Are mass shootings a problem with a certain demographic (statistics, millionaires, violent crime)
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I don't believe that's the reason. I think American society (which largely consist of whites) wants to believe that their sons and daughters are incapable of committing such acts unless they are mentally deranged. Blacks on the other hand are simply viewed as criminal, so when crimes occur, blacks are just labeled as killers, whereas mental illness is used to explain white pathology.
Um, the DC snipers were both African American as well as the shooter in the Hartford Distributors massacre. Most of these mass murderers do tend to be white males, but that may be a function of demographics more than anything else. To say this type of behavior is limited to one race or ethnicity is just not true.
The irony of your posts is one poster has already posted that Black Americans are disproportionally responsible for a number of crimes including murder. Now you post that there are more white male spree killers "As a function of demographics".
You can't have it both ways if you intend to be intellectually honest about the issue.
Let's be honest here, a Black person is more likely to kill somebody in a robbery, drug deal gone bad, a gang conflict, or an argument.
A White person is more likely to be involved in a mass shooting such as Columbine, or the more recent tragedy in Newtown.
If you line up the ALL the numbers of mass shootings from the 1963 University of Texas sniper to the most recent incident in Newton, Connecticut the overwhelming marjority of these killers were White males. Also throw in serial killers like Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Charles Bundy and others and you have a consistent pattern of White males being the predominate group committing these crimes far out of proportion to the their numbers in the general population.
In fact FBI profiles start with the premise of a serial killer being a White male.
Why is it that SOME White Americans have absolutely no problem proclaiming Black Americans commit disproportionate number of crimes but seem very reluctant to admit to socially and criminally pathological behavior among themselves?
Are SOME White Americans so invested in the perception of their so-called "superiority" that they can't honestly admit that they have problems. And in fact does these attempts to "Sweep these problems" under the rug" contribute to not addressing these issues effectively?
Does White Male Privilege lead some White Men to pathological extremes where they feel they have the right to take as many lives as possible to assuage their anger or feelings of social isolation?
If you line up the ALL the numbers of mass shootings from the 1963 University of Texas sniper to the most recent incident in Newton, Connecticut the overwhelming majority of these killers were White males. Also throw in serial killers like Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Charles Bundy and others and you have a consistent pattern of White males being the predominate group committing these crimes far out of proportion to the their numbers in the general population.
In fact FBI profiles start with the premise of a serial killer being a White male.
Why is it that SOME White Americans have absolutely no problem proclaiming Black Americans commit disproportionate number of crimes but seem very reluctant to admit to socially and criminally pathological behavior among themselves?
Are SOME White Americans so invested in the perception of their so-called "superiority" that they can't honestly admit that they have problems. And in fact does these attempts to "Sweep these problems" under the rug" contribute to not addressing these issues effectively?
Does White Male Privilege lead some White Men to pathological extremes where they feel they have the right to take as many lives as possible to assuage their anger or feelings of social isolation?
This whole argument is a sad attempt by some people to deflect the issue of extreme and constant violence amongst their black people that is in reality a much bigger issue for society, despite our sorrow and grieving over what happened on Friday.
It is true that serial killers and mass shooters tend to be white. Virginia tech was an Asian, but I think some of this prevalence comes from the same things. IN GENERAL, white kids are brought up being taught that acting out is wrong, that attacking people because you are angry is unacceptable. Those people who are already predisposed to violence in these communities tend to bottle it up and eventually explode.
In the black community, acting out in aggression is much more prevalent and much less frowned upon. Somebody disses you, you beat them up. You can't beat them up, you find a gun and shoot them.
So, you have a few deranged wackos who go on a mass killing spree in a few isolated incidents, and in another you have constant daily violence as a way of life in many communities. It is what it is.
It's a small point, but the difference between the DC snipers and, say, the Columbine shooting or the recent tragedy in Newtown is that the older gentleman involved in the sniper attacks had a specific motive against his wife.
From my understanding, he was killing all those other people to make the eventual murder of his ex-wife look like another random death. That's the last I heard, anyway. He could have changed his story before being executed.
But if that's true, then that shooting spree is different than walking into a school building and shooting people just because you're mad about being a misfit, bullied, or at tension with your parents.
It's a small point, but the difference between the DC snipers and, say, the Columbine shooting or the recent tragedy in Newtown is that the older gentleman involved in the sniper attacks had a specific motive against his wife.
From my understanding, he was killing all those other people to make the eventual murder of his ex-wife look like another random death. That's the last I heard, anyway. He could have changed his story before being executed.
But if that's true, then that shooting spree is different than walking into a school building and shooting people just because you're mad about being a misfit, bullied, or at tension with your parents.
Not really. The DC snipers viewed human life as irrelevant, as did the Newtown shooter. Having a conspiracy to get rid of your wife vs lashing out at a community that marginalized and bullied you are just motives for action. To take the action of shooting people walking out of a grocery store or little kids in a class room comes from the same sick and detached place.
I just do not understand why the media always portrays young black men that has the criminal mind, when young white men constantly do the most heinous crimes for some of the most ridiculous reasons (lost a girlfriend, failed a test) three in one week, same profile. Yet watch out for the black guy across the street he is up to no good. I see reports saying it was easy access to guns and mental illness. In the worst inner city neighborhood black men have guns and probably have had a much more difficult life than any of the mass white male shooters. Why is it that they don't go to movie theaters or schools shooting people when things dont go their way?
People in the barber shops, and in most african american communities talk about it all the time. Yet the mainstream white media wants to tell us that it was mental illness and guns. If a black person did exactly what this white man did in Newton, I am certain there would be racist comments, and people saying it is in our nature to be bad. Well history tells us that black men are not really the bad seeds.
Maybe it's a different culture? Black folks just let out their anger or feelings and shoot people right on the spot, while white folk hold them in, and then explode one day?
Or if you like this angle better, more blacks kill people then whites, so you only have to fear the rare, lone, white crazy person who carries out a single attack in his life, while you need to fear thousands of blacks who commit multiple attacks over their life times.
Then you have the non-white Muslims who murder thousands of people, or even the Beltway snipers in 2002, who were both black. I'm being a little tongue in cheek here.
It would be interesting to do a DNA and background study on these whites who go crazy and start mass-killing people. Maybe they have some part of the genome in common with each other.
living in whitey land and expecting no crime is a proven myth. i lived in a 95 percent white city and had my car robbed twice, and home attempted burglarized once.
And it's usually the stringy haired neighbor kid who has taken on a drug habit committing these crimes, not an outsider.
In the case of Newtown, it was the disturbed neighbor kid with all the guns.
Serial killers are overwhelmingly white males. I have no idea why that is or what it means; but not sure why we can't state the facts.
I have a theory about that. Sounds crazy maybe, but it's the best I could do.
Not only are they usually white males, but they are usually white males who outwardly live a quiet, nondescript life. Generally they come from the suburbs (think BTK, Bundy, Joel Rifkin, Gary Ridgway, etc.) Rarely is a homeless person running around killing people and hiding their bodies.
Like a lot of white people in this country, the lives of these serial killers are not tied up with trying to survive on a day-to-day basis. That's not true for most black men.
When people have their basic needs provided for, they have more time to move onto things like art and other hobbies. Murder is their art form, their hobby. There's some serious glitch in their heads, without a doubt, that makes them derive their pleasure from planning and carrying out horrific killings instead of painting seascapes or building model planes, but I believe that economic security is why serial killers are almost always white. I don't have an answer for why they are almost always male.
I wonder if, as black people move up in society economically, if we won't someday see a corresponding increase in serial killers from that demographic, as well.
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