The mystery isn’t why are people angry, it’s why does their anger take this form, over and over.
― treeship., Monday, 27 March 2023 19:53 (one year ago) link
^^^
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 March 2023 19:53 (one year ago) link
mental illness, bullying, alienation, becoming radicalized online, emptiness, lack of social structures, and then the all easy access
― a (waterface), Monday, 27 March 2023 19:54 (one year ago) link
it's not some grand mystery--men in this country are fucked up and raised to not talk about their feelings
― a (waterface), Monday, 27 March 2023 19:55 (one year ago) link
all those things are correct, but that doesn't explain the why of this same scenario at schools. i mean, i know it absolutely does happen elsewhere (malls, grocery stores, workplaces, etc etc) but it seems odd that it is so heavily weighted towards schools when there are so many other potential venues for your average gun-toting American man to snap.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 March 2023 19:58 (one year ago) link
Idk imho it's not that odd--bullying and alienation happens a lot at schools--the online radicalization. . . people are taught not to trust schools b/c teacher are just gonna groom your kids etcI get why people ask questions like that like why school but to me it's like asking the question "why did this person kill themselves"-->I get why people are asking the question but looking for an answer that solves the "why" something like this happens, to me, is never going to be satisfying
― a (waterface), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:02 (one year ago) link
xxpost I remember just about every therapist I've ever had, I felt like I could never fully be open with them. I'd be sugar-coating some details here and there, omitting a detail here and there, retelling a story that made me look more favorable, fighting my emotions and not wanting to sho weakness, and wondering "why in the FUCK are you doing that in the one place where you don't have to?". It's ingrained.
but we should also not oversell the point that millions that want and need that kind of care can't get or afford it, either, and probably significantly less have access to it than they did 30-40 years ago.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:02 (one year ago) link
Why “snap” and massacre strangers? This was not always a frequent occurence.
― treeship., Monday, 27 March 2023 20:03 (one year ago) link
Profound unhappiness, extreme anger, bitterness, these are all part of our common experience as human beings. But the trend here — which I think is totally a mimetic or copycat phenomenon — is about directing one’s anger toward random victims, toward the crowd, and sometimes toward the most innocent among us, children. Like what the fuck.
― treeship., Monday, 27 March 2023 20:06 (one year ago) link
How is this an everyday thing? What kind of country an I raising my son in?
― treeship., Monday, 27 March 2023 20:07 (one year ago) link
There is something very bizarre happening here
1) many school shootings happen from aggrieved students/ex-students/ex-faculty, so there's often a "revenge" connection (though obv not always)2) if you used to go to the school, you know the layout very well, and what actions will probably be taken3) it's a thing other people have done, so it's an idea that comes to mind quickly4) People are in all different rooms/buildings so it takes a while for everybody to realize what's going on, where other more open public places people all run at the sound of a bang.
there was a drill once at the local high school here that got mistaken for real active shooters because of how quickly misinformation spread (it was the school's fault). much more opportunity for chaos.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:08 (one year ago) link
I mean, fuck. (assuming this is genuine that is)
THIS is last year's Christmas card from Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican who represents the district that Covenant School is in in Nashville. #tnleg pic.twitter.com/IpkLzZs5m5— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 27, 2023
― groovypanda, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:08 (one year ago) link
not to distract from the larger convo, but fwiw I just saw this shooter likely attended the school at some point
― rob, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:08 (one year ago) link
xxxxpost when you can't kill the person or thing that is actively making you miserable, you often look for a stand-in.
the infamy. There were studies that suggested that if shooters didn't get news coverage, couldn't expect to, it's less likely to happen. And the only solution to that is to not cover it as much, or to cover it and not give the shooters name or tell their story. There was a bunch of articles about that some years ago. Obv not going to happen.
― dan selzer, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:09 (one year ago) link
It’s a numbers game right? That’s part of it. I think that was part of the Port Arthur guy’s deal, he’d keep asking how many he killed that day. Or they want to unleash absolute hell. Some grand theft auto type mayhem shit. For the Vegas guy, he probably didn’t even see anyone fall really. He just saw the panic.
― omar little, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:13 (one year ago) link
It’s a complex mix, a lot of it boils down to the cultural saturation of guns as instruments of justice and fantasy power playing.
