[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

thrawn82 wrote:
Aetius wrote:
Clumber wrote:

Curious if there are any significant differences between mass shootings and firearm violence in general.

There are very significant differences. Shooting homicides in the United States are overwhelmingly black men shooting black men in very specific, localized areas - i.e. gang violence.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...

Mass shootings and terrorism are statistically insignificant. Suicide is a much bigger problem than all the other gun-related deaths combined.

weird you felt it was important to point out that homicide is majority black, but that mass shootings are "insignificant" instead of "overwhelmingly white"

it seems like any effort to solve and problem of mass shootings, or even highlight the things about mass shootings that are unique (such as the weapons used and the ideology of the people doing them), are side tracked to either a "lets persecute the mentally ill" direction, or an attempt to refocus to issue to gun violence and suicide as a whole, and then throw up hands about how many guns are already out there and how it's really just too big a problem to try to solve so why bother.

Does anyone happen to know what demographic is most likely to complete suicide by firearm?

per a gun control advocacy site Everytown.org Firearm Suicide in the United States

Over the past decade, the US firearm suicide rate has increased by 19 percent.4 This trend has been of particular concern for children and teens, whose firearm suicide rate has increased by 82 percent over the past 10 years;5 and for veterans, who have a firearm suicide rate 1.5 times higher than non-veteran adults.6
Men, white Americans, and those living in rural areas are disproportionately affected. Men represent 86 percent of firearm suicide victims; they are six times more likely than women to die by firearm suicide.16 For men, firearm suicide rates largely increase with age, and are especially high for males 65 and older.17 For women, firearm suicide rates are highest in the 40-to-60 age range.18
White Americans represent 87 percent of all firearm suicide victims, and have the highest rate of firearm suicide by race.19 American Indians/Alaska Natives also have a disproportionately high rate of firearm suicide, with the second-highest rate of firearm suicide among the country’s five major racial and ethnic groups.20
Americans living in rural areas experience far higher rates of firearm suicide than those living in urban areas.21 The average firearm suicide rate increases as counties become more rural,22 and the rate of firearm suicide in the most rural counties is 58 percent higher than in the most urban.23

Oh my goodness. When are the whites going to step up and doing something about this culture of violence that plagues their rural communities?

Aetius wrote:
Clumber wrote:

Curious if there are any significant differences between mass shootings and firearm violence in general.

There are very significant differences. Shooting homicides in the United States are overwhelmingly black men shooting black men in very specific, localized areas - i.e. gang violence.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...

Mass shootings and terrorism are statistically insignificant. Suicide is a much bigger problem than all the other gun-related deaths combined.

Clumber's original question was about the gender of people who committed mass shootings vs. the gender of people who commit firearm violence in general.

According to the FBI's data for 2018, 87.7% of murders (where the gender of the offender was known) were committed by men. 12.3% were committed by women. This is broadly consistent with data from previous years.

Of the 14,123 murders committed in 2018, 72.7% (10,267) were committed with a firearm. This is also broadly consistent with data from previous years.

Of those 10,000 firearm-related homicides, 64.3% (6,603) were killed with handguns, 2.9% (297) with rifles, 2.3% (235) shotguns, 1.6% (167) by "other guns," and 28.9% (2,963) by "firearms, not stated."

The FBI doesn't track mass shootings nor does it have a formal definition for what makes a particular incident a mass shooting (other organizations have largely settled on a mass shooting being an incident where four or more people are killed, not including the shooter). The FBI does track "active shooter incidents." Of the 250 they've tracked from 2000 to 2018, 96.4% involved male shooters.

So, loosely, mass shooters are virtually all men whereas murderers who use firearms are just overwhelmingly men.

And mass shootings aren't quite statistically insignificant. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 337 mass shooting incidents in 2018. At a minimum that's 1,348 murders, or 9.5% of all homicides committed in 2018 and 13.1% of all homicides involving a firearm.

Firearm suicides are, indeed, a large concern, but also one that's directly related to the ease of access to firearms. Half the people who commit suicide do so with a firearm.

According to the CDC, Americans living in rural areas experience far higher rates of firearm suicide than those living in urban areas with the average firearm suicide rate increasing as counties become more rural. The rate of firearm suicide in the most rural counties is 58% higher than in the most urban counties. According to Pew Research, one in five people living in an urban area reported owning a firearm versus nearly half of people living in rural areas.

