Josh Marshall TPM re the school shooting "Is It Really A Big Mystery?"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-it-really-a-big-mystery

First of all, this is not a criticism of Pete Williams, one of best network news reporters out there. It’s more a broader comment about how we deal with mass atrocity gun violence, how we think about its causes. A few moments ago, Pete Williams was on air on MSNBC providing the latest details of the shooting in Texas and the accused shooter, who is now in custody. Williams provided these latest details, including the suspect’s name and the fact that initial looks at his social media profiles show no evidence of connections to extremist groups, either foreign or domestic. Then he said that because there is no evidence of an extremist ideology, “why this happened, of course, remains a huge mystery.”

Here’s the video.

This is more social comment than anything. Not a criticism of Williams. But odd moment here when he notes no evidence of extremist beliefs, then says how it’s a total mystery why this happened. Is it really a mystery? This happens all the time. pic.twitter.com/AefZGYkVrU

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 18, 2018

Is this really a mystery? This happens all the time. It happens all the time. It is almost always a young man or boy in late adolescence who enters his school or the school he used to go to and tries to kill as many people as possible rather than any particular person.

Now, to be clear, I know what Williams meant. Again, not a criticism of him in any way. It’s a broader point. He’s saying we haven’t seen any evidence of the shooter pledging fealty to ISIS or spewing far-right conspiracy theories or militia rhetoric. But I think this shows how we really miss the point of why any of these things happen.

The impulse, which is rooted mainly in young men and pretty much exclusively men, is the origin of these things. Depending on where they’re situated they express these murderous rages through an Islamist idea system, or a militia or white supremacist idea system. But I think it’s a mistake to see these different forms of extremism as the cause of these shootings. School shootings are a contagious phenomenon in American society which virtually always involves boys in late adolescence who have histories of rage and alienation and play that out in mass atrocity attacks at their school, which for them is their social world.


snip - read the rest at the link

[Fozzledick]

1. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but whenever there's a mass shooting I immediately think "Right Wing Gun Nut".

I'm open to reconsidering once the facts come out, but it seems like the details always just confirm it one way or another.

[thbobby]

2. Right Wing Gun Nuts

are labeled as "disturbed" or some other innocuous term. If it is a domestic radical group, the same deal. But, if it can be labeled as a non-white gun nut, it is called terrorism.
Mass shootings are done by "idiots with guns", IMO. There have always been idiots and every nation has them. But America has the guns. The FBI considers domestic terrorists the most dangerous group there is in America. Idiots with guns. Take the guns away and we would have no more mass shootings than other nations. Fuck the NRA and the GOP. Money over American Lives. Fuck them.

[Girard442]

3. Thing is, those exact same troubled young men exist in every country.

But it's only here that someone in peacetime can so easily lay their hands on such massively lethal arsenals.

It's like we gave babies flamethrowers and agonized endlessly on how to keep them from burning down buildings.

[Maraya1969]

4. THIS!

[underpants]

5. The press throws a blanket over things in the initial reporting

Then they cite their own statements as fact to establish them. Research later shows differently but the press has their story and don't dare correct themselves or risk being attacked as "biased" (which they will be anyway).

[Hortensis]

6. Media has to sell papers and "mystery" is a marketing word.

It says keep wondering and keep tuned. There's MORE.

This is exploiting tragedy somewhat, of course. But on the other side, long, de rigueur hours of talking about these tragedies, during which there's seldom anything new to say, seems to be forced on them.