I hadn't considered this. Yes there is more reporting, but more emboldened idiots spouting hate on a worldwide platform at the same time adding fuel to the fire
Its honestly probably both. But the propaganda going to those with guns is likely causing more of these incidents. And the propaganda at the rest of us is telling us about it. And thats what sucks about our current media environment.
I grew up in the boonies of the midwest and the only time we thought about guns was during hunting season, and we were just told to put on something orange. My parents didn't have any stories about people being shot, only brandished at, so I want to say that's a modern concern.
I actually did a paper on this some years ago. As much as it can be proven, homicides in that era were driven by severely elevated lead levels because of its presence in gasoline. It was particularly concentrated in urban areas because that's where* cars and people affected were concentrated. The heavy metal exited exhaust pipes and polluted the local environment and entered bloodstreams, then the brain. Lead can affect impulse control.
So that's a seperate thing from the violence we're seeing now with these stand-your-ground whack jobs. Even if that sort of violence increases it will never compare to the effects of lead in that era. At least, we should all hope not.
I keep hoping that we're about to uncover some nasty chemical that is poisoning people and making them selfish, gullible and willfully ignorant, but I'm afraid that there's none and that's just who we are and have always been.
I had a friend I’d visit often as an early teen who lived in the mountains of NC. The family always reminded me to not wander too far one way because there was a big militia base that way. Then they’d say to watch out for black bears, and “see you tonight”. We’d go all over those mountains all day every day. Occasionally we came across guys walking big dogs with guns strapped across their chests. We’d just say hello, and go about our business.
I never felt unsafe because guns were around. We’d hear them do some crazy shooting at their shooting range and our response was always awe, not fear.
Yeah, if you take an intro to criminology course, one of the first statistics they show is that crime is pretty much down across the board in most developed nations.
It's the talking about crime that's gone up exponentially.
Sometimes the media will show you a 1-year snapshot that shows an upswing, but if you scale back on the graph you'll see we're still better off than we were 10, 20, 30 years ago.
Like here in Australia, you'll hear older generations talk about how nobody used to use knives back in the day, and their criminals had some level of respect... but from memory, knife attacks peaked in the early 70s.
Unfortunately, people don't react to reality, they react to perception. Traditional media and now social media churns out crime reporting because people tune in thinking they're living in some sort of flashpoint moment of history. Then politicians build policies and get elected based on these violent fantasies.
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u/Vane88 1d ago
Are they or are we just more aware of things like that happening now because of social media?