So why do these shootings happen so often in the United States?

[politicus]

A combination of:

- a highly competitive social model that produces a high amount of losers and alienated people.
- a media culture that glorifies being famous.
- easy availability of guns.
- a tradition of vigilante justice, that can inspire the idea of "getting even" with all those people that bullied you/looked down on you, or whatever it may be that pisses you off.
- lack of mental health care.
- a fairly aggressive ideal of masculinity, that values being tough and dominant (which may only be possible for some types with a gun in their hand).

None of these factors are of course uniquely American, but the combination of them is.

[Person Man]

A combination of:

- a highly competitive social and economic (?)model that produces a high amount of losers and alienated people.
- a media culture that glorifies being famous.
- easy availability of guns.
- a tradition of vigilante justice, that can inspire the idea of "getting even" with all those people that bullied you/looked down on you, or whatever it may be that pisses you off.
- lack of mental health care.
- a fairly aggressive ideal of masculinity, that values being tough and dominant (which may only be possible for some types with a gun in their hand).

None of these factors are of course uniquely American, but the combination of them is.

[pbrower2a]

The combination of guns and mental illness is extremely dangerous.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The wealth and power of America's gun lobby/arms industry ensure that it is always "too early" to talk about gun control.

Violence is profitable, you see.

[Frodo]

A combination of:

- a highly competitive social model that produces a high amount of losers and alienated people.
- a media culture that glorifies being famous.
- easy availability of guns.
- a tradition of vigilante justice, that can inspire the idea of "getting even" with all those people that bullied you/looked down on you, or whatever it may be that pisses you off.
- lack of mental health care.
- a fairly aggressive ideal of masculinity, that values being tough and dominant (which may only be possible for some types with a gun in their hand).

None of these factors are of course uniquely American, but the combination of them is.

This.  It took a combination of factors to get to where we are now as a society -it will take a combination of factors to solve what led to the massacre.  We cannot just focus on gun control as the be-all;end-all of the discussion just because it is easiest to focus on. 

[opebo]

Because the victims (or any other masses) are highly expendable - in the sense that the society values them very little if at all.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Nihilism.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

America is a very insane country. We've showed our willingness to use violence since the days of our inception, and we've shown that whatever freedoms we have, we are willing to use and abuse them as much as we please, and react even worse once they're banned.

[rwoy]

Lets not pretend like the answer to this question isn't obvious.

We have a serious public health problem in this country.  Mental health is a BIG part of that.  But the cost of addressing it from a medical standpoint puts a very bad taste in some people's mouths.  Just look at the anger which arose when the Obama admin tried to have townhall meetings to gather ideas for public healthcare.  Now we have a mentally disturbed person who isn't getting the help they need.

Now add to that a media culture which glorifies gun usage.  When the action hero has a problem he solves it with his fists and guns.  So now the mentally disturbed guy gets the idea that his problems can be solved with guns.

Now add to that how ridiculously easy it is for someone to acquire weapons which can cause massive amounts of damage.  Of course we aren't allowed to take about gun control because the founding fathers were against it (even though these same guys were against equality for women and blacks ... somehow they are always 100% right)  So now how gun-obsessed mentally ill person can go to a gun show and buy some very powerful weapons.

Any other questions?

[User157088589849]

accessibilty. they are everywhere.

like with my child - out of sight out of mind.
sees it wants it plays with it thinks later

[LiberalJunkie]

Mix of both.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

A combination of:

- a highly competitive social model that produces a high amount of losers and alienated people.
- a media culture that glorifies being famous.
- easy availability of guns.
- a tradition of vigilante justice, that can inspire the idea of "getting even" with all those people that bullied you/looked down on you, or whatever it may be that pisses you off.
- lack of mental health care.
- a fairly aggressive ideal of masculinity, that values being tough and dominant (which may only be possible for some types with a gun in their hand).

None of these factors are of course uniquely American, but the combination of them is.

Great post.  I would say the first part has the most to do with it.

[Politico]

A diverse population of 330 million people combined with serious mental health issues that most people would rather ignore or marginalize than anything else.

