[National Affairs] Mass shootings occur with depressing regularity in contemporary American life. Whether those shootings take place in Parkland or Las Vegas, Newtown or Fort Hood, the effect on our public discourse is the same. Those on the left call for more gun control. Those on the right talk about mental health and better enforcement of the laws already on the books. The emotional and intellectual responses of most individuals to such tragedies rarely influence our national discourse, except in one notable case: the president of the United States.
Over the course of our history, the role and influence of the president during a local tragedy or crisis have evolved significantly. In the 19th century, presidents had little involvement in crisis response and disaster management, for both technological and constitutional reasons. Their influence was limited technologically because the country lacked the communications capabilities needed to notify the president in a timely manner when disaster struck hundreds of miles away. Even when the telegraph and later the telephone entered the equation, the nation still lacked the mass media needed to provide the American people with real-time awareness of far-flung events. Naturally, this affected the political call for presidents to involve themselves in local crises.
#1
I guess this is a little harder to scrub than Kamala-mala-ding-dong's record as Cali AG. Fortunately journalists don't even need to plug their ears, screw their eyes shut and chant "la-la-la I can't hear you!" After all, they're professionals...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/05/2019 8:50 Comments ||
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#2
Of course, Trump has only been in office two years; Obama was in office for eight. On the other hand, Obama had an average of 3 mass shootings a year. So if Trump had the same rate, there would have been six mass shootings so far.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/05/2019 9:10 Comments ||
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#3
No one ever had a double digit number before Bath House.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/05/2019 9:33 Comments ||
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#4
No one ever had a double digit number before Bath House.
But why? Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/05/2019 11:17 Comments ||
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#5
If you want to find statistically meaningful patterns in the data set, you will need much larger numbers than these. 1-3 incidents per year won't tell you anything at all.
The only possible trend is the increase from <1 incident year in the Reagan era to ~1/year in the 1990s and aughts to ca. 3/year since 2009.
What this really indicates is the increasing significance of COPYCAT behavior, and the drivers of copycat behavior are
1) the self-reinforcing tendency of such social phenomena
2) dramatic cultural changes i.e. how people think, what they value, and institutional changes in how the culture at large drives thought & behavior.
#1 is like many social phenomena - tulip crazes, hula hoop mania, conspiracy theories etc. It has a logic of its own, and swells until it's broken.
Re #2, the obvious huge change since 2009 is the rise of social media, which fuels copycattism.
Another change is the decline of the family as a source of stability in young American boys' lives.
Related to this breakdown, another potential fundamental cause should be studied: whether the rate of child abandonment and violent child abuse by American men has significantly increased since 1990.
If the answer to the above Q is No meaningful increase in abuse, then we need to examine the effect of the Left's demonization of men and masculinity that ramped up substantially after the Berlin Wall came down and the Left abandoned economics in favor of going all in on the Culture Wars.
#6
To clarify, there is without question an obvious and meaningful long-term trend that has nothing whatsoever to do with who or which party occupies the White House.
Obviously, the driver of this trend is not politics or legislation but AMERICAN CULTURE.
We have a truly $hitty popular culture that harms our young men. That much is clear. How it harms them and who dies the most harm are less clear.
[Newsweek] Republican politician from Ohio has sparked fury after she linked the weekend's shooting in Dayton in which nine people died with a list of what she deems to be society's ills, including gay marriage, marijuana and violent video games.
In a post on Facebook, Representative Candice Keller, who lives in Middletown, around 30 miles south of Dayton, said that after every mass shooting "the liberals start the blame game," and asked "why not place the blame where it belongs?"
Keller attributed the killings to various problems that she said stemmed from the "breakdown of the traditional American family (thank you, transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates)."
She also listed video games, "fatherlessness" and "the acceptance of recreational marijuana" as other ills that contributed to the shootings.
#1
No more helpful than what the left is dishing. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of each murderer. Digging for motives and influences after the fact changes nothing and doesn't do anything to prepare for the next murderous act.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/05/2019 9:23 Comments ||
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#2
Idiot. She is exactly why Democrats win elections. Saying that people go on mass murder sprees because of gays, pot, and video games makes her sound like a regressive Christian stereotype that the left usually has to completely fabricate. Also, it pushes responsibility for the murderer's crimes onto "society", just like how the Loony Left always screams about how poverty and racism and the mere existence of guns made people go and start shooting up a mall.
