Mass shooting in Las Vegas. 50+ dead

[Brian37]

Next will be plaid herrings then paisley herrings.

That's hilarious, coming from you.

Glad you find 93 firearm deaths on average per day funny. I don't, I find it sad you are more worried about my sarcasm than reducing firearm deaths.

Keep it up Frank Burns, keep showing everyone here what a selfish hyper nationalist douchebag you keep proving yourself to be.

I love how you think an insult to your vile logic is worse than being dead.

[A Theist]

That's hilarious, coming from you.

Glad you find 93 firearm deaths on average per day funny. I don't, I find it sad you are more worried about my sarcasm than reducing firearm deaths.

Keep it up Frank Burns, keep showing everyone here what a selfish hyper nationalist douchebag you keep proving yourself to be.

I love how you think an insult to your vile logic is worse than being dead.

Actually, I don't think about you at all, Strawboy. Pay attention to what you read, Retardo, instead of attempting to attribute a situation or an argument to me that I never made.

[Rev. Rye]

Hell, the Columbine kids also liked English class. According to David Cullen's book, they also liked Shakespeare (particularly Lear and The Scottish Play), Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Eric in particular even loved Steinbeck (apparently, Pastures of Heaven was a favourite of his, especially the tale of Tularecito). Should that be policed too?

Too bad their love for the classics didn't have a better influence over them.

The point I'm trying to make is that someone sufficiently fucked up to consider mass murder a decent idea can probably find inspiration in ANYTHING. I'm currently reading Jeff Guinn's biography of Charles Manson, and it spends quite a bit of time trying to explain how Charlie
took the White Album, combined it with the book of Revelation, and turned it into a scenario about a race war that ran on insane troll logic, and did I mention the biggest source for it was a "Helter Skelter," which was about a PLAYGROUND SLIDE?

You see why I don't take too seriously the assumption that it makes sense to blame art for creating a culture of violence that's most likely existed since we stopped working under the assumption that there were about 150 people in the world and we knew them all by name.

[Brian37]

Glad you find 93 firearm deaths on average per day funny. I don't, I find it sad you are more worried about my sarcasm than reducing firearm deaths.

Keep it up Frank Burns, keep showing everyone here what a selfish hyper nationalist douchebag you keep proving yourself to be.

I love how you think an insult to your vile logic is worse than being dead.

Actually, I don't think about you at all, Strawboy. Pay attention to what you read, Retardo, instead of attempting to attribute a situation or an argument to me that I never made.

Enough to respond to me, but stupid enough to miss my point.

Listen Frank Burns, if we were not having an average of 93 firearm deaths per day nobody would be bitching. But you like a whiny little bitch are more concerned about my sarcasm than the actual death of your fellow Americans. 

You, "DON'T CALL ME NAMES"

Me, " Yea, because that is exactly  the same as getting a bullet in your head."

GROW UP ASSHOLE.

Cry to your mommy but don't expect me to give a fuck if I have offended you.

[ignoramus]

I dont see how that would do anything. People who already have psychopathic personalities and a tendency towards violence, are going to be encouraged by anything to eventually act out. If it isn't movies or video games, it'll be something else. You can't compare movies to weapons, because the weapon is what they use to kill people, not the movies.

True, but by that analogy, the qu'ran is just a book and books don't kill.

[Amarok]

That's hilarious, coming from you.

From the douche who brings up peoples relatives and their employment status as a talking point . When the discussion has nothing to do with either that's rich.

---

Too bad their love for the classics didn't have a better influence over them.

Books more fucking violent then Tarantino could write in  a psychotic episode  . Have you fucking read Macbeth or Lear . The most of the cast are  fucking monsters . And the classics are some of the darkest , most violent, raunchiest, stuff ever written.

[A Theist]

Too bad their love for the classics didn't have a better influence over them.

The point I'm trying to make is that someone sufficiently fucked up to consider mass murder a decent idea can probably find inspiration in ANYTHING. I'm currently reading Jeff Guinn's biography of Charles Manson, and it spends quite a bit of time trying to explain how Charlie
took the White Album, combined it with the book of Revelation, and turned it into a scenario about a race war that ran on insane troll logic, and did I mention the biggest source for it was a "Helter Skelter," which was about a PLAYGROUND SLIDE?

You see why I don't take too seriously the assumption that it makes sense to blame art for creating a culture of violence that's most likely existed since we stopped working under the assumption that there were about 150 people in the world and we knew them all by name.

