Solid post. I would say that I think that obviously fantastical violence like Bond is less of a big deal. All the cartoon gadgetry and villains and so forth places Bond fairly obviously outside the real world. Although the plotting in 24 is frequently ludicrous, it does have a pretence to be a real-world drama, with recognisably real villains and heroes. Zero Dark Thirty, even more so. The closer things are to feeling real, the more damaging the message about the efficacy of violence is. (Although again, I think violent media is more a symptom than a cause, but it sort of runs both ways - media which repeats cultural ideas reinforces them).

Given how dominant American films, TV and games are globally... do we see the samw negative impact?

Btw. Im onboard with the "from my cold dead hands" gun culturw stuff being a major problem.

We took slavery away from slavers 150 years ago, but their descendants (and many others!) still hang on to the idea that white men should always get their way. Even if we could take away the guns, the culture would continue to exist and express itself in ways I doubt we would like much more than mass shootings.

The NRA blames school gun violence on drugs and a culture of violence

"they've come to a culture where violence is commonplace"

Yes because every other student is getting gunned down you ****ing idiot.

The NRA is certainly committed to non violence

Spokesperson for the National Drug Association responds: "The disease in this case isn’t the drugs, the disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence, they've been shot in many cases,"

"school shield?"

Apparently it's something they've been humping but never trying to implement since Sandy Hook

*

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...snt-done-much/

Guns, the cause of, and solution to, all of school shooting problems.

I'm not sure why people think this is a good idea. All that has to happen is for a shooter to wait outside that single door as students leave for the day and it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

American politicians aren't against violence. No reasonable person can think that. What they are against is Hollywood monopolizing the concept of violence. They want the government's definition of violence and its glorification to take control.

These discussions have to stop. They're nothing more than red herrings used by the NRA to disguise the real truth which is that they are way too many guns that are way too easy to obtain.

Yeah it did ramp up quite a bit post-WW II. But it was still ongoing before then. All Quiet on the Western Front showed that people who weren't at risk of going to war indoctrinated kids into thinking that it was an honor, a duty to die for one's country. It also showed how massively uninformed those people are about the war.

I was thinking that it was an intentional grammar mistake because of the character limit but I'm not so sure.

I'm pretty culture is just the hand wavy excuse to avoid anything touching reality or to keep the status quo. Black culture is broken hence blacks in poverty , white rural culture now emulates black culture hence opioid crisis, we have a culture of violence hence school shootings. Since culture is amorphous and hard to consciously change its a good thing to blame problems on when you don't want any solutions.

So much this.

What is stopping parents from organizing and paying for metal detectors or other safety procedure? I'm not saying this is the best way to go about things, but it seems astonishingly simple to improve the security of a public building.

While Bladesman made a good post, but Republicans blast "born in the USA" at GOP and Trump rallies. I don't think a ton of people differentiate context or subtext

My best hope for a way out of this mess for my country is a massive explosion in youth vote participation.

The risk is that young people slowly become deplorables.

But overall gun violence doesn't correlate well with overall gun ownership either. There are at least other factors. I think militarism may be something and may be at the root of some gun and movie violence like zikzak said, but not just from propaganda, from the actual militarism. I think something even fuzzier like egoism and alienation is a factor as well. I don't know how that compares exactly across cultures, but I'd suggest a less egoistic alienated society as part of the explanation as to why homicide rates are so low in many Arab states and Israel where there are many guns available and a lot of state violence. Maybe also a culture of celebrity.

Do other cultures make such heroes of violent characters and real people to the extent we do? Maybe other violent cultures like Mexico with it's narco heroes and Russia.

I think you're right that people who don't want gun control talk about every other conceivable cause of gun violence strategically. Obviously the NRA does this. Strategically perhaps it's bad for those who want gun control to talk about anything else. But maybe not and what's good strategy for a politician doesn't mean randos on a bulletin board are sinning when they talk about other possible factors.

I would bet that metal detectors at schools would not help and if anything would hurt overall. It's part of a violent siege atmosphere.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/loc...m-12927909.php

I am bawling at reading this, and seething with rage that 40% of the country literally doesn't want to lift a finger to try to do anything to prevent this. They're perfectly happy with talking about mental illness, or arming teachers, or violent video games, or young men not getting laid, or whatever bull****. And they know damn well it's just a diversion until the issue fades from public consciousness. And then we do it all over again in a few weeks.

40% of the country wants to do NOTHING. This is an acceptable price to pay for their tribal fantasy - because it's not their kid hiding the closet.

.

Yeah the resignation on that kid's face, and the matter of fact way she said it just destroyed me.

**** you so bad NRA and gun nuts who will be bashing these kids in a few days. You're utterly despicable human beings. I wouldn't piss on your head if it was on fire.