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A new, government-backed study [PDF] answers a question that has been on the minds of some Americans amid this summer's headlines from Charleston, Chattanooga, and Lafayette. According to the research, mass public shootings are indeed occurring more frequently than ever before in the United States.
The findings, published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) last week, show that the average rate of mass public shootings has increased from one incident per year in the 1970s to 4.5 incidents per year from 2010 through 2013. The numbers corroborate a 2014 report from Mother Jones. Scholars from the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University independently analyzed data that Mother Jones had collected, and the results showed a marked rise in the frequency of mass shootings in the last three decades. Notwithstanding the recent cluster of high-profile incidents, the CRS report also finds that over the past 14 years, the rate of increase has tapered off.
http://www.thetrace.org/2015/08/mass-shootings-congressional-report/
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 05 2015, @07:03PM
Just for comparison, here's an alternate source [decodedscience.com]. It does appear that the frequency of mass shootings has increased. That said, 24 data points over five decades is not a lot of data. Does changing the threshold (here, 8 fatalities) significantly change the data?
Assuming the trend is really a trend, then what? Anti-gun people will say that the increased number of guns are the problem. Pro-gun people will say that the world is getting more dangerous, and that's why people are buying guns. Lots of correlations, but causation is always a bitch.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @07:09PM
It also correlates with vaccinations, obesity, anti-depressants, rate of global warming, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @07:42PM
Pro-gun people could also say there has been an increase in gun laws (ie: anti-gun laws) which are resulting in more shootings because law abiding citizens can no longer defend themselves and determined shooters will break the laws regardless. But there really aren't enough data points to say one way or the other.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Wednesday August 05 2015, @11:18PM
When people say that, I ask them for examples of where armed civillians have killed an assailant at various stages of an attack. If the problem is not having armed civillians stop assailants before the shootings become a mass tragety, and if the total number of attacks has not itself increased, it stands to reason that there should be a baseline of successful defenses that is decreasing in line with increased successful attacks. Anyone have data?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 06 2015, @12:51AM
There's been several:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defensive_gun_use [wikipedia.org]
1) 2007: A guy attacked some mega-church in Colorado Springs; he killed a couple of people but was shot by a female former police officer using her concealed weapon. He was hit several times and shot himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings [wikipedia.org]
It is worth noting, I think, that the guy was rabidly any psychotically anti-Christian, because of psychological abuse by his parents. There's a lot of people who have severe mental problems because of their religious parents; a lot of these Christian sects should be investigated for the dangerous cults they are.
2) 2002: some guy attacked a law school in Virginia; some ex-cops and an ex-Marine used their guns (which they had to retrieve from their vehicles) to subdue and arrest him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting [wikipedia.org]
In both these examples, the assailant was not actually killed by the armed citizen.
3) 2007: In Quebec, cops violently and illegally invaded the home of a businessman, and he shot two of them, killing one. He was acquitted. The cops there are still mad about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Parasiris [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @02:21AM
Also the possibility of civilians being armed may act as a deterrent for people like bank robbers since something like that is much more unpredictable and hence harder for them to plan for when scoping out a bank.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:24AM
And when has it ever actually helped? In fact, how many armed citizens are going to step up if someone robs a bank? They're not robbing you personally, they're robbing a company. It's not something worth risking your life over. Just go read some of the pro-2A, concealed-carry forums sometime: people there don't carry so they can stop armed robberies and the like; they're not police. They carry to protect themselves and that's it. They're not even likely to pull out their gun to help you out (unless you're an immediate family member of course), because it's a giant legal liability to get involved like that. Sure, if someone is a mass shooter, they'll probably try to do what they can, but if someone is just robbing a bank or convenience store, it's not worth getting involved; you'll probably get shot. After all, you only know it's an armed robbery once the assailant pulls his weapon out and brandishes it. At that point, he has all the advantage, since your weapon is still tucked away somewhere. You really think you can draw, aim, and fire faster than he can re-aim for you?
I do think having a gun at home is probably a good deterrent for home invaders though: you (a house robber) don't know which houses are and aren't armed, and the occupants have the home advantage: they know the layout of the house intimately and you don't know it at all. But I don't really have any evidence to back this up; the counterpoint is that most criminals are mentally defective anyway, with their big problem being a complete lack of impulse control and ability to consider consequences of their actions. So reasonably-intelligent people like you think about things like deterrence factors, but most criminals don't consider that; they don't think they're going to get caught. It's just like stupid young male teenagers who are reckless because they think they're invincible, except the criminals never grow out of it, and also are usually sociopathic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:38AM
That last example is a huge stretch. Cops, with a warrant, exceeding their authority to enter a private residence (as determined ex post facto by a judge) doesn't even come close to qualifying as a "mass shooting."
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:16AM
It doesn't? The guy had his whole family at home, and the cops even intentionally shot at the childrens' bedrooms. Sounds like an attempt at a "mass shooting" to me.
Honestly, I think the idea of civilians carrying around guns to deter "lone wolf" wackos like these theater shooters is silly. Jared Loughner (sp?) shot Gabby Giffords and others in Tucson, Arizona, an open-carry state that's chock full of gun nuts. I believe some bystanders there even had guns; it didn't help much.