#3
Let's not have some dem trolls and the NYT install hair triggers up our asses, guys. Here's what she really said.
The breakdown of the traditional American family (thank you, transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates); fatherlessness, a subject no one discuses or believes is relevant; the ignoring of violent video games; the relaxing of laws against criminals (open borders); the acceptance of recreational marijuana; failed school policies (hello parents who defend misbehaving students); disrespect to law enforcement (thank you, Obama); hatred of our veterans (thank you, professional athletes who hate our flag and National Anthem); the Dem Congress, many members whom are open anti-Semitic; the culture, which totally ignores the importance of God and the church (until they elect a President); state officeholders, who have no interest whatsoever in learning about our Constitution and the Second Amendment; and snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President.
I don't think she was assigning immediate blame, she was only highlighting the systemic abuse of freedoms by Democrat administrators and the media, to the degree that they've created a society where lawlessness and delinquency is met with the least resistance, and family values, morality is relegated to 'regressive' stupidity. Almost everything except the video games part, because they're lovely
she says is right.
These crimes involving young men who can send a copper jacketed slug into an innocent civ with utter sang froid, deciding their fate after meeting them only once through a scope - it's a symptom of the social environs created by a society that first questions it's conservative morality, then mocks it, and finally seeks to obliterate it. Isn't that exactly what the enemy is expecting white kids to do ? I think the woman is deeply conservative and even if she's not up on current mores of expression, she's one of us.
#4
Some people are just mad dog killers. I don't give a squat where they got that. Bring back public hangings. A few of them tearfully being pushed up the steps of the gallows will take most of the sang-froid right out of it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/05/2019 13:36 Comments ||
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#5
And, executions get the left's panties knotted up? Well, they own the public schools indoctrination machines. They can get busy re-purposing those to disincline young mush-heads from going down that road.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/05/2019 13:41 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] Had the Department of Justice acted on the criminal referral that Inspector Horowitz reportedly issued regarding James Comey’s leak of memos, it would have fallen into a trap. Credit Comey with the legal sophistication you’d expect from a head of the FBI, but also credit the team assembled by Attorney General Barr for avoiding the trap.
Yesterday, I offered a non-lawyer’s analysis of Why you shouldn’t worry about the DOJ not prosecuting Comey on leaked memos and described the downside of a prosecution when the case is weak:
... imagine to potential consequences of taking as the first case against Comey a prosecution that could well be lost. Once a prosecution fails, the calls to drop the "political motivated persecution" would be legion. It is important that the first case taken to a jury be rock-solid and serious.
Following that, the Twitter account labeled "Undercover Huber" provided a detailed and expert analysis of the weakness of the case against Comey, illustrating the wiliness of the lawman in structuring his actions in a manner that would strengthen his defense against prosecution to the point where a not guilty verdict was probable. To be clear, Undercover Huber does not allege a trap ‐ that is my inference, because I see the political impact of any unsuccessful prosecution. U.H., rather, provides expert knowledge of Comey’s craftiness.
[Asia Times] For many poor nations, it is a long and winding road to ’debt’ and ’corruption.’ A journey littered with economic potholes in the shape of China’s signature foreign policy project which was unveiled by President Xi Jinping six years ago.
In short, the US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, along with other foreign funding, has become a magical mystery tour, baffling the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Or, according to critics, a diplomatic car crash waiting to happen.
"Compared with China’s dominance in world trade, its expanding role in global finance is poorly documented and understood," a report released last week by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy stated.
"Over the past decades, China has exported record amounts of capital to the rest of the world. Many of these financial flows are not reported to the IMF, the BIS [the Bank for International Settlements] or the World Bank," authors Sebastian Horn, of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, Carmen M Reinhart, of the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, and Christoph Trebesch, of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany, wrote.
"’Hidden debts’ to China are especially significant for about three dozen developing countries, and distort the risk assessment in both policy surveillance and the market pricing of sovereign debt," the working paper added.
The study then went on to highlight that China is now the world’s largest creditor.
A breakdown of the numbers showed that lending soared to around US$5 trillion by 2018 from roughly $500 billion in 2000, which dwarfs World Bank and IMF credit lines.
