One person shooting many people is just the flip side of many people shooting one person

[Fumesucker]

I think probably the image that comes to mind the most to me is the truck of the wrong make and color that got shot up by trained professional police officers during the hunt for the LA cop killer. The two women who were delivering papers in the truck were amazingly fortunate to survive.



The fact is we live in a society where violence is not just acceptable but the preferred method of accomplishing all sorts of things. Our politicians laugh and claim credit when foreign leaders are assassinated by mobs, and that's the liberal ones.

Mass gun violence is a symptom of a broken society, focusing on gun control as the only solution implies that machete control would have prevented the mass killings in Rwanda. Focusing strictly on the symptom is a way of avoiding paying attention the cause, a vastly alienating society in which violence is accepted right at the top of of the social pyramid.

I'm reminded of an old Yakov Smirnoff joke, "In Soviet Russia was dog eat dog, in America is other way around."

[ck4829]

1. We do have a broken society, we have to do something about the ruptures

One of them is the dehumanization of the other, it's in our nation's history, we have it entrenched in our culture. And dehumanizing others is a great first step to killing others. Does anyone believe that this killer, Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger, etc. saw their victims as just as human as they were?

[EX500rider]

19. "We do have a broken society"

Here's the US homicide rate compared to other countries.....so are all the countries to the right on the graph even more "broken" then the US?

[RKP5637]

2. It's akin to putting a band-aid over cancer and hoping it will go away. n/t

[Human101948]

3. Heck I thought you were saying we should all aim at Wayne LaPierre...

As it says in the Bible: They who live by the gun die by the gun.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

27. What does it mean to "live by the gun"?

IIRC, the bible says sword but the meaning is clear.

[Human101948]

29. Literary reference...

Approved by the Professional Organization of English Majors.

[HereSince1628]

4. The US also has the largest military in the world, it's no coincidence

that we also have the largest stock of firearms in private hands. It's how we orient to the world.

Of course, what we are supposed to be doing with those weapons isn't killing people, but -intimidating- people and reassuring ourselves that we have the capacity to do what we have to do should we have to do it.

Gun holders know this. Even the criminal gun owners, they 'properly' use their weapons for intimidation about ~13 times more often than they shoot someone (~150k armed robberies vs ~9k gun murders per year with some overlap).

We live in the land of the free, which curiously is a land in which intimidation is an awfully big thing, because let's face it... freedom is very damned scary.

That's why everyone wants more guns and more open carry...because the good guys need to catapult the intimidation factor.

It's mostly for intimidation and reassurance that police carry sidearms. If the sidearms were really important they'd damn well know how to use them for more than sending a hail of very poorly aimed bullets down range. The point is not blasting away innocent women in a p/u truck similar or not so similar looking to a p/u truck thought to be used by a bad guy. The point of the daily presentation of these things is mostly to make people unwilling to resist because, the police are prepared to respond...if they have to do what has to be done...

Intimidation and reassurance underlies why police carry sidearms and why police forces have SWAT teams complete with armored vehicles. Intimidation and reassurance is why the US has missiles in silos, carrier groups at sea, and always a newer more deadly more multi-billion dollar attack jet under development.

We all want peace. But, we think it's only available through, at least, intimidation of an overwhelming violent response to threats to our peace. Periodic violence supplies incidents that just help reinforce that. This isn't irrational or dysfunctional, because it's a world view that must be adopted to be successful within our culture.

At levels from gang-conflicts to regional warfare, gun violence doesn't lead America to disarm or restrict weapons, it leads to higher gun sales, up-armoring/militarization of police departments, and larger and larger fractions of the national wealth to be squandered on military goods and services.

Yes, the underlying problem is how American's view the world and how we think we need to position ourselves within it.

[Hydra]

6. Excellent points, especially the trumpeting about freedom

But indeed, it's a truly scary thing to most people...and as you say, it's about fear as a control factor to keep normal people within the lines.

[Locrian]

7. great post

You can either have a society that works together, respects each other and has compassion - a 'partnership' if you will. Or you can have a society that reinforces a winner take all, fear based, intimidation 'authoritarian' society that everyone arms up.

