Did Fallout 4 shoot up El Paso?

[HeyYou]

Availability of guns hasn't changed much in the last several decades, however, the number of mass shootings HAS. So, what has changed in the last couple decades? Society has. We now teach our kids in schools that 'everyone wins, everyone gets a trophy'. They are not held accountable for their actions, it is always someone elses fault. They won't fail kids that don't/won't do the work, as it 'may be bad for their self-esteem'. We have set up 'safe spaces' for kids that are too tender to face anything remotely resembling reality. Bullies are allowed free reign. There is no discipline in schools. The staff CAN'T discipline kids, without the parents filing a lawsuit. The kids have the power, staff does not, and the kids are well aware of it.

 

So, after 12 years of that, they get out into the real world, and discover that none of that is actually the way life works. Only the winner gets a trophy, and there is only ONE winner. If you slack off at work, you don't get promoted, in most cases, you get fired, and they find someone that DOES want to work. These generations have no idea how to deal with adversity, or conflict, and there isn't a 'safe space' at work for them to go hide in.

 

Add to that, that most families today have both parents working, so raising the kids is left to the television, or game console, etc. The government has regulated parents so much, that even at home, the kids have more power than the parents. (for those parents that are actually even interested in raising their kids......)

 

So this is what we end up with. Shooters that feel the world owes them a good living, with zero effort on their part, and when they don't get it, they want revenge. Or kids that were bullied all through school, and now have access to firearms, and have an axe to grind.

 

For far too many of these shooters, all the warning signs were there. Nobody paid attention to them, and a bunch of folks get dead.

 

One of the issues is, mental health. Ronnie Reagan pretty much dismantled mental health care back in the 80', and all those folks are now on the streets, along with the folks that SHOULD be institutionalized, but, their are no longer any institutions to put them in..... According to theory, if you have 'mental issues', you should be disallowed from purchasing/owning firearms. Trouble is, no doctors are willing to make that call, except in REALLY extreme circumstances. Start talking about how little Johnny is a potential threat to society, and the army of lawyers descend on you, and you spend the rest of your life in a courtroom, not your office.

 

When I was in high school, the student parking let was 70% pickup trucks, 90% of which had gun racks, and 80% of those had guns in them. No one was ever shot at school. Not one. (back in the 70's.) We didn't have metal detectors, we didn't have armed guards at the doors, and ALL the doors were unlocked during the school day. Sure, we had fights, regularly, but, only a tiny percentage of those involved any sort of weapon, and those were usually knives.

[Moraelin]

The real counter to that "old times = good, everything these days = evil" geezer fantasy is actually the same as for the "gamers = mass murderers" fantasy scenario. Namely, most countries have the same setup, but only one has a mass shootings problem getting out of hand.

 

Believe it or not, both parents working is also pretty much the norm everywhere in Europe. In Germany for example, 70% of women are employed, only a couple percent below employment for men. (As of 2017.) The same number is true for the UK.

 

In fact, most of Europe was ahead of the USA in that aspect even back in what is waved around as the old days. E.g., in 1980 some 59% of the women in the UK were employed. So even way back, there just weren't enough stay-at-home mommies for everyone.

 

Using encouragement in schools, ditto.

 

Yet while shooting up the school isn't entirely unheard of in Europe, it doesn't seem to happen nearly as much as in the USA.

[Frigidman]

Availability of guns hasn't changed much in the last several decades, however, the number of mass shootings HAS. So, what has changed in the last couple decades? Society has. We now teach our kids in schools that 'everyone wins, everyone gets a trophy'. They are not held accountable for their actions, it is always someone elses fault. They won't fail kids that don't/won't do the work, as it 'may be bad for their self-esteem'. We have set up 'safe spaces' for kids that are too tender to face anything remotely resembling reality. Bullies are allowed free reign. There is no discipline in schools. The staff CAN'T discipline kids, without the parents filing a lawsuit. The kids have the power, staff does not, and the kids are well aware of it.

