on the Isla Vista mass shooting

[hammercock]

Michael Moore wrote this about it on Facebook today [ETA: fixed the incomplete Moore quote and an unclosed link tag]: With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night's tragic mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA -- I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life. Everything I have to say about

Comments

[tisiphone]

This is what happens in the toxic intersection between unconstrained ownership of weapons and acceptance of violent rhetoric.

[hammercock]

Yes.

As a nation, we've essentially concluded that these things are just the way it is, and that the ever-growing number of victims are acceptable collateral damage.

[tisiphone]

Pretty much, yes.

[lillibet]

This nation continues to choose to let this sort of thing happen, so it will continue to happen, again and again and again.

This.

At this point I find I'm pretty completely inured to mass shootings. They are a thing that happens. I don't like them, I am sad for the families of those who were shot, I am angry that we allow this. But it joins the background noise of terrible things that happen every day that I don't seem to focus on, emotionally.

[hammercock]

Right now I'm at least as angry about the misogyny aspect of it as I am about the killing; maybe even more so, because I know how many MRA and PUA assholes are out there and are defending (!) this guy.

[achinhibitor]

I know how many MRA and PUA assholes are out there and are defending (!) this guy.

It would be an interesting, if depressing, tally. From what I've heard about "pick-up artists", their general principle is that if you're not getting the chicks, yer doin it rong. It doesn't seem to be a culture in which men deserve women. But you may have better sources of information than I. (As for "men's rights activists", I haven't heard anything from them other than they think fathers get a raw deal on divorces, which doesn't seem to be relevant here.)

Of course, as an act of misogyny, it's completely lame, since over half the dead were men.

[perspicuity]

looks like the system failed this time. many complaints about making the system work, and when given a chance, it has let us down.

a lot of Moore's ranting is just that, but one can see his frustration at least.

the guy sounds like a major psychopath, though some are trying to label his as a high functioning asperger too. mmm. that's perhaps more disturbing.

the fact he spent this time PLANNING this, does not hint at someone that snapped. pistols and a knives. perhaps it's a good thing he didn't spend more time practicing ;P

#

[hammercock]

Time enough planning to write a 137-page manifesto and post multiple videos of his rants to YouTube, yes. That's definitely not "snapping". :-/

[achinhibitor]

It's an unusual pattern. Most people who commit heavy violence have a long history of petty violence, which lets the legal system get its hands on them well beforehand. (For whatever that's worth.) This guy seems to have managed to avoid anything other than scary exercise of freedom of speech and accumulating weapons before he stepped fully into mass murder. His level of self-control (the difference between what he feels and what he does) is remarkably strong. And then it was no longer enough...

[nakor]

My sense is that there are hundreds of men with notebooks of bad poetry and shocking plans for every one who, yes, snaps and acts out those ideas. Thousands make ranting videos.

Having ideas and writing about them probably shouldn't be a reason to be locked up. I do wish the cops had been able to refer him to effective counseling and mental health services, and I wish my taxes were higher to pay for exactly that.

[achinhibitor]

It would have been desirable for the police to intervene, but it's not clear how they could have done so. We are under a system of law, and until one breaks a law, one can't be arrested. As far as I know, expressing general anger isn't illegal anywhere. Even expressing anger toward a specific person isn't illegal, even if you're evidently heavily armed. You have to express some sort of intention to cause violence, or I think it is, do something that would cause a reasonable and prudent person to believe that you are imminently going to perform an illegal act of violence. And it does seem like this guy avoided that. (I've not waded through all the reporting, but nobody that I've read says it