Too much is enough already, no more advertising mass murderers!

[Augiedog]

Is anyone else disgusted by the highly refined and close attention the actors in mass shootings are provided by mainstream media. It's one thing, perhaps, to focus on the victims, but this intense attention paid to the killers needs, wants and desires is sickening and perhaps motivational for future attackers.

[Kablooie]

1. Focussing on victims is moral. Focussing on killers is lucrative.

Not much chance of changing things with an equation like that.

[leftyohiolib]

3. lucrative means the problem is the american public who will watch shows based on this, buy

books based on this,- go to websites to find out about this. the american people are the problem.

[KurtNYC]

2. when something like this happens people wonder why he did it

much of the discussion here on DU has been about why.

And what seems to motivate these mass murderers are films about one angry white guy shooting a lot of people. For the current psycho it was the 2012 movie "Chronicle", for Aurora CO it was Batman, for John Hinckley "Taxi Driver" and there are many others. The Santa Barbara killer even wrote his manifesto in screenplay format.

[leftyohiolib]

4. he did it b/c he is crazy. the trigger is sometimes movies sometimes it's barking dogs

sometimes it's as simple as "i dont like mondays". stuff like this happens then the arm chair psychologists come out in force to speculate as to why. they goto shows that talk about it, websites to talk about it generating money for advertisers

[KurtNYC]

10. Half of television is misery -- the arguments on reality shows, crushed dreams on American Idol,

fake dead people on the CSI shows, death and more death. The business of television is to sell audiences to advertisers and that includes selling the audiences that gather around death.

The current discussion is needed because this was a real person and he seems to fit with other recent mass killers -- male, 20-ish, white, in therapy and with lots of ammo. If we have to have the discussion on media that is advertiser supported then so be it. It is worth having a discussion about how to prevent more of these.

[leftyohiolib]

14. "It is worth having a discussion about how to prevent more of these." your time is yours to

waste - no offense - but coming here and talking about it espically with an aim to stop the killing is pointless. people closest to him and adam lanza and the others couldnt stop them. you cant figure out crazy. all youre doing is giving the killer all the lime light he wanted. let the professional psychiatrists work on his wiring and let his public name fall into obscurity

[KurtNYC]

17. so let more people get shot but don't say the names of the killers and everything will be fine ?

You think you can talk people out of saying the names Adam Lanza and Elliott Rodgers but any discussion of the facts or how to limit these events is a waste of time?

The first step toward a solution is a clear definition of the problem and we DO have a problem:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mass-shootings-central-american-history-article-1.1457514

[leftyohiolib]

18. where did say everything will be fine?

look. you dont have the education to fully understand his psyche or how to treat it, you dont have him to talk to about what's really troubling him, nor the training to interpret that information and you dont have the authority to implement any changes recommended by your analysis and even if you did the next crazy killer will be a whole new set of issues. so what's going on here i guesswork w/o authority= waste of time

youre not going to limit these events b/c you dont know the triggers. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar but sometimes it's a plot to kill as many as you can.

btw there was a plan to help and the american people voted it down. 90% of americans wanted to try background checks but we couldnt get it thru.

[KurtNYC]

20. How do you know what education I have or don't have?

[customerserviceguy]

5. Thank you, and welcome

All some evil little bastard has to know is that all three 24/7 "news" channels will report every word, syllable and punctuation mark of the suicide note now known as a 'manifesto', and he'll have an additional reason to carry out the narcissistic plan.

[Demit]

6. I have trouble believing mass murderers are motivated by fame. They usually die.

How are they able to appreciate the attention then? They can't watch the tv news or read newspapers anymore. They're dead.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Don't make the mistake

of using logical thinking to understand their behaviors. Can you agree with me that anybody who would even consider shooting an innocent person has an extremely twisted sense of reality?

The type of loser who does this knows that they are insignificant in life, and to them, posthumous notoriety is an attractive thing when compared to living in obscurity. It's not unlike the hero worship that we heap upon those who die in the line of service to inspire others to do the same thing.

