Today's Mass Shooting

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smartcooky said:
Population of United States: 334 million
Number of guns per 100 persons: 120.5
Mass shootings in 2020: 611 (446 dead, 2,515 wounded)


Population of European Union: 513 million
Number of guns per 100 persons: 15.6
Mass shootings in 2020: 4 (25 dead, 31 wounded)


Gee whizz... now I wonder what the difference could possibly be?
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So from those figures, the US has 8 times as many guns per person, but 234 times the number of mass shootings per person as Europe Seems like there must be something more to it than just the number of guns.
 
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From the GVA:

The FBI does not define Mass Shooting in any form.

GVA ... define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter.
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I guess you can each come up with your own definition if you really want to.
 
This is akin to watering down a problem until one can ignore it.

BLM, nope not an issue unless you address all lives matter.

Male on female violence, can't discuss that without also including female violence on males.

Mentally ill mass shooters and people who "go postal". Nope, can't address that unless we water it down with shootings in general.
 
Matthew Best said:
So from those figures, the US has 8 times as many guns per person, but 234 times the number of mass shootings per person as Europe Seems like there must be something more to it than just the number of guns.
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Indeed, its the whole "muh rights, muh freedums, muh guns" culture that is the problem - the attitude that "my right to own a gun trumps your fear of my gun", the attitude of "if some dudes done me wrong I'll jus' get muh gun and kill 'em all".

2A gives Americans the right to bear arms contingent upon such person bearing arms being part of a well regulated militia as necessary to the security the State. ]In Federalist Paper No 29, dated January 9, 1788, Alexander Hamilton explained what this meant. He wrote that a well-regulated militia is "the most natural defence of a free country." Even his anti-Federalist opponents agreed, writing "a well regulated militia, composed of the Yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered as the bulwark of a free people."

There is NO part of 2A that gives citizens the right to own a gun, or to use it in self defence - it is the court's misreading that has created this idea of gun rights. In fact 2A was never meant to create gun rights, it was meant to prevent the need for the raising of a standing army - the well-regulated militia 2A talks about, was supposed to be raised by the government as and when needed.

In most other countries in the world, owning a gun is a privilege, but in America, it has become a right. IMO, the reason it has become a right is because, the courts have wrongly decided through a complete misreading of 2A, to interpret a duty and responsibility as a right.
 
Matthew Best said:
So what's your definition of a "mass shooting"?
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Someone who sets off to murder complete strangers, or everyone at a workplace or school.

It does not include the guy who murders his spouse/girlfriend and takes out any family members that had the unfortunate luck of being there.

It doesn't include armed robbery, or gang-related murders. It doesn't include road rage.


That doesn't mean all those other deaths from gun violence don't matter. They do. But the only way to address any of this is to define shooters by groups of characteristics one can use to address the problem.

To address mass shooters we need to know what their characteristics are, what they have in common, what are the triggers, the warning signs and then those need to be incorporated into planning.

The FBI has a good paper on 'the school shooter' and what schools need to do to prevent those incidents. And there are things that can be done. Schools need risk assessment tools and plans. I've linked to it before.

There is also a workplace shooter plan, identifying who is at risk like blaming others among other things, and establishing a plan, how to get law enforcement involved and so on. I've been to conferences on 'going postal' that advise employers on how to establish such a plan.

In the latest shooting at Sooper's that might have been prevented by better educating people who are worried about family members and taking away roadblocks. For example, police have to stop shooting mentally ill people in a crisis when someone calls for help. Would you call the police to help you with your schizophrenic child knowing how often they just shoot the person?

Family members need resources and education. This one is a little loftier of a goal but we can still begin to address it.


Do you see how none of those address these kinds of shooters:
The Way We Think About Mass Shootings Ignores Many Black Victims
But mass shootings only slowed under a commonly used but restrictive definition that leaves out most mass-casualty incidents. When defined as incidents in which four or more people were shot in a public or private space, there were more mass shootings in 2020 than in any of the previous years for which data is kept, according to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence in America. Last year saw more than 600 mass shootings, almost double the average of the previous five years. The trend has continued into 2021, with more than 100 such shootings before the end of March.
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The article bemoans the fact these murders don't get the same press coverage. And that is a valid complaint.
There was the shooting in Charlotte, North Carolina, in June of last year, where gunmen fired more than 200 rounds into a crowded block party, killing four and injuring five others. Two months later in Washington, D.C., multiple shooters fired into another neighborhood block party, killing one and injuring 21. In January of this year, gunfire erupted during a basketball game at a public park in Miami, injuring eight. None of these shootings prompted multiday news cycles or condolences from former presidents.
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That is not the school shooter, not the schizophrenic shooter, not the workplace shooter.

While they obviously need attention, and news coverage, they are a different animal. Equal attention doesn't mean they should all be lumped together into "gun violence" because that really limits the actions we need to be taking.
 
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The GVA has added three new mass shootings to their list this evening.


Memphis, Tennessee. 3 dead, 2 injured.

River Grove, Illinois. 1 dead, 3 injured in a car-to-car shooting involving a party bus.

Chicago, Illinois 4 people shot while standing outside of their house.


Doesn't sound like any of these were from America's greatest threat, a.k.a. domestic violent extremists. Maybe some more police defunding will help?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Someone who sets off to murder complete strangers, or everyone at a workplace or school.
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Well, that's just bizarre - why are you limiting the definition of a "mass shooting" to someone who intends to murder strangers? That seems weird right off the bat.

