Dude,

I can barely give a **** about the things people post on here and I've been here for ten years. Post some Facebook titties or cats or anything but this ffs.

Fair enough.

Nobody IRL wants to hear about this epic struggle I'm having w/ conservative droolers and I felt inclined to share here. Maybe I'll make a PUC thread to chronicle the adventure.

Maybe put it in the oot Facebook thread?

DIB, can you provide a screenshot of that original Facebook post please?

I think it's important to differentiate the two arguments for not releasing shooter's names. One is the copy cat phenomenon that you're describing here. I think that it probably exists to the extent that someone who is putting serious planning into an attack like the one in Oregon will look to other similar events for tactical advice. The problem is that even if the names and photographs of previous shooters hadn't been released, other facts about the shootings certainly would have. I'm not sure how you can realistically prevent future shooters from mimicking previous shooters without also severely stifling media coverage of what are obviously important events.

The other argument, and the one that I hear repeated more often, is that the shooters are committing their crimes partly in an attempt to get publicity. Therefore, if we don't show their names and faces on TV regularly, it will deter future shooters. That argument strikes me as a way for people to avoid dealing with the actual issues behind these events. It's easier to go with "he just wanted attention" rather than trying to make sense of all of the various factors that lead to a situation like this. Mental health, social status, home environment, availability of guns, societal factors, etc.

It's the same kind of thing that you see, by the way, when people's first response to a suicide is "how selfish" or responding to a suicide attempt as "he just wanted attention". People are uncomfortable admitting that the world is a really complicated place, and people go through things that may be incomprehensible to someone not in their position. So, they distill all of the millions of things flying around into one easily digestible character flaw.

One option is to release the shooters names in pig latin. Or just spell them out so as not to inform younger viewers.

Troll of the week is whoever undid the beauty of San Francisco's "I voted!" stickers. No longer do we get English, Spanish, and Chinese in all the same size; it's now a boring ****ing "I voted!" in the center, with Spanish/Chinese/Tagalog in smaller size around the edge.

Charlie Brown Christmas stamps for legal letters. Yes, please. https://store.usps.com/store/browse/...uctId=S_680204

I'll admit I wasn't aware of other shooters referencing those killings and I may be sceptical as to whether they motivated rather than informed them but as catface suggests I'd be more inclined to think certain shooters wouldn't act if they didn't know they'd be getting blanket coverage. I'm obviously just guessing but the times that a shooter leaves some manifesto or explanation, or like the Oregon shooter discusses it before time, it seems to suggest they want notoriety.

I'm also inclined to be more restrictive with who and what I consider terrorist.

He's been indicted on federal hate crime charges and the prosecutor has announced plans to seek the death penalty.

Actually common:

Cho idolized Columbine killers

Thresholds of Violence: How school shootings catch on

I'm not endorsing these points of view -- basically, that media coverage of the shooters and their motivations and planning and tactics, etc., have provided not just practical ideas but have literally motivated the shootings themselves.

But I mean, they exist and what I will acknowledge is that enough serious people hold them that they aren't preposterous. And if you look at the dudes shooting up schools or whatever, they are commonly referencing each other and citing past incidents as motivational and inspiring.

The copycat stuff is definitely real.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history...gilbert-graham

I found that to be the most fascinating example of anybody copying another person's crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Guay was the guy who inspired him.

Good luck with trying to lock down information to prevent copycats in an internet age.

OK, first off, let me say that one of the irrational reasons I kneejerk against not publicizing their names is because the loudest proponents of it seem to be Facebook aunts and the like, people who favor grandiose pointless gestures over addressing problems.

But practically, what exactly are they asking for here? It can't be a law, that violates the first amendment. So they just ask publications to adopt internal practices like they do with some crimes involving children and not mention the name? But people want to know ABOUT the killer even if his specific name isn't publicized, the public has a (well justified) desire to know the motivations behind these acts. There isn't a huge public outcry to know the name of a child molestation victim, nobody wants to read their manifestos or pore over their social media.


As a side note, going way out of my pay grade here,
Won't future copycats still idolize the murderers even if we didn't know their names? They seem to be focused in on the actual killings, it's not like Cho was wearing a trenchcoat and listening to Marilyn. They idolized the murder, not the murderer. Honestly, the less information we tell these future copycats might make them imagine that all the anonymous mass killers were all warriors in their personal cause.

