"Guy with shit circumstances decides to buy a gun and decides to go somewhere with the gun and decides to shoot undeserving people with the gun, it's society's fault"
Way to blame the victim anon. No, this was his decision. I know folks who have life shitting all over them and it doesn't make them want to kill children and families.
Cruz's Crime is not "100% society's fault." Cruz literally and figuratively pulled that trigger. At best maybe a 50:50, but to completely absolve Cruz of any wrongdoing is asinine.
So much commentary here focusing on societal ills, but even in other countries with lots of poverty and shit social services they don’t have individuals committing random mass murders like us because they don’t have a collection of high capacity personal arms. There’s plenty of people in other countries that have commonality with his life, yet they don’t commit mass murder. Yeah, shootings do happen elsewhere…but not like in the US, and the difference is access to firearms.
I mean yeah society has a role to play in this but there are millions of.people who are in or have gone through this same situation without murdering a bunch of people
No. You've just described the life of most people on Earth outside of American suburbia. Most of us don't mass murder with machine guns.
That only happens in America because you've chosen to elect people who make sure crazy people can exercise your Constitutional right to carry machine guns and stand your ground when King Charles comes on your property or you carry your emotional support machine guns to a protest. That's not "society's" fault. It's every single Republican MAGA protect the second amendment voter.
Born with autism, mild cerebral palsy, medical issues
Mom heavily neglected and abused me
Lived in many foster, adoptive homes, boarding schools, went to many schools and extreme right-wing churches
In all of them, was either physically, emotionally, or sexually abused
Abandoned as adult
Joined USAF, medical discharge out of tech school when they realized their mistake
Lived in homeless shelters and then adult foster care
My name online is usually some form of the word "orphan"
So what am I doing? Well, I'm poor and on disability and I've struggled to manage my emotions, and I've had to grow like anybody. But I'm an ex-Christian theist, empathetic liberal, and have never done any crime. I spent a lot of years in social programs and with social workers. I live in an apartment now with two best friends. I'm writing a science fantasy novel I hope to change the world with, sharing a lot of what I experienced and what I learned. I wrote a symphonic rock and power ballad soundtrack for it.
"The Solemn Dream" Blurb:
After a very unhappy childhood, “Solemn” dies at 25 and wakes up in the space-age afterlife of Heleia, where everyone’s home planet is chosen by the seraphs— demigod social workers and keepers of the peace— based on that person’s emotional and ethical maturity. Here, Solemn chooses to become a young child again, hoping to heal and to finally find a loving family.
Jessi Vargas is a forever-19 bully who lives on Nemesis, the planet for those who don’t care that they’re harmful. Sick of being surrounded by terrible people, she prepares to leave the planet— even though she may not be worthy.
Lu Montsely is a kind and patient humanitarian who hides a terrible past. After a century of effort, she is almost ready to ascend to the utopian world of Themis to join her loving husband. Lu mentors Solemn and Jessi as her final test, and— along with their wise and humorous helper android Iota— they form a small family on Eleos.
But many do not believe that criminals deserve second chances. When the seraphs discover mass-produced weapons, they need the aid of Solemn’s new family to investigate. Solemn soon finds themselves the recipient of powerful abilities that give them a unique role in the growing conflict. And before long, Solemn and family are not only fighting to become happier, kinder, and greater— but also for the fate of the entire Helian afterlife.
...I don't think that having lived through shit means you need to be a shit person. Sure, some misfortunate people are going to have personalities that push them towards being shit people, but... those people were likely going to be shit people anyway, unless people guided them a little more carefully.
Yes, I think he was dealt a very bad hand and that undoubtedly played a factor in why he but what he did but At the end of the day Cruz still choose to do what he did. That's why I don't like the "100% society's fault" no, a person still made a choice. We can recognise what kind of dysfunctional people society can create while also not absolving them either.
Just adding cause I know someone will misinterprete my comment if I don't. Yes I think gun laws in the US are in dire need of being reformed and that the US desperately needs to improve its safety nets but at the end of the day we need to acknowledge personal agency in these situations as well.
Nooooo! We can't help people who are in a shit situation in life, that's communism ...because rightwingers said so! And that's baaaad ...b-because it just is okay?
Tax money should only go towards private corporations that don't make our lifes better! This person was a bad person, and I can't stomach thinking my tax money could have gone towards getting them the help they needed and completely averting the horrible things they did! My tax is much better going to the military industrial complex so we can help bomb kids even better!