It starts form the to top down but becomes a cancer throughout - as intimidation and force become the 'normal' cultural behavior in a society.

[JDPriestly]

15. Thank you.

The more violence there is, the less safe we feel, the more violence there is, the less safe we feel . . . . . . . .

It is a self-creating crisis, a spiral.

Passing a law that requires gun-owners to identify themselves and their guns and preventing people who have sought mental health care from being able to identify themselves as gun owners will help if it makes us feel safer, but it won't really change much.

Because the identification and background checks will not prevent people who are suicidal or extremely angry (and shooters usually fit into one or the other of those categories) from finding a gun somehow if they want one or using some other method to harm those they want to harm.

And furthermore preventing people who are identified as "mentally ill" (which does not include a lot of shooters) from owning guns won't prevent them from finding guns either if they want to have them.

And then, as the OP points out, the police have guns and can use them just as foolishly albeit maybe less intentionally to kill innocent or helpless people as some guy who bought his as Walmart.

The gun legislation may help some, but we won't get change until we ourselves change and acknowledge that something in our culture is the problem.

Maybe we are a bit addicted to violence. Maybe we are just impatient. Maybe we make too many excuses in our movies, in our lives, for violent outbursts. Maybe we don't value forgiving. Maybe we take small insults too seriously. Maybe our society is one in which many people are just plain left out and lonely.

[HereSince1628]

21. Consider that people with mental disorder suffer significant prejudice and discrimination

and ask yourself honestly...do you think blaming such a stigmatized group is based on actual risk or bigoted fantasy?

The NRA doesn't want to taint guns because guns have an obvious role in US gun violence. So, they tap into national bigotry toward persons with mental disorders to lump them all into a single category that operates on the other common feature of gun violence...the owner of the finger on the trigger.

The NRA's dissembling works because mental disorders are actually very very common and so almost every story of gun violence can be linked to a person with a pseudo-diagnosis of indicators of mental illness in their past by a teacher, neighbor or playmate. 25% of the US population has a mental disorder per year. By the time a person is strong enough to hold up a gun and pull the trigger, there is a damned good chance that person has already expressed some indication of a mental illness.

There may well be connections of some forms of gun violence to specific mental illnesses, and it seems that the mass-shooting plus suicide is likely to be one of then, because suicide on it's won has an 80% association with the presence of mental disorders.

But the push for zero-tolerance for persons with any mental disorder making a gun purchase is mostly just a mirror of the near zero-tolerance for mental disorders that exists in US society. America needs enemies. Without THEM we cannot be US.

[Hydra]

5. This is my view as well

Taking 1 type of weapon away does not erase the societal forces that are pushing these results, anymore than switching from boots on the ground wars to drones did. Focusing on symptoms is the easy way out though, and our preferred method as a society to doing things.

If we honestly attacked the root cause of this, the status quo would lose out...so you'll see them actively push for "solutions" that don't actually do anything other than to increase their own power.

[malthaussen]

9. I tend to agree.

But I had a conversation once with an EMT who said that, in some cases you have to use suboptimal treatment in order to preserve the life of the patient. I am reminded of an old friend who once used a Bic pen to do a trache. (A long time ago, obviously. Does Bic even make pens anymore?)

Some of our society's worse problems would take a mass, conceptual overhaul from top to bottom to correct. While the need to get on with that work is pressing (and mostly ignored), it is not a good idea to neglect damage control along the way. That's one reason to vote against the GOP, even if you are one of those who believe that the Democrats will bleed us just as surely, albeit more slowly.

-- Mal

[JDPriestly]

16. True, but let's don't expect miracles from mousetraps.

A mousetrap may stop one mouse, but then you have to get rid of the mouse.

If you plug the holes in your house and get rid of whatever is attracting the mice in the first place, you will be less likely to get mice in your house.

Let's focus on root causes. Applying band-aids will make us feel safer, and that is good, but they will not solve our society's problem.

When someone whose immigration status was unclear shot someone in was it the Bay area in California, immigrants were blamed for being violent.

Most of these mass shootings are done by men who were born in the US.

