Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Government Study Confirms That Mass Shootings Happen More Often Than They Used To

posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 05 2015, @06:41PM   Printer-friendly

AnonTechie writes:

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/

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Government Study Confirms That Mass Shootings Happen More Often Than They Used To | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 61 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @03:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @03:15AM (#218933)

    > Breaking news: Suicidal people commit suicide with or without guns.

    Actually, that is false. Simplistic, but false.

    There is a very strong correlation between gun ownership and suicide - researchers have found that for every 1% increase in gun ownership, there is a 0.5% to 0.9% increase in total suicides. [marginalrevolution.com]

    Another study found that gun owners in california have a 4x higher rate of suicide than the general population. [bostonglobe.com]

    Those findings are neither controversial nor out of line with the results of other studies.

    Most suicides are impulsive acts, committed at the peak of despair. If you can get past that peak, the urge subsides. Roughly 90% of failed suicides do not kill themselves in the next 10 years. [nih.gov] A gun makes impulsive suicide much easier to attempt and much more successful than other methods, like drug overdosing and suffocation/hanging.