What has changed?

[The Straight Story]

Folks around here may know that I am pretty pro 2nd amendment. I just like choices - from abortions to where you can have a beer with friends to owning a gun, etc.

Listening to/reading about the latest idiocy from the NRA makes me hate those jack asses even more than I did before (even though some accuse me of being in league with them).

In the 1970's I went to elementary school (ok, not the whole time, I did move up in grades).

I remember a few things. We learned a little Spanish. We had Christmas and Hannukah parties. Took cupcakes to school. I was on patrol (crossing guards they call them now) often way away from the school and out of adult eyes with a fellow classmate.

We had tornado drills, which came in handy a few times.

No one that I can recall was ever afraid of a gunman coming into the school. Anyone could walk right in. People back then, including my dad, owned several guns. I can't think off the top of my head anyone I knew who didn't own one. I am sure there were some.

We didn't have drills based around 'what if a gunman comes in'. The school doors were not locked. And I can't ever remember seeing a security guard - armed or not - at the school (though some years back I was a security guard for a school).

What has changed? It is not that more people have guns - as noted I can't recall any home that didn't. It is not religion in the schools - we didn't preach in schools, and though we celebrated holidays we were pretty inclusive based on our class.

It is not playing army and having toy guns. We would run around playing like that all day long. In school and out. We drew superheroes fighting and army men and had a tank game we played on paper and pencil.

And now we are at a point where folks want armed people in the schools, kids are shot and killed, gangs are shooting people in schools (as I posted about earlier). Not to say there were not problems and violence in high school, racism, etc (after they started busing there was some violence here at the local high school before I went).

We lock down schools. Have lists of who and who cannot pick up a child. Electronically follow them with ID's, etc.

Something has changed in society to make this happen - and it is not guns. They are not the problem nor the solution.

The question of WHY is what we keep ignoring while looking at how.

[winter is coming]

1. I think it's a combination of "easy gun access" and "too many rats in the box".

My impression is that a lot more people feel marginalized and hopeless these days, making them more likely consider and carry out acts of mass violence. That, plus weapons with large magazines, is a recipe for tragedy.

[slackmaster]

7. "Access" to guns is certainly no easier than it was in the 1970s, magazines have gotten no larger.

In fact there were a lot more gun stores and "kitchen table" dealers 40 years ago than there are today.

It's the rats.

[Xyzse]

2. In truth, I think it is how rapid media/information is now.

People are put through different stimuli too quickly that they are unable to slow down and proccess things.
It allows for more dynamic thinking, but it also inflates perception of danger and what is acceptable.

Also, because of the technologies, many things that take time to think through becomes near instant. So, people who are younger are subject to whims, while some people who are older don't actually understand what is possible and what isn't(particularly in regards to how technology works).

So, you also get the sensationalization of news and the ability to react quickly without thinking.

Think of it this way...
As an individual, people can be smart. As a mob, intelligence drops real quick.
We are at a period where we are almost constantly in a mob due to our information connectivity.

Something happens, some blowhard like O'Reilly or Beck goes off on it. In a flash, dumb idiots are already rallying on it.
Also, because of it, it is an immediate mob which doesn't think clearly as they are all stuck in that mentality. They don't get the time to stop, breath and think things through.

If they did, they'll know that the violence isn't really that much more. There are serial killers and mob killers in the 70s and 80s. They even had larger riots in America at the time. It just takes longer to build.

Edit - Not saying I am asking a change on that. Just saying, from what I am seeing, that people are now constantly stuck in a mob mentality that quickly becomes agressive towards any information that is not in keeping with their perception of reality, besides they don't want to be cut off from that group.

[The Straight Story]

6. I think you touched well on it though:

A local problem, issue, becomes blown up quickly. Everyone knows about it within moments of it.

We are less isolated and tend to apply what is happening in one place to another - which I think is also at the crux of the problems when it comes to even talking about guns (my parents grew up in a rural area where dad actually took a gun to school for shooting practice). One area does not understand the other and we see everywhere the same as here.

We want the same medicine applied to all places when only one needs it - which is why, and I have said this for a long time, people in Northern California want to be a separate state from Southern California. Their problems are different but the solutions put out affect both areas equally.

The problems in Montana are the not the same here in Ohio. But we hear about one somewhere and want to fix that problem with one big solution - when it just does not fit in a 'big tent' or melting pot of people.

Folks in 'red' areas, which are mainly rural, hate how those on the left want to control their guns for example. They use them on the ranch, for sport shooting, target shooting, fun in general. Their kids work on their farms and drive tractors. People in big cities don't have the same things going on.

So when a big news story breaks folks want to rush and find a remedy for all when that may not fit the many.

[Xyzse]

14. That's what I meant. Just blaming it on the media is not enough.

I agree the media and hate speech is a problem, but the thing is, we are talking about what changed, not what is the problem.

The fact that we are all now very connected and that makes for a mob mentality without being able to step back and put some distance to be able to think a bit more objectively.

You are right, different areas have different methods and solutions. Which is why even dealing with the middle east, we can not automatically assume that they will like a Western Style Democracy just like that and why I think that the US Congress and Senate should allow them to manage more of their affairs, since they are the ones dealing with the problems there rather than politicians from other parts of the country..

Any how, like I am saying. The rapid transfer of information is a good thing, I just think people need to learn how to step back and put a distance between them and the current headline to be able to get away from that mob mentality and think for themselves for a bit.

