Earlier mass shooting epidemic

What if instead of the 1990s, the current epidemic of mass shootings and spree shootings in the US had begun 20 years earlier, in the 1970s? Let's say it starts with a Columbine-like school shooting in 1979, then several mass shootings at places like restaurants and offices as well as schools throughout the 1980s. By the 1990s, mass shootings have become as common in this TL as they are in the 2010s in OTL, occurring in some form across the country multiple times a month, with 5-50 killed in any given incident.

What would be the main impacts on US politics, particularly with regards to the NRA, the arms industry, and the 2nd Amendment? What would be the partisan positions on this issue during the ATL 1980s and 1990s? How would it affect US elections? And how would it affect and be connected to US popular culture, including music, film, and later, video games? Would a solution be found earlier, or would it devolve into the stalemate we seen in OTL currently?
 
What if instead of the 1990s, the current epidemic of mass shootings and spree shootings in the US had begun 20 years earlier, in the 1970s? Let's say it starts with a Columbine-like school shooting in 1979, then several mass shootings at places like restaurants and offices as well as schools throughout the 1980s. By the 1990s, mass shootings have become as common in this TL as they are in the 2010s in OTL, occurring in some form across the country multiple times a month, with 5-50 killed in any given incident.

What would be the main impacts on US politics, particularly with regards to the NRA, the arms industry, and the 2nd Amendment? What would be the partisan positions on this issue during the ATL 1980s and 1990s? How would it affect US elections? And how would it affect and be connected to US popular culture, including music, film, and later, video games? Would a solution be found earlier, or would it devolve into the stalemate we seen in OTL currently?

I think NRA supporters are going to reject any causistry between loose firearm-laws and gun crime, no matter when the shooting epidemic takes place. True, the 1970s, unlike the late 90s, was right in the middle of a rising crime wave, but I don't think those broader statistics are what motivates people's gut analyses.

So, 1970s epidemic...

NRA: Guns don't kill people, people kill people! If one of the good guys at that Dairy Queen had had a gun, all those people would still be alive!

1990s epidemic...

NRA: Guns don't kill people, people kill people! If one of the good guys at that Dairy Queen had had a gun, all those people would still be alive!
 
Culturally speaking, mass shootings in the 1970s will just become one more motif in the entertainment industry's repertoire of post-Vietnam/Watergate malaise. Maybe instead of trying to assassinate a politician, Travis Bickle tries to shoot up a wine bar full of stock brokers.
 
Two questions: how stifling were schools in the 70s? And would the trend spread as much without the web? Information was somewhat more filtered back then.
 
Two questions: how stifling were schools in the 70s? And would the trend spread as much without the web? Information was somewhat more filtered back then.
Schools were highly stifled by the older generation's rules. I recall girls weren't allowed to wear slacks until 1970. Even the younger teachers were brought up in a very old-school environment. The dress code transition that hit colleges around 1969-70 did not come to public schools for at least five more years. Information was more filtered, but book stores were more common without the Internet. Earth Day, peace movements and anti-war sentiment spread conventionally. Newspapers and radio/TV were the first news sources and the fairness doctrine required broadcasts to carry multiple sides of political issues. News was more balanced, as today's social media allows users to pick and choose sources and feeds that agree with their own interests, likes and hates.
 
Personally I'd say the vaguely militaristic bent of modern gun culture and the whole "the AR-15 is a hunting rifle" attitude wasn't present yet so people would definitely be more willing to pass gun control laws. Heck even Reagan was supported laws like the Mulford Act.
 
Did they have armed guards, metal detectors at the entrance, large rulebooks and zero tolerance for infractions?
One could argue they make some kids go doolally.
Rules, yes. Dress codes, yes. Armed guards, metal detectors, zero tolerance, no. Doors were unlocked, anybody could walk into a school building off the street and even into a classroom. Smokin' in the Boys' Room, as the song by Brownsville Station went, really did happen.
 
Rules, yes. Dress codes, yes. Armed guards, metal detectors, zero tolerance, no. Doors were unlocked, anybody could walk into a school building off the street and even into a classroom. Smokin' in the Boys' Room, as the song by Brownsville Station went, really did happen.

So, do you see dress codes and the like as sufficient triggers for killing sprees?
 
There was the Brenda Spencer case back in the late 1970's. Her excuse was that she "didn't like Mondays". The Boomtown Rats wrote "I Don't Like Mondays" about her.

That was a pretty bad incident (for the time) if I recall.
 
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The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban would not have been allowed to expire in 2004.
ATL Congress, etc. would have renewed the AWB and added more “military style” weapons to the list.
Hunting with 5.56mm ammo would be limited to smaller varmit’s (e.g. coyotes). If a game warden caught a deer hunter - with a weapon smaller than .30 caliber (7.62 by 51mm) - the gun would be confiscated, the hunting licence revoked and a multi-thousand fine.
Handgun hunting would be severely restricted, bordering on illegal. Handgun laws would be more like Sweden with only active competitors allowed to own pistols. Those pistols would be locked up at the gun club.

The entertainment industry would ‘voluntarily ‘ limit first-person-shooter games, films, etc.
 
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