I don’t think it’s just a “white male” issue. The Virginia Tech shooting, for example, was done by an Asian male. I think there was another college shooting in Washington also done by an Asian male, and when I went poking around looking for it, I ran into this set of statistics:
Ignoring the “other and unknown” categories, if this website is correct, we get:
63% White
18% African American
7.8% Hispanic
7.8% Asian
[Edit] Slate has an article on this:
It’s pretty detailed, but the bottom line is “ the data don’t support the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme.“
Overrepresented or not, if we could keep white guys from going on shooting sprees we could eliminate up to 63% of them (shooting sprees, not white guys). Maybe it’s a place to start.
It’s not a myth. No one is claiming it’s hundred percent white men. They are hugely over-represented, and I didn’t reference mass shootings, I am talking about school shootings, mass shootings at schools. And if you like that stat, guess what else is over-presented compared to their percentage of the population.
So how about we start with the biggest group, or is that suddenly not okay anymore when the biggest group is the one not used to being studied like that?
A new thought-provoking explanation (besides too many entrances and exits at schools) has been provided by Lt Governor Dan Patrick of Texas, abortion and video games.
Abortions and ‘broken’ families
“We have 50 million abortions. We have families that are broken apart, no fathers at home. We have incredible heinous violence as a [video] game, two hours a day in front of their eyes. And we stand here and we wonder why this happens to certain students.”
“Abortions” is a stupid way to put it, but society probably needs to have a discussion about why modern young men are so fucked up that they need to shoot everyone at a school. Shotguns and .38 pistols have been around for a while, right? What’s changed? Certainly not P&R’s favorite bogeymen like evangelicals, whatever that has to do with it.
So whether it’s incapable or absent fathers, changing gender roles and feminism that leave boys and young men confused, or social media platforms that increase feelings of isolation and also supercharge sociopathic thoughts and copycat crimes, something is different.
But that’s the root of the problem. I recognize that’s far more difficult to hack at than the branches, especially when you’re looking for an easy top-down band-aid like a federal law to try to solve the problem. I get it. People are dying and we need some sort of rickety short-term fix.
Not trying to nitpick your post, but feminism kind of jumped out at me. Why would feminism leave boys confused? Especially confused to the point of wanting to shoot up a school.
I was just wondering if you could expand a bit by what you meant because I didn’t follow.
I’m sure he’s talking about the impact of feminism on boys that haven’t been properly raised to contextualize it. It’s not a feminism issue as much as a parenting and societal issue.
I’m sincerely sorry for being the slow kid in the class, but I’m again not following. Properly raised to contextualize what? That women are and should be treated as equals and can do things that men can do? I’m guessing it’s not that, so I’m obviously missing context myself.
Germany, Finland, and Scotland have also responded to attacks on schools with big policy changes. And they’ve reduced school shootings to zero over the last decade, unlike the United States, where the carnage continues.
“The difference here is that Europe actually reacted and implemented changes to stop those shootings,” said Rick Noack of the Washington Post via Skype.
He points to Switzerland, where gun ownership is high. but school shootings are non-existent. Gun buyers are subjected to a weeks-long background check, and the authorities keep a list of two thousand people they fear may become school shooters.
“So what they do is visit those people with psychologists, they actively reach out to them and get in a discussion with them,” said Noack.
He said there’s been little debate in Switzerland about confronting people before they’ve committed any crime, which is something that might raise civil liberties questions in the U.S.
In Germany, if you’re under 25, you have to pass a rigorous psychological and medical exam if you want to buy a gun. And teachers in every school are trained to intervene with troubled students and get them help.
Exactly that. Women aren’t damsels in distress, sexual props, or conniving bitches as they’re depicted in 99% of popular media. You have parents and teachers saying women are capable independent beings worth as much as men, while at the same time women are conquests or rewards for playing the game of life correctly in popular media. That’s a mixed message that screws up kids all the time - girls and boys.
There have always been upset, confused and angry young men. This is not new with “modern” youth. We have school shootings because of essentially unfettered access to firearms. That’s it. We will continue to have them until we solve that problem.
I wonder how much of this is the standard excess-of-testosterone behavior that leads wankers and yobs to have a row down the local pub, versus other psychological elements in play.
There has always been access to Remington 870s and .38 pistols in the modern world – at least for the last 5 or 6 decades. Unfettered! Yet we haven’t had 2 or 3 school shootings per month until now. Why?
Of course we’ve always had angry young men. Clearly they had outlets and support networks before, right? And if those still existed, why would you pick up a gun instead of a perfectly viable peaceful alternative?
So given the unfettered access is the same, and given that it’s an available option rather than something forced upon these shooters, why do they choose that now when they did not in the past?
Sorry, didn’t mean to get everyone riled up. It’s just shorthand for changing roles for boys and different patterns for young male development as we give more focus to girls and try to curb negative male behavior (rightly so). Even the mainstream media talks about it so it shouldn’t be controversial. I just used the wrong term. Don’t really have time to dig into it.
Obviously equality between men and women isn’t causing anyone to shoot up a school. My bad.
When you say changing roles, what do you mean? Fathers are still fathers. Any stay at home dad’s make that choice. Sometimes women make more than men but the data says men still largely make more and they still dominate as the leaders of our largest companies in this country.
So when you say their roles are changing, other than being asked to respect, work with and treat women like equals, what about their role has changed?
