What motivates mass shootings? How can we reduce them from occuring? What are some REASONABLE solutions for prevention and mitigation?

Question

Bans do absolutely nothing as can be evidenced time and time again.

There are plenty of places in the world with bans on guns that are extremely violent.

The only people I hear suggesting bans are self righteous liberals that have no interest in guns or gun culture.

People ought to be allowed to own anything if they ain't gonna kill nobody with it.

So like if there’s background checks that’s cool.

Or maybe if there’s some kind of law that limits the types of guns one can legally purchase in their early years of ownership, this might lower fatality rates from people motivated towards commiting shootings.

And I’m not necessarily against mandating training either since it can only be a positive thing

But what I will say is that from analyzing recent mass shootings, some were seemingly preventable and others were not.

In some cases the firearms were purchased legally and there were no red flags or reasons as to restrict ownership for the individual.

But in other cases like with the Texas church shooter, the guy had a history of issues and yet it wasn’t entered into the criminal database.

And so under the law the guy should not have been allowed to purchase firearms due to his domestic violence convictions.

I feel as though in certain cases we already have the necessary laws to prevent shootings, but the problem is that they aren’t always being enforced as often as they should be.

But in any case about half of gun related deaths are suicides anyway every year and the majority of the rest are just criminals that shouldn’t even have them to begin with.

Only a minority of deaths are actually associated with truly innocent victims in mass shootings so I’m focusing on only a small part of the problem but still the most seemingly important one.

But I feel as though the problem is that we need to fix our culture. Mass shootings are just far more common nowadays than in the past.

Mental health issues are far more common for some reason nowadays.

BCA6010 · Accepted Answer

It's pretty much entirely a combination of rapidly declining mental health and the trivialization of human life.

There is no "quick fix" to address it, because we would have to reverse some pretty heavily rooted cultural trends, most importantly the decimation of marriage and basic family values that has led to the absence of father figures. There aren't any 100% trends that I know of, but one of if not the single most common trends are a boy growing up with a single parent (almost always a mother), and typically has a history of not bullying, but actually being bullied, and pretty much always in the public rather than private school system.

The best way to not be a victim of bullying is to fit in with a group of friends- it doesn't matter what kind of friends because in this case, it's literally a case of strength in numbers. Many kids today frankly are not good friends and frequently lack the social skills to make friends. When punches and beatings do start flying, a victim who tries to defend his or herself will pretty much always face equal punishment as the bully, as would anyone who tries to intervene. Without witnessing it firsthand, school staff tend to ignore bullying and have just generally groomed themselves to be extremely apathetic towards kids, resulting in the kids themselves not believing that they could go to a teacher, principal or other faculty member for help. A serial victim will not just roll over and take it forever, and will eventually snap. To make all of the above even worse, some public schools are now pushing to outright defund, disarm, and remove school resource officers too, which are some of the only real deterrents public schools have from an active shooter.

None of these trends are "new" either- they were well underway when I was barely out of elementary school. Things have just gotten worse since then, and with social media and out-of-school cyberbullying being thrown in, the suicide rate for minors has gotten insanely high, and no doubt has also contributed to school shootings and fights as well. Politicians won't do anything even if they can that would actually matter because A, the teacher's union doesn't want them to, B it's politically convenient especially for the left since they believe it helps them in dismantling the 2nd Amendment, and C politicians aren't interested in long-term plans or solutions because they can't campaign on them every 2 years.

So as much as I generally dislike being a pessimist, it's very unlikely that things aren't going to continue getting worse indefinitely.

Soteris · Accepted Answer

USA is broken as a nation. There is no silver bullet that can magically put everything to rights. For example, no amount of restricting the access of guns such as through bans or background checks of gun licenses will change the fact that there are so many guns already in circulation. Every problem is connected to pretty much every other problem at this point.

As such you need to try solve every individual separately but at the same time and even then it would probably take several generations for the final results to truly show themselves. In other words, you need to deal with the supply of guns, things like background checks or bans or however you want to deal with it but as long as there is such an influx of guns it will continue to cause problems.

You also need to deal with the guns already in circulation. Gun buyback programs have been historically successful but the government is going to have to fork out billions of dollars to persuade any decent number of gun owners to give back their guns. Increasing the cost of ammo by for example add a tax on the production of smokeless gunpowder could help persuade people to sell guns they dont feel like they can use anymore and it would also cut down on incidents because people would shoot less.

You would need more training, all too often do I see American gun owners breaking safety protocol. This also includes new rules on the storage of guns an ammunition and higher standards for gun safes. More enforcement of gun laws are also required. You also need to deal with social, economical and mental health issues which fuels both crime and gun violence.

Having a single payer health system would go a long way to helping that but even then the current generation of teenagers and adults are arguably a lost cause so you would not see the full benefits until they have been fully replaced in society by following generations meaning a huge wait time.

Fundamentally though, you need to fix USA's gun fetish. US gun culture is toxic. Be it connecting guns to masculinity or see guns as a solution to problems, regardless of what aspect it takes this is a dangerous and constant source of social unrest. Where do you even begin to change a culture though? Perhaps ripping out the 2nd amendment would make it lose influence over time? Perhaps not? Regardless you would have to do some pretty radical changes if you want to make any kind of dent in that issue.

kqueen · Accepted Answer

what countries have bans on guns but still have mass shootings?

AviatorTom · Answer

People will be people. No one can prevent anything. Bad things will happen. What's important is that we try to mitigate the bad happenings, which mostly involves learning from them and taken appropriate steps.

Some people say "take away the guns". Okay, then people will slaughter with knives.

Others say "everyone should have a gun". Okay, then there will probably be more accidental shootings, and mass shooters will still do their deed.

Simply put, there is no solution.

TheSpaceGnome · Answer

To stop someone who illegally obtains a gun and uses it for malicious reasons, a good person who obtained a gun has to shoot them when they try attacking people.

A lack of publically armed citizens is why shootings turn into mass shootings, and it's why shootings happen as often as they do (which is still rare).

So gun restriction/ban laws only make it harder to prevent/stop mass shootings. Becsuse criminals don't mind getting guns illegally, so gun laws only hinder law obeying citizens from protecting eachother.

BeenThereLovedIt · Answer

It's hard to read your whole opinion when you state misinformation as fact in the first sentence. Australia banned guns to great success. There haven't been any USA-type mass shootings since they did.

OddBeMe · Answer

From what I’ve read, it’s a form of suicide. Going out infamous.

We need better healthcare and gun regs to stop the mentally unstable from acquiring them. And also their family and friends from getting them guns, too. Not sure how we do the last bit. Maybe tough criminal prosecutions.

jshm2 · Answer

We need to ban white American Christians, it seems. Manly as 99% of mass shooters are White American Christians.

Anonymous · Answer

Don't give a fuck about living anymore. It's different from a murder. This one I plan to kill myself after I cause massive damage  At least that's what I think mass shooting people think

noohair · Answer

In my opinion, we live in a society that glorifies and condones violence as a problem solving tool.  Violence should only be a last resort to defend life.

SmokinAces2000 · Answer

Maybe people shouldn’t be able to buy fucking military grade weapons 🙄 a mass shooting is less likely to happen with a pistol or a shotgun

Snakeyes7 · Answer

It's the increasing feelings of nihilism and desperation.

anylolone · Answer

Empower people to self defense, reduce impunity, encourage resilience.

What motivates mass shootings? How can we reduce them from occuring? What are some REASONABLE solutions for prevention and mitigation?

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