[Gravitycollapse]

3. Poverty is essentially the greatest indicator of other problems.

And we have not done a particularly good job of eradicating poverty.

[geek tragedy]

21. Most mass shooters are not poor. nt

[Duer 157099]

4. FPS video games

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. Depersonalization

The shift from interpersonal relationships to relationships mediated by and relied upon all to much by technology. Desensitization follows and reality is distorted, empathy and sympathy are inhibited. What people should communicate face to face is not being communicated. We can see the results of a generation who has only known mostly this. What will the generation who has known only this be like? It is happening.

[GreenRanger]

8. I think it's the Media

Statistics actually show a decrease in gun violence, its just a massive increase in the coverage.

[Robb]

9. "It is not that more people have guns - as noted I can't recall any home that didn't."

There are more guns. Every conceivable metric demonstrates this -- manufacturing, sales, permit applications. All are at levels several times that of the 1970s.

[The Straight Story]

11. so that is the only change? Guns magically made people start doing things

that they were not doing before?

In a 2011 Gallup poll, 47 percent of Americans reported having at least one gun in their home. Of those, most (62 percent) said they had more than one. The most popular reasons for owning a gun: self-defense (67 percent), target shooting (66 percent), and hunting (62 percent).

Chart of the Day: Gun Ownership is on a 30-Year Decline


http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/chart-day-gun-ownership-30-year-decline


So you are telling me the only change is in how many people own guns? And NOTHING else???

Gun sales may be up, but the number of people owning them seems to have went down.

[Robb]

12. Lots has changed. Including something you said hasn't.

[The Straight Story]

13. Ok....

So it is the quantity of guns itself. So if one person owned them all it would be the same?

And what else has changed that we can fix other than trying to ban guns? We have had the tools all along, only now it seems more are using them while less own them.

How do we fix that?

[Gravitycollapse]

16. Proliferation of gun ownership likely alters perceptions of guns and their usage.

So greater ownership might have a causal link to greater violence.

[EC]

10. I think the hate radio and TV all day and all night long

has contributed to it. But as I remember there were the 20's - through prohibition - a lot of open gun play then - until they outlaw machine guns...so take what you will from that.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

15. A culture of entitlement and vanity

Make no mistake guns ARE part of the problem. Nobody needs an AR-15 and nobody needs a 100 round clip. Both are very easy to obtain. Too easy, if you ask me.

That being said the difference might be in that many people believe that their wants and needs rise above those of everyone else.

For example they might believe that their anger over a cheating husband or wife, a driver that cut them off in traffic, a bullying boss and co workers, rises to such a level, and is so righteous, that whatever means they use to "make it right" is completely justified.

This is a culture of vanity and of entitlement and it's more prevalent than ever in our society. What causes that is anyone's guess. I think popular culture contributes to it but is unlikely to be the sole source.

[surrealAmerican]

17. The 1970s were an interesting time.

I'm probably about your age, and you're right - we didn't even think about a shooter coming into our school. What we did think about and prepare for, however, was a nuclear attack.

Perhaps not having the feeling that we all face a common threat has something to do with this.

[4_TN_TITANS]

18. I'm willing to blame much more prevalence of mental illness...

which is clearly a factor in most of these incidents. More mental illnesses and more people willing to 'look the other way', combined with so many who can't get the treatment they need = disaster. In place of the social pressures of the past to act right, we have become a nation of people who don't want to get involved with people who seem off somehow.

[HereSince1628]

19. If you have a link to that 40 year trend in mental illness it'd be great to have...

I think it would be difficult to control such a study for confounding changes during that time.

We are moving into DSM-5. In the early 70's people were using DSM-2

Some diagnoses didn't exist--for example PTSD, which for the last 15 years everyone has been keen on finding and counting in GW-1 and veterans of OIF and OEF as well as latent cases still untreated in vets all the way back to Korea.

Another mental illness that has had questionably "fashionable" trend in increase in prevalence is Bipolar-II.

Increased looking for illness means increased finding of illness


Another problem is that many diagnoses have undergone changes which have expanded the definitions of disorders and therefore are now more inclusive--with resulting increases in frequencies of occurrence.

There is a general tendency in all medical practice to increase sensitivity to detection which pushes reporting higher and higher as diagnoses are changed to make them more inclusive...particularly at the low end of severity of symptoms.

Many diagnoses which are currently treated, but may not have been treated as psychiatric illness in 1970 (insomnia, erectile dysfunction, premenstrual dysphoric disorder) will end being incorporated into an overall prevalence of 'mental illness' for the later end of the time frame.

That distorts the numbers, and so the numbers become misleading.


Worse it conflates the severity of the illnesses and the dangerousness of persons afflicted by them. Most mental illnesse has little to no relevance to social violence, criminal violence or specifically gun violence.

[moondust]

20. Swimming in an ocean of guns.

Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2013, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Your anecdotal evidence of not knowing anybody personally who didn't have guns is pretty weak. Over the long term more and more guns have been sold and I'm not aware of significant efforts to take old, unused guns out of circulation. As the number of guns in circulation keeps growing, responsible control of them becomes more difficult. They get lost, stolen, misplaced, loosely safeguarded, casually left laying around, etc., and thus more readily available to individuals who should not have access to them. There is no way to force each and every lawful gun owner to be a responsible guardian of each and every one of their quick-and-easy death tools and to never flip out and misuse them.