You’re kidding, right, @poetsheart ? Just google and you will find all sorts of speculation and reports.
You asked in an earlier post for speculation regarding increased mass shootings, which have occurred - I added - against a backdrop of dramatically lower gun homicide rates over the past 3 decades. That’s all I was offering: speculation.
About public release of the medical records of convicted mass shooters, it’s all a question of whose ox is gored, no? There is no explicit right to medical privacy in the Constitution (unlike the explicit right to bear arms), which is one of the reasons a statute like HIPAA exists. But perhaps such a right could be read into a generalized right to privacy protected by the Constitution, as interpreted by courts. (Note, there is no explicit right to privacy either in the text.)
In any event, no right is absolute. A convicted murderer after due process, for instance, will be deprived of all sorts of “privacy” rights in prison. Arguably, a dead mass shooter has no privacy rights anyway (as he is dead). I think it is worth doing some serious research. Sure, the incidence of SSRI-takers engaging in mass shootings must be exceptionally rare, but mass shooting deaths are exceptionally rare as well, and are being pointed to as the reason to remove the Second Amendment rights of all Americans. As I said, it is always a question of whose ox is gored…
Seems like your interpretation differs from others, @bluebayou. Plus, RAND did not do their own studies, they merely looked at and evaluated others’. Fact is, there isn’t government research on the gun issue since the NRA has effectively suppressed gun related research through it’s push for the Dickey Amendment back in 1996.
“RAND researchers evaluated thousands of studies… The strongest available evidence supports the conclusion that laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of children reduce firearm self-injuries, suicides and unintended injuries to children.”
“There is moderate evidence to support conclusions that background checks reduce firearm suicides and firearm homicides”
“moderate evidence that stand-your-ground laws, which allow people to use guns to defend themselves without requiring that they first attempt to retreat, if possible, may increase state homicide rates.”
“While science can teach us a lot about gun policy, research in this area is generally far behind where it is for most other causes of death that claim similar numbers of lives in the U.S. each year,” Morral said. “This does not mean that gun polices have no effects. Most laws probably have some effect, however small or intended. Instead, the limited evidence base reflects shortcomings in the contributions that scientific study has made to the policy debate.”
“Looking forward, the RAND team recommends that the federal government increase funding for gun research to levels comparable to federal research investments in other significant causes of death and injury, such as automobile accidents.”
Wow, that’s a lot to unpack. I wonder what psychological professionals who’ve studied mass shooters believe accounts for this behavior. I’ve heard a lot about “feelings of social alienation” as a possible motive for acting out in this manner. But a lot of truly marginalized groups and individuals feel socially alienated. A lot of LGBTQ kids, for instance, suffer from depression so debilitating it leads to suicide, but they don’t tend to commit mass murders.
Alternatively, I’ve heard that certain white males feel a kind of all-consuming rage, and believe themselves justified in the wholesale killing of others as a result. If that’s true. I would certainly like to know why they are so anger-driven. I mean specifically, what are their grievances? As for INCELS, a category of men I’ve only recently been made aware of, I’m somewhat at a loss to even know how to address their issues. If they were opening fire on Women’s college campuses, perhaps I might understand how their anger factors into mass shootings, but mass killers are often killing with no discernible target in mind.
This is becoming an easy thing to say publicly, but it is not true.
Look at the database of mass shootings over the past 30 years that I linked to in post 126. If you crunch the numbers (the data are downloadable), you will find the following approximate racial representation among the listed mass shooters:
White - 63%
Black - 17%
Latino - 10%
Asian - 8%
Middle Eastern - 6%
Native American - 3%
Relative to population, whites are perhaps very slightly overrepresented, blacks are somewhat more overrepresented. Latinos underrepresented.
Middle easterners are massively overrepresented as mass shooters (5x relative to population share, also see my post 132).
Perhaps Asian overrepresentation is the most surprising.
Of course, one can quibble with the definition of “mass shooting” in that database. Personally, I think it is reasonable in that it captures the “random” element. Nevertheless, mass gang shootings are excluded, and these are overwhelmingly committed by Latino and Black shooters.
