Who is to blame for the recent murders/suicides?

[Dawgs]

Poll question: Who is to blame for the recent murders/suicides?

My personal belief is that republican policy and the right-wing personalities are to blame for the majority of this violence.

What do you think?

On edit: A few have already mentioned that these people have issues; which I thought was a given. My question is 'why so many more than usual?'.

[WeDidIt]

1. Brain chemistry n/t

[NightWatcher]

2. Other: mental health issues/ dispair

tie those in with the shitty economy and right wing nut jobs

[billyoc]

3. Shithouse rat craziosity.

[NeedleCast]

4. The people who commit them are to blame

What pushed them over the edge usually comes to the surface sooner or later.

[Dawgs]

5. But why are there so many more all of a sudden?

Something is triggering the craziness, no?

[RandomKoolzip]

10. Nah...this shit comes in waves. It's never "all of a sudden."

I remember there was a spate of shootings and stuff in the late 80s and people were asking the same question. Remember the Stockton playground shooter? The NIU shooter? These are unwell people acting on subjective urges, perturbated by faulty brain chemistry. That they've decided to carry out their anti-scoial courses of action in relative temporal proximity to one another is meaningless. Sometimes the "what's causing this recent descent into total craziness?!" question has an undertone of eschatology about it, but things are never that severe in real life - after all, we've had a recent spate of plane crashes, too, but I don't think anyone thinks there's a design behind those. Sometimes a cluster of random but seemingly similar events in a short period of time has the appearance of sharing some sort of consistent root cause, simply because the events are, like I said, clustered together chronologically. If one were to graph this sort of stuff, one would see rises in the frequency of these kinds of events around certain times, but that's just the effects of chance - it's random, and sometimes throwing the dice produces extraordinary-seeimg results.

[Dawgs]

40. Bullshit. There hasn't been anything like this.

I think you need to pay more attention to the seemingly normal families that are suddenly getting murdered by the parents.

[RandomKoolzip]

42. So what's your hypothesis, then?

Government programming? Flouride in the water? What?

Seriously - this is the product of chance. Here's a related question: what was behind all the serial killers in the 1970s? Did the fact that dozens of serial killers in America "suddenly" springing up all over the place mean that disco was to blame? How about the "flaps" of flying saucer sightings clustered around certain years (i.e. 1947-48, 1952, 1966-67, 1973, etc.)? Was that Nixon's influence? Were we really under attack by aliens?

No. The government didn't create the Zodiac, Manson, Henry Lee Lucas, etc. For some unknowable reason, there just happened to be a lot of guys kiling people for pleasure for a few years in the 1970s. Then there weren't. I'm sure if you go back through the records (i.e. think long-term, think earthworks), you'll find other clusters of serial killer events happening at certain times over history - and rarly will they have anything to do with politics.

There's random events, and sometimes randomness throws up a burlesque of order, like when you coincidentally run into three people you knew from high school on the same day, or the number 23 keeps popping up everywhere or something. If you roll the dice a number of times, eventually you'll get some odd results; randomness doesn't always look like chaos, in other words. Yes, a few similar incidents have occurred recently, but there's no reason or design behind it. That several men killed their families and themselves recently isn't necessarily speacial in and of itself; its media coverage is why we THINk it's special. Unfortunately, this stuff happens more than we care to acknowledge.

In a few months, the media will move on to some other story, and you'll have forgotten about the "strangeness" of the Great Family Killings of Spring 2009.

[NeedleCast]

20. My Short answer would be: Americans cope poorly with stress

and there's a LOT of stress in the country right now.

[fujiyama]

52. I think that's true

and that's due to a sense of disconnectedness from society at large - where you work only to gain material goods, where you have little or no support from family, close friends, or the government.

[hfojvt]

48. are there really so many more?

I am not sure, but I think homicides may be down in Kansas City this year. A year or two ago we broke one hundred homicides.

I think the publicity feeds it too though. People hear about a shooting rampage on TV and then they get stressed out bad and decide "I am gonna do that too" sometimes with the idea that they are gonna be famous.

Especially for young single men under 30. If they have not found a comfortable place in the world, and their life and their options look like sh*t, then they pretty much hate everybody and also do not care if they die.

