Men’s Rights activists and others in the manosphere often complain that it’s unfair to link their movement to killers like the virulent antifeminist mass murderers Marc Lepine and Anders Breivik, even though the antifeminist, anti-woman ideology of these killers is oftem indistinguishable from MRA thought.
But the plain fact is that they make the links themselves. Whenever there is some sort of mass killing by someone who is driven at least in part by the hatred of women, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before some MRA steps up to, if not explicitly endorse the killer, at least suggest some sort of sympathy or empathy with him and/or to suggest that the killing in some way is an understandable or justifiable or even praiseworthy reaction to the the alleged oppression of men.
This time it seems to have happened with record speed. Over on the A Voice for Men forum, one commenter, GregA, compares the mass killer in Newtown today — whose motives are still completely unknown — with oppressed people rising up against tyranny in the Middle East:
So far the only reply he’s gotten challenges this odious comparison, so that’s a tiny bit comforting.
Naturally, the MRAs will say that this commenter is some sort of feminist troll. But he’s made dozens of comments on the AVFM forums that are standard-issue MRA stuff – he seems to be a bit obsessed with the notion that feminist commenters online are being paid for commenting – and his comments in the past (at least those that I looked at) seem to have been generally well-received there.
EDITED TO ADD: If you would like to discuss the Newton shootings without having to think about this horrible comment of GregA’s, I’ve set up a separate no-trolls, no MRAs, thread for that.
EDITED TO ADD MORE: Meanwhile, over on A Voice for Men itself, one of the first commenters in a thread on the subject blames the shootings on, you guessed it, misandry:
Meanwhile, AVFM “managing editor” Dean Esmay complains that feminists “will find some way or other to blame us in specific for this.” In case Esmay is reading this, I am not blaming the Men’s Rights movement for this shooting, mainly because we have absolutely no idea what motivated the shooter. What I am doing is pointing out that someone on AVFM’s own forum, someone who has previously posted there extensively, is comparing this murderer of children to some kind of freedom fighter, and another in the very thread you are posting in has decided (based on absolutely nothing) that “misandry” is to blame.
You may also recall the numerous comments from MRAs justifying or at least excusing, the Seal Beach shooter.
Here are some more MRA comments on the Seal Beach murders which I chose not to post at the time. These are from A Voice for Men. (In the original thread they weren’t next to one another; there’s more horrible stuff in the thread besides these two comments.)
Are these guys “feminist trolls?” No. They are both long-time commenters at AVFM.
But again, pointing out these horrible comments is not the same as blaming the MRM for that shooting, or for the shooting today.
In the case of Lepine and Breivik, people linked them to MRAs because they had (or in the case of Breivik still has) virulently anti-feminist worldviews virtually identical with much of the stuff posted regularly on Men’s Rights sites, and other “manosphere” sties generally.
Presumably we will learn more about this shooter’s motivations, and then we can decide if anyone besides the shooter himself is to blame.
EDITED TO ADD ONCE MORE: Elam has now shut down the thread on A Voice for Men; as I write this the thread on the A Voice for Men forum is still up. I suggest you take a look at it and make screenshots. Elam says it’s because I’m “using comments from the thread in order to push his lies.” It’s not clear how quoting his followers (in full, without edits) is a “lie.” Apparently he’s unwilling to let his followers continue to post comments because, we can only assume, he knows they will say more horrific things, and people outside the AVFM cult might see what those inside it actually think.
Not, at this point, that there’s much doubt about what they think.
EDITED TO ADD STILL MORE: Meanwhile, over on The Spearhead:
As most of the readers here will know, the shooter was 20 years old, wasn’t a father and the shooting had nothing to do with any custody battle.
@CassandraSays
I’m not for gun ownership (being from Aus, having limited access to most weapons has been beneficial) but I think the argument gun owners in the US are using is that it violates their 2nd amendment.
It makes sense to regulate gun control but if the 2nd amendment can be changed, the question is then, what other part of the constitution can then be changed? It is obviously a longshot but also within the realm of possibility.
The argument I believe, stems from “if the US government ever turned on its people” then those people could defend themselves and create a new nation. Again, unlikely to ever happen but then again read any history book and see the atrocities governments have done to their people in the past (eg. Mao, Pol Pot, Russia, different time periods of Europe, etc).
This decision should not be a knee-jerk reaction and thus thought out properly in regards to possible future probabilities.
@kysokisaen: Sig also makes handguns, and I heard it was two handguns and the Bushmaster was the only rifle.
I think I’ll join you in that drink, Shiraz.
Also from The Age:
Just. Fucking. Typical.
Ahaha, the conservatives need to devise a strategy to target people with mental illness? Isn’t that, like number five in their playbook after the unemployed, minorities, immigrants, and single mothers?
I guess it was two handguns. The article I was looking at was an older one and must have crossed the semi-automatic with the Sig Sauer when IDing the guns. .
Cheers, Falconer.
