Dkos: No matter the murderous motive, the common denominator is always the gun

[RandySF]

Because the fact is that in all these shooting sprees, the motives tend to be very different. Hasan, the original shooter at Fort Hood, was motivated by Islamist religious fundamentalism--a fact that the Right hyped strongly for their own prejudicial reasons, and still do. The Columbine shooters seemed to be motivated by a different sort of social resentment. Adam Lanza's issues remain unclear to this day. The Navy Yard shooter had personal grievances related to his service. Gabby Giffords' shooter was driven by paranoia. The Virginia Tech shooter had still other problems. That the Isla Vista shooter was motivated by a disturbing, manic, entitled misogyny seems more accident than pattern in this context.

All of these shootings do seem to have some form of mental illness at work, but that itself is a cop out. The vast majority of the mentally ill do not engage in mass violence, and many of the mass shooters were not formally identified as mentally ill until they performed their barbaric acts.

The single common denominator in all of these incidents is the gun. It's that simple. Most of the shooters either obtained the firearms legally (as the Isla Vista shooter did), or had easy access to them by living in a household with someone who had obtained them legally.

Without the gun, these killing sprees would have been far less deadly. Yes, the Isla Vista shooter killed his first three with a knife, but it would not have gone much farther than that had it started at all. Knife sprees are extremely rare and extremely difficult to accomplish. Guns depersonalize killing, embolden deranged killers who might otherwise be on the fence, and make their jobs infinitely easier once they decide to go through with the grim task. They also provide an easy blaze-of-glory suicide mechanism for them, when otherwise they might be looking at the possibility of a far less glamorous lifetime in prison.

Mental illness exists in other developed countries. Radical Islamism does, too. Sexual entitlement and misogyny certainly do. Unpopular loner kids exist, too, as do disgruntled employees. But none of these things are causes of mass murder sprees in, say, Germany, France, England or Japan.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/25/1301859/-No-matter-the-murderous-motive-the-common-denominator-is-always-the-gun

[freshwest]

1. The last paragraph very important, and I'm breaking it up:

The common denominator is the gun. It is always the gun, and it will always be the gun. We can try to fix the other social problems all we want--and we should.

But until we fix the gun problem, we will continue to offer the lives of ourselves and our children on the altar of this insatiable, bloodthirsty Lord we euphemistically call the "gun rights movement."

Year after year, month after month we will continue to propitiate this monster with our blood and tears until enough of us decide that we have had enough, overthrow its foul priests and sack the tainted officials corrupted by its bloodstained lucre.

Until that day the NRA will simply take our children, group by group, to its yearly Lottery because, after all, that's the way we've always done it. For freedom.

I am uncertain at times on which should come first. Removal of the guns may not remedy the dearth of funding for social solutions which lead to a unified, productive nation. We still are not addressing the lack of services. The Koch and ALEC supporters are working this at both ends to destroy this country. They want NO positive outcomes except for their own friends, and really it's not positive to be wealthy beyond belief while so much around you dies. Like the old classic atomic bomb flicks, they win, but are surrounded by death.

They offer brainwashed, lacking in any sense of real identity slackers, who see their lives only as worthy if they create a life matching the illusions of pundits and product commericals sold to them by gun and media salesmen, the means to 'save' their lives from the social disintegration which ALEC, etc. has engineered.

The same people that made the problem for the love of money, make more money selling it. They've got people in a vise that they don't know how to get out of half the time. It's just pathetic. It appears the latest shooter thought his life was like a movie or a video game. None of that teaches one how to solve one's problems.

JMHO.

[Thinkingabout]

4. K & R

[Mojorabbit]

2. The common denominator is also a disturbed individual

I have seen a lot of posts today that want to somehow forget that there was someone who had gone off the deep end behind that trigger.

[Neoma]

5. I'm not denying he went off the deep end.

But to rally people around other mentally ill people who are not violent and go off about how we have a problem is not any kind of solution.

