I don't think the problem is so much the guns as the culture of violence.

[Jackpine Radical]

Let me try to give you my perspective.

I went to a 1-room country grade school, and I would bet that every kid in that school came from a home in which there were multiple firearms. I would further bet that every kid, of both sexes, and including the first-graders, had had some training with those guns. When we visited each other, we would often look at and handle our parents' guns, with their easily-obtained permission. Guns were viewed as dangerous tools, like axes, and we were taught to respect them and use them correctly. Everybody had a B-B gun by age 8 and a .22 by maybe 10. We started deer hunting at 11. Nobody was afraid that one of us would bring a gun to school and start shooting.

I am not arguing that that world of 60+ years ago was anything like today's world, and I am not addressing what society should do about guns in the present. I'm pointing out that access to firearms is not commensurate with wanting to use them on other people, or to the level of violence in society. The world was different then, and people didn't resort to guns. I can recall one (double-) murder in the county in all my years of growing up. That happened when a guy who had been brutally abused by his parents in childhood came home AWOL from the Army and murdered both parents with a deer rifle.

Everyone was really freaked out by this incident, and it was talked about for years. Yet I do not recall anyone panicking over the access we kids had to guns.

I think the major difference was that, among the people with whom I grew up, guns were a natural part of life, used mostly for subsistence hunting and sport.

In today's gun-crazed world, most urban gun-owners arm themselves for self-protection (or for aggression against each other).

In modern times, I believe we do need to limit firearms, and I mave become lmore accepting of the idea as time goes on.

However, gun control will not solve our terrible violence problem. It won't even dent it. The problem will only be solved when we stop inculcating a culture of violence into ourselves and our children. Movies, TV, and shoot-em-up electronic games are as much a part of the problem as the guns.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. But that's much too difficult to do.

It's so much easier, and so much more comforting, to place simple blame, or no blame, and then go about our business as if nothing happened, because there's nothing we can do about.

from a sociologist.

[upaloopa]

2. I used guns as a kid with my dad

We didn't fucking have Glocks and AR-15s
There is a difference even if you don't see it

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Absolutely I see the difference.

I didn't get into it explicitly (I was trying to write a short post, not a book), but I think this point is implicit in my discussion of the differences between the culture in which I grew up & the urban-warfare culture. I would have no problem with outlawing Uzis. But I would also like to see little de-militarization of the police at the same time.

[reformist2]

39. Yep. Today people pretend to be killing machines, not hunters. It's demented.

[Edweird]

80. How old are you? I'm 42 and my GRANDPARENTS had all manner of automatic weaponry.

While, technically, they didn't have AR15's or Glocks - I would take an M14 and a 1911 over them any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[upaloopa]

111. I'm 66 and i had a m-14 and a 1911 in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. You don't go hunting with your dad

with a fucking M-14!

[lunatica]

3. I think that 20 years of hate and shock radio are the most to blame

[Care Acutely]

10. Who do the hate and shock radio assholes advocate for? The NRA and gun nutz

that's who.

[CrispyQ]

13. They've certainly had a hugely negative impact.

I will toast the day when Limbaugh passes. Calling a 14 year old girl the White House dog. Fuck you, you fucking coward.

[Jackpine Radical]

25. That is certainly a part of it.

The Rage Jocks.

Right-wing (mostly) sources are pumping rage into our culture like a deadly venom. They're mostly doing it to make their puppets more manipulable, more willing to sacrifice their own interests in order to ensure that some other group is made to suffer more, and less capable of complex thought. The pushers are into their own power and really have no concern with the fact that the incredibly destructive side-effects of their hate messages are destroying us.

[Laelth]

108. Well said. n/t

-Laelth

[KoKo]

115. Absolutely and that they have been PAID to spew their Disinfomation makes it all the

more a manipulated, coordinated effort to co-opt our Airwaves to manipulate the opinion of millions of Americans by their control of Clear Channel and through Faux...the Murdoch Empire...that coordinates with those who have our Financial Interests at the core of how America Grows going forward. Those folks can't see beyond "GROWTH OF EMPIRE" and "we the "wee people" certainly don't fit into their telescope except to deny us less and less the pieces of their PIE.

[alarimer]

43. Yes, all of these things are to blame.

BUT without easy access to guns, this type of mass carnage would not happen.

[GreenPartyVoter]

107. That makes sense to me.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. No, this is just an audition.

My point is that the problem runs very deep in the culture and its violent worldview. I DID NOT advocate against gun control. I just pointed out that it is at best a small part of the solution.

[Downwinder]

21. My elementary background was the same as yours.

I don't recall Red Ryder and Tom Mix being any less violent than todays movies. I am also sure that we were as violent as any playground activities in todays schools.

[Jackpine Radical]

29. But the Westerns were fantasy-land,

very stylized and easy to distinguish from the reality in which we lived.

[Downwinder]

41. That is where we diverge.

I grew up in the West on horseback. Bankers were bad people. I agree that there has been an attitude change. WWI pilots who bailed out were not fired upon. WWII and on they were. Now we make war on civilians.

[Jackpine Radical]

48. In WWII we were also dropping paratroopers, who--

if you didn't get them while they were vulnerable in the air--would soon be down among you with all kinds of automatic weapons.

[Jackpine Radical]

49. Well, you westerners always were kinda nuts.

My family moved to Wisconsin from Oacoma, SD in 1910. Or at least my branch did. Another bunch ended up very far north in Saskatchewan.

