This is not an area where I know anything; I haven't read any serious studies, I can't cite a lick. But just off the top of my head, I will make a guess; shit rolls downhill.

Yesterday, on the bus, two African-American men in front of me were discussing their problems. One had a horrible, insulting, absentee landlord who never fixed anything and routinely charged bogus maintenance fees. He wanted to move, but was having trouble finding a new place to live.

"Nobody will take my applications 'cause I've had a drug conviction. It's the new color line. They say they don't want criminals, and I understand that, but what it really means is they don't want Black men."

I thought, well, that sounds pretty damn accurate.

Then the speaker added: "but they got no problem with all those smellin'-like-goat Somalians in there!" And both men laughed. By the time I got to work, my boss was watching CNN coverage of the latest killings. And my only question was "why are you surprised?" Shit rolls downhill.

There is a growing Somali presence here in Minnesota. It's mostly first-generation, so many speak heavily accented English and the women usually wear scarves. (That culture has some sexist issues, but I won't get into them here and besides I know Somali women who are challenging those attitudes, so I think it'll be OK.) They don't smell like goats, of course -- you can't have a goat in an apartment -- but goat meat is available in some local stores. (It's "halal," e.g. not pork, and traditional comfort food.)

They are, in other words, different -- and because they are lower down the social ladder, frustrated people direct anger at them. You can't direct it at the people above you (the ones actually being jerks to you) because, in America, we worship "success." Your insulting, abusive, negligent landlord will make fun of your appearance and your income and you can't do the same in return; all you can do is roll the shit downhill.

I did taxes one year for H&R Block, basically a payday loan ripoff-scam company, and it was amazing how many customers (poor ones, we had no others) thought immigrants (Somalis, Ethiopians, Hmong, Mexican) got magical tax benefits none actually receive.

None of this is new in America. It's our sad tradition that recent immigrants bear the frustrations of less recent ones turded on by the established majority. The Irish hate the Polish who hate Italians, etc. And it is not new for the established rich to point at how poor people strike out at whatever they can and say, in essence, "look at how they behave, no wonder they're poor, they're just animals."

100 years ago this was blamed on racial inferiority; now we blame it on a "culture of poverty" or some such. It's never blamed on how angry and depressing and defeating it is to face a zillion petty obstacles (plus some damn real ones) all the time, every day -- put in place by the powerful gleefully milking every last buck they can from the weak.

None of this is an excuse, naturally, to demean or mistreat others, and certainly not to use violence. But those reactions, damaged and deranged as they are, do not surprise me. We are seeing them escalate and will, I fear, see more. Now why they should be committed with guns, I do not know. Is gun ownership higher than it was in, say, 1912? What might be ways to prevent people driven to psychosis from owning them? Good questions and I'm sure many intelligent people have good answers.

Yet, I think it all comes back to shit rolling downhill. And until/unless we address that, and I doubt in my darker moments that we will, the situation is not going to change. My boss regarded the shooting story as a tragedy and outrage (which it is). Nobody on the bus and none of my fellow workers regarded it as anything more than "yup, there's another one." That's a terrifying acceptance of horror, and my fear is that eventually even CNN and middle-management will agree with that dismissive diagnosis.

@JMF - Well put. Just a couple of quick thoughts.

One of my biggest frustration is the resentment I hear from poor people about unions. I always make the case that we all should have these benefits. But people hang onto this anger that should go toward their non-union jobs and employers. The unions are our allies. This attitude is ridiculous but understandable, I suppose.

I think we do have more guns than in 1912. What I've found is that any given person will either have no guns or a lot of guns. This morning I read that the shooter's mother was a gun collector of sorts. None of the guns were his. But that could be wrong. You know how the reporting on these things is.

Well, of course, one of the biggest benefits of unions, when they existed and mattered, is that they put upward pressure on wages. You won't hire me for the salary I want? Fine, I'll go get a union job. They were as flawed and corrupt as any large system, but they were at least some way for workers to be almost as large and powerful as companies are large and powerful.

When people bitch about unions (basically public unions, these days), what they are expressing is frustration. Why should DMV employees get better pay and benefits than me? It's rational, if you don't realize that DMV employees getting better compensation pushes other employers in the same direction.

I just can't write any more on the gun stuff -- it's so foul, and so sad. You've mentioned suggestions the NRA resists to modifications in our laws. Perhaps write a post on what these suggestions are . . .

These are all great points by both of you. I don't have much to add except that I think economic inequality plays a role in mass shootings. I don't think it a coincidence that one of the most unequal nations plays host to more mass shootings than any other.

Does anyone know of any studies relating to this?