What’s the deal with mass shootings in the US? Is it guns? No, because Switzerland has a higher rate of gun ownership than does the US – and many of them keep their military assault rifles in their home – and they don’t have the shootings that we do. We had guns in virtually every American home from the 1600s through the 1800s and did not have this issue. Through the first 70 years of the 1900s, we didn’t have these mass shootings that we do now and yet most homes had firearms in them. So something else is going on. Those who have a gun control agenda see gun control as the answer to all problems but, in nearly every case, they are trying to control a symptom rather than look for a cause. What is the cause? Is it that no one asks or is it that the media doesn’t like the answer? Of those two choices I would hope it is the media hiding the information from us and not that America is too stupid to look for root causes. That seems worse to me.
Mass shooting statistics are clouded because they include people who shoot more than one other person in the completion of a crime and also include gang violence. In other words, if someone robs a bank and shoots the security guard and a couple of people in the bank that is a mass shooting (according to statistics,) and it also includes gang violence and drive-by shootings that are part of a “hit” from a criminal organization (if then just the one target as in a specific “Joe,” but also shot a parent and their child who was standing nearby). This is what you get if you look up Mass Shooting statistics in the National Database and you cannot separate specific information about school shootings from this data.
Further, in surveys the matter of how a question in a study is phrased can radically skew the collected data and you have to pay attention to not only the phrasing of the questions, but also the relevance of the method, the sample used to gather data, and the statistical significance of the study. All of these things are relevant and all of these things are lacking when most sites and media quote statistics. I don’t provide all of this data because, quite frankly, most people don’t want to hear it but if you are not looking at these things then the data is meaningless and so you probably shouldn’t use it and, if you want to draw valid conclusions you must look at these things.
When you see these statistics quoted on the news they act as if they are all relevant to school shootings but they are not. Such inaccuracy muddies the water and is confusing causing us to make mistakes in our attempt to find out why and how to stop school shootings or “going postal.” (One of the first major mass shootings of the type we are talking about here was a US Postal worker who went berserk shooting many people in the 70s. Going postal, at the time, was considered to be a symptom of the stress of the modern environment because before this occurred it was an unheard-of occurrence in the US. Even though most homes in the US have had guns for most of American History these shootings did not occur. When I was young it was not unheard of for students to have their rifles in the gun rack in their pickup at school so they could go hunting on the way home. School shootings were not an issue. So what began to change in the 1970s?
While all of the mass shootings, including gang violence are relevant to any discussion of the breakdown of society – as it is a symptom of societal decay – and the concerted attack to undermine the security and authority of the government, various social and public institutions, spread growing insecurity, breakdown of the family, violent trauma, and abuse all increase in a society that is breaking down; so this can, indeed, be laid at the feet of Neo-Marxist rhetoric that is undermining our society and families and has been doing so for over 60 years.
Yet when most people talk about mass shooters they are thinking of the people who just go out and start shooting up a school or a mall and not about gangs and criminal violence from organizations. Lets look at data specifically regarding our topic. But even here data can be confused.
I saw one ridiculous statistic “We Have Already Had 213 Mass Shootings This Year.” No, we have not had 213 school, store, or workplace shootings this year but this is what you get when people talk who don’t understand statistics or who purposely misuse them for political purposes. As my Statistic instructor at the University said on the opening day of class: If you want to lie to somebody use statistics. That is because whatever you want to prove can be proven depending on how you order and collect the data. Too many surveys and too much data today are either irrelevant or purposely misleading and used to promote ideological dogma.
Because so many people and reporters have never taken a statistics class and don’t understand how statistics are used or gathered most media and articles simply quote statistics as if they are relevant when they are not. So a reporter or politician may not be trying to delude you – even though they are deluding you.
For these reasons most of the data you read on mass shooters is bullsh*t. Most articles I have read are extremely unclear about where they get their data from and what that data encompasses but of those that do list their source most drew them from national statistics and we have already talked about the problem there. Others conflate data that are not relevant to the matter being discussed. I had to watch hours of videos and read many studies to get the data I wanted. It’s almost as if it was hidden but never blame conspiracy for what can be blamed on stupidity and ignorance (both of which are much more common.) [See also: https://sabersedge.online/dont-be-fooled-about-conspiracy-theories ]
As an example of poorly done information, I have often cited Snopes and other “fact checks.” Too often they seem to have an agenda and their analysis is as misleading as the data they are “debunking.” Case in point I looked at a Fact Check by them that dismissed an article that 26 out of 27 mass shooters come from fatherless homes. As stated this was false and it was bad data. However, Snopes did tell you (if you read the entire article,) that of the 7 most deadly mass shootings perpetrated by shooters under 30 only one out of seven of them had the biological father in the home. If you just read the initial statement by Snopes you would get the impression that a relationship between absent fathers and mass shootings does not exist but 6 out of 7 is a significant number and substantiates the idea presented by the original article about the relevance of fatherless-ness in this issue even if the statistic quoted was false.
