Mass Shooting - Dayton Ohio

[Cow Poke]

More and more I find it more difficult to watch football because of the violence inherent in it; it's more than just tackling; placing hits is a big part of the game. Baseball and basketball I have an easier time with; there's contact but not on such a violent level.

Yeah, somebody posted George Carlin's bit on baseball vs football.....

[NorrinRadd]

More and more I find it more difficult to watch football because of the violence inherent in it; it's more than just tackling; placing hits is a big part of the game. Baseball and basketball I have an easier time with; there's contact but not on such a violent level.

Did you see the idiot Pirates and Reds the other day? Since the '70s, my two favorite teams, and my favorite rivalry. They had an insane brawl. Not just the usual clear-the-benches-and-mill-around sort of thing.

As far as I'm concerned, both teams should have forfeited the entire remainder of the season.

[NorrinRadd]

...

Maybe we could convince them to learn SCA style sword play - big rattan stick versus a ton of armor....

What is "SCA"?

I think we should encourage gigantic ridiculous anime-style swords.

[Teallaura]

What is "SCA"?

I think we should encourage gigantic ridiculous anime-style swords.

Sorry - Society for Creative Anachronism

We re-create the Middle Ages so you don't have to!

[demi-conservative]

14 year old Seer buys gun, now same age boys no buy gun cos can't, instead play shooting games. Violence needs outlet.

[JonathanL]

14 year old Seer buys gun, now same age boys no buy gun cos can't, instead play shooting games. Violence needs outlet.

[Roy]

Two problems - you yourself specified the last decade - and three years does not a decade make.

You can't draw conclusions about what happened in a decade from only seven years of data.

AND you just used a WP hit piece as DATA! Yeah - NO!

It contains a list of incidents. That is data.

I note you haven't complained that MM used a Politico hit piece as data.

Crime stats are usually compiled via the FBI - and they aren't usually 'up to date' - because they CAN'T be. Some crimes are so specifically defined that you really do have to finish out the investigative process just to define which one it was (mass shooting versus gang shooting, for example).

So, what DO we have? Well, there's 2017. And preliminaries for 2018. And... that's it. So basically, your complaint is that MM's source is missing one year of available data.

No, my complaint is that MM is claiming there has been no increase during the last ten years despite him not having data for all of that period.

<Begin only somewhat serious rant>
I am seriously beginning to entertain the idea that anyone involved in the physical sciences - or just interested in them - should be barred from the public square! They think they know what they are doing with the social sciences when in fact, they are the most clueless people on Earth!
<end only somewhat serious rant>

<begin real rant>
I'm actually PRO-gun control - but I end up spending more time trying to get my side to QUIT MAKING SPECIOUS ARGUMENTS!!!!!!
</end real rant>

I'll agree with your sentiments if you substitute (i) statistics for social sciences and (ii) abortion for gun control.

[Roy]

Failure to inoculate. Guns were far more prevalent in American culture - and ownership - fifty years ago, yet mass shootings were extremely rare. The obvious change is culture - from one that didn't have people shooting everyone in sight when they got mad to one where that actually happens.

Correct. But the specific culture change mentioned occurred in the wrong time frame.

Incidentally, since you're against poor arguments being used, you shouldn't say that guns were more prevalent fifty years ago. They weren't. Fifty years ago there were less privately-owned guns than people in the USA. Now there are more privately-owned guns than people.

[Roy]

You are counting number of shootings in a year, but MM's chart is number of shooting per 100 million population.

I know. I took that into account. That's why I also linked to population figures.

[Roy]

and yet if I saw that same thing 20-30years ago I would have been sickened. Now I am not. desensitized. We all are.

IIRC there was a major outcry in the 1970s when a news report showed a man being executed. I doubt there would be as much of an outcry today.

[Roy]

I need a double-Amen for that. My boss has actually forced me to stick around in meetings to hear the guys all chat about the local college football team as my eyes glazed over.

Two words: "Constructive dismissal".

[seer]

Yeah, somebody posted George Carlin's bit on baseball vs football.....

Lol I haven't seen that in years!

[Sparko]

Desensitized to fake Hollywood violence and special effects, perhaps. Not to actual, real world violence.

Yeah but by the time someone who would become a shooter realizes that, they are already committing that real world violence.

[Sparko]

Film in general has a bit of a voyeuristic touch about it. Even if you weren't the stalker, some critics and directors suggest the audience is complicit because they allow the scene to unfold before them without doing anything to stop it (like turning the TV off).

An auteur Austrian director named Michael Haneke actually played with this theme in a film he made called Funny Games (which he later remade nearly scene for scene in America). The film is your average home invasion type horror, but unlike other horror films where we expect at least a few of the victims to get away, Haneke constantly robs the audience of any hope, and forces them to confront the fact that they are participants. He even breaks the fourth wall a number of times (including rewinding the film on the viewer in order to prevent the victims from getting the upper hand).

It's one of my least favorite films because it's so entirely hopeless, and the project is ineffectual because the type of audience he's attempting to confront and teach a lesson to typically wouldn't watch a sadistic mess like Funny Games, while the audience who would want to watch this type of film are usually sick enough that they get a kick out of how sadistic it is.

I was watching a new sci-fi show on Netflix called Another Life, which was soooooo bad, that I found myself rooting for the monsters to just kill off the crew. It was basically "Millennials in Space" - It actually got better in the last two episodes but the first 4 were horrible.

[Adrift]

I was watching a new sci-fi show on Netflix called Another Life, which was soooooo bad, that I found myself rooting for the monsters to just kill off the crew. It was basically "Millennials in Space" - It actually got better in the last two episodes but the first 4 were horrible.

Yep. I get that way anytime there's a bratty kid or teenager in a show or movie where we see zero character development from them, and all they're doing is fouling things up for the adults. It's like "just let the freakin monsters eat him already."