I think universal background checks is reasonable. I think outlawing high capacity mags over 15 make some sense to make a large part of the population feel their voices are heard. Not sure it will make a difference.
A couple of points though regarding the constitution.
It is commonly asserted that the 3/5ths a person for the African Americans held in slavery was a way of diminishing their value relative to the non slave citizenry. It was actually a wise attempt within a terrible and horrific system. It was the northern anti slavery contingent who wanted to limit the power of the slave states in creating law. Apportionment of legislative seats in Congress by population. It was very important.
The first and unassailable concept of the constitution is inalienable rights. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All three are impinged by the removal of the right to bear arms. The nation builders having seen the impact of slavery, colonialism and despotism believed the ability to raise a group of citizens to protect person, mobility and government suppression believed the right to bear arms was second only to those rights. That’s why it’s the second and not the tenth. It’s also a mindset and reminder to those in power that those who consent to be governed can fight back. To those wishing to deprive one of life and liberty also have the chance that the assailed may in fact have the ability to resist.
I currently own no guns and do not plan to in the near future. It does seem that the American view of power of the government as temporarily assigned by the consent of an equally formidable citizenry is fundamentally imbued into our “culture”. It’s not a gun culture per se, but a individualistic versus monarchist culture imbued into the fabric of nation.
I think sometimes the anger is targeted, such as the incel who shot up the yoga studio or the one who targeted a sorority in California, but often the shooters feel some more generalized grievance and lash out generally. Like I wrote earlier – and what I’ve always told my boys – most of our choices are driven by fear. The key is figuring out what you are afraid of.
I had lunch today with a friend who is a therapist who said that she had read an article that had research into the backgrounds of the shooters and that there is an overwhelming history of abuse and family suicide, but I don’t have a link to that.
IMO, a thorough review of teh current literature it itself a study. (So-called mega-analyses are published all the time.) But yes, the Rand’s review is not original research per se. I agree with Rand that to help answer the question posed by the OP and questions raised throughout this thread, it would be great if the feds (NIH, CDC and the like) spent several millions? to engage our top Public Health and bio-statistical experts, both within the Government and with top academics (Harvard, Hopkins, et al) to study the issue more thoroughly.
btw: the article that you quoted dos, defeats your own point in #161:
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of ‘gun policies’, nor does this appear to meet the threshold of “plenty of evidence showing a connection between states with tougher gun laws and less gun related deaths/accidents, etc.”
We definitely need to further investigate/research the psychology/sociology of those that tend to commit these acts.
You are cherry picking one sentence and ignore the mentions of strongest and moderate evidence. But no worries, folks can read for themselves from the link and quotes I posted in RAND’s own words that there is indeed evidence supporting a positive connection between gun laws and reduced gun crime - and the need for more research, of course. I’m all for bringing on more research.
I’m sorry dropbox77177, but all I see in post 126 are references to 3 separate shootings by radicalized Muslims, no database of overall mass shootings. Did I miss something? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the numbers you sighted represent approx. 100% of documented mass shootings, broken down by the percentages of the total carried out by individual racial groups. If 63% of the total have been carried out by whites males, wouldn’t that qualify as “most”? I don’t think it can be argued that the majority of the most deadly American mass shootings over the last 50 years have been carried out by white males. If I said the vast majority of inner city homicides were committed by young black and Latino males, would you argue that that’s an inaccurate statement? If not, why are you so invested in downplaying/nullifying the correlation between young white males and deadly mass shootings?
First I want to say, I’m not interested in goring anyone’s ox, and merely would like thoughtful discussion about the psycho-social variables behind American gun violence. And no, I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d never heard of the potential correlation between mass killings and SSRI use. Should I have? Was it something widely speculated upon by news organization talking heads in the wake of recent events?
You seemed highly exercised by the idea that the detailed medical records of every mass shooter should be released to the public based on that supposed correlation, “And HIIPA be damned!”. I’ll admit I was somewhat taken aback by that. Forgive me if I decline to trawl the internet, looking to affirm or dismiss your claim. I’m somewhat more fascinated by your willingness to disregard people’s right to medical privacy. Do you feel the same about financial privacy? How about privacy of thought and belief? Are you okay with relinquishing your own general privacy to public demand for it, however intimate the information, however frivolous the rationale?
