Theories of Violent Crime Rise in America

Weatherman2020

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Mar 3, 2013
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I can’t find a more recent chart of mass shootings. But they just go up exponentially as the chart continues. But there is one common theme among the timeline charts compiled out there - they only go back to the 1960’s. For good reason - mass shootings of strangers began in the 1960’s. I’m not talking about what family members and gangs have done, they go back to the days BC. I’m talking about walking into a room of strangers or slight acquaintances like coworkers and just murder them.
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Americans have always owned guns. My father and his friends took rifles to school to go rabbit hunting afterwards. Machine guns and even cannons were owned by citizens through much of American history.

So what changed during the 1960’s to start this upward trend?

I’ll offer a theory as to what occurred. If you don’t like it, fine. But offer your own theory as to the catalyst that started this.

1. Decline in morality
The narcissistic ‘Me’ era was being born in the 60’s. It’s all about me. Christianity was removed from schools in 1962. Instead of sitting on the porch talking to neighbors we started sitting in front of the boob tube. Drug use was rising for the first time in America. We chuckle at ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll’ but there’s a lot to it. Sex outside of marriage and drugs are huge addictions that cause good people to do a lot of stupid things throughout history. Christianity has been on the decline since the 60’s and being replaced by every other religion.

2. Criminal behavior being idolized
In the 60’s Hollywood began a transition from movies with a moral theme to darker themed movies that now in the past few decades idolizes violent crime. Many of the mass shootings in the past few decades have been copycat I want my face to be remembered too crimes of insanity.

3. Soft on crime
The movement to eliminate the death penalty went into overdrive in the 60’s. We made it clear to everyone that no matter how horrific your actions are, we will just lock you up and give you 3 hot meals a day and you can be the cell block hero who killed all those people. Then we started to release violent felons from prison early with no justification. Right now the average time served for first degree murder is just 10 years. 68% of felons on parole will be rearrested within 3 years, 77% after 5 years. And that’s just the ones caught.

4. Illegal drug use
Illegal drug use kicked into full swing in the 60’s. Illiterate people say drugs don’t hurt anyone. Fact is drugs literally eat your body from the inside out, including your brain. And once it’s talons have sunk into you, it’s a one way road. Many children born to drug addicts have mental issues, including a lack of empathy towards others. They’d just as much get entertained watching you slowly die from being shot as they would anything else.

 
I can tell the movies theory is completely wrong. We've had "darker theme" going back to even the first movies where murder was a theme and continued on thru the film noir era where everyone was a bad guy pretty much and criminals and dirty cops were the theme of a generation. Violence has always been a part of human history and film history.

Even in 1927 the bath school massacre killed like 10 adults and injured like 60 others. That predates your era by 40 some years. Then of course you have Hitler and so on with a long history of mass violence.

The rise of violence is a mixture of things like diversity where we have a society ever adding in more and more people that increasingly want America to conform to them and not the other way around so you have more unrest. As we add more different kinds of people society becomes more uneasy as we're subjected to more people that are different than us.

We have become increasingly more soft and weak on criminals making up more and more excuses for them. Even today we praise criminals and even build statues to them. The media makes stars of criminals and gives them non stop coverage and gives them attention.

Our society caters to the younger and younger people that don't know anything and raised by weak willed parents. Since the 60s we started with the hippies in their 20s, now we cater to 16 year olds and give them a voice.

And we're losing our morals and Americans standards.
 
I can’t find a more recent chart of mass shootings. But they just go up exponentially as the chart continues. But there is one common theme among the timeline charts compiled out there - they only go back to the 1960’s. For good reason - mass shootings of strangers began in the 1960’s. I’m not talking about what family members and gangs have done, they go back to the days BC. I’m talking about walking into a room of strangers or slight acquaintances like coworkers and just murder them.
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Americans have always owned guns. My father and his friends took rifles to school to go rabbit hunting afterwards. Machine guns and even cannons were owned by citizens through much of American history.

So what changed during the 1960’s to start this upward trend?

I’ll offer a theory as to what occurred. If you don’t like it, fine. But offer your own theory as to the catalyst that started this.

1. Decline in morality
The narcissistic ‘Me’ era was being born in the 60’s. It’s all about me. Christianity was removed from schools in 1962. Instead of sitting on the porch talking to neighbors we started sitting in front of the boob tube. Drug use was rising for the first time in America. We chuckle at ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll’ but there’s a lot to it. Sex outside of marriage and drugs are huge addictions that cause good people to do a lot of stupid things throughout history. Christianity has been on the decline since the 60’s and being replaced by every other religion.

2. Criminal behavior being idolized
In the 60’s Hollywood began a transition from movies with a moral theme to darker themed movies that now in the past few decades idolizes violent crime. Many of the mass shootings in the past few decades have been copycat I want my face to be remembered too crimes of insanity.