Copkiller fits that profile perfectly. He had no girlfriend, he had no job, and his mom was gonna kick him out. Facing homelessness, he fought back against a society that apparently hated him or thought he was worthless.

I think it was Betrand Russell who wrote "No man thinks sanely when his self esteem has suffered a mortal wound."

[stillcool]

6. people kill people..

for all kinds of reasons...their own.

[MineralMan]

7. The people who did the killings are to blame.

As for why so many: It's the economy, I think.

[old mark]

8. Many people who are already crazy have been urged to violence

by the right wingers online and in the media. Electing a Democratic President, electing a black President, economic crisis, and even spring warm weather brings these types to activity, but the terrible comments by the GOP in the election really contributed.

FWIW, our gun laws are OK -they are just not enforced.

mark

[Javaman]

9. what the bad economy has helped are those with weak mental states

and very poor coping skills to bubble to the surface.

Those who chose to ignore reality, are shocked and unable to comprehend how the fantasy world they built up in their minds, with a healthy dose of stupidity encouraged by the repuke party, all came crashing down.

So as a result, rather than admitting that they were wrong all along and seek out help, they choose to go out in a "blaze of glory" because, in their warped sense of reality, only a real American keeps their emotions bottled up to the point of explosive violence.

[X_Digger]

11. Lack of a safety net & unstigmatized mental health care.

Poverty & crazy.

[Mike Daniels]

12. The shooters themselves are to blame

Lots of people find themselves suddenly out of a job or otherwise under stress yet very few of that total kill themselves or others.

I'll acknowledge that those that opt to end just their own lives may have felt that they had no other options.

However, those that decided to end the lives of others in addition to their own have no excuse for their actions and deserve to be viewed with contempt.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Absolutely. The mentally ill deserve our contempt. nt

[Mike Daniels]

27. Being unable to cope with stress doesn't necessarily connect to mental illness

and I've seen very little to indicate that any of the major shootings that have hit the news in the last week or so are due to an established case of mental illness.

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. I think the very fact of the shooting establishes the presence of

mental illness.

By your own words, normal people DON'T snap.

[Hannah Bell]

46. normal people *do* snap.

my first recognition of this fact was when a lovely, kind, calm, socially adept, optimistic, etc. friend i'd known 20 years beat out her husband's girlfriend's car window with a baseball bat.

[RaleighNCDUer]

55. There IS a slight difference between breaking a window and

blowing someone's head off.

[Hannah Bell]

57. difference of degree, not kind. "normal" people snap.

she also chased the woman with a butcher knife.

[slackmaster]

13. Other - I blame the individuals who commit the crimes

:nuke:

[TahitiNut]

14. A "mainstream" culture that says killing is a way to solve problems.

From Afghanistan to the death penalty, our "leaders" model the maxim that killing another human being is a 'solution.'

[Bushknew]

56. Great point, similar to what I think in post 45

[aikoaiko]

15. Its amazing that you didn't include the shooters in your poll.

But I do think that situations like a dismal economy, poor mental health care, the drug wars can be changed with good public policy without infringing on law abiding folks 2nd Amendment rights.

[Dawgs]

37. So you didn't read my post; specifically the ON EDIT part.

I figured most of you people were smart enough to figure it out. I guess I was wrong.

[aikoaiko]

41. You asked WHO is to BLAME

who is a person.

Blame is about responsibility.

Put those two together and the answer to your question is the shooter which you didn't include (which amazes me).

[wuushew]

16. There are more than usual simply because it is now April

April by far is the worst month for these things. Could be spring fever, could be Hitler's birthday. We don't know for sure.

[Haole Girl]

35. Really? April?

I would have thought the middle of winter, especially January, would be worse. Interesting.

Are you sure about this? Sorry to be a pest, but I find it interesting.

[TayTay]

17. The people who committed the crimes

There may be background factors that affected the shooters here. However, a human being pulled the trigger in each of these cases. That human being was subject to stresses that other people are also subjected to on a daily basis. (And those people don't commit mass murder.)

There are contributing factors to violence, but that doesn't mean that you can point at one thing and say it was to "blame" for a violent act. That is simplistic.

[Hubert Flottz]

18. Other...

The insane notion that "Bipartisanship" with corporate terrorists and their greed based political stooges in the GOP, will bring "CHANGE".

