Mass shootings

forclosure

Well-known member
except that those organizations had political beliefs, however warped, that they were allegedly fighting for. these lone shooters usually have no guiding principle aside from blind hate or mental illness.
yes but mental illness reasoning is always bullshit because they give it to these shooters to explain why they did that and it demonises and isolates people who grapel with mental illness and don't have access to the kind of help and support they need in the process
 

forclosure

Well-known member
if there's anything that needs addressing not just gun control it's this great replacement theory bullshit

not just because shooters believe it but politicians have prodded and exaserbated this shit to get votes out of people for DECADES
 

Leo

Well-known member
yes but mental illness reasoning is always bullshit because they give it to these shooters to explain why they did that and it demonises and isolates people who grapel with mental illness and don't have access to the kind of help and support they need in the process

surely there are some, if not many, mass shooters who have mental illness problems.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
if there's anything that needs addressing not just gun control it's this great replacement theory bullshit

not just because shooters believe it but politicians have prodded and exaserbated this shit to get votes out of people for DECADES
Yeah, it's a particular favourite of Fucker Carlson, that one.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
surely there are some, if not many, mass shooters who have mental illness problems.
I'd have thought all of them - I mean you've got to have something pretty badly wrong with you to want to kill a bunch of people you've never met.

That doesn't mean a hateful ideology isn't also involved, and it's not useful to assume it must be either one thing or the other.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
these man don't just "snap" and decide to go and shoot people they PLAN to do it and if anything influences its more so to do with whatever DEEPLY entrenced stresses they got going on in their lives in terms of money, possibly alcohol and drug use(i said POSSIBLY) and the fact that some of them already had racist and violent tendencies before hand.

Mental illness is just this cheap "family values" boogyman used to demonise people who already got mental health issues at hand who more often aren't even that violent the number of people who link mental illness to them being aggro is MUCH smaller than its belived to me and keeping it a buck with you two i'm kinda peeved that you two are adamant in this belief cause you notice YOU NEVER EVER EVER SEE BLACK YUTES GET GIVEN THIS SAME KIND OF PONDEROUS ANALYSIS AND SENSITIVITY THE WAY ALL THESE PINHEAD NO NECK CRACKERS DO? MUSLIM SHOOTERS ALWAYS GET PAINTED AS RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS LIKE AS IF ALL MUSLIMS ARE RELIGIOUS HOW COME RELIGION DOESN'T FACTOR AS MUCH WITH THEM?

By right as a British person i shouldn't be commenting on this as its almost singularly an American issue but Leo i imagine you and padraig are both old enough to remember the idea of a criminal "superpredator" spread like wildfire in the 90s and was used by lawmakeers and lobbyist as a reason to try black teenagers as adults and give them 30+ plus sentences because apprently these teenagers are ready and willing to kill without remorse? or how people were shottin nickle bags get slapped with the kind of sentences you'd want them to give to criminal bankers,murderers and the like.

This stuff tends to get parred off as being in their nature or they don't have fathers in their lives or when they do go and commit crimes they didn't take personal responsibility for their actions(the amount of older black people i've heard say this and then hear it from peers of my age disgusts me to no end) or how through fake bullshit like the Willie Lynch letter its pinned on this idea that some mastermind white man had this idea scoped out for the next 300 years and in turn insinuates this idea that the reason we face so much racism and violence comes from within the community, that somehow we're more uniquly divided and broken compared to other races and it's our our own fault we recieve such trauma.

All this shit gives simplistic scapegoat answers to complex questions
 
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forclosure

Well-known member
unless you want to be poetic about it and say that white supremacy and racism is a mental hatred is a mental illness in and of itself then

Its funny cah i've been listening to the bad gays podcast episode on Jeffrey Dahmer where they try to talk about him in a way that doesn't go for the obvious vulgar Freudisms that people tend to overfocus on in an attempt to explain how he came to become a killer and again they bring up this same kind of family values anexities over sleaze and unchristian behaviour all the same.

So much of this is like the anexity of white middle class people about what kind of people and goings on happen within inner cities despite(and people on this very forum have talked abouth their own experiences with it) said "deviant" and amoral behaviour happeneing in their own back yards and homes and and they know this or act wilfully oblivious to it.

and you lot notice EVERY TIME a shooting like this happens this is when certain people and pundits jump into the midst of the confusion to say this is why we need tougher policing and we need to give them more power in terms of what they can do in these areas ASWELL as people calling for more gun control.