[Mojorabbit]

6. I totally agree

I think it is a complicated thing. I am sure when all is investigated there will be layers of actions and actions not taken both in the distant and recent past, there will be soul searching by his family and friends, and endless discussions on the internet. I guess I am weary of knee jerk opinions, "It is the NRA's fault, it is his Parent's fault, Society's fault, and on and on. It will end up being a intricate conglomeration of issues that brought this young man to this place. It won't be something easy to blame nor easy to fix.

[Neoma]

8. Has videogames been blamed yet?

That's my personal favorite.

[Thinkingabout]

3. K & R

Wayne LaPierre wants more good guys with guns and what reason does he want this, more guns sold. If a good guy with a gun is on the scene of a shooting what is he hoping for then, to maybe have the good guy with a gun to overpower the bad guy with a gun. My question is why the bad guy had a gun to begin with. If the NRA continues to block background checks and getting guns out of the hands of bad guys this will never end. The NRA has already gotten protection from law suits along with the gun manufacturers and gun sellers, now they do not have any incentive to assist in the control of guns in the wrong hands. Get a new gun association up and running, boycott the NRA and their stupid actions, change the laws and make them responsible.

[NickB79]

7. And the solution to this is.....................???

New gun bans aren't even remotely realistic, considering the ubiquitous nature of firearms, the ineffective nature of such bans, and the intransigence of politicians to consider such measures.

Measures like Universal Background Checks are very good, but so far even that's met it's death in Congress, and since it appears that many of the shooters in recent shooting sprees bought their firearms legally, that won't stop most of them. Hell, California is already has one of, if not the most, restrictive states for gun ownership, and this bastard managed to get himself a Glock legally.

Improving mental health reporting to the ATF's background check system is also good, but that raises the specter of scapegoating those with mental illnesses (as a great many DU discussions have been had about since Sandy Hook).

We've got to find a way to counter the idea that guns are somehow cool or sexy in this country. Yes, it's fun to go target shooting and hunting from time to time, but somehow that's morphed into the idea that you can't be a real gun owner unless you have a $3000, tricked-out AR-15 in your closet and burn through 1,000 rounds of ammo in an afternoon at the range. We've also got to counter this idea that the world is a horrifyingly dangerous place that requires you to be armed 24/7 and loaded for bear. Yes, crime happens, but I don't feel the need to keep loaded firearms on my person and around the house.

About the only thing that gives me hope is that gun violence has been dropping rapidly for the past 20 years in the US, largely independent of gun laws being enacted or repealed. No one is really sure why, but hopefully it will continue.

[Eleanors38]

15. Good points. nt

[Blue_Tires]

9. I'd slightly amend the writer's point to say

"The common denominator is always the widespread American belief that gunfire is the ultimate solution for any of life's problems..."

It's our cultural psychology that we need to have an unfiltered discussion on...

[Shandris]

10. Not to make too much light, but it -is- kind of a given that...

...the common connector in a bunch of shootings is going to be a gun, just as the common connector in a bunch of stabbings is going to be the knife.

The case against more firearms can be made simply enough; starting from a tautology isn't exactly where I'd begin a policy argument from.

[SheilaT]

11. It never fails to amaze me that even thoug, as DKos points out,

the common denominator is always the gun, the gun supporters somehow don't find that very important. They think that maybe we can somehow magically keep the oddballs from committing violence by some sort of advance profiling. But it still comes back to the gun. Countries where citizens aren't so heavily armed just don't have these gun deaths.

I am just waiting for the day that some gun supporter stands up and says, "My loved one was killed in this latest killing rampage, but I'm still in favor of easy access to guns." Somehow that never happens. I wish I could somehow make it so that only the gun supporters were ever harmed by guns. Then the gun violence would be contained, more or less. But no. It's people who don't deserve it who are most harmed.

And the solution is NOT more guns.

[juxtaposed]

12. guns don't kill people government inaction does

[LittleBlue]

13. The common denominator in car crashes is always the car

Alas, we stand a better chance of banning cars than guns, as there is no specific constitutional prohibition to banning cars.

[Eleanors38]

14. Dkos has a remarkably closed system. But on a more serious note,

he better hope the common denominator is not the gun (it isn't), because he will be bouncing around forever in a darkened rabbit warren. Social problems are rarely "just that simple."

He should know better.