Gun violence that is caught on camera sure gets a lot more attention and outrage than gun violence that isn’t caught on camera.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Why wasn’t the reporter armed? [/gungoober]
Is there a solution to this? I thought when we saw little children gunned down in a school that there would finally be a revelation, that something so vile and heartbreaking could not go unanswered. But it did go unanswered.
Innocent folks out for a night at a movie, shot to death. A church group slaughtered for no reason. We all know the stories. We all know the helplessness. We know this and we still cannot stop gun violence.
Gun laws are ignored or watered down. The NRA has pockets full of our representatives, wrapped warmly in cash. Gun lovers went shopping for more guns than ever when Obama was elected and I think they intend to buy all the guns they can.
But we can’t take the guns away. Stricter laws won’t see the light of day. People will continue to buy and carry guns with more and more bravado than ever.
Perhaps counseling that starts in kindergarten, anger management classes, social acceptance programs, who knows? Maybe we start at the roots of why people here are so angry and why the gun culture exists. I dunno. But the guns aren’t going to go away.
Did you know there’s a boom in personal flamethrowers? Entirely unregulated in all states but Maryland (ban) and California (permit).
Violent crime is at near decades lows. The murder rate is close to a 100 year low.
America is becoming less violent, not more.
Yes, but mass shooting are more common than they were 5 years ago. I blame right wing rhetoric and the neo liberal soul crushing economy as well as the NRA.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mass-public-shootings-increasing-in-us/
When I tell people this fact they look at me like I have two heads. The reality is that there are lot of people with vested interests in perpetuating the notion that everything around us is unprecedentedly going to hell in a handbasket and that we should maintain this seige mentality, ad infinitum. There is not one bad thing that happens in this country that will not be blaring in tens of millions of U.S households within an hour of it happening. Is it any wonder that we cannot even begin a discussion about a serious issue when almost everyone has a completely inaccurate grasp on what the facts really are?
The easiest person to fool is ourselves. And we have allowed ourselves to be selectively spoon fed our information for so long that we have virtually lost the ability to discern fact from fiction. The media machine has so perfectly manipulated us, mostly with our consent, that we really don’t much care anymore what is true and what is false. We only care about hearing things which our worldviews demand be true. All we seem to want is to have our feelings sanctioned. Probably so that we are not forced to consider the fact that we just might be wrong.
Which does not in any way address the fact that our gun violence is a massive public health problem not present in other nations.
Don’t neglect the fact that shootings of conventionally sexually attractive white women get the very most coverage, whether they’re on camera or not. In this case, add to the mix that the media is reporting here on the shooting of and by fellow members of television media and we’ve got the absolutely perfect media storm.
CNN, MSMBC, Fox, all nonstop coverage right now, and probably for the rest of the day. It is a sensational story, so to some degree it’s understandable, but to hear a reporter lead a segment by saying “We lost two beautiful people today, journalists…” shows a tremendous absence of self-awareness and disrespect for the general public.
A very tragic story, as all instances of random gun violence are. And I will be purposely avoiding the media noise box for the next several days. I simply can no longer digest the national dance we do in response to these regular shooting events. Sadly, this story is right in the wheel-house of exploitation for the television media, coupled with the fact that this happened to two people who “look like everyone we know”. Not to mention the fact that the shooter appears to be a black man. And we are forced, once again, to repeat this well learned national habit of head-shaking and navel-gazing, right before we all collectively decide that there is just nothing that can be done to even begin to address things like this.
If a couple dozen dead kindergartners in an American classroom didn’t move us, seeing a pretty lady and young All-American guy gunned down on live TV won’t so much as make us wince.
Hey, it’s just the price of Freedumb in Amuricka, right?
Exactly. Also, it happened very early in the morning, so there was plenty of time for coverage to build throughout the day.
It’s fairly easy to construct a Press-Interest ranking for things that will appear in the news:
The order might be a little arbitrary after the first 8 or so, but I think the list holds up pretty well. Unfortunately.
Cheers,
Scott.
Not very common, but a black on white murder. Source: FBI Expanded Homocide Data – multiple deaths
An awful event – prayers for all loved ones and friends left behind in shock.
Indeed, very unusual.
This is one of the least well known facts in America.
I don’t think that term is used for domestic relationship shootings; very misleading
Link is to main page of FBI statistics. See expansion table 6 for specific data by race.
yes, I know. what I mean is that the fact they were a Black and a White is completely subordinate to the fact that they were in a relationship.
This murder goes under table 10, murder by circumstances of relationship, Is it broken down by race to include interracial relationships? no. so we have no pertinent statistics