We are wasting America's time on Bipartisanship. The GOP wants to keep right on wrecking the country rather than to admit that they have been dead wrong for years. Their silly pride and greed can and just might bring this country down shortly...our time is slipping away. We need to restore trust and the rule of law SOON.

[baldguy]

19. A, B and C

[rucky]

21. No safety net.

and, of course, no blaming is complete without teh Clenis

[jmg257]

22. Selfish fucking people who take their misery out on others, and/or have no .

concept of being part of an ordered civil society.

[varkam]

24. I'm gonna go with human nature.

And I'm not even entirely convinced that here have been more than usual. I think it might just be that the media is reporting on them more than they usually do and so it leads to the appearance that they're becoming more frequent.

[Occam Bandage]

25. The murderers. nt

[Marr]

26. I'd like to ask the people who blame the shooters one thing.

Was Orson Welles responsible for the panic around his War of the World's broadcast? If someone had been killed in the resulting hysteria, wouldn't he have shared some portion of the blame?

Of COURSE the shooters are to blame for these murders, but people like Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc. share some responsibility in that they push paranoid-- and here's the important part-- FALSE propaganda designed specifically to rile up these sorts of people. It's an irrensponsible abuse of the public airwaves.

They do share the blame.

[Mike Daniels]

28. Given the number of people who listen to Rush, Savage, etc....

who don't go on rampages vs. those few who do I'm still putting the blame almost exclusively on the shooters.

There's something called self-control and people need to learn to exercise it on themselves even if others choose not to.

[Dawgs]

39. Thank you. You are like the only person that recognized my point.

I even edited the OP, and still people didn't get it.

We haven't had such a huge increase in murder/suicides because all of a sudden more people went crazy.

[countryjake]

44. Here is a relevant topic...

which may explain for you why some of us don't believe that right-wing policies (or personalities) are solely to blame for the rash of desperate actions:

The mass shootings in America
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5405722&mesg_id=5405722

[H2O Man]

29. "Other"

I believe that it is a combination of factors. Certainly, the republican policies have created an atmosphere that adds to the fertile soil for what is happening.

[killbotfactory]

30. It's just a coincidence that violence and crime increases with the level and intensity of poverty

To think that great amounts of stress in peoples lives can negatively effect their mental health and their ability to think rationally is just nonsense.

Next you'll be trying to tell us Post traumatic stress disorder is real, and that we should coddle soldiers who return from war with psychiatric help.

People just flip out randomly for no reason except that they are natural born evil-doers or are possessed by demons/witches/satan. No need to try to understand why, normal people like you and I would never deal with stress in a self destructive manner because we are better than that.

[librechik]

32. Mr Fucking Smith & Wesson

Guns--morons shouldn't own them.

[DeepBlueC]

33. Media coverage

It's what turns a tragedy into a model.

[countryjake]

34. Hopelessness, a symptom of the dying throes of Capitalism...

when one is indoctrinated to believe that "me, me, me and mine" is the only thing that matters in a society, it's only natural for irrational actions to arise when simple survival becomes too difficult. Feeling that one has nothing left and no one to turn to and not a soul to depend on can cause the most sane individual to snap.

It is to be expected, considering the system we live under.

I imagine such violence will only become much worse and more frequent, until folk finally realize that great solidarity we all have with one another.

[Haole Girl]

36. I voted "other"

It is not just one thing. It is a combination of things... it was long in the making. Outsourced jobs, poor education, dysfunctional families with little or no support systems, poor mental health care (if any), and so on. It's a recipe for disaster. :-(

[Kitty Herder]

38. All of the above. nt

[Unrepentant Fenian]

43. I blame the N.R.A. and their fear mongering nt

[Bushknew]

45. This phenomena is the consequence of our government spending more money to...

improve our military rather than to improve our society i.e. health care, education & jobs.

[BuyingThyme]

47. Lou Dobbs and Nancy Grace.

[TexasObserver]

49. There is no one cause.

When a guy catches his wife in an adulterous relationship, demands she stop, and she says she wants the new guy, that husband will react badly. In a very few cases, he will kill his children and himself, if not his wife and her lover. How anyone can predict who these few will be is anyone's guess. These guys don't appear substantially different from a million other losers who overbear and control, until they go beyond the pale.