[ohheckyeah]

36. That was uncalled for.

He made a thoughtful post that wasn't full of hyperbole and anger. This is a big picture problem and pretending otherwise is shortsighted.

Comments like yours are why we can't have an adult, reasonable, rational discussion.

[MotherPetrie]

46. No, he's a gun apologist. You can't have such a conversation with them.

[ohheckyeah]

63. I didn't see him apologizing for guns...

which you really can't apologize for since they are inanimate.

I didn't see you try to have a conversation, you just went on the attack.

[Lightbulb_on]

75. So just continue to stick your fingers in your ears...

... While the grown ups try to find a realistic solution that also ends with the desired result.

[MH1]

77. That's not at all what I got from his post.

Maybe because I too grew up in a rural area, had guns around (in neighbors' families, actually my parents were against them and didn't have any that I knew of, although I wouldn't put it past them to have had one for self-defense VERY well locked up), and have a similar perspective on the culture of violence.

The problem is multi-faceted and insisting on an oversimplified explanation will not help solve it in any substantial way. Sure a few more regulations and better enforcement might save a few individual lives here and there, but in general the tragedies will continue until all facets are addressed.

[JohnnyLib2]

57. Agreed

Thoughtful, and not driven simply by today's anger.

[Skip Intro]

62. WTF? What kind of BULLSHIT is that?

Are we welcome to talk about the gun issue only as long as we agree with your view?

Please.

[Fearless]

5. I'd say it's both.

[Cha]

7. Yes. Guns are too easy for the

terrorists to get a hold of in our culture of Violence.

[DirkGently]

9. It's a multi-faceted issue. The fetish of armed violence is one part.

Lack of adequate mental health care is another.

Socioeconomic inequality is another.

The overwhelming numbers of firearms and the easy availability of same to literally anyone who would ever care to have one is another.

I think the culture of violence and the fetish of rage and the fantasy of being able to take out any kind of pent-up frustration or hurt or aggression on the world at large is the biggest part.

It's not the movies or the songs or the video games, but these are all expressions of a cultural desire we cultivate, in America especially, to combat all the evil in the world by blowing the shit out of things.

All of which is exacerbated by a cult-like set of beliefs, centered on and pushed the NRA, which proposes that "freedom" and autonomy exist only for those prepared to kill at a moment's notice.

All of which appears to be ultimately motivated by the simplest, stupidest, oldest thing: MONEY.

More rage and anxiety + fewer regulations = more gun violence = more fear = more gun sales = more violence = more fear = more gun sales.

And on it goes.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. I think you make a lot of good points.

I do think that the popular culture has a lot to do with desensitizing us, however. Are you familiar with David Grossman's book On Killing?

Grossman is a psychologist and military officer who taught at West Point. (Maybe still does.)

He describes how video games & other factors help to lower inhibitions against acting on violent impulses, in a way comparable to how Vietnam infantrymen were deliberately trained to overcome their reluctance to shoot other humans.

He shows in great detail how, as a result of this training, the infantry in Vietnam was far more effective than any previous military force in using their personal weapons.

I found his writing very persuasive.

And BTW, I think I have a reasonable perspective for judging his writing. I'm a VN infantry vet. And a practicing psychologist.

[TomClash]

23. It is an excellent book

I would add that Empire has a debilitating effect.

[DirkGently]

50. Sounds like an interesting book.

I don't take issue with the idea that cultural implements like games affect people. I do try to avoid conflating causes & symptoms or thinking too narrowly about the causes of violent behavior.

[Jackpine Radical]

54. I think the causes & symptoms are all entangled

in a Gordian knot of positive feedback loops.

[riverwalker]

76. they use these "games"

to train the military, and desensitize them to shooting poeple. Then we have suburban white males addicted to playing video games like "Call of Duty". Adam Lanza was called "a gamer" by neighbors. The combination of the video games, access to weapons, and mental illness, is one we will see again and again, unless addressed.

[dogknob]

11. People feel marginalized... and they are... and they don't have the tools to cope.

We teach everyone that they are either a "winner" or a "loser." People really don't like thinking of themselves as losers and, because we teach everyone that revenge is sweeeeet, this stuff happens and it's going to keep on happening for a long time.

[frostfern]

34. +10000

We glorify competition, conflict, and the individual at the expense of all else. Just look at all the trashy reality television.

[Myrina]

113. "Turn down your car stereo or Ima shoot you"

"You look suspicious in your hoodie, Ima shoot you"
"I don't like the child support agreement, Ima shoot you"
"Mom yelled at me because I didn't take out the garbage so I shot her"

Yep - we don't like being told NO, we don't know how to negotiate anymore. We insist on getting our way and being seen as 'the winner' or 'the strong ones' (remember "Bring 'em on"? "We'll smoke him out dead or alive"?) ...

Society has gone very, very wrong.

[socialindependocrat]

12. the mind set and the games

I live in Delaware and we have a problem with gangs and guns. We do not have the problem that Phila. has
but we have shootings on the street and between gangs and innocent bystanders, etc.

One story started me thinking. Two 20 year olds walking down the street. They brush elbows.
One says something to the other and the other talks back and both pull out guns and shoot each other.
What is the point?

they must have grown up with this behavior reinforced and modeled.

Do they think about dying?
Do they think about going to jail?

