Gun Violence And Violence To Statistics

The NY Times reports on gun violence, so you know we will be seeing some ludicrous statistics. Here we go, with the easy one first, my emphasis:

Those who study these types of mass murderers have found that they are almost always male (all but two of the 160 cases isolated by Dr. Duwe). Most are single, separated or divorced. The majority are white. With the exception of student shooters at high schools or lower schools, they are usually older than the typical murderer, often in their 30s or 40s.

Please, the majority of the country is white, and was more white in the 70's and 80's, so learning that the majority of shooters were white hardly tells us whether any particular ethnic group is under- or over-represented. Oddly, this notion that whites dominate the ranks of mass shooters was also trumpeted by - I kid you not - a French professor who was given guest space in the Times to vent her frustrations.

The Times then elides key information about whether there has been a trend in mass public shootings.

The mass public killings that have drawn such intense public attention are a phenomenon that largely did not occur until two generations ago.

...

Using data compiled by Dr. Duwe, the Congressional Research Service released a report this year that charted an increase in these shootings since then, from an average of one per year during the 1970s to four in the 2000s and a slight uptick in the last few years. The figures, however, are subject to intense debate, mainly over how to properly define the shootings.

Is that what the CRS said? An important tidbit was left out:

With data provided by criminologist Grant Duwe, CRS also compiled a 44-year (1970-2013)dataset of firearms-related mass murders that could arguably be characterized as “mass public shootings.” These data show that there were on average:

one (1.1) incident per year during the 1970s (5.5 victims murdered, 2.0 wounded per incident),

nearly three (2.7) incidents per year during the 1980s (6.1 victims murdered, 5.3 wounded per incident),

four (4.0) incidents per year during the 1990s (5.6 victims murdered, 5.5 wounded per incident),

four (4.1) incidents per year during the 2000s (6.4 victims murdered, 4.0 wounded per incident),

and four (4.5) incidents per year from 2010 through 2013 (7.4 victims murdered, 6.3 wounded per incident).

These decade-long averages suggest that the prevalence, if not the deadliness, of “mass public shootings” increased in the 1970s and 1980s, and continued to increase, but not as steeply, during the 1990s, 2000s, and first four years of the 2010s.

So most of the increase from the 70's occurred in the 80's, leading the much-quoted James Alan Fox of Northeastern to conclude that this is "a tragedy, not a trend".

But do let me add my own concerns - first, the overall crime rate has come down since the 90's, but these public mass shooting has not. I can think of reasons, such as, vigorous policing and the the burn out of the crack wars discouraged criminals but not crazies. Still, one wonders.

A second concern with the data is that we have generally seen improvements in medical technology and emergency response times. An incident that in the 80's might have ended with four dead and two wounded might end today with three dead and three wounded. That is a win for the good guys, but creates haze around the statistics, since the current FBI reporting threshold requires four dead victims. The New Republic tackles the statistical quagmire of mass killings, mass shootings, spree killings, serial killings, and mass public shootings. Have a nice Sunday!

BIT DO LET ME NOTE SOME PROGRESS: I believe Nick Kristof still has good credentials on the left side of the street. So when he actually admits that some of the progressive vision about gun control is flawed, it may represent a bit of a breakthrough:

We’ve mourned too often, seen too many schools and colleges devastated by shootings, watched too many students get an education in grief. It’s time for a new approach to gun violence.

We’re angry, but we also need to be smart. And frankly, liberal efforts, such as the assault weapons ban, were poorly designed and saved few lives, while brazen talk about banning guns just sparked a backlash that empowered the National Rifle Association.

My, my. I have to admit, as soon as someone starts talking up an assault weapons ban I take that as evidence that they know nothing about that issue (and I speak with the conviction of a convert on that).

But Mr. Kristof is in a different category. Back in 2004 he mourned the death of the assault weapons ban but aired the alternative argument and did focus on magazine capacity:

Critics of the assault weapon ban have one valid point: the ban has more holes than Swiss cheese.

