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Cont: Today's Mass Shooting (part 3)

Parsman said:
The narrative is Americans of every colour, faith and ideology kill other Americans with guns at a rate that bewiders those of us who live elsewhere in the Western world. And sure, it seems a lot of it is crime and gang related but there is a significant proportion of mass killings that seem to be promoted by racism, often expressed through white supremacy. You can't ignore any of these motivations if you wabt to fix your problems, and at the moment white supremacy is especially worrying as it seems to have dug its claws deep into one of your major political parties.
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It may seem that way, but white supremacy is a relatively small contributor to mass shootings. So small, in fact, that when it does happen - such as the Jacksonville shooting -- it receives excessive attention and leads to the misapprehension among the general public that it's more significant than it is.

Fact is, most mass shootings are black on black, as we know, but the average person seems to believe that the majority are perpetrated by white right wingers for racist motives.

And that's a false narrative.
 
it's not that they're responsible for the most, the narrative is that racially motivated right wing mass shooters are the most deranged
 
Ron Obvious said:
What a strange thing to say. How would you quantify that?
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not particularly strange to me, but then again we probably have some different views on the role of racists in society. anyway, maybe after the shooter kills himself we could count how many racist manifestos he's written, that's quantifiable.
 
Another reason that white shooters get more press is the higher kill rate and overall body count. In the last half dozen or so mass shootings posted here, it's been about zero blackshooters actually killing anyone but multiple wounded, and white shooters killing 100% of their victims, and multiple dead. Dead bodies grab headlines more so than injuries.

And of course, a manifesto type shooter carries that message of "these crackpots might choose your grocery store to open fire in next time", as opposed to the private party argument that gets out of hand, which is not likely to impact you personally. It's a "closed society" versus "random public" fear
 
Ron Obvious said:
It may seem that way, but white supremacy is a relatively small contributor to mass shootings. So small, in fact, that when it does happen - such as the Jacksonville shooting -- it receives excessive attention and leads to the misapprehension among the general public that it's more significant than it is.

Fact is, most mass shootings are black on black, as we know, but the average person seems to believe that the majority are perpetrated by white right wingers for racist motives.

And that's a false narrative.
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Yes, exactly. There is nothing differentiating these shootings from other shootings. They are all the same. Everything is exactly that same as everything else.
 
I pity the US,

Sure, I don't have the freedom to buy a gun, but when I have to start teaching again next week, I also don't have to prepare my students for gun nuts. If I walk trough someone's private property by accident I need not worry I can be shot.
If I walk trough a city at night I have never ever worried about any form of shooting happening.
And as for protecting myself against the government taking away my rights... In the most gun loving parts of the US the rights of half the population are being rapidly stripped and yet no armed rebellions seem to take place, so... yeah.
 
Ron Obvious said:
It may seem that way, but white supremacy is a relatively small contributor to mass shootings. So small, in fact, that when it does happen - such as the Jacksonville shooting -- it receives excessive attention and leads to the misapprehension among the general public that it's more significant than it is.

Fact is, most mass shootings are black on black, as we know, but the average person seems to believe that the majority are perpetrated by white right wingers for racist motives.

And that's a false narrative.
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Are you denying that white supremacy and racism are not making huge inroads into the republican party? (Hint - look at Tennessee, or Florida, or any state that clains they have to fight CRT)
 
Parsman said:
Are you denying that white supremacy and racism are not making huge inroads into the republican party? (Hint - look at Tennessee, or Florida, or any state that clains they have to fight CRT)
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I'm not even addressing that particular point with what I said. All I did say, was that black on black shooting comprise the vast majority of gun violence (as backed up by e.g. gunviolencearchive.org), but that for some reason, this reality is ignored and neglected by most in the media in favour of vastly overstating the risks to black Americans from white supremacists because it's apparently the preferred narrative.

It's not helpful.
 
Violence perpetrated against someone with whom there is a connection, or from whom a slight has been suffered, is one thing. That's a beef.

But an attack from someone utterly unknown and for no reason is quite another. That's terrorism.

The former is something we have some measure of control over, even if slight. The latter is as near to utter randomness as can be perceived. One of the greatest fears is of loss of control. It lies at the core of terrorism.

And so a partygoer who starts blasting because his ego was stung is not the same as some rando appearing totally out of the blue with body armor and an AR. In my previous post I identified the apologist's penchant for false equivalency here. Too many USAians take this position, and so bugger all will be done to stem the shameful cataract of blood.
 
Hercules56 said:
Most mass shootings are not done by black people. FACT.
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Eh.