But Americans always like to latch onto an explanation for the shootings that has nothing to do with their own lack of anger management.

Take DU for example.

We are constantly called to jury duty by someone who is offended by a post -- someone who is mad because someone else got mad and posted something angry. It's really childish if you think about it. Why get mad at someone who says something you don't like on the internet?

And what is the most common response when someone on DU says something someone else does not like? Call a jury and then call a jury again, five times until the person who has offended the alerter is finally removed from the list of people who are 'allowed" to post on DU.

And we have to have such a system to keep our conversations, our mostly political discussions, on DU civil. Just civil.

That shows you that we on DU are not very good at dealing with our own personal anger when posting. And the stakes are very, very low on DU. We are just talking about issues, yet especially lately, some of the rhetoric gets way beyond respectful, way beyond angry.

So we on DU should not point too many fingers. Because the underlying issues is staying calm. Breathe deep. Take time to be silent and still and calm every day. Go for a lovely walk. Be at peace within yourself.

Read Nonviolent Communication.

When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving!
-- CNVC founder, Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing, and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.
--Rum

https://www.cnvc.org/

I am not personally involved in that organization other than participating in a seminar some years ago and reading the book.

Participating in a seminar of theirs CAN be a life-changing experience.

Reading the book can too.

I highly recommend looking into that for everyone who wonders how it is possible that anger can so escalate that the angry person shoots others.

[zeemike]

10. There are a lot of great comments in this thread.

And I recommend them all because rational discourse is so rare nowadays.
But soon it will be joined by those who will tell you that all that is needed is gun control, and that is not the case.
Our problems at it's root is social and unless we address that nothing will change.

[valerief]

11. Roided cops should be outlawed. But who will arrest the roid cop? Another roid cop?

Maybe the military can step in here to random test cops for roids.

[jtuck004]

13. I've been taking steroids for about 40 years. Haven't shot up any innocent people yet.

Wouldn't it be great if every mass shooter was crazy and all the murdering, racist cops just had to be stopped from taking illegal drugs.

The real answer is neither of those. Many serial killers are quite smart and evaluated as sane enough to know what they are doing is wrong and could stop, but don't.

I would bet money that steroids had not a damn thing to do with the shooting above, or most cop shootings.

To find the answers to how to stop this, we have to quit making excuses for the bad actors.

[valerief]

14. Roid Cops

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1512&issue_id=62008

Unfortunately, growing evidence suggests a similar abuse of AASs and other performance-enhancing drugs by law enforcement professionals. Across the United States, several investigations associated with Internet pharmacies and “antiaging” clinics in association with unscrupulous physicians have revealed officers caught up in this web of illicit drug use.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/cop-roid-rage-are-steroids-behind-worst-police-abuses

“This is one of the dirty little secrets of American law enforcement,” says Gregory Gilbertson, a former Atlanta cop who teaches criminal justice in the Seattle area and works as a legal expert on police standards and practices. “Steroid testing is declining, and I think there’s an attitude in all these agencies of ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ because they don’t want to know about it. Because if they know about it, then they have to address it.”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3745740&page=1

From Boston to Arizona, police departments are investigating a growing number of incidents involving uniformed police officers using steroids. So-called "juicing" has been anecdotally associated with several brutality cases, including the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in New York City.

http://www.menshealth.com/health/scandals-cops-and-steroids

Such incidents are sufficiently widespread that the DEA has published a pamphlet called Steroid Abuse by Law Enforcement Personnel, whose cover depicts two uniformed officers surrounded by floating syringes. Still, because juicing cops are a secretive subculture within a secretive subculture, experts have a hard time quantifying the problem. "Resoundingly, yes, I've heard many, many accounts of police officers taking steroids," says Harvard steroid specialist Harrison Pope, M.D., author of The Adonis Complex. "But it's impossible to put a number on it. Even if I got a federal grant to study this, I wouldn't be able to get that number, because of the veil of secrecy." Officer Jimmy, however, is less constrained. "Steroid use is very pervasive in law enforcement," insists the 26-year-old cop. "I'd say, of the cops I know, 20 percent to 25 percent of them are using."

