Most mass shooters driven by personal grievance, and about one quarter by conspiracy theories and hate

Originally published at: Most mass shooters driven by personal grievance, and about one quarter by conspiracy theories and hate | Boing Boing

11 Likes

Tired Bette Davis GIF by Maudit

14 Likes

One quarter of too many is still too many.

15 Likes

Well, at least we know who the police should begin following around gun stores and profiling.

and

20 Likes

What the American ones all have in common is easy access to high-powered firearms. Entitled but insecure men, domestic abusers, and right-wing conspiracists would be more prone than most to want to own them as masculinity totems, security blankets, and props in their fantasies.

25 Likes

And the Australian ones? What is their excuse? Oh…wait…

7 Likes

I was wondering if the word, “White” was missing from this profile.

The typical attacker was a 34-year-old man motivated by personal grievances

… or Cops, as they are commonly known.

14 Likes

Since there is no way to even begin to talk about gun control, and this is mostly about personal grievances, what is going to happen?
Anyone for a Purge?

1 Like

Absolutely. Men.

14 Likes

No, thanks. I’m trying to quit.

16 Likes

stephen colbert fake news GIF by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

10 Likes

13 Likes

I’d guess that conspiracy theories and hateful ideologies are driven by personal grievance too.

7 Likes

Would be more useful to separate out workplace shootings from terroristic attacks. I rather suspect the motivations in these two groups are pretty dramatically divergent, and the demographic identifiers would likely diverge as well.

20 Likes

Jimmy Fallon Agree GIF

12 Likes

I would think there’s some garden-variety crime that reaches the level of mass-shooting, too. I mean, Breaking Bad season 3 alone would add up to half of these…

5 Likes

White people being the majority (~60%) means they make up the majority of criminals (murders/rapists/thieves, etc.) Stereotyping minorities as criminals is just inaccurate racist rhetoric. (And men make up the vast majority of violent crime. We’re terrible.)


Alas, the flags of a mass shooter, such as spousal abuse and sudden unemployment,

Domestic violence is a huge indicator of future violence. It needs to be treated way more seriously than it is.

Absolutely. The causes are much different and effective solutions will be different as well.

9 Likes

I do not see how these are mutually exclusive, though. For example, men who go to their ex’s workplace to shoot it up, they’re operating from a very ‘hateful ideology’ that they’ve been taught. Most people aren’t happy when they break up, but they don’t believe it’s an insult to their manhood that must be avenged.

9 Likes

mass shooters are a very small subset of the general population, which breaks down as follows

source

The statistics don’t support your arrow.

2 Likes

I assume @anon33932455 was being a little facetious there. Your point about mass shooters as a whole being a very small (but obviously very impactful) subset of the population goes more toward de-bunking the implication made by @badger911 here.

Presumably by a HS student who hasn’t yet taken a course in basic statistics. I’m assuming @anon61221983, @jerwin and @anon33932455 all did. You, I’m not so sure (per @chenille below you’re not so great on HS math either).

7 Likes