Hey, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that there may possibly be enough of something to the Hollywood and gaming industry's influence, or in some part, creating a culture of violence that warrants study. 

I was in High School at the time of the Manson murders. I can still remember the news reports and the following trial. A couple of years after that there was a made for TV movie about Manson, "Helter Skelter". I can remember reports of the "Manson Family" having drug induced (LSD) parties and orgies and that Manson used drugs and sex to control the so-called family members. If Manson himself engaged in the drug sessions I have to wonder if he got some of his insane ideas while tripping out on LSD or some other Hallucinogen. No doubt as far as I'm concerned that Manson took "Helter Skelter" to mean something else, chaos.

[Rev. Rye]

Looking through Guinn's book, it seems like sometimes he did indeed partake in the acid trips, sometimes he didn't. Like I said, I don't think exposure to violent media is anywhere near sufficient to lead to violence in real life, and Manson's a perfect case in why: The White Album has sold over 9.5 million copies in the US alone. Of the millions who listened to the albums, unless their first exposure to the album happened as a direct result of the Manson Murders, NOBODY would hear "Helter Skelter" and think it's a song about a race war that was meant to happen next summer, much less that it contained instructions for how to make that happen. At least, nobody whose brain wasn't addled with everything from LSD-induced psychosis (possibly) to Dale Carnegie (note: Manson got into Dale Carnegie [as well as Scientology] during one of his early stints in prison; Guinn uses excerpts from Dale Carnegie to contextualise a lot of Manson's actions, from his rare attempts at self-control to planning the Tate-LaBianca murders, but mostly, it's relevant to explaining how he managed to gain followers, even as Haight-Ashbury was saturated with hippie preachers).

And yes, I think a culture of violence exists that predates Hollywood, or even America. It's just that, for most of history, people considered the military as a suitable outlet for such violence: risk your life for your country, make sure the other poor SOB dies for his, and end up celebrated for it if your culture ends up on top. It seemed like a sweet deal until Nam (at least from an American perspective), and we got to see exactly what it was like. Suddenly, it didn't seem like there was much honour in it, especially after EVERYONE got saddled with the "baby killer" epithet because some asshole thought it would be a decent idea to destroy the village of My Lai due to faulty information. Not that much honour there, I'd reckon.

[Amarok]

Looking through Guinn's book, it seems like sometimes he did indeed partake in the acid trips, sometimes he didn't. Like I said, I don't think exposure to violent media is anywhere near sufficient to lead to violence in real life, and Manson's a perfect case in why: The White Album has sold over 9.5 million copies in the US alone. Of the millions who listened to the albums, unless their first exposure to the album happened as a direct result of the Manson Murders, NOBODY would hear "Helter Skelter" and think it's a song about a race war that was meant to happen next summer, much less that it contained instructions for how to make that happen. At least, nobody whose brain wasn't addled with everything from LSD-induced psychosis (possibly) to Dale Carnegie (note: Manson got into Dale Carnegie [as well as Scientology] during one of his early stints in prison; Guinn uses excerpts from Dale Carnegie to contextualise a lot of Manson's actions, from his rare attempts at self-control to planning the Tate-LaBianca murders, but mostly, it's relevant to explaining how he managed to gain followers, even as Haight-Ashbury was saturated with hippie preachers).

And yes, I think a culture of violence exists that predates Hollywood, or even America. It's just that, for most of history, people considered the military as a suitable outlet for such violence: risk your life for your country, make sure the other poor SOB dies for his, and end up celebrated for it if your culture ends up on top. It seemed like a sweet deal until Nam (at least from an American perspective), and we got to see exactly what it was like. Suddenly, it didn't seem like there was much honour in it, especially after EVERYONE got saddled with the "baby killer" epithet because some asshole thought it would be a decent idea to destroy the village of My Lai due to faulty information. Not that much honour there, I'd reckon.

A culture of violence has been culture for a good portion of history . Id say our culture is tame by comparison to Ancient Sparta or Middle Age Europe . Were blood sports and celebrations of militarism were common . And no a Manson  does not create psycho killers. Only someone on the edge already would read plans for mass murder in a song let alone act on it. I think all this focus on blaming the media is just a distraction.

[Rev. Rye]

Remarkably, Steven Pinker wrote an entire book about how, when compared to previous eras, at least in terms of per capita (a sheer numbers comparison is useless when one considers that human population has grown by a billion every twelve years for a little over half a century), we're actually in the most peaceful period we as a species have ever had. As Carole King said, "these are the good old days."

What does that say about literally every other era we could potentially idealise as being better?