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Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

nytimes.com

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Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#101

Post by emmett »

heyitsnick wrote: post #76
objclxt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is clear at all that "Columbine-like shooting are an American phenomenon". The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. The same is true in other countries around the world - I'm just citing those I'm most familiar with. The US certainly…

> The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. This is disingenuous. There have not been 'several cases where over a dozen were killed, and several smaller scale incidents'. There have been exactly three in recent UK history: Dunblane (16 schoolchildren…

The population of the USA is about 10x te population of the UK. You'd expect far more killings. The important number is per capita.

Of course, going by what happened to get into a Wikipedia list and what you happen to recall is pretty slim as evidence.

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

lubutu wrote: post #84
heyitsnick wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. This is disingenuous. There have not been 'several cases where over a dozen were killed, and several smaller scale incidents'. There have been exactly three in recent UK history: Dunblane (16 schoolchildren…

Some of those American massacres go back to the 14th century. It's quite possible that more have occurred in the USA than the UK, but that's hardly a fair comparison.

> Some of those American massacres go back to the 14th century.

?

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#103

Post by InclinedPlane »

arturadib wrote: post #26

Think outside the box. I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American phenomenon. [1] So what is it so special about the US that makes this a recurring problem? Is it poor parenting, without much communication? Is it societal pressure, i.e. Mr Popular vs Mr Loser? Is it easy access to guns? Is it the disproportionate amount of m…

Right, except for Utoya, Liege, Florence, Alphen aan den Rijn, Bratislava, Cumbria, Sello mall, Winnendon school, Kauhajoki school, Akihabara, Jokela school, Linchang school, Kauhajoki school, Shiguan kindergarten, Rio, Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, Siakago, the Chengdu bus fire, and others.

Yup, entirely an "American phenomenon".

These aren't terror attacks predominantly. These aren't drug crimes predominantly. These are by and large very comparable to the Columbine or Aurora incidents.

The fact is that this is not in any way remotely an "American phenomenon", and the fact that so many people believe that to be the case is an indication of gross ignorance of the existence of these events around the world. I only listed examples of non-US spree or massacre events within the last 5 years, and this isn't even a complete list.

Look at the lists on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_shooting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

Read through the incidents. Even just the ones within the last 10 years. And then tell me with a straight face that this is some sort of especially American event.

Edit: If there's one thing I've realized more than anything from reading up about these types of events it's that following the media is a poor substitute for research. I think most people would assume that if you were an avid consumer of news over the last 5 years you would have heard about, say, every worldwide rampage killing that involved more than 5 fatalities, right? But that is far from the truth. A lot of these events received almost no news coverage. I don't think people realize how incredibly selective and incomplete the view of the world through the lens of the global news media is.

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#104

Post by nitrogen »

bluekeybox wrote: post #78
japhyr wrote: post #2

I cringe every time I hear perpetrators of mass shootings described as "evil". Evil implies a presence of something bad. It's an easy label that allows people to hate the perpetrator. It's much more accurate to describe the perpetrators as cold, empty, detached. That is frightening, because there is no hope of reasoning or bargaining with someone who is truly detached from emotion. There is no such thing as evil. I a…

Cold, emptiness, and detachment is also characteristic of snowmen. Snowmen usually don't commit mass murders. There has to be some other factor, and usually that other factor is aggression of a type where you stick pins into a voodoo doll and derive pleasure from doing that. That is what Christians call evil (deriving pleasure/release from inflicting pain), and it is a pretty specific concept actually. You don't have…

You are reading far too much into the mindset of someone whose history we don't know. In fact, this whole thread has devolved well below the minimum standards for rational discussion, relying instead upon knee-jerk reactions and cargo cult assumptions.

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#105

Post by _delirium »

kiba wrote: post #33
arturadib wrote: post #26

Think outside the box. I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American phenomenon. [1] So what is it so special about the US that makes this a recurring problem? Is it poor parenting, without much communication? Is it societal pressure, i.e. Mr Popular vs Mr Loser? Is it easy access to guns? Is it the disproportionate amount of m…

I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (with few exceptions) an American phenomenon. [1] Um, what? I can cite two mass murder incident in Japan off the top of my head. There is the Osaka school massacre and the Akihabara massacre.

I can think of several in Europe as well. Germany alone has suffered two double-digit-victim school shootings in the past decade, despite having a population 1/4 that of the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre. It's interesting that the German media, at the time of Winnenden, often asked an analogous question to the one being asked here: whether it was becoming a particularly German phenomenon. Population-adjusted, it would be as if the US had had eight mass school shootings since Columbine, which it hadn't had.

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#106

Post by pronoiac »

kiba wrote: post #55
coenhyde wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know American's do not like to hear this but I am of the opinion that it's easy access to guns which is the cause of these mass murders. Now that Australia has gun control, the crazy's just stab a few people. It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife. If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage.

If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage. Taking away legal access != eliminating easy access to guns. It still may well be the case that it is easy to buy guns on the black market. On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer.

On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer.

Has a massacre in the US ever been stopped by someone with a gun, who wasn't a cop?

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#107

Post by [deleted] »

heyitsnick wrote: post #92
mbell wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United... . You realize this list contains everything from wars, to 9/11, to drug gang battles, etc, etc. It is not even remotely comparable to a list of actions with "no apparent motive".

Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself. Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Se…

[deleted]

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#108

Post by mbell »

heyitsnick wrote: post #92
mbell wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United... . You realize this list contains everything from wars, to 9/11, to drug gang battles, etc, etc. It is not even remotely comparable to a list of actions with "no apparent motive".

Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself. Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Se…

> There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself.

There is a pretty decent and much more relevant list mentioned in another comment in this thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#109

Post by heyitsnick »

kragniz wrote: post #100
heyitsnick wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself. Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Se…

> There has been exactly three massacres of this type in recent UK history (~last 50 years). There are dozens in the US just in the last couple of decades. So implying that UK has a similar incidence of random killing spree gun crime as the grandparent did is disingenuous. I am no expert in this field, but the US has approximately five times the population of the UK [1], so wouldn't it be expected the number of rando…

Yes the US population is 5x the size. I posit that there are significantly more than 15 "random" shooting massacres in the last 50 years in the United States. No I haven't counted them, but really i'm surprised this is being disputed. I listed 9 here in just the top 5 states on the list. Eyeballing it there looks like at least 30 that fit the criteria.

I realise this isn't a rigorous study but my original post was not to set out a formal proof here. I was just correcting the original poster implying that there had been "several massacres" where "more than a dozen had been killed" (there have been two in recent UK history, and 1 at 12) and "several on a smaller scale" (there is one, maybe two, given your criteria).

I then just offhandedly linked to a list that shows "dozens", i would guess 30 or more, that have taken place in the United States in recent history. I guess i'm regretting posting a link as it seemed to many it implied i thought the complete 125 or so in that list fit the bill. I was just leaving it as an exercise to glance through and see the many more (certainly more than 15) that have recently occurred in the United States.

Re: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer

#110

Post by refurb »

nikic wrote: post #91

Only tangentially related, but I'd like to know: The Wikipedia article on the incident says "The first phone calls to emergency services via 9-1-1 were made at 12:39 a.m. The police arrived within 90 seconds and apprehended the suspect." I'm wondering, can this be true? Are they really that fast? If so, impressive.

There were policemen on patrol near the theater at the time. Otherwise that response time would have been more like 5-10 min (at the least).
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