Daryl wrote:This shooting made front page news around the world because of the way it happened, and that one victim was a pretty lady; yet it wasn't even classed as a "mass shooting" in the USA because the definition of that is four or more at one time. The USA apparently has 6.2 "mass shootings" every week.
I'm sure that there are many causes, but the easy availability of guns has to be one, in that there are many similar societies (democratic, free press, well to do) in the world which all have much lower levels of gun murders and gun ownership as the most significant and relevant difference.
Trump has come out saying that it is the level of untreated mentally ill people not guns, but I'm sure that we have similar levels of nutters here, definitely not only 1 in 30 to the USA (as in gun murders).
The shooter's pathetic justification that he was discriminated against because of being black and gay still is no excuse. There are lots of successful people who are black, gay or both; and still no excuse even if it was true.
I'm sure that there is a connection between the USA not having a comprehensive national welfare net, and having far and away the highest incarceration rate. Hell if I had no money I'd steal to feed my family. As to how much that desperation leads to gangs and gun violence I'm unsure, but must be some connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dd_awTN3pkMrs. Hubbard encapsulates the issue nicely.
It's not the comprehensive welfare net per se. It's the repetition to those on welfare that this meager livelihood of theirs is a result of their being victims of discrimination and bigotry. How angry would one feel if one is constantly told that one's poverty is a result of being victimized by some other group? Quite angry. If that state of affairs is true, it must be changed by just about any means necessary. Breaking out via crime or violence becomes more acceptable.
The rise in crime since the 1960's accompanied by the introduction of those social programs reflects the growing pervasiveness of the victim mentality. The sense that the poor minorities are poor because they are the objects of discrimination and bigotry grew. In the 1990's Clinton's signing of welfare reform encouraged poor minorities and a goodly number of generational welfare recipients to seek their opportunities outside the welfare net. They succeeded in growing numbers. These people became not victims but masters of their destiny, or at least able sailors on their own ship navigating the seas of fate. Crime fell and continued to fall through the .com bubble recession as well as the WFC recession. It was not until the past 2 years that crime started to rise again.
The rise in crime is worst in those areas that have had US liberal governance for decades. Places like Chicago and Baltimore have had liberal Democrats running things for decades. These cities have minorities in office. They do not target minorities with discrimination and bigotry. Yet, crime in these cities were the first to reverse their downward trend. That reversal was not sparked by economic difficulty or increase public assistance. The economy has been struggling since 2007 and crime continued to fall until at least 2012. No, the reversal appears to have been sparked by the deaths of Trayvon Martin and especially by Michael Brown.
The circumstances of the deaths of these two individuals have been mischaracterized and spread far and wide. The hands up don't shoot mantra of the Black Lives Matter folks is a case in point. Eye witness and forensic evidence suggests that Mr. Brown did not suffer the fatal shot trying to surrender, but instead he died trying to rush the policeman. That mischaracterization was used to launch a political movement based on reveling in being a victim. The anger at believing one is the object of bigotry and discrimination fuels much of the violence we see and the situation Mrs. Hubbard describes in her rant.
and, Mangy Fur the Smart Alick Spacecat.