There is another thread about decreasing gun voilence in Baltimore - very good.

I think this gang voilence stuff is total bull shit.
People acting tough because they are tought to be?

The video games make me think, too.
Someone must be doing some tests to see what effect they have on kids growig up.

[OnionPatch]

69. Some of us were talking about the video games today.

A whole generation of kids are growing up playing slaughter games daily. Tell me they don't get desensitized by these virtual blood baths they participate in regularly.

[socialindependocrat]

72. We want to eliminate war and we train our kids with video war games.

I am amazed at the number of young people who are joining the armed forces
because they say they are patriotic.

My nephew was in the house playing all sorts of video games.
When he went to college my sister was worried that he wouldn't
be able to function living in a big city. Fortunately, he got in with
a bunch of friends from his high school and they all chummed around
together.

If we can convince the world that we war is not an option to resolving political issues
we can use a lot of the defence budget for other things. We were seeing a move in that
direction with Russia and the U.S. agreeing to draw down on missles.

Now, with all this middle east crap we have countries who are willing to make
enough trouble so that more advanced countries fell the need to still keep
large military forces at the ready.

It would still be interesting to see if anyone has done a study on the war game thing
and young people joining the military.

[CrispyQ]

15. The problem is western civilization's perverted concept of masculinity -

which is based on domination, violence, lack of empathy. It ties in very much with the rape culture, that dominated DU discussions, just a short time ago.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. I agree.

And I got myself pummeled a bit for posting as much on one of those threads.

[bettyellen]

66. well thanks JR, isn't it funny that the people who don't want to discuss violence tend to bully

those who do? Like you said, feedback loops....

[Jamastiene]

92. Thank you.

Very well said.

[KoKo]

114. Well...that's an interesting point to think about...

Not sure I can agree...but, will think about it more.

[limpyhobbler]

16. I think there is some kind of cultural malfunction

that causes people to snap like this. It's hard to pin down the exact cause. It might have something to do with the breakdown of traditional communities. People used to live in closer communities and life revolved around community.

Now people are more physically and emotionally isolated from each other and life revolves around going to work and consuming crap.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. Part of it is the RW promotion of chronic rage.

[DirkGently]

51. Is this rage, or psychosis?

You must have some professional speculation on what drives spree killers. My impression is that they're somewhere pretty far beyond just angry and irrational.

I'm not letting the RW rage stoking machinery off the hook. But that would be ... What? An aggravating factor? A trigger for the already-disturbed? Not a cause in itself.

To be clear, there's no argument implied. Nor snark of any flavor. I'm really just asking, now that you've revealed your expertise in psychology.

What kind of psychological disturbance manifests like this?

[Jackpine Radical]

53. The problem from a scientific perspective

really is that these cases are so rare (relatively speaking) that you don't have a large enough sample to extract meaningful information from.

It's a case of probably very diverse causes leading to similar tragic results.

What does Timothy McVeigh have in common with the Columbine kids, the Batman movie killer, or with Bundy? Are mass killers anything like serial killers?

Sometimes they are indeed psychotic, with long histories of mental illness.

Here's something from the Washington Post a few years ago. It's actually a pretty fair summary of the situation for a popular press story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601831.html

Michael Welner, an associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, looking at it from the medical end, says, "There has never been a neuro-anatomical localization of mass shooting behavior."

Jack Levin, the director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and conflict at Northeastern University in Boston, author of more than two dozen books on murder and criminology: "We're still in the dark about where this comes from."

He co-wrote "Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace," in 1985. At the time, he recalls, "there was zero" research about mass killers, serial killers and the like -- the truly frightening icons of America's violent ways.

Since then there have been lots of books about serial killers, lots of brain research and many more mass shootings. There are MRIs and talk about high levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine and plunging levels of serotonin. There's research into the limbic system, a primitive part of the brain that controls emotions and behavior. New medications have revolutionized psychiatric care for depression, even psychotics.

None of it really touches the psychology of mass murder.

"In mass shootings, the killer is often killed themselves, so we don't really have the ability to interview and analyze them -- all you can really do is work off their behavior," says Neil S. Kaye, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "The problem with that is that mass killers do this for multiple reasons, and even when you develop a profile of people at risk, 99 percent of them never go out and do anything bad."

Some of the research tells us the obvious: About 95 percent of mass killers are men, they tend to be loners, they feel alienated. They look normal on the outside and are really, really angry inside.

[frostfern]

17. It is our society...

People who are already mentally ill are more easily pushed over the edge because they are isolated. We have a culture that is too self-absorbed and individualistic. We promote narcissism. People go on mass shootings because they want attention and they know they'll get it.

[KoKo]

119. Yes...it seems the "shooter" was pretty isolated in his affluent neighborhood where

folks just remember him as the "quiet, weird kid" who "stayed to himself."

There are many isolated upscale neighborhoods in America still like that. Even through the Housing Bubble Crash. They are isolated in the Corporate Bubble. His father worked in Finance for GE Capital, and his older brother for Earnst & Young...and this kid just didn't fit in with any of it for whatever reason.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. I disagree.

If someone walked into a school and killed 20 kids with an Xbox, or a Blu-Ray of Batman, or an Episode of Breaking Bad, I might be inclined to think that those things were, truly, "as much a part of the problem".

But that's not what happened. No one has ever managed to shoot up a kindergarten class using only a Wii controller.

The problem IS so much the guns.

