Subject: Re: Background Checks
Liberals - via music, tech, teardown of societal norms have led to a messed up society. People walk around on meds, angry, wagging their fingers and bobbing their heads, getting violent over the wrong fast food order, or because their bullcrap relationship soured, or their co-worker bothered them. Lack of parenting also leads to gun violence in schools. Point being - THIS generation is growing up with gun horror.

Many people think the first mass shooting was in 1966, with Charles Whitman and the Texas Tower. They are surprised to find out that there were mass shootings - and a lot of them - in the 75 years which preceded that one. For instance:

* On March 28, 1891 a man with a doubled barreled shotgun fired upon a crowd of students and faculty attending a school exhibition in Parson Hall School House in Liberty, Mississippi

* On April 9, 1891 James Foster went inside St. Mary's Parochial School in New York, and opened fire

* On August 14 of [1903] Gilbert Twigg, a war veteran, deliberately fired into a crowd of people in Winfield Kansas immediately killing 9 and wounding 25 unsuspecting others.

* Thomas Jones a few years later also went on a murderous shooting spree on January 1913 in Houston, Texas as did Wesley Crow, a professor, who on June 4, 1936 shot and killed 5 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

* Other mass shootings happened particularly those within school settings such as the mass shootings that occurred on Pasadena Public School on May 9, 1940 when 30 year old Verlin Spencer opened fire on school property killing 4.

* November 6, 1948 was witness to Melvin Collins's tragic shootings. Collins went inside the boarding house he had been living in, and decided to shoot people walking outside from inside his hiding spot inside the boarding house. Collins killed eight people and injured countless more.

* In a similar fashion an ex-military man, Howard Unruh, shot thirteen people and wounded at least five others in Camden, New Jersey on September 1949

I could keep going, but if you need to see more, you can go here:

http://behindthetower.org/a-br...

My point is: maybe it's not 'libruls' as much as it is other things. First and foremost, I think, is the easy availability of weapons, particularly assault weapons and others which allow multiple shots to be fired at will. There is also a striking correlation between 'number of people killed' and the end of the assault weapons ban during the Bush administration. As tempted as I am to just say 'Google it', I will help with a chart that shows it:

https://www.researchgate.net/f...

There are certainly other factors; I would put social media on the list for the ease of showing copycats how to make a splash, and yes, the pressures of our hurry-up, get everything done, go to college or else, overscheduled, buy a bigger TV culture. I don't know how much influence to put on media; certainly the wanton killing in movies doesn't help, but then the number of black mass shooters is strikingly low in spite of the thug culture of rap and hip hop lyrics (certainly they have they problems with gangs and other homicides, but I'm focusing here on the topic: mass killings).

What is the solution? I don't have it, but have two suggestions: 1) Mental health. We need more of it and seem to be providing less. And 2) outlaw assault and similar weapons. No sportsman needs one to go duck hunting, nor afraid homeowner to protect their property rights. OK, one more 3) tone down the culture wars, which mostly began with Newt Gingrich and is amplified and endorsed by Fox and the other *highly partisan* channels, to the detriment of the country. There is a little bit of that on the Left, but there is nothing close to the weight and vituperation coming from the Right.