" called social media. It's sold "on the street"...and, like the other pills, it not only does what it was made to do, it does other things as well, and the effects are nearly instantaneous, for good or ill.

I wonder what kind of fun world we would have if Herr Dr Goebbels and people like him had social media in their toolbox. Today, I believe they do.

Everyone from idiots to sages has instant access to (nearly) the entire world, with the ability to make their message known.

Information and facts are now instantly available to everyone, but so are MISinformation and DISinformation equally. And a well crafted lie is often more easily believed than an inconvenient truth.

I find it a bit ironic that we are encouraged to celebrate diversity and individual choice and thought in SOME areas of our lives, in others it is "conform, or be controlled". (though no one dare speak that aloud, it seems)
Controlled by laws, controlled by medications, controlled by peer pressure, social conventions, controlled by "filtering' the information we get, what ever methods are to hand, and work, get used. Very effectively for some things, less so for others.

So now we have a study that indicates a correlation between a couple things and a conclusion that one is "driving" the other. This is the usual way of things these days, some kind of study is done, and a conclusion is released as if it were proven fact. Neat, clean, simple and very often plausible, but is it the truth???

Or is it a way to influence people's behavior by making them think it is the truth?

ARs are not driving anything. Neither is any other gun or any inanimate object. PEOPLE are. I think we'd be better off not wasting our efforts on "gun crimes" and "gun violence" and instead focused on "human" crime and "human violence" (if you must put a name in front of crime and violence) we might have a better chance of changing things for the better.

 

[reynolds357]

My Granddaughter just graduated High School...which now puts us into the second, or third (perhaps 4th??) generation of people who have been taught, and mostly believe that you can fix almost everything with a pill.

I know there are some things that can be fixed with a shot, and proper placement is the key..

"Mother's Little Helper" (look it up, kids, ) is both a boon and a bane of our modern age. Along with the attitude that using them is the right thing to do, all the time, for every problem.

and now we have a new kind of "pill" called social media. It's sold "on the street"...and, like the other pills, it not only does what it was made to do, it does other things as well, and the effects are nearly instantaneous, for good or ill.

I wonder what kind of fun world we would have if Herr Dr Goebbels and people like him had social media in their toolbox. Today, I believe they do.

Everyone from idiots to sages has instant access to (nearly) the entire world, with the ability to make their message known.

Information and facts are now instantly available to everyone, but so are MISinformation and DISinformation equally. And a well crafted lie is often more easily believed than an inconvenient truth.

I find it a bit ironic that we are encouraged to celebrate diversity and individual choice and thought in SOME areas of our lives, in others it is "conform, or be controlled". (though no one dare speak that aloud, it seems)
Controlled by laws, controlled by medications, controlled by peer pressure, social conventions, controlled by "filtering' the information we get, what ever methods are to hand, and work, get used. Very effectively for some things, less so for others.

So now we have a study that indicates a correlation between a couple things and a conclusion that one is "driving" the other. This is the usual way of things these days, some kind of study is done, and a conclusion is released as if it were proven fact. Neat, clean, simple and very often plausible, but is it the truth???

Or is it a way to influence people's behavior by making them think it is the truth?

ARs are not driving anything. Neither is any other gun or any inanimate object. PEOPLE are. I think we'd be better off not wasting our efforts on "gun crimes" and "gun violence" and instead focused on "human" crime and "human violence" (if you must put a name in front of crime and violence) we might have a better chance of changing things for the better.

To focus on human behavior, you must have a set of moral values to point that compass. With the shift from religion to secular humanism in our nation, the point guiding the compass moved. I would argue that we are getting the exact behavior we should expect to get with the compass pointing at post modern secular humanism.
We have become exactly what our founders warned us our form of government was "woefully inadequate" to deal with.
An immoral people can not have freedom. An immoral people must be kept in line by totalitarianism.

 

[stinkeypete]

There are a lot of unsubstantiated opinions above.
I feel the most important are:
1. Population density has increased dramatically
2. The amount of lead the average civilian can put down rage has increased dramatically.
Note that the NFA was successful in curbing a proliferation of “cheap” machine guns but the number of those compared to the number of ARs in circulation is dwarfed.

Mass production, cnc and plastics technology makes guns cheap now, corrected for inflation.

As for keeping God out of the schools- prove to me that’s true when you can’t even prove this hypothetical spirt-man even exists. Or which of the many gods you are talking about.

Prove that we’re not keeping superstition out.. or that the Constitution did not mean “separation of church and State.”

Basically, we have a hell of a lot more people, packed into the same space and we all know news instantly now. With more guns per person than any place else in the world.

 

[zukiphile]

Basically, we have a hell of a lot more people, packed into the same space and we all know news instantly now.

So, you're saying we should expand.

It isn't obvious to me why population density would cause crime or violence. As the frontier moved from very near the coast, further inward then all the way west and south, it was likely less densely populated, but considerably more violent than the very populated east.