This is why firearm suicides are predominantly a thing for white Americans, overwhelmingly older men.

Other studies have shown that for every 10 percent decline in gun ownership in a census region there was a 2.5 percent drop in suicide rates.

If America's suicide attempts were similar to Australia's, Canada's, France's, and Britain's--only 9% of which involved firearms--then there'd be a 20 to 38 percent decrease in overall suicides.

The country would be far better off if young men didn't have access to firearms because they commit the vast majority of firearm-related homicides. And the country would be far better off if older men didn't have access to firearms because of how frequently they use the weapon to commit suicide. There's basically no situation where firearms or access to firearms is a good thing for society.

OG_slinger wrote:

There's basically no situation where firearms or access to firearms is a good thing for society.

Wrong! When the government comes to enslave us we will be able to stop their F-16s and bunker buster bombs with our guns!

Given how unlikely any argument short of amending the Constitution is going to have an impact on the law, I think the most prudent step forward is to push for a bill that requires all guns sold and owned in the US be hot pink. All existing guns in the hands of legal owners do not need to be destroyed, they only need to be painted hot pink over 95% of the visible surface area. If the lawful owner so wishes, he may also exchange his firearm for an identical model that is hot pink, for a nominal fee.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Given how unlikely any argument short of amending the Constitution is going to have an impact on the law, I think the most prudent step forward is to push for a bill that requires all guns sold and owned in the US be hot pink. All existing guns in the hands of legal owners do not need to be destroyed, they only need to be painted hot pink over 95% of the visible surface area. If the lawful owner so wishes, he may also exchange his firearm for an identical model that is hot pink, for a nominal fee.

Gun licences also pink. Also ammunition. And you're only allowed to open carry when every item of clothing you're wearing is neon pink. EVERY item.

farley3k wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

There's basically no situation where firearms or access to firearms is a good thing for society.

Wrong! When the government comes to enslave us we will be able to stop their F-16s and bunker buster bombs with our guns!

AKA, the ole "the Constitution gives me the right to own an AR-15 which I absolutely need so I can eventually murder the same local law enforcement and American soldiers I say I honor and support now" argument.

I'd like to put unicorn decals on mine as well as the pink!

You know, it could actually be a deterrent to some. I remember reading something somewhere a while ago that tools painted pink were less likely to be stolen.

OG_slinger wrote:

Clumber's original question was about the gender of people who committed mass shootings vs. the gender of people who commit firearm violence in general.

This exactly, and thank you for the stats to ultimately answer the question.

karmajay wrote:

Most firearm violence is with pistols and most mass shooting are with "insert name here of larger gun with more bullet capacity".

Yes, to the first part, no to the second part.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...
https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/mass...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics...

This false perception is understandable, because the high-profile rifle mass shootings are heavily promoted by the media and the rest are more-or-less ignored.

thrawn82 wrote:

weird you felt it was important to point out that homicide is majority black, but that mass shootings are "insignificant" instead of "overwhelmingly white"

I said they are statistically insignificant, and they are (how you define mass shooting is important here, more on this below). Obviously they aren't emotionally or culturally insignificant.

And they aren't overwhelmingly white:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_a...
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/m...

If you compare mass shooters to an average distribution of the population, whites are actually under-represented - while they are the majority of the shooters, the percentage of white shooters is lower than the percentage of whites in the general population. Again, how you define mass shooting is important, but the looser you make the definition the more the profile skews towards blacks (specifically, sadly) because you start including more drug-related gang shootings. The tighter you make the definition, the whiter the shooters become ... but your sample size quickly becomes so tiny as to be statistically useless.

In essence, there's more-or-less three major violence problems in the United States:

1) A growing but still tiny percentage of high-profile mass murders
2) A shrinking but still far too large percentage of drug-related / gang-related murders
3) People using guns to commit suicide because they are effective and convenient

As OG_slinger pointed out, the only statistical link between these three problems is that most of the shooters are male.