Surely it doesn't need to be this complicated. A mass shooting is a shooting in which a mass of people is shot. You can quibble about what number constitutes a mass, but I really can't see much more to debate about it.

It does not include the guy who murders his spouse/girlfriend and takes out any family members that had the unfortunate luck of being there.
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Why not?

It doesn't include armed robbery, or gang-related murders. It doesn't include road rage.
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Why not?


That doesn't mean all those other deaths from gun violence don't matter. They do. But the only way to address any of this is to define shooters by groups of characteristics one can use to address the problem.

To address mass shooters we need to know what their characteristics are, what they have in common, what are the triggers, the warning signs and then those need to be incorporated into planning.
Click to expand...

But you can't know what their characteristics are if you automatically exclude 90% of them for some unknown reason.

The FBI has a good paper on 'the school shooter' and what schools need to do to prevent those incidents. And there are things that can be done. Schools need risk assessment tools and plans. I've linked to it before.

There is also a workplace shooter plan, identifying who is at risk like blaming others among other things, and establishing a plan, how to get law enforcement involved and so on. I've been to conferences on 'going postal' that advise employers on how to establish such a plan.

In the latest shooting at Sooper's that might have been prevented by better educating people who are worried about family members and taking away roadblocks. For example, police have to stop shooting mentally ill people in a crisis when someone calls for help. Would you call the police to help you with your schizophrenic child knowing how often they just shoot the person?

Family members need resources and education. This one is a little loftier of a goal but we can still begin to address it.


Do you see how none of those address these kinds of shooters:
The Way We Think About Mass Shootings Ignores Many Black Victims

The article bemoans the fact these murders don't get the same press coverage. And that is a valid complaint.

That is not the school shooter, not the schizophrenic shooter, not the workplace shooter.

While they obviously need attention, and news coverage, they are a different animal. Equal attention doesn't mean they should all be lumped together into "gun violence" because that really limits the actions we need to be taking.
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Yes, a school shooter, a workplace shooter and a schizophrenic shooter may well be "different animals". Feel free to start threads about them. This one is about mass shootings, not just a tiny subset of mass shootings.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So once again, define a "mass shooting" as just about any kind of gun violence where there are victims and gee look at how many there are. :rolleyes:
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But given those numbers, no matter how much you want to ignore mass shootings because they are not the 'right kind' of mass shootings, the US far outstrips the EU.
Just by a larger factor than I knew based upon news stories that reach here.

In my opinion that fact that you need to compartmentalize the type of mass violence with guns is horrifying enough.
 
Matthew Best said:
So from those figures, the US has 8 times as many guns per person, but 234 times the number of mass shootings per person as Europe Seems like there must be something more to it than just the number of guns.
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A casual disregard for life and an overinflated sense of self worth.
 
Bogative said:
The GVA has added three new mass shootings to their list this evening.


Memphis, Tennessee. 3 dead, 2 injured.

River Grove, Illinois. 1 dead, 3 injured in a car-to-car shooting involving a party bus.

Chicago, Illinois 4 people shot while standing outside of their house.


Doesn't sound like any of these were from America's greatest threat, a.k.a. domestic violent extremists. Maybe some more police defunding will help?
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You do understand that a shooter shooting up a bunch of people anywhere in the USA is by dint of the crime the very definition of a "domestic violence extremist"?
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
But given those numbers, no matter how much you want to ignore mass shootings because they are not the 'right kind' of mass shootings, the US far outstrips the EU.
Just by a larger factor than I knew based upon news stories that reach here.

In my opinion that fact that you need to compartmentalize the type of mass violence with guns is horrifying enough.
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A large percentage of US citizens have their heads in the sand when it comes to gun violence in their country. I think it is a combination of fear and embarrassment. They are helpless to do anything about the actual violence so the denial serves the dual purpose of making them individually feel safer, and helping them to band together in defense against the criticism from "outsiders".
 
Norman Alexander said:
You do understand that a shooter shooting up a bunch of people anywhere in the USA is by dint of the crime the very definition of a "domestic violence extremist"?
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If you cannot solve a problem by actually dealing with it directly then the next best solution is to define it out of existence.
 
smartcooky said:
This was not a spree-shooting, this was a bar fight
No one was killed, and one "person-of-interest" was taken into custody
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That one actually happened in my neighborhood. The bar it happened was out in the burbs in Jersey before moving across the street from the casino in my neighborhood. I went there once and wasn't super impressed with it. It's apparently slowly become a nuisance bar.
 
In regards to the classification of these shootings, I think it’s important to be precise.

Measures intended to mitigate Skeptic Ginger’s definition (with which I agree) would be ineffective at mitigating domestic-violence incidents, or gang-violence incidents, or “road rage” incidents.

These shootings are motivated by psychotic homicidal ideation, or paranoid delusions, or by religious or political ideology.

Here in St. Louis, we have an ongoing problem with “gun violence”. Most all of this is drug/gang related, a constant spiral of rival gangs and subsequent revenge shootings. Often, funerals are targeted by revenge-seeking rival gang members.
We also have a spate of road-rage incidents. But no “mass shootings” by the above definition in recent memory.

It’s not so much that these are qualitatively different in terms of numbers of victims, but rather in causation.
 
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