''The big frustration of my customers is that [the ban] removed things that were kind of fun and made it look cool, but didn't affect how the gun operated,'' said Sean Wontor, a salesman who heaved two rifles onto the counter of Sportsman's Warehouse here in Meridian to make his point.

One was an assault weapon that was produced before the ban (and thus still legal), and the other was a sanitized version produced afterward to comply with the ban by removing the bayonet mount and the flash suppressor.

After these cosmetic changes, the rifle is now no longer considered an assault weapon, yet, of course, it is just as lethal.

Well, yes. In 2011, Mr. Kristof focused on magazine capacity:

Americans are infatuated with guns. And when you’re infatuated, you sometimes can’t think straight. Maybe that’s why, three weeks after the Tucson shootings that shook the nation, we’re still no closer to banning oversize magazines like the 33-bullet model allegedly used there.

Today, he has moved on to science and high tech:

What we need is an evidence-based public health approach — the same model we use to reduce deaths from other potentially dangerous things around us, from swimming pools to cigarettes. We’re not going to eliminate guns in America, so we need to figure out how to coexist with them.

He makes a point I accept, with a caveat:

More than 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides, and most of the rest are homicides. Gun enthusiasts scoff at including suicides, saying that without guns people would kill themselves by other means. In many cases, though, that’s not true.

OK, but let's not conflate suicides and magazine capacity or assault weapons. We have not seen a rash of suicides where the victim shoots himself twenty times and bleeds out.

Public health experts cite many ways we could live more safely with guns, and many of them have broad popular support.

A poll this year found that majorities even of gun-owners favor universal background checks; tighter regulation of gun dealers; safe storage requirements in homes; and a 10-year prohibition on possessing guns for anyone convicted of domestic violence, assault or similar offenses.

We should also be investing in “smart gun” technology, such as weapons that fire only with a PIN or fingerprint. We should adopt microstamping that allows a bullet casing to be traced back to a particular gun. We can require liability insurance for guns, as we do for cars.

It’s not clear that these steps would have prevented the Oregon shooting. But Professor Webster argues that smarter gun policies could reduce murder rates by up to 50 percent — and that’s thousands of lives a year. Right now, the passivity of politicians is simply enabling shooters.

I would score that as definitely maybe. And the liability insurance is just a transparent ploy to make guns unaffordable, thereby assuring that only criminals will have them. Yes, we require cars to be registered and insured and the driver to have a license, but those laws are often ignored even thought a car is quite visible on a public street. Just how would an insurance requirement be enforced on the mean streets of New York, where the police are essentially not allowed to stop and chat with young black men? And who wants to see inner-city thugs actually arrested and jailed? Not progressives!

Still, we have a prominent progressive casting about for new ideas rather than recycling nonsense. That is progress.

Comments

[jimmyk]

The majority are white.

Does that include white Hispanics?

I suppose the majority of men killed by police are white also.

[henry]

Insurance is funny. We have to buy "uninsured motorist" coverage because auto insurance mandates don't work. How many blow off the Obamacare mandate? Do these idiots actually expect criminals to buy gun insurance? Yeah, right up there with criminals registering their guns. Don't require Voter ID but require criminals to insure their guns. These people are stupid in addition to evil.

[Jim Eagle]

So?

The largest human initiated mass murder events in US history have been fires, explosions, ramming large buildings with planes. I think it was in Michigan in the 20's or 30's some guy rigged a school with explosives and killed close to 60 people.

But we continue to build schools, used TNT, make matches, fly planes and build skyscrapers higher than the previous ones (albeit having a hard time renting the upper floors).

[henry]

More whites on welfare too. Only a white supremacist would defend that program.

[matt]

Men use guns more frequently than women for suicide because we do have the gun thing going on. Quick and easy. But they would do it other ways for the most part.

Suicide is the nadir of the soul, when all seems lost and there is a complete loss of hope. It can be psychological but is more often psychiatric. There is a lot of work being done to help people with both psychological and psychiatric issues.