However, it seems to me the real reason people should have guns is to keep the cops in check. They're the real threat to society, and a clear and present danger to the health and safety of every citizen living in it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:42AM
Here is one where a private person with a CC permit confronted a shooter armed with the same class of weapon used in the Newtown shootings
http://easybakegunclub.com/blog/1968/Concealed-Carry-Hero-at-Portland-Mall---The-Full-S.html [easybakegunclub.com]
Only three people died, including the shooter. Even though the shooter had hundreds of rounds of ammo, just like Newtown.
The thing about situations like these, where the presence of a gun prevents more casualties (or even prevents ANY deaths/injuries) is that they are not reported to or recorded by the Federal agencies that provide the data for the reports showing the increases in gun related violence. Consider that when you hear someone saying "... the data shows ..." when speaking about guns. They don't have all the relevant data.
A few more links for your perusal
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/24/chicago-crime-rate-drops-as-concealed-carry-gun-pe/?page=all [washingtontimes.com]
http://humanevents.com/2014/01/03/study-shows-concealed-carry-laws-result-in-fewer-murders/ [humanevents.com]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:47AM
I almost forgot this link. Its a clip from an ABC new broadcast about gun control.
Be sure to watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHLsnzZgdPw [youtube.com]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @06:23AM
Here is one where a private person with a CC permit confronted a shooter armed with the same class of weapon used in the Newtown shootings
http://easybakegunclub.com/blog/1968/Concealed-Carry-Hero-at-Portland-Mall---The-Full-S.html [easybakegunclub.com]
I skimmed that. I found it hard to believe.
First thing that twigged me was that with "extensive firearms experience" the guy "put his front sight on the man's head." Anybody with extensive experience knows headshots are for the movies, especially with a handgun from 45+ feet away. Then the story goes on to say that because he was "visible to the gunman" that made the shooter run away and commit suicide. At best that's conjecture since he never actually fired a shot, nor were any words spoken between the two. Given all the florid writing that story sounds like a hagiography for "soldier of fortune" wannabes rather than a factual account of events.
Concealed carry laws cause crime-rate drop in Chicago
That's a really poor article (not surprising given how sketch the moony owned washington times is) - it even contradicts itself by mentioning that crime rates are at a 56 year low - the decrease in the last year has been part of a nationwide trend that started in the early 90s and accelerated during the last decade. The article made no effort to show that concealed carry increased or in any way altered that decades long trend.
Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level.
(1) Any gun advocate knows that assault weapon bans have little affect on murder rates since practically all gun homicides are committed with handguns. Mentioning assault weapons when talking about "restrictive concealed weapons laws" is at best a red herring and really pretty manipulative.
(2) The study itself concludes with "There may, however, be other explanations for these results. Laws may be ineffective due to loopholes and exemptions. The most violent states may also have the toughest gun control measures."
There may well be good arguments for concealed carry, in fact I know there are, but citing crap like that just says you are too credulous when it comes to people saying things you agree with. Its easy to believe people who tells us what we want to hear. But preaching to the choir has never converted a non-believer, if anything it just re-affirms their disbelief.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @03:23AM
Pro-gun people could also say there has been an increase in gun laws (ie: anti-gun laws) which are resulting in more shootings because law abiding citizens can no longer defend themselves and determined shooters will break the laws regardless.
That only works if general gun-ownership is a deterrent. Putting down an active shooter is too late, that guy has already started shooting to start with. Given that most of these cases are suicides, getting put down is their goal. That makes general gun ownership an incentive, not a deterrent.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @07:55PM
> Does changing the threshold (here, 8 fatalities) significantly change the data?
According to the CRS report the threshold is 4 not 8. I think that we ought to be looking at causalities, not fatalities. I don't think we should let the fact that a victim was lucky enough to survive being shot override the fact that they were shot.
> Pro-gun people will say that the world is getting more dangerous
That would be a really bad argument for them to make since violent crime has been on a steep, nationwide, decline since the early to mid 90s. [gallup.com] Although, it seems, ignorance of that fact has led to the perception of the opposite, which would explain an increase in gun ownership.
> Anti-gun people will say that the increased number of guns are the problem.
Seems plausible to me given that most mass shootings are a form of suicide, as in "suicide by cop." Doing a mass poisoning or mass knifing just doesn't have the same likelihood of finality for the perpetrator.
(Score: 5, Funny) by VortexCortex on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:20PM
Never take government studies at face value. There is always a political angle.
This "study" is surfacing now probably just as more scaremongering to manufacture consent for the proposed internment camps for any who disagree with the official ideology of the government [youtube.com], and Obama's "Prolonged Detention" without trial for pre-crime. [youtube.com] The vague language in today's legislation against "violent extremism" [allenbwest.com] can be stretched to cover nearly any form of dissent.
See you in the FEMA "Fun Camp, citizen. [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:34PM
Poe's Law strikes again!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by davester666 on Thursday August 06 2015, @02:53AM
Clearly, the solution to this problem is to hand out guns to everyone that goes to places that have had mass shootings:
-post office
-all levels of schools [primary and secondary]
-movie theatres
-malls
Really, anyplace where more than 5 people get together, everyone should have a gun and be ready and willing to kill anyone that even looks like they are about to pull out their gun and start shooting.