# Mass shootings - some statistics



## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

In 2015, so far there have been more mass shootings in the US than there have been days of the year. A mass shooting is one where four or more people are shot.



> There have been a total of 352 mass shootings in the country so far. This includes at least one mass shooting for 208 days in 2015, and 81 days of two or more mass shootings.
> 
> This means there have been more mass shootings than days in the year.
> 
> ...


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## Ameriscot (Dec 3, 2015)

And unfortunately the answer for many is to buy more guns under this incredible belief that if everyone walks around with guns they can shoot the bad guys as soon as they start shooting.  Hardly.


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

According to the Mass Shooting tracker, not counting today's couple of mass shootings, the number of people killed in mass shootings in 2015 is 447 and the number wounded is 1,292.

Last year the numbers were 383 dead and 1,239 wounded. In 2013 it was 502 killed and 1,266.

That's a lot of people over three years and doesn't count all of the people killed or injured where the number is three or less in one incident.

Over the same time span Australia has had one mass shooting where a man in Cairns Qld killed his wife and three children before turning the gun on himself (2014) and in 2015 a mother killed her seven children with a knife plus one other child in her care at the time. Nothing reported in 2013.


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## Ameriscot (Dec 3, 2015)

As Obama says, this doesn't happen in other countries.  This type of thing is rare elsewhere.


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## Shalimar (Dec 3, 2015)

I find it amazing that some Americans don't find it odd that other first world countries don't have this form of systemic violence.


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

Cultural blindness, I suspect. 

One of our respected former politicians wants the Australian government to warn Aussies about the danger levels of visiting the USA, or at least some parts of it. The US has issued a warning to US travellers about visiting Sydney after the Paris shootings. 



> Former National Party leader and deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer has called for better security advice for Australians travelling to the US after another tragic shooting. At least 14 people are dead and another 17 injured after a massacre at a disability centre in San Bernardino, California.
> Police killed two suspects following the shootout, while a third was detained.
> 
> Mr Fischer told ABC News it was time to “call out” the US on its failure to address gun violence and our “one way” relationship with the nation.
> ...


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## Ralphy1 (Dec 3, 2015)

Not blindness, part of the psyche that is propped up by a misinterpretation of our second amendment...


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## QuickSilver (Dec 3, 2015)

Yes...  Somehow the phrase... "Well regulated militia"  got  TWISTED  (oops.. there's that word)  into meaning  "Unregulated (or loosely regulated)  populace"  Look where that has gotten us..    But on the other hand..it has done wonders for capitalism...  look how much money the gun and ammo manufacturers are making... so they can continue to donate heftily to the NRA and to pro-gun candidates.


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## Jackie22 (Dec 3, 2015)

[h=1]A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research[/h]http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/pressure-builds-gun-research-congress 

Even before today's tragic shooting in San Bernardino, pressure was building in Washington to overturn an amendment, backed by the National Rifle Association, that has barred federal research on gun violence for nearly 20 years. More than 2,000 physicians, dozens of Democratic lawmakers, and even the author of the amendment have all called on Congress to once again allow gun violence to be investigated as a public health issue. 

On Wednesday, nine medical associations publicly urged Congress to overturn the so-called Dickey Amendment, which in 1996 effectively halted research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) into the causes of gun violence. 

"Gun violence is a public health problem that kills 90 Americans a day," Dr. Alice Chen, the executive director of Doctors for America, said in a statement. "Physicians believe it’s time to lift this effective ban and fund the research needed to save lives." 

Tacked onto a 1996 appropriations bill, the Dickey Amendment was pushed through Congress by Republican legislators under substantial pressure from the NRA, as the amendment’s author, former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.), admitted in a 2012 op-ed in the Washington Post that he co-authored. Dickey wrote that the lack of research by the NIH and the CDC had resulted in a troubling information gap: "US scientists cannot answer the most basic question: What works to prevent firearm injuries? We don’t know whether having more citizens carry guns would decrease or increase firearm deaths; or whether firearm registration and licensing would make inner-city residents safer or expose them to greater harm."