If somebody wants to prevent these tragedies, they should be advocating for a national discussion about mental illness. It is the common denominator. Even if all guns could be taken away, which they cannot, we've seen with 9/11 that planes can be turned into WMDs, and we all recall the Oklahoma City Bombing. In other words, preventing access to guns is not only unfeasible but it alone could not prevent sick people from finding ways to kill a lot of people (e.g., it is not a stretch to imagine somebody sick like the Newton killer deciding to drive their car into a crowd of dozens of children if they were unable to find guns; would we attempt to outlaw cars after such a tragedy?).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A diverse population of 330 million people combined with serious mental health issues that most people would rather ignore or marginalize than anything else.

If somebody wants to prevent these tragedies, they should be advocating for a national discussion about mental illness. It is the common denominator. Even if all guns could be taken away, which they cannot, we've seen with 9/11 that planes can be turned into WMDs, and we all recall the Oklahoma City Bombing. In other words, preventing access to guns is not only unfeasible but it alone could not prevent sick people from finding ways to kill a lot of people (e.g., it is not a stretch to imagine somebody sick like the Newton killer deciding to drive their car into a crowd of dozens of children if they were unable to find guns; would we attempt to outlaw cars after such a tragedy?).

Why in God's name is this being constructed as an either/or proposition by so many people? A 'national discussion about mental illness' isn't a panacea any more than restricting access to firearms would be. For that matter, where were the Republicans giving any thought to the subject before their precious came under threat?

[Franzl]

That's my impression as well. The Republicans only became interested in mental health when it became a convenient alternative to discussing the gun problem.

Of course mental health is a serious issue, but it's so blantantly obviously being abused...

[opebo]

No one knows.....if they did we could stop it.

Dude they're not going to stop cannibalistic capitalism.

[Link]

Last time I checked there are no shootings in place that have no guns.  I learned this even before I got an advanced degree.

[Politico]

Last time I checked there are no shootings in place that have no guns.  

Like so-called gun-free zones such as schools, and the theater the Aurora shooter chose (he did not choose the theater closest to his home, but chose the theater in the area that had signs stating that concealed weapons were not allowed)? Or perhaps you had Norway in mind?

[Politico]

A diverse population of 330 million people combined with serious mental health issues that most people would rather ignore or marginalize than anything else.

If somebody wants to prevent these tragedies, they should be advocating for a national discussion about mental illness. It is the common denominator. Even if all guns could be taken away, which they cannot, we've seen with 9/11 that planes can be turned into WMDs, and we all recall the Oklahoma City Bombing. In other words, preventing access to guns is not only unfeasible but it alone could not prevent sick people from finding ways to kill a lot of people (e.g., it is not a stretch to imagine somebody sick like the Newton killer deciding to drive their car into a crowd of dozens of children if they were unable to find guns; would we attempt to outlaw cars after such a tragedy?).

Why in God's name is this being constructed as an either/or proposition by so many people? A 'national discussion about mental illness' isn't a panacea any more than restricting access to firearms would be. For that matter, where were the Republicans giving any thought to the subject before their precious came under threat?

Clearly mental illness is a serious problem. Guns do not cause somebody to decide to walk into a school and start shooting children. That behavior is caused by mental illness, not guns. We should be talking about mental illness rather than sweeping it under the rug like we have the past few decades (part of the reason why mental illness has grown as a problem recently). Should we treat the cause of tragedies like this, or should we exploit these tragedies in an attempt to further control people by restricting their access to firearms?

Some people in Washington just want to control people, and others want America to be free and more harmonious. The line is clear.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A diverse population of 330 million people combined with serious mental health issues that most people would rather ignore or marginalize than anything else.

If somebody wants to prevent these tragedies, they should be advocating for a national discussion about mental illness. It is the common denominator. Even if all guns could be taken away, which they cannot, we've seen with 9/11 that planes can be turned into WMDs, and we all recall the Oklahoma City Bombing. In other words, preventing access to guns is not only unfeasible but it alone could not prevent sick people from finding ways to kill a lot of people (e.g., it is not a stretch to imagine somebody sick like the Newton killer deciding to drive their car into a crowd of dozens of children if they were unable to find guns; would we attempt to outlaw cars after such a tragedy?).

Why in God's name is this being constructed as an either/or proposition by so many people? A 'national discussion about mental illness' isn't a panacea any more than restricting access to firearms would be. For that matter, where were the Republicans giving any thought to the subject before their precious came under threat?