We could write a profile of them, but that profile would cover millions of men.


When a guy loses his job, feels beaten down by the job market, and loses his sense of worth and being, he can go off in one way or another. Most of the time it is no worse than getting drunk and getting in a fight. Sometimes it is the extreme, as the shooter in the immigration office. Who can predict which of such men will explode and become a killing machine?

The availability of guns and ammo, the free movement of individuals in society, the disappointments of life, and the twisted minds of a select few mean we will always have these incidents. The cable news channels make such incidents more omnipresent than they would otherwise be. We obsess over them, forgetting that one good car bomb in the Mideast can do more killing in one instant.

We worry about the deaths we can do little about, so we don't have to think about the deaths we could do something about.

It would be interesting to know how many of such men were taking anti depressants when they did their horrific deeds, but that's the kind of info Big Pharm suppresses. Certainly such drugs work for some, but there is a significant problem with some users - homicidal and/or suicidal thoughts.

[RaleighNCDUer]

59. The pharmaceuticals aspect is important, IMO.

In this country we have so over-prescribed that we expect those little pills to actually fix things. With the rare exception of some anti-psychotics which eliminate hallucinations, they are NOT supposed to fix the problem - only to give the individual some breathing room so HE can fix the problem. When anti-depressants are dispensed to people with situational depression it does little good unless they also are getting good counseling as well - talking to someone who can sit with them and say "you lost your job, your wife walked out on you and your dog died - OF COURSE you are feeling depressed, and you will continue to feel depressed for a long time. It's the natural response to loss." We are socialized to reject any kind of "negative" emotions, so depression is made to feel wrong, rather than normal. So after they get their prescription for Xanax and Prozac, and after two months they aren't feeling any better (different, maybe, but not better) they get even more depressed and angry, and that's when they get dangerous to themselves and others.

Universal healthcare which includes psychological counseling would go a LONG way to mitigating these problems.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fujiyama]

51. A combination of factors

We have a very poor safety net, coupled with a stigma for those that get laid off (it's the person's fault, they're "lazy" because they can't "bounce back", etc etc), poor health care in general (with little real available access to mental health care), easy access to guns (it has a part to play), and poor family and social support.

It's easier to buy a gun in this country than it is to get adequate health care. Our gun laws are the least restrictive of any industrialized country. Even those countries like Israel and Switzerland, where guns aren't uncommon among civilians have a TRAINED populace that used guns as part of the military, requiring formal training and licensing. This will usually entail strict background checks as well. Cars, business, you name it - they're all more regulated than firearms here. I'm not really interested in arguing about this though since it's been proven to be a political killer. I'd rather we get easier and more affordable health care than end up getting neither so I'd rather Dems just not worry about this. It doesn't change my mind however, that this country is obsessed with guns and violence in general.

Family support is also terrible in this country, compared to many other places (both rich and poor). Many families really aren't too well knit and it shows. When someone is eighteen they're outta the house. Often times, it's all about the money. You live with your parents? You're a loser. And parents will charge rent to their kids? That's pretty much unheard of in most places. In most cases here, people simply leave home and don't really have much contact with their parents or other family, well except for superficial holiday gatherings. Likewise, when the parents get old, they're tossed in a home. Especially in times of economic distress, some safety net is vital - ideally the family should be there to help, but that's not always the case and the government should help out.

Instead here in many cases you have neither.

A study showed that especially for males, when they lose their job they lose a big social support group as well. This is especially difficult. Considering it can often be difficult to get work in the same place you grow up or go to school, you often end up leaving town. That's an understandable economic reality many of us face. But it can also be isolating and very difficult.

The US will allow people to earn more money than anywhere else on earth, but we're lacking in basic family interpersonal relationships. Our excess consumerism and greed, coupled with a penchant for violence (especially with firearms), is causing a lot of harm. We have a lot of money, but we don't necessarily lead very healthy lives.

It's really quite sad.

[Cid_B]

53. Other...

The motherfuckers who shot them....

[Dorian Gray]

54. Other: The people who bought the guns and shot the cops/children

with them.

[Fuzz]

58. Other: The crazy fucks who pulled the damn trigger.