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## BobF (Dec 3, 2015)

I wonder what is different in Switzerland as they issue guns to their people and have much less killings than in the US.   I think we really need to know what is going on other than the 'gun haters' want us to stop having guns.

Who were these two shooters that brought so much harm to the people of the US?   They were raised as foreigners before they moved to the US.   Might be something we need to look into.   We still do not have all the investigation finished or released.   So we just dream up a bunch of nonsense and say those are the facts.   

Who were these folks anyway?    Did they have gun permits?   What was their purpose if they did not have gun permits.   I was just listening to authorities answering press questions and many went unanswered so we still don't know all we should about the shooters and why and how they did this thing.


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

Bob, Farook was American born, and as such he had the constitutional right to own as many firearms and ammunition as he wanted. He had no criminal convictions and was not on the radar of national security. He could acquire his arsenal over time by travelling around the country to buy them legally or are you suggesting that he either stole them or smuggled them into the country? 

 What he has done can be done by any American with a mind to do so.

 Bob, in 2014, Americans owned guns at the rate of 112.6 per 100 civilians and Switzerland had 45.7, less than half the rate of the US. Australians has 21.7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

 In 2013, the US had 10.5 firearms related deaths per 100,000 population, compared to Switzerland 2.91 and Australia  0.86. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

These figures do seem to roughly correlate to the number of guns per 100 civilians.


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## Jackie22 (Dec 3, 2015)

[h=1]Republicans say no to new gun control legislation after San Bernardino[/h]Source: *USA Today*

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress made it clear Thursday that they will not be moving quickly to bring up new gun control legislation in the wake of Wednesday's shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. 

Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday there are still too many unknowns about the San Bernardino shootings, but he said one common theme among many mass shootings is mental illness, an issue he says Congress has already been working on with legislation. 

"People with mental illness are getting guns and committing these mass shootings," Ryan said on CBS This Morning. Ryan made the same point earlier this week in reaction to the post-Thanksgiving shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic. 

The Wisconsin Republican said part of the discussion surrounding mental health legislation is who should and shouldn't have access to guns, but he signaled that barring gun purchases by people on no-fly terror lists — as President Obama urged Wednesday — is not an option. 

<more>

Read more:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...an-urges-caution-on-gun-legislation/76714608/ 


.......how can they justify people on 'no-fly terror list' buying guns? ....unreal.


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## BobF (Dec 3, 2015)

*
"Gun violence is a public health problem that kills 90 Americans a day,"  Dr. Alice Chen, the executive director of Doctors for America, said in a  statement. "Physicians believe it’s time to lift this effective ban and  fund the research needed to save lives." *

If this were true we would be burying 90X365=*32,850* people for gun deaths per year.   A not so smart comment.

Warrigal you posted - Last year the numbers were 383 dead and 1,239 wounded. In 2013 it was 502 killed and 1,266.

Some one has really got their figures all messed up.    All this nonsense and crap about killings should be stopped and final figures used.   No time to wait for the inspectors to come up with some real numbers before all this anti gun nonsense is used?    Rather ignorant of facts and a hate for the facts makes no sense at all.

Good some of you folks will never own a gun voluntarily or because there is no problem.   You might just blow your own heads off.    Want to end the gun laws, then get your congressman to get the debate going.   You out of country folks just have no one to turn too.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 3, 2015)

More statistics on mass shootings in the US and Europe for anyone interested. More here. 


1) In his address to the nation after the Charleston attack, Obama claimed:  “we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.  It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.”

Senator Harry Reid made a similar statement on June 23rd: “The United States is the only advanced country where this type of mass violence occurs.  Let’s do something. We can expand, for example, background checks. … We should support not giving guns to people who are mentally ill and felons.”

This claim is simply not true.  Mass public shootings – defined as four or more people killed, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty.

