If it is detachment and desensitization causing these attacks, the next question is, what causes the detachment and desensitization? The culprits here are manifold, but the internet has to be one of the first places we look. ... But it's already fairly clear that our cyber space obsession causes us to be increasingly detached from the physical world and each other. It's a cliche to point out that our connectedness has made us disconnected, yet there's truth to most cliches, and this one is no different.
At bottom, the answer is that we have become a country filled with numb, detached, and desensitized people. Mass shootings are the ultimate manifestation of that detachment. Our reaction to them — rhetorically slinging dead bodies at each other to score points in a political argument — is a slightly less severe but very much related manifestation. A survivor of the El Paso shooting reports that the shooter casually smirked before unloading on a crowd of innocent people. This echoes many other reports from many similar shootings. The killer is always smirking like he's slightly amused, or else he's blank-faced and emotionless. Rarely do you get a picture of someone running around enraged and screaming. We call these acts of "hate," but they are much more acts of brutal, murderous indifference. These are empty, numb, detached people slaughtering their fellow humans because they are bored and frustrated with their meaningless lives.
A man who thinks he can be a despicable, stupid sociopath in cyberspace yet remain a basically decent guy in the "real world" loses sight of the fact that the internet is the real world.
After a while you get so used to being treated this way, and maybe so used to treating others this way, that you no longer appreciate the dignity and beauty of human life. It is not hard to see how someone who spends hour upon hour and year upon year wallowing in the darkest and vilest corners of cyberspace, treating other humans like filth, wishing violence and death on anyone who crosses them, may eventually become the monsters they already appear to be online.
Mass shooters are simply translating their internet personas into the real world. People on internet forums, social media, YouTube, and other sites routinely wish death and worse on each other. "Kill yourself" and "I hope you get cancer" are almost standard greetings at this point. But what's often lost in all of this mundane vitriol is that actual human beings are saying this stuff to other actual human beings.
The idea that internet is a morality-free zone where grotesque behavior somehow "doesn't count" not only encourages people to be despicable but numbs them to the impact their behavior has on others.
28 males between the ages of 22 and 23 were recruited for the test. Half consistently played an excessive amount of violent video games, the other half none at all. Those who played averaged almost five hours per day, starting from around six years of age. The two studies conducted by the research group were very similar to one another. The test centered around the International Affective Picture System, a slide show of positive, negative, and neutral images, viewed while attached to a brain scanning device. The bottom line is this: There was no discernible difference between respective groups in either study. Even excessive, habitual players of the most violent games on the market reacted with the same empathetic response as their non-gamer peers. This is not the first time that those in power who wish to suppress personal freedom have attacked popular media, and it most certainly will not be the last. Research continues, as researchers attempt to divine any correlation between entertainment and resultant behavior, just as it did with movies, television, radio, and even books. But attempting to scapegoat a form of expression for the choices that individuals make is as tired an argument as it is an old one. Once again, objective research suggests that while the video game industry makes for an easy and popular target, it is personal accountability that we truly require.
Playing violent video games have been linked to long-term emotional desensitization. We hypothesized that desensitization effects in excessive users of violent video games should lead to decreased brain activations to highly salient emotional pictures in emotional sensitivity brain regions. Twenty-eight male adult subjects showing excessive long-term use of violent video games and age and education matched control participants were examined in two experiments using standardized emotional pictures of positive, negative and neutral valence. No group differences were revealed even at reduced statistical thresholds which speaks against desensitization of emotion sensitive brain regions as a result of excessive use of violent video games.
Seeing an equal person as an inferior object is an act of violence...It hurts as much as a punch to the face. In fact, in many ways it hurts more. Bruises heal more quickly than emotional cars do.
I ask you to remember this if you ever find yourself in the middle of a violent attack. Since the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11, we all remember the videos of the twin towers and pentagon where thousands were killed. Out of all the attacks that day, only one failed. The plane that was hijacked by terrorists and then was taken back by brave Americans who worked together as a team to keep the terrorists from reaching their targeted destination. While we will never know how many lives they saved that day, one thing is perfectly clear. Their heroic actions saved countless lives and showed terrorists what happens when Americans fight back.
It's very important to remember that while the terrorist or violent attacker may have a weapon, or even the element of surprise, a team of citizens working together to attack the suspect has a much greater chance of survival than allowing the suspect to operate unimpeded.
Terrorists and active shooters know that our citizens have been coached to run and hide and then patiently await help. In fact, they count on it so they can strategically target as many citizens as possible. What they don't count on is being attacked themselves. Having to become defensive to save their own lives.
No matter who you are or what your position is on guns, there’s no denying the fact that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun or a knife is an armed and well-prepared citizen or law enforcement officer.