Mass Shootings

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Well?   Option 1 for me.  It's so commonplace sadly I really don't feel anything when I read about them anymore.

[Gass3268]

I went with option 2, but it is totally moving to option 1. Really sad.

[dead0man]

Somewhere between 1 and 2...went with 2.  If the press didn't give the shooters so much attention I doubt they'd be as common.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The overwhelming majority of murders have nothing to do with mass shootings; the latter get more attention because they're liable to involve upper-middle class white people.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

The overwhelming majority of murders have nothing to do with mass shootings; the latter get more attention because they're liable to involve upper-middle class white people.

Dude, please pay attention.  No one is saying they are the are the majority or overwhelming majority.  Do you have any reactions, other than maybe shaking your head (option 1) when they occur?  It's not hard.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Option 2; most mass shootings (a guy killing thee people in his office, etc) don't get much attention, but when the victims are children it irks me a bit. The UCSB shooting didn't even bother me at all (I assumed it was gang/crime related due to the first reports saying it was a drive-by) until I read the manifesto and saw how evil and twisted Elliot Rodger really was.

The overwhelming majority of murders have nothing to do with mass shootings; the latter get more attention because they're liable to involve upper-middle class white people.

A rare sage post that is somewhat true.

[eric82oslo]

Mass shootings can never become a normal thing. In that case, people have lost all their empathy.

[Beet]

Numb. The last mass shooting that really affected was the Christmas eve shooting in 2008. I'm not sure why... I think maybe because (1) it was on Christmas eve (2) it was at a Christmas eve party (3) it was in someone's house, which means most of the victims were family. Even Sandy Hook didn't affect me as much as that. But if it happened today I probably wouldn't be affected by it either.

[King]

They intrigue me a lot, but I'm not afraid of it happening to me.  So I guess option 1.

[Joe Republic]

Already posted in the UCSB thread, but very relevant here too:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/

Knowing that the gun nuts who run this country will never allow things to change, and the shootings will continue each week, I've also adopted the same defeated, sardonic attitude to each occurrence.

Kind of like how we make fun of the North Korean government's ongoing ridiculousness, all the while they torture and kill millions.

[eric82oslo]

The first time ever I've seen The Onion not even trying to be funny. That says a lot.

[ElectionsGuy]

No, I honestly don't even seem to care anymore . But the media is great at highlighting negative things. Mass shootings and murders have gone down in the US for a consistent two decades.

[dead0man]

No, I honestly don't even seem to care anymore . But the media is great at highlighting negative things. Mass shootings and murders have gone down in the US for a consistent two decades.

The fearmongers don't care.

[patrick1]

No, I honestly don't even seem to care anymore . But the media is great at highlighting negative things. Mass shootings and murders have gone down in the US for a consistent two decades.

The fearmongers don't care.

Well the scale has changed and we have new and exciting venues also. Schools and the workplace are so 90's.

[angus]

other:  I never even know about them till I come in here to post about something important, like whether the latest 7th grade garage band from Saint Paul is scene, but once I find out about them, like the virgin guy today, I lament the shooter and the shot.  Then, I log off and I forget about them till I come in here again, and invariably find a poll about whether the virgin guy is a FF or a HP.

[anvi]

I've been mugged at gunpoint before, and I work at schools, where a number of these have happened for decades.  I've also had a number of friends and one uncle commit suicide with guns, which in the U.S. counts for about 50% of all annual gun deaths.  So, when I see another one has happened, or even when I see stories on the news about individual murders or gun-related crimes or accidents, it does bother me.  I don't know the people involved, so it's not normally gut-wrenching or anything, though sometimes when parents of murdered children are interviewed. that does get to me.  But I know at least enough to realize that the feeling we often carry around that it could never happen to either us or others we care about is quite a false comfort.  But what bugs me about it most is that it doesn't seem to bug us anymore.  I understand why people are numb to it--there are probably lots of different reasons people become desensitized that are perfectly understandable, from the commonality of all of it to the predictable media dramatization to the even-more predictable back-and-forth of the gun debate to the need just to block it out so that one can do what one has to do anyway to get through the day.  But still, our conditioned lack of concern for other people who have suffered terrible misfortune doesn't seem good to me.  When we care about one another as fellow human beings or fellow citizens so little, then what's the point of talking about human rights or patriotism anyway?

[eric82oslo]

No, I honestly don't even seem to care anymore . But the media is great at highlighting negative things. Mass shootings and murders have gone down in the US for a consistent two decades.

It has not. It reached a bottom in 2000, and ever since it's gone up. In 2000, there were 28,000 deaths caused by firearms in the US. In 2013, there were more than 33,000.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

No, I honestly don't even seem to care anymore . But the media is great at highlighting negative things. Mass shootings and murders have gone down in the US for a consistent two decades.

It has not. It reached a bottom in 2000, and ever since it's gone up. In 2000, there were 28,000 deaths caused by firearms in the US. In 2013, there were more than 33,000.

Overall homicide rates are still decreasing--moreover, the majority of firearm-related deaths are either suicides or accidents.

