First World American Problems - What to do with the School Shooters who lived?

[steve_bank]

I disagree. Culture has become more violent.

On TV and in movies there is an endless stream of violence.

When kids play video games and get points for killing culture has changed. In the 90s there was a rape video game kids were playing.

While there was violence in movies and early TV, there was also a social norm that violence is a last resort. Killers were the bad guys. Now killers are no longer bad guys in the movies and TV, they can be exciting heroes.

Young people who commit mass murder are products of culture.

Classic westerns are filled with violent heroes. TV and comic books and movies in the 40's 50's and 60's were filled with soldiers and cowboys killing for glory and "justice". Almost all literature classics, have some extremely violent heroes. Consider Shakespeare and Homer. I don't buy this "the kids are positioned by media" garbage. Especially considering that, statistically, modern western democracies are some of the safest and least violent places to live of all time.

Therefore our culture today and violence in entertainment is fine, right?

I've seen young armed criminals in surveillance video holding a gun at right angles, like in the movies and TV.

We've seen people go past our building on the street with a gun stick in the belt.

Interesting how people will be objective and speak in terms of causality when it comes to politics and relgion, yet when it comes to yiung violent offenders apparently the causes just appear out of nowhere.

When it comes to gay hate crimes we properly point to homophobic religion. When someone shoots up a black church we properly attribute it to racism. When a synagogue gets shot up we properly attribute it to antisemitism.

When an increasing number of people enact mass killings what do we attribute it to? Despite the passionate blame placed on availability of guns, guns have always been available. When I was a kid you could buy mail order no questions asked. They were in the Sears catalog. The JFK assassination tightened it up a little.

Could it possibly be, however remote and improbable, that somehow soemway what people are exposed to in the culture having an impact? Increasing population density? Loss of hope for a future? Loss of civility in clture?

Of course more plausible are evil spirits, alien mind control, or Satan himself.

Actually through the 60s a TV morality code limited the amount of gun play per episode of a TV show. And the bad guys were rarely portrayed as ny kind of a hero.

Why does it appear to be a particularly American problem? That there are a lot of guns does not explain why increasing numbers of pele are planning and encting mass killings.

A causal look at media says hate has become a social norm.

 

[Hermit]

I disagree. Culture has become more violent.

While the latest available statistics on violent crime rates are not the lowest ever, they are closer to the historically lowest rates 6 decades ago than the highest 3 decades ago.

On TV and in movies there is an endless stream of violence.

When kids play video games and get points for killing culture has changed. In the 90s there was a rape video game kids were playing.

While there was violence in movies and early TV, there was also a social norm that violence is a last resort. Killers were the bad guys. Now killers are no longer bad guys in the movies and TV, they can be exciting heros.

This is the third time you have come up with the influence of TV on the rate of violent crimes. You are as wrong now as you were then. Firstly, there was no less violence on display in the past as there is now. In the 50s 60s western movies dominated the big screens as well as television. There were duels, large scale shootouts and threats of shootings everywhere. I watched "Fort Laramie", "Bonanza" and other such TV series as a ten year old kid. The blockbusters in cinemas were movies like "Showdown at the OK Corral" and all those spaghetti westerns. And westerns were not the only genre showcasing gun violence. Most episodes of cop shows (e.g. The Asphalt Jungle, Dragnet, Miami Undercover, The Untouchables) involved gunfights.

You are suffering from selective memory.

Secondly, killers are not made to look like heroes today any more than they were in the past. Was Clint Eastwood a good guy when he splattered an unarmed villain who had nowhere to run with a fucking whale harpoon in one of his Dirty Harry movies?

You really seem to enjoy life in the fact-free zone. I can't think of another reason why you spend so much time there.

 

[Patooka]

I'm pretty certain none of the cartoons today would consider characters as psychotic as Elmer Phudd or Yosemite Sam.

You know, if we're talking about how tv corrupts our poor children.

 

[Hermit]

I'm pretty certain none of the cartoons today would consider characters as psychotic as Elmer Phudd or Yosemite Sam.

You know, if we're talking about how tv corrupts our poor children.

The entire long-running (1930 to 1969) Looney Tunes animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros taught kids that violence, including sexual violence, is fun. Oh how we laughed about Foghorn Leghorn beating the living daylights out of Barnyard Dawg for no apparent reason other than he felt like it, or about Pepé Le Pew's uninvited and physical pestering of Penelope Pussycat. They were just two of many similarly violent characters who served as role models for impressionable kids. It's a pity such wholesome shows are a thing of the past, isn't it?

 

[Derec]

Ain't it somethin'? You have a school. Some person shoots it up. They survive, go to trial, get convicted, life in prison with a chance at parole.

That's if you are lucky and the local DA will charge minors as adults.
If the school shooting happens in a place like LA County the fauxgressive pro-crime DA even charges 17 year old gang killers as juveniles.

 

[bilby]

Ain't it somethin'? You have a school. Some person shoots it up. They survive, go to trial, get convicted, life in prison with a chance at parole.

That's if you are lucky and the local DA will charge minors as adults.
If the school shooting happens in a place like LA County the fauxgressive pro-crime DA even charges 17 year old gang killers as juveniles.

Heaven forbid that being legally too young to be considered an adult should stop the law from considering someone an adult.

The entire concept of 'tried as an adult' for people who are NOT adults is batshit crazy nutso insane.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I disagree. Culture has become more violent.

On TV and in movies there is an endless stream of violence.

But as I noted, this media change has occurred in Canada, Europe, and ANZ as well. The mass shootings are occurring here... where you live.

I disagree. Culture has become more violent.

While the latest available statistics on violent crime rates are not the lowest ever, they are closer to the historically lowest rates 6 decades ago than the highest 3 decades ago.

Steve is in Seattle and Seattle, based on my review of stats is an outlier that is in contrast to the general national trends, and crime is growing notably.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ain't it somethin'? You have a school. Some person shoots it up. They survive, go to trial, get convicted, life in prison with a chance at parole.

That's if you are lucky and the local DA will charge minors as adults.
If the school shooting happens in a place like LA County the fauxgressive pro-crime DA even charges 17 year old gang killers as juveniles.

*points to "No Hobby Horsin' Around" sign*

This thread is about the psychological and social issues of mass school shooters that survived and seemingly went away forever, but are now coming back to the forefront with parole applications. The impact the sentencing of minors has on the shooter and the impact of even considering release has on the victims and their families. This is a very new thing for America. Yes, we've recently seen notable shooters like Sirhan Sirhan and Hinkley come up for parole, and while those people are indeed infamous, mass school shooters are a breed of criminal unto themselves.

How does a justice system manage criminals who've spent more than half their life in prison... while being only 40 or 50? Is there no hope of redemption, is the prison sentence really just a life sentence with no parole? How are the families of victims, the victims wounded, and those that were there supposed to manage? We've already seen a broad spectrum of responses in here, from release if rehab'd to stick a needle in 'em.