[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

bighoppa wrote:

Involuntary celibacy? Seriously? How do you counter that? Handmaiden's Tale a bunch of women to keep these aggressors in check? That seems reasonable. I can't believe the crap that comes out of people's mouths sometimes.

Do some google-fu on incels, you will get chills in places you never knew existed. These are people that worship Elliot Rodger as a national hero.

Also, the myth of the mentally ill loner has been known for a while now. It's been called out for decades that whenever a PoC commits a crime it's because of character flaws, but when white folks commit crimes it's because of some mental instability or taking too much ambien, i.e. "It wasn't their fault they were racist!"

Any time someone brings up "mental illness" as the cause of white men going ape sh*t, I ask two questions.

1) What pathology are we identifying as uniquely white and male?

To a large extent, both criminality and mental illness are societal constructs. Women voting or executing commercial contracts used to be "criminal" and reading novels was once a significant sign of "mental illness". So what is the construct we are employing to identify a white male mass murderer as "mentally ill" and distinct from a brown mass murderer as a "terrorist"? Is it the inability to adapt to a world of eroding privilege? Is it the realization of the disappointment of race and gender expectations? What they are defining as "mental illness" really just sounds like butthurt to me.

2) How is conflating homicidal ideation (and behavior) with "mental illness" constructive?

There are literally millions of people struggling with some significant mental and emotional challenge in the United States alone and conflating their depression or anxiety with this sort of hateful behavior is pretty cowardly. Anyone who uses the "mentally ill loner" phrase should be cognizant of this and the fact that they are a sh*theel.

In other news, looks like we dodged some bullets:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Day noted that 50-year-old Christopher Hasson hasn't been charged with any terrorism-related offenses. Hasson was arrested Feb. 15 and is awaiting trial on firearms and drug charges. Prosecutors have said he created a hit list of prominent Democrats, two Supreme Court justices, network TV journalists and social media company executives.

Oh wait...

A Coast Guard lieutenant accused of being a domestic terrorist is entitled to be released from custody before his trial on firearms and drug charges, a federal magistrate said Thursday.
bighoppa wrote:

Involuntary celibacy? Seriously? How do you counter that? Handmaiden's Tale a bunch of women to keep these aggressors in check?

Yes. If you want to see what this looks like in real world practice, look at ISIS.

In the last few decades, there's been a steep rise in violent male resentment driven by changing social mores and communicated through radical internet communities. ISIS couches their ideology in theological terms, and the incel crowd couches theirs in a fetishization of atheistic rationalism, but the sales pitch is the same: a restoration through whatever means necessary of a traditional social order that gives young men the status, respect, and sexual satisfaction that they are owed and would have received if the world hadn't taken it from them.

ISIS got a foothold because of the collapse of social order in the region thanks to multiple wars and climate change. Once they did, they found willing recruits from all over the world to fight for their specifically patriarchal worldview. Right now, incels don't have that foothold but they're quietly radicalizing men online and selling them on things like "the redistribution of sex" as a solution for social problems, with the underlying assumption being that women themselves are a commodity to be distributed by and to men.

Paleocon wrote:

There are literally millions of people struggling with some significant mental and emotional challenge in the United States alone and conflating their depression or anxiety with this sort of hateful behavior is pretty cowardly. Anyone who uses the "mentally ill loner" phrase should be cognizant of this and the fact that they are a sh*theel.

The problem here is that "mental illness" is a catch-all for thousands of different conditions that manifest vastly differently. Bipolar != schitzophrenia, and it's nuts that we have but a single word bucket to keep them in.

Jonman wrote:

The problem here is that "mental illness" is a catch-all for thousands of different conditions that manifest vastly differently. Bipolar != schitzophrenia, and it's nuts that we have but a single word bucket to keep them in.

Why is it nuts?

Cancer != shingles but we use the same word bucket of "disease" for them. I kind of get what you are saying but there are single buckets for almost all broad categories.

It is actually kind of scientific. Lion != beavers but both are in the category of mammal

So what should various mental illnesses not be similarly sorted and categorized?

farley3k wrote:
Jonman wrote:

The problem here is that "mental illness" is a catch-all for thousands of different conditions that manifest vastly differently. Bipolar != schitzophrenia, and it's nuts that we have but a single word bucket to keep them in.

Why is it nuts?

Cancer != shingles but we use the same word bucket of "disease" for them. I kind of get what you are saying but there are single buckets for almost all broad categories.

