US culture of mass killings

[ZenGum]

Almost certainly, there are many factors involved.

The relative availability of guns, especially handguns and high capacity rifles, in the US is almost certainly one.
But there is also the attitude towards them, as already mentioned. Switzerland has lots of guns, but they're regarded as mundane, kept at home. In the US, it approaches a fetish or even a religion. "Guns keep us safe from tyranny!" etc. To the mentally ill, the idea that Guns Are The answer is easy to absorb from the pro-gun statements regularly and loudly made.

The media's fascination with these events is another factor. For the mentally ill, the saturation coverage of events like these soaks in and makes it seem like a normal or reasonable act. I wish I had saved it to share here, but I recently saw an infographic of the shooters of the last dozen or so mass shootings. Each shooter had a little box with name, date, types and legality of weapons and number of victims. They looked like baseball cards. The shooters were listed, not by name or date, but by number of kills.
What better to motivate some insignificant-feeling psycho to try to top the list?

And yes, culture. Think of all the wild west folklore, the western movies, where one or a few "good guys" with guns defy and defeat a bunch of crooked land barons/ rustlers / outlaws / corrupt officials etc. There are so many cases where this happens. After a few hundred such movies, the idea is unconsciously absorbed that, if you're repressed and downtrodden and the system won't help or is in fact the problem itself, armed defiance is the correct response.

There is no single factor that is "the" explanation, and so there is no single action that will fix the problem.

[Griff]

Despite my love of Westerns, I think Django Unchained will go unwatched. We are programming ourselves to accept violence. I think we are a pretty sick country. Our constant war-making, our exposure of young (often previously damaged) kids to violent media, our founding mythology, our crazy religious, our intolerance for each other, our sick school culture, our economic stress, our embarrassing political culture, its all in there how much each thing weighs in cracking some loon is not knowable. What I know is I spend every working day teaching children peaceful conflict resolution and everything I teach can be wiped away by shitty culture.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

... Switzerland has lots of guns, but they're regarded as mundane, kept at home. In the US, it approaches a fetish or even a religion.

Religious dedication seems to creep in everywhere in one form or another. The Pontifical Swiss Guard provides armed bodyguards for the Pope and requires that their members have completed basic Swiss military training in good standing, be Catholic and take an oath of allegiance to the Pope.

... And yes, culture. Think of all the wild west folklore, the western movies, where one or a few "good guys" with guns defy and defeat a bunch of crooked land barons/ rustlers / outlaws / corrupt officials etc. ... There is no single factor that is "the" explanation, and so there is no single action that will fix the problem.

I saw what you did there, implying that Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Paladin and not even the Cisco Kid can save us.

[IamSam]

Originally Posted by sexobon

Religious dedication seems to creep in everywhere in one form or another. The Pontifical Swiss Guard provides armed bodyguards for the Pope and requires that their members have completed basic Swiss military training in good standing, be Catholic and take an oath of allegiance to the Pope.

So, that explains it! The reason why about a dozen or so Swiss Guards in a largely ceremonial position don't run amok and kill busloads of children visiting the Vatican is because they're afraid a nun will rap them across the knuckles.

Works for me.

So what's the skinny on all the rest of the non-Catholic Swiss fondling their military issued weapons back home in the Alps?








dropped off since it was along the way, anyhow by a Navajo on the war path