Entitled Little Shits

I've had it with people blaming video games and mental illness for mass shootings.

First of all, literally every other first world country also has video games, high divorce rates and mental illness and yet they do not have even close to as many mass shootings.

Second of all, in the United States, young women also must cope with video games, mental illness and lack of prayer in schools. Yet how many of them are shooting up churches/historic districts/Walmarts/concerts and movie theaters? How many??????????

THREE since 1982. 


And while I believe in stricter background check laws and bringing back the assault weapons ban (it lowered casualty rates, at least), I would argue that the biggest reason for our mass shooting exceptionality is our entitled little shits problem.

And I don't mean people feeling entitled to be called by their preferred pronoun or to attend schools not named after Confederate, slave owning generals.

I mean people who feel entitled to other people's bodies. You know, those guys who assume that because a woman dresses a certain way or walks down a street alone, he is entitled to her body.

I mean people who feel entitled to get whatever they want, whenever they want without a thought for others. You know, those guys who lose their shit when they get turned down in any situation.

I mean people who feel entitled to kill children because they're suicidal.

It's not unique to America, but it's somehow uniquely American. It's an extremely pathological version of that same American entitlement that lets us travel the world and be appalled when not everyone speaks English or has air conditioning.

I think that sense of entitlement is also a key factor in developing the pathological hate needed to carry out a mass shooting. If you feel entitled to women's bodies, or the best job or whatnot and you're not getting them, you're going to need someone to blame. And if you grew up without empathy or accountability, you're not going to blame yourself. You're going to find some group to blame in some online group or in some politician's words, and then the hate will take over.

Growing up without empathy or accountability, growing up believing that your wants are more important that other people's needs or rights, that's the kind of entitlement I'm talking about. And if I thought for one second that the people blaming shootings on mental health were talking about prioritizing mental health services for children and families, and valuing parent education and early childhood education as the ways to raise children with accountability and empathy, I would be in total agreement.

But they're not.

They can't even stand up to the NRA and its rabid fans over background checks and assault weapons bans; there's no way in hell they're ever going to talk about pathological entitlement.

But the rest of us should.