It is actually kind of scientific. Lion != beavers but both are in the category of mammal

So what should various mental illnesses not be similarly sorted and categorized?

Because statically speaking, the term mental illness is unevenly distributed in favor of white male domestic terrorists to excuse their behavior.

farley3k wrote:
Jonman wrote:

The problem here is that "mental illness" is a catch-all for thousands of different conditions that manifest vastly differently. Bipolar != schitzophrenia, and it's nuts that we have but a single word bucket to keep them in.

Why is it nuts?

Cancer != shingles but we use the same word bucket of "disease" for them. I kind of get what you are saying but there are single buckets for almost all broad categories.

It is actually kind of scientific. Lion != beavers but both are in the category of mammal

So what should various mental illnesses not be similarly sorted and categorized?

This isn't a definition problem, it's a usage problem.

Describing someone as "mentally ill" is barely more specific than describing them as "a person, who enjoys food on a daily basis".

What am I supposed to take away from being told that a killer was "mentally ill". Depressed and performing suicide-by-cop? Thinks he's Jesus and was starting the Rapture? Those aren't even in the same ballpark.

Jonman wrote:

This isn't a definition problem, it's a usage problem.

Describing someone as "mentally ill" is barely more specific than describing them as "a person, who enjoys food on a daily basis".

What am I supposed to take away from being told that a killer was "mentally ill". Depressed and performing suicide-by-cop? Thinks he's Jesus and was starting the Rapture? Those aren't even in the same ballpark.

Now that makes sense to me. It is about usage.

Because what I am supposed to take away from being told a person died "after a long illness"? Cancer, stroke, heart disease?

But it being a usage problem make sense.

farley3k wrote:

Now that makes sense to me. It is about usage.

Because what I am supposed to take away from being told a person died "after a long illness"? Cancer, stroke, heart disease?

That the nature of their disease is irrelevant to why you're being told about it? That they don't want the fine detail of their medical situation released? That that's the norm for reporting deaths in the media?

Again, it's all about the usage. Who is telling you that, and why?

There's the meat of the issue. Why is the norm for reporting white terrorists to refer to them as "mentally ill loners".

It is mostly because when gun toting white people insist that it is a "mental health issue", they are generally saying, like I articulated above, that giving up the "cooter to the shooter" (actual words I have heard btw) is the only way to stop these mass murders.

Paleocon wrote:

It is mostly because when gun toting white people insist that it is a "mental health issue", they are generally saying, like I articulated above, that giving up the "cooter to the shooter" (actual words I have heard btw) is the only way to stop these mass murders.

Ask them if they're willing to start blowing lonely anti-social men. And if not, why not?

And when they respond "cos i'm not gay", ask which of their family members they're offering up as tribute instead.

Jonman wrote:

This isn't a definition problem, it's a usage problem.

Describing someone as "mentally ill" is barely more specific than describing them as "a person, who enjoys food on a daily basis".

What am I supposed to take away from being told that a killer was "mentally ill". Depressed and performing suicide-by-cop? Thinks he's Jesus and was starting the Rapture? Those aren't even in the same ballpark.

Saying a mass shooter is "mentally ill" is an easy catch bucket that covers everything from behavioral issues, extreme ideological beliefs, and actual mental illnesses to the pure "I don't understand how a sane person could murder dozens of their fellow humans so I'm going to call them crazy because it's the only way I can begin to make sense of what they did."

Paleocon wrote:

It is mostly because when gun toting white people insist that it is a "mental health issue", they are generally saying, like I articulated above, that giving up the "cooter to the shooter" (actual words I have heard btw) is the only way to stop these mass murders.

The NRA should start offering mass shooter training in which they explain to all the gun owning crazies that they already possess the tool that could make all their worldly problems and concerns instantly go away. They just need to use it on themselves first.

OG_slinger wrote:

The NRA should start offering mass shooter training in which they explain to all the gun owning crazies that they already possess the tool that could make all their worldly problems and concerns instantly go away. They just need to use it on themselves first.

Hurray for suicide!

#alloftheeyerolls

I have heard more than a handful of folks I would categorize as "in the risk demographic" of disgruntled, Fox Nuisance watching, white, male gun owners express their fondness and appreciation for the movie Falling Down. They say that it perfectly expresses how they feel that they are losing their country.

If you haven't seen it, I think it really paints the picture of the inside of that mind.

Jonman wrote:

Hurray for suicide!

#alloftheeyerolls

I'd much rather read a news story about how a 21-year-old who's social media was full of white supremacist sh*t quietly killed himself than read a story about how he murdered nine innocent people.