[TomClash]

20. Guns are still part of the problem

But only part of the problem. Your post is spot on. We inculcate and glorify violence. We indiscriminately kill and support the killing of Muslim children worldwide. The Iraq sanctions after the Gulf War killed 500,000 children, according to UNICEF and 50,000 even according to neocon Ken Pollack. We are responsible for that.

I am convinced by experience that killing has a negative cumulative effect on all of us. Bit by bit we die when we kill, even indirectly. We produce a disproportionate number of Adam Lanzas, even in Pleasantville, even in iconic America.

[Uncle Joe]

22. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Jackpine Radical.

[Logical]

24. Nice post. Why someone wants to kill is a problem more than the weapons used to do it.

[Separation]

26. Mental health should be job #1

Reagan all but destroyed the mental health care institution in the 80's.

There are many issues that need to be addressed, and hopefully rectified after this tragedy.

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. Honestly? It's both.

Things like this don't happen in other countries as often as they do in the US; when they have happened, the laws regarding guns have been changed, making it less likely that they'll happen in the future--although such things do occasionally still happen in some places with strict gun laws, there was a shooting spree here in the UK in 2010 that left one dead and two wounded (including a police officer who was blinded from his wounds and later committed suicide).

[randome]

30. So address ALL issues, including gun control.

The problem will never be solved but it can be greatly reduced.

This reminds me of climate change denial. We can't PROVE that Man's to blame. But we may as well address all the issues that can alleviate the problem before we all die.

[Jackpine Radical]

33. That's fine with me. I just didn't want to see gun control touted

as THE solution.

Yes, gun regulation is a reasonable thing to do.

[reformist2]

31. Violent crime and twisted antiheroes are pervasive in entertainment today.

I don't see how anyone can pretend that this doesn't have an effect on some impressionable young minds, especially troubled ones...

[Fumesucker]

60. Ever read the Bible?

It's chock full of really horrible violence, often couched as being the will of God.

As one tiny example, in II Kings Elijah is mocked by some children and God sends two bears to rip forty two of them to shreds for disrespecting His prophet.

[Whisp]

67. you have to make the effort to open up that thing and know how to read...

but our modern violence is all around us and assaulting us continually in subtle and not so subtle ways. We can't close that thing or put it back on the shelf. We are marinated in violence.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. My dear Jackpine

There are several points to made about this.

You are very correct, it is not just gun control. That said we are living a multifaceted public health crisis. You are speaking, correctly, of one of the aspects...but it's not the video games. If they were as tied to it, you'd have shootings in Japan regularly. You think we love our one person shooters? You have not explored Japanese culture when it comes to the video game culture. They put us to shame

The shootings, and the vides are a symptom, as well as our tv, which is as far from the real life most Americans live as you can get. We have violence all over the culture, and some of these shootings are lashing out.

It is multifaceted. We need to deal with easy access to guns, lack of access to public health, poverty, the class warfare...nor do I expect any legal gun limits, rational mind you, to stop the violence on their own...to be honest. But we need to start somewhere.

Ideally though it is multidisciplinary.

[Jackpine Radical]

47. I don't know that you can prove your point about video games

by contrasting the US with Japan because there are too many confounding cultural & sociological factors. For one thing, they have promulgated pacifism to a great extent since WWII. I think that there may be some interactive factors at work here; our promotion of violence, our ready access to guns, and a number of similar variables may work together to produce results quite different from the situation in Japan.

As a sort of aside, I remember an occasion when I was being moved with my infantry unit from Qui Nhon to Da Nang by means of an unarmed LST crewed by Japanese civilians. While bobbing around in Da Nang harbor awaiting our chance to debark, I got into a discussion with some of the sailors. One of them had a realistic-looking model of a .45 pistol he showed me. I went off & got a real .45 to compare it to. I disassembled my M1911A1 & he disassembled his pot-metal model. They were quite similar, but with different tolerances that didn't allow us to switch parts around & put them back together as hybrids. We had quite a crowd of Japanese sailors watching by the time we were done.

I don't know why I thought of this just now, but the Japanese do seem content for the most part to confine their violent impulses to fantasy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. Yes, there are differences in the culture

What I am trying to say is...it's not the video games, it's not the movies. It really is not. They are symptoms of the underlying problems. Some of these shooters have severe mental health issues, see giffords shooting.

Has anything changed regarding mental health? No.

We have an issue of violence done to citizens by an economic sysem that sends them into depths of despair that suicide might be the only way out. At times they take others with themselves.

We need to limit easy access to guns, but deal with the social and economic conditions that lead to that.

Yes, we glorify violence, as long as it remains distant. You know one thing our media has to start doing? We need to collectively show you what this looks like. You and I have seen it...but many people are able to separate the reality and it's horror, because quite frankly moulage for Hollywood is acceptable and looks ten times worst than real wounds.

Yup, we talk about it...but the media's refusal to show the bloody sheets has helped to create of fantasy regarding this.

But what about the victims? In a far less sick society our media showed this stuff. Look at war...good luck finding a good picture of war on our media. We used to.

So it is multi faceted, not just one thing. You are blaming the video games and the culture of violence...it is only part of the puzzle.

Oh and lastly there is a direct correlation between gun control policies and gun violence.

