USA National Trend: School Shootings

It seems to me that incidents like this were much less common -- all but unheard of -- 40 years ago.

What's changed in those 40 years that could account for this?

Some folk like to blame guns, but have guns actually become EASIER to own than they were 40 years ago?

Some folk like to blame "capitalism", but has capitalism actually become WORSE than it was 40 years ago?

Some folk like to blame "our modern society", but that's too vague and undefined to even rebut.  It's essentially an unfalsifiable argument.

Add to that the fact that this does seem to be far more of a problem in the United States than in, say, Sweden (notwithstanding that something similar may have happened in Sweden, and even accounting for the difference in population).

What happened or is happening that makes so many people believe that the solution to their life-sized problems ("I was fired", "I got an A- in that course", "She left me", "someone disrespected me") is to murder as many others as possible?

Mr. Magoo:

Read my lips.

It's the United States, stupid.

The only thing that shocks me is that people who smile while the U.S. murders millions abroad get all upset when the violence comes home to roost.

One thing for sure:

No one in the U.S. will implement gun control, or universal health care, or non-aggression abroad, or an end to domestic racism, classism, homophobia, misogyny...

Look at the bright side.

It might just be evolution at work.

Lynchings, murder, civil war. Nothing has changed. More white folks being killed? More non-Aboriginals?

Cue the gun fetishists.

Nothing will change. The bleeding hearts who thoguht Mewtown was the turning point simply didn't acknowledge the brutality of this society. Change in the U.S. will come only from without - when people of the world rise up and say, you're done. Like Rome, Britain...

One day, someone will point out that this is somerthing young men, usually privileged young men, carry out overwhelmingly. 

I think it's kind of like a boil rupturing.

What has changed?  Women got birth control, and consequently there have been changes.  Women's rights have changed the world.  We have more jobs, more education, more economic autonomy, we are more free.  Not entirely free, not entirely equal, but more and more so. And that means that we are not overwhelmingly trapped in the much more rigid gender roles of 40+ years ago.

The civil rights movement happened.  And while systemic racism and xenophobia still exist, it's being called out more widely than ever before, there have been gains made.

What's the result?  White guys hear that no, they're not entitled to getting hired first, they're not entitled to having a little woman home to get dinner on the table at 5pm on the dot, and they fucking hate that. So all that poisonous entitlement that white men have always had is getting squeezed, pushed into pockets, festering boils.  And the boil ruptures and spews that hate in a hail of bullets. 

Male entitlement, toxic masculinity and guns.  A winning combination.

manifest destiny.

i was serious about it. it is a totally patriarchial position of the US and their  showing the world how they should be by bombing the shit out of everyone. macro and micro versions of the God given right beliefs.

it doesn't include the underlaying reality of self destruction?  with a 17+ trillion dollar debt and a country in decline no matter how much they believe they're expanding,  i'd say the same self deluded self destruction is in effect.

I could be wrong, but I think there is no other country in the world with such a strong and delusional cultural mythology. There are ones that look bigger, like North Korea, but it's an open question in such societies how much people actually buy into it and how much they just go along so they don't get killed or arrested. But in the states, the buy-in is very real. Almost everyone there grows up thinking they live in the greatest country in the world, that everyone should be like them, that they should therefore rule the planet, and anyone who gets in the way of this can be successfuly dealt with by violence. Even the nice people generally consider this to be true.

These crazy and dangerous cultural assumptions are coded into every piece of entertainment, every book of history, every polictical campaign and movement (even the lefty ones). They get into your blood and bones. Since they are widely shared assumptions and we are social animals, the intrusion of rude reality rarely opens anyone's eyes. The constant dissonance that Americans live with, the notion that they're supposed to be kings but clearly aren't, literally drives the nation out of it's mind. The whole country basically feels cheated their whole lives and they don't know who to blame, since obviously it's not the mythology that's at fault (how could it be when it sounds so great?)

But that doesn't answer what has changed over the last forty years. Well, first off: Yes, capitalism has gotten substantially worse than it was forty years ago. At least domesticly. But speaking strictly of the states, their star has fallen considerably in that time frame. A number of accidents of history and geography left them in a dominant position after WW2 and fueled their exclusionist attitudes for many years, but from the seventies on, it's been all decline, both for the country in general, and even more for the general populace, who have been paying the price double over so that their rich elites don't have to feel this pinch. Of course, the mythology precludes blaming the rich for anything, even though they obviously control everything.

It adds up to a lot of angry frustrated young men (which you'll find in lots of countries who are having a hard go of it) but combines with an unbelievable amount of privilege and a firm belief that violence solves problems. Like any king who has had his throne stolen from him, the only solution is to kill the "usurpers". All the people who used to have no power but now have a little. They must have stolen the throne that was rightfully yours, because otherwise, where is it? The same mythology that insists you should be a king also denies the possibility of the rich and powerful being the problem, since worshipping wealth and power (their own) is central to the mythology in the first place. It must be those "losers" who are trying to improve their status illegitimately, through organisation and social education, instead of doing it properly by getting rich in this perfect system that rewards all merit.

