My Theory on Mass Shootings

[ShadezMcgee]

I wanted to try another MyTake on this topic because it is trending and because I wanted to speak my two cents on a piece that is going to do a few things. It will more than likely trigger those who hate, fear or dislike guns, the second amendment and gun owners and to others it will serve as a potential talking point or insight to take into consideration. To preface this, this is merely an opinion I formed years ago around the time of the Aurora Colorado movie theater shooting that was committed by James Holmes almost ten years ago now. I feel there is a level of validity to it that I aim to bring to the attention of others. Whether you believe or support it is up to you, much like it is your belief and opinion to think I am an idiot and don’t know what the hell I am talking about. I am not here to argue, just to share my thoughts.

To put it simply 2022 has been a year where we have seen an uptick in mass shootings. America is the focal point of this kind of tragedy because of the 2nd Amendment to go along with gun laws and regulations or lack thereof in the eyes of its countrymen. The right to bear arms is a definition that has had its meaning and interpretation thrown in question as well as the true meaning of the context. As it stands, the 2nd Amendment allows citizens in the United States to purchase a firearm should they pass a simple screening, background check, have no felonies, etc. Unfortunately this isn’t foolproof and has come under scrutiny with these shootings. In this case, the people who carry out the shootings in the first place. These individuals give responsible gun owners and firearm lovers a bad name, typically us falling into the category of rednecks, idiot Trump supporters, NRA lovers, terrorists, mentally ill, etc. It is a frustrating thing to be cast into a bad light because of the actions of one psychopath.

Columbine 4/20/1999

Now let’s get deep into the weeds here. My first exposure to a mass shooting was April 20th 1999, Columbine High School, carried out by two senior students that attended at the time just weeks away before graduation, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris when I was seven years old. I remember seeing the news story pop up as the main topic for days to months because it was something that hadn’t happened on that scale in a school and been publicized with what media was able to cover and bring to attention. Keep that in mind, the media plays a part in my piece here. I remember being confused at what I was hearing and seeing and not understanding the hysteria by students interviewed or news anchors or politicians. All I knew was that people were dead, people were scared and angry and I was too young to understand why. What I also remember was people coming out and blaming everything under the sun ranging from the parents of the shooters, to Marilyn Manson, video games, the NRA, you name it. I found that odd. I mean, sure some blame had more credibility than others like the parents for example, the ones who sold the guns, but at what point do we blame the actual perpetrators?

Now let’s define what a mass shooting is. By definition a mass shooting is the event in which four people are killed in the act. So with that in mind, I will list beside each year from 1999 to present day with how many mass shootings took place in the United States. 1999 (4), 2000 (3), 2001 (0), 2002 (1), 2003 (1), 2004 (3), 2005 (2), 2006 (4), 2007 (5), 2008 (5), 2009 (6), 2010 (3), 2011 (5), 2012 (7), 2013 (6), 2014 (5), 2015 (8), 2016 (10), 2017 (12), 2018 (12), 2019 (14), 2020 (4), 2021 (9), 2022 (5). In a twenty-three year time span taking the definition of mass shooting into account, if we average this out that comes to six a year. Taking in non-mass shooting incidents which outnumber those isolated ones greatly, we are looking at a minor subset compared to the overall gun violence around the nation itself. Now look at this as well from 1999 to 2022, the amount of incidents began to grow more frequent until it hit a solid double digits starting in 2016. From 2016 to 2022, four of those years had double digit mass shooting incidents which is eye catching.

Now with that covered, I want to double back to media. Media isn’t just news, it includes social media, messenger apps, text, video games, radio, etc. However, if we look from what media’s capability was from 1999 to present, you will see that media is now able to be disseminated at ridiculous speed with everyone being interconnected with the web. No longer do we have to get media from our local anchors or big news stations like CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, BBC, etc. We now have information coming to us at the press of a button before we have the full story or what and this is where we start coming into problems. Lack of context, information and transparency is where we start getting things such as narratives and angles coming out, which is the reason why I don’t trust mainstream media anymore. However, if you see what we do with these shootings outside of using tragedy to push a story or personal agenda or what have you, we inadvertently glorify these cockbags that gunned these people down.

America as a whole thrives on bad news, celebrities, trends, provocative, scandalous and perverse entertainment. If you look at these mass shootings within the last ten years here, especially after one takes place, two things happen, guns and ammo go off the shelf because people want to buy before they are gone and the government makes a move remove guns as a whole or enforce restrictions on top of laws that could work if enforced properly (some mass shootings on this list were failures of law enforcement failing to act on credible evidence and reporting of the suspects), the next thing that happens is that another mass shooting takes place shortly after, like a domino effect. Like vultures the media swarms in and the previous shooting is all but forgotten and the story is now on new victims and focusing on the brand new psycho who gets the spotlight.