[Jackpine Radical]

56. I think my essential point is that the problem is complex, and

the shootings are both symptoms and causes of an increasingly dysfunctional society. It's an entangled web of positive feedback loops, a recursive amplification of the craziness. I'm not singling out the "culture of violence" or video games as the primary causes; I'm just citing them as examples of the whole cultural mess that we're in. Many things are happening at once: attacks on empathy and compassion as values; glorification of violent "solutions;" people leading increasingly desperate lives; a ratcheting up of stress and fear; the airwaves spewing hatred….

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. In that we both fully agree

It is multi faceted. but it is worst than this, we are one step away from generalized violence...this is the way it feels to me.

[KoKo]

117. The Japanese Culture seems one of Acceptance of "Events" We nuked them

supposedly to end WWII...and they responded after what their people suffered by allowing US Base there and by implementing Nuclear Power into their country to fuel their growth..(which until recently...and even now has been incredible industrial rebirth)...but here is the catch:


The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Fukishima+Nuclear&form=MOZSBR&pc=MOZI

As good as they were at "accepting and adapting" their culture of acceptance, does seem to have led their people into territories that are not so good being that most of the chain of islands lies on "fault lines" which are getting hit by earthquakes and tremors from earthquakes which during the "Global Warming" doesn't exactly portend good times for them like they've had with Cars and Tech in the past 30 or so years.

Just saying........

[DirkGently]

52. I like the way you said that.

[modem77]

121. It isn't just TV, movies and games. It is also our government.

Just look at how many violent solutions our government has implemented over the past several decades.

[Major Nikon]

35. I'm not so sure

Violent crime, including gun crime and gun homicide has been steadily decreasing since the early 1990's over a period when Movies, TV, and shot-em up electronic games have unquestionably become more violent.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/guncrimetab.cfm

I think the problem is the number of guns out there and the easy access to them. If you compare gun violence in America to other countries, we compare much more closely to 3rd world countries than we do with nations that are politically and economically similar to us. Many of those comparible countries have the same movies and shoot-em up games (admittedly some of them do try to curb violent media better than the US). The biggest and most glaring difference is the number of guns and their availability.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Canada is close to us in ownership

But here regulations come in. Owners are licensed and there are background checks that would make the NRA howl.

[Jackpine Radical]

38. They also don't allow handguns.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Except for very specific and limited cases

Which are reviewed carefully.

[Major Nikon]

42. Canada has far more restrictions on guns

Canada is also a lot more rural than the US. The land mass of Canada is about the same in the US, but with only 1/10th of the population. So you have a lot more hunters, or at least it seems that way. Canada is also not one of the best nations when it comes to firearm violence, either, although they are better than the US.

Firearm homicide rates per 100,000:

US 2.98
Germany 1.1
Canada 0.76
Switzerland 0.58
UK 0.03
France 0.06
Japan 0.02

The Swiss actually have higher gun ownership rates than the US due to their citizen soldier philosophy, but they also have very restrictive purchase and registration regulations and they have less handguns. So there's more too it than just the number of guns, but even the Swiss have far higher gun violence rates than say the French, so the number of guns does play a big part.

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. It does

Why regulation is only part of it.

[davidn3600]

44. That's been my point the whole time but no one wants to talk about that

Everyone wants to ban this and ban that and thinks that will solve all our problems.

Repeal the 2nd amendment and ban all guns and some people think we will no longer have murder and violence.

[JohnnyLib2]

58. The last two paragraphs--

make all kinds of sense to me. Multiple causes needing a comprehensive approach....

[Bonobo]

61. And the "culture of violence" has nothing to do with the fact that all those guns are out there?

I live in Japan. At festivals, little stands pop up selling raffle tickets to win what? Super realistic looking toy guns, rifles, etc that shoot little plastic pellets.

The kids LOVE it!!! They run for them. They desire them! They shoot at each other. Is this a culture of violence? Maybe, maybe not. But they are toys and can't KILL anyone. Japan has like one or two gun deaths per year. The US has 20,000.

In fact the US has 20 times more than EVERY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY COMBINED!

Yup, add up 22 country's gun deaths and then multiply by 20 to arrive at how many are killed in the US in one year.

How fucking asinine to say that it isn't because of guns. I mean seriously, who the fuck are you kidding?

[ohheckyeah]

64. It really can't be just the presence of guns.

I grew up in the rural south and everyone had guns. Lots of guns. My dad taught me how to shoot a pistol when I was 6 years old. The county where I lived had one murder in the 18 years I lived there and it wasn't perpetrated with a gun. I dare say my experience growing up was typical throughout the south.

It's not merely the ownership or presence of guns.

[Jackpine Radical]

74. That pretty much parallels the experience I reported in the OP.

It's not just the guns; it's the heavily-armed populace in a culture of vioence, low compassion, estrangement, anomie, rage & fear (to sorta scratch the surface).

And, as others have pointed out, those of us who grew up in rural cultures had a whole different kind of firearm than the Uzis, Glocks, AK's, "tactical" sawed-off shotguns, and the like that are so much in vogue among today's gun nuts.

The closest we had to anything like an "assault rifle" were those little .30-cal. M-1 carbines that flooded the market after WWII. Essentially a pistol bullet in a diminutive rifle, but with large magazines. People quickly discovered that those little guns were just about useless for deer, and after a while they pretty much disappeared, while the old bolt-action .30-06 '03 Springfields (usually with "sporterized" stocks) were prized for their accuracy, and many are still around.

