Unscientific as it might be, I often wonder if this is a strong cause of the mass shootings in the US.
Yes we have a lot of guns, but that's nothing new. We've had a lot of guns for centuries. And yes, gun crime in the US isn't new either, but the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.
> the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.
Do you have a reference for this? Because I suspect it is not true. There was certainly a peak in the early 90s, which is on the outside edge of the "last few decades," but there was also a peak in the 70s.
I'm inclined to think so, at least for the subset of mass shootings that excludes gang/drug/domestic violence.
The contagiousness of suicide is backed up by research, and media coverage is a major risk factor (which even has an impact of the method that copycats use to commit suicide). Even if not all mass shooters are suicidal, intuitively it makes sense that there would be the same sort of viral effect.
Yes we have a lot of guns, but that's nothing new. We've had a lot of guns for centuries. And yes, gun crime in the US isn't new either, but the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.