Rick & Kay warren are hosting the second Gathering on Mental Health and the Church this week. We are trying to engage law enforcement, medical professionals, case workers and others to recognize the signs of mental illness, get people the help they need, and de-stigmatize MI.

The biggest thing Churches or mosques or temples can offer is compassion. And yet they are not trained to deal with mental illness. And so we slowly try to move forward.

Another thought would be to give gun store owners and clerks so rudimentary training on mental health first aid. The training is not a big deal, but I think a lot of store owners would be very happy if their guns did not end up in the hands of criminals or mass murderers.

We have to work at the practical level. Keep guns away from those with mental illness and help them to get the help they need.

[Threadkiller]

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/10/04/oregon-shooters-father-says-he-had-no-idea-son-had-firearms-mom-and-manifesto-still-seemingly-off-limits/#more-106843

Birth Certificate?

[From Senate subcommittee testimony over 60 years ago.]

"I think there are many Americans concerned that hard-pressed federal officials may become so bent on protecting their wards from events which make up disturbing statistics that they overlook the task of protecting the sense of independence and self-reliance in our citizenry which cannot be measured by statistics..."

[lyle]

Mosques offer compassion? To whom?

[Same source.]

"Americans may like guns because they are reminiscent of the smell of the outdoors, military heroism, the intensity of the hunt, or merely because they are fascinated by the finely machined parts. Maybe the origin of a gun speaks of history; maybe the gun makes a man's home seem to him less vulnerable; maybe these feelings are more justified in the country than in the city; but, above all, many uf us believe that these feelings are a man's own business...."

[City on a hill.]

Quaint, that 'more justified in the country than the city'.

[Joan]

I remember this (I keep revealing my age :), though, who really cares?) Anyway, per Wikipedia:
"On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman murdered his wife and mother in their homes. Later that day, he brought a number of guns, including rifles, a shotgun, and handguns, to the campus of the University of Texas at Austin where, over an approximate 90 to 95 minute period, he killed 14 people and wounded 32 others in a mass shooting in and around the Tower. Whitman shot and killed three people inside the university's tower and eleven others after firing at random from the 28th-floor observation deck of the Main Building. Whitman was shot and killed by Austin police."

I can also remember the horror of this:
"Richard Speck systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on July 14, 1966."

For some reason, the Speck mass murders upset me more than the tower shootings. I think perhaps it was because the crimes seemed so personal, the rapes combined with the savagery of using a knife, plus strangling the girls. I can remember one young girl crawled under a bed and hid from him. Speck lived on in his repulsiveness in some prison, taking drugs and buggering other sadists.

I know we have laws to protect us, and we will go on debating how to outwit these brutes and fiends who commit cruel, heartless crimes. But, I don't understand why it is such an outlandish suggestion to have armed security at schools. Right now in our small city, all of the schools monitor visitors--you have to buzz and be admitted into a glassed-in waiting area. No longer can anyone just wander in to visit. I know that isn't a perfect solution, but it is a start. I also don't see why school doors couldn't be equipped with metal detectors. This country has brilliant people, this brilliance could be used to devise detectors that don't resemble prison doors.

At best, people are inventive, kind, and intelligent; at worst, they are ruthless, merciless and malevolent. Those of us who aspire to goodness must continue to debate and fight the ignorance that prevails in so many of evil's agent.

[lyle]

Put me down as "all of the above," Same source.

[6.5 Carcano.]

lyle, both quotes from 'The Gun, a "Biography" of the Gun That Killed John F. Kennedy', by Henry S. Bloomgarden, Grossman Publishers, New York, 1975.

[Jim Eagle]

Hail to the Redskins,
Hail Victory,
Braves on the Warpath
Fight for Old DC.

[rse]

OL-to continue the story of app fees, the Diva tells her dad she will work over christmas break and on sunday afternoons to pay back the fees.