Like what's that one quote that usually gets misatributed to George Orwell? 'We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm" which is a total inversion of what actually happens in real life and what police actually do and pushes that thin blue line bullshit idea that if they weren't around the world would descend into chaos
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hang on, when did I say anything about people "suddenly snapping"?

Every single time of these atrocities happens, there turns out to be a ton of backstory to it, going back months or even years. All the "warning signs" everyone talks about. The weird or absent personal relationships. The morbid fixations with Hitler, or previous mass shooters, or whoever. The inevitable online activity.

And there's usually some shitty "manifesto" as well, often quite a lengthy document that must have taken some time to put together.

Edit: all of the above goes equally for people who get involved in terrorism from a religious angle too.
 
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forclosure

Well-known member
Hang on, when did I say anything about people "suddenly snapping"?

Every single time of these atrocities happens, there turns out to be a ton of backstory to it, going back months or even years. All the "warning signs" everyone talks about. The weird or absent personal relationships. The morbid fixations with Hitler, or previous mass shooters, or whoever. The inevitable online activity.

And there's usually some shitty "manifesto" as well, often quite a lengthy document that must have taken some time to put together.

Edit: all of the above goes equally for people who get involved in terrorism from a religious angle too.
you're right in that you didn't say it but when mental illness is brought up in regards to these kind of shooters that's what it implies

there's been guys out there who don't have any history of mental illness in themselves or their families who do these kind of things, i mean shit if that's the case there's alot of people out there who make harsh noise who need a looking into then.

also alot of those manifestos while lengthy they're only look like they must've been hardwork cause of the length but more often than not even with this buffalo shooter its been pointed out that his manifesto rips off wholesale chunks and changes around certain wordings of the manifesto that was drawn up by the New Zealand shooter just replacing muslims for black people. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ffalo-shooter-islamophobia-replacement-theory

The irony that these guys feel left out and fear of being "replaced" when the people who their afraid of through their myopic lens are completly indistinguishable
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
you're right in that you didn't say it but when mental illness is brought up in regards to these kind of shooters that's what it implies
That's fair, and I think what's going here is two related but separate things.

One is the real issue of poor mental health, especially in young people and especially in men, that is real and widespread, has been around for a long time, and is getting worse. The other is the way "oh, he had mental health problems of course" can be used to try and shut down discussion of what *else* might have contributed. And of course you're right in that this courtesy tends to get extended to young white men by the conservative media - and probably some parts of the liberal media too, to an extent - in a way that it doesn't in cases where young Muslim men get involved in violent extremism. So there is an unavoidable element of racism there. And with the right-wing media especially, they want to cover their own tracks in terms of their support for the ideology that motivates far-right extremism in the first place (the 'great replacement' bullshit, which AFAICT has become an official part of the Foxite ideology), as well as their opposition to any form of gun control.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
There is a wider effort to undermine public education in some states since segregation started being unwound and it has redoubled again in the push back against secularism since Reagan. You cannot draw direct causal lines as if this motivates shootings but the incidents must at least be informed by that atmosphere of religious, racial and economic fundamentalism?

You can at least hear the cash registers ring in the Christian home schooling business every time this happens.
On presumes that industry is worth a lot.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
That's fair, and I think what's going here is two related but separate things.

One is the real issue of poor mental health, especially in young people and especially in men, that is real and widespread, has been around for a long time, and is getting worse. The other is the way "oh, he had mental health problems of course" can be used to try and shut down discussion of what *else* might have contributed. And of course you're right in that this courtesy tends to get extended to young white men by the conservative media - and probably some parts of the liberal media too, to an extent - in a way that it doesn't in cases where young Muslim men get involved in violent extremism. So there is an unavoidable element of racism there. And with the right-wing media especially, they want to cover their own tracks in terms of their support for the ideology that motivates far-right extremism in the first place (the 'great replacement' bullshit, which AFAICT has become an official part of the Foxite ideology), as well as their opposition to any form of gun control.
yes but the reason WHY this talk of mental health in young people has become such a talking point is in part because of major cut to services that would've provided access to these services, an overcorrection over the last decade where mental health was considered a minor issue to now where you got pundits trying to pathologise even Putin over why he would decide to invade Ukraine,parmacutical companies and docters thinking dishing out drugs to people is a easier way to deal with such problems because they do want to pay out of pocket for said peoples treatment and not only that the dosages of said pills and tablets given to people. the phenomena of "doomscrolling" on twitter and some whole other shit that factors into it

