In truth, and especially because so many perpetrators of these acts commit suicide, we likely may never know on a case-by-case basis who was inspired by similar prior acts, particularly since the ideation may have been subconscious.
But they do tend to leave behind a manifesto or social media history that can point to their thinking and influencing factors.
Obligatory mention that There were more murders in Chicago this week and it gets no media headlines.
And even if clickbait is banned and subscription mandatory, media would be in a race to the bottom. Just a slightly different one.
Oops, you forgot to change the capitalization on your copypasta.
The BBC and it’s ilk was a beacon for years. The trope is exhausting.
I've suggested before on HN that active shooter drills- which are apparently widespread now in US schools- might be themselves a source of contagion. Because they provide exactly those "seeds of ideation", both by simulating the events and by implicitly suggesting that these kind of occurrences are in the realm of possibilities and somehow expected.
No way will I subject my child to this. It seems far more damaging than helpful.
This seems significantly higher than what I'd think. Do most mass killings not make the news? How is this defined?
Not saying it's not a "mass shooting", but the thesis in the OP article needs to be understood in such a context.
Gang violence/vengeance isn't going to be influenced by media or copycat effects one iota.
How frequently is this happening in other countries?
Here's what I've found so far:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-27/map-here-are-countrie...
So, indeed, compare USA's violence score with: * those of the countries where the USA have put their own violent influence to steer benefits back to them (Central & South America). * or those where another white supremacist ideology has been prevalent and is being actively fought against (South Africa).
But, surely, don't compare with countries that would be good reference to compare against (aka, friends with which you ought to have shared some common history, like, Europe).
Little in comparison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting#North_America > United States
"The United States has had more mass shootings than any other country in the post-WWII era. (five references)"
1) Firearm control - complicated political issue, with reasonable people on both sides of the issue. And even if there were federal (executive, legislative, and judicial) political unanimity on action (there is not and can't be for decades), it remains a larger practical problem than in any country that has so far banned guns. State and city-level action has not proven very effective.
2) Political control and censorship - only a fraction of these killers seem to be radicalized, and they generally seem to be lone-wolves. It seems a course ripe for abuse.
3) Drug enforcement - it has been pointed out that almost all of these killers have addiction problems of some kind. Anti-depressants may also play a role. But drug use seems too tenuous a connection, and these substances are used by such a broad swath of the population without this effect, that it would be hard to fix this with drug enforcement alone.
4) Psychological intervention - could the right sort of intervention at the right time avert these killings? It's hard to believe not, but since we can't predict the killings, we can't do much here. But if we had better knowledge, it's possible to imagine something as simple as voluntary social media guidelines (for 24-hour news, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), that might alleviate the problem. Or something far more heavy handed and open to abuse or misuse, including high school psychological testing and reporting, mandatory social services checkups, etc.
If I were an engineer tasked with solving this problem, I would try the full-court press solution on all of these, rather than fixating on any one component.
Solution "4" is the most interesting to me, because it seems the least explored, and the place where increased knowledge and new techniques could possibly have the greatest effect. I think that we should be especially interested in how exactly people become killers, whether there are multiple types (there certainly are), and what are the necessary stages in the process. Studies like this are especially vital and interesting to me, and we need to spend far more effort on this type of research.
The biggest danger that I can see is that political and emotional energy on the impossible solutions prevent useful action anywhere.
EDIT: More on this study. The nice data fit on their contagion equation is very interesting because it begs to be expanded. The "contagion" is mediated by the media somehow. Is it as simple as reading stories about other shootings leading to more? Or is there a media climate effect? What other types of media can lead to shootings, etc. It would be tremendously helpful to learn enough to be psychologically precise about all of this.
Terrorism and lone wolf massacres feed trough 24/7 catastropheporn in the news.
Let's face it. Our society is entertained by news reporting. Discussing it with others is fun. May be a taboo to say it aloud.
Even as things are, the US media omits a great deal of information about terrorism and mass shootings out of a mix of sensitivity and caution.
This reminds me of the suicide study discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.
People seem to want to be famous, and recent events remind at-risk people that committing a mass killing is a quick way to be noticed. This is part of your #2, but I think it can be improved without abuse.
I think that if we can drastically reduce the reward for committing these acts, they'll decrease. I don't know the proper solution here, and I'm definitely not suggesting 1st amendment restrictions, but perhaps police can work with the media in a way that we can improve the reporting of these events to reduce copy cats without impacting the ability of police to investigate the crime.
That being said, we also need to determine whether any proposed cure is better than the disease. #1 and #2 enter a dangerous constitutional area, #3 has arguably caused more problems than it solved (helps organized crime), and #4 is a huge expense without proven results. The average person's risk of being involved in one of these events is vanishingly small, but you wouldn't think it from watching the news. Before jumping to solutions, we need to quantify the benefit and the cost in a way that the average person understands, and that is a very hard task.
One thing that I've begun to think is that as a nation our overall social climate has declined over the past few years, post-social media and iphones. It's hard to imagine that social climate issues wouldn't be related to a change in violence. (But maybe it's just my post-2015 family dinners and nobody else's!)
Restore as much autonomy to especially adolescent students as possible while still accomplishing education. Stop driving kids into a corner and making them feel so desperate and trapped that they're willing to throw their own life away just to do a little damage and escape.
Freedom of speech is not absolute, why in the world should owning a device intended to kill be unlimited?
Many are against the return of the assault weapons ban and banning of higher capacity magazines. In general I find that many 2nd amendment supporters are fearful of an expansion of gun control laws, but they're not out there arguing there should be no gun control laws.
Most gun enthusiasts I know hate gun bans because they hurt responsible gun owners far more than criminals. Many gun enthusiasts like "tactical" weapons and mods, and these are precisely what these bans hit. They've already shown willingness to go through hoops, so I think a different approach is in order.
I believe all weapons should be legal, but more dangerous weapons should certainly be harder to get. Automatic weapons, for example, should require more training and secure storage than handguns, and some handguns should require more training and secure storage than hunting equipment.
Some proposals:
- guns unlikely to be used in crimes (single shot hunting rifles and shotguns, revolvers) should require ID + quick background check (submit name to police database for smoke test) to purchase - larger magazines, semi-automatics, and self defense ammunition require passing a basic gun safety course and access to secure storage for protected items (e.g. home safe) - automatic weapons require regular inspection by some local authorities that checks correct storage habits
And so on. I think most gun enthusiasts would be okay with this, provided independent third parties can do the checks (gun club, dealers, etc). Gun owners would then bring documentation showing that they're allowed to buy firearms of a given class. Everything should be as anonymous as possible (separate ID from proof of compliance and require a warrant to link the two).
That being said, most proposed legislation seeks bans, not reasonable regulation, so it's understandable that gun enthusiasts push back.
Any additional limits. There are already plenty of laws on the books around gun control, it’s disingenuous to pretend as though none exist.
When there is a tyrannical government in power who is violently oppressing the people, would any new laws eventually prevent me from walking up to an agent of the tyrannical state and shoot them in the head? i.e., would it be possible to have localized insurrections against government? Make no mistake, it is this fear that prevents most governments from overreaching.
If the answer is no, then the rule is not allowed. Licensing would be a slippery slope into complete gun control and consolidating power over the people.
If you want further proof, look at what is happening in the socialist countries in South America. The government is murdering their own people who are defenseless.
If you want further proof that an armed populace is a good check against (real or perceived) tyranny, look at Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course USA (hello UK!)
More significant measures like requiring a license or limiting magazine capacity are somehow characterized as over reach.
Would be interested to hear how that is rationalized.