He is the indulgent one. I am the one who will buy something desired as a Christmas present and promptly confiscate the package until the 25th of December. Or take out one third of the cost of a fathers day shirt from son's bank account.

[henry]

Do we know if Dobbs is in a dry spot playing pool or watching his car get flooded?

[matt]

These people are evil. It is all about political and physical control to the Marxists and statists.

They will select the foods we eat the clothing we wear, the housing we live in, the cars we drive, and how we think.

CNN's altering of the photograph of the Oregon shooter is all part of the plan to redefine the narrative.

Use the narrative to push the political agenda. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

And on the other side the Republicans fumble around like malevolent Inspector Clouseaus. McCarthy's statement was an insult and gave the Marxists more ammunition. The party is self destructing just when the animosity towards the government of the past 7 years should be peaking.

[Jim Eagle]

I sure do hope its the Jags that go to London for their team. They are useless as a team and organization. A 40 y.o. QB and close to that kicker just killed them when they had 2 chances to win on the leg of a newbie who sacrificed Josh Scooby, one of the sure foots in football.

This is what happens to a team who has a silly owner, bad management and a class C coach. Did I mention the mediocre talent?

[Old Lurker]

rse, and you gals wonder why they love their dads and fight with their mothers...

:-)

My house works like yours, but I am never the heavy.

[clarice]

Look at the bright side, OL--a few limbs, appendixes and tonsils lopped off unnecessarily and she'll regain what she spent--ask Obama.

[Jim Eagle]

Great Butler & Nephew 2003 port on sale at last bottle. Ordered 3.

[Jim]

Did anyone stop to think that this became a problem after liberals demanded that state mental hospitals be emptied in the late 60's and early 70's?

[Old Lurker]

C, I keep telling her that, and I offered to get her a used chainsaw from Hit or Iggy to increase her productivity...

[Jim Eagle]

BTW, That kicker for KC who went 7 for 7 today is a Brazilian kid who went to St. Joseph's Academy in St. Augustine where Frederick will be going to HS. I was there his senior year when he kicked a 51 yarder and then a 55 yarder. He has a leg. Ended up at Tulane on a full-ride scholarship.

[Jeff Dobbs]

henry:
Do we know if Dobbs is in a dry spot playing pool or watching his car get flooded?

I made it home a few hours ago. We only got 6 1/2 holes in yesterday and I didn't even try and go out this morning. Most people headed home yesterday, but I stuck around for the fillet. Well, that and I was in no condition to be operating a motor vehicle.

There was a river flowing over the road leading into the condo complex. Fortunately, there was a back entrance we could use to get out. No way anyone was making it through that river.

[Old Lurker]

Seriously RSE, I have been thinking of you a lot lately since I am reading Erik Larsen's "In the Garden of Beasts" about Germany in the 30's. Talk about how fast and evil "group think" can be manipulated and take hold of an entire country almost overnight, and one can really appreciate what you have been saying and warning about what is happening here.

I'm going to ask Clarice for sewing lessons so she can teach me how to hide diamonds in the hems of my coats...

BTW I think Maryrose and I were reading his Lusitania book at the same time last week, and before that I read his book about Marconi. These are great reads.

[Jim Eagle]

Of course, he couldn't at the time since he was 31 y.o. Senator who just lost his wife and daughter. Read it for all the nostalgia of another know-nothing who really believes he knows everything.

Most journalists I talked with agreed that Joe Biden would run for President some day. One said, “There isn’t a Senator alive who doesn’t secretly believe he should be enthroned next to that little red phone in the Oval office, and Bien is no exception. But I think he might win someday.” A wire service reporter sizes up Biden’s chances as “better than 60-40.” He added, Can you imagine what they’ll be when he’s old enough to run and people know who he is?”

[Jim Eagle]

Sorry. The link.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/joe-biden-kitty-kelley-1974-profile-death-and-the-all-american-boy/

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Impressive clutch performance by Captain Kirk today just when it looked like the Redskins were about to pull one of their patented second half failures. The always forgiving Philthadelphia fans can't be pleased with Chip Kelly; I predict a lot of waitresses wearing sunglasses tomorrow after "walking into a door".

