While “mass shooting” conjures images of bloodbaths like San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, or Columbine, 147 of the shootings tracked by Shooting Tracker actually didn’t result in a single death.
Advertisement
Of the 17 areas that have had four or more mass shootings this year – for a total of 87 between them – all are cities with populations of more than 200,000.
He says the most frequent characteristics among mass shootings in the USA these days is people who have mental problems, anger issues, people who are acting alone, and people who are often both homicidal and suicidal.
The Washington Post uncritically mentioned the high number of shootings while adding no additional context or explanation, and ignoring the nuance of the Shooting Tracker’s numbers. Miraculously, he only killed one.
But mass shootings are not regularly committed by people exploiting these loopholes. “Arguing that 18 people shot during one event is not a mass shooting is absurd”.
“If we truly care about this – if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience – then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them”. But I’m not sure why researchers and experts couldn’t do that kind of work by just looking at specific events on their own.
“Other countries have evil people”. A shooting is a shooting.
Today, The Star’s editorial board would like to turn the tables and ask readers for their best suggestions on how to reduce gun violence in America.
Research could have been continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners, in the same fashion that the highway industry continued its research without eliminating the automobile, Dickey said.
The California Democrat’s proposal, which she has also introduced as a separate piece of legislation, would allow the attorney general to block the sale or transfer of a gun or explosive to a suspected or known terrorist if the individual is believed to use the weapons in an act of terrorism.
His comments were recorded Wednesday, as details were coming out about the shooting in San Bernadino, California, that left 14 people dead and 21 wounded.
But given Thursday’s Senate votes and recent public opinion polls, it is not apparent the United States has reached a “tipping point” in favor of stricter gun laws.
This can also lead to a sense of hopelessness that nothing can be done, which feeds the narrative for those who oppose changes in gun laws, like the NRA. With roughly 300 million guns already sitting in American homes, access to firepower is rarely an insurmountable obstacle.
According to one review of the evidence by Harvard researchers, Australia’s firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent. Given that constitutional constraint, a mandatory buyback is likely beyond the legal pale.
A spokeswoman for Loma Linda University Medical Center said it was expecting an unknown number of patients from the shooting, according to CNN.
Advertisement
The president also reiterated his calls for changes to gun control laws in the U.S. While many Americans see the prevalence of mass shootings and feel that there’s nothing an individual can do, he said, “we all have a part to play” when it comes to reducing gun violence.
