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Comment by micahdeath | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the data correlates to recessions and/or inflation.

I'd say the more clear correlation is social media. Not only can weak-minded people be pulled down various conspiracy rabbit holes that allow them to rationalize their actions, it's also never been easier to become "famous". Given that these shooters are almost always social outcasts craving extreme levels of attention/validation, social media lubricates their fantasies on both ends of the process. Plus the copycat factor from other mass shooters.

That said there's no doubt there's in my mind economic conditions contribute. The paths to middle class prosperity in the US are fewer and further between than they used to be. That deprives many of even the aspiration of a better life, leading to nihilism, which can be witnessed in many contexts outside mass shootings (what media is popular, sentiment polls, etc).

I also wonder if our Architecture itself contributes. A lot of bedroom community suburbs seem designed to create social isolation. They're just collections of crash pads for long commutes with no communal gathering places.

Loss of tradition through communal, in-person gathering sounds about right to me.

Maybe what we need is a version of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer?

That was designed as a fundamentally subversive set of lessons. I doubt we even have the will to make an accurately subversive movie version of Diamond Age (look at what happened to Altered Carbon), much less create that sort of "book".

Recessions, inflation, social media, and loss of communal gatherings also are present in other countries, where mass shootings are rare. In fact, almost all proposed causes of mass shootings fall apart when you consider that the "cause" is also present in other countries that don't have USA's mass-shooting problem. Almost all, but not quite all...

I wish this was explored more deeply. I used to think that social media was just another facet of the old media, but I am slowly changing my mind on this. There is a vast difference between how FB, Linkedin or other social media operates and interacts with its audience when compared to print, radio or TV.

Look at HN. We discuss various events the same way ( process-wise anyway ) as people on FB discuss stuff. It is very interactive and we did not seem to develop appropriate firewall rules for social media yet ( as in, just because TV shows a guy running on water, doesn't mean its possible ). For some reason, we take informal social media utterance with more gravity than official White House statement.

I think you are really onto something.

Inflation has been at a historical low until very recently, and this stat is comparing 2017-2021 vs other 5 year periods:

"There were more mass shootings in the past five years [2017-2021] than in any other half-decade going back to 1966"

So no, I don't think it correlates to recessions and/or inflation.

Back in 2015 Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article which posited that the issue with mass shootings is perhaps that they're more like the threshold theory of action in a riot[1]: within any large group, there's a smaller group are willing to do something - i.e. say a soccer riot where one group starts throwing stuff. Then there's a group of observers who see "a lot" of people doing this, and decide to join in. And then the people who see those people and think "everyone's doing it" and continue it.

Ergo mass shootings are on the rise because there are more mass shootings, and no circuit-breakers to interrupt "the riot".

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-...

That might well be part of it, but I think there's a more potent factor at play: not recognizing other people as people. Increasingly, we each see others as enemies, demons, or at best means to an end. It doesn't matter whether the "end" is a political point, some other kind of point, scoring some fame/karma, or working out something more personal. The impulse is the same. To shooters it's still just shooting meat puppets, not people. The obvious political leanings of most mass shooters merely reflect who has more guns or access to guns, not who has dissociated more.

just a lil economic anxiety eh

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/18/2016-election-race-class...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economi...

>I wonder if the data correlates to recessions and/or inflation.

The FBI investigated this and found only a minor correlation.

Whereas there is a high correlation between financial crisis and depression. Including suicide which accounts for a very large proportion of gun violence. Which made the FBI discovery rather shocking.

Social media is also minor correlation, something like 17%.

I think the point discovered is that mass shootings are not statistical. They are microscopic in terms of homicide, Mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of homicides in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016, which spans the dotcom bust and financial crisis. They aren't even close in terms of gun violence or even gun crime in general.

I don't think it does. I was looking at [1], and it doesn't seem to line up particularly well with inflation charts. Nor do the charts I could find based on number of shootings rather than fatalities.

It looks to me like they heavily correlate with presidential elections. Columbine and Virginia tech were the year before an election, Sandy Hook was the year of an election. Even now, it seems like we peak on shootings before elections.

1: https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/fatalities3.p...

Inflation of the 1970s was 12%, and in the early 1980s it was 14% YoY.

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