Yeah- I sorta feel like the kids ****ed up enough to do this were going to do it anyway, that other folks already did it just gives them easy shorthand to explain their motivation or something.

It seems like the frequency of mass shootings has risen to the point where you might have to look at the events spawning more events, but I feel like actually naming the folks doesn't do much more.

You seem to think this is impossible, but it's essentially been done already for sexual assault accusers, under aged offenders, and other victims. Seems doable to produce a social construct where these people don't get their names anywhere

When you read up on Columbine, he was more of a failed bomber than anything else - set five devices that morning, none of which detonated. He also broke his nose from the recoil of his shotgun during the shootings. Maybe those are the details people should emphasise. Clearly, this other kid was really thinking about the propaganda/self-aggrandising element, which is where Harris shone, if you can call it that.

I don't necessarily agree with any of the arguments I'm about to make, but:

1. I think you're correct no one is arguing for legal censorship but for media protocols to be developed to treat these cases differently than the status quo, mostly through self censorship (e.g., like how sports broadcasts conventionally won't show you a drunk fun running around on the field of play or whatever).

2. This part I sincerely believe and am not playing Devils Advocate: I do disagree that mass shooters are idolizing the murder and not the murderers. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I am not an expert, but I think it's clear reading testimonials that it's both. Eric Harris in particular is the subject of a small personality cult. Brooks Brown was a friend of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (he was one of the kids they told to go home before they started shooting). He did an AMA on reddit where he says he gets ~one seemingly sincere letter weekly from Harris "fan boy/girls." It's pretty clear he is the subject of a completely bonkers personality cult among some probable very tiny number of people.

3. I don't know that arguments which suggest the media changing their behavior are suggesting the names specifically are worth self-censoring. Maybe some do. But what I think some have argued is there is value in the media self-censoring and not publishing manifestos, surveillance videos, 9/11 calls, taking inventory of the weaponry used, pre-attack statements and imagery (e.g., Cho mailed a package to NBC with photos of him pointing guns at the camera and stuff). These types of information aggrandize the murderer as important and worth paying attention to. The Galdwell article I linked to earlier (I think Galdwell is often a complete clownshow) made the case that it's something like a cult: for socially deviant angry young men, the imagery and intense focus on the shooters motivations, personality, tastes, hatreds, whatever can provide a script others want to follow. It sounds preposterous but the subject of the article (John LaDue) told police that's precisely what he was doing:

I agree that the merit to the position that the publication or amplification of these things is influential in motivating more attacks is questionable (at least as a principle causative factor) and I would argue the public interest supersedes whatever merit there is to the position that publishing these details aggrandizes the murder and inspires others.

But I do think it's clear the publication of this information is inspirational for certain anti social young guys. Almost surely not causational but at least influential.

I've read some of these manifestos and, honestly, if I were going to embark upon a mass shooting spree, my goal would be to prove that I am better than all of these miserable losers. (But if I wanted to commit mass murder, I probably wouldn't use guns.)

Will play devil's advocate.

"If discrimination were as all-purpose an explanation of economic differences as is often supposed, we might reasonably expect blacks in Brazil to have come closer to economic parity with whites there than blacks in the United States have come to achieving parity with white Americans. In fact, however, Brazil has larger black-white disparities in income than does the United States. As inconsistent as this may be with discrimination as a dominant explanatory factor, it is perfectly consistent with cultural explanations."

http://www.hoover.org/research/race-...e-and-equality

http://www.hoover.org/research/race-...e-and-equality

Sure, but when using a laptop I only know how to add images by clicking the "insert image" icon which then prompts me to use a web address, not a saved image on my CPU.

I had to look up how to take screen shots on my laptop, FWIW. I fail at technology.

Get the imgur browser extension so you can upload selective screen shots.

"Imgur browser extension."

Oh no I'm with you there. There is a well documented cult of personality in the societal fringes, people who write serial killers fan mail and ****.

What I'm saying is say that some hypothetical name-exclusion norm takes hold and somehow even Twitter and Reddit sign on.

I'm saying that giving the killers a blank slate then would just lead to adoration and mythologizing "The Columbine Killers" instead of Dylan and Eric. Basically there's a lot of copycat ****, but just imagine how this would actually play out. Some weirdo killing 20 people is still going to make the papers.

So when you say "this information", what are we talking about?

I'm actually not sure how to interpret that jpg.