― omar little, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:15 (one year ago) link
A lot of media have shifted how they cover shootings, downplaying focus on the shooter, their name, their particular grievances, etc. But at the same time, I don't think we'd want them to literally not be covered. We have to know they're happening.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:16 (one year ago) link
yeah, we've come a long way from Columbine, where Klebold/Harris were pretty much turned into "McCartney/Lennon" by the American media, esp with the endless slew of op-eds about their 'motives' and MARILYN MANSON. nowadays fewer people could even tell you the names of more recent school shooters (though sadly that's also a byproduct of how many there've been).
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:19 (one year ago) link
xxp it looks like Ogles' youngest kid is the only one who has any fucking idea what Xmas is all about
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:19 (one year ago) link
what if the shooter is at large and you have to catch them, can you tell the name then? this happened in denver last week. he was caught tho. he was dead.
― liberal with a capital LIE (Hunt3r), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:20 (one year ago) link
notoriety certainly drives ppl to mass shoot. mass murder is also one of the most nihilistic things you can do, and unfortunately our country is one that facilitates that nihilism via access to weapons. there's also something specifically nihilistic about targeting young children, it's like pushing the line even further
i also think we've reached a new phase now where people "feel" like mass shooters (alone, angry, disaffected, depressed, hopeless) and so they decide to become them
― J0rdan S., Monday, 27 March 2023 20:20 (one year ago) link
all this is worth considering, i just think there is something more than just "guns + anger" in play with school shootings, because Americans are angry almost every fucking where and while shootings at coffee shops and fast food places do happen, you'd expect to see way more of them in locations where people are regularly showing up very pissed off.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:21 (one year ago) link
Why people pick one target vs. another often seems to be driven by individual experiences (like, they have a particular beef with that place or someone in it). But also sometimes not, the Las Vegas shooting — which we still basically know zero about, motivation-wise — being the most horrific example.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:25 (one year ago) link
"guns + anger"
+ toxic masculinity
― a (waterface), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:25 (one year ago) link
xp J0rdan otm. That is the hyperreal aspect I was getting at
― treeship., Monday, 27 March 2023 20:28 (one year ago) link
re: the motivations of mass killers, I found this blogpost interesting, on the youtube channel of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza where he outlined his worldview
https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-ghost-of-adam-lanza.html
the channel seems like it was only discovered a couple of years ago, kind of surprised I haven't seen more coverage/commentary about it, but maybe it's that increasing reluctance to give spree killers notoriety that people were discussing above
― soref, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:28 (one year ago) link
ppl been angry a long time. guns + alienation + anger
― liberal with a capital LIE (Hunt3r), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:30 (one year ago) link
high/middle schools both are and represent a pretty profound mix of things: authority & discipline, constant forms of evaluation & ranking, coming-of-age and becoming "yourself," socialization / alienation & ostracism, competition, adolescence & humiliation. they can be torturous places to feel "alone, angry, disaffected, depressed, hopeless." I think there's something about the universality of the experience of them and how they are these life milestones filled with intense memories and (what feel like) turning points.
I don't really have any coherent thoughts about elementary schools though, I'm tempted to reach for metaphysical reasons too
― rob, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:33 (one year ago) link
yeah I agree with that, my toughest times emotionally were definitely in middle school and maybe the first 1-2 years of high school. for me that was certainly the time where rejection hurt the most.
reading about this Adam Lanza guy, all I can think is he sounds very much like the deathdrone dude ILX had a long thread about several years ago, another guy who was an absolutely terrible person but also intelligent and well-spoken to some degree.
this really does piss me off about the right-wing response to all this, obviously they won't do a thing about guns and will speak about how instead we need to focus on "mental health" (while voting against mental health funding every chance they get obviously), which misses the point entirely. I don't think a "mental health screening" would catch very many of these guys. I don't think they're clinically insane or the sort of people you can just shrug your shoulders at and say "what can you do, they're nuts". there are real reasons this happens and I do think America promotes a very nihilistic culture - a culture in which, for example, a profane idiot grifter like Donald Trump can become president - which, in addition to the massive amount of guns, makes this sort of thing occur. but nobody seems to really want to have that conversation.
