[thegmanifesto]

(02-27-2012 05:16 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  

I was bullied as a kid.

My dad got me into martial arts and boxing, and told me to stop being a pussy.

Got tough. By high school, was a supreme bad ass.

That's a "overcoming adversity" story.

But what if I had had shitty parents, or lived with a single mom, felt hopeless, and had access to guns?

Would I have found another way to "overcome" my situation?

Now I have to ask you guys:

Was this Beta™?

[Mr.GM]

(02-27-2012 02:19 PM)Blackhawk Wrote:  

I don't think we have more or less than anywhere else. But they certainly get more world attention when they happen.

When 12 students were killed in the school shooting in Rio De Janeiro on April 7 2011, it was at best page 4 in US papers, and most didn't cover it at all.
When an entire island of children were murdered in Denmark, it was barely a blip in US papers.

Why would Brazilian papers want to cover a shooting in a town in the US that no one in Brazil ever heard of to this level? No idea. But once news appears on http://drudgereport.com/ it tends to become international.

It is true that what happens in America gets more media coverage(because it is the most powerful economy in the world) , but you're missing the fact that the US is where shooting sprees happen over and over again. Not just in Schools ; it seems that every week there is a loonie killing people at random and then killing himself somewhere.

Also I don't see any other country in the world where you have serial killers with "personas" like the Zodiac Killer,Unabomber or guys like Charlie Manson and the kid who blew up the Oklahoma building. Hell I never seen something similar to those DC shooters (Uncle and nephew if I'm not wrong ?) who were shooting people at random with a sniper rifle through a hole in their car.

the number of pedophiles and sexual criminals in general is also very large. It happens in other countries , but considerably less.

You mentioned the Rio Shooting , but it was the only school shooting in Brazil's history . And this is a very violent country.
In Europe it is also very rare.

It is also a mistake to compare crime statics (when you mentioned Mexico) because we are not discussing general crime who is often motivated by economic purposes or some bar fight etc.

The United States is safer than most third world countries when you look at crime rates , but we are looking at a specific criminal profile here.

(02-27-2012 03:04 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(02-27-2012 02:59 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

We have the most stress and the most pressure to succeed. In combination with access to guns, decaying morality, the glorification of violence, and a culture of revenge..

Thats why our kids will shoot you. They grew up on images of violence, are stressed out, and can get guns.

This is the USA. If we don't get our way we will use violence!

Don't forget what I think this the main reason:

American Sexual Repression.

Add that with the ones you mentioned above, and its a powder keg.

Yes, This is spot on. I'm not an American but I would guess that most serial killers are from a very conservative /religious background (bible belt states).

Selling assault weapons to people who have history of mental illness does not help either.

Don't blame bullying alone because there is bullying in every school everywhere.

[rozayINTL]

Highschool in America is a social beat-down like you will not experience anywhere else in this world. It's American society on steroids, with social ladders and elitism that's in your face, every day. And there is no escaping it. Some kids take this to heart and they snap.

American culture for younger kids is beyond superficial and shallow, it enters into a whole different realm. Imagine if you had grown up watching the shit on T.V. today. The disney channel, all of those kids shows, they're fucking horrible (watch 5 minutes of it you'll want to shoot yourself) - kids go straight from that to the Jersey Shore. Not to mention that now they go home, get on facebook and can't escape their shitty realities even if they wanted to.

I was lucky enough to have discovered game (without knowing it was 'game') early on in highschool and did everything I could to fuck Ms. Cheerleader w/ a boyfriend and daddy's little angel, from my school and other schools in my area. Those pursuits saved me from a deep, dark depression and kept me motivated.

The kids who suffer the most are the ones smart enough to realize they're being fucked over, but don't have the means or support to overcome it.

I think a lot of serial killers/school shootings etc. stem from sexual frustrations. These 16 year old boys who are outcasts, not getting any, they can't handle it. That shit might sound crazy, but think about it. For many serial killers (even a majority) there's some kind of sexual connection that keeps them killing, they got off on it. It's fucked up.

[rozayINTL]

Just read the american sexual repression comment. exactly.

[rozayINTL]

Read an article about the school shooting in ohio.

