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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > I don't bloody understand mass shootings
 
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Jun 8, 2009

ashgromnies posted:

Why don't you care to alleviate it? Why are goons changing the subject in this very thread and saying, "well, those dont really count"?

Because the real source of the majority of gun violence in the US is gang violence. Gun control can help, but we also need to fix our wealth inequality -- and that message is being ignored over the flashiness of guns. Intelligent people need to commandeer the narrative and refocus on what actually matters, but what I see in this thread is the tacit acceptance of the status quo's myopic focus on arguing solely about gun control.

He didn't claim he didn't care to alleviate it, he claimed "society" didn't care to alleviate it. Ask for clarification on that.

As for why they may not count, a number of people have pointed out that gang violence is mostly a result of poverty and wealth inequality. Attempting to fix that would probably go a long way towards reducing gun violence in general. What people freak out over is stuff like Elliot Rodger. He seems to be a privileged white male MRA personified from a wealthy background, and he still went on a spree. Fixing poverty won't alleviate whatever it is that causes middle-class white people to freak out. If anything, that might make things worse because "MAH PRIVILEGEL" :argh:. Yes, I'm generalizing for comedic value. Deal with it.

* # ¿ Dec 8, 2015 16:15
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# ¿ May 16, 2024 16:36
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Jun 8, 2009

ashgromnies posted:

But cases like Elliot Rodger are vanishingly rare compared to the whole of gun violence, which is primarily economically driven.

If the argument is about "how to stop gun violence", "reducing wealth inequality" seems like a reasonable mitigation with many other positive benefits. Plus it avoids annoying and intractable second amendment debates.

It would get us 90% of the way there. We can think about the remainder down the line.

I agree, but the OP asked about mass shootings, not gun violence in general, so that's what I was responding to. Mass shootings, to me, have a theme of something like "an individual who is not part of an (illegitimate?) group which already pursues violent actions comes to believe that killing a bunch of <target group> is the answer to the world's (or at least his) problems, and then does so in a short time frame with one or more firearms." That belief part might narrow it down a bit too much, but I think that's a fair stab at a definition that includes most of what is generally thought of as a mass shooting while excluding most of what is generally not thought of as a mass shooting. Now maybe it's wrong that some things aren't thought of as mass shootings, like gang drive-by's and such, but if there's disagreement there then that needs to be settled before we can talk about mass shootings at all. Maybe we should have a taxonomy of mass shootings, lone-wolf types vs. those motivated by groups and such.

Except of course the thread seems to have moved on to gun violence in general and gun control, so V:v:V

* # ¿ Dec 11, 2015 05:42
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > I don't bloody understand mass shootings