Snopes did list six shooters (of the 27,) that did have fathers in the home (which does indeed debunk the exact statistic – but not the general idea,) This would also would seem to indicate that the spirit of the article may be correct. So, if only 6 of the 27 had fathers does that disprove that an absence of a father’s parental influence may be involved in the mass shooter phenomena? Of course, it doesn’t. Further, Snopes offered no information (perhaps because it was not available,) as to if the 6 fathers were the biological fathers or if they were stepfathers of the shooters. Considering that a greater amount of the violence and abuse in the home occurs in homes where there is a stepfather or the mother’s boyfriend this could be relevant. (Please don’t assume I am dissing Step Fathers…I am one.) But the statistics on this matter are clear. A great deal of serious abuse that does occur, occurs in homes with a stepfather or the mother’s boyfriend as the perpetrator. This is more common than in households where children are raised by both of their two biological parents. As you read on you will find that childhood trauma is a shared characteristic of most Mass Shooters.
Snopes was correct in that they pointed out how difficult it is to get accurate information on this subject and, I wonder, why is that? Are we so superficial of a society that no one tries to find out why something occurs or is the data found but unpublished because it runs counter to the media narrative? The answer to this is unclear as I used several different search engines and the original data was generally obscured by articles that didn’t answer this question.
If, as an investigator, I found out that mass shooters were the product of neglect, family trauma, etc. the next question I would ask is about the family environment that they were raised in. Yet, I have noted, that our society doesn’t print statistics that it doesn’t like, and it doesn’t like to print anything that notes the fact that broken families are the major and disproportionate source of all crime statistics in the US. [See: https://sabersedge.online/live-not-by-lies-vote-for-truth ]
As for school and public mass shooters that we ARE talking about 80% of school shooters broadcast their intent ahead of time, the great majority of mass shooters are alienated from their parents, all of them have threatened or talked about suicide and virtually all of them expect to die in the shooting event. In an overwhelming number of cases people around them state that they thought something was wrong but they didn’t tell anyone. In other cases, they DID tell someone, and no action was taken by the school, law enforcement, or both. All the signs of danger are consistently ignored in these cases and, indeed, being ignored, neglected, and or bullied is a common complaint of nearly all mass shooters in their “manifestos.”
Many are on anti-depressants or in withdrawal from them so this could be relevant. However, it is different from saying that anti-depressants or SSRI drugs are the cause. Not everyone who takes or stops these drugs is going to become a mass shooter, not even a large number are. However, it is an indicator that these shooters have recognizable mental issues. British Psychiatrist Dr. Healy stated that nearly all of these mass shooters are either on anti-depressants or in withdrawal from them especially withdrawal from SSRIs or Selective Serotonin Retake Inhibitors (such as Zoloft, Paxil, Escitalopram, Fluoxetine, Citalopram, Lexapro, and others). Now I know people who take these who haven’t shot anybody. And I have seen how medication can be helpful to regulate the behavior of people and make them productive members of society. But I have also seen cases where the common American response seems to be to throw drugs at a problem and treat the symptoms without addressing the underlying problem or cause of the issues [See also: https://sabersedge.online/why-are-we-being-gaslighted-by-government-healthcare-and-media ]. I have seen boys who were diagnosed with ADHD when, in my opinion, they just needed room and time to play and be boys. Our society is not structured in a way favorable to growing up male.
In short, it appears that the best thing we could do to prevent mass shootings is to help people who are in crisis, identify the underlying problems, and openly recognize that boys who are raised in fatherless homes overwhelmingly demonstrate behavioral issues up to and including mass shootings. While the number may not be 26 out of 27 it is still a significant proportion and we need to face up to it.
Until our media can get past political dogma, favoritism, and telling people what they want to hear these problems will not only continue but they will get worse and until America is ready to seriously ask why AND HEAR THE ANSWER all we will get from legislators are ineffective half measures. I have heard it said that we know when the right has gone too far (i.e. Nazis and KKK,) but we don’t know what it looks like when the left has gone too far. Well, we are seeing that now in our society, broken homes, chaos in large cities, and continuing issues that the left has no answers for and which each of their solutions makes problems worse. In my opinion, Leftism that has gone too far begins with sayings that are derived from Communist rhetoric and are multiplied when society has been cut off from any meaningful relationship to standards, morals, and societal institutions and values. [For more see my article that includes the 45 goals of Communists ] When everything is relative nothing has meaning. As philosophers have repeatedly pointed out, you cannot simultaneously doubt everything (as Foucault does). You must choose to stand somewhere. Choosing to stand in the Neo-Marxist camp and to repeat ideas that can be traced back to their rhetoric historically brings death, despair, oppression, and stagnation and this is what we are seeing today. Such rhetoric is obfuscating the problem of Mass Shooters.