  The focus on excluding shootings that do not involve other crimes (e.g., gang fights or robberies) has been used from the original research by Lott and Landes to more recently the FBI) from 2009 to the Charleston massacre (this matches the starting period for another recent study we did on US shootings and we chose that because that was the starting point that Bloomberg’s group had picked).  The cases were complied doing a news search.  The starting year was picked simply because it match a report the time frame from a recent Bloomberg report and when we evaluated that report it was the last year we looked at Mass Public Shootings in the US starting in 2009.





Some people have defended President Obama’s statement by pointing to the word “frequency.”  But, even if one puts it in terms of frequency, the president’s statement is still false, with the US ranking 9th compared to European countries.












The CPRC has also collected data on the worst mass public shootings, those cases where at least 15 people were killed in the attack.
There were 16 cases where at least 15 people were killed. Out of those cases, four were in the United States, two in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

But the U.S. has a population four times greater than Germany’s and five times the U.K.’s, so on a per-capita basis the U.S. ranks low in comparison — actually, those two countries would have had a frequency of attacks 1.96 (Germany) and 2.46 (UK) times higher.

Small countries such as Norway, Israel and Australia may have only one major attack each, one-fourth of what the U.S. has suffered, but the US population is vastly greater.  If they suffered attacks at a rate adjusted for their population, Norway, Israel and Australia would have had attacks that were respectively 16, 11, and 3 times greater than the US.


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## QuickSilver (Dec 3, 2015)

All these charts... grafts and statistics are a huge waste of time...  Pro-gun people.. rest assured that the current crop of politicians are stuck firmly in the NRA's pocket and will do NOTHING to endanger your right to arm yourselves to the teeth.     SO... why don't we all just sit back and enjoy our evening... the next MASS shooting is perhaps only a week or so away..maybe even sooner......   that you can rest assured of too.


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## WhatInThe (Dec 3, 2015)

QuickSilver said:


> All these charts... grafts and statistics are a huge waste of time...  Pro-gun people.. rest assured that the current crop of politicians are stuck firmly in the NRA's pocket and will do NOTHING to endanger your right to arm yourselves to the teeth.     SO... why don't we all just sit back and enjoy our evening... the next MASS shooting is perhaps only a week or so away..maybe even sooner......   that you can rest assured of too.



Blaming the NRA which seems to one of the favorite tools of entire anti-gun movement insults the average gun owner or even public because it could be interpreted to mean gun owners are sheep following the NRA and/or not smart enough to make their own decisions. The gun sales post high profile shooting sky rocket in part because the anti gun rhetoric comes out right away. I've never seen an NRA ad suggesting you better get a gun now before it's too late post high profile shooting. The same can be said of "big pharma" which also gets smacked for their lobbying. The drugs sell in part because people want them or what they supposedly do, there has to be a demand before there is something to fill it. It's easier to blame some big nefarious organization when in fact there is a lot of personal responsibility or desire for the very things that are supposedly someone's else's fault.


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## BobF (Dec 3, 2015)

In response to a previous post, today at 5:55pm by QS.   Why should we shut up when you folks are constantly screaming about our allowing folks to own guns?    It is a two way street and we have as much right to say buy a gun if you pass the screening and any that does not want to buy a gun can do that without passing the screening.


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## WhatInThe (Dec 3, 2015)

BobF said:


> In response to the above post.   Why should we shut up when you folks are constantly screaming about our allowing folks to own guns?    It is a two way street and we have as much right to say buy a gun if you pass the screening and any that does not want to buy a gun can do that without passing the screening.