Not that these people are thinking all these things, but I firmly believe that cultural assumptions are mostly unconscious and even if we think we disagree with them, we often absorb the emotional essence of them nonetheless. I can't tell you how many men I've met that can talk a perfect feminist line, but still think they have the right to dominate every conversation they have with a woman. Americans are raised to think that they are golden children who need to beat everyone else into being as awesome as them. It's not a stretch to imagine how that ends when the most entitled segments of the population hit the wall of reality. It's easier for them to turn their frustation into murder than admit their frustration is the result of being raised on lies.

I read that Obama was praising Austrailians gun ban and how amazing it was; less that 24 hours later there was a shooting outside of a police station in Australia.

Mr Magoo school murders have been going on since the 1700s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Quote:

1760s

The earliest known shooting to happen on school property in North America was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where Delaware (Lenape) American Indian fighters entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed ten children (reports vary). Only one child survived.[1]

19th century 1850s

• September 28, 1850: West Chester, Pennsylvania, At the Rocky Hill schoolhouse, students found their young teacher (aged about 18), Rachael Sharpless shot dead in the doorway of the school. George Pharoah, 19 years old, shot her while hiding behind a tree as she was unlocking the door. He used a copy of the Saturday Evening Post in a wad to muffle the sound, where parts of the magazine were found at the scene and in his pockets.[2]
• November 2, 1853: Louisville, Kentucky, The student Matthew Ward bought a pistol in the morning, went to school and killed the schoolmaster Mr. Butler, as revenge for what Ward thought was excessive punishment of his brother the day before. Ward was acquitted.[3]
• August 16, 1856: Florence, Alabama, The school master had a tame sparrow of which he was very fond, and had warned the students that if any of them killed it, they will die by his hands. By accident, or intentionally, one of the boys stepped on the bird and killed it. Alarmed by the threats, the boy was afraid to return to school, but the Master begged him to come back. He did so, and after the lessons were finished, he took the boy into a private room, and strangled him to death. Upon the boy's father hearing what had occurred, he loaded his gun and went and shot the schoolmaster dead.[4]
• July 6, 1858: Baltimore, Maryland, the 15-year-old son of Col. John T. Farlow (Baltimore's Marshal of Police 1867-70), was shot to death during a Sabbath School gathering. The perpetrator escaped, but several arrests were made.[5] 

We hear about it more because of instantanious media.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

I could be wrong, but I think there is no other country in the world with such a strong and delusional cultural mythology. There are ones that look bigger, like North Korea, but it's an open question in such societies how much people actually buy into it and how much they just go along so they don't get killed or arrested. But in the states, the buy-in is very real. Almost everyone there grows up thinking they live in the greatest country in the world, that everyone should be like them, that they should therefore rule the planet, and anyone who gets in the way of this can be successfuly dealt with by violence. Even the nice people generally consider this to be true.

These crazy and dangerous cultural assumptions are coded into every piece of entertainment, every book of history, every polictical campaign and movement (even the lefty ones). They get into your blood and bones. Since they are widely shared assumptions and we are social animals, the intrusion of rude reality rarely opens anyone's eyes. The constant dissonance that Americans live with, the notion that they're supposed to be kings but clearly aren't, literally drives the nation out of it's mind. The whole country basically feels cheated their whole lives and they don't know who to blame, since obviously it's not the mythology that's at fault (how could it be when it sounds so great?)

...

Not that these people are thinking all these things, but I firmly believe that cultural assumptions are mostly unconscious and even if we think we disagree with them, we often absorb the emotional essence of them nonetheless. I can't tell you how many men I've met that can talk a perfect feminist line, but still think they have the right to dominate every conversation they have with a woman. Americans are raised to think that they are golden children who need to beat everyone else into being as awesome as them. It's not a stretch to imagine how that ends when the most entitled segments of the population hit the wall of reality. It's easier for them to turn their frustation into murder than admit their frustration is the result of being raised on lies.

Well said.  I find it hard to listen to American politicians going on and on about American Exceptionalism. However their culture is exceptionally violent including large parts of the entertainment industry. It oozes out of their propoganda mills into the global mindset.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

Mr Magoo school murders have been going on since the 1700s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Quote:

1760s

The earliest known shooting to happen on school property in North America was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where Delaware (Lenape) American Indian fighters entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed ten children (reports vary). Only one child survived.[1]