I for one think it's billaint that western societies are set up to regularlly leave people behind with no way to escape their situation! And when these poeple act up instead of just sitting around to die a slow painful, but conveniently quiet death, we should act like their motivations are completely incompressible! Because we all know hte alternative is to change a society that we have thrived in, and then we might not thrive as much!
can we accept people are going to react to their shitty lives differently, and just because it doesn't make you go on a murderous spree, it doesn't mean that it is the case for everybody. the real solution isn't to make these dumb arguments against shooters etc. which might be as correct as you want them to but it's to make lives fucking dignifying in a situation where one may not be thinking rationally. if one doesn't have the strength to not make a certain choice, calling them pathetic doesn't fix shit. every single one of us is delusional.
We always had lots of guns, why are mass shootings a modern phenomenon?
I think we should regulate them the way we do cars. But also there’s clearly some underlying issue. Maybe cultural where people see guns as a way to escape or see them as part of their personality.
I fail to see the relevance of this post and it comes off as if people want to victim blame. A lot of people have problems. A lot of people get bullied. Just think about the thousands of women who get raped and sexually abused throughout their lifes.
Mass shooter fit a profile, sure. They obviously aren't happy people. But the reason why they do this is not what has happened to them in their lifes. Otherwise we would have a lot more mass shooters.
Maybe 4chan self-propagandizing mass shootings as "something fantastic" should be one of those environmental factors being considered in what led up to the end result?
There people who are literally bordering death by hunger and drinking dirty water probably from the moment their embryo began to form. Malnutrition is proven to led to low IQ. But they all don't go on killings spree, otherwise there would be no-one suffering from hunger anymore.
But seriously, we gotta look at the structural issues at play in things like this. A lot of gun control advocates want to point at things like this, and say, see, this shit doesn't happen in any other country in the world, obviously the guns are the problem, we need to take the guns! But when you look at other countries, you see that the US is one of the few that has both guns and almost no social safety nets. The proposed solution on the left is never "fix the problems that lead to crime and violence"; rather, it's "take the tools used to commit crime and violence"
You can use the facile response of saying, no, this is all on Cruz, he made a choice. And it's true, kind of, except that his choices were significantly constrained by the social conditions that were imposed on him. That's not saying that what he did was right, nor does it make it the 'fault' of the people he victimized. But things like this simply do not happen in a vacuum.
Here's another way of looking at it.
If you take a dog as a puppy, starve it, leave it outside all the time, ignore it, kick it, never give it any positive interaction, and always punish it for any 'infraction' when you've never put in any time to teach it better, are you going to be surprised when it mauls someone? Why do you expect any other animal to behave better than a dog just because it walks upright and has no fur?
Okay, what about mental health aspects? Yes, suicidality is an incredible predictor. But guess what? It's only there in 30% of cases prior to the shooting.
Suicidality was found to be a strong predictor of perpetration of mass shootings. Of all mass shooters in the The Violence Project database, 30% were suicidal prior to the shooting. An additional 39% were suicidal during the shooting. Those numbers were significantly higher for younger shooters, with K-12 students who engaged in mass shootings found to be suicidal in 92% of instances and college/university students who engaged in mass shooting suicidal 100% of the time.
Oh no it must've been trauma then! Everyone knows someone who suffered abuse is more likely to abuse right!? No.
In terms of past trauma, 31% of persons who perpetrated mass shootings were found to have experiences of severe childhood trauma, and over 80% were in crisis
Want to know the real profile? Massive change in personality. Wants access to guns. They'll TELL someone they're thinking about hurting others. Loneliness.
NONE of which requires anything even remotely mentioned in that farce of a greentext lol.
This guy Cruz had a horrible life, there's no doubt. But that doesn't excuse his going out and committing mass murder. The people he killed did not make his life the misery that is was, and killing them only brings even more misery and murder into the world. There is no "fantastic" outcome. No mass murderer has ever caused a sea-change of how things are, as a result of the murder they commit.
The guy who shot up all those black people at the Tops Market in Buffalo - did he really think killing random black people, would stop black people from existing? Or prevent people from supporting black people? Mass murder never has the results these killers seem to think it will.
And how despicable to say that kids should be armed. No "Good kid" would ever murder another kid, whether that kid is good or bad. The minute you kill someone you've become a corrupt monster without redemption. GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM, they are NEVER the solution.
But it takes intelligence and maturity to see that. I am 65 years old. If you aren't, I don't expect you to understand and get why guns are so bad. So don't bother to reply if you're not old enough to get what I'm saying, it's a waste of your time and mine also.
Dude, wait that's not right! We have to blame the guns, obviously, not society. With enough "thoughts and prayers" and some extra helpings of gun control laws, no one will be desperate or depressed or rageful enough to hurt people! Don't bring your logic or nuance into the conversation or someone could get confused!