Kitteh, the right’s just digging themselves deeper — like with all those “women can’t get pregnant through rape” comments. It’s really a bad time to start whining about gun ownership, but hey, if they can’t help themselves…*shrugs*
It’d be nice to think that there would finally be a turning against the whole right-wing gun obsession in the US, but I’m not seriously expecting anything like that. Hell, our much smaller and less ingrained gun lobby here made a lot of noise when gun control laws were tightened after Port Arthur in ’96, and we’ve nothing like the gun culture of the US.
First and foremost, I get what you were trying to say — that the family should’ve cared enough about the shooter (their child), and society in general, to cut back the gun collection (if only because of the suicide risk).
However, I’ve moved back in with my parents, as the only other option was homelessness, and I am positive that if they were required, by law, to have only a certain number/type of gun, because I’m mentally ill, they’d kick me out long before they’d sell the guns. (Why I am sure of this is a long painful story, but I’m sure of it.)
So while I understand what you were trying to say there, I don’t think the implications of it would help the mentally ill, at least not those of us with less than supportive families. Nor do I think more gun control would really prevent this sort of thing — as you said, all the guns were legally owned — and as my parents would be all together too quick to point out, laws are for law abiding citizens, they don’t do much good if someone just doesn’t give a shit about the law.
Finally, thank you for letting me have that little vent, I don’t dare say anything on the topic in the family “discussions” as I’m the only liberal in the house. Also, I’ll be joining in that round of shots in just a moment, I need more tea for my tea and Jamesons.
Would the “laws are for the lawful” thing really apply in these cases of mass shootings? Is there anything to suggest they’re carried out by long-term or career criminals? They seem so often to be of the “Nobody knew! He was such a nice guy!” variety. Regardless, I can only say that reducing the number of such weapons in the community could only reduce the opportunity for such mass killings. And it’s not like it’s the law-abiding, armed-to-the-teeth citizens who actually stop the shootings when they happen. It’s the police, when the murderers don’t end up killing themselves as well.
Here’s the thing. Would reducing the number of guns that are in circulation prevent all future cases of random violence? No. Would it stop a really determined person from hurting other people? No. But it would limit the scale of the events, and if guns were harder to get then some people might just give up. For those reasons alone it’s worth limiting gun ownership.
Exactly. I don’t see people here ranting that we should loosen gun control laws. Well, I daresay there are far-right gun lovers who do, but I don’t frequent those sort of sites.
I’m sorry that in your personal situation things would be tougher for you if we had rules about how many guns a person could have if they were responsible for mentally imbalanced people, but how can we use that as a reason for inaction? It’s true that most mentally disturbed people and most gun owners are not dangerous. But it is equally true that spree shooters who use these crazy assault weapons to do insane amounts of damage to innocent people (a) tend to have histories of mental illness and (b) overwhelmingly get their guns legally. I honestly don’t think this is a problem that can be solved with more regulations. It’s a culture thing – we don’t like facing up to mental issues in our family and friends if we can possibly ignore it, and we love our guns. When those two issues colloide, the results are catastrophic. Mental illness is far too nuanced a thing to fit into a gun control debate that has long since forgotten that nuance is a thing.
Restricting the gun ownership of people responsible for disturbed individuals would be a civil liberties nightmare, but there is this tiny slice of gun owners who won’t put on their grownup hats and get rid of their comically excessive guns when they should. People like your parents are exactly the problem, and if the culture can’t or won’t regulate themselves honestly then the only solution left is the Katz Test: Are you in the military Y/N?
I …just…don’t….get…it. What plausible reason is there to have a pistol except to kill human beings? However, given that there are so f..king many guns already in the states how about you make ammunition impossible to get. One bullet at a time and you have to wait a week before you can buy another. Or one bullet at a time and you have to account for the previous one.
Chris Rock had a bit that said bullets should cost $5,000 apiece, that way you had to be REALLY sure you wanted to kill someone.
First, you can’t just limit guns for the caretakers of the mentally ill, that really is a civil liberties nightmare. Second, people like my parents are definitely part of the problem, but they, and others like them, already firmly believe that Obama wants to take their guns — all guns. And on his more out there days my father rants about how then we’ll have a race war and white people will loose because only criminals will have guns (and of course not-white = criminal)
In short, the conservatives are less sane than many of the mentally ill (makes for fun family dinners, let me tell you!)
These should be two separate issues though — fixing our mental healthcare system should not be based on gun crime (or crime in general) but on the simple fact that people deserve healthcare, all types of healthcare.
“Would the “laws are for the lawful” thing really apply in these cases of mass shootings? Is there anything to suggest they’re carried out by long-term or career criminals?”
My parents don’t mean “already a criminal” they mean that criminals will use illegal guns if they want, because wtf do they care about gun laws if they are going to break another law. Mind you we’re well down the rabbit hole here (and White Rabbit just queued, all the irony)
Oh and re: bullets — my father’s collection of those is more or less harmless, it’s kept well locked up in flat file drawers, sorted by various things — he collects them the way some people collect, idk, action figures, lunchboxes, etc.