That's right. But the NRA, that oh so evil organization usually doesn't publicly speak until some actual anti gun legislation is introduced(sometimes rather quickly) showing some restraint giving some time to pass unlike social media, politicos or so called mainstream media turning an incomplete on going event into a political debate stage.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 3, 2015)

WhatInThe said:


> Blaming the NRA which seems to one of the favorite tools of entire anti-gun movement insults the average gun owner or even public because it could be interpreted to mean gun owners are sheep following the NRA and/or not smart enough to make their own decisions. The gun sales post high profile shooting sky rocket in part because the anti gun rhetoric comes out right away. I've never seen an NRA ad suggesting you better get a gun now before it's too late post high profile shooting. The same can be said of "big pharma" which also gets smacked for their lobbying. The drugs sell in part because people want them or what they supposedly do, there has to be a demand before there is something to fill it. It's easier to blame some big nefarious organization when in fact there is a lot of personal responsibility or desire for the very things that are supposedly someone's else's fault.



Well said WhatInThe, I agree.  But in the case of Big Pharma, most of the mass shootings so far in the US have been done by people who were under the influence of prescription pharmaceuticals which were mind altering and had side effects of tendencies to commit homicides or suicides.  I don't blame the NRA for anything, but prescription drugs that alter people's ability to think clearly should be taken off the market, definitely not given to children and teens which is the case in many of these mentally disturbed individuals who commit such crimes.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 3, 2015)

WhatInThe said:


> That's right. But the NRA, that oh so evil organization usually doesn't publicly speak until some actual anti gun legislation is introduced(sometimes rather quickly) showing some restraint giving some time to pass unlike social media, politicos or so called mainstream media turning an incomplete on going event into a political debate stage.



I don't know what makes me cringe more.  Hearing of another senseless mass shooting, or listening to the anti-gun people, including the President, jump on each opportunity to promote their agenda.


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

BobF said:


> Warrigal you posted - Last year the numbers were 383 dead and 1,239 wounded. In 2013 it was 502 killed and 1,266.
> 
> Some one has really got their figures all messed up.    All this nonsense and crap about killings should be stopped and final figures used.   No time to wait for the inspectors to come up with some real numbers before all this anti gun nonsense is used?    Rather ignorant of facts and a hate for the facts makes no sense at all.



Those figures were just for people killed or injured in mass shootings - i.e. 4 or more victims at the one time. 
The other figures no doubt take into account intentional homicides, suicides and accidental deaths.
They would include gang slayings and domestic violence murders and children shooting other children with their parents' guns.

Here are some figures concerning total gun related deaths in America from 1999 to 2013  http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states


> In the United States, annual deaths resulting from firearms total
> 
> 2013: 33,636[SUP]19[/SUP]
> 2012: 33,563
> ...



There is a lot more information at the above link and you can generate charts and comparisons between any two or more countries.

For example


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## QuickSilver (Dec 3, 2015)

SeaBreeze said:


> I don't know what makes me cringe more.  Hearing of another senseless mass shooting, or listening to the anti-gun people, including the President, jump on each opportunity to promote their agenda.



The only "agenda"  we  "jump" on is trying to prevent "another senseless mass shooting"..    So... why is that cringe worthy to you?


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## imp (Dec 3, 2015)

Including Switzerland in the above chart is tricky business; see, they have even MORE laxity towards gun ownership than the U.S.     imp


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## imp (Dec 3, 2015)

*Other Food for Thought*

Given the extremely high number of firearms being continuously purchased here, as I pointed out in another thread, 900,000 background checks in a single week, obviously many more "new gun owners" are being enabled, as well as more guns purchased by seasoned owners, MANY more guns entering the mix continuously.

Yet, the stats show number of firearms deaths per capita as CONSTANT at 10 per 100,000 population for the PAST 12 or more years. 

Who can therefore PROVE that more guns = more deaths?    imp


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 3, 2015)

QuickSilver said:


> The only "agenda"  we  "jump" on is trying to prevent "another senseless mass shooting"..    So... why is that cringe worthy to you?



No, because if you really wanted to prevent another senseless shooting, you would try to do something about the medication madness in America, and acknowledge that many of these shootings are done either by mentally ill people, or people who are so needlessly over-medicated since childhood on mind altering drugs like Ritalin, Xanax, etc., that they become mentally ill, and are either homicidal or suicidal. 

