The real cause of violence?

[soldierant]

This is from The New Yorker and it's paywalled so I found an archive non-paywalled link - https://archive.is/tlvOP

What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime

Late on a Sunday night in June of 2023, a woman named Carlishia Hood and her fourteen-year-old son, an honor student, pulled into Maxwell Street Express, a fast-food joint in West Pullman, on the far South Side of Chicago. Her son stayed in the car. Hood went inside. Maxwell is a no-frills place—takeout-style, no indoor seating. It’s open twenty-four hours a day. Hood asked for a special order—without realizing that at Maxwell, a busy place, special orders are frowned upon. The man behind her in line got upset; she was slowing things down. His name was Jeremy Brown. On the street, they called him the Knock-Out King. Brown began to gesticulate, his arms rising and falling in exasperation. He argued with Hood, growing more agitated. Then he cocked his fist, leaned back to bring the full weight of his body into the motion, and punched her in the head.

When the argument had started, Hood texted her son, asking him to come inside. Now he was at the door, slight and tentative in a white hoodie. He saw Brown punch his mother a second time. The boy pulled out a revolver and shot Brown in the back. Brown ran from the restaurant. The boy pursued him, still firing. Brown died on the street—one of a dozen men killed by gunfire in Chicago that weekend.

/snip/

The central argument of “Unforgiving Places” is that Americans, in their attempts to curb crime, have made a fundamental conceptual error. We’ve assumed that the problem is instrumental violence—and have fashioned our criminal-justice system around that assumption. But the real problem is expressive violence. The ongoing bloodshed in America’s streets is just Maxwell Street Express, over and over again.

/snip/

The New Yorker goes into a lot of detail, which makes it literally impossible to get the essence of the article into three paragraphs. But even if you just read a page or two (I printed is as a pdf for my own reference, and it came to 9 pages), it will be a revelation. Incidentally, it's consistent with the concept that gun control can reduce violence. Sure, if you really want tokill someone, you'll find a way.. But if most violence is spur-of-the-moment, and you don't have a gun in your pocket, you won't shoot that person in that moment.

[ananda]

1. I've always thought this.

For years and years.

The only thing guns are designed to do is kill.
They have no other function.

Other weapons, such as knives and tools, are
primarily useful objects and thus have a place
in our lives and homes.

The only place for a gun is in the police and
armed services.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. We know what prevents all sorts of violence. We just don't want to pay for it.

ETA: And when it comes down to it, paying to pass and enforce gun-control legislation is a lot less interesting to me than paying for things that can help someone not get to the point of being angry/disregulated enough to kill someone else.

[benpollard]

3. So don't ask for a special order at Maxwell Street Express?

[mopinko]

4. imho all violence is rooted in domestic violence.

almost all mass shooters have a history of dv. if we took that srsly, it wd make a huge difference.
in part, it’s about not learning a better way to solve problems than w fists. but i believe no small part of that is the traumatic brain injuries that result. cook co juvie started doing mri’s on violent offenders and found a not insignificant number of them had evidence of brain injuries.

i’ve tried to talk a couple of state reps into adding a box to the school health forms about head injuries/concussions. learning issues r also common after a tbi. it’s not always child abuse involved. head injuries in youth sports are a good %. even repeated small head bumps, like playing soccer and heading the ball add up.

a public health approach cd make a big difference. not that i have much hope of that in today’s climate, but…

[58Sunliner]

5. This is perverse. The violence was an abusive male who was assaulting a woman.

Guess what his family wore to his funeral? Tshirts calling him the knockout king. No shame, no reflection on the violence that this creep dumped on his community. I feel sorry for the kid who was trying to protect his mother from a vicious assault that could have killed her easily enough. I wish he had had better choices. If you going to address violence, then start in the communities. I don't know what she texted him, but I hope it wasn't bring in the gun. A mother relying on her 14 year old son with a gun for protection is insane. Should have said call the cops.

[Silent Type]

6. Lots of angry people in this country willing to hurt others. It will get worse.

[BigmanPigman]

7. Simple...testosterone poisoning.

All men are violent. Always have been and always will be. If they don't have a weapon they use their hands. Nothing will ever change this. Having a mature, functioning brain is not part of the equation. It's a physical issue.