[Babylon Bee] BALTIMORE, MD‐President Trump launched into a deranged attack against the city of Baltimore, calling it "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and a place "no human being would want to live." This caused extreme confusion within the city -- as, having been run exclusively by Democrats for decades and decades, it is a nearly perfect, progressive utopia and a beacon of hope to all.
Stepping into Baltimore is like stepping into the future. Thanks to its politics never having been corrupted by any right-wing elements, the city is almost free of problems. Shiny towers touch the sky, people happily travel from glass dome to glass dome in their flying cars, and not a trace of dirt or grime is found anywhere, thanks to the city's perfect central planning. Crime is unknown in Baltimore, since they have compassionate measures to reform criminals instead of punishing them. And there is no such thing as poverty or income inequality because of the Democrats’ tight control of the economy.
"I had no idea what Trump was talking about," said the leader of Baltimore, known as the "Overseer," who heads the largely automated bureaucracy of the city. "He called us rat-infested, and I was unfamiliar with the creature. I checked our vast archives -- as knowledge is very important to Baltimore -- and found out it was some sort of vermin that plagued cities in previous centuries. Such things are unknown in Baltimore."
The Overseer had thought to engage Trump on Twitter, but arguing on social media is for lesser beings and not for evolved people such as those who live in Baltimore. Instead, the citizens of Baltimore are going to continue to focus on their city, hoping to one day make it the greatest, most advanced city in the world, maybe even topping Detroit.
[President Bill Clinton - State of The Union 1995] All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
We were also a nation of slavery. We reached a social/economic point were it was no longer viable. Interesting that the same cabal of people who denounce the population impact upon the climate and environment are also the ones pushing open borders.
#2
Note the degradation since 1995 of our debate, of our use of language, of the acceptable range of public discourse on this issue.
Nothing in the statute has changed since then regarding the description and definition of those who commit illegal entry or overstay a visa. They were then and remain to this day illegal aliens per the statute.
Illegal alien is the term universally understood by the courts, lawyers, law enforcement. It highlights the fact these are NOT "IMMIGRANTS."
They are people who jumped the queue, who did the opposite of what immigrants do: they cheated, broke the law, screwed up our system and pissed on everyone else.
[WSJ, click past the sign-in] Israel's left is attempting to limp out of the political graveyard in a contest to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The left was once the stable for the country's leaders, and the Labor Party and its predecessor, Maipai, provided seven of 12 prime ministers since Israel's founding. But no leftist politician has led Israel for nearly two decades. In the last election, in April, Labor saw its worst result, winning only six seats.
Ehud Barak, Labor's last prime minister, has returned to politics as a leader of a new party in an alliance that wants to lead the left's attempt at resurrection.
But the Democratic Union alliance, led by Mr. Barak and the head of the Meretz party, will enter the Sept. 17 election separately from Labor, which declined to join them. Labor instead joined forces with a party on the center-right to focus more on socioeconomic issues
Mr. Barak, a former head of Israel's military, wants to unify leaders on the left, strengthen the wing's security credentials and topple Mr. Netanyahu, who was his protégé when Mr. Barak commanded the special forces.
Mr. Barak, 77 years old, is regarded by some political observers as the kind of feisty campaigner the left has lacked. Prime minister from 1999-2001, he is the only politician to have beaten Mr. Netanyahu in an election.
The two men have also combined forces at opportune times. Mr. Barak was Mr. Netanyahu's defense minister from 2009-2013, and joined the prime minister in arguing for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
After his retirement from politics in 2013, the former general became one of Mr. Netanyahu's fiercest critics, attacking him for his political alliances with far-right parties and alleged corruption.
Mr. Netanyahu has jabbed back at his former mentor, most recently over business and personal ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier facing sex trafficking charges. Both politicians deny any wrongdoing.
The personal rivalry will come to a head when Israelis vote in September in elections that were called after Mr. Netanyahu failed to form a 61-seat governing coalition.
Mr. Barak's alliance with Meretz and social-justice advocate Stav Shaffir, who left her position as a senior Labor official to join the group, aims to ensure that smaller leftist factions get a foothold in parliament in a political system that eliminates parties that don't reach 3.25% of the vote.
The alliance, dubbed the Democratic Union, aims to be a moderating, leftist force, potentially as a part of the government‐though Mr. Barak has said the group wouldn't join a government led by Mr. Netanyahu.
