Why now?

[Letthemgrow]

I'm not so sure we can disregard the influence the first-person shooter video games have.
How many thousands of kids spend countless hours playing a fantasy game that centers around shooting humans?

What does surprise me is that they can continue on after the first couple of victims. The amount of blood and gore created at close distance I would think would shock someone into reality, but it doesn't seem to.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I think you’re almost there…


It’s not the LACK of a male figure…

It’s the vilification of males.

Bias against dads in the court, family, maternal raising of kids etc.

The fact people blame all the worlds faults on toxic masculinity…

And then you get a trial like the Depp/ Heard case and you still see how the male gender is vilified when the truth does come out.

So, you look at the history of Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Latinos and the entire gender of women and you think it boils down to young white males are the true victim? Wow.

 

[Stocker]

So, you look at the history of Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Latinos and the entire gender of women and you think it boils down to young white males are the true victim? Wow.

I don’t think he said anything about color, he was making a point on the villianization of the masculinity of men and the thought that men are the root cause of oppression.

All men, no matter color or creed.

 

[mtmuley]

I don’t think he said anything about color, he was making a point on the villianization of the masculinity of men and the thought that men are the root cause of oppression.

All men, no matter color or creed.

Exactly. But hey, read into it whatever the Hell you want to stimulate more conversation. Amazing. mtmuley

 

[Farmerj]

So, you look at the history of Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Latinos and the entire gender of women and you think it boils down to young white males are the true victim? Wow.

Uh…


Wooosh….

 

[LWC55]

Actually, it's kinda old news. The new thing is the mass killings now are done by individuals rather than small groups of individuals which was historically the case in America. Look at Bloody Kansas, the Jim Crow lynchings, the turf wars during the cattle drive era, Plains Indians Wars (if any "hero" of the American West deserved to be shot and chopped to pieces, it was G.A. Custer), etc. The big difference between gun violence here vs America is Canada simply does not have the history for violence. The grand total death count for our one and only plains Indian war (Saskatchewan Rebellion) was about 39 if I remember correctly. Our only "civil war" cost less than ten people their lives. Canada was not a country born of illegal armed insurrection that somehow succeeded (the Revolutionary War was not won by the Americans ... it was lost by British incompetence with some crucial assistance from the French navy). The Founding Fathers justified violent insurrection rather than working within the system and that legacy continues to this day. I think if a volcano blew Ottawa off the face of the earth tomorrow, Canadians could continue to live peacefully long enough to put a new government together even if it took years. Just the way we are up here.

 

[longbow51]

42

 

[rtraverdavis]

Like most everyone, this is so complicated and baffling that I have no idea where to start, nor much confidence that my theories would hold up against real scrutiny. There are just too many factors, as pointed out by the OP and so many other responses in this thread. Having said that, I think like @Nameless Range said, our whole culture is sick. These shootings are just one particularly horrific symptom of that. We continually place money and personal gain over our wellbeing at both the individual and communal levels. It's everywhere in our culture.

You completely nailed it. Along with parents having so many distractions that the kids aren’t top priority.

I really think there's something to this, and the parent/child dynamic is only part of it. It seems to me that one of the most significant changes to come about over the past 20 years or so is the drastic increase in just how many different things are pulling at our attention. I feel this deeply in my own life, and it makes me wonder how many things I miss because I'm not truly present in the moment with the people around me. And when I do notice something off, how am I acting on that?

I'm not saying that these shooters wouldn't have done what they did if only someone noticed them, but when everyone is pulled in so many directions all the time it's hard not to feel very, very alone. And when are alone, it's easy to get into some bad shit--especially if you are mentally and experientially predisposed to that.

No idea if that actually makes sense, but this whole thing is just so damn complicated.

 

[Deleted member 52098]

Like most everyone, this is so complicated and baffling that I have no idea where to start, nor much confidence that my theories would hold up against real scrutiny. There are just too many factors, as pointed out by the OP and so many other responses in this thread. Having said that, I think like @Nameless Range said, our whole culture is sick. These shootings are just one particularly horrific symptom of that. We continually place money and personal gain over our wellbeing at both the individual and communal levels. It's everywhere in our culture.



