Post: #26

^Columbine was the real game-changer in that respect. It gave would-be killers something to look forward to - like some sort of everlasting glory. I still have that CCTV image in my head of the two guys walking around the cafeteria with submachine guns.

Post: #27

Twofold.

First, lone gunmen mass shootings from young men who have no prior criminal records are most likely due to psychotropic drugs, specifically SSRIs. Prescription mill med checks with these drugs are relatively new, and that's why you're seeing these events become more common. If you do a bit of digging you'll find that nearly all of the publicized mass shooting events were carried out by guys being treated with these drugs.

Quote:From Swedish national registers we extracted information on 856,493 individuals who were prescribed SSRIs, and subsequent violent crimes during 2006 through 2009.
...
With age stratification, there was a significant association between SSRIs and violent crime convictions for individuals aged 15 to 24 y (HR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.19–1.73, p < 0.001, absolute risk = 3.0%)

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ar...ed.1001875

Second, mass shootings are actually quite common.



They're just not the "right kind" of shootings that could be spun into gun control. They're usually carried out in urban areas with people who have prior felony convictions and therefore should not legally be able to own firearms in the first place. Therefore they would make gun control look bad, and won't be called "mass shootings", or given any airtime.

Post: #28

We Europeans feel left out! Surely we also have some nice shootings that deserve to be listed here!

Post: #29

(12-03-2015 02:05 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  We Europeans feel left out! Surely we also have some nice shootings that deserve to be listed here!

France just had a one. Only a matter of time and there will be plenty more to add.

Post: #30

This is the new normal now. Another shooting? Another bombing? I hardly even notice it any more.

Post: #31

Something to consider - The frequency of these shootings may not have actually increased - only the perception due to increased media exposure.

Post: #32

This semester marks the first time in my life I am legitimately scared during class if the door opens for a late student, and just in general being on campus, in the dining halls, etc.

I thought when I graduated high school I was done with the most at-risk period of being a victim of these kinds of things, but they're just everywhere now.

Post: #33

(12-03-2015 03:59 PM)Gmac Wrote:  Something to consider - The frequency of these shootings may not have actually increased - only the perception due to increased media exposure.

The media has been fed the narrative and is trying to will 'Domestic Terrorism' into existence as an excuse for Gun Control.

Since they only understand snark and movie references, the obvious response to them:

Post: #34

Something along the "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" train of thought: If you've ever wondered where people get the numbers when they quote stuff like "87 school shootings since Sandy Hook" and so on, it's all in how the numbers are collected. Basically, if someone gets shot within a 700 metre (don't recall the exact number but it's something like that) radius of a school grounds, at any time, that counts as a "school shooting". There's a high school near me that's in a shady part of town; drug deal gone wrong on the same street at 2 am on a Saturday, guy gets shot dead. In the US, that would count as a "school shooting."

Aside: apparently (i think it came from the NRA, so interpret that how you like), only two mass shootings since the 1950s have occurred outside of places identified as 'gun free zones.'

Post: #35

Came across this article which explains that mass shootings happen more frequently in other countries:

Quote:The French have witnessed three mass public shootings this year. January saw two attacks, one on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and another on a Paris supermarket. In the November attacks, 129 people were killed and 352 were injured. In 2015, France suffered more casualties than the U.S. has suffered during Obama's entire presidency (508 to 394).

Obama also overlooks Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik used a gun to kill 67 people and wound 110 others. Still others were killed by bombs that Breivik detonated. Of the four worst K-12 school shootings, three have occurred in Europe. Germany had two of these — one in 2002 at Erfut and another in 2009 at Winnenden, with a total death toll of 34.

Obama isn't correct even if he meant the frequency of fatalities or attacks. Many European countries actually have higher rates of death from public shootings that resulted in four or more murders. It's simply a matter of adjusting for America's much larger population.

Let's look at mass public shootings from 2009 to the middle of June this year. To compare fairly with American shootings, I excluded attacks that might be better classified as struggles over sovereignty. For instance, I did not count the 22 people killed in the Macedonian town of Kumanovo last month.

Norway had the highest annual death rate, with two mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Macedonia had a rate of 0.38, Serbia 0.28, Slovakia 0.20, Finland 0.14, Belgium 0.14 and the Czech Republic 0.13. The U.S. comes in eighth with 0.095 mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Austria and Switzerland are close behind.

In terms of the frequency of attacks, the U.S. ranks ninth, with 0.09 attacks per million people. Macedonia, Serbia, Switzerland, Norway, Slovakia, Finland, Belgium and the Czech Republic all had higher rates.

Another article in the Wall Street Journal with similar information:

Quote:While the U.S. has had more mass shootings in terms of raw numbers than other countries, at least three European countries—Switzerland, Norway and Finland—had higher rates of mass-shooting deaths per capita, according to researchers Jaclyn Schildkraut of the State University of New York in Oswego and H. Jaymi Elsass of Texas State University.

Post: #36

Was on facebook a few minutes ago and saw this ...




I was like "Well that's interesting. Planning a mass shooting? Wonder who did it."


... and

...

it's Islam



Edit: Yeah, the rule seems to be that if they don't explicitly say it's white men in the media description, it's probably jihadis.