With more guns per person than any place else in the world.

Well, we are number one.

 

[44 AMP]

It isn't obvious to me why population density would cause crime or violence.

It should be fairly obvious, we're mammals...

As the frontier moved from very near the coast, further inward then all the way west and south, it was likely less densely populated, but considerably more violent than the very populated east.

Compared to today, where the most violent parts of our nation are the most thickly settled??

Population density is a factor. ONE factor among a huge number of factors.

Looking at only one factor never gives an accurate representation, of anything...

 

[Tom Servo]

or that the Constitution did not mean “separation of church and State.”

On a fine point, that phrase isn't in the Constitution. It comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a church group around 1806.

The general idea is enshrined in the 1st Amendment establishment clause, as well as in Article 3, which prohibits religious tests for public service.

Now, the claim that "they took God out of schools" is too simplistic to be useful. However, faith is (or was) one of the big unifiers in society, especially on the local level. Involvement with it has certainly been on the decline in modern society, and no other mechanism has really come forth to replace it.

Without an underlying ethical code, things get twitchy. Social media just makes things worse by encouraging narcissism and combativeness. Of course, I can't draw a straight, clear line between Facebook and mass shootings, but there's something to be said for the fact many of these shooters appear to have taken some measure of motivation from conspiracy theories and posts that (seem to) validate their resentments.

Just to pour fuel on that fire, we have an entire generation that missed more than a year of school. I know teachers who have witnessed huge issues in social development and emotional stability in kids. Adults lost their jobs and had to make major life changes. People were just stuck inside during the lockdowns.

Dump all these factors in a pot and stir. Is it any wonder we've become more neurotic and short-tempered as a society?

One law isn't going to fix this. It's going to take a "whole of society" approach and a willingness to identify the underlying problems. I just don't know if we're brave or humble enough to do that.

 

[stinkeypete]

We’re a hell of a lot more people packed in the same space with a society that generates incredible frustrations.

Regarding the idea that 50% of teachers are below average indicates a misunderstanding of “random sampling”, mean, median and mode.

Given that teachers undergo constant training and the bad ones burn out fast, it’s clearly not a normal distribution of teachers. For that matter, teachers in Ma, Minn, Iowa and Wi are clearly better than teachers in Mi and Al. We’re much more trained and get paid well enough that retail jobs don’t lure us away. Standardized testing is fairly weak test, but the difference between top and bottom states is vast.

The solution to high population density is we must evolve and become a kinder, gentler, more just and fair society. The insane gap between rich and poor isn’t based on ability alone. The amount of money you start with makes a huge difference.

 

[reynolds357]

We’re a hell of a lot more people packed in the same space with a society that generates incredible frustrations.

Regarding the idea that 50% of teachers are below average indicates a misunderstanding of “random sampling”, mean, median and mode.

Given that teachers undergo constant training and the bad ones burn out fast, it’s clearly not a normal distribution of teachers. For that matter, teachers in Ma, Minn, Iowa and Wi are clearly better than teachers in Mi and Al. We’re much more trained and get paid well enough that retail jobs don’t lure us away. Standardized testing is fairly weak test, but the difference between top and bottom states is vast.

The solution to high population density is we must evolve and become a kinder, gentler, more just and fair society. The insane gap between rich and poor isn’t based on ability alone. The amount of money you start with makes a huge difference.

I don't believe it has anything to do with population density. China and India come to mind. It has to do with morality or totalitarianism. You must have one or the other. You can't have neither.

 

[stinkeypete]

China and India don’t have an armed population, either.

Your statement that you can have morality or totalitarianism is false. Everyone in North Korea will tell you their way is right and yours is wrong. Who gets to define “morality”?

In India there are some pretty nasty killings by all sorts of nuts, just like we have. They just can’t put 90 rounds of ammo down range in 45 seconds. They have to struggle along with machetes and the like. It slows em down.

 

[reynolds357]

China and India don’t have an armed population, either.

Your statement that you can have morality or totalitarianism is false. Everyone in North Korea will tell you their way is right and yours is wrong. Who gets to define “morality”?

In India there are some pretty nasty killings by all sorts of nuts, just like we have. They just can’t put 90 rounds of ammo down range in 45 seconds. They have to struggle along with machetes and the like. It slows em down.

That is my point. India is not totalitarian and has a religious system in rapid demise. China is totalitarian secular. Dense populations under differing circumstances.
Study the writings of the founders. Their predictions of what would happen in this nation have happened, and for the very reason they predicted.

 

[FITASC]

Without going any further, (since politics is not allowed here) do not overlook possible involvement from leftist political folks in these incidents as they they use them to try and pass new gun control

 

[44 AMP]

It is an observed fact that when stress (caused by whatever) reaches a certain point, individuals will run amok, and at another level society in general will.

