I have to admit a bit of surprise finding an article by the Washington Post on MSN that actually offers an alternate explanation other than just guns as an explanation for the higher than average number of mass shootings in the US. Could these folks possibly be getting it? It's not really about the guns (or at least not totally about the guns - probably as far as they're willing to go), but maybe something more is going on, something that is deep at the heart of people that no amount of gun control will overcome.
I won't hold my breath, but it's refreshing to see an alternate explanation offered in an MSM outlet. Now, if they could just drop the gun part of it altogether, it would be nice, but I won't hold my breath for that one.
It's an interesting article, worth the time to read. Here are a few excerpts and a link to the main article:
One explanation is Americans' high rate of firearm ownership. All five of the countries with the largest number of guns per capita (of which the U.S. is No. 1) ranked among the top 15 countries for public mass shootings, including two countries with reputations for safety, Switzerland and Finland. Many other studies have found a correlation between local gun ownership rates and deaths from shootings.
But that's not enough to explain why mass shootings happen so much more often here than anywhere else. There are also cultural factors at work, Lankford argues. The things that Americans believe make us exceptional — our emphasis on individualism, our sense of destiny, our wealth-and-fame-based standards for success — also contribute.
The reality is that very few people achieve the wealth, fame and prestige we're all socialized to believe is our destiny. When the socially sanctioned path toward success doesn't take people where they want to go, some resort to other means. Negative social interactions — lack of friends and mentors, failures in school — and mental illness can exacerbate the problem, making them believe that "their dreams are hopeless," Lankford said.
Workplaces and schools — or, in Flanagan's case, former colleagues — are the symbolic sources of their strain; by attacking them, shooters seek to exact revenge on the people and institutions they believe have kept them down. In the U.S., the strain of unmet expectations and unrealized goals is more pressing than perhaps anywhere else, so it makes a gruesome kind of sense that this country is home to nearly two thirds of the world's school and workplace shooters.
Source: <broken link removed>
I have to say that this article makes a good point about what many of us have been saying, but what has been very much ignored. People are the problem, not the guns. And no number of laws will change the hearts of people. Take one tool of harm away and they'll find another. You're not solving the problem, only changing the methods they use when they act out.
What do you think??
I won't hold my breath, but it's refreshing to see an alternate explanation offered in an MSM outlet. Now, if they could just drop the gun part of it altogether, it would be nice, but I won't hold my breath for that one.
It's an interesting article, worth the time to read. Here are a few excerpts and a link to the main article:
One explanation is Americans' high rate of firearm ownership. All five of the countries with the largest number of guns per capita (of which the U.S. is No. 1) ranked among the top 15 countries for public mass shootings, including two countries with reputations for safety, Switzerland and Finland. Many other studies have found a correlation between local gun ownership rates and deaths from shootings.
But that's not enough to explain why mass shootings happen so much more often here than anywhere else. There are also cultural factors at work, Lankford argues. The things that Americans believe make us exceptional — our emphasis on individualism, our sense of destiny, our wealth-and-fame-based standards for success — also contribute.
The reality is that very few people achieve the wealth, fame and prestige we're all socialized to believe is our destiny. When the socially sanctioned path toward success doesn't take people where they want to go, some resort to other means. Negative social interactions — lack of friends and mentors, failures in school — and mental illness can exacerbate the problem, making them believe that "their dreams are hopeless," Lankford said.
Workplaces and schools — or, in Flanagan's case, former colleagues — are the symbolic sources of their strain; by attacking them, shooters seek to exact revenge on the people and institutions they believe have kept them down. In the U.S., the strain of unmet expectations and unrealized goals is more pressing than perhaps anywhere else, so it makes a gruesome kind of sense that this country is home to nearly two thirds of the world's school and workplace shooters.
Source: <broken link removed>
I have to say that this article makes a good point about what many of us have been saying, but what has been very much ignored. People are the problem, not the guns. And no number of laws will change the hearts of people. Take one tool of harm away and they'll find another. You're not solving the problem, only changing the methods they use when they act out.
What do you think??