No the right to privacy is not specifically codified in The Constitution, but freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is. That supposedly has something to do with why the Government has to obtain a court warrant to tap your phone, or search your house. Indeed, The highest court in the land has taken issues of privacy very seriously, and adjudicated them by way of how it believed The Constitution might address them. In case you haven’t noticed I rather revere our Constitution…
Weak strawman. Yes, I am willing to disregard mass murderers’ rights to medical privacy. I think I was careful in my original post to say “convicted” or "dead’ (in which case arguably no privacy rights inhere anyway). Law-abiding citizens should not have their privacy rights violated, of course.
Well, not however frivolous the rationale. But if I suddenly become a mass shooter, yes the public can have my medical records
Part of the reason it is tough is that we are all over the place on this thread! The variables are obviously quite different if we are talking intentional homicide such as mass random shootings, inner city violent crime, domestic violence, etc., or accidental firearm and suicide deaths, so it is tough to have the thoughtful discussion. But it’s worth trying!
You are right that it has to do with sociology. One word: NORMS.
We expect people to behave in certain ways in certain situations. We do not expect random behavior. Norms are part of out socialization. Breaking norms is anti-social behavior. The presence of norm-breakers can annoy us, disgust us, discomfit us, or, in the extreme, shatter our sense of safety and well-being. A broken norm can be illegal or perfectly legal. For example, we would not expect a college student to stand on top of the circulation desk in the library during finals weeks and blow a vuvuzela. We would not expect a healthy adult to pull down his pants and defecate in the middle of a busy street. At one time, we would not expect two men to share a household and raise children together. That norm has changed for the better. At one time, not too long ago, frequent random mass shootings would have been inconceivable.
So this is a discussion about how norms change. Once a norm is broken, it opens the door to contagion.
Let’s look at random mass shootings. By “random” I mean not related to gang activity, or police/NG activity (Kent State) or gun battles, or targeted for political purposes (Puerto Rican nationalists), or targeted revenge killings (Robison murders)—but rather a shooter indiscriminately shooting at people in a public place.
If we were to graph these random shootings, the first one noted is in 1949 (Camden killings). The next was 17 years later, in 1965 (Highway 101 sniper). Then 1966, the UT Tower shooting. The next is 7 years later, in 1973 (Howard Johnson shooting). Then 1974 (Olean High School). 1976, Fullerton, Calif. 1979, an elementary school in San Diego. 1981, a museum shooting. 1982 in Miami, FL; 1984 at an elementary school in LA. 1984, the San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre. 1985, Springfield Mall in PA. 1986, Edmond Post Office in Oklahoma. In 1988 there were four. And they become increasingly frequent. In 1999 was the pivotal Columbine shooting. After that, multiple per year. (I got all of these from Wikipedia.)
Clearly, random shootings are still against norm for almost all people. But among anti-social actors who seek to make a big statement, the norm against mass , indiscriminate shooting has been shredded. People prone to anti-social behavior used to have different methods of choice (what ever happened to airplane hijackings? assassinations of public figures? hostage-taking?)
So you see how norms break down in a negative way. They break down if—AT THE FIRST INSTANCE of norm-breaking—we do not stand up, aggressively condemn the norm-breaking, and implement safeguards to prevent it in the future. If we FAIL to take action, the norm will be further eroded.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place.”
One user’s interpretation of the Constitution does not imply that said user has “contempt” for it, and saying so violates ToS. Several posts edited/deleted. Additionally, as a result, and since AFAIK nobody here sits on the SCOTUS, interpretation of any aspect of the Constitution is now off-limits on this thread. We’ve given this thread a lot of leeway, but everyone on this thread has been around here long enough to know what is clearly unacceptable behavior.
I do believe certain crimes & acts of violence come & go as the “norm” to do in that (violent) world.
Suicide by mass shooting appears to be “the thing” now.