Mind you, this doesn’t stop him from ranting about Obama making bullets harder to get and wtf that’ll mean in “the coming race war” *sigh*
Argenti, I’m sorry for your situation and like most people here, would totally support improving our culture’s support of the mentally ill. But the fact that your parents are assholes and you’re not wouldn’t be particularly relavent to gun control reform. I would support government programs that gave free apartments for life to people with the slightest, most bullshit, easily-faked diagnoses before I’d say well, most gun owners are reasonable people and you can’t argue with the ridiculous ones, so we really can’t do anything about how easy it a few assholes make it for a few mentally disturbed assholes to take everyone out with them.
If unreasonable people insist on being unreasonable, then once again, we’re back at the Katz Test.
Back in the day, people used to collect deformed fetuses. Not many, and most of the time they weren’t hurting anyone. But we still decided that was illegal as fuck and now it doesn’t matter how antique the specimen is, if you buy or sell it and you aren’t basically a doctor, someone is going to jail. People who are still interested in such collections have to make do with replicas. Here in Japan, where gun ownership of any kind is illegal as fuck, casual collectors have to make do with models. Such is the unfairness of life sometimes, and if the kids in the school shootings keep getting younger and younger, your asshole father might just have to suck it up.
This of course applies mostly the semi-auto assault rifles, which is pretty much the only kind of gun ban Americans can get behind. We are eons from the day when Obama can take your dad’s shotguns, Glocks or antique six-shooters away. I assume, if we could make legislation restricting gun ownership based on the mental well-being of the entire household, such laws would be strictly applied to only certain types of guns, much like there are plenty of loopholes in the current background check process.
I feel like part of the problem we’re running into in this conversation is that for a lot of Americans gun culture is so entrenched that they can’t even imagine getting rid of it. People are so used to kowtowing to the segment of the population that has a fetishistic relationship with guns that the idea of just straight out telling them that no, they can’t have toys that can be used to kill people, is almost unthinkable. Whereas for those of us who’ve lived in places without that culture it seems baffling that this country allows those people as much leeway as it does.
Most of what you just said is entirely correct, but bear in mind here that when the discussion of mental illness and gun control comes up, it inevitably refers to the diagnosed mentally ill. Which means people like my father — paranoid, probably delusionally so, aren’t going to show up on any of those lists. Put in place any ban based on mental illness and it makes people like him even less likely to get mental healthcare.
He’d probably freak out about bans on specific types of guns, but outside his delusional little world, yeah, banning things like semi-auto rifles in general makes sense. Just don’t tie it to “because the owner is mentally ill”.
That was directed at kysokisaen, but applies to Cassandra as well (the part where I agree, more or less).
Part of my problem here is that I do know responsible gun owners — the sort that keep everything locked up, the ammo separate, only shoot at targets, etc. And since I’m not a real fan of eating animals in general, I don’t see much difference between hunting and skeet shooting.
Cassandra, give us a little credit; it’s more of a “pick your battles” thing. When you’re up against people who want to get rid of unions and Medicare and birth control and progressive taxes and the Civil Rights Act, broaching one more issue that will make them freak out and help mobilize and consolidate their base can seem like it’s not worth it.
See, this is what I mean – so what if some gun owners are responsible? Given the damage done by guns and the number of gun related deaths, I don’t see any reason why people should be allowed to own guns of the non-hunting variety no matter how “responsible” they are about it. If you take out the guns used for hunting what you’re left with is weapons designed to kill and maim – why should people’s desire to play with those be seen as reasonable?
I can see why people don’t want to take on the gun lobby from a practical pov, but from an ethical pov I still think it’s important to point out that America’s love affair with guns is fucked up.
::waves from downunder::
Hear, hear!
I really think this is one of those cultural divides where people on opposite sides just can’t understand each other at all.
Cassandra — it’s also 300~ years old and written into our constitution. It isn’t just that taking on the gun lobby would be a nightmare, it’s that it’s nearly impossible to change the constitution even when people generally agree.
As for the “are you military Y/N?” thing — the point of that bit of the constitution was supposed to be to allow “we the people” to fight the government if the need ever arose again (remember, this was right after the revolutionary war). Sure, there’s a good argument to be made that that’s not really relevant anymore, but to the people dead set on keeping their guns? They firmly believe they need to defend themselves from the gov’n, and from criminals, and that the current administration wants to take their guns…it’d go all Waco if we tried passing anything more than the assault rifle ban in the current political climate.
Reinstating that, expanding it even, is a good idea though.
But katz is right, with the current political climate, we really do have to pick our battles, and loosing medicare, progressive taxes, the Civil Rights Act, birth control and potentially Roe v. Wade itself — they’re all too important to try taking on the gun lobby.