I really think there's something to this, and the parent/child dynamic is only part of it. It seems to me that one of the most significant changes to come about over the past 20 years or so is the drastic increase in just how many different things are pulling at our attention. I feel this deeply in my own life, and it makes me wonder how many things I miss because I'm not truly present in the moment with the people around me. And when I do notice something off, how am I acting on that?

I'm not saying that these shooters wouldn't have done what they did if only someone noticed them, but when everyone is pulled in so many directions all the time it's hard not to feel very, very alone. And when are alone, it's easy to get into some bad shit--especially if you are mentally and experientially predisposed to that.

No idea if that actually makes sense, but this whole thing is just so damn complicated.

and to follow up on this social media exacerbates that issue of feeling alone - despite being connected online. It's incredibly scary when you read accounts of young adults, teens and college kids that killed themselves because seemingly "close" online connections suddenly went quiet, cut them off, or stopped being "friends" with them. Social isolation in the age of social media is real thing; way too many people's identities are wrapped up in their "following" / "likes" / etc

 

[morley.tyler]

Canada was not a country born of illegal armed insurrection that somehow succeeded (the Revolutionary War was not won by the Americans ... it was lost by British incompetence

Call me when the Queen is no longer on your money.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I would add another straw to the bundle: a general breakdown in community based organizations that linked people to where they live and promoted neighborly behavior (churches being one of them as well). Without a sense of belonging to a community or society, its easier to throw that rock through the window, burn that f&$!!# down or whatever. How many community based organizations and groups can you think of in your own town that have dwindled to the point of having to shut down in the last two decades? Eagles, Kiwanis, FOE, Knights of Columbus, and the list goes on and on. Even our small town wildlife clubs in the heartland find that they no longer have enough participation to justify continued existence. Everyone is too tied up with their own lives and families in this fast paced world to get involved in these groups that fostered the sense of community that once existed in our Country. Couple this with the increasing trends of interaction and communication by technology, and many people live in an isolating vacuum and have lost the ability to actually connect socially. This loss of community based orgs decreases the opportunities available for those who do wish to participate and once gone, they are not likely coming back. My local wildlife club used to spend $20-30k each year in our community sending youth to fishing and conservation camps, but that is sadly no longer an option due to our litigious (cover your ass) world. Now in a post covid era where many jobs have either gone to work from home or report to the office only 2-3 days a week, just another venue to interact with other people and maybe more importantly, opinions is fading. Not so sure this bodes well for our overall mental well-being as interactions with others who may not think exactly like you do, face to face (where you can't hide behind the keyboard), is an important part of being a well rounded human in my opinion.

I agree. The books Bowling Alone, Coming Apart, and Why We are Polarized all summarize this quite well.

 

[VikingsGuy]

way too many people's identities are wrapped up in their "following" / "likes" / etc

has anyone checked on @wllm today?

 

[Deleted member 28227]

has anyone checked on @wllm today?

 

[OntarioHunter]

Canada was a a British government puppet state and let the British trod all over them as a colony.

So the Canadians stood by and helped as British abused people in foreign lands under the colonial system. Tell me again how Canada is much better……

Oh right. And the black slaves working the plantations in the American South were living in the lap of luxury. Yeah, those third world British Empire colonies were so much better after liberated. You should study the history of India. When the Brits walked away in 1949 a horrendous bloodbath ensued that is still going on today. Britian was able to successfully keep Hindu and Muslim Indians coexisting in the same country for hundreds of years. No small feat! Under oppressive British rule the Natives in Canada fared a HELLUVA lot better than the poor buggers south of the 49th in US West. Please don't tell me how horrible and oppressive British rule was vs America. The US history as a colonial ruler was no less inglorious. Study the history of Hawaii and (shudder!) Philippines.