With the internet, people can find a support group & hatch plans for the darkest of ideas, whereas before this was not so easy. I imagine living in a twisted world, even a virtual one, will further distort one’s disturbed thoughts.
There was a recent case of a young man who abducted, assaulted, and murdered a young woman he did not know. Law enforcement was able to narrow down the search bc the murderer was discussing his “new hobby” in some dark corner of the internet! Color me naive, but this shocked me and made me feel ill — the idea that evil & violent sub-cultures have an easily accessible place to congregate online. Another example is online pedophile communities.
And why not cars? Easier to access than a gun. Why not just get in a car and drive along a crowded sidewalk? This will also likely end in many casualties, shock from the public, & the driver being killed. I guess it’s not as appealing to those inclined towards a spectacular display of violence.
Midwest67, I hadn’t even thought about how places on The Dark Web might be a incubator for these kinds of killings, though now it seems so obvious. Then again, does it really take a trip to TDW? (I’m asking myself this because I’m not even sure that’s what you were referencing in your post.) There are plenty of websites for extremist ideology operating out in the open. As long as they aren’t openly calling for social violence, I think they’re perfectly legal. Plenty of groups monitor such sites in the public interest, as do the FBI and NSA.
As for the use of cars and other vehicles, that already seems to have started, with people taking their cues from terrorist acts in Europe in recent years. The guy who drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville and at least one other incidence comes to mind.
The difference between now and when we were children seems to be the almost limitless reach of news and information via the internet and 24hr cable news. With video-capable cell phones being in the hands of more and more of the world’s population, the possibility of being constantly bombarded by footage of shocking events is very real, especially for the generation that now uses them as a second appendage. It’s like we now live in the slipstream of the released contents of Pandora’s box. I’m beginning to marvel that there’s any sanity left in the world. Thank goodness for cat videos.
@brantly Your observations on norms really struck a chord. I remember mothering a newborn, being completely at sea and unprepared, and finding a supportive group pre-internet. I was amazed, vindicated, relieved.
Then as an adult online, I discovered information about emotional abuse, toxic relationships, and gaslighting. It was an epiphany, as though my entire childhood snapped into focus.
The “so THAT’S it!!” sensation was so powerful, utterly freeing. I can imagine a disaffected, armed, hate-filled potential shooter processing it as permission to annihilate a slice of the world that wronged them. All I wanted was to comfort my baby when he cried without feeling like a screw-up, and to avoid taking it to heart when people told me it didn’t matter if they hurt me.
For me, a lot of the debate boils down to how people handle pain. They either want to stop suffering, or they want everyone to suffer because they do.
@poetsheart Below are the legal tactics specific to firearms I’d suggest to reduce both intentional and negligent deaths without unduly burdening law abiding citizens.
A 20 year mandatory minimum sentence without parole for anyone convicted of discharging an illegally possessed firearm during the commission of a 1st or 2nd degree violent felony that results in injury or death.
A mandatory 1 year sentence for illegal possession of a firearm. If the illegally possessed firearm has an intentionally removed, defaced, altered, obliterated or mutilated serial number that would add a consecutive mandatory 2 year sentence. A mandatory 10 year “three strikes” sentence for illegal possession of a firearm.
Straw purchase laws: Anyone convicted of purchasing a firearm for a prohibited person would face a mandatory 5 year sentence. Any prohibited person convicted of receiving a straw purchase firearm would face a mandatory 10 year sentence. Any FFL retailer proven complicit in a straw purchase would be fined $250,000 for the 1st offense and any subsequent offense would result in the revocation of their license and the seizure of their inventory.
Safe storage laws that carry a non-collateral consequence misdemeanor charge for the 1st offense. A 2nd offense would trigger a Class A misdemeanor charge. A 3rd offense would elevate the charge to a felony, so if convicted, the offender would forfeit their right to possess a firearm.
“Shall issue” License to Carry: licensing that allows concealed carry of a handgun after the completion of a certified safety/proficiency course and background check. All 50 states would offer reciprocity. Conviction for carrying concealed without a license would be a felony that could not be reduced under any plea agreement.