[ohheckyeah]

98. I have a 357

S&W. I have bird shot in the first two rounds. I don't want to kill anybody, but we live rural and the police are a good distance away. Maybe naively I hope that a couple of rounds of bird shot would scare someone with bad intentions off. I've never had to use it and hope it stays that way.

We have a rifle and shotgun but my husband isn't a hunter. They were handed down to him. He has a little 22 pistol that fits in his pocket but he doesn't carry it any more. When we lived 7 miles from the Mexican border he did carry when we went out hiking in the desert. We never knew what we might run into. The only thing he's killed here is a groundhog that was destroying our out building by burrowing under it. He tried everything to make it go away but it just wouldn't stop.

Neither of us are NRA members, we aren't gun crazy. We just grew up in the rural south and guns were a part of life. The only thing I've ever shot was a round target on a bale of hay and the side of an abandoned car in the desert. I wouldn't think of use human shaped targets. I'm a good shot but have no desire to prove it.

No Glocks, Uzis, AK's, etc. When I was very young my dad hunted with a bow. But he stopped when he looked into the big brown eyes of a beautiful doe and he just couldn't do it. He put the bow away and that was the end of his hunting days. My brother isn't a hunter, either. He has a gun that belong to my grandfather.

As you said, we have a culture of violence. Just look at the rage being expressed on DU right now.

[scarletwoman]

65. I don't know if I can explain this very well, but what I see is the eruption of the "shadow" out of

our collective unconscious. (My apologies in advance, I was a dilletante Jungian in my younger days.)

The U.S. mass culture must surely be one of the most determinedly denialist of any society on earth.

Since the end of WII, foreign-policy wise, we have been rampaging around the globe, fomenting death, suffering, and despair in countless countries. Dropping bombs, destroying nascent populist-centered democratic movements in favor of despots, so that our capitalist resource exploiters can have free rein to despoil and profit where they will, killing the hopes of true self-determination of entire nations.

We commit all these crimes against humanity with impunity - and then INSIST that we are a light unto the world, that we are the champions of righteousness, that we are Number One. And woe unto those who might have the temerity to point out our bloody crimes, to tell the truth about the dark deeds of our decades-long history of state-sponsored terrorism against the common people of the world.

USA! USA! USA!

There is no space allowed for, or given to, the truth of our muderous conduct on this planet. At best, we might equivocate that "mistakes were made." But even such pallid, half-hearted admissions of fleeting discomfort with certain self-evident destructive results of our imperial militarist/capitalist project are readily drowned out in the incessant roar of our smug self-satisfied nationalism.

We are the good guys. We can do no wrong.

Our collective refusal to face the truth comes at a price. And that price is the random eruptions of Shadow, in the form of mass public killings of our own people. Our dead children are the sacrifices to the god of our national ego, the collateral damage of our national psychic denial.

sw

[Egalitarian Thug]

73. "U.S. mass culture must surely be one of the most determinedly denialist of any society on earth"

We are swimming through a sea of fantastic denial, delusion to the point of psychosis. It's as if our whole society has been restructured with the specific intent of driving people mad, and it is working perfectly.

No matter the problem, the only option we can see, or are allowed to consider, is to make it worse.

[laundry_queen]

78. Excellent analysis. nt

[DirkGently]

79. That's a dark truth worthy of an OP or 20.

We're giving' out bad vibrations. Have been for a long time.

[Jackpine Radical]

85. "I don't know if I can explain this very well…"

Ya, sure, SW.

Then you go on to a fantastic Jungian analysis, saying so eloquently what I was trying to get across in more superficial language.

No, this shouldn't be an OP. It should be a book.

[Jamastiene]

90. Great post. n/t

[Odin2005]

93. Ah, a fellow Jungian!

Great post!

[Jackpine Radical]

99. Not to mention one of your fellow Minnesotans.

[Hugin]

94. Food for thought.

Thanks for your insight.

[KoKo]

110. +1...And I wonder if the more sensitive in our population sees Cognitive Dissonance

in our society and for them sometimes it's too much and something can just trigger an outrage.

Just speculation but, there's a lot that kids are exposed to today that can be overwhelming. Something new in our social evolution to have to process so much conflicting information, values and violence thrown at minds at young ages. It's hard enough for adults who weren't used to it to sort through and I can't imagine how hard it must be for the young of today. Most cope well it seems but, there are many who can't.

[Jackpine Radical]

112. Cognitive & emotional overload.

Possibly…

[WinniSkipper]

68. Look at what all of the recent events have in common

Laughner, the Portland Mall shooter, James Holmes, and now this. Young under 25 men from what seem to be normal backgrounds.

And all seem to be profoundly mentally disturbed

[scarletwoman]

70. Kicking this because this is a thoughtful post worthy of more discussion. (nt)

[Zoeisright]

71. Completely 100% fucking wrong.

Easy access to guns is causing this carnage. Period.

[Edweird]

82. Machine guns used to be sold mail order.

It doesn't get any easier than that. Please show me where anything like this happened when that was available.

[reformist2]

81. But isn't owning lots of guns a part of the culture of violence???

Seem to me they go hand in hand.

[ohheckyeah]

100. Not really.

If that were true we would have mass shootings all over the rural south and would have for years. Owning guns isn't the only problem.

[AverageJoe90]

83. "Violent media" isn't the problem......

