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Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

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Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#301

Post by mahastore »

onesafari wrote: post #59
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

The root cause may be bullying and ostracization combined with the media contagion effect. This is a repeating pattern. Bullying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texa... The gunman in Tuesday’s elementary school massacre was a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and lashed out violently against peers and strangers recently an…

No post body was provided.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#302

Post by [deleted] »

a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

[deleted]

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#303

Post by str34m »

colechristensen wrote: post #216
mikewarot wrote: post #88

1. My ratio in this manner is awful... I need to do better How often do you: a) discuss issues with someone from the other side of the political aisle in a calm and rational manner? b) give in to the emotional urge to scream at those people ? 2. Money is at the root of this, in so many ways a) Lobbyists have captured the Federal Government, degrading our faith in Government, as they have stopped representing us, and…

If you want to start on a personal level to fix this, yelling about politics is not the solution. Be kind to people, especially people who don’t seem to fit in and are alienated by the world. Teach your children to be kind to people and encourage others to be too. A common thread in so many of these events seems to be someone breaking in an unkind world and lashing out violently.

No post body was provided.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#304

Post by welshwelsh »

mahastore wrote: post #271
BobbyJo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't see this as a symptom of that. Economic and tax base problems, where our best knowledge can point to us doing the "wrong" thing, or at least not doing the "right" thing, sure. Those objective things that we mess up are indicative of systemic issues. Some people just aren't scared of guns, or of a world where everyone has one, regardless of the real risk such a world would entail. Differences within t…

You can burn a lot of words for sure. This culture also exists in other places and owning an automatic military grade gun in the society is perfectly acceptable. Want to know the name of this place? It is Afghanistan , Sudan and a host of places like that. They may be highly cultural but not exactly civilized society as per our norms and not something we ever aspire to be. We want to reach for the mars ? First let us…

It's not appropriate to compare the United States to Afghanistan or Sudan. Better to pick countries with similar GDP per capita.

Switzerland is a good point of comparison; they have about half as many guns per capita as the US which includes military-grade weapons, but no mass shootings.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#305

Post by a_square_peg »

BobbyJo wrote: post #257
a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

I honestly don't see this as a symptom of that. Economic and tax base problems, where our best knowledge can point to us doing the "wrong" thing, or at least not doing the "right" thing, sure. Those objective things that we mess up are indicative of systemic issues. Some people just aren't scared of guns, or of a world where everyone has one, regardless of the real risk such a world would entail. Differences within t…

> Differences within the populace with regard to risk tolerance and perception doesn't tell you anything about systemic issues.

How we deal with it as a society does though - some people don't mind going fast but we as a society decided to impose speed limits on roads, especially around schools. Some people don't mind the smell of cigarettes but we as a society decided that indoor smoking shouldn't be allowed in general. No one likes paying taxes but as a society, we accept that we need it to function, however imperfect the process may be.

This is where US feels like a dysfunctional society when viewed from outside. If US views occasional mass-shootings as a non-issue, sure. But if it does see it as a problem and it's not able to deal with it because for whatever reason (culture, freedom, constitution etc.), I think that's a problem.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#306

Post by maxerickson »

philistine wrote: post #273
a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

When I first visited the US, I was in a burger shop and complaining to my wife to the tune of: "Urgh, her come the pennies again. I'm so happy to be rid of them." The cashier was incredulous that Canada had gotten rid of pennies. That something so mundane and annoying, pennies, is impossible to solve for the the US is eerily similar to Caligula playing music while his city burned.

I mostly don't use cash and throw small coin change into a drawer or whatever. In the last 10 years I've probably dealt with like 300 pennies. The horror!

Like it would be fine if they did just disappear, but it's also a pretty "meh" issue day to day.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#307

Post by jjeaff »

brandonmenc wrote: post #248
belorn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we look at the data we can see a significant increase in the last decade, and the mass school shootings are almost exclusively a modern concept from the last 30 years. A question one might ask is then what changed in the USA during those years to trigger this. In addition those factors should be compared to other nations. We should also look at what prevent school shootings. What in society might protect against a…

> mass school shootings are almost exclusively a modern concept from the last 30 years. A question one might ask is then what changed in the USA during those years to trigger this. The invention of the first person shooter (aka: the mass shooting simulator.) 30 years almost to the day.

But these games are just as popular in many other countries as well.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#308

Post by vkou »

dane-pgp wrote: post #65
heavyset_go wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Felt the same way about COVID and war. If cameras were allowed into ICUs, and into war-torn areas, and not just the carefully choreographed media tours the military sometimes allows these days, things would change.

Do we want policy decisions to be influenced by which side can produce the most emotive imagery, though? This is just "think of the children" with more steps. For example, if you're going to highlight the scenes from inside ICUs, why not also show images of children crying when receiving their COVID jabs?

No, it should instead be influenced by the side that shouts the loudest in a Fox opinion piece.

The propaganda you decry is already well-embedded in our discourse. It's people shouting about Obama hosting death panels that will kill grandma, or how Biden will somehow turn this country into a socialist paradise, or how the Dems are stealing the election.

The kind of censorship you are asking for does not enhance discourse. It diminishes it. If people are creating policies that produce horror, they need to be able to stand in front of that horror, and affirm that they are okay with it. Not whitewash it with euphemisms, and statistics and 'this is uncomfortable to talk about.'

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#309

Post by BobbyJo »

dsizzle wrote: post #298
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

To the extent that school shooting are, statistically, a "tail" event, you would expect that to change more sensitively than the "average" (guns per capita). So a tripling of the average gun measure (going from Serbia to US), might correspond to a much larger change in these extreme events. I doubt it's a simple statistical consequence, but it also doesn't follow that amount of guns would be (linearly) proportional t…

Sweet baby Jesus thank you. I've been waiting years for someone to make a reasonable argument to me on why stricter guns laws are a good idea.

Every other argument I've seen has been appeals to emotion without actually framing the cost/benefit relationship in any useful way.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#310

Post by wslh »

tomrod wrote: post #241
a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

Ray Dalio's Changing World Order is a good read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8

With all due respect to you and Ray Dalio: Ray is examining patterns within a relative short timeframe and we can always expect a "this time is different" moment or we are in a radical shift in patterns, a black swan or whatever we like to call it. This is just an hypothesis: things follow a pattern until the pattern changes and we are living in an incredible moment when science and technology are accelerating and could solve many human problems that we see impossible now. US is in an incredible position if you compare it with other countries in the world.

US has a lot of issues but we can see it as a platform offering more chances to succeed than other (countries) platforms. You don't need the entire population to succeed, with only a few outliers (Google, Facebook, open Source, an NGO) you can structurally change US and the entire world. I don't want to sound positive about US but more negative about other countries in the world. You cannot take apart the military aspect (even after disastrous wars) the weapons are there in the US. A crisis is completely possible but the gap between the US and other countries is amazing AND US is a talent atractor.

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