What is the REAL CAUSE of mass shootings?

[Dashunde]

Poor parenting... made worse by pressures to over-work and under-parent so that we can afford to buy tons of services, toys and junk that was never before available and that we dont really need.

Hyped up and endless media coverage.

Games and movies.

We've always had lousy parents, but the rapid sensationalized spread of media coverage makes heros out of these cowards in the eyes of an angry (copy-cat) kid who is already desensitized by a life filled with violent video games and movies.

 

[4V50 Gary]

I would not say it's not the availability of mental health services. Rather, it's the excessive prescribing of pyschotropic medications that causes the users to have homicidal or suicidal thoughts. Almost all of these shooters are seeing a psych and are on psych meds.

 

[ScottRiqui]

Almost all of these shooters are seeing a psych and are on psych meds.

I hear that supposition a lot, but has that actually been documented in the case of any of the recent mass shooters?

 

[hardworker]

We live in a world that idolizes fame and possessions, not productivity and worth. Not everyone wants to play along.

 

[overhead]

When we blame drugs, are we assuming the instances of mass shootings have increased along with the increase in distribution of these drugs? Unless we use the Brady groups creative definition of "mass shootings" I think you will find they have not increased and possibly may have decreased some over the years.

This will depend on how one defines "mental illness" but I don't really think that is driving these folks either. They know what they are doing and they seem to realize it is wrong. It is not as though most of them are having some break and think that the folks they kill were out to get them or something. Though I suppose that might be the case with some workplace shootings.

That being said I have no idea what is to blame. I think blaming illness or drugs or guns or video games is much, much easier for people to accept then just saying some people are evil, nasty human beings that do evil, nasty things. After spending some time reading on the subject of mass shooters for a little while I came to the conclusion that they are just evil humans. I can't really find any other common link between them all, but I am not a professional either so I could be missing something.

 

[Fishing_Cabin]

Since I could only pick 1, I did, but I feel its a combiation of 2 things.

Poor availability of mental health care programs which identify and treat troubled people, and the press publishing the identity of the shooter and turning him/her into a media star.

Not only do we have the initial incident usually, but also there is typically either a copycat or two, or at least the fear of a copycat event.

 

[Chaz88]

I voted something else because like many others have said I do not know what "the cause" is. I think it could be a combination of things or something not even touched on yet.

 

[lcpiper]

Troubled people who have serious self esteem problems coupled with what looks like a very poor chance for a successful future.

Add this to a skewed set of values, what is and is not important, and you might get people who can do these things.

 

[lcpiper]

I don't think there can be a clean cut, one size fits all answer to this.

No, this pole probably is not useful for it's stated purpose, but it may be useful for another purpose.

Given the current legislative measures in process by our Federal, and many State/Local governments, we see how we as a body with similar interests view the potential for success of these efforts.

 

[Nathan]

Unless we use the Brady groups creative definition of "mass shootings" I think you will find they have not increased and possibly may have decreased some over the years.

I kind of like this quote. IMO, we have not seen mass shootings. What we have seen are definitely illegal shootings of multiple targets, but mass shootings could be much worse.

Frankly, because we are seeing shootings motivated by individuals, and especially related to mentally ill people, the body counts are relatively low. How would the news cover it if a (sorry about the political correctness of this phrase)race based hate group, anti-government group, religiously based group trained and executed a mall shooting? You could have hundreds dead, easily.

Now, clearly the correct opposition to all shootings is to create failure or the illusion of failure. This is done by taking away anti-ccw zones, getting rid of the fluff and buff mall cop type security, etc. Where ccw has been given real freedom, there are few shootings.

Would gun registration, background checks, mag bans do this? No, because the guns, ammo and mags are already out there. Guns, ammo, mags can be bought legally and illegally any day. Police will never be able to make a dent in these numbers, even with door to door confiscations. This is akin to finding the WMD's in Iraq. Do you think Sadaam used the last one? No, it is somewhere.

 

[jeepstrapped]

We had a meeting about "Active Shooters" where I work last week.

One part of the seminar / lecture / meeting covered a history of "Active Shooters". What was immediately noticible is that there was and is no discernible pattern of who commits these acts.

About the only common trait was that they tend to be male, I think it was something like 4%, or around there, of active shooters have been female.

And more often than not they commit the act by themselves, but there were rare occasions when there was more than one person involved.

In a nutshell, you can't really tell who is going commit an act like this. One of the few things they all have in common is that they tend to have a planning stage.

The Department of Homeland Security has a webpage with some information relating to active shooters: http://www.dhs.gov/active-shooter-preparedness

There are some traits / behaviors to be aware of, but they are more behaviors that change over time. That is, be aware of your surroundings and be aware of changes in other people.

