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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: 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.