[jtuck004]

17. Oh, geez, blue linkitis.' All I want is real evidence, not a bunch of supposition. This is like

blaming women's behavior on their periods. Like it said, there is no registry, no requirement to report, really nothing but people whose job it is to collect evidence making statements which have no evidence. lol.

Like I said, I have taken them for 40 years at the direction of physicians, so a bunch of know-nothings trying to pretend they know anything about it because they can copy and paste isn't all that convincing. An opinion from someone who has actually studied the physiology in something other than USA today might be helpful. Say one formed while one holds a medical license, a degree in anatomy and physiology, or perhaps has a medical issue that requires you to deal with this for your whole life.

Else one begins to sound like someone who reads "anything, everything", yet obviously has no real grasp of what is going on.

Btw - what explains the women cops emptying their guns at people? Are they taking steroids too?

The problem is a bunch of murderous bullies, hired by a community of cowards to keep them safe, who instead used their position to feed their own vices. And then the cowards are afraid to stop them.

The steroids aren't the problem, though they do have the ability to make it worse. The town of spineless cowards and racists is the problem - or do they work for the police?

[valerief]

18. I don't want to chat with an angry AAS user. nt

[whereisjustice]

12. It's an arms race between cowards - NRA versus the Police with Congress funding them both and

innocent people getting slaughtered like sheep.

[cascadiance]

22. And three cops can't subdue a 55 year old woman with a knife and need to shoot her and kill her!

... right here in Oregon just a day after we've had to deal with Roseburg tragedy!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141223431

Is that really the best cops can do in situations these days with all of their technology and training we're paying for them to have?

[whereisjustice]

23. Cops are cops because they want the right to shoot people they don't like, they are rarely

punished for their crimes. There are some very sick fucks on the force. Not exactly your Adam-12 types. More like your idiot storm trooper type.

[cascadiance]

24. Story was just updated to indicate that those shooting woman were "deputies", not police...

... which still begs the question why these people aren't properly trained, and prepared for situations like this if they are going to be armed.

[whereisjustice]

25. Aloha might be covered by Wash. County deputies, Beaverton is close by but Aloha might be outside

Beaverton city limits. So when you call for police in Aloha, Washington County sheriff deputies are probably the ones who show up. They can call for backup from City of Beaverton and/or City of Hillsboro police.

[Rex]

20. We live in a military nation that awards those that are authoritarian in nature.

It's as obvious as the nose on my face. It is the reason Oath Keepers get away with all kinds of stuff. Their 'authority' is recognized by other authority in charge. Otherwise Bundy would be in jail and the Keepers would be labelled a terrorist organization.

The issue is it is wrong to go against the law, yet when that system breaks down and it has people start to do what maybe they would not have done under a more stable system.

I think 'radicals' show up at times of civil unrest. And this is one of those times. Our police forces now have military hardware and that image too calls up dread in the more unstable. IMO.

We are the anti-tranquil nation. Everything is hurry up and wait. Violence is the job of the military and police. Mix that all together with civil unrest and you get radicals with far too many guns acting out their sick fantasy.

Too much violence? In a military culture that has no rules on commerce, I expect nothing less.

America will always be a military nation, we will never underspend on the MIC.

It owns us.

EDIT - Yes, I blame pretty much every modern problem on the Military Industrial Complex. So sue me.

[questionseverything]

28. just to prove your point

the us bombed the heck out of doctors without borders

we all know no one will be punished for that war crime ,or the last set of war crimes

when war crimes go unpunished, civilization is bound to deteriorate

[orpupilofnature57]

26. The MIC inadvertently and continuously slaughters millions for trillions, cold blooded Murder !!!!

[LiberalElite]

30. And I'm reminded of the old Smirnoff punch line

"What a country!"

[Dont call me Shirley]

31. Mass media ala oligarchy shoulders much of the responsibility. They love their divide and conquer.

[Fairgo]

32. Thanks for this POV

It opened up space for some considered opinions.

[Octafish]

33. Might makes right.

It's easier than thinking or explaining or building a consensus. Undemocratic as all get out, it has proven the de facto official policy of the USA, painfully obvious since Nov. 22, 1963.