Mass shootings are about isolation, anger — not religion or ethnicity

[struggle4progress]

By The BDN Editorial Board
Posted June 23, 2016, at 11:05 a.m.

After a tragic event, like the killing of 49 at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, it is human nature to seek simple explanations, maybe even to point fingers of blame. It is easiest to point to those who are different from ourselves, as if to say “people like me don’t do things like that.”

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, played on such emotions — and took them to his usual extreme — when he called for racial profiling to stop future attacks and then blamed Muslims for not turning in radicals, such as the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen ...

There are commonalities among the male shooters in the long string of mass killings. They were disconnected from their communities and peers, showed disdain and often hatred for those who are different from them and had a hypersensitivity to any perceived slights that often turned to rage.

Radical Muslim groups prey on these feelings. So do white supremacist groups ...

https://bangordailynews.com/2016/06/23/opinion/editorials/mass-shootings-are-about-isolation-anger-not-religion-or-ethnicity/

[niyad]

1. "Radical Muslim groups prey on these feelings. So do white supremacist groups"

That second sentence is a fact that many would like us to forget.

[Brettongarcia]

2. Why do many criminals cite religion as their motive?

[struggle4progress]

3. Where are your statistics?

[Brettongarcia]

5. On DU we looked many individual cases

Precursors to case studies in effect.

See below for statistical overview

[Brettongarcia]

8. Stats for "many"?

[struggle4progress]

4. There were about 670K aggravated assaults in the US in 2014. About 600 were hate crimes.

Of the 5479 hate crimes in 2014, about 1014 involved religious targets, Jews and Muslims being the top two targets. So we should estimate about 600*(1014/5479)/670K = 0.0002 = 0.02% of criminal assaults are religiously motivated

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2014/tables/table-1
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-15
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2014/tables/table-2

[Brettongarcia]

6. Your stat overview is wrong

Many hate crimes against a given religion are committed by another religion. Christians against Jews and so forth.

Many hate crimes against nonreligious targets are by religions. Christians against secular gays.

Religions are represented heavily in both victims and perpetrators.

[Brettongarcia]

7. Counting religious wars

As criminal, the number increases fantastically.

[Brettongarcia]

9. Leaving our question unanswered

Why do many indicate themselves that religion is their motive?

[Humanist_Activist]

10. Wouldn't many of the hate crimes committed against the LGBT community...

be religiously motivated, or do they not count?

[rug]

11. Hate crimes are determined by the targets of the crime, not the motives of the criminal.

[Brettongarcia]

12. This by legal convention only

If we enlarge the scope to include motives, for purposes of sociological understanding, then suddenly the picture changes radically.

Leaving our important question still unanswered: why do so many perpetrators in effect claim religion as their motive in part?

[rug]

13. Crimes are legal conventions.

Regarding crimes, contrary to the strained posts in here, few have religious motives.

[Humanist_Activist]

14. Why are you moving the goalposts? We are talking about specific crimes...

namely hate crimes of a violent nature(mostly assaults). Are you concluding that only a few of those have religious motivations?

[rug]

16. Answering a question, particularly one with a false premise, is not moving goalposts.

And yes, that is what I'm saying. There are far more hate cries whose targets are based on race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, or disability than religion. Religiously motivated hate crimes were17.1% of all hate crimes in 2014, in contrast to 79.1% motivated by race, ethnicity, gender orientation or identity

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2014/topic-pages/incidentsandoffenses_final

[rug]

19. Gibberish.

[Brettongarcia]

21. "Muslim groups prey on these feelings"

In other words? Religion exploits and intensifies or uses feelings of alienation, anger and so forth.

So religion adds to any root causes. And makes them worse.

[Humanist_Activist]

15. That can't be true, if I attacked someone at a bar for, I don't know, being an asshole...

let's say he insulted my girlfriend of something, and he just happens to be gay, I would get charged with simple assault, not with a hate crime(with sentencing enhancement). However, if I were, for example, in a group of students from a particular religious school, and we decided to attack a gay couple for BEING a gay couple, that's a hate crime with a religious motivation, is it not?

[rug]

17. I stand corrected. Both elements are necessary: motive and perceived category.

18 U.S. Code § 249 - Hate crime acts

(a) In General.—
(1)Offenses involving actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin.—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person—
(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and
(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if—
(i) death results from the offense; or
(ii) the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt

(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.—
(A)In general.—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person—
(i) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and
(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if—
(I) death results from the offense; or
(II) the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.

However, you're wrong that an attack on a gay couple is motivated by religion; it's motivated ny homophobia. What motivated the assailant's homophobia is a different question. One whose ansdwer is not as simplistic as you suggest. They were attacked because of their perceived orientation, not because of their religion.

If two Hasidic men were attacked and it it turns out they were gay, that would not be a hate crime motivated by their perceived religion, not their perceived orientation. TIn short, this would be considered a hate crime because it was triggered by the criminal's hatred for religion, not that religion inspired him to commit a crime of hate.

[Brettongarcia]

20. Christianity often attacked Sodom, homosexuality

Thereby increasing homophobia. And punishment, executions, of gays.

A legal procedure that would today be considered a crime.

[rug]

22. 90% of what humans did 2,500 years ago would be considered crimes today.