 What makes me cringe is seeing each and every time that rather than examine the details and try to understand the motivation of a shooting and the background of the shooter to try to avoid another mass shooting, the immediate response is to blame the guns themselves.  It appears that some people are happy to see yet another mass shooting, another chance to push their anti-gun agenda to the public.

  Also, to ignore each and every time that these shooting take place in gun-free zones, where people are like sitting ducks and these psychos know that.  Even since military bases have gone gun-free, they've been hit by these mentally ill killers.  If people wanted to avoid another shooting on a military base, they would allow our men and women to carry if they chose to, who better trained to use their weapons effectively than our troops.



> _• _*Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to the public.
> 
> • Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
> 
> ...


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 3, 2015)

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier on the Columbine shooting and citizens killing an active shooter to avoid deaths instead of waiting around for the police to take action.  See short video here.  http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/law-enforcements-changing-response-to-active-shooter-attacks/


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

imp said:


> Given the extremely high number of firearms being continuously purchased here, as I pointed out in another thread, 900,000 background checks in a single week, obviously many more "new gun owners" are being enabled, as well as more guns purchased by seasoned owners, MANY more guns entering the mix continuously.
> 
> Yet, the stats show number of firearms deaths per capita as CONSTANT at 10 per 100,000 population for the PAST 12 or more years.
> 
> Who can therefore PROVE that more guns = more deaths?    imp



 Congratulations. 
 Your society had finally reached peak massacre rate and is unlikely to show further increase.
 It is also unlikely to show any decrease either.

 You seem to have reached a state of unhappy equilibrium.


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## imp (Dec 3, 2015)

Warrigal said:


> Congratulations.
> Your society had finally reached peak massacre rate and is unlikely to show further increase.
> It is also unlikely to show any decrease either.
> 
> You seem to have reached a state of unhappy equilibrium.



Warri, your analysis is untypically childish. The facts present themselves, you dispute them with a counter-claim proving your personal stance.    imp


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## Shalimar (Dec 3, 2015)

Whoa, Imp. Uncalled for remark, personal comments are childish.


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## Warrigal (Dec 3, 2015)

Allow me to apologise. 

What I should have said is, "How can you possibly be satisfied with a death rate that is as high as it is and which shows no sign of improving over time?"

That is my personal stance - too many people are dying violently and no-one is trying to reduce the numbers. The people who are dying are for the most part people like you and me - civilians old and young and a lot of them are children. They are mothers, fathers, friends, relatives and all of them are someone's children.


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## Karen99 (Dec 4, 2015)

Is it realistic to think the government can control the behavior of people bent on needless violence or destruction?  How far should the government go?  Is it a good idea to take away the freedom to own a firearm if you obtain it through legal means?  Is it a good idea to ban drugs that were in the system of a shooter? 

I personally don't own a gun or want one in my house but I have no right to tell another American he can't.  The old adage that guns don't kill people...people kill people is just a fact.   I have strong personal opinions about guns for my own reasons..but in the end people who want a gun for heinous reasons will find one to buy on the black market or steal one.

California has the strongest gun laws in the nation...yet we just had another shooting in San Bernadino.  There was some talk on giving better equipment to local law enforcement to help them deal with this sort of well organized attack.  Police are there to protect public safety and that concerns every citizen.


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## Falcon (Dec 4, 2015)

But the police can't be every place at any one time.

The only solution is to eliminate the goofy people.


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## Karen99 (Dec 4, 2015)

Falcon said:


> But the police can't be every place at any one time.
> 
> The only solution is to eliminate the goofy people.



It's true they can't be everywhere at once...but it's also true they are the ones who deal with it after it occurs and should have appropriate equipment to do so.  How do you decide who is "goofy" until the deed is done?  Just sayin'....


