Why Do Mass Shootings Happen?
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 7 months ago
Writing in 2015, Malcolm Gladwell wrote what I think is still the best explanation for modern American mass shootings, and it’s easily the least comforting. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, essentially he argues that each mass shooting lowers the threshold for the next. He argues, we are in the midst of a slow-motion “riot” of mass shootings, with the Columbine shooting in many ways the key triggering event. Relying on the work of Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, Gladwell notes that it’s a mistake to look at each incident independently:
But Granovetter thought it was a mistake to focus on the decision-making processes of each rioter in isolation. In his view, a riot was not a collection of individuals, each of whom arrived independently at the decision to break windows. A riot was a social process, in which people did things in reaction to and in combination with those around them. Social processes are driven by our thresholds—which he defined as the number of people who need to be doing some activity before we agree to join them. In the elegant theoretical model Granovetter proposed, riots were started by people with a threshold of zero—instigators willing to throw a rock through a window at the slightest provocation. Then comes the person who will throw a rock if someone else goes first. He has a threshold of one. Next in is the person with the threshold of two. His qualms are overcome when he sees the instigator and the instigator’s accomplice. Next to him is someone with a threshold of three, who would never break windows and loot stores unless there were three people right in front of him who were already doing that—and so on up to the hundredth person, a righteous upstanding citizen who nonetheless could set his beliefs aside and grab a camera from the broken window of the electronics store if everyonearound him was grabbing cameras from the electronics store.
Gladwell then argues that Columbine changed the thresholds …
If this is the best French could come up with, he should have just shut up and done chores that day. Next, to NRA president Oliver North.
“The problem that we’ve got is we’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptom without treating the disease,” Mr. North said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence.”
He said everything from violence on television to Ritalin, a drug used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, may be contributing to the problem.
North should have just done chores too. Good Lord. Ritalin. Mr. North is a doctor now. Did you know that one of the intended side effects of Ritalin is to slow the response time during testing, not speed it up? To be sure, doctors probably over-prescribe Ritalin like they overprescribe many things, but Oliver North needs to go get an MD before I’ll listen to any more of his claptrap.
Hey, here’s an innovative idea. It’s not Ritalin. It’s not thresholds. It’s not guns. Shootings, whether “mass” or otherwise, are a symptom of the moral malady that afflicts our society, the sin sickness of the souls, which is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the only savior and the only Son of our Father, truly God and truly man. Rejection of Christ means rejection of His law-word for our lives and for society. The two propositions are corollaries of each other.
So here’s the project of the social planners: teach children that God doesn’t exist and that morality is a social construct, pile them into places with no protection, and then be surprised when they act like there is no God.
Of course, since the only remedy the social planners will countenance is more social planning, they want all of your guns – except those that belong to the social planners.
On May 21, 2018 at 7:36 am, Fred said:
“…teach children that God doesn’t exist and that morality is a social construct, pile them into places with no protection, and then be surprised when they act like there is no God.”
Herschel wins the Internet for today!
On May 21, 2018 at 7:52 am, Gryphon said:
Exactly. The Degradation of Community, Family, Religion, and Moral Standards are a Key Component of the (((bolshevik))) communist protocols and manifesto.
The Kid who did this Shooting had been “Cut Loose” from any form of Cultural and Moral Standards, and was surrounded by influences that reinforced only the most Negative of Emotions. No Surprise that He reacted accordingly.
Communism/Socialism has as its Root the ‘state’ as God. In order to accomplish this POLITICAL Goal, all parts of Normal Culture, particularly White, European, Christian Culture, must be Destroyed.
There is a War on for Your Soul. Who do they (((bolsheviks))) Worship?
That will tell you All you need to Know.
On May 21, 2018 at 8:07 am, Kelley Taylor said:
I think the only failure of Granovetter and Gladwell is that they did not properly address any root causes in the text you provided. I see truth in Granovetter and Gladwell’s theory as they address the mechanics of how this train wreck continues to unfold, but I’m not so sure they would completely disagree with you about the root causes. Younger generations, unfettered by traditional moral codes (both from religion and strong communities) and lacking in solid male role models would, indeed, be easily swayed by a mob mentality. Many young men particularly from inner cities and suburbs are being denied the opportunity to engage in traditional male sporting pursuits with other men that occupy their minds and teach them responsibility i.e. hunting, fishing, target shooting, etc. It’s no wonder our young folks are doing stupid things.
On May 21, 2018 at 8:40 am, Houston said:
So here’s the project of the social planners: teach children that God doesn’t exist and that morality is a social construct, pile them into places with no protection, and then be surprised when they act like there is no God.
^ This. They started a generation ago and we are now reaping the results.
On May 21, 2018 at 8:52 am, dad29 said:
The axiom you present re: morality, God, etc. is dead-on. We all pray for a re-awakening to right thinking and right order which necessarily includes the Judaeo-Christian moral tradition.
But North is not completely wrong; he just mentioned the wrong drug. As another ‘net pundit has observed, many of the anti-depressants which are WIDELY prescribed have adverse reactions in people under ~25 years of age; that “adverse” is that the drugs can make the taker more violent and less self-controlled. That’s a deadly combination.
On May 21, 2018 at 9:01 am, Michael said:
I’m hardly a “spiritual giant”, but Hershel is spot on: This is a spiritual sickness, caused by exactly what he mentioned – rejection of God. Nothing else will correct the problem until we turn back to God.
On May 21, 2018 at 10:22 am, revjen45 said:
Prior to GCA68 you could mail order a 57mm artillery piece and ammo delivered to your home, but people didn’t shoot up schools. Maybe it just didn’t occur to the disgruntled to bombard a school as an expression of their own inner demons. Every time it happens it becomes more “normal.” So this time it was perpetrated with Fuddguns. Let’s hear from the Fudd Brigade. What will they want to ban now? Revolvers? Pump shotguns? Nobody needs more than 2 shots to shoot a bird and everybody knows that handguns are more dangerous to their owners than to assailants, right?
On May 21, 2018 at 11:31 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
Re: “Shootings, whether “mass” or otherwise, are a symptom of the moral malady that afflicts our society, the sin sickness of the souls, which is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the only savior and the only Son of our Father, truly God and truly man. Rejection of Christ means rejection of His law-word for our lives and for society. The two propositions are corollaries of each other.”
“So here’s the project of the social planners: teach children that God doesn’t exist and that morality is a social construct, pile them into places with no protection, and then be surprised when they act like there is no God.”
The Cultural Marxists have spent the last century doing their best to undermine the foundations of western civilization – the community, the home, the church, the family, the proper roles for male and female in society, the school, and traditional sources of authority, moral and otherwise – from parents to teachers to coaches and clergymen and drill instructors.
As they have, termite-like, attacking these foundations of society, they have created a popular culture which is a cesspit of violence, immorality, debauchery and sin.
The contradiction the Cultural Marxists can’t explain is how it is that in the America of eighty-to-one-hundred years ago, firearms and ammunition were more-easily obtained than today, and much more ubiquitous as well, since our society was a more-rural one then – yet mass-shootings were almost unheard of in the general population.
The problem isn’t guns, which are inanimate objects; the problem is our degraded and corrupt culture – a culture created almost entirely by the Left.
On May 21, 2018 at 4:00 pm, Mack said:
Since we are at war, I propose the following:
As a condition of continued federal funding, the US DOEd will require all K-12 schools to bring back the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue shall be erected at the front entrance and the Commandments posted on every classroom wall.
Let SCOTUS reconsider the ban as judicial error.