Clearly mental illness is a serious problem. Guns do not cause somebody to decide to walk into a school and start shooting children. That behavior is caused by mental illness, not guns. We should be talking about mental illness rather than sweeping it under the rug like we have the past few decades (part of the reason why mental illness has grown as a problem recently). Should we treat the cause of tragedies like this, or should we exploit these tragedies in an attempt to further control people by restricting their access to firearms?

Well, people who don't have access to semi-automatic weapons generally can't mow down dozens of people in a matter of minutes, whether they're crazy enough to want to or not. (They can and do kill people in other ways, but it tends to be at least incrementally more difficult.) There are also reasons other than recognized mental illness why one might want to slay others, believe it or not.

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The line is not clear, because this is not an either/or issue no matter how much you and your little buddies who all of a sudden have woken up one day and decided to start caring about the mentally ill to deflect attention from the sudden horrors of our obsessively phallic, violence-fetishizing culture want it to be.

[Torie]

How does the US system of caring for, and controlling, psychotics, compare with the rest of the developed world? Yes, the US system, or lack thereof, is deplorable, and I speak from personal experience. Is there more social anomie in the US than in most of the developed world - as huge, and sprawling, and mobile, and diverse, as the US is? 

[Franzl]

How does the US system of caring for, and controlling, psychotics, compare with the rest of the developed world? Yes, the US system, or lack thereof, is deplorable, and I speak from personal experience. Is there more social anomie in the US than in most of the developed world - as huge, and sprawling, and mobile, and diverse, as the US is?  

The highly competitive American system creates a rather large social divide between winners and losers. To add insult to injury, not only do the losers receive very little welfare, but popular opinion condemns "handouts", and preaches personal responsibility.

If someone is already mentally unstable, this must be a factor in the United States that causes a lot more of them to "snap", because their situation may seem entirely hopeless.

[Torie]

How does the US system of caring for, and controlling, psychotics, compare with the rest of the developed world? Yes, the US system, or lack thereof, is deplorable, and I speak from personal experience. Is there more social anomie in the US than in most of the developed world - as huge, and sprawling, and mobile, and diverse, as the US is?  

The highly competitive American system creates a rather large social divide between winners and losers. To add insult to injury, not only do the losers receive very little welfare, but popular opinion condemns "handouts", and preaches personal responsibility.

If someone is already mentally unstable, this must be a factor in the United States that causes a lot more of them to "snap", because their situation may seem entirely hopeless.

No, psychotic breaks don't have much to do really with that. Drug use does, along with factors not well understood, but stress is not apparently one of major import. The auditory hallucinations become real to the psychotic, and "the voices" take over your mind, and you become enslaved to them. I am not being hyperbolic here believe it or not. Yes, I was surprised too. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think I'll just repost something...

Yeah, there have certainly been cases in which the godawful state of mental health 'treatment' in the U.S has clearly contributed to a massacre (I dimly recall that being the case in the VA Tech thing anyway; though I might be remembering wrongly), but that's about as far as you can go. Most of the rest of the time we are generally talking of after the fact diagnoses, and often of the 'well, you'd have to be mentally ill to do a thing like this' variety. Which is about as useful as a chocolate blast furnace.

In any case, most people (and by 'most' I mean 'in excess of 99 per cent') people with mental health problems are no more dangerous than the rest of society. That includes the minority of cases that are things more obviously 'scary' than depression and the like. I don't see how increasing the stigma - something that is utterly ludicrious given how common mental health problems are - helps anyone. It certainly wouldn't help to prevent these regular little massacres; the violent punctuation marks of contemporary American society.

With regards to an issue often mentioned, other countries shut down their big mental hospitals in the 70s, 80s or 90s as well, and yet...

[All Along The Watchtower]

I offer up America's isolated, car-dependent rural, exurban, and suburban places (where most of these spree shootings happen, as it turns out) as a contributing factor to these shootings.

When you barely know any of your neighbors, when you spend so much time in the car, using the garage-door opener and the automatic sprinkler system, and when you're in a boring, insulated environment with not that much to do, , that can exacerbate existing traits within individuals in the population.

Most people don't "snap", but there are always outliers. And there are more of them, given the conditions stated above. That, and access to firearms and proximity to a place with a lot of people (school, theater, shopping mall) can combine in a tragic and deadly cocktail, so to speak.