OG_slinger wrote:

And mass shootings aren't quite statistically insignificant. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 337 mass shooting incidents in 2018. At a minimum that's 1,348 murders, or 9.5% of all homicides committed in 2018 and 13.1% of all homicides involving a firearm.

The problem using those numbers and that definition is that it conflates problem #1 and problem #2. Look at the GVA report on mass shootings, and you will see that the vast majority of the defined mass shooting incidents in 2018 (and every other year) are gang-related drive-bys or raids.

This incident from a few days ago in New Orleans is representative:

https://www.nola.com/news/crime_poli...
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/i...

If you restrict the definition of 2018 mass shootings to ones that were public, at least somewhat random, non-domestic, and non-gang-related, you'll quickly find that they represent a tiny percentage of gun-related homicides in the United States. For 2018, it's essentially Parkland, Santa Fe, the Pittsburgh synagogue, and Thousand Oaks. Those shootings resulted in 51 out of 14,789 deaths, or 0.3%.

Seems relevant to this discussion.

Guns Increase Suicide Mortality

bekkilyn wrote:

I'd like to put unicorn decals on mine as well as the pink!

You know, it could actually be a deterrent to some. I remember reading something somewhere a while ago that tools painted pink were less likely to be stolen.

Tingle’s Law: BIRT all assault weapons be restricted to “post and aperture” iron sights resembling a unicorn horn and a butthole, respectively.

Aetius wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

weird you felt it was important to point out that homicide is majority black, but that mass shootings are "insignificant" instead of "overwhelmingly white"

I said they are statistically insignificant,

That wasn't the weird part, and it's pretty clear you know it.

Has there ever been a look into the types of medications mass shooters have been on or are on?

garion333 wrote:

Has there ever been a look into the types of medications mass shooters have been on or are on?

Or how often they view 4chan

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Aetius wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

weird you felt it was important to point out that homicide is majority black, but that mass shootings are "insignificant" instead of "overwhelmingly white"

I said they are statistically insignificant, and they are (how you define mass shooting is important here, more on this below). Obviously they aren't emotionally or culturally insignificant.

That wasn't the weird part, and it's pretty clear you know it.

FTFY'all

also, worth including what's below:

Aetius wrote:

In essence, there's more-or-less three major violence problems in the United States:

1) A growing but still tiny percentage of high-profile mass murders
2) A shrinking but still far too large percentage of drug-related / gang-related murders
3) People using guns to commit suicide because they are effective and convenient

That doesn't fix anything. A claim was made that homicide was majority black, which I'll take at face value for this discussion, but when the reality is--per the data links provided--that white shooters have been responsible for more mass shootings from 1982 to this month than all other racial categories combined, and that isn't also highlighted, it seems curious at least. And when the response to the call-out on a potential race category error focuses on a different part of the claim than was clearly at issue, it seems evasive. There is nothing in the admission that mass shootings "aren't emotionally or culturally insignificant" that addresses this, so adding the rest of the quote is insufficient.

garion333 wrote:

Has there ever been a look into the types of medications mass shooters have been on or are on?

Just curious. What's your thinking here? That medications cause or increase likelihood of mass shooting? I think you have to be careful here because even if a higher percentage of mass shooters were on an antidepressant (for example) than the general population, that just might mean that mass shooters are more likely to be depressed (which is probably a safe bet).

Anyway, here's an article analyzing medications with school shooters from back in 2016.

How many school shooters were on psychiatric medications — or coming off them — at the time of their attacks? The following data is drawn from the sample of 48 shooters profiled in my book School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators. Out of 24 secondary school shooters, only two were taking medication at the time of their attacks: Eric Harris and Jeffrey Weise. Alvaro Castillo might have been, or he may have stopped his medication within three weeks of his attack and thus still have been coming off the drug. If we include him, then 12.5% of the sample was taking medications. Put differently, over 87% of the secondary school shooters were not on psychiatric medications at the time of their attacks. Furthermore, there is no evidence that medication made Harris, Weise, or Castillo manic or psychotic. The numbers are essentially the same for the college and adult shooters. Of the 24 in these two groups (13 college and 11 aberrant adult), two were taking psychiatric medications at the time of their attacks: Laurie Dann and Matti Saari. Because Steven Kazmierczak had only recently stopped taking his medication, perhaps he should be included, for a total of three shooters with at least some trace of medication in their bodies at the time of their attacks. Thus, 12.5% of the college and adult shooters were on medication at the time of their attacks. Again, there is no evidence that medication made them manic, agitated, or violent. Taken all together, only 6 out of 48 shooters (12.5%) were on medication at the time of their attacks. Even if we were to accept that psychiatric drugs caused these attacks, this still leaves over 87% of the incidents unaccounted for. Interestingly, a study of prescription rates for psychiatric medications in the United States in 2010 found that 20% of adults were prescribed psychiatric drugs (America’s State of Mind: A Report by Medco). This provides some context for considering medication use among school shooters.