 

[HiBC]

I understand the compulsion to grasp for answers.From a root cause we could find a solution.We want the power to "fix it".

I'm not convinced we can approach irrational behavior with rational solutions.

I'm OK accepting that I will never be able to make any sense out of shooting children.

Or shooting up a movie theatre.Or any number of horrific things that happen every day.

Maybe we must try,but I see danger signs in simplistic identification of root cause.

That is what the anti-gunners are doing.

I'm saying lets not look for a way ,or a label,to target people.

We,as gun owners,do not like to be lumped in with killers and criminals.

I do not care to speculate who may become a killer.That is a projection of my own fears.

I do not care why someone is killing.It makes no difference.Its head dust in the wind.

If and when it happens,I want them stopped.

An armed man approached the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.Congregation 7000.He had an AR-15,handguns,and a whole lot of ammo.He was there to make body count.

That is nearly identical to Sandy Hook.

The one thing that was different is an armed woman who had the courage to say "No" with her concealed handgun.She was in the church.
She put the shooter down.

Sadly,Sandy Hook did not have the same armed woman.

A shepherd is the steward of the sheep entrusted to him.Around here,a shepherd might have a 32-20 to back up his dog in keeping his sheep safe.

We give our children over to a school,entrusting them to keep the kids safe.

The stewards are helpless to protect our children.

I would refuse to trust my children to a school that denies the need for the shepherds rifle

 

[Dashunde]

I've seen mental health, or access to it mentioned several times.
We as a species have always had mental issues, child abuse, and neglect without treatment. But we didnt really have these "Columbine" events until recently even though we used to carry pocket knives to school and had guns in the back racks of our pickup trucks parked on school property.

Mental care is far better now than ever before yet the mass ambushes have risen sharply in the past 15 years.

You have to ask what else has risen sharply.
What do most all of these shooters have in common?

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

It's multicausal with interactions between factors.

You can identify A, B and C for instance and the behavior outcome is determined by

A + B + C + AxB + BxC + AxC + ABC.

Very smart people have looked for simple causes and there isn't one.

You can pick a cause based on your beliefs and ideology but that's not worth much without empirical tests.

 

[Pilot]

I don't know what causes mass shootings, but I agree with what a previous poster said. While horribly sad, and tragic they are very rare, and lots more people die from other violence or accidents every day. For our politicians and media to overly focus on a very low risk issue by using it to promote gun control is really insulting.

You can't legislate perfect safety, and take the risk out of life. It is just not going to happen, so stop restricting the freedoms of the sane and law abiding to make yourself feel like something can be done, or further statist control over the populace.

 

[dakota.potts]

"I would not say it's not the availability of mental health services. Rather, it's the excessive prescribing of pyschotropic medications that causes the users to have homicidal or suicidal thoughts. Almost all of these shooters are seeing a psych and are on psych meds."

Don't you think this is a case of implying causation through correlation? It's far more likely that these people that perpetrate these crimes are mentally unstable by large degrees and this tends to be noticed so they end up on medications (especially as many of them are young men whose signs were first noticed as children). At least, IMO.

I'm smack dab in the middle of all of the debates. I'm a gun owner advocate and believe citizens should be able to open carry automatic weapons if that's their pleasure. I'm a musician doing sound design and music for video games, including those very violent ones. And I have family and relationship history with mental illness with family members and even my girlfriend taking Zoloft, Effexor, and in some cases Valium.

We CANNOT do the same thing to other groups that they do to us gun lovers. Those studies that say that violent video games increase violence? Paid for by anti-game groups. The same as the studies that say that more guns increase violence. In both cases there is evidence to the contrary. As far as I know, there are no studies that empirically link these to a higher risk of causing mass murder.

 

[chadio]

Mass murderers and terrorists prey on large groups of defenseles people, and they get recognition for what they do.

Now, think of that statement as a math equation.... change one factor and you change the result.

 

[StagrLee]

What all the shooters have in common is cowardice.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Ok, not to be harsh but that's the kind of comment that makes discussions like this meaningless.

It makes YOU feel good to say they are cowards when their mental processes are probably orthogonal to being brave in the conventional sense.

So let's can the cliches if you want this one to continue. TFL has a higher standard.

 

[Dashunde]

Cowardly;
2. characteristic of or befitting a coward; despicably mean, covert, or unprincipled: a cowardly attack on a weak, defenseless man.

Glenn, I agree with him, they are cowards of the highest order by pure definition.
A majority of them are armed to the teeth and attacking the softest unprotected venues and victims they can find.
Only a scant few are going in after their bully or tormentors, but still attacking those unarmed.

It doesnt make me feel anything but honest to call them exactly what they are. And if the media would do the same perhaps it would wipe some of the glitz & and glamour off of it for the next would-be copycat.