 

[Stocker]

Oh right. And the black slaves working the plantations in the American South were living in the lap of luxury. Yeah, those third world British Empire colonies were so much better after liberated. You should study the history of India. When the Brits walked away in 1949 a horrendous bloodbath ensued that is still going on today. Britian was able to successfully keep Hindu and Muslim Indians coexisting in the same country for hundreds of years. No small feat! Under oppressive British rule the Natives in Canada fared a HELLUVA lot better than the poor buggers south of the 49th in US West. Please don't tell me how horrible and oppressive British rule was vs America. The US history as a colonial ruler was no less inglorious. Study the history of Hawaii and (shudder!) Philippines.

How did the slaves get here? Couldn’t be British ships in the triangle trade?

If you wanna talk history you should have basic knowledge first.

Britain’s ‘Dark Past’: the atrocities of the British Empire and its legacy today - History Indoors

When you cast your mind back to your school days, your memories of British history will likely be dominated by topics such as the World Wars and the Battle of Hastings, but there has been little offered in the way of British colonial history to schoolchildren. Recently, the British public has...

historyindoors.co.uk

 

[Stocker]

Oh right. And the black slaves working the plantations in the American South were living in the lap of luxury. Yeah, those third world British Empire colonies were so much better after liberated. You should study the history of India. When the Brits walked away in 1949 a horrendous bloodbath ensued that is still going on today. Britian was able to successfully keep Hindu and Muslim Indians coexisting in the same country for hundreds of years. No small feat! Under oppressive British rule the Natives in Canada fared a HELLUVA lot better than the poor buggers south of the 49th in US West. Please don't tell me how horrible and oppressive British rule was vs America. The US history as a colonial ruler was no less inglorious. Study the history of Hawaii and (shudder!) Philippines.

How about Mets-el-kibir? Where the British slaughtered their allies?

 

[Stocker]

Oh right. And the black slaves working the plantations in the American South were living in the lap of luxury. Yeah, those third world British Empire colonies were so much better after liberated. You should study the history of India. When the Brits walked away in 1949 a horrendous bloodbath ensued that is still going on today. Britian was able to successfully keep Hindu and Muslim Indians coexisting in the same country for hundreds of years. No small feat! Under oppressive British rule the Natives in Canada fared a HELLUVA lot better than the poor buggers south of the 49th in US West. Please don't tell me how horrible and oppressive British rule was vs America. The US history as a colonial ruler was no less inglorious. Study the history of Hawaii and (shudder!) Philippines.

The best part about this is that the Sioux slaughtered other plains Indians not only by killing them outright but also stealing the food they raised forcing them to starve. So I guess the US government suppressing them is akin to your beloved British keeping the peace in India.

 

[406dn]

Mass killings are not something that only recently popped up. They are part of the human condition. We will never see the day were the risk of one drops to zero. The risk presently is very nearly zero for any one school, person, town, workplace. But the risk is not zero, it never will be zero.

The worst mass shooting? A look back at massacres in U.S. history

Note, Oct. 1, 2017: This article was published June 14, 2016.

www.latimes.com

That is a large reason why I have come to think that limiting the carnage that these rare events occur, is as good as we are going to be able to accomplish. In many ways we are behaving better than back in any imagined past.

I will add that if you compare the homicide rates in the USA to most European countries, we are far more violent, by close to an order of magnitude. Our homicide rate is comparable to Ukraine, before the Russian invasion.

 

[Gellar]

I agree with you on all of your thoughts. I would also add to the 2 parent family, the parents have to be engaged and involved with the kids too. I know to many people that have kids, but both parents work and have their own extra curricular activities, thus leaving their kid to be raised by a daycare or baby sitter.

I was thinking about this the last couple of days as I worked over Memorial Day holiday. I’m fortunate that I get to be fishing, kayaking, outdoors everyday for my job often teaching youth. But during my busy times I feel terrible because I don’t want to be doing those things with someone else’s kids. I want to be doing them with mine!

 

[Gellar]

This shooting happened last night at a church in Ames. I called my brother about 10 pm because our childhood neighbor is the youth pastor at this church. The shooter had a history of assault and threats against one of the victims yet was out awaiting a hearing.

UPDATE: Two people involved in the Ames shooting served in the Iowa National Guard

UPDATE: The Iowa National Guard is stating Eden Montang and Johnathan Whitlatch both served in the Iowa Army National Guard and part of the same unit.

www.kwwl.com