Last year, there were at least 358 armed encounters nationwide — nearly one a day, on average — in which four or more people were killed or wounded, including attackers. The toll: 462 dead and 1,330 injured, sometimes for life, typically in bursts of gunfire lasting but seconds. We identified and analyzed each of these shootings.
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Overall, though, nearly three-fourths of victims and suspected assailants whose race could be identified were black. Some experts suggest that helps explain why the drumbeat of dead and wounded does not inspire more outrage.
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Untold damage: America's overlooked gun violence
 
Trausti said:
Eh.





Untold damage: America's overlooked gun violence
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Sorry but I follow the old fashioned standard definition of "mass-shooting", and that is a planned attack upon random individuals, usually motivated by some sort of social grudge or mental illness.

These gang and crime related shootings of multiple people don't count. But yes if we simply count a mass shooting as any event where more than three people are shot then black people are the great majority of mass-shooters. But it would be very politically incorrect to say so so be quiet.
 
Bogative said:
Yesterday's mass shooting has prompted the Orange County Register to publish an article today covering prior mass shootings that occurred in Orange County, California.


It is a great example of reality vs the narrative.

A breakdown of the shooters:

David Wenwei Chou – Asian

Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez – Latino

Scott Evans Dekraai – White

Edward Charles Allaway – White

Christopher Dorner – Black

Arturo Reyes Torres – Latino

Ali Syed – Middle Eastern

John Snowling – White

Of the 8 mass shooters, only 3 of them are white.
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As it becomes more and more clear that under the current definition of mass shooting white people are not the majority of mass shooters, folks will obviously decide to revert to the old fashioned definition of mass shooting which involves pre-planned attacks upon random people due to a social grudge or mental illness. Those events are always majority white people.
 
Hercules56 said:
As it becomes more and more clear that under the current definition of mass shooting white people are not the majority of mass shooters, folks will obviously decide to revert to the old fashioned definition of mass shooting which involves pre-planned attacks upon random people due to a social grudge or mental illness. Those events are always majority white people.
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This entire deflection is rooted in the difference between a colloquial use of the term "mass shooting", which is sometimes lazily used to mean terror attack spree shooting, and the more correct, technical definition that includes all gun crimes that involve multiple victims.

Sure, people probably ought not use the terms interchangeably (gun terror attacks are a type of mass shooting, but not all mass shootings are terror attacks), but it's usually pretty obvious what is meant by the term when used in context.

There's probably a lot to be said about why society is generally less outraged by the steady baseline of gun crime endemic to certain impoverished, urban areas, but that's another topic entirely and not really a good excuse to play dumb and pretend to not understand what's being discussed.

I'm really curious what reactionaries and racists actually intend when they bring up endemic gun crime in poor, often black, neighborhoods, because it's not like the right wing in this country actually supports meaningfully addressing intense poverty that drives crime in these communities or supports any serious gun control that would actually have an impact on the ready access to guns. As far as I can tell, pointing to black crime is merely a red herring that's not meant to delved into much deeper. Gangland shootings occur in certain poor neighborhoods, therefore white supremacists and incels can have a few terror shootings from time to time as a treat.
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
This entire deflection is rooted in the difference between a colloquial use of the term "mass shooting", which is sometimes lazily used to mean terror attack spree shooting, and the more correct, technical definition that includes all gun crimes that involve multiple victims.

Sure, people probably ought not use the terms interchangeably (gun terror attacks are a type of mass shooting, but not all mass shootings are terror attacks), but it's usually pretty obvious what is meant by the term when used in context.

There's probably a lot to be said about why society is generally less outraged by the steady baseline of gun crime endemic to certain impoverished, urban areas, but that's another topic entirely and not really a good excuse to play dumb and pretend to not understand what's being discussed.

I'm really curious what reactionaries and racists actually intend when they bring up endemic gun crime in poor, often black, neighborhoods, because it's not like the right wing in this country actually supports meaningfully addressing intense poverty that drives crime in these communities or supports any serious gun control that would actually have an impact on the ready access to guns. As far as I can tell, pointing to black crime is merely a red herring that's not meant to delved into much deeper. Gangland shootings occur in certain poor neighborhoods, therefore white supremacists and incels can have a few terror shootings from time to time as a treat.
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The current political mantra is that there is a mass shooting in the United States at least once a day, and that is why we must do something to stop it. But the only way to justify such a number is by going by the very general definition of one shooting event where more than three people are shot. And the vast majority of such shootings are not committed by white people, and this fact is highly problematic for certain agendas.

This is just one of the several reasons why I prefer the old fashioned definition of mass shooting, which severely reduces the number of mass shootings that take place in the USA every year but also relegates such events mostly to terrorists, racists and crazy people.
 
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