Also just like over here in Britian the right wing want to cover their tracks because they're always ALLOWED to get away with it and really its not just so much the right wing as it is the NRA and those invested in gun manufacturers, democrats are absolutly pretrified to touch them for fear of the kind of repercussions that they'll face denouncing them also because of that radical libertarian base that gets apoplectic over any mention of government involvement and think they're coming to take their guns away.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
i am not saying that mental health could be a factor when these things happen but the fact that it's always the first thing people go to, in an attempt to pathologise these people and their habits as if its a sure fireway has had alot of repercussions that i don't think stop to realise what this means for those who aren't and will never get their hands on high powered guns to go ahead and kill people.

It's more often mundane than that, that's in a funny way one of the tricks that true crime podcasts and just crime reporting in general does with these people by focusing so much on the "scandalous" aspects of their personal lives and crimes to find a motive for their actions it has a knock on effects of making these people far more interesting than they actually are.
 

version

Well-known member
There's stuff coming out now about the cops leaving the shooter inside the school for at least 40 minutes whilst arguing with parents outside who felt they weren't doing enough.

Absolute shitshow.
 

version

Well-known member
i am not saying that mental health could be a factor when these things happen but the fact that it's always the first thing people go to, in an attempt to pathologise these people and their habits as if its a sure fireway has had alot of repercussions that i don't think stop to realise what this means for those who aren't and will never get their hands on high powered guns to go ahead and kill people.

It's more often mundane than that, that's in a funny way one of the tricks that true crime podcasts and just crime reporting in general does with these people by focusing so much on the "scandalous" aspects of their personal lives and crimes to find a motive for their actions it has a knock on effects of making these people far more interesting than they actually are.
It's also a way to keep the debate locked onto individuals and skirt some of the systemic issues producing them, much like the 'few bad apples' argument that gets trotted out when the police do something wrong.
 

version

Well-known member
There's stuff coming out now about the cops leaving the shooter inside the school for at least 40 minutes whilst arguing with parents outside who felt they weren't doing enough.

Absolute shitshow.

Sounds like they really fucked up. The story now is that the shooter barricaded himself in the classroom with the kids, but an initial report said it was the police who barricaded him in.


Apparently around eighteen minutes of audio has disappeared from the scanner archives around the time of the shooting too and there are reports of cops going in to get their own kids and leaving the rest.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's also a way to keep the debate locked onto individuals and skirt some of the systemic issues producing them, much like the 'few bad apples' argument that gets trotted out when the police do something wrong.
That's an annoying case of people quoting a saying, or part of a saying, and assuming it means the opposite of what it actually means, since the full saying is "a bad apple spoils the whole barrel".
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
these man don't just "snap" and decide to go and shoot people they PLAN to do it and if anything influences its more so to do with whatever DEEPLY entrenced stresses they got going on in their lives in terms of money, possibly alcohol and drug use(i said POSSIBLY) and the fact that some of them already had racist and violent tendencies before hand.

Mental illness is just this cheap "family values" boogyman used to demonise people who already got mental health issues at hand who more often aren't even that violent the number of people who link mental illness to them being aggro is MUCH smaller than its belived to me and keeping it a buck with you two i'm kinda peeved that you two are adamant in this belief cause you notice YOU NEVER EVER EVER SEE BLACK YUTES GET GIVEN THIS SAME KIND OF PONDEROUS ANALYSIS AND SENSITIVITY THE WAY ALL THESE PINHEAD NO NECK CRACKERS DO? MUSLIM SHOOTERS ALWAYS GET PAINTED AS RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS LIKE AS IF ALL MUSLIMS ARE RELIGIOUS HOW COME RELIGION DOESN'T FACTOR AS MUCH WITH THEM?

