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Death Wish
Ever since Columbine, there have been copycats and school shooter wannabes. On the other hand, there are surely those who fantasize about springing into action in such a tragedy by making the ultimate sacrifice, covering the line of fire to others with their bodies and hopefully taking the killers with them.
As recent events show, neither war nor mass shootings can stay out of the headlines long for Americans. There has long been a macabre undercurrent to get the seemingly inevitable nuclear exchange over with. Mao certainly espoused this near-posadism for example. Being suddenly vaporized en masse doesn't sound so bad for those who feel rightly or wrongly that they don't have anything going for them in life and compares favorably to being an irradiated wastelander. It is also a fact that the same emphasis on human life is not in place around the world.
Most of the people who consider such situations of doom have never been in a position of real danger. It's the same thing as boomers who were exposed to the Vietnam War as sideline viewers. This same mentality has been amplified by social conditions where everyone has a phone and is effectively serving as a surveillance apparatus. Nowadays it is less acceptable to make mistakes, to be out-group, or to just be yourself without the ramifications tainting everything.
You are not really American if you do not own a gun and the fundamental acknowledgement gun ownership implicitly entails. This is not even the higher bar of owning a gun and knowing how to work it much less being able to defend yourself with it. The police cannot be relied upon. Despite all the denial, a state of acceptance regarding the concept of gun violence is an American thing. It's just that people prefer to choose willful ignorance and naivete rather than confrontation of uncomfortable topics like the fact a gun is necessary for self-defense until the 2020 summer of love made for a rude awakening.
Some segments of the gun owning population take it too far in the opposite direction similar to the preppers who are desperate to feel agency. There is a fixation with the no win scenario where it is impossible to win with a gun no matter what you do and how that would be okay as long as you do enough damage before dying. Some will venture so far as to say they don't care to avoid such a situation and even criticize others for retreating from the possibility.
Combatants can relay how common it is for firefights to be totally lopsided with one side being totally ineffective. The enemy has a 'vote,' and it's definitely a possibility you can be placed in a perfect-paradox situation where nothing you can do will save your life or even cause damage to the enemy.
If someone passes the point where they're willing to kill other people, they've passed the effective threshold for returning to a normal life. For some, their lives effectively end at that moment so they have nothing to lose by continuing to fight until the end. These discussions may be chalked up to a simple failure to come back to reality by mentally unstable people. On the other hand, everyone is the hero of their own story. It'd turn the graves of these people in death if they knew their gun-related deaths were exploited to advance the agenda of gun control.
Where did the mentally unstable people come from? Everyone is loaded up on meds including massive amounts of stimulants. The young generation is raised by helicopter parents who shield them from everything and has arrested development due to a childhood spent on homework and a predatory educational system that doesn't let up when they get to college. It's not hard to imagine people who lack meaning in life wanting to die in a way that will give their life some semblance of meaning.
The mentally unstable people are, ironically, more lucid and less delusional than boomers who write essays trying to come to grips with the situation that has been created in the neverending lust for power and profit. Society is a no win proposition for many - poverty wages, rampant corruption, and worsening class mobility. It's not mental illness arising de novo but a sick society and a sick culture giving rise to more sick people who might otherwise have access to health care, community-driven programs, and a labor market that isn't stacked against them. If the game is stacked against you and you're powerless, why not flip the board over?
Technology has the potential to flip the board, just like it did in that brief decade or two spanning the Silver Age of the Internet. The powers that be were caught completely unaware and it took them a decade to scramble for internet supremacy (which they still have not yet fully succeeded in).
One pattern I keep seeing with the rich, is that they're only *slightly* ahead of the game. It's enough to keep them in power, but only under ceteris paribus constraints. Technology is the wildcard that can upset everything, because who can regulate technology? No one.
Because then one is still left with the actual problem, namely the ego. Flip that puppy over, and there's nothing left to be taunted/incited/tormented by epitome scenarios - including games.
For what is a game but an opportunity for "***I*** WIN!!! YAY, I ME MINE!!!!"? (especially keeping in mind what one "I" winning tends to imply for other I's...)