[Demit]

8. We want to BELIEVE that murderers have a twisted sense of reality. We can't KNOW it.

Therefore, no, I can't agree with you on that.

You yourself are claiming to know how mass murderers think. I'm not sure what you think you're using to understand their behaviors. It appears to be logic. But your logic sounds more logical to you, I guess.

[customerserviceguy]

11. OK

I'll grant you that they're either sick or evil, and either one seems twisted to me.

I suppose there is the fully sane hired assassin type of individual, for whom killing is just another line of work, and he wouldn't want posthumous fame, but he's always going to slink in the shadows and not want any kind of narcissistic notoriety. Those kinds of people have always been with us, as long as someone is willing to hire them, and that probably goes back as far as civilization.

What I'm saying is that there is a type of sociopathic individual out there who gets to the point where they think that the bang they go out of life with is the most important thing they will ever do, or even the purpose of their existence. Having 24/7 coverage of their suicide notes is what I believe is a strong attractant to that type of individual.

[Demit]

12. I knew what you were saying the first time. You're claiming to know a murderer's motivation.

If you had studies to point to where that has been demonstrated, and documented, fine. Otherwise you are only restating that what sounds logical to you must be true because it sounds logical to you.

[customerserviceguy]

13. All I'm claiming

is that media coverage of these manifestos provides another incentive for a twisted mind to commit these acts. I could ask you for some sort of empirical proof from you that it does not, but I'm not going to do that.

In any case, the newspaper maxim, "if it bleeds it leads," will not go away, and we're not going to know if using editorial restraint in publishing these rants will indeed cause the number of incidents to go down. So, in the end, we're left with an untestable premise, and we'll continue to see these sorts of things in the news, for the myriad of reasons that are their causes.

[Demit]

16. Yes, generally not a strong argument, asking someone to prove a negative.

The reason I'm staying with this, with you, is that I want to make the point that WE DON'T KNOW a lot about why people do shocking things like murder a group of strangers. I think it's a mistake to assume that we do know, because that can make us complacent. Just shove those people into a category, off away from the rest of us, psychologically, and we feel better. Safer.

I am decidedly not in the category of people who think we should not talk about it. (And what? It will go away?) Because maybe from our collective attention will come some answers as to what we can do about it. Maybe our collective condemnation would be a DISincentive to the next person who would commit these acts. He'll see he WON'T be covered in glory.

I don't know of any human problem that has ceased to be a problem because we restrained ourselves from examining it & discussing it. Do you?

[GeorgeGist]

9. If it's bad advertising for the 2nd Amendment ...

I'm all for it.

[Sunlei]

15. with all the videos, blog posts, facebook and his 150 page 'life story', he did self-advertising.

[elleng]

19. Yes, and I've noted this before.

[Paladin]

21. De-emphasis by the media is EXACTLY what the pro-gun movement is after.

Nothing would make Wayne LaPierre and the NRA happier than for news stories about mass shootings to disappear---by and large, such reports don't make near the news they used to, as it is. Please be careful what you wish for.

(I say all of the foregoing under the assumption that you're not a gun activist with a thinly-disguised agenda. I hope that assumption is a correct one.)

[anti partisan]

23. Just because the pro-gun movement wants something doesn't mean it's bad

ANYONE who is against gun violence should not want these stories advertised, as they cause more of it. Unless you want more shootings to happen so that guns become banned quicker.

[Paladin]

24. You want to blame the media for mass shootings, rather than easy gun access?

Knock yourself out. That's Mr. Nugent on line 2, he wants to sing you a love song.

And what you suggest in your second sentence means you and I get to say bye-bye.

[anti partisan]

25. Call me who you want, I'm just looking at the facts

How many shooting rampages were there before the media publicized Columbine?

[onenote]

22. If you're disgusted by the attention provided by the "mainstream media"

you must be apoplectic about the attention provided by non-mainstream media sources, included, of course, DU, which has featured numerous threads about the killings and the killer.