Apparently one of this kid's classmates said that he "wasn't bullied - he was quiet but he had friends." Probably coming from one of the kids that bullied him, but regardless. Even if he was a quiet kid with friends. It's often this kid who watches everything from a distance and goes nuts.

[Blackhawk]

US Federal law both prohibits possession of all firearms and ammo by anyone under age 18, and the sale of firearms and ammunition to anyone under age 18. Ohio law further restricts gun sales to age 18 for long guns (ie rifles), but age 21 for hand guns.

Since his name isn't being released under US protection of minors laws, most likely the shooter is under age 18. There's no way he could obtain legally firearm or ammo. Will be interesting to find out how he illegally obtained them --stealing them? Buying them on the black market from gang members? We'll find out over the next several weeks.

[Hotwheels]

Probably from his dad's gun cabinet.....


(I am not against guns.)

[Deluge]

(02-27-2012 03:04 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(02-27-2012 02:59 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

We have the most stress and the most pressure to succeed. In combination with access to guns, decaying morality, the glorification of violence, and a culture of revenge..

Thats why our kids will shoot you. They grew up on images of violence, are stressed out, and can get guns.

This is the USA. If we don't get our way we will use violence!

Don't forget what I think this the main reason:

American Sexual Repression.

Add that with the ones you mentioned above, and its a powder keg.

The Puritanism of 17th century New England persists on four hundred years after the fact.

[canucktraveller]

(02-27-2012 06:02 PM)kosko Wrote:  

It's a by-product of the American Experiment. It makes no sense how Windsor, Ontario can have one murder every 3 years while Detroit gets one every 3 weeks ( or days ) it seems. The American Experiment of: entitlement, exponential growth, ego, cut throat capitalism, loose gun control, and a host of other stuff will breed lunatics on the regular.

Like to I can say West Africa has more nutjobs than America ten-fold but even we don't kill at the rates as Americans. In times of mad growth you got Colmbine, it times of economic decay you get what happens in Ohio today. Both extremes will birth a rise in these sad incidents. Shits real.

This is what I don't understand. A lot of the reasons mentioned in this thread (sheltered/poor education system, beta attitudes, social bullying etc) are the exact same in Canad but there is just far less dangerous crime here, even in the population dense areas.


This problem is something uniquely American

[Mr.GM]

I was zapping on my tv during the half-time of Brazil's soccer game and I saw the news host on Fox News saying:
"The Ohio Shooting is a national tragedy, it is the worst school shooting in the last 10 Months " . That alone shows how bizarrely common those crimes are in the US.

[Cincinnatus]

(02-28-2012 06:13 AM)P Dog Wrote:  

4The Puritanism of 17th century New England persists on four hundred years after the fact.

Sad but true.

People often talk about how Eastern Europeans have been beaten down by so many years of Soviet oppression - without even thinking that here in America religious zealoutry still has an iron grip on many aspects of our lives. Quite compaable in some ways.

The American branding of religion is also unique in the western world, as is our adherence to such primitive beliefs. Look at the rates of atheism and agnosticism in the U.S. vs. Europe.

[Mr.GM]

[rozayINTL]

I remember growing up there were kids that my crew treated w/ respect. We weren't cool w/ them, but we purposefully did not give them shit. We knew that these kids were the ones likely to run up into the school w/ guns if they snapped. It's sad to have to think that way but I think in most highschools in the US there are those few kids that others feel are unstable and afraid they will do something.

I think the school shooters and serial killers and sadistic criminals of the US all stem from the same issues. There's a reason why this shit is so prevalent in this particular country, and it deals with the fundamental traits of our culture/way of living. It might even be comparable to the suicide phenomenon in Japan.. there's a deep underlying social basis to it.

For real though this kind of shit gets to me. Three kids are dead now. Apparently the gunman just selected them randomly, didn't really know them. That's just mind boggling man. Shows that the kid was maybe not bullied, just extremely mentally fucked up. That's heartbreaking. Yet the public will blow through this kind of news in a day or two, nobody will think twice about it. Maybe that's part of the problem. Still if you look at a situation like Syria where innocent people are murdered like cattle, the world is a fucked up place.