OG_slinger wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Hurray for suicide!

#alloftheeyerolls

I'd much rather read a news story about how a 21-year-old who's social media was full of white supremacist sh*t quietly killed himself than read a story about how he murdered nine innocent people.

It's not a binary choice, dude.

Paleocon wrote:

I have heard more than a handful of folks I would categorize as "in the risk demographic" of disgruntled, Fox Nuisance watching, white, male gun owners express their fondness and appreciation for the movie Falling Down. They say that it perfectly expresses how they feel that they are losing their country.

If you haven't seen it, I think it really paints the picture of the inside of that mind.

That 1993 movie is quite prophetic. At the time the "peace dividend" after the collapse of the USSR caused a significant drawdown in the military, and with it military contractors, which Douglas' character was before he got laid off. Obviously any decrease in defense spending must be because America is heading in the wrong direction.

The idea still works today. White men over 50 are seeing their opportunities dwindle and are looking for someone else to blame. It's much easier to hate on poor minorities than to hold the plutocrats accountable.

At least he was disgusted with the Nazi.

The notion of treating sex like an explicit commodity isn’t only discussed on the *chans. sh*thead Ross Douthat wrote an opinion piece for the NYT about it. In it he echoes “Robin Hanson, a George Mason economist, libertarian and noted brilliant weirdo“ who commented on the then-recent Toronto terrorist violence:

If we are concerned about the just distribution of property and money, why do we assume that the desire for some sort of sexual redistribution is inherently ridiculous?

Most people watch/read handmaid's tale and are terrified. But a few assholes think it's a blueprint.

Stele wrote:

Most people watch/read handmaid's tale and are terrified. But a few assholes think it's a blueprint.

Mike Pence thinks it's porn.

Paleocon wrote:

1) What pathology are we identifying as uniquely white and male?

Affluenza? Influenceza?

Mixolyde wrote:
Stele wrote:

Most people watch/read handmaid's tale and are terrified. But a few assholes think it's a blueprint.

Mike Pence thinks it's porn.

The men are 'meeting' with the handmaids with their wife in the room, so it's okay.

The men are 'meeting' with the handmaids with mother in the room, so it's okay.

Fixed.

Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

Now that makes sense to me. It is about usage.

Because what I am supposed to take away from being told a person died "after a long illness"? Cancer, stroke, heart disease?

That the nature of their disease is irrelevant to why you're being told about it? That they don't want the fine detail of their medical situation released? That that's the norm for reporting deaths in the media?

Again, it's all about the usage. Who is telling you that, and why?

There's the meat of the issue. Why is the norm for reporting white terrorists to refer to them as "mentally ill loners".

I'm hoping you're asking these questions rhetorically.

There was a synagogue shooting today in California. 4 people were shot, one dead so far.

Looks like the 19-year-old shooter is was radicalized on 8chan and /pol/ (he was a lurker just a year and a half ago), started planning his attack right after the Christchurch shooting because it inspired him, set fire to a local mosque a week after Christchurch (and left graffiti referencing the shooting and slurring Muslims), and posted an anti-semitic and white supremacist filled manifesto on 8chan saying how he had to do it because Jews are executing a "meticulously planned genocide of the European race."

He also took pains to say he doesn't support Trump (even though Trump thinks he's 'very fine people') because Trump's a "Zionist, Jew-Loving, Anti-White Traitorous C*cksucker."

OG_slinger wrote:

Looks like the 19-year-old shooter is was radicalized on 8chan and /pol/ (he was a lurker just a year and a half ago), started planning his attack right after the Christchurch shooting because it inspired him, set fire to a local mosque a week after Christchurch (and left graffiti referencing the shooting and slurring Muslims), and posted an anti-semitic and white supremacist filled manifesto on 8chan saying how he had to do it because Jews are executing a "meticulously planned genocide of the European race."

He also took pains to say he doesn't support Trump (even though Trump thinks he's 'very fine people') because Trump's a "Zionist, Jew-Loving, Anti-White Traitorous C*cksucker."

It's a sad state of affairs when a mass shooter rejects Trump because he isn't quite nazi enough.

I wouldn’t say it’s a sad state of affairs. Trump gives cover for Nazis, and Nazis give cover for trump by distancing themselves from him. Meanwhile centrists and libertarians can pretend they’re not a part of the Nazis because Nazis hate trump, but they can gleefully continue to enable them.

I would say it’s working as intended.