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## Don M. (Dec 4, 2015)

Falcon said:


> But the police can't be every place at any one time.
> 
> The only solution is to eliminate the goofy people.



Perhaps the truest statement I've heard, with regard to the police preventing murders, etc., is....."Remember..When Danger is only Seconds away, the Police are Only Minutes Away".


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 4, 2015)

Karen99 said:


> I personally don't own a gun or want one in my house but I have no right to tell another American he can't.  The old adage that guns don't kill people...people kill people is just a fact.   I have strong personal opinions about guns for my own reasons..but in the end people who want a gun for heinous reasons will find one to buy on the black market or steal one.
> 
> California has the strongest gun laws in the nation...yet we just had another shooting in San Bernadino.  There was some talk on giving better equipment to local law enforcement to help them deal with this sort of well organized attack.  Police are there to protect public safety and that concerns every citizen.



Very true, I agree Karen.



Don M. said:


> Perhaps the truest statement I've heard, with regard to the police preventing murders, etc., is....."Remember..When Danger is only Seconds away, the Police are Only Minutes Away".



Exactly!


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 4, 2015)

Warrigal said:


> In 2015, so far there have been more mass shootings in the US than there have been days of the year. A mass shooting is one where four or more people are shot.
> 
> _"There have been a total of 352 mass shootings in the country so far. This includes at least one mass shooting for 208 days in 2015, and 81 days of two or more mass shootings._
> 
> _This means there have been more mass shootings than days in the year."_



I question the accuracy of that statement, after reading articles such as this one. 


The Washington Post reported yesterday that there have been 355 mass shootings so far in 2015. Other mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times have also reported that mass shootings have surged to the extent that they occur at an average pace of around once per day.

While definitions of mass shootings vary based on who is calculating the statistics, the source that these articles are relying on to come to such a shocking number calculates the stat in a vastly different manner than the ways law enforcement agencies have traditionally evaluated them.

The source of the stats is an unofficial, crowd-sourced compilation of news articles of shootings by members of the anti-gun Reddit sub-forum GunsAreCool which is also mirrored on the Mass Shooting Tracker website.

Mass Shooting Tracker’s definition of a mass shooting as any gun violence event in which 4 people including the shooter are injured would include gang shootouts, robberies and drug deals gone wrong, suicide-by-cop incidents in which bystanders were inadvertently injured by police, and other incidents that deviate drastically from the Columbine and Sandy Hook type events that most Americans think of when talking about a mass shooting.

Mass Shooting Tracker included in its list of 2013 mass shootings a relatively harmless incident involving no serious injuries in which two boys aged 11 and 12 allegedly shot four people with BB guns.


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## Agman (Dec 4, 2015)

SeaBreeze said:


> I don't know what makes me cringe more.  Hearing of another senseless mass shooting, or listening to the anti-gun people, including the President, jump on each opportunity to promote their agenda.


*
Thanks, SB...I needed that.*


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## Don M. (Dec 4, 2015)

SeaBreeze said:


> I don't know what makes me cringe more.  Hearing of another senseless mass shooting, or listening to the anti-gun people, including the President, jump on each opportunity to promote their agenda.



AMEN!  To read the "opinions" or listen to some people, one would think that the people in the U.S. are running around crouched over and having to dodge a constant rain of bullets streaming overhead.  While it's true that the U.S. has a higher death rate from firearms than most European nations....AND even Australia, Canada, and Scotland...we rank somewhere around the 95th most dangerous nation when compared to the over 250 nations on the planet.  Then, when one looks at the overall reasons for these gun deaths, a far different picture emerges than that espoused by the Hard Core Anti-Gunners.  Here is a good article derived from data collected by the CDC....

http://www.naturalnews.com/039650_CDC_gun_deaths_race.html

If we could somehow eliminate the daily shootings attributed to the drug and street gangs in our inner cities, we would quickly jump into the top half dozen safest nations in the world.  