[Jim Eagle]

OL,

Read both. My interest was as a kid I lived in St. John's Newfoundland where dad was stationed. The Marconi book is one of kind in my estimation.

[Old Lurker]

Jack, was P2 of your 4:37 about the Skins?

[buccaneer morgan]

winik's terrifying tour through the 30s, which culminates in 1944, has come to mind, particularly in light of the way the squire of Hyde Park did little to stop it, he doesn't address the nye committee's role in stoking isolationism, because among other things, it would be an 800 page book,

[rse]

OL-I just wrote a long comment about Tim O'Reilly who sponsored a big open data conference in NYC last week and how he is touting algorithmic regulation and 'mememaking'.

Take what you have learned about Germany in the 30s and then read that Guardian article I linked to and see how it is the same goals, but better methods. Controlling the visual Image that gets internalized mentally was accomplished by the Nazis with mass rallies. Today that is to be done with virtual reality deliberately programmed to create the desired beliefs.

Red was telling her dad about her thesis and she said "why would someone pick a history thesis that does not have a bearing on how the world still works today?"

I am a stickler on my kids learning trade-offs when they desire something because my personal experience is that will impact the kind of adult they become. There should be consequences to really wanting something. My son needed to learn not to mind less money in his account but that he made a loved one happy.

Now he just says "I am too busy to christmas shop. Buy the girls something from me and take it out of my account."

Point made.

[DebinNC]

Just ordered In the Garden of Beasts. Thanks, OL. Same author wrote the Lusitania book Maryrose highly recommended - Dead Wake.

[Old Lurker]

Jack, and Marconi had a station a few blocks from where I sit right now on the eastern tip of Nantucket. In the book they talked about how hard it was to build another station on the cape to our north. I found it fascinating. (But I wish he had gotten deeper into the technical and finance grasses since those were wonderful times with the likes of JP Morgan, Tesla, Westinghouse and Edison on the scene.)

[clarice]

Glad you're okay, hit. Lend OL your chainsaw so he won't have to go on the welfare rolls.

I'm worried about Jane.
Jim, I definitely think the decisions and laws making involuntary commitments almost impossible and the closing down of mental institutions has contributed to the problem.

[Old Lurker]

You will love it Deb, but it is depressing and scary to see what humans will do to each other, and to think how thin is our separation from so much of human history.

[anonamom]

I always attributed Joey Biden's blabbermouth and lack of filter to the injury to his frontal lobe he sustained when his cerebral aneurysm ruptured, but JiB's link above shows he's been unfiltered long before that.

[anonamom]

clarice, rain is pretty minimal on Jane's route.

[Old Lurker]

As I said, RSE, I have been thinking of you and what you have been saying a lot as I read this book.

I need to go dig up that Reagan quote about the American way of life not being passed to the next generation in our DNA. He was right, we are never more than a generation away from Nuremberg in 1933 or any number of other bad chapters of history.

[buccaneer morgan]

so the blind squirrel, might be finding a nut,

http://therightscoop.com/mccain-on-whether-trump-should-have-corrected-condemned-voter-about-muslim-comments/

[Old Lurker]

"when his cerebral aneurysm ruptured"

Was it ever proven that was caused by a hair plug drilling in too deep?

:-)

[buccaneer morgan]

the solon's one lasting contribution of any value was his authoring of the drug czar statute, which is in itself slightly ironic,

[Rick Ballard]

I believe one of the objectives of the Eurasian Co-Prosperity Sphere to be the removal of that thin separation. Clarice's link to the piece on recycling idiocy is proof of the efficacy and durability of the conditioning effort which RSE documents.

The current indoctrination effort in the schools is just an extension and attempt to strengthen the conditioning which has led us to tax air in order to construct wards and totems against a fire breathing SkyDragon.