In fact, I hate to break it to you, but blaming violent video games for shootings, has, sadly, been a VERY popular right-wing talking point for the longest time now. Just ask Rethug ambulance chaser Jack Thompson; he'll tell you.

And the fact is, it's funny that the vast majority of talking heads talking about how horrible violent video games supposedly are, aren't talking about the ACTUAL causes behind these problems; i.e. abusive/controlling/neglectful parents(like in the case of that guy you mentioned!), bullying, too little enforcement of gun laws(and too much availability of hardcore weapons, like the M-16 for example!), the gutting of mental health resources, etc.

Now, I can say that there are indeed a few people out there who really shouldn't be playing violent video games, like the Chos and the Micheal Carneals of the world. But, the truth is, 97% of people who do play violent video games are just fine, and in fact, studies have shown that video games in general, particularly shooters, are actually a great way to blow off steam, at least for normal people.

[Jackpine Radical]

84. "97% of people who do play violent video games are just fine"

Sure, but…

[AverageJoe90]

87. Look, Jackpine, I know....

That there are those who don't get the appeal of games like GTA, Halo, etc. Okay? That's fine.

But what has me a tad worried is that it seems some people don't quite realize that blaming violent video games really IS a popular RW talking point. If you're old enough to remember the '60s and '70s, there were people from this same general milieu used to claim that rock-and-roll was "Satanic", and leading people to commit mayhem, to turn their backs on civilized society, etc.

Again, I realize that violent media in general isn't for everyone; younger kids shouldn't be allowed to watch stuff like Rambo or Saw, IMHO, and those with mental problems ought to be observed very closely, at least.

[GreenPartyVoter]

106. Yeah, it reminded me of the "Heavy metal is satanic" argument I heard over

and over in my Evangelical days. Ditto for playing D&D.

[Odin2005]

95. I play a game, Civilization, where I am razing whole cities and slaughtering the populace.

I don't feel any urge to actually commit genocide or mass murder.

[Jackpine Radical]

96. "I don't feel any urge to actually commit genocide or mass murder."

You cannot know how happy I am to hear that.

I'm sure that for the general run of people the games are, as Douglas Adams said of Earth, "mostly harmless."

[ohheckyeah]

101. More than 97% of people who own guns never shoot anybody. n/t

[Hugin]

86. Since this OP seems to be a rational discussion of the situation, I'll posit this...

I'm beginning to believe that there exists in this "Culture of Violence" a sub-group of individuals who suffer from a brain chemical imbalance similar to many other "Fetishists".

Let's define them as "Gun Fetishists" or even more plainly "Gunoholics".

These people are driven by the same OCD endorphin rush as other officially recognized groups.

What are the potential signs of a Gunoholic?

Same as any other Obsessive/Compulsive.

They possess an unreasonable number of the tokens of their obsession.
They show little rational behavior in association with the object of their fetish.
They try to hide the trappings of their fetish from view.
and so forth...

[Jackpine Radical]

88. OK, I'm sort of an environmental-genetic interactionist

when it comes to theories like this. That is, one may have some degree of genetic susceptibility to a behavioral pathology, but it may take some particular sort of events to bring the pathology into phenotypic expression.

OCD is essentially an anxiety disorder in which one binds one's ambient anxiety into the obsessions/compulsions. There is fairly good reason to believe that there is a substantial genetic component to anxiety--an anxiety-proneness, if you will. But only if the individual has certain types of experiences would you get the actual anxiety disorder. As to whether the anxiety disorder expresses as OCD or something else, that may not be easily predicted. Again, maybe the way the anxiety manifests may be partly genetically determined, for all I know.

Incidentally, there have been fMRI studies showing that cognitive-behavioral therapies are about equal in effect to medications such as Anafranil in normalizing brain activity in OCD patients. The changes in brain activity were accompanied by remission of the OCD symptoms.

As always, of course, assuming your OCD hypothesis has merit, there are going to be a lot more OCD cases than there are mass murderers.

[Hugin]

89. It is of course as all things are... Relative.

Last edited Sat Dec 15, 2012, 03:26 PM - Edit history (1)

However, in the two case studies I have in mind, these individuals show a marked proclivity to the topics of Guns and Ammo.

Translation: It's all these two talk about, think about, and it occupies all of their free time.

It's true that OCD isn't always to the same extreme or on the same items in every case. Hoarding and Stalking are examples of a pathological OC complex. But, OTOH, there is speculation that obtaining an advanced college degree may be a more benign OC pursuit.

So, could it be that this "Culture of Violence" considers a "Gun Fetish" to be a benign or even admirable trait?

[Jackpine Radical]

97. Well, at least it keeps us off the street.

"obtaining an advanced college degree may be a more benign OC pursuit."

[Hugin]

103. True.

[Odin2005]

91. Guns are just as common per capital in Canada than in the US...

and the amount of violence per capita is MUCH lower in the Great White North. It's not the guns, it's an insane culture of violence that fetishizes weaponry, something the Canucks don't do. We are a sick society full of mentally damaged people.

[hatrack]

102. Not sure about the "culture of violence" argument . . .

Consider Japan. There is much is Japanese culture that is truly amazing and admirable - social cohesion, honesty, the degree of public safety (even in large, crowded cities), and a wonderful aesthetic sense in design, architecture and fine arts.

