What's the root cause of all this? You can't fight gun violence without knowing this...

[WarGamer]

Let's start with a given.

GUNS ARE CLEARLY THE TOOL OF THE MASS MURDERER.







Having said that... where is the anger, aggression, violence and resentment coming from that pulls the trigger??

These are not mentally healthy young (mostly) men??

WHERE is this coming from?

[Novara]

1. toxic masculinity

We teach it to our boys from the time they're born. We excuse it. We allow it to proliferate. We do nothing to stop it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Our country is profoundly sick, and a lot of it has to do with white supremacy.

White supremacy is what dictates there's a certain way to live -- certain markers of success, certain manners and mannerisms that say you belong, certain things that mean you're deserving of help and attention and a hand up, knowing that the system works because it works for you. Our country is built upon it and protects it. Toxic masculinity is white supremacy. The concept of the nuclear family and all that entails is white supremacy. Rugged individualism is white supremacy. It's hard to see sometimes because it's not always based exactly on race -- people who aren't white often destroy themselves trying to attain it. When your very culture advertises itself as a zero-sum game that only some can win at, those who perceive themselves as losing are going to fall into despair, and lash out at others or themselves.

We know what prevents crime. We refuse to build a society that fosters that prevention, and the results are all around us.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

5. +1000 n/t

[jmbar2]

11. Bingo

[anarch]

3. I suspect a lot of it is a feeling of hopelessness and nihilism among the youth

because of the obviously impending doom of the climate crisis, and the grinding alienation of capitalist society. The younger generations have a number of valid reasons to feel like their future is going to be truly fucked, and nobody is doing anything about any of it, they feel powerless, and one way to feel like you have power is to lash out at the world and do as much damage as you can before you go out in a blaze of glory. Our society is truly sick.

[haele]

4. They are not emotionally healthy. Mental illness is an excuse for them.

They are still emotionally six, and their parents, peers or community at large have taken the easy way out trying to install a sense of emotional well-being.
They are angry, and the gun becomes a great equalizer to use to punish the society that infantalizes or otherwise belittles them.

They're being taught that bullies have privilege. Wonder who, what real life role models in society teaches them that?

Haele

[cilla4progress]

6. We also glorify violence in our culture. Which also feeds toxic masculinity.

Try to watch anything about history and it always comes back to violence. And yes, "we" (the dominant White culture) waged a lot of violence - wars, genocide. And it cannot be minimized. But other stuff happened, too, some of it worth reporting!

Also - and I know this is an R talking point, but I gotta agree - our "entertainment" is SO filled with violence it's obscene.

I would love to watch a film about Vikings, for example, but goddess forbid I should try to watch Northmen! How graphic does it need to be to get the point across. Yeah, the intellectual argument can be and is, well, it's reality. But, please - films and video games fantasizing about rape and murder. Dating back to Hitchcock. Just face it - western civilization, and US in particular, is a bloody, violence-filled culture. Blood lust. Does not bode well.

[Sympthsical]

7. I think whatever answers you get

Will fit neatly into narratives that coincidentally suit worldview and partisan political affiliation.

So, it won't be a particularly useful exercise. There's no point. At this level of polarization, not only are neither side prepared to have a conversation, neither side is willing to do the work of self-reflection on how they contribute to our current cultural environment.

Why this is happening is complicated, and complicated answers do not provide comfort nor absolve blame.

As a result, we'll get a flood of simple answers, then observe with marveled wonder why nothing changes.

My short, short, short answer: A sense of marginalization combined with easy access to guns.

The Right is responsible for the access, and they stoke the embers of resentment and marginalization. Our part in the resentment and marginalization is murkier and would involve self-awareness, reflection, and changes in approach.

So that discussion is not in the offing.

[XanaDUer2]

8. It is long past time

For national health that includes substantial mental- health treatment.

[EarlG]

9. Same place it comes from in not mentally healthy young men all over the world

The difference being that in this country we don’t just make it super easy for them to possess the tools to commit mass murder, we tell them that if they don’t possess these tools they’re not even a real man.

[jmbar2]

10. The desire to dominate and have power over others. Usually by weak men.

Every atrocity in the world right now is coming from men feeling entitled to dominate and control others. Weapons and wealth give them the means to do so at horrific scale.

There has to be a way to deconstruct the delusion that they are entitled to dominate.