"Nothing like it has been established in the left for a great many years," Nitzan Horowitz, head of Meretz, said last week of the new coalition. "The Israeli left has returned to being a strong, great, attractive and influential factor."
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/05/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[8 views]
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First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying. The trauma was often a precursor to mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, thought disorders or suicidality.
...reached a crisis
... studied previous shooters
...
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/05/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
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#1
.....exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying.
Much easier to ignore the empirical evidence and simply blame the Orange Man.
#2
Interesting: in this thorough, scientific review of empirical evidence of causal factors there's not one mention, at all, of any kind of political rhetoric as being even remotely relevant.
Zip, zero, nada, nichego.
The politicians and editorialists seeking to hang this on Trump are beyond disgusting.
Booker, Castro, the other bottom feeders, the NYT and the rest of the MSMers are despicable.
#3
Plus this evidence that clearly indicates that our very American form of mass media - 24/7 flood-the-zone, if-it-bleeds-it-leads news coverage - is a major factor in American mass shootings.
mass shootings tend to come in clusters. They are socially contagious. Perpetrators study other perpetrators and model their acts after previous shootings. Many are radicalized online in their search for validation from others that their will to murder is justified.
#4
These mass shootings make headlines. However, the continuing carnage in Chicago, Baltimore and other Democrat controlled/gun controlled hellholes end up killing more people overall (12 dead in Chicago this weekend). These are just slow motion mass shootings.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/05/2019 8:49 Comments ||
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#5
...cooking a frog. Toss in hot water, jumps out. Slowly turn up the heat, dinner time.
#6
So the LA Op Ed in the first couple of paragraphs reasonably outlines possble causes but the next few paragraphs regarding outlines solutions that affect me law abiders rather than addressing the real problem - the shooters.
#7
Plus this evidence that clearly indicates that our very American form of mass media - 24/7 flood-the-zone, if-it-bleeds-it-leads news coverage - is a major factor in American mass shootings.
MSM has been totally irresponsible in their breathless, emotional and opinionated coverage of these event, perhaps even to the point of complicity.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/05/2019 11:32 Comments ||
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#8
MSM must know the whack jobs are watching. They must also know that their coverage encourages copy cats. Of course these events are news and the public has a right to know. But surely those in the MSM must know there is a difference between legitimate, level headed, impartial coverage and outright encouragement.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/05/2019 11:50 Comments ||
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#9
For the MSM, round the clock coverage is a trifecta:
- they make tons of $$$$ from spikes in ad rates and subscriptions
- they get to posture and preen and pontificate
- they can attack Orange Man and Evil GOPpers
The MSM are a big part of the problem.
As are Twitter, FB and the most of the rest of social media.
#11
One America News Network (OANN) demanded retractions from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and The Daily Beast’s Kevin Poulsen after both suggested links between the network and Russian propaganda.
Not related to firearms but Spygate. However, maybe suing the media for fake news and agenda-driven news could be an approach to flooding the zone. I suppose the MSM will argue 1st Amend rights. They're not so big on 2nd Amend rights though.
#12
We really need to rethink our interpretation of the First Amendment.
The media landscape and the culture of news gathering and dissemination itself have changed.
Newspeak reigns.
New media makes it possible to do extraordinary damage with blatant lies within minutes.
Lies, slander, libel are the norm for most media organizations, which are now truly political players first and foremost, with neutral journalism an afterthought.
#13
Yet more evidence that the biggest cause of the increasing frequency of mass shootings is COPYCAT behavior - which is fueled by the MSM: 'Copycat' Attack Thwaryed on Florida Walmart
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Newsweek] Republican politician from Ohio has sparked fury after she linked the weekend's shooting in Dayton in which nine people died with a list of what she deems to be society's ills, including gay marriage, marijuana and violent video games.
[BBC] The list of conspiracy theories is endless. But why - and how - do they take root? There are three key ingredients to look out for.
[Babylon Bee] BALTIMORE, MD‐President Trump launched into a deranged attack against the city of Baltimore, calling it "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and a place "no human being would want to live." This caused extreme confusion within the city -- as, having been run exclusively by Democrats for decades and decades, it is a nearly perfect, progressive utopia and a beacon of hope to all.
