The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Important Truths About ‘Mass Shootings’

Posted on | June 19, 2022 | Comments Off on Important Truths About ‘Mass Shootings’

Six people shot at graduation party in Anniston
— WBMA-TV, May 27

One teen dead, two others injured
after graduation party shooting
in Thomaston, police say
— WXIA-TV, May 28

Man killed, 7 injured after shooting
at Chesterfield graduation party
— WTVR-TV, June 4

A South Carolina graduation party shooting left
1 dead and 7 others, including minors, wounded
— CNN, June 5

5 teens shot, 2 critical in ‘targeted’
graduation party shooting in West Texas
— My San Antonio, June 5

4 arrested in shooting that left woman, 80,
dead after high school graduation
— NBC News, June 16

Ah, high school graduation — a time to celebrate with random gunfire! While I have not fully investigated each of these shootings, and police have not yet made arrests in some of them, I will wager that none of the gunmen who opened fire at these graduation parties was a Trump voter.

The atrocities that make national headlines tend to be different, statistically speaking, from the vast majority of “mass shooting” incidents, and this difference is actually important. In the aftermath of massacres like Uvalde, the demand for new gun-control laws becomes a media-drive political drumbeat without any platform being provided to those who would point out that (a) the measures proposed would not have prevented the atrocity and (b) the best way to reduce gun violence is to enforce existing gun laws by putting criminals in prison.

We think of “mass shooting” in terms of the deranged psycho on a rampage, but 96% of such incidents aren’t like that at all:

The country’s eyes are trained on high-profile massacres in Texas and Buffalo, but most mass shootings bear little resemblance to those.
Of 267 incidents this year classified as mass shootings by the Gun Violence Archive, nearly all can be tied to gang beefs, neighborhood arguments, robberies or domestic incidents that spiraled out of control.
Indiscriminate slaughter by a lone gunman blasting away at a store, school or some other public place is rare, according to a Washington Times analysis of the archive’s data, accounting for less than 4% of the total.

Ninety-six percent of mass shootings don’t fit the “lone gunman” scenario, and yet you don’t hear about “gang beefs” in this context. Trump adviser Stephen Miller has an idea why this is so:




 

Category: Crime

Comments

Comments are closed.