No one can say what that level is, and every different individual and different societies will have a different "tipping point".

We can discuss at length (though not here) how and why and what is too much and so on, but I don't think an argument can be made to deny that it exists.

Overcrowding is A factor. But only one factor among a huge number of factors.

 

[FITASC]

I grew up in NYC many decades ago. When you crowd folks on top of one another (literally) with no space of their own, attitudes, and reactions to things are a lot different. My dad was NYPD and he took his 6 weeks of vacation ALL in the heat of the summer when crowded city, very little ACs at the time, drove people to do so,e VERY bad things domestically, so yes, I agree, crowded urban areas, poverty, poor education, oddball social mores, idiotic medications, biased media bent on divide as ordered by shadows behind the curtain, unending exposure to violence, amongst a host of other issues seem to be behind a lot of these incidents

 

[cdoc42]

"Now, the claim that "they took God out of schools" is too simplistic to be useful. However, faith is (or was) one of the big unifiers in society, especially on the local level. Involvement with it has certainly been on the decline in modern society, and no other mechanism has really come forth to replace it."

Tom Servo, your statement, in my estimation, hits the proverbial nail on the head. The failure, however, is contributed to-at least in Catholic churches in my experience- by religious leadership failure even at the local level.

FITASC's post above reminded me of my entry into medical school. We were challenged to read a book with the "threat" of being tested -which never occurred. I don't recall the name of the book but I never forgot this portion, which lasted through the 39 years I was in practice. Deer were placed on an island, where there were no predators or threats to their existence. There was adequate food and water, and the deer population increased as expected. As time went on, deer deaths were increasing for no apparent reason. Autopsies revealed an increase in the size of the adrenal glands and the proposition was offered that the simple excess of numbers of deer per unit of space caused hypertrophy of the adrenal glands and an increase in the stress hormones, cortisol, and epinephrine, which created physiologic catastrophe sufficient to cause death. The discussion extended to human environments in the large cities where the numbers of inhabitants in various domiciles were excessive, including situations where mothers would observe their children in threatening situations from their windows many floors above any ability to engage a protective reaction, leading to stress which explained the graffiti, property damage and personal altercations leading to criminal activity.

What does our current leadership need to know about Core causes of events?

 

[sako2]

When I was a kid if you had a problem with someone duked it out and afterwards became friends. Nowadays if you duke it out your in as much trouble as if you shot them. Now if you have a kid that don't listen to you we put them on drugs instead of giving them a slap on the ass. Our parent's did it to us and We're still here and didn't kill anyone. Big difference between disabling and abuse.

 

[TomNJVA]

Very thoughtful and insightful thread!

Identifying the root causes of a problem is, of course, a proper route to finding solutions, but we must also recognize that some problems may not have a solution. This is especially true with respect to mental illness and human behavior.

For perspective, we have 330,000,000 people in our country. At any given point in time, a certain percentage of them are, pardon the term, “crazy”, that is, not able to think rationally and cope with the responsibilities and stresses of living. The percentage of real bad cases may be rather small, but even if it’s as small as 0.01%, that’s still 33,000 people among us potentially on the edge of breaking. Many of these commit suicide, but some are bound to pick up a firearm and turn on others. Even if we figure out the cause of their mental aberration, I doubt that we can identify these people and set them straight. With our big brains came big emotions, and not everyone is able to control them.

Violent behavior just may be something we must learn to live with in a free society, and protect ourselves as best we can.

That’s not to say that we are helpless and cannot improve the situation. This thread has touched upon many valid contributing factors to violence, some of which can be somewhat addressed by laws or improved education. Regulating violent video games, movies, and TV shows comes to mind, as well as better access to mental health services and effective medicines, among others. And wouldn’t it be nice if schools actually taught children how to think rationally, behave in a society, and evaluate truth, but that’s a minefield for teachers in our woke society.

Fact is this is a very complex and multifaceted problem and may not be solvable in a free society. For many years I have predicted an acceleration in violence, for all of the reasons discussed in this thread, and I fear it will continue if the only solution our leaders have is to write more laws regulating guns.

 

[Pistoler0]

I would like to make a point:

Many of us are writing comments trying to elucidate on the reasons why there has been an increase in gun violence, but, as the video in the OP shows, violence (including gun violence) has actually DECREASED compared to that in the 80s and 90s. Yes, there has been a temporary post-covid spike, but overall levels of gun violence are still lower than in past decades, including the years when the old Assault Weapons Ban was in place.

I think that where the video does help is in trying to understand this horrific "active shooter incident" phenomenon. Although violence is less than what it used to be, "active shooter incidents" have been disproportionately on the rise during the past decade. These incidents are not new, they happened before, even with the old AWB in effect: anybody old enough to remember the expression "going postal"?

But they have dramatically risen since the 2000s and specially after 2010, and this is where the crisis in mental health, over prescription of drugs and social media use could be having a nefarious impact.