3. Soft on crime
The movement to eliminate the death penalty went into overdrive in the 60’s. We made it clear to everyone that no matter how horrific your actions are, we will just lock you up and give you 3 hot meals a day and you can be the cell block hero who killed all those people. Then we started to release violent felons from prison early with no justification. Right now the average time served for first degree murder is just 10 years. 68% of felons on parole will be rearrested within 3 years, 77% after 5 years. And that’s just the ones caught.

4. Illegal drug use
Illegal drug use kicked into full swing in the 60’s. Illiterate people say drugs don’t hurt anyone. Fact is drugs literally eat your body from the inside out, including your brain. And once it’s talons have sunk into you, it’s a one way road. Many children born to drug addicts have mental issues, including a lack of empathy towards others. They’d just as much get entertained watching you slowly die from being shot as they would anything else.

When was America ever a Moral Country?
 
I can tell the movies theory is completely wrong. We've had "darker theme" going back to even the first movies where murder was a theme and continued on thru the film noir era where everyone was a bad guy pretty much and criminals and dirty cops were the theme of a generation. Violence has always been a part of human history and film history.

Even in 1927 the bath school massacre killed like 10 adults and injured like 60 others. That predates your era by 40 some years. Then of course you have Hitler and so on with a long history of mass violence.

The rise of violence is a mixture of things like diversity where we have a society ever adding in more and more people that increasingly want America to conform to them and not the other way around so you have more unrest. As we add more different kinds of people society becomes more uneasy as we're subjected to more people that are different than us.

We have become increasingly more soft and weak on criminals making up more and more excuses for them. Even today we praise criminals and even build statues to them. The media makes stars of criminals and gives them non stop coverage and gives them attention.

Our society caters to the younger and younger people that don't know anything and raised by weak willed parents. Since the 60s we started with the hippies in their 20s, now we cater to 16 year olds and give them a voice.

And we're losing our morals and Americans standards.
Good guys vs bad guys is a theme going back to BC times. Because the moral of the story is good guys always win.

I’m aware of several murders where the murderers were emulating violent criminals glorified in the movie they saw.
 
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In the 1960s, those seeking attention looked for someone to assassinate…….JFK, MLK, Malcolm X, RFK, John Lennon

After Columbine, those seeking attention looked for a high body count not a famous name
 
In the 1960s, those seeking attention looked for someone to assassinate…….JFK, MLK, Malcolm X, RFK, John Lennon

After Columbine, those seeking attention looked for a high body count not a famous name
There’s always been attention seekers. But now the value of human life is zero in the minds of many. See #1.
 
There’s always been attention seekers. But now the value of human life is zero in the minds of many. See #1.
I think that has always been there

We have always celebrated our gun culture.
Used to be the Cowboy having a gunfight at high noon

Today, it is the video game where you choose your weapon and roam through town shooting as many victims as you can
 
I think that has always been there

We have always celebrated our gun culture.
Used to be the Cowboy having a gunfight at high noon

Today, it is the video game where you choose your weapon and roam through town shooting as many victims as you can
In the 1800’s people didn’t walk into a classroom and start shooting kids. In fact, my dad would take his rifle to school in the 50’s to go hunting afterwards and not even an eyebrow was raised. Because morality was much different then.
 
In the 1800’s people didn’t walk into a classroom and start shooting kids. In fact, my dad would take his rifle to school in the 50’s to go hunting afterwards and not even an eyebrow was raised. Because morality was much different then.
Part of that is certainly that the schools were smaller and people were much more connected. The rise of interaction through a screen exacerbates this problem IMO.
 
In the 1800’s people didn’t walk into a classroom and start shooting kids. In fact, my dad would take his rifle to school in the 50’s to go hunting afterwards and not even an eyebrow was raised. Because morality was much different then.

No thank you
I don’t want to hold up the morality of the 1800s

Slavery, Native American genocide, anti-woman, anti-immigrant
 
No thank you
I don’t want to hold up the morality of the 1800s

Slavery, Native American genocide, anti-woman, anti-immigrant
Yet you claim all those things exist in America today.
One of every ten men in America became a casualty of war to free men they didn’t know over 150 years ago. Think they’d do that today?
 
No thank you
I don’t want to hold up the morality of the 1800s

Slavery, Native American genocide, anti-woman, anti-immigrant
Are we so simple that we can't take good parts of things and leave the bad parts behind? Seriously. In your mind it's all or nothing? There's nothing about that time period that is good?
 
Again, when was America a moral nation?
It's always been a moral nation. You do know that moral people and institutions arent perfect right? Are you moral? If so have you never done anything immoral? And if that's true how can you say you are moral?
 

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