I do think that for some people, the abusive behavior comes from a pervasive set of personality traits and they don't have to think about it much. There's not a lot going on in their brains (like planning), but they have a strong natural tendency to dominant or even predate. We are 99% the same genetically as other primates and very similar to other mammals, and well, some H. sapiens have a strong predatory streak, even more have an in-built drive toward some form of dominance.
Top that off with a family where other members have the same tendencies, and the switches and dials in the brain that are set up in the first few years of life are turned up to 11 for dominance. Interestingly, in very traditional families (not sure how many of those are left), a very dominant father may focus almost completely on dominating his sons (especially the eldest son), which has a trickle down effect for the rest of the family, so in that sense, we can see the traits "skipping" generations. Otherwise, it's "fruit doesn't fall far from the tree" as we see here all the time.
Or that it's used. It didn't look brand new to me, but I can't say exactly why I say that. My parents had an almost identical one way back in the day, so I'm probably biased.
At any rate, it's concerning that it is once again gone from the driveway, per the tweet posted by
@MassGuy on p 37 of the previous thread #28 (I think I got that right).