 

So, after 12 years of that, they get out into the real world, and discover that none of that is actually the way life works. Only the winner gets a trophy, and there is only ONE winner. If you slack off at work, you don't get promoted, in most cases, you get fired, and they find someone that DOES want to work. These generations have no idea how to deal with adversity, or conflict, and there isn't a 'safe space' at work for them to go hide in.

 

Add to that, that most families today have both parents working, so raising the kids is left to the television, or game console, etc. The government has regulated parents so much, that even at home, the kids have more power than the parents. (for those parents that are actually even interested in raising their kids......)

 

So this is what we end up with. Shooters that feel the world owes them a good living, with zero effort on their part, and when they don't get it, they want revenge. Or kids that were bullied all through school, and now have access to firearms, and have an axe to grind.

 

For far too many of these shooters, all the warning signs were there. Nobody paid attention to them, and a bunch of folks get dead.

 

One of the issues is, mental health. Ronnie Reagan pretty much dismantled mental health care back in the 80', and all those folks are now on the streets, along with the folks that SHOULD be institutionalized, but, their are no longer any institutions to put them in..... According to theory, if you have 'mental issues', you should be disallowed from purchasing/owning firearms. Trouble is, no doctors are willing to make that call, except in REALLY extreme circumstances. Start talking about how little Johnny is a potential threat to society, and the army of lawyers descend on you, and you spend the rest of your life in a courtroom, not your office.

 

When I was in high school, the student parking let was 70% pickup trucks, 90% of which had gun racks, and 80% of those had guns in them. No one was ever shot at school. Not one. (back in the 70's.) We didn't have metal detectors, we didn't have armed guards at the doors, and ALL the doors were unlocked during the school day. Sure, we had fights, regularly, but, only a tiny percentage of those involved any sort of weapon, and those were usually knives.

 

I was reading this, and had to double-check the poster name to make sure I didn't write this and forgot I did. Well said.

 

I grew up in the 80s, and it was pretty much like the 70s... just bigger hair and better music ;)

 

That aside... regarding violent video games causing real life violence... I feel the opposite. Had it not been for violent video games for me (a complete nerd) to exert my frustrations, I would have grown up to be a far more violent person in reality.

[Bhuide]

Correlation is not causation.

There is a chance that a Gamer could be a shooter but gaming alone isn't the cause and Guns aren't either. Allowing sick people to own weapons is an issue but it's still not the core issue.

A person who gets enough sleep can still be a mass killer and so can a person with a proper diet. People who are mass shooters have friends and associates though often this aspect is limited. What they don't have is balance. Playing games is a passtime and a mental vacation. it's not necessarily relaxing, some images are startling... that's usually the point but people who have a balanced outlook on life, who are socially engaged and have interests outside of politics or games or whatever are able to compartmentalize their world. Shooters tend to lose that balance and that ability to see one reality as separate from another.

I say Lose, because the person who owns a firearm isn't usually outside of their faculties when the acquired it. Because this is generally true, just getting more thorough background checks isn't the solution either. You think about how change happens in your life...think about something you used to do quite frequently like sports or ...something you got into when you were relatively young and then just grew out of. How long did it take before it just stopped being important to you?

People who start picking out their personal clocktower are probably not that far from a time when such a thought would be ridiculous. I believe that Mental Health is like physical health, if you let illnesses go, there is a chance your body's coping ability will overcome it...and there's a chance it will get alot worse relatively quickly.

Solution, get out of the house and away from the console... get together with friends...GETTING LAID is always good for perspective.

[HadToRegister]

The right will blame everything under the Sun EXCEPT the easy availability of Semi Automatic Weapons,

They were banned when Clinton was president, and Bush unbanned them, guess what went up once they were unbanned?


According to the "Logic" of the Right, there should be no more mass shootings now that Walmart has stopped selling Video games.

[PhanomGames]

The right will blame everything under the Sun EXCEPT the easy availability of Semi Automatic Weapons,

They were banned when Clinton was president, and Bush unbanned them, guess what went up once they were unbanned?

