How much longer until mass shootings make us hermits?

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Two more multiple fatality mass shootings last night.

Right now despite all the talk and anguish it is not affecting much. Public gathering places are crowded, schools that are not out for summer vacation are still open. People seem to understand that their chances of being victim of a mass shooter are smaller that many other daily activities.

The hope is like in the past, the wave will crest and semi normalcy will return until the next wave. This time seems different. The mass shootings are more lethal, more often and with many different motivations. Even in attacks targeted at individuals the shooters do not seem to care what innocent people are collateral damage.

Regular old crime has messed up the economy and led to desolate streets plenty of times before. I think we are closer to the tipping point where a significant number of people do start to hibernate then realized. When schools reopen in September how many attacks will it take for parents to conclude America is simply unable to protect their children, we go back to optional in person learning certain school districts throw up their hands and close schools? After all the angst and fighting over COVID to get schools it gets undone. Catastrophic for a whole generation.

Even if the worst happens their are positive scenarios.

One is that the economy shutting down finally forces the politicians to act.

Two is that we show fortitude like the British during the blitz or Israelis during terrorist waves. Debris, blood, and bodies cleaned up, everybody carries on with daily life.

I see nothing to indicate those happening here.

Does anyone have a clue as to what's changed over the last few decades?

Gun ownership has always been high in the US but this sudden explosion of mass shootings over the last 20 years is baffling.

So much has changed over the last few decades, pick 1, pick them all. In many ways our lives have little resemblance to the analogue era.

I'm already a hermit, not through mass shootings, but through gang-stalkings.
It is quite a pleasant, peaceful lifestyle, actually.

Bad wording on my part for this forum. People who are not natural hermits panicked into becoming one is bad for a number of reasons.

Covid made everyone a hermit last year.

Mass shootings are obviously a problem, but they dont make us into "hermits". Though they might force you to homeschool your kids.

And since most parents do not have the skills to adequately give children a proper education, that is really bad.

The ascendency of Trump and the Christian Nationalist movement.

Life stress and complexity has gone up massively.

Many drugs prescribed to deal with the fallout of all this stress induced mental illness probably has many side effects.

Diet is a factor too. All the crap that goes in food along with illegal drugs that were rare in the old days has an impact on mental health.

One of the contributing factors is that they’ve happened before. If this weren’t the case, maybe a school shooter wouldn’t think of it and would opt for a different brand of villainy.

I have to wonder what happened.My generation ate lots of food with dyes , wonder bread ,tons of sugar ,watched violent cartoons, read violent books that were required reading(Lord of the Flies), tv violence , etc… and we didn’t have mass shootings every week and there were plenty of guns laying around.
Our main goal was to sneak off during a pep rally or assembly to smoke weed and cigarettes, not kill the teacher.

Kudos for noticing the best counter argument against the current narrative - America has a much longer and richer history of gun ownership than of school shootings. Britain too, used to have gun laws so liberal it would make Texas squirm while also having very low levels of crime in general, let alone gun crime.



My money is on drugs, legal and illegal:
https://nypost.com/2019/08/07/the-link- ... -we-think/

Not that it will ever be properly investigated with the demented push for more legalisation because, alas, popular opinion is on the other side. Could there be something to the old canard of "reefer madness"? I don't know, but shooting up a school seems fairly mad to me.

It was initially reported in the NYT that Ramos was a regular weed smoker - then it was quickly deleted for mysterious reasons.

Ah, Trump and Christians, of course. I'm pretty sure Trump and Putin collaborated to assassinate magz's hamster too.

/\ More likely the easy availability of meth.It’s wasn’t around when I was in high school.Weed and pharmaceuticals were.Looking at my county’s jail roster, most violent offenders also have a meth possession charge.
However they are probably smoking pot AND meth.They also like to abuse Xanax so they can sleep.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewc ... cjpeerpubs

Maybe my opinion will be unpopular, but I really don’t find the current situation that surprising. There are
evil people who like hurting others, even children. Give those people access to guns, and this is what happens.

While this is horrific, many horrific things intentionally caused by horrific people happen all the time in the world and always have.

The internet and social media, I think play a large role in this. The more connected we've become the easier it is influence and bully other people. Whatever ideas you have on any topic it is very easy to find those who are like-minded regardless of how fantastical your beliefs may be. Cults can flourish online. QAnon reached around the globe. It's easy to bully another person hiding behind a screen. When I was growing up, if you got bullied at school, you could get some peace at home after school. Today, kids deal with a barrage of hateful comments and bullying 24/7. They don't get any peace. Countless children have committed suicide due to bullying on social media. Others go shoot up their school.