Are mass shoootings increasing? Or only the reporting of them?

[Little-Acorn]

Northern Illinois U, yesterday's apartment shootings in Tennessee, today someone shot six people (five of them reportedly "children") in Los Angeles, the list has seemed endless in the last few weeks.

This always seems to happen during election years. Are the shooters all disgruntled political activists? Somehow I doubt it. Or is this how many mass shootings we normally have, and the media just ferrets out all they can find during election years but ignore most of them (except the most horrific Virginia-Tech types) during non-election times?

Another theory is that, during election years, the airwaves are full of politicians of various stripes, telling us how much we "deserve" to get "free" stuff from the government. And simultaneously charging that greedy, heartless [millionaires, lawyers, oil companies, Republicans, corporations, banks, insert standard-use villain here] are deliberately withholding what is ours "by right". But during non-election times, there isn't nearly that much of that poppycock flying around. So whining, chronically offended loners and misfits get a lot more worked up during election times, no matter what their party, and a few grab a gun and start shooting. Or so the theory goes. Kind of thin if you ask me.

So why do we seem to hear so much more about mass shootings during election cycles, than at other times?

[Lee~*]

Hi LA

About the reporting of the shootings, I doubt that the blood thirsty, sensation seeking media would fail to publish each and every instance of an occurance. So, you may have something there with the speculation of the political air having something to do with it. All the hype during campaigns may add to the mental stress load of already unstable persons. Kind of like more suicides happening around the holidays, mental stress overload. Good point! Lee

[Hagbard Celine]

I'd say they're increasing. Since Columbine it's turned into a kind of "right of passage" for depressed suicidal psycho loners.

[avatar4321]

i think they are increasing. we are seeing our society degenerate.

[Hagbard Celine]

i think they are increasing. we are seeing our society degenerate.

I wouldn't be so melodramatic. Our society isn't degenerating. I think quite the opposite is occuring actually. We've reached a point where the majority of us don't want for any of the basic things on the hierarchy of needs so we've bogged down into squabbling about the intricacies of how our society will function. Right now it's gay marriage and abortion and whether or not we should engage in nation-building. A century from now when those issues are settled it'll be something equally mundane. I think school shootings are just an unfortunate fad that'll fade with time.

[The Reverend]

I think it is actually both. There are more and there is also more coverage of them.

[avatar4321]

I wouldn't be so melodramatic. Our society isn't degenerating. I think quite the opposite is occuring actually. We've reached a point where the majority of us don't want for any of the basic things on the hierarchy of needs so we've bogged down into squabbling about the intricacies of how our society will function. Right now it's gay marriage and abortion and whether or not we should engage in nation-building. A century from now when those issues are settled it'll be something equally mundane. I think school shootings are just an unfortunate fad that'll fade with time.

i'm not being melodramatic. You've just cited more evidence for it. The break down of the family is the reason why our society is degenerating. as it continues to break down you will see more shootings.

[trobinett]

I think it is actually both. There are more and there is also more coverage of them.

And, though I agree with your assessment, I also think, per capita, that society in general, hasn't changed all that much.

I'd say we have about the same number of wing nuts that we've always had, give or take.

[hjmick]

There is some evidence to indicate that mass shootings have been on the rise since Charles Whitman took to the top of the UT Austin clock tower and killed 14 and wounded 31 in 1966. Seven of the eight deadliest mass public shootings have occurred in the past 25 years.

An extensive statistical study of mass murder during the 20th century was done by a guy named Grant Duwe. He is a criminologist with the Minnesota State Department of Corrections. The study, according to him, revealed that the availability of guns was not a factor in mass murder during the 20th century.

He found that the prevalence of mass murders (defined as the killing of four or more people in a 24-hour period) tends to mirror that of homicide in general. The increase in mass killings during the 1960s was paralleled by a doubling in the overall murder rate after the relatively peaceful 1940s and '50s.

On the other hand, according to the study, they found that mass murder was just as common during the 1920s and early 1930s as it is today. The difference is that back then, mass murderers tended to be failed farmers who killed their families because they could no longer provide for them, then they killed themselves. The reasons for shootings today are as varied as the shooters themselves. Some blame society, some blame their economic standing, some are just plain crazy. There is no one answer for why people do commit mass murder.

[theHawk]

Sounds to me like the rate of homicide/mass murders coincides with prevailing liberalism in our country. The more whacko liberals there are, the more shootings there will be.

Like Avatar said, our society is degenerating. The sole reason for that is the prevailing of liberalism.

[Hagbard Celine]

i'm not being melodramatic. You've just cited more evidence for it. The break down of the family is the reason why our society is degenerating. as it continues to break down you will see more shootings.

