American society has become more violent, and more tolerant of violence, after every war starting with the Civil War;
Mass shootings in America have become a daily occurrence;
Most mass shooters have been young white men or teen-agers, very few of other races or mentally ill;
The majority of people with mental illness are not violent;
Every year in America, 40,000 people are killed by firearms: 60 percent are suicides, the rest are accidents, murder, crime and police shootings;
America had few mass shootings after the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 until Congress lifted the ban in 2004;
America has as many guns as people;
A third of Americans own all the guns;
Most Americans don’t want a gun;
By now most Americans agree some kind of gun control is warranted;
The National Rifle Association is in financial ruin and faces lawsuits by parents whose children were killed in mass shootings created by high-power assault rifles;
Since Columbine, high school shootings have become commonplace in America;
Studies of mass shooters report they were not thinking of their next step after the shooting or even the day after: They acted on impulse though their mission was somewhat planned; they have low self esteem, are extremely angry, and are determined to go out in a blaze of glory; surviving shooters expected police to kill them in action; they knew they were doing wrong;
The adolescent brain produces a phase of audacity, a time of senseless death-defying deeds without fully realizing consequence; the brain’s frontal lobe, that controls impulse and memory, is not fully developed until the mid 20s and for some the mid 30s;
America’s number one criminal gang is the Aryan Brotherhood and other white supremacists groups whose numbers have grown worldwide due to internet camaraderie;
Parents, family and friends of young men who commit mass murder by a high-power assault rifle knew something was wrong long before the killing spree. They knew he was angry through shooting off his mouth. They knew he liked guns and knew how to shoot them. They knew he was more often alone than with buddies or girlfriends. They knew he wasn’t particularly religious or spiritually inclined. They knew he hated large groups of people: gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans—and women but kept that mostly to himself. They knew the unthinkable could happen … but didn’t take the thought seriously. And when these mass shootings occur by the same type of young male, they have nothing to say to the American people.
That is the reason this keeps happening.
By now lots of studies have been done on the shooters who’ve lived to tell about their mass carnage. They are not mentally ill psychopaths, though maybe sociopaths or antisocial. They also did not expect to live after their shooting rampage. Some first killed their parents and family before heading off to a public place with the intention to shoot as many people as possible. Mass shooters have not been necessarily influenced by playing violent video games or watching violent movies. Seems the only things they had in common were being white, male, young with access to high-powered firearms—and no empathy.
How do we teach empathy nowadays? How could one or two generations grow up without knowing to be human is to live and let live? Are young people confused by perpetual wars? Perhaps. Is our government to blame or our elected officials, our nation’s politicians of suits, wealth and bluster? Definitely. What about our hypocritical society and mass media that makes money off of violent art imitating violence in life? Yes, they are partly to blame for desensitizing all of us and young minds in particular. But from where does the absolute certainty come among some young males that nothing matters, life is meaningless, the future is hopeless, death is preferable, mass murder is the only answer because everyone else is to blame for their angst and misery that in reality is only in their minds?
Where does family fit into all of this? Kids are raised with years of influence, their worldviews cemented by age 3. Are parents unaware of their growing boys, the daily changes, the emotional needs they pass off as babyish during adolescence when they start to recoil from a father’s embrace or a mother’s caress?
This is the heart of the matter, indeed the reason for mass shootings by young white males. We never hear from the parents of males who took to firearms to create a few seconds of hell on earth, witnessing humans scream, run, fall, bleed, struggle and die. In a decade or so, these boys-turned-men will tell us in rational articulate terms what motivated their carnage. They may weep while sharing their individual back stories: home lives without unconditional love, teachers too impatient, boredom with the confines and routine of school, family and friends too busy to sense and uncover their perpetual sorrow seemingly hidden during the difficulties of adolescence. They’ll blame their families for not stopping them; elusive and uncaring parents who worked too many hours and did not indulge them as children and teens to ensure they were kept on the right track intellectually, emotionally and spiritually through church, school, sports and activities spent together; for leaving them alone and letting them develop and explore dark thoughts and deeds; for not loving them enough.
The future men, former young mass shooters, will be right. They are in a way not responsible for their actions. Have adults forgotten how impressionable teen-agers are, how everything in their minds is seen as black or white, wrong or right, good or bad, and no amount of arguing can change them?
They will be right about their family’s influence or lack thereof: the laughter at racist jokes; the casual use of the n word or c word, b word or w word without serious scolding by other adults; downplaying the importance of education while blaming teachers for low grades; the allure of violence in our society with no discussion about art, fiction and entertainment; the seething anger over the cost of living, unemployment and perpetual struggle to make ends meet; and then blaming women and every other minority for the inability to find a way to co-exist and make peace with changing times—culminating in an ignorant, enraged and joyless existence. It takes a family to create a miserable little snot.
For further reading:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/