There is also a strata of grotesque ultraviolence that runs on a parallel track with tea ceremony, ikebana and exquisite, ancient gardens. You see it in manga and anime (multiple-penis rape monsters from outer space are commonplace), in movies (the movie "Audition" is a good example, if you can stomach it - I couldn't) and in live theater.

There's a long tradition of Grand Guignol-style violence in Japan, much of it specifically degrading to women - violent rape fantasies are par for the course.

Example - I was on the train between Sendai and Tokyo one Saturday, and a Japanese guy got on and sat down next to me. Perfectly ordinary guy, suit and tie, briefcase. From the briefcase he pulled a bondage/spanking/enema magazine the size of a small phone book, and began to leaf through its many, many pages. Truly amazing stuff, right there on the train in broad daylight, next to a total stranger.

Combine this tradition with the pressure-cooker that is life in a highly structured society, broadcast it through all the means available - TV, movies, anime, manga, websites, print - and don't you think that would produce a "culture of violence"?

Maybe, but it's not one where mass shootings take place, because the guns simply aren't available. There are occasional mass stabbing or poisoning attacks, but they don't happen very often, whatever the pressures of life in modern Japan.

[GreenPartyVoter]

105. Agreed. I think this is more about people feeling they have no voice

and wanting to make the largest, most painful noise they can. I think it's as basic as, "I am hurt, pissed whatever, and I want everyone else to be too." (I was bullied for most of my youth, but I turned those feelings inward on myself and joined my attackers in hurting me. I can see how easy it would be to turn it outward, though, onto other people.)

However, I think the other part of the equation is still access to weapons that kill many people at once. Perhaps people in the past felt just as angry, but did they have the same access to ways of murdering large amounts of people quickly? Explosive devices are the only ones that come to mind. If someone came through a school or movie theatre with an axe, it would still be devastating, but more people would have a chance to escape. Assault weapons lessen the possibility of escape just by their very nature. Maximum damage in minimum time.

[Jim Warren]

104. Good post

and a fair summation of my own thoughts on the subject.

I grew up with a similar ethic about firearms. In fact, and given the present day circumstances I'm almost afraid to admit it, we brought our guns to school (always left in the trunk of the car) for use on hunting excursions before or after school.

[KoKo]

109. Culture and almost worship of violence in Media, Movies, even Commercials these days..

K&R for your reasoned thoughts.

[quaker bill]

116. Allow me to translate

It is not the mechanical device, it is that we as a culture cannot handle them. This is not an exactly profound observation.

If no one ever touched them, the existence guns would be just fine. The problem is that they get introduced to the culture when people own them.

There is an easy and fairly obvious solution.

Actually, I am pretty sure that gun control would significantly solve our violence problem. In the absence of guns, violence generally will have to be conducted with closer contact and with greater symetry between the perpetrator and the victim. There is a significantly greater chance that the perpetrator will be injured or killed in the process, which curiously, is why guns were invented. They were invented to produce an overwhelming advantage in combat.

This does not mean violence goes away. People were pretty good at killing each other before guns were invented, but it was piecework, one murder at a time.

[KoKo]

118. But, the guns got more and more sophisticated and took over the primitive ways that

folks could use in past times to defend themselves. Improvised rock and boulder slinging, dynamite tosses, battering rams against fortresses, knives, arrows, swords, fireballs, hot oil, etc.

As the computers advanced allowing average citizens to feel overwhelmed, giving up their privacy to achieve swifter business communication, social network connecting...etc...the guns have become High Tech, also. Easier access, quicker firing power and ammunition in rounds for quicker loading allowing more "Bang for the Buck, more Killing for the INVESTMENT.

It's all working together...so that blood and brains and body parts of 6 year olds are strewn over two classrooms in an Elementary School and the bullet holes will need to be patched up and repainted along with the floors walls and everything else scrubbed before the memory can be erased to allow the traumatized kids back in there.

If they can't get it done the kids will come back to a "Yellow Tape" that they will be reminded that the area is still sealed off for "CLEAN UP/SCRUBBING."

It's all very horrible....

[quaker bill]

120. My point was

That you cannot, as a philosophical proposition, abstract guns away from the culture in which they exist. Because they exist, and are owned by members of the culture, they interact and are used by the culture (per the op, "culture of violence&quot .

What we do or don't do about the availability of guns without reasonable doubt will result in more or fewer uses for "yellow tape".

If what the OP is implying is that guns don't cause violence, but our culture does, you get to the same result. Objects that facilitate quick and effective mass violence, perhaps should be less available in a "culture of violence", given like me, you desire fewer uses for the "yellow tape".

It is true that removing guns from the equation will not end all violence. Nothing humans have ever done has ended all violence, so far at least. But I am pretty sure this guy would not have racked up the same toll in lives taken if all he has was a baseball bat.

[Jackpine Radical]

122. But how are you going to get guns out of the culture?

You can slow down their introduction with new laws, but do you think we could ever collect up the existing ones?

I do think we need gun control, but I'm not so optimistic about it producing any significant effects anytime soon. There are already enough guns in the country to produce mayhem for a few generations.

[quaker bill]

123. It would be easier than fixing "the culture of violence"

It is always easier to collect objects than it is to fix ideas. Granted, niether is a small task. The point is simple, you cannot consider guns out of their context. They do not exist in the abstract, they exist in this culture. I have held a few and fired some, there is nothing abstract about them at all.

Guns will disappear from this culture when owning one is a stigma rather than a symbol of status and power. I do not expect to live that long.