Give me a break. The nuclear family is an artificial idea made-up during the 1950's in order to neatly package and define the ideal American life so that it would be more easy to spot those nasty Commies. In reality the family you get is a random hand you're dealt when you're born. A person's family can be a Grandma, an Uncle, an Aunt, a Brother or even a Friend. Just because exploding populations have given us a greater abundance of single parents and gays who want to adopt doesn't give you reason or license to go around chanting that the "end is near." Family is what you make of it, it's not some neatly packaged ideal that people have to live up to or be ashamed of if they don't have.
The reason we're seeing more shootings is because depressed loners were finally given an easy way to broadcast their self-pity and go out with a bang when Eric Klebold and the other kid shot up Columbine. They're a bunch of unoriginal sociopathic copy cats--all of which as far as I know had married parents and the "ideal" nuclear family. Which goes to show it has nothing to do with "the breakdown of the family" and everything to do with self-involved loserism.

[theHawk]

Give me a break. The nuclear family is an artificial idea made-up during the 1950's in order to neatly package and define the ideal American life so that it would be more easy to spot those nasty Commies. In reality the family you get is a random hand you're dealt when you're born. A person's family can be a Grandma, an Uncle, an Aunt, a Brother or even a Friend. Just because exploding populations have given us a greater abundance of single parents and gays who want to adopt doesn't give you reason or license to go around chanting that the "end is near." Family is what you make of it, it's not some neatly packaged ideal that people have to live up to or be ashamed of if they don't have.
The reason we're seeing more shootings is because depressed loners were finally given an easy way to broadcast their self-pity and go out with a bang when Eric Klebold and the other kid shot up Columbine. They're a bunch of unoriginal sociopathic copy cats--all of which as far as I know had married parents and the "ideal" nuclear family. Which goes to show it has nothing to do with "the breakdown of the family" and everything to do with self-involved loserism.

You said it started with the Columbine losers. Those two losers were self-identified evolutionist extremists. Raised with a complete lack of respect for life. Should we be suprised some kids turn out like this? We live in a society that doesn't even have respect for an unborn child. If kids don't have parents(one or two doesnt matter) to teach them these morals then they get their lessons from the liberal media. And its there that liberals preach that its a woman's right to mutilate and kill their unborn child. So naturally society is going to have these "problem children" spring up.

[mundame]

Another theory is that, during election years, the airwaves are full of politicians of various stripes, telling us how much we "deserve" to get "free" stuff from the government. And simultaneously charging that greedy, heartless [millionaires, lawyers, oil companies, Republicans, corporations, banks, insert standard-use villain here] are deliberately withholding what is ours "by right". But during non-election times, there isn't nearly that much of that poppycock flying around. So whining, chronically offended loners and misfits get a lot more worked up during election times, no matter what their party, and a few grab a gun and start shooting. Or so the theory goes. Kind of thin if you ask me.

So why do we seem to hear so much more about mass shootings during election cycles, than at other times?

I think you'd need the numbers to back up the claim that there are more multiple shootings during presidential years than other years.

I doubt there are. This is a presidential election year, we remember the recent better than the distant, that may be all there is to your thinking there have been more such shootings.

OR ----- maybe it's the nationalization of local news. Lurid local crimes crowd every news site and evening cable news. I think they count the most-clicked news items and do more of those to gain readers, and thus there are more and more lurid news items on national sites that used to be purely local news.

[mundame]

We've reached a point where the majority of us don't want for any of the basic things on the hierarchy of needs so we've bogged down into squabbling about the intricacies of how our society will function.

I like your analysis.

[avatar4321]

Give me a break. The nuclear family is an artificial idea made-up during the 1950's in order to neatly package and define the ideal American life so that it would be more easy to spot those nasty Commies. In reality the family you get is a random hand you're dealt when you're born. A person's family can be a Grandma, an Uncle, an Aunt, a Brother or even a Friend. Just because exploding populations have given us a greater abundance of single parents and gays who want to adopt doesn't give you reason or license to go around chanting that the "end is near." Family is what you make of it, it's not some neatly packaged ideal that people have to live up to or be ashamed of if they don't have.
The reason we're seeing more shootings is because depressed loners were finally given an easy way to broadcast their self-pity and go out with a bang when Eric Klebold and the other kid shot up Columbine. They're a bunch of unoriginal sociopathic copy cats--all of which as far as I know had married parents and the "ideal" nuclear family. Which goes to show it has nothing to do with "the breakdown of the family" and everything to do with self-involved loserism.

The family has existed since the beginning of time. and when it's been abandon we see generations of violent sociopaths grow up.

When parents raise children badly, or even worse when they aren't there to raise children, the values vitol to civilization is lost. if you don't think the breakdown of the family a major factor in the degeneration of our civilization it's because you lack the ability to actually look at things as they really are. That means you fail to look at long term effects. You can't see the forest amongst the trees.