With that mind I came to my theory that the media almost encourages mass shootings by giving the shooter publicity. What do these shooters tend to have in common? Most tend to be men, (ladies, you aren’t excused, some women are on this list sorry to break it to you), have mental health issues, have been known to be violent or had instances of voicing violent thoughts, have either been reported to authorities who failed to act or not reported at all because of the individual thinking it was a spur of the moment phase, some have particular motives, and a lot involved using an AR-15 (not all were mind you, in fact one of the highest kill mass shootings was carried out with pistols). Most of these individuals you more than likely wouldn’t have heard about at all much less seen them on the back of a milk carton if they went missing. They carried out killings and in the end got what they wanted by gaining attention from society for feeling neglected, forgotten, shunned, ignored, what have you. So why is it we focus on these guys so much and give them their twenty minutes of fame for something so heinous?

We can all agree mass shootings are terrible and those that conduct them are twisted psychopaths, yet we still give them publicity time and again. My suggestion is every time mass shootings happen, stop broadcasting it, stop saying the names of the shooters, stop using tragedy to push narratives or use for ratings. Parents get more involved with keeping their eyes on their kids and knowing what the hell is going on with them in their lives, disciplining them and giving them encouragement and support in relationships be it family or personal. Stop letting media and entertainment raise kids at the end of the day, keep them off of endless TV, video games, phones, and I think we would see a drop. Again, my take, neither right or wrong, just a theory I had when James Holmes decided to go on a rampage in that movie theater and it made headline news.

Pre 2018 highest death tolls in mass shootings

Extra bit:

The mass shooters that had the highest amount of people killed in their rampage, I noticed a couple of things for thought as well. The locations of these shootings were in places where many people were going to be and in turn premeditated to allow for mass casualties to be had, locations being schools (Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Santa Fe High School), night club (Gay bar in Orlando), church/synagogue (Tree of Life, Sutherland Springs), public venues (Aurora Colorado, Thousand Oaks California, Walmart El Paso, Las Vegas, Highland Park), military (Fort Hood, Washington Navy Yard). In these instances the majority of these locations had a few things in common. The first is that the majority of them are soft targets because people either won’t have a gun in these locations because law forbids them to carry there or because of the amount of people to be potential targets for the individual conducting it. Two, the highest counts (Vegas, Virginia Tech, Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, El Paso) were premeditated because of my previous statement and they were locations that would allow the shooter to control the outcome to a degree in terms of range of fire, escape routes for themselves and the others trying to run when they realize what is going on, confusion and chaos to give them time to do more damage and potentially kill more people. Three, most of these guys killed themselves or were killed by cops (I believe on or two were killed by gun carrying civilians that were in the area, but I will have to double check), most don’t intend to go in alive. The ones that were caught either wanted to be caught or were caught before they could carry out the rest of their plans or kill themselves first.

Take the latest guy (pictured below). The Highland Park shooter hits close to home because this guy drove from the shooting in Illinois and literally came into my city which I didn’t even know about until I was done with work the day after this went down. He turned back and went back to Chicago where he was caught. When I heard that my first thought was that he wasn’t done. Turns out he wasn’t done, he intended to carry out another attack downtown where I went to college on a road that I travel frequently to this day. The only reason he didn’t do it per police confession was because “he didn’t know about the area much” he still had about two magazines worth of ammo to do it. Point is, that tells you alone what some of these assholes think. Also, the guy like I mentioned about some of the shooters above was a walking red flag that got around laws that would have prevented him from obtaining a gun in a state that already has tough gun laws as it is.

Bob "Cockbag" Crimo III

Anyway, these are just my thoughts here. Again, this isn’t meant to trigger anyone, not to be absolute fact, just an opinion on all of these shootings that have taken place and the endless circle we keep going in. I also believe it is in people’s best interest to not let mass shootings scare them to the point they neglect living their lives, much less enjoy the outdoors or public gatherings because of what you see on the media which has also done a good job of creating fear.

Can a mass shooting happen? Yes. Can you find yourself in one? Yes, but not likely compared to other gun crime incidents. Some things you can do to mitigate this is not let fear rule your everyday life, take self-defense courses, be mindful of your surroundings (situational awareness), if you see something- say something, if there are individuals you know that exhibit behaviors that are troubling or threatening that posses firearms or voiced getting one- notify authorities and follow up on it. Law enforcement if notified should enforce the law, and unfortunately sometimes they fail (Parkland, Highland Park), but it comes down to faith in laws that are in place and accountability.