For the last 100 years, semi auto firearms with high capacity magazines have been available. Prior to the GCA of 1968, it was legal to order semi automatic firearms and magazines and have the mailman deliver them. You could mail order hi-powers, thompsons, surplus military firearms, handguns, Garrand, 30 carbines with no paperwork. Many of these firearms had high capacity magazines and matched most modern firearms in rapidity of fire.

Prior to the 80s, mass shootings were a rarity in America even though high capacity magazines and rapid firing firearms were available.

What changed America? I doubt government engaging in gun control is going to solve the changes in America that have created mass shooters.

The libs changed America.

drugs

The internet...

In the 1970's the liberals used bombs, not rifles:

It started with LBJ letting the riots go on in our country.. He was covering his role in JFK's death, and if America was focused on riots, they had no time to consider his crimes..
People broke the law and got away with it. It became illegal to shot a fleeing felon.. And of course the drugs...

libs, drugs, internet, and bad gov't

When I bought my first CAR it was $700 in 93 and I have to order it from a very fine gun shop in a large city.
Now you can basically buy one for less than $500 at 5 different locations in every city.
I, more popular will equal a larger probability that they are used criminally.
Simple numbers game.

I don't see the worth of banning AR's. A Ruger Mini-14 with a high cap magazine is just a lethal. As is a Remington 740 or 760 with a large magazine as shown on e-Bay ( http://www.ebay.com/bhp/remington-7400-10-round-magazine ).

Libs, drugs, social media and network news coverage for starters.

Kids were shown love and discipline. Now if you show discipline you can be put in jail and the kids know it. They have violent video games and violent movies to watch. They are always in front of a screen rather than outside playing or reading a good book. They don't interact except on social media. They still bully, but it seems more vicious these days. I was bullied off and on all through school, but I never thought about taking a gun and killing anyone. My heroes were the cowboy actors of the day. There was good and evil, right and wrong. Now the lines have been blurred. I know the people playing those characters were flawed just like everyone else, but we tried to be as much like the onscreen person as possible. If we got in trouble at school we got in trouble at home. Now the parents too often choose to sue the school or teacher. Heck there was a teacher in Colorado just arrested for child abuse for making a kid stand for the anthem.

At it's core two things. Smaller families, without or with fathers, make every child "special". The Chinese call their only children "little emperors", entitled brats that have never done anything wrong and believe the world owes them everything. God forbid they get a hang nail, so they are mollycoddled away from the real world.

The second problem is the complete domination of our education system by females. Boys can no longer be boys. Nobody gets a bloody nose in a school yard brawl anymore. Conflicts don't get resolved, and kids never learn what it is to get hurt, or to hurt someone. Male teachers and administrators are required to overcome the estrogen tsunami.

It's the same as making your kids clean their first rabbit they shoot. Once they are faced with that finality of death, it's no longer glamorous.

Parents aren't raising their kids. Kids are just growing up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ding-men-attack-train-station-China.html

It would be interesting to see another line on that graph - how many fatalities per year.

That's a lot of it. My parents knew where I was at all times, and laid down rules to live by. That's a rarity today.

Logger,

Here's the link to the original WAPO article. It has a few more charts and graphs along with some commentary:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...he-united-states/?utm_term=.d5699198d5ec

So true. I’ve been asking the same of lefty’s while debating this isssue. I add that the evil AR has been with us for over 50years.

Value of life, responsibility/accountability, religion (ie. 10 Commandments), violence shown on TV or video games.

The criminally insane were no longer institutionalized is what happened, they prey upon the rest of society in our schools, shopping malls, music concerts and military bases. Once they've wreaked their carnage upon their innocent fellow citizens they're allowed to hide behind insanity pleas in our courts. That's what has changed.

Are you looking for an honest answer? If so, the honest answer is multifaceted and complex. I think if you've been around awhile, you can identify the changes in society that have lleadead to this.

1.) The Gun Control Act of 1968 was a knee jerk reaction to the RFK and MKL shootings, as well as the previous JFK shooting.

2.) The Baby Boomer Generation - also known as the "Me" generation-took to the streets and changed Pop Culture. The area that changed much for this discussion is the questioning of all authority and the concept of "speak truth to power"! With that, we began to get a break down in societal and family discipline. There was now absolute right and wrong and the idea that the rules apply to "you" but not to "me".

3.) Breakdown of the family unit. Divorce, unwed mothers lead to an explosion of homes with no father figure. No father figure makes everything more difficult, especially family discipline.

4.) The concept that has resulted from all of the above is there is no "Do Not Cross" threshold that is hard and fast. No absolutes in terms of crimes (misdeeds) and punishment. In the old days, if you back talked a teacher, she'd paddle your bottom or the Assistant Principal would do the same, and then the Old Man would tear into your ass when you got home. Usually, that solved that issue for an extended period. Now, a teacher can't discipline a student and corporal punishment is darn near a felony.

5.) Boys no longer are allowed to settle things Mano a Mano. Yep, especially right up until they are Juniors and Seniors in high school, many things in the bygone era were settled with a fist fight on the playground. Bullies were backed down., disputes put to bed. Many times the combatants were once again fast friends 30 minutes post action. It cleared the bad blood. Even enemies got it out of their system most of the time. It's called conflict resolution.

