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Heavily-armed man kills himself, rather than shoot up Colorado amusement park, authorities say
(denvergazette.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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The American social safety net fails again. At least this time it was mostly contained.
Condolences to those who will remember him.
No shit. We had plenty of guns when I was a kid (52 now), even AR-15s and the like, and this wasn't a normal thing until after Columbine.
I'd hold off on my manifesto, :), but mental health has taken a nosedive in this country. It's far, far worse than kids can imagine. Fox News, Facebook, the internet, etc. has poisoned our collective brains and discourse.
If it puts your mind at ease at all, crime (violent and otherwise) had been on a decline from 1993 until 2016 and while it has risen since 2016, it still hasn't hit pre-'93 levels last I saw. Furthermore despite what you'd expect, those AR-15s are responsible for less than 500 (all rifles) of our 60,000 gun deaths, which is 0.833333333333% of our gun deaths. In fact, mass shootings account for less than 0.2% of our gun deaths per year. So, I mean "any is too much" yes, but it isn't near as bad as it seems. source
I think what terrifies people about mass shootings is that they're random. They just target random people (or God forbid fucking children).
I mean violence is obviously bad but most of the time it's contained in certain areas of town, and so long as you're not mixed up with the wrong people it's probably not a major concern for most people.
So when they see people get shot up at the mall or at a concert or at school they think "shit that could be me or my kids"
But yeah you're 100% right and they are blown completely out of proportion.
Yeah and I get that for sure, that's part of what makes Aneurysms so scary too, can randomly happen at any moment. Tbh I've realized best thing I can do is just try to keep myself and those around me safe as best I can and carry one of my own, it's the only thing that is actually within my power, unlike "fix the entire country" lol.
The vast majority of Mass Shootings™ aren't random.
Of course they are.
Things that are relatively new, circa Columbine
the 24-hour news cycle
rage-farming as a genre of syndicated media (think: Limbaugh, Hannity, InfoWars)
selling fear becomes huge moneymaker for opinion programmers (Limbaugh, Hannity, Carlson, etc)
politics as a staple on social media comment threads
offshore groups (like troll farms, etc) posing as domestic political actors, targeting particular demographics
Ready access to guns is of course a problem, but it's probably made worse when all those folks with ready access to guns are bathed in fear and loathing 24/7 by millionaires making lots of money telling them things to make them or their families afraid or angry. Just a thought
The vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. The idea that mental illness is largely responsible for the prevalence of mass shooters contributes to the stigma already attached to mental illness.
Know what did happen shortly before Columbine? Reagan dissembled our mental health infrastructure.
I was a teen in the late 80's. Hell, I thought homelessness was a normal thing I simply hadn't heard of until MTv started flogging it.
And if the mass shooting didn't start post-Columbine...? LOL, we didn't have that word in our lexicon.
FFS, we used to able to buy shotguns in the auto parts store. But suddenly, guns and "easy access" are the problem?
Why don't you folks start a fight you have a chance of actually winning? Shut down the right-wing propaganda, hard, yesterday.
And while we're at it, I'd kill for a solid study on how many killers, including suicides, are left/right politically. We both know how that's gonna play out.
I am saying that something else started it. Mental health care has been terrible for way longer than Columbine. And youre going to have to explain why there was a decade and a half gap between Reagan and this mass shooting. Dont get me wrong, Reagan was a real piece of shit but I don't think mental health or the lack of it is the major cause. Easy access to guns OTOH...
Mass shootings pre columbine were more rare but weren't unheard of. Mostly they were belltower or highway sniper style incidents or postal related as they were severely overworked at the time.
Also, while mass shootings were more rare, not only could you get one at the hardware store you could order a full auto directly to your door with no background check or even ID for a while.
Just to add.
Up until 2000, the NRA was actually a big supporter of gun control. At that point they switched to being pretty much zero tolerance for any gun control, and even trying to dismantle gun control.
One could apply the same logic you just did to blame mental health regulations to blame this instead.
They became a lobbying group for gun manufacturers and their shareholders.
No one is saying all mentally ill people are violent. They're saying most of these mass shooters are mentally ill. What stigma? That mentally ill people should have help available to them?
It always weirds me out that the first school shooting I remember occurred a few bit over a year before Columbine. Heath High School, December 1997.
My high school school had a 1970s state championship banner for rifle shooting up in the gymnasium. It might even still be there.
The media circus around columbine has certainly contributed to mass shootings. Every loser knows how to be remembered now.
I'll fucking remember him. Kid realized he was going to harm a lot of people and avoided it.
What safety net?
Sounds like America shouldn't be selling guns until Republicans have finished curing mental health issues.
but if we stopped selling guns, how would we cure those mental health issues?