I can only think of one or two from the 80’s versus how many we’ve had in the space of two years?
I see your point but with all due respect I feel that you are missing the underlying issue. Gun violence has gone down in recent years. That is a fact.
These mass shootings are committed by people with major mental issues. Adam Lanza spent his time locked in his room on deep web boards talking about school shootings. The VA tech guy had become obsessed with violent porn and violent video games, even going so far as to buy armour so he could dress up like the killers in the games he played. The Orlando guy was a radicalized Muslim who was also apparently quite confused about his sexuality (which was in obvious contradiction with his extremist beliefs). This guy we don’t know much about yet, but it seems he was likely an obsessive gambler, and his father apparently had run-ins with the FBI. Mental health is what causes these atrocities to be committed.
This is just my opinion, but I think the fact that these shootings have become so common is evidence of how sick our culture has become. The deep web is littered with horrible child abuse and torture videos. Person-to-person interaction is decreasing daily. Social Media leads people further into loneliness. The first world is safer and richer than it’s ever been, and yet people seem paranoid of ISIS, global warming, illegal aliens, etc. Granted these things are problems, but nothing to loose sleep over.
Can we change this? I don’t think so. I actually think we’ve entered a state where life is too easy, so easy in fact that it messes with our natural instincts. The hardest things in our lives are traffic on the way home, not having enough money to upgrade to a 4KTV, etc.
Yet for some reason politics is more desperate than it’s ever been. Socialism, the altright, and various fringe groups are gaining popularity. They all have in common a sense of paranoia about our mostly uneventful western world.
It seems there are no heroes anymore that we can all rally behind…but perhaps that is because there are no more villains?