19th century 1850s

• September 28, 1850: West Chester, Pennsylvania, At the Rocky Hill schoolhouse, students found their young teacher (aged about 18), Rachael Sharpless shot dead in the doorway of the school. George Pharoah, 19 years old, shot her while hiding behind a tree as she was unlocking the door. He used a copy of the Saturday Evening Post in a wad to muffle the sound, where parts of the magazine were found at the scene and in his pockets.[2]
• November 2, 1853: Louisville, Kentucky, The student Matthew Ward bought a pistol in the morning, went to school and killed the schoolmaster Mr. Butler, as revenge for what Ward thought was excessive punishment of his brother the day before. Ward was acquitted.[3]
• August 16, 1856: Florence, Alabama, The school master had a tame sparrow of which he was very fond, and had warned the students that if any of them killed it, they will die by his hands. By accident, or intentionally, one of the boys stepped on the bird and killed it. Alarmed by the threats, the boy was afraid to return to school, but the Master begged him to come back. He did so, and after the lessons were finished, he took the boy into a private room, and strangled him to death. Upon the boy's father hearing what had occurred, he loaded his gun and went and shot the schoolmaster dead.[4]
• July 6, 1858: Baltimore, Maryland, the 15-year-old son of Col. John T. Farlow (Baltimore's Marshal of Police 1867-70), was shot to death during a Sabbath School gathering. The perpetrator escaped, but several arrests were made.[5] 

We hear about it more because of instantanious media.

Other than the first dubious story all the others are instances of single murders on school property. The history does indeed show that mass killings at schools is a recent phenomena.

Hey kropotkin1951,

I was just pointing out school shootings/murders have been going on for a very long time.  The wikipedia stats I posted probably aren't all that comprehensive, it's easy to imagine lots happened 100 or 200 years ago that didn't make it to the internet. It's also harder to shoot multiple people with a flink lock or black powder gun.

Shootings have been going on for a while, probably for the same reason. People are angry and hurt and thy want other people to be hurt.  I would say in addition to that basic motive now we have social media where instantious news stories can reach all corners of the globe. I'm not sure if it's some sort of sick validation or something but making the news has for sure played into the motives of some of these murderers.

The FBI defines mass murder as murdering four or more persons during an event with no "cooling-off period" between the murders. If you look at the list I posted there's been 3 (that feels low doesn't it?)  school shootings inthe US in 2015. Only one of them constitutes a mass murder (this very last one).  I'm not trying to muddle the issue with semantics but again looking at the list for the last 20, 30 years etc.. there's a lot of shootings that are just 1 or 2 deaths, or 0 people died with a number injured.

In most of these cases it seems like there is a history of issues. After a shooting people come out of the wood work and say oh boy ya he's crazy i'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. These people all seem to be on the radar for various issues, I think we ought to cultivate a mentality that when everyone is saying someone has issues and will probably shoot up a school get them some help.

When you sleep next to an 800 lb gorilla, it makes sense to pay attention.

Quote:

Good question. I don't really think they are, though. It's the MSM which is obsessed.

I think that a shooting like this would make it onto the "MSM" regardless of whether it's in the U.S. or elsewhere.

That's how I first heard of the rash of school stabbings in China.  Certainly not because I read Sina Weibo in Mandarin.

Quote:

There's been school shootings for the last 200 years, further back I'm sure

Yes, let's never forget the time that headmaster strangled the boy who stepped on his favourite bird.  We should have learned a valuable lesson from that massacre.

Quote:

Simply proof that violence in schools for incredulous reasons is nothing new.

It's not that incredulous.

The headmaster strangled the boy because he stepped on Chirpy.

The boy's father shot the headmaster because he strangled his son.

And this is on the same spectrum as Sandy Hook because how?  We need to consider this silliness because why?

Would it help if I said I'm not trying to take your guns away from you?  I'm just curious why mass murders like this have become commonplace enough that we read about them and say "again??" as opposed to "WTF??".  And no, this sort of thing wasn't commonplace 200 years ago.

Got any stats on the number of drive by hammer attacks?

Hammers have notoriously short reaches so it's probably not the weapon of choice for drive bys but I'll look.

Found this though.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Passenger-Hit-with-Hammer-by-Uber-D...

Uber Passenger Says Driver Struck Him with Hammer After He Told Him He Was Going the Wrong Way

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-woman-jogger-attack...

This guy used his truck to strike a woman then attack her with a hammer.  I'm not certian but I think he had a licence AND his truck was registered.

Unionist, in October 2015 wrote:

Lynchings, murder, civil war. Nothing has changed. More white folks being killed? More non-Aboriginals? Cue the gun fetishists. Nothing will change. The bleeding hearts who thought Newtown was the turning point simply didn't acknowledge the brutality of this society. Change in the U.S. will come only from without - when people of the world rise up and say, you're done. Like Rome, Britain...

Sigh.

The youth who killed eight students and two teachers in Texas used a handgun and a shotgun - not an assault weapon. That must be why there hasn't been a peep from the now-dormant gun control movement. Doesn't fit their script. Maybe they will say something? Soon? Maybe?

There will no change from within that brutal, heartless society. As long as their state murders and exploits people around the world, and minorities and Indigenous people at home, their children will treat all human life in the same way. And they will worship their guns.