Those who beat the "Ban Guns" drum would be well advised to review a little History.  One of the most successful Gun Bans occurred in Germany in the 1930's.  And, as a result, over 6 million defenseless Jews were led to slaughter.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 4, 2015)

Don M. said:


> If we could somehow eliminate the daily shootings attributed to the drug and street gangs in our inner cities, we would quickly jump into the top half dozen safest nations in the world.



Very true, the government doesn't seem very interested in addressing the serious issue of street criminals and gang shootings, many of which are done with illegal guns bought in the streets or acquired by trading for illegal drugs.  Many of the homicides occur in the streets of large cities, where jobs are scare and as a result crime is rampant.  Get the guns from these street criminals, and stop that crime which is so disgracefully ignored by the main stream media.


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## Warrigal (Dec 4, 2015)

SeaBreeze said:


> I question the accuracy of that statement, after reading articles such as this one.
> 
> Mass Shooting Tracker included in its list of 2013 mass shootings a relatively harmless incident involving no serious injuries in which two boys aged 11 and 12 allegedly shot four people with BB guns.



Actually, SeaBreeze, I don't think that this is a relatively harmless incident. For two boys aged 11 and 12 to wound four people with BB guns is very problematic. To wound one could be classed as unfortunate but four looks like a deliberate act. If they had had access to something more deadly then a BB gun then it could easily have been four fatalities. 

If guns don't kill people but people do, then we are looking at two would be killers.It is only a matter of time before the calibre of their weapons matches their ambitions.


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## Warrigal (Dec 4, 2015)

imp said:


> Including Switzerland in the above chart is tricky business; see, they have even MORE laxity towards gun ownership than the U.S.     imp



But they have less guns per head of population. Roughly half as many.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 5, 2015)

Warrigal said:


> Actually, SeaBreeze, I don't think that this is a relatively harmless incident. For two boys aged 11 and 12 to wound four people with BB guns is very problematic. To wound one could be classed as unfortunate but four looks like a deliberate act. If they had had access to something more deadly then a BB gun then it could easily have been four fatalities.
> 
> If guns don't kill people but people do, then we are looking at two would be killers.It is only a matter of time before the calibre of their weapons matches their ambitions.



Well, I take it that you would include two boys shooting people with BB guns, where there were no serious injuries, should be included in statistics for mass shootings?  I supposed you agree then with this boy's 2 day suspension from school for biting his pop tart pastry into a shape that vaguely resembled a gun.  I stand by my conclusion that the numbers of mass shootings in the US according to your report are incorrect and artificially inflated.  Sorry, with all due respect, I have to be realistic and can't go along with this fear nonsense spread by the media.


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## AZ Jim (Dec 5, 2015)

QS and Warri....I happen to be a gun owner but I am convinced we are entirely too consumed by the "gun culture" in the US.  Gun fanatics will jump through hoops to convince us that guns are a everyday necessity and their "right" per the "Constitution" and the *well regulated militia* clause.  I will never understand how the Supreme Court could call what we have now as anything resembling  *a well regulated militia*.  I would hope impartial heads might prevail in the business of finding a sensible solution to this runaway train of gun population.  PS Logic says that the National Guard is what the Constitution intended when it was written.


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## BobF (Dec 5, 2015)

We do have well regulated militias as well.   Each state has a National Guard unit or something similar such as Reserves if not one of the actual US Military Bases.

Add to that the ability of all willing to become an owner, we do have a substantial amount of arms available if need be to divert any efforts by insiders or outsiders to try to take over the US.


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## fureverywhere (Dec 5, 2015)

Okay the nutty thing is that you apply for a job. The postal service right down to your local dollar store. You have a background check, a credit check...do you know how many jobs exclude you for default student loans? Maybe if you had a decent job, you might be happy to pay them back eh wot? Oh and of course a urine drug test. And your employment and addresses for ten years and personal references and...

Now really...it's harder to apply for the average piddling job than to buy a firearm? Doesn't make sense to me.


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