6.) Today, instead of a schoolyard brawl, kids take to Social Media to bully somebody. They can do it in the safety of their own bedroom, be as nasty as possible,get their minions to pile on, and expect zero repercussions. they can write things in Social Media that would get their little asses whupped but good in person. Now they are fearless with lies, innuendo, and all manner of liable and slanderous activity that can be broadcast to the entire planet. Character assignation at its finest.

7.) Columbine. Once Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold [pulled the Columbine HS massacre, then the Genie was out of the bottle. Prior to that, no kid would think to go to school to kill people. After Columbine, schools were no recognized by sickos as targets of opportunity.

8.) Everybody is "special". That bullcrap has been foisted upon our kids by the Leftist AND by the single moms that their little darlings are "special" and noteworthy. In the bygone era, your had to achieve something noteworthy to be considered "special". you had to be the Valedictorian, the QB on the football team. you needed to bash the winning home run or score the touchdown to earn the accolades. You wanted to be successful in your career to be seen as "special". Otherwise, you'd be just another schmuck. Mommy now tells them all they are "special," even if they are a "C" student, can't walk and chew gum, and play 8 hours of video games each day.



Lumping all of this together, we have self absorbed kids-especially boys-that have been brought up in a culture that lacks discipline, lacks absolute right and wrong, They have not been forced to learn the social skills of to deal with success and disappointment that is life. They have no boundaries for behavior. When I was in high school, we hunted before and after school, kept the guns in the trunks of our cars, and NEVER considered taking them out because we knew their would be BIG trouble. That was in a time when skipping school at lunch to go to McDonald's was the height of naughtiness, and is you got caught you had a week of detention or 5 swats on the ass with a paddle (ask me how I know!). If the "NoGo" line was skipping school to go to McDonalds, then the concept on bringing a gun and killing everybody insight was not even fathomable. Now, the line is faint and moveable. No absolutes. No capacity for problem resolution. No father figure to teach you to be a man. No way to settle disputes other than cyber attacks. No respect for authority.

Look at how our duly elected POTUS is treated by the MSM, Democrat Party, Hollywood, and the Press. No repect for him or his office. Obama sucked as much or more than Jimmy Carter, but the office was respected. No more. Left doesn't like the outcome of the 2016 election, so the rules don't have to apply to them. They will just nullify the result and drive Trump from office. See, this is the message kids are living and learning.

I'm sure other can add, but that will give you a good start on the problem.

This ^^^^ And empowerment of children to say “you, adult, can’t do schit to me” If you even try to discipline me I will call the authorities on you for being mean. Oh, boatammo did say Libs.

Pretty much.

I'd venture to say it's a combination of factors:

#1 Poor parenting. This can be from parents who are too busy or selfish to put in the time to teach their kids right from wrong, moms who always excuse their children with "my little angel didn't do that" single parents, lack of a father figure, parent(s) who decide that to make up for their lack of parenting they'll have a doctor prescribe a powerful psychotropic drug, etc.

#2 Violence in entertainment. Remember when we were kids you'd know the bad guy got killed, but the violence wasn't shown? Now movies and video games graphically display violence and first shooter video games are referred to as murder simulators.

#3 Zero tollerance/zero responsibility from teachers, school administrators, cops, FBI, etc. Notice how all these different entities were fully aware of how troubled the latest shooter was, and yet all of them say their hands were tied and they couldn't do anything? When you take the thought process out of those individuals and make them follow rules rigidly it's easy for them to excuse themselves from taking action.

#4 Abject failure of mental health care in this country. We've always had a percentage of crazy people, we still have a percentage of crazy people, we will always have a percentage of crazy people. We used to identify them and lock them up to protect them from themselves and protect society. It was an imperfect system, but it addressed many social problems we currently face. Not all crazies are mass shooters. How many other murders, murder suicides, and other violent crimes are committed by those who just aren't all there?

I'm sure there are many other factors that play into it, but those are the main ones I see.

Good post, Hat!

Only rifle used in the largest U.S school killing was a Winchester Model 54:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

He only fired once. 45 dead 54 wounded.

That was one sick son of a bitch

As a society that seems to have no problem with ~60 million babies being torn limb from limb after the passing of Roe v. Wade, it is sadly ironic that the same people who hue and cry how we need to ban guns to save the children have no problem with abortions.

In a nutshell, that was the big turn down the road to hell paved with good intentions.

Yep.

Point is, these sick SOB's have always been around. We've passed a lot of laws since 1927 and they are still with us.

^^^^^This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Come on, dude, they're saving that sheit for later...just go with it.

zactly, two income families, nobody is home after school, mom's working so is dad.
Kids are on their own for too many hours a day.

After that..huge numbers of single parent families.

Thats been a huge change since the early 70's...

Plenty of other crap but those two are big changes that have made it different...

Only thing you forgot is the lack of parenting... The rest - spot on..

"Now they are fearless with lies, innuendo, and all manner of liable and slanderous activity that can be broadcast to the entire planet. Character assignation at its finest."
Hatari: Do not hijack the thread. We are not talking about the media here.