Not so quiet desperation

[hyphenate]

Another shoot-out, more deaths, suicide and devastation. When is it going to make people realize that all these shooting episodes are directly linked to the events that are taking place in DC? When is it going to finally reach a point where all these people killing others and then themselves are going to find other ways to make their murder sprees, and make mass murder even more deadly?

We live in terrible times. People are losing hope by the second. They're lonely, desperate, broken, and frustrated. There is no way that this is going to stop, until there is hope again for people to cling to. Not until that moment when the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen.

These people in DC, OUR government, are murderers, if not actually of the victims of these shooting sprees, of the spirit that created this country and has kept it alive. There won't be any let-up of these things--there isn't going to be a way to stop them from the deadly frustration they feel.

It's not only here in the US, but these attacks are getting more numerous, and more publicized. People have a breaking point, and the current affairs are making some reach that point earlier. There are other reasons, of course, but people who would have never acted on their impulses are unable to stave off those feeling anymore.

Until we have some world stability again, these attacks are only going to get more deadly and more frequently.

[monmouth]

1. Getting rid of guns might be helpful...n/t

[TheWraith]

2. Not really. The UK did that. Their murder rate stayed exactly the same. nt

[hyphenate]

7. I'm definitely not a gun advocate

myself, but while there is a correlation between guns and murders, it's not necessarily the guns themselves that are deadly, but the people who don't know anything about guns which are the real problem. Responsible gun owners are more likely to teach family members about guns and weaponry, while it's often those who know less about them that do a lot of murder sprees. Nowadays, guns become part of an emotional release--letting off "steam" now has a deadly association with it.

My brother has had many guns and rifles over the years, but he kept ammunition and the firearms in different parts of the house, my two nephews were taught about them, and they only time other than shooting ranges that he ever used them was in defending himself and my nephews from a rattlesnake when they were out in the desert.

Let's face it--of it wasn't guns, it would have been a bow and arrow, a knife, a mace, a laser, or some other deadly force. (In my own case, it would have been a squirt gun, or one of those super squishy things. :))

[TheWraith]

3. More publicized yes, more numerous--that's actually questionable.

See "summer of the shark." Something can be PERCEIVED as more numerous, without actually being more numerous, by virtue of getting attention.

Not to minimize your point about people snapping, but it's important to base these estimations on real-world statistics. As a society we, and particularly mass media, have a long history of jumping to conclusions and even alarmism over things which, viewed objectively, are not actually the case. Most people would say the world is more dangerous today than it was 20 years ago--but actually in the interim, violent crime in the US has dropped massively, to the lowest levels since the 1960s.

[hyphenate]

6. That is true

Perception is higher because communication is higher.

Sort of like all these sex abuse cases, or anything that needed to be hidden years ago, because there are more people reporting on incidents in the past. Spousal abuse, for example, has been going on since time immemorial, but women were less likely to report it in a world of other men, with women having so little in the way of rights. Men who abused their wives or girlfriends weren't afraid of what would happen to them, and would simply abuse even more under such circumstances. It wasn't until women had more ways to combat an abusive SO that it became much better recognized.

[TheWraith]

8. Exactly. Sometimes it's perceived as more common; sometimes we're now seeing what's already there.

You offered some examples of the latter. Right now I have no doubt that spousal abuse is probably at all time historical lows, as we have a generation marrying now which has never lived in an environment where it was acceptable.

As to the former, a good example is child kidnapping. Leaving aside kidnappings by parents, relatives, or guardians, which are almost always related to custody disputes, you know how many child abductions there are by strangers in the US in a year? If someone were asked to guess, they'd probably say thousands, given how often it's on the TV. The actual answer is 100 to 150. That's literally one per year in a city of 2 or 3 million people. But because we see it all the time on the news, it's perceived as being common, so much so that people are afraid to let their kids out of their sight.

[hyphenate]

9. Damned if they do or damned if they don't

People flock to absilutes. They can't see what's in the middle--to many, there is no middle ground.

I remember as a child when I would go to the store for my mom and neighbors--I was about 7. The store was a couple of blocks away. I went alone. At another time, I led a group of kids about two miles away along railroad tracks, to my aunt's, and my uncle drove us all home. I doubt if I would allow a 7 year old that much freedom now--I don't think I would allow a 15 year ols to go that far!

Abductions are definitely one of those areas of concern when it comes to safety. I don't know how I would be with kids around. I think it's a tough job for a good parent to keep their kids safe without going to the extreme either way.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. We don't know the motive yet.

Someone might have lost their job because they were abusive to an employer or a customer.

Someone might have had a beef with someone over a woman or a man.

We have a tendency to assume everyone is as in tune with what is going on politically or in Washington as the rest of us and it all stems from that. Truth is, we all live in a bubble as to what causes these things.

[hyphenate]

5. The point is

all of those possibilities are still connected--the current political situation pervades our lives, no matter whether it's on a business level, a personal level, or any other levell, really. People are becoming too tightly wound, and their breaking point becomes lower, and people just go off at some point.

Losing a house, a job, a spouse or ay other kind of loss can be correlated to the emotional upheaval we are feeling. We're worse off today than we were 11 years ago, though the Clinton years were years of growth, but 43's reign of terror certainly has been anything but pleasant for most anyone under the income level of millionnaires. We have nothing to hope for, and nothing to be optimistic about.