By right as a British person i shouldn't be commenting on this as its almost singularly an American issue but Leo i imagine you and padraig are both old enough to remember the idea of a criminal "superpredator" spread like wildfire in the 90s and was used by lawmakeers and lobbyist as a reason to try black teenagers as adults and give them 30+ plus sentences because apprently these teenagers are ready and willing to kill without remorse? or how people were shottin nickle bags get slapped with the kind of sentences you'd want them to give to criminal bankers,murderers and the like.

This stuff tends to get parred off as being in their nature or they don't have fathers in their lives or when they do go and commit crimes they didn't take personal responsibility for their actions(the amount of older black people i've heard say this and then hear it from peers of my age disgusts me to no end) or how through fake bullshit like the Willie Lynch letter its pinned on this idea that some mastermind white man had this idea scoped out for the next 300 years and in turn insinuates this idea that the reason we face so much racism and violence comes from within the community, that somehow we're more uniquly divided and broken compared to other races and it's our our own fault we recieve such trauma.

All this shit gives simplistic scapegoat answers to complex questio
I agree ofc that there is a racial double standard when it comes to media coverage of shootings, which both fails to capture the complexity of motives that go into any shooting, and demonizes people with mental health issues and/or POC, especially young black men. That's an essentially unassailable assertion. And the point of what you're saying is indeed that these are complex questions for which simple answers don't suffice.

I do think you're underrating mental health as a factor - not THE factor, or even the driving factor, but just a contributing factor. it's not just about aggression linked to mental health (which is indeed, much overrated in the popular conception of mental health issues) - many of these shooters are clearly depressed, struggling with self-worth, alienated from their peers/communities/society, etc. obv that doesn't justify what they do, nor am I saying "they're victims too" or whatever (tho it is possible to have basic sympathy for a person even if they've done terrible things - not required certainly, but possible), but clearly one way to cut down on shootings would be to try to do a better job of recognizing those symptoms/issues - in tandem with other red flags - and trying to address those issues before they turn into violence. and not just for white dudes - Nidal Hassan (the Fort Hood shooter) for example, clearly was struggling with some of those issues, intersecting with religious and political beliefs. obv you're not gonna "cure" racism, or etc but some potential shooters you at least will deter. and there has to be a way to make mental health - and lack of access to mental health services (which yes, without even checking, I'm sure disproportionately effects POC) - part of the discussion without making it an excuse or having it demonize people with mental health issues in general.

I'm not old enough to remember "superpredators" at the time - Leo, venerable elder that is, has to be at least 20 years older than me - but I did discover it when I learned about how awful 90s Democrats were. it's an old story, trying to preemptively get ahead of of the inevitable Republican "Democrats are soft on crime" by proving how tough they are. Kamala Harris - the absolute fucking worst, I did a deepish dive on her abysmal, and deeply cruel, record as California AG in some thread somewhere if anyone wants to look it up - exemplifies this trend. It's fucking embarrassing and cowardly, like most things about the Democratic establishment. the Republicans of course, are even worse, just less cowardly because they at least nominally believe this kind of bullshit.

did yall know there have been 250 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year? That number astounded me, but then I looked at it and 2 things - 1) basically every definition of mass shooting is 4+ people, which is, let's be clear, still a lot of people getting shot but not what we think of as "mass shooting" and 2) even cursorily glancing at the list you can tell that many, many of them are a kind of violence that barely gets news coverage and most Americans don't really care about in the same way as Sandy Hook or Uvalde - they don't provoke handwringing press conferences and thoughts and prayers tweets from NRA-supporting politicians, and so on - POC shooting mostly each other in urban neighborhoods. That shit is taken for granted, let me tell you.

Here in Chicago, there have been 11 mass shootings this year, and besides the mayor taking heat and the Chiraq reputation for violence, let me tell you, no one outside the south and west sides - where they virtually all take place - gave any kind of a fuck until someone shot up a McDonald's downtown last week. I'm sure other major cities are basically the same. One of the shootings was a mile from my house (I live on the west side) and I didn't even know about it until I was looking this stuff up, and I stay pretty well informed on local events.

So yes, obviously there are lot of complex problems around mass shootings in the United States and the handwringing bullshit we get every time one comes to national prominence basically does nothing for anyone.
 
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