[buccaneer morgan]

they watered the piece down, from the earlier account,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghan-official-hospital-in-airstrike-was-a-taliban-base/2015/10/04/8638af58-6a47-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop_b

[buccaneer morgan]

yes it's mental malware, and we wonder why we don't make progress,

[buccaneer morgan]

OT, I had never seen 'Bullitt' before, well not in it's entirety, until this week,

[Old Lurker]

Shame on you Bucco, that was a classic

[DebinNC]

Set my tv to record "The Magnificent Seven" today, thinking my 10 yo grandson would enjoy it. It's been many years since I saw it, and I don't remember anything inappropriate for that age, but if there is I'd appreciate a heads-up.

[buccaneer morgan]

well I'd heard of the car chase, before, but I wasn't that big into classic crime dramas, on other occasions, Robert Vaughn makes a very slippery Frisco poll, which would be done by Kevin spacey today.

[buccaneer morgan]

why do they find it so hard to make this point,

http://therightscoop.com/trump-this-isnt-about-guns-this-is-about-mental-illness/

[DebinNC]

OR Killer Enabling Mom, Laurel Harper, needs to be exposed as the accomplice to murder she is imo.

[henry]

Well, they want to get rid of people who vote for less government... not people who vote for them.

[buccaneer morgan]

even among the hardier stock down under, you have category error,

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/motive_unknown/

[Marlene]

Local news is reporting on the missing cargo ship. The Coast Guard spotted some debris,but it has been 80 hours since the last contact.Family members from Maine are in Jacksonville. The mother of the second mate broke down crying during her interview,saying her daughter wanted to go to sea from the time she was a little girl.

[Jim Eagle]

Deb,

You will enjoy this article in our weekend WSJ about The Magnificent Seven. Very interesting its chronology and history of popularity.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/these-guns-for-hire-1443816852

Just google the link.

[buccaneer morgan]

talk about another story that went down the rabbit hole,

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/04/waco-shooting-bikers-remove-ankle-monitors

[Jim Eagle]

OL,

I didn't realize that the Jags looked like the Skins as much as the do except fo the W-L record. Good point.

Also, I guess the experts were right about Arizona. They can't win against good teams.

[henry]

If you ease past the new diet thread, TM has a new recycling thread.

[Porchlight]

For some reason, the Speck mass murders upset me more than the tower shootings.

Joan, I wasn't alive for either, though my parents were living not far from the Speck murders and I now work at the University of Texas and live just blocks from the house (recently torn down) where Charles Whitman lived.

I've always felt sorry for Whitman. He was seeing a psychologist and knew he was losing control. He called the psychologist's office when in the final crisis and left a message begging for help, but it wasn't received until it was too late. He killed his wife and mother (and even his dog) to spare them the aftermath of what he knew he would do. In his journals, he requested that his brain be examined after his death. An enormous tumor was found.

Speck was just evil.

[buccaneer morgan]

so there doesn't seem to be much science, in this science based order,

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/01/a-preliminary-look-at-the-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-since-1940-along-hurricane-joaquins-forecasted-storm-track/

[DebinNC]

Very interesting. Thanks, Jack.

[caro]

I am watching an unlikely concert with James Taylor and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Utah Symphony. It is a long way from the sickly "You've got a Friend." Choir now singing "When the Saints Go Marchin' In."

Audience going wild.

[buccaneer morgan]

just a fleshwound I guess,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11909720/Al-Qaeda-fighters-evoke-Afghan-jihad-as-they-promise-to-turn-Syria-into-graveyard-for-Russian-invaders.html

[boatbuilder]

I don't recall any "gun-free zones" in the 70's. Curious.

[buccaneer morgan]

we had not advanced to that level of ignorance yet,

[buccaneer morgan]

whatt we think we know isn't so,

http://weaponsman.com/?p=25922

[Dave (in MA)]

Now Ace is running with the conservative treehouse story. Last night I mentioned the lack of evidence to Dailypundit (W. Quick) and he said he'd try to find out more and update his post if he did.