[Ebowed]

So, when I see another one has happened, or even when I see stories on the news about individual murders or gun-related crimes or accidents, it does bother me.  I don't know the people involved, so it's not normally gut-wrenching or anything, though sometimes when parents of murdered children are interviewed. that does get to me.  But I know at least enough to realize that the feeling we often carry around that it could never happen to either us or others we care about is quite a false comfort.  But what bugs me about it most is that it doesn't seem to bug us anymore.  I understand why people are numb to it--there are probably lots of different reasons people become desensitized that are perfectly understandable, from the commonality of all of it to the predictable media dramatization to the even-more predictable back-and-forth of the gun debate to the need just to block it out so that one can do what one has to do anyway to get through the day.  But still, our conditioned lack of concern for other people who have suffered terrible misfortune doesn't seem good to me.  When we care about one another as fellow human beings or fellow citizens so little, then what's the point of talking about human rights or patriotism anyway?

This is spot on.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

One story about an abused animal or a bunch of abused animals pisses me off and digusts me far more than these stories.......f[inks]ed up for sure, but it's true, at least for me.

[anvi]

Well, like I said, I think it's understandable, Grumps--I understand why people tune it out when it happens. 

One other thing your comment about animals brings to mind is that there was a society for the protection of animals in the U.S. before there was a society for the protection of children.  Could be something deep-rooted in the culture about it, I'm not sure.

[angus]

William Dodd, the US ambassador to Germany during the first Franklin Roosevelt administration (1933-37) was shocked at the number of US citizens entering his embassy complaining of rough treatment by brownshirts and other German officials.  Being slapped for failure to give the Roman salute when a parade marches by was a common complaint.  Complaints to local German police by Americans (and others) went unheeded.  Dodd made regular reports to Roosevelt, who would not take action because he was reluctant to offend the German government lest they retaliate by refusing to repay debts to American lenders.  Dodd met with German officials, even once for an hour with Hitler, about the mistreatment of US citizens by Germans, but he never received any satisfaction.  Other ambassadors in Berlin from other countries have similar stories to tell.  Eventually, it became more and more difficult for US companies to recruit men who would work and do business in Germany, for fear of mistreatment by Germans.

As rough as they were treating foreigners, the Germans were even more brutal to their own citizens.  Edgar Mowrer, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and president of the Foreign Press Association in Berlin, published several articles about Nazi treatment of various groups of Germans, including Jews, communists, and other perceived enemies of the German state.  Mowrer was rewarded by being expelled from Germany.  Dodd personally witnessed a great deal of persecution, including beatings in the street and public humiliation of Jews.  Most folks eventually became desensitized to the brutality of the Germans.  Dodd did not.  His reports were increasingly hostile to the Germans, making it difficult for him to conduct business with them.  He never became insensitive and he never stopped writing to Roosevelt asking him to take action.  He internalized the brutality.  He also internalized his own hostility to the German regime.  Eventually, this made him sick.  He became forgetful.  By 1936 he was frail, and family would report later that he appeared to be at least a decade older than he appeared when he arrived in Germany.  At the end of 1937 he left Berlin without notifying the press.  By 1939 he was confined to his bed and he died in bed early in the year 1940. 

You can internalize the suffering of others, but doing so can make you frail and sick.  A sick man has less power to change the world than he would have if he had remained healthy.

[anvi]

Poor Dodd.  Had he been tougher and able to desensitize himself to German brutality, he could have, enjoyed a whole lifetime helping America, per his instructions, continue to do business with the Nazi regime.   

No need to worry about folks like me, angus.  I personally am far more likely to die of a gunshot than I am from the effects of oversensitivity. 

[Torie]

I along with Angus also read the Dodd book actually (he was a professor at the University of Chicago, my alma mater, of all things), and the Nazi government did become more careful about leashing the brown shirts (before they were shut down as part of Hitler's deal with the military in exchange for the troops swearing a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler) randomly attacking American citizens who did not choose to give the Nazi salute. That was about all he was effective at (part of his problem was that his boss in the State Department in DC was anti-Semetic, and felt Hitler should have a long leash in doing what he was doing during that period). His daughter by the way was quite a character - gorgeous and promiscuous. First, she was rather entranced by some Nazi beaus, and had a couple of relationships, but then got disillusioned, and eventually had a relationship with a Soviet spy, and became a Communist. She spend he last days in Prague behind the Iron Curtain, when there still was an Iron Curtain.

And there you have it.

[angus]

Poor Dodd.  Had he been tougher and able to desensitize himself to German brutality, he could have, enjoyed a whole lifetime helping America, per his instructions, continue to do business with the Nazi regime.    

His successor, Hugh Wilson, did just that.  Wilson put a positive spin on the German government, and was known for complaining of the Jewish-controlled press in the United States that liked to "sing a hymn of hate while efforts are made over here to build a better future."  Goebbels specifically mentioned in a speech that it was good to have Dodd gone and Wilson instead.  Hitler, who usually preferred the milaristic brownshirt uniform, always put on coat and tails and white tie to meet with Wilson.  He was ambassador to Germany only for less than a year, but while there he certainly was admired by the Nazis.  He then went on to receive honory law degrees from Yale and Bryant College, and even taught some courses at Yale before getting a influential position with the Republican National Committee.  

That's all a little off-topic, I suppose.  Desensitizing always makes me think of two things:  the Nuremburg laws and the trial of those policemen who beat up Rodney King.  I guess I got carried away, but my point was only that we see so much of it that we're becoming really desensitized.  (Probably not unlike Tom Wolfe's manly parts after about an hour with Martha Dodd, eh Torie?)