The Best Explanation For Our Spate Of Mass Shootings Is The Least Comforting

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Riddick
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The Best Explanation For Our Spate Of Mass Shootings Is The Least Comforting

Post by Riddick » 05-22-2018 08:39 PM

Edited/excerpted from David French's NR article:

When we discuss mass shootings, one of the first questions we ask is the simplest and also the hardest to answer. Why? Why does this keep happening? Those who advocate for gun control have an immediate answer — the prevalence of guns in the United States. Yet guns have been part of the fabric of American life for the entire history of our republic. Mass shootings — especially the most deadly mass shootings — are a far more recent phenomenon.

Writing in 2015, Malcolm Gladwell wrote what I think is still the best explanation for modern American mass shootings, and it’s easily the least comforting. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, essentially he argues we are in the midst of a slow-motion “riot” of mass shootings, with Columbine in many ways the key triggering event, laying down the “cultural script” for the next generation of shooters, each subsequent event lowering the threshold for the next.

Here’s the most ominous part: The “low threshold” shooters are motivated by “powerful grievances,” but as the riot spreads, the justifications are often manufactured, and the shooters more and more “normal.”

Gladwell’s chilling conclusion -

The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts.

Hardly an NRA conservative — he believes gun control “has its place” — Gladwell shares this grim warning: “Let’s not kid ourselves that if we passed the strictest gun control in the world that we would end this particular kind of behavior.”

In-large following the pattern of elaborate preparation and obsessed with the subculture, mass shooters broadcast warning signals of their intent to do harm yet family members and other relevant people close to the shooter have few tools at their disposal to prevent violence.

While early reports are often wrong, there are indications that the latest shooter engaged in behavior that sounds eerily like the Columbine shooting. We’ve seen reports of a trench coat, of the use of similar weapons, and of explosives — all hallmarks of the Colorado massacre. When I think of Columbine, I think of Gladwell’s essay. There are young men in the grip of a terrible contagion, and there is no cure coming.
A mind should not be so open that the brains fall out; however, it should not be so closed that whatever gray matter which does reside may not be reached. ART BELL

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Re: The Best Explanation For Our Spate Of Mass Shootings Is The Least Comforting

Post by fos » 05-26-2018 08:32 PM

I used to be a teacher. Does anyone know how many young boys are placed on mind altering drugs because they have ADHD or some other "little boy syndrome".

PS. Until I edited my original post, it said young bots, it was a typo but I guess it could have been closer to the truth....

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