― frogbs, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:44 (one year ago) link
gotta stay off twitter. Lots of ghoulish speculation going on.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:48 (one year ago) link
the thing about the mental health canard is even if it were true (which it isn't), you'd basically have to solve mental health to stop violence like this w/ their plan. instead of, y'know, idk, not making death machines so easy to acquire.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:55 (one year ago) link
i don't even think most people should be legally allowed to drive
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 March 2023 20:56 (one year ago) link
Jeez this photo is heartbreaking
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/27/20/69173379-11907711-A_terrified_child_presses_her_hand_against_the_glass_of_a_school-m-99_1679945105428.jpg
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 27 March 2023 20:56 (one year ago) link
No mental health screening would have caught the Vegas guy, who was by all appearances just an average maybe occasionally surly middle-aged solitary type. His motives (probably just empty inside, had a singular focus on a fantasy of killing people in this specific, vv distanced manner) weren’t ones that manifested themselves in warning signs unless you were really really analyzing him. The mass murder version of BTK, basically.
― omar little, Monday, 27 March 2023 21:02 (one year ago) link
gotta stay off twitter
A good time to take the whole week off of there
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Monday, 27 March 2023 21:34 (one year ago) link
oh god yeah this is gonna be a shitshow
― frogbs, Monday, 27 March 2023 21:37 (one year ago) link
it's already there. right-wing scumbags are already circulating the same image of a trans woman holding a gun that they've circulated in the past and claiming it's the shooter. just a fucking cesspool.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 March 2023 21:45 (one year ago) link
this seems to have been a female born shooter who now used he/him, so this might get very ugly indeed.
― StanM, Tuesday, 28 March 2023 06:22 (one year ago) link
so this is one person who fits this description versus hundreds of others who were mostly cisgender males. shouldn't matter either way. this shooting tells us nothing about trans people, just as elliott rodger doesn't tell us what men are like in general.
― treeship., Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:28 (one year ago) link
i personally think the ideologies of these killers are incidental. they might have manifestos or whatever and regard what they are doing as political acts. but that's not the real motive, it's just the story they attach to their narcissistic rage.
― treeship., Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:29 (one year ago) link
I agree, I don’t think their individual psychoses matter nearly as much as their easy access to ridiculously lethal weapons.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:36 (one year ago) link
Yes. And yet, I am bracing myself for an unbelievably noxious news cycle that overflows with bad faith and bad takes about the role that this killer's gender identity had in their pathology.
Obviously not excusing or justifying shooting, but just saying -
“I’ve looked back in my annuals and I do remember her as a former student,” the former headmaster said. “She was just one of our young ladies. ... She was just a typical co-ed. A typical student.”
If you are indeed trans, gee I can't imagine why being treated as "just one of our young ladies.. a typical co-ed" might breed some resentment against the institution. Seriously I haven't heard the word "co-ed" to describe an individual come out of someone's mouth in I don't know how long. :(
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:38 (one year ago) link
yeah, i am sure this was painful for the shooter but i doubt it had much to do with their decision to kill random children twenty years later.
― treeship., Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:42 (one year ago) link
There will be a lot of ugliness about it for sure. People on the right get positively giddy on the occasions when random violence comes from anyone but cis white men. When early info came out about the DC sniper suspects, I remember some NRO type excitedly speculating that they might be Black, gay AND Muslim.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:44 (one year ago) link
it's so idiotic.
― treeship., Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:45 (one year ago) link
i think the fact that this shooter dressed like the columbine kids, with the backwards hat and tactical vest, is more telling than the fact that they were trans. they hopped on a trend, the worst trend ever.
― treeship., Tuesday, 28 March 2023 12:47 (one year ago) link
the usual suspects are already blaming this on "hormone therapy" and Elon Musk is gleefully amplifying all of it, this is gonna be ugly
― frogbs, Tuesday, 28 March 2023 13:25 (one year ago) link
i don't know if it's helpful to speculate about how ugly it's going to get or how transphobic maniacs online will frame this. the identity of the shooter is not the issue, the background of the shooter's life is not the issue, access to guns is the issue
― c u (crüt), Tuesday, 28 March 2023 13:34 (one year ago) link