We look on aghast, as if the devil himself had appeared from out of nowhere. . .We behave as if it was all so inexplicable.

This "othering" of violence is so insidious, because it allows us to distance ourselves from those who become violent, rather than asking deeper questions about our culture. Thanks for linking to this thoughtful analysis.

I read James Gilligan's Violence in college and found it disturbing but very interesting (by the way, for those who don't know, he's married to Carol Gilligan, the feminist psychologist).

A blaring example of how the patriarchy and limited gender roles hurt men, too. Men who don't feel masculine enough, who feel that women have taken their power away from them, who buy into ridiculous fantasies of masculinity and dominance, have no other outlet but violence.

Andrea - don't forget the other outlet, the Internet.

Of course, as we all know, the line between the two has gotten pretty blurry of late.

The Center for Disease Control, the leader in reporting death statistics by all means, says that in 2004 there were 11,624 homocides by homocide. http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe.

Gee Bob your stats are only off by a factor of 200%.

BTW - the CDC gives the following:
2004, United States Firearm Deaths and Rates per 00,000
All Races, Both Sexes, All Intents: 29,569 - which is roughly 30,000 deaths.
Homicides aren't the only way to die by gun. AND - before anyone claims that it's skewing the numbers to include suicide, please remember that such attempts NOT by gun are FAR less likely to succeed, for obvious reasons. No matter what the origin or intent of the violent act, if a gun is involved, that act is more likely to result in a fatality (by orders of magnitude) than if the same act were attempted with a different kind of weapon.

Buffy sez: The Center for Disease Control, the leader in reporting death statistics by all means, says that in 2004 there were 11,624 homocides by homocide

Hmmm. I'd think that all homicides were by homocide.

Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to see the distinction Buffy is making.

I think it's also worth mentioning the entitlement that many men feel. The entitlement that leads them to view rejection or failure as something that's the fault of others, not something that we all must shrug off as being a natural part of life.

This conclusion is entirely based on anecdotal evidence, but, it seems that when women fail or are rejected, we blame ourselves. When men fail or are rejected, they're somewhat more likely to blame others. If my observations are correct, it wouldn't be surprising that less stable men then take out their failure on those "responsible" parties.

Keshmeshi - I actually read the article to convey that these men actually DO blame themselves - that they take to violence as a way of "redeeming" themselves in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Of course, what is completely off here is their perceptions about what constitutes "manliness", and how others will respond to them. Incidentally, Bob Heberts article, and Gilligan's conclusions mirror those my father had told me. He was a counsellor who worked with Viet Nam vets with PTSDs, substance abusers, and child abusers over his career. He always maintained that men who were violent towards those weaker (women, children, etc) had had horridly demeaning and abusive experiences with men in authority (fathers, teachers) when they were children. These feelings get internalized as an overwhelming sense of worthlessness, which often was outwardly expressed as hyper-masculinity, misogyny, authoritarianism, and extreme homophobia. He also beleived that such damaged people were almost impossible to treat and very dangerous to themselves and others.

I think he starts out with compelling arguments, but ultimately reaches a conclusion (gun control) that is not based on those arguments in any way that I could discern. More stringent gun control laws have nothing to do with the root cause that he discusses, the immense pressure on men to have to "defend" some prefabricated idea of masculinity that can act (probably in tandem with mental health issues) to cause them to lash out at groups that the rhetoric has singled out as "weaker".

I think he starts out with compelling arguments, but ultimately reaches a conclusion (gun control) that is not based on those arguments in any way that I could discern. More stringent gun control laws have nothing to do with the root cause that he discusses, the immense pressure on men to have to "defend" some prefabricated idea of masculinity that can act (probably in tandem with mental health issues) to cause them to lash out at groups that the rhetoric has singled out as "weaker".

I think he starts out with compelling arguments, but ultimately reaches a conclusion (gun control) that is not based on those arguments in any way that I could discern. More stringent gun control laws have nothing to do with the root cause that he discusses, the immense pressure on men to have to "defend" some prefabricated idea of masculinity that can act (probably in tandem with mental health issues) to cause them to lash out at groups that the rhetoric has singled out as "weaker".