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milestogo

(16,829 posts)
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:01 PM Nov 2017

What scares me is that there are thousands of young men just like Devin Kelley.

They're everywhere. They're young white men who are angry with life. They never had a good home life. They're young but they feel like life has already failed for them. They didn't do well in school, career, or relationships. They're not smart, but they're not stupid. They blame everyone but themselves. They hit their partners and children. They get stopped by police. They lose one job after another. They don't know what to do with all this anger, they just know that life isn't fair. They don't really care if they live or die.

Are they mentally ill? No, they're just run of the mill. They're so common that they are everywhere. Each one of us could find 100 of them in a week if we started asking around.

There is nothing to stop them from getting a gun, or getting 100 guns. There's always a way to get a gun. And maybe someday they will cross the line and shoot somebody, and go down in a hail of gunfire. Name goes up in headlines and is known forever.

They're everywhere.

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What scares me is that there are thousands of young men just like Devin Kelley. (Original Post) milestogo Nov 2017 OP
And the US media will focus on the motives, guillaumeb Nov 2017 #1
Notice how they don't just shoot someone they DRESS UP and PLAY ARMY before bagelsforbreakfast Nov 2017 #2
Besides the obvious, there are studies that indicate handling guns increase aggression. And there Hoyt Nov 2017 #3
There is a sense of entitlement. BannonsLiver Nov 2017 #4
That's it exactly. They are angry because everything hasn't been handed to them on a smirkymonkey Nov 2017 #8
Good summary... llmart Nov 2017 #11
I find myself MaryMagdaline Nov 2017 #5
no dearth of studies on inequality and violence handmade34 Nov 2017 #6
Probably millions. Probably all of us know someone like that we hope is harmless doc03 Nov 2017 #7
You're right. They're everywhere. Paladin Nov 2017 #9
Our culture fosters them by feeding their insecurities and rewarding their worst impulses. WhiskeyGrinder Nov 2017 #10
Can't the same be said of any race? hack89 Nov 2017 #12
Absolutely. cwydro Nov 2017 #13
If you really think that's true, then why in the hell are you here? kcr Nov 2017 #15
I think there are plenty of angry black men too milestogo Nov 2017 #14
Not always. We just had a party bus shooting where I live flamingdem Nov 2017 #17
This message was self-deleted by its author WinkyDink Nov 2017 #16
A lot of them were in Charlottesville and part of the alt right kimbutgar Nov 2017 #18
There are lots of angry people now of all types Raine Nov 2017 #19

guillaumeb

(42,641 posts)
1. And the US media will focus on the motives,
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:03 PM
Nov 2017

rather than the easy availability of weapons that enables these massacres.

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
3. Besides the obvious, there are studies that indicate handling guns increase aggression. And there
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:08 PM
Nov 2017

are lots of haters out there and most are armed up.

BannonsLiver

(16,387 posts)
4. There is a sense of entitlement.
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:09 PM
Nov 2017

A bloated self importance, delusions of grandeur in many of these shooters, though not all of them are young.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
8. That's it exactly. They are angry because everything hasn't been handed to them on a
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 08:08 PM
Nov 2017

silver platter. They don't understand that to have a decent job, you have to work for it and be a good employee. To have good relationships, you have to be a good friend/boyfriend and treat other people well, to get the respect of your community, you have to be a decent, respectable person who makes a contribution. They are lazy and filled with self-pity and they alone are they main cause of their own problems.

There are millions of people out there, a lot of them women, minorities and gay people that have had horrible upbringings and instead of feeling sorry for themselves they work hard on themselves and make something of their lives. They don't expect everything to be handed to them, so they aren't filled with resentment at their lot in life.

The hallmark of men like this is that "They blame everyone but themselves". And they will make others pay for their humiliation.

llmart

(15,540 posts)
11. Good summary...
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 08:23 PM
Nov 2017

but I would add that there are just as many angry, white, OLD men. I've seen plenty of them and was married to one. He got angrier and angrier the older he got because he thought the world owed him something because he was white and male. He grew up in an era where they were told they were special just because they were male.

handmade34

(22,756 posts)
6. no dearth of studies on inequality and violence
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:19 PM
Nov 2017
http://theweek.com/articles/446541/want-reduce-horrible-gun-crimes-reduce-inequality

Want to reduce horrible gun crimes? Reduce inequality.
Elizabeth Stoker

Many see that gender reality as crucial to understanding gun violence in America...

But there is an intersection of men and violent crime that is open to immediate political intervention. In their 2009 book The Spirit Level: Why Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out what other commentators have re-established in the wake of the Isla Vista murders: violent crime is overwhelmingly committed by young men between the ages of 15 and 29. And, calling upon the expertise of Harvard Medical Schol's James Gilligan, the author of Violence and Preventing Violence, the authors posit that "acts of violence are 'attempts to ward off or eliminate the feeling of shame and humiliation — a feeling that is painful, and can even be intolerable and overwhelming — and replace it with its opposite, the feeling of pride.'"

...since much of the violent crime we see among young men appears to be the result of the hopelessness and frustration brought on by the lack of status available to men at the bottom, strides can be made toward reducing the impetus for those crimes simply by raising the bottom up and reducing the gap between the worst and best off. A policy as simple as a universal basic income could accomplish that neatly.

...angry young men can be deterred from violence by reducing inequality. Doing so would not only provide men at the lowermost rungs of the socioeconomic ladder with a lowered sense of pressure given the reduced extremity of the financial poles, but would also by that same mechanism reduce adversarial social focus on financial status. This accounts for the slew of benefits Wilkinson and Pickett associate with more equal societies, including lower rates of mental health problems and higher indicators of child welfare. In that way, an overall social reduction in economic inequality could have salutary benefits for those at the top as well as those at the bottom...



https://thinkprogress.org/study-income-inequality-is-tied-to-increase-in-homicides-84076065498a/

https://www.salon.com/2016/10/26/more-than-just-the-guns-poverty-and-inequality-should-be-blamed-for-americas-gun-violence_partner/

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095881

see Durkheim
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/pal/sth/2003/00000001/00000001/art00002

doc03

(35,339 posts)
7. Probably millions. Probably all of us know someone like that we hope is harmless
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 07:25 PM
Nov 2017

but you never know. I know one that was never in the military but claims to be an x Navy Seal. He can
tell you all about any military weapon. He is 50 years old and lives in his mom and dads basement.

kcr

(15,317 posts)
15. If you really think that's true, then why in the hell are you here?
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 09:48 PM
Nov 2017

I would never hang out anywhere where I thought everyone was bigoted.

milestogo

(16,829 posts)
14. I think there are plenty of angry black men too
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 09:30 PM
Nov 2017

but the difference is - they are angry ABOUT something. There is perceived injustice which is rooted in real, visible, tangible injustice. It may be directed in a variety of ways, but I can't think of any mass shootings that involve young, black men.

flamingdem

(39,313 posts)
17. Not always. We just had a party bus shooting where I live
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 09:55 PM
Nov 2017

Someone got mad at someone on the other bus and they shot up the other bus killing a woman.

Different but yet the same in the end. Not related to much more than male anger and easy to get guns.

Response to milestogo (Original post)

Raine

(30,540 posts)
19. There are lots of angry people now of all types
Mon Nov 6, 2017, 10:00 PM
Nov 2017

races, religions, sex etc some have a good reason and some don't. They're all dangerous, don't discount one group over another.

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