 

 

According to the "Logic" of the Right, there should be no more mass shootings now that Walmart has stopped selling Video games.

Prior to 1986 I could go into gun stores and buy fully automatic m16s, yet they weren't used in mass shootings. Maybe the availability of full autos decreases mass shootings, and we should deregulate those again?

Edited August 11, 2019 by PhanomGames

[Bhuide]

An M-16 has never had the ability to be full auto.... M-16's had a selector for single shot or 3 rnd burst.

[PhanomGames]

An M-16 has never had the ability to be full auto.... M-16's had a selector for single shot or 3 rnd burst.

 

There are full auto sear parts kits for m16's, they used to be sold in gun shops for fairly cheap, but if you want to be technical, there's no legal difference between full auto and 3 round burst. Both are classified as NFA class 3 machine guns.

 

Not that it matters too much that they're banned, as I've got a gen 2 hellfire trigger on my current AR, and it shoots just like a full auto does.

[Moksha8088]

Likely scenario: The NRA pushes for civilian ownership of the BFG 9000. Should it be made available for civilian ownership?

[HeyYou]

An M-16 has never had the ability to be full auto.... M-16's had a selector for single shot or 3 rnd burst.

All of the M-16's I carried in the service were selective fire. Semi auto, or full auto. There was no burst mode. If you had it in full auto, and held the trigger down, it would keep firing until the magazine was empty.....

 

You can still purchase full-auto weapons today, but, it is EXTREMELY difficult. Lots of licensing and background checks to go through. (and it ain't cheap either.....)

 

Semi-Auto weapons were never banned in the US. So-called 'assault weapons' were banned. Rifles that had three or more specific COSMETIC features, were considered 'assault rifles'...... What's rather funny is, weapons that were more powerful, but didn't have a bayonet lug..... (but, still semi-auto, with 'large' capacity magazines) were still perfectly legal. (and still are today.) And if you look at crime statistics, and a few studies that have been done, you would discover that the assault weapons ban did NOTHING to reduce gun crime. Nothing.

 

Long guns in general, of which, 'assault rifles' are a subset, account for less than 3% of gun crime. That's not just homicides, thats ANY crime where a gun is involved. Banning them won't make any difference whatsoever. Most mass-shooters use pistols, or shotguns in any event. It's just the media likes to continuously run stories about the ones where an 'assault rifle' was used.... The others, you don't hear about them as often, or as long. It doesn't fit with the picture they are trying to paint.

 

Something else the left just can't seem to figure out is, Gun Free zones are simply advertisements for a target-rich environment, where no one is going to be able to shoot back. Mass shooters, by their very nature, are cowards. Please notice that most of them take their own lives, or surrender as soon as the cops show up. Most of them blow their own brains out as soon as they hear the sirens....... So, lets remove their safety blanket of 'gun free' zones..... You will find them a LOT less willing to walk into an environment where ANY adult could possibly be armed. And it wouldn't matter how many of there were armed, or even none at all.... It's that POSSIBILITY that would serve as the deterrent. And that's all you really need for these types of killings anyway.

 

Besides, doesn't matter what you ban, someone bent on doing ill, will simply find another way. Pressure cooker bombs, truck bombs, pipe bombs, home-made chemical weapons, (look it up, it's easy, if somewhat hazardous.....) folks have even used cars/trucks as weapons. (Hello Europe, remember those???)

 

Something else you gotta consider is, the gun culture here in the US. Guns have ALWAYS been fairly available. After all, that's what our founding fathers INTENDED, to the point that they wrote it into the constitution, and that whole 'SHALL NOT be infringed' thing..... even though our government has been infringing on our constitutional rights pretty casually these last few decades....... (patriot act, anyone?) There is always going to be folks that want to do harm, they are the tiny minority, but, lets punish MILLIONS of law abiding citizens, for the acts of a few....... Yeah, that makes perfect sense..... Somewhere...... Maybe......