At least 14 people were killed and 14 others injured in a shooting at a San Bernardino, Calif., center for people with developmental disabilities, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.
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Despite only accounting for five percent of the global population, an astounding 31 percent of the world’s mass shootings occur in the U.S.
Mass shootings such as the one Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, often produce initial reports of multiple gunmen, likely owing to the confusion and chaos that immediately follow gunfire.
But we, as citizens, have to answer one simple question: Is there too much gun violence in America?
Critics say that waiting until a respectful time has passed to talk about gun control means the conversation can never take place because there are more mass shootings than days in the year. And experts fiercely debate whether mass shootings that involve four or more deaths are on the rise. That research looked at incidents in which the victims and shooter were strangers, and where the shooter killed four or more people.
On Oct. 1, nine people were killed and nine more injured in a campus shooting at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon.
The number of mass shootings so far this year has already surpassed the total number of mass shootings in 2014, according to the Reddit tracker.
Murphy, a staunch advocate of gun control ever since the Sandy Hook massacre in his home state of CT, tweeted, “Your “thoughts” should be about steps to take to stop this carnage”.
While the numbers shift from year to year, there has been no discernible trend either in the numbers or in the characteristics of the assailants, said Fox, who is also a co-author of “Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder”. After all, he says, in just the past century, the U.S. has eliminated lynching, reduced the number of police killed on the job, and dramatically decreased domestic violence. That’s something both sides of the aisle can agree on. Thirteen of the victims died; the other survived to testify against the shooters.
And while media coverage has increased awareness, he argues that it hasn’t resulted in public apathy. “The fact is, we are going to have a very hard time, given our gun culture, stopping mass shootings”. Watts noted that this doesn’t have to include outlawing guns – many members of her organization own guns – but enforcing rules to keep them out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
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After the incident, while calling for reforms of gun control policies in the United States, Obama also issued sharp remarks about ingrained racism in the country.
