Mass shooting Las Vegas, Oct. 2. 2017

[iNow]

 

2 hours ago, Outrider said:

Why do we here in the U.S. lead the world in so many violent ways? I think its because we worship violence. Why do I need a video game were I can be an assassin for hire? 

I just see the stockpiling of weapons as a symptom of a larger problem. 

Video games are far more popular in Japan than the US. Japan had I think two total people killed by guns all last year. Probably more than that will be shot in the US between the time when I began this reply and the time when I hit submit. 

Likewise, Australia as a culture has the same gruff trailblazing independent strains we have in the US. They pick fights and have brawls and easily do so more than we do. Same result as Japan, though. Next to zero gun deaths. 

There’s no need to invent reasons here. No need for pretend explanations or unfounded speculation or any mental gymnastics. We’re not more violent than other nations. We don’t play more video games or watch more movies, violent or otherwise. We’re no more predisposed to murder than others.

The US is different in only one relevant way from peer nations: Firearm availability.

Edited October 9, 2017 by iNow

[StringJunky]

29 minutes ago, iNow said:

 

.....The US is different in only one relevant way from peer nations: Firearm availability.

Yes. People will usually take the path of least resistance, especially in emotionally-charged situations.

Edited October 9, 2017 by StringJunky

[Airbrush]

If 3% of the US population own 50% of all the firearms, what is known about this group of people?  Are they mostly collectors of ancient artifacts?  Or do they stockpile large numbers of modern guns?   What is their reason for owning so many guns?  Are they experts that buy and sell guns like any commodity?  Planning on having a war?

Why did Paddock need so many assault rifles in the hotel room, because when fired full-auto the barrel gets too hot so he needs to switch to another gun until the other cools off?  If so, all he would need is a few guns, why so many others?

[iNow]

9 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Or do they stockpile large numbers of modern guns?

This one

10 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

What is their reason for owning so many guns?  Are they experts that buy and sell guns like any commodity?  Planning on having a war?

Why did Paddock need so many assault rifles in the hotel room, because when fired full-auto the barrel gets too hot so he needs to switch to another gun until the other cools off?  If so, all he would need is a few guns, why so many others?

The reasons are myriad, and speculative at best

[swansont]

16 hours ago, Airbrush said:

If 3% of the US population own 50% of all the firearms, what is known about this group of people?  Are they mostly collectors of ancient artifacts?   

My dad collected mid/late-19th century Colt firearms (from the era before fixed-cartridge ammo). I'm pretty sure they did not have to be registered, at least in our state. (You'd have to be daft to ruin the value of a collectible and run the risk of it blowing up in your hand, anyway) So the statistics probably do not include old weapons.

[Airbrush]

Is it good or bad that 3% of the US own 50% of the weapons?  Maybe the 3% are experts who are more careful than other, more casual, gun owners of only one or a few guns.  It could be worse if that huge number of US guns were evenly spread among the entire population.  It would be interesting to know more about the 3%.  

Edited October 10, 2017 by Airbrush

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

Is it good or bad that 3% of the US own 50% of the weapons?  Maybe the 3% are experts who are more careful than other, more casual, gun owners of only one or a few guns.  It could be worse if that huge number of US guns were evenly spread among the entire population.  It would be interesting to know more about the 3%.  

Unfortunately such research is against the rules:

 

"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies a variety of public health threats every year, from infectious diseases to automobile safety. But for 15 years, the CDC has avoided comprehensive research on one of the top causes of death in the U.S.: firearms.

While the CDC keeps surveillance data on gun injuries and deaths, it has not funded a study aimed at reducing harm from guns since 2001. The CDC estimates that firearms are one of the top five causes of death in the U.S. for people under the age of 65, so advocates of gun safety say the lack of comprehensive research is particularly glaring.

The dearth of research funding goes back to 1997, when an amendment was added to an operations bill that passed in Congress with the language that the CDC will be barred from any research that will “advocate or promote gun control,” CDC spokeswoman Courtney Lenard told ABC News.

Called the Dickey Amendment after Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas who served from 1993 to 2001, the amendment is often called a ban, but it did allow for research on injuries or deaths from firearms. However, Lenard pointed out that after the amendment, Congress cut funding for the CDC by the exact amount that had been spent on gun research in the year before. While that $2.6 million in funding was eventually restored, it was earmarked for traumatic brain injury research, according to a 2013 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association."

[MonDie]

I think real gun reform will begin with the tracking of guns.  Guns will be registered and examined regularly.  This would make it easier to restricted when and who has guns where.  I am bothered by this shooting because prior knowledge may not have even stopped it.  If police went into his room and saw all the guns, there may have been very little they could do except have the hotel owners to ask him to keep the guns in his car or a locker somewhere.

[John Cuthber]

On 10/10/2017 at 8:24 PM, Airbrush said:

Maybe the 3% are experts who are more careful than other, more casual, gun owners of only one or a few guns.

It doesn't seem that way. The mass killers always seem to have hatfulls of guns.

[MonDie]

On 10/8/2017 at 3:25 PM, Ten oz said:

"Men who gamble are more likely to act violently towards others, with the most addicted gamblers the most prone to serious violence. A new study found that gambling in any capacity -- pathological, problem, or so-called casual gambling -- related to significantly increased risk of violence, including domestic abuse. "

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160906103311.htm

Gambling is a form of thrill-seeking, which is associated with antisocial personality traits.  I think he was antisocial, and wonder whether he hated the people he killed.

The two hierarchical factors of personality were provisionally termed "alpha" and "beta", but some newer research refers to them as "Stability" and "Plasticity."  Stability is the most relevant to violent behavior.  With respect to the five-factor model of personality, Stability mainly consists of items from Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism.  Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are closely related, and they typically merge into a hierarchical factor called Constraint.  In contrast, Neuroticism is the satellite that typically doesn't correlate strongly with anyone.

When the personality disorders are mapped onto the five-factor model, Narcissists have less Agreeableness and Antisocials have less Constraint.  I suspect that Agreeableness is the ideal predictor for abrasive behaviors, but Conscientiousness is related to negligent or reckless behaviors, of which drug abuse is a strong correlate of antisocial personality.  There is a facet of Extraversion, which is socially desireable, called Excitement Seeking that is unimpaired in Narcissistic and Antisocial personality, but we know that the shooter was not extroverted.

Neuroticism has a weaker relationship to drug use, which is probably for self-medication in this context.  Neuroticism is the outstanding predictor of suicide, and many of these shooters are suicidal.  This shooter was getting old anyway, and he wanted to escape.  The relationship of Neuroticism to lower Agreebaleness is somewhat ambiguous.  Neuroticism has an opposite, positive correlation with the Modesty facet of Agreeableness, but the Angry Hostility facet of Neuroticism has much overlap with Agreeableness.  Modesty is particularly relevant to Narcissism and a lower-order factor called Honesty-Humility.  My pondering of this led me to separate abrasive behaviors into hostile behaviors, designed to hurt, and exploitative behaviors, designed for personal gain.  Murder could be exploitative or hostile, but blatant murders like these are typically the work of suicidal, Neurotic people, who incidentally have a hostility bias.  Although mental illness is normally associated with Neuroticism, drug abuse can mimic the symptoms of mental illness, and he could have been abusing his prescription for Valium.  That psychosis is a side-effect of Valium surprises me because it suppresses the HPA axis, which increases prior to psychotic episodes.  Furthermore, I must ask how he got the prescription without his "severe, undiagnosed mental illness" surfacing.  He must have been diagnosed with something.