I'm a little bit skeptical of some of the numbers presented above. How accurate is that info? Plus, it’s looking at shooters who had recently taken the medication- where it still could be in their system. I suppose you could argue that a medication could have longer term effects well after stopping, even years. Seems like a stretch to me though.

If you look online you can find sources that promote an association between meds and mass shooters, but I find these far more dubious. Like law firms (looking to sue drug companies I presume), what looks like extreme gun rights groups wanting to shift the blame away from firearms, and Church of Scientology related groups.

Frequently psychoactive medications (not just psychiatric medications) get black box labeled for suicidal ideation. So I think it’s reasonable to wonder if there’s a correlation with gun violence.

Black box labels notoriously understate the risk. Mostly due to side effects that make the person taking the medication feel really unwell. I say this having experienced fairly significant pain and confusion from the side effects of psychoactive medication.

I still think guns themselves are the main reason America has gun violence, but it seems important to understand if medication is also a risk.

In a more humane country we’d be tackling our overall mental health system anyway, because it’s the right thing to do.

Even if psychiatric medications prompt violent episodes, the fundamental problem of firearm violence remains.

Citalopram isn't a 75 round C-mag.

Gabepentin is not a semi-automatic pistol.

Rispirdone isn't an assault rifle.

Edit: if there was a medication that either created homicidal urges (where NONE existed at baseline) or prompted a kind of disinhibiting effect, don't you all think the DoD would be shoveling that stuff down the military's collective throats?

I think the black box warnings are very subjectively determined, but generally they’re given to raise awareness of a specific life-threatening or permanent side effect like heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias or suicide. I think confusion is a particularly tricky one since basically every potentially sedating medication can contribute to this, including many over the counter meds (pain meds, anxiety meds, antidepressants, seizure meds, muscle relaxers, sleep meds, allergy meds, nausea meds, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, cough meds, just off the top of my head). Certainly someone who’s in a confused, drowsy state is at a higher risk for accidents which could be life-threatening, but I don’t think they usually issue black box warnings for this. Maybe they should, but there’s probably a fear that they’ll be disregarded entirely if there are too many of them.

muraii wrote:

That doesn't fix anything. A claim was made that homicide was majority black, which I'll take at face value for this discussion, but when the reality is--per the data links provided--that white shooters have been responsible for more mass shootings from 1982 to this month than all other racial categories combined, and that isn't also highlighted, it seems curious at least. And when the response to the call-out on a potential race category error focuses on a different part of the claim than was clearly at issue, it seems evasive. There is nothing in the admission that mass shootings "aren't emotionally or culturally insignificant" that addresses this, so adding the rest of the quote is insufficient.

I don't see why it's a different part of the claim, and while half-quotes can sometimes be useful for clarity, they can also be lies of omission.

I also think if you're going to make a call-out on a potential race category error, actually make the call-out explicit instead of hiding it behind snark.

Reaper81 wrote:

Even if psychiatric medications prompt violent episodes, the fundamental problem of firearm violence remains.

I think I pretty clearly said this.

DSGamer wrote:

I still think guns themselves are the main reason America has gun violence, but it seems important to understand if medication is also a risk.

DSGamer wrote:

In a more humane country we’d be tackling our overall mental health system anyway, because it’s the right thing to do.

Seriously. I wonder how many of these suicides are just "I have no one to take care of me if I stroke out and certainly not the resources to arrange for decent care." Just saw this article today:

Suicide rates are typically lower in cities. In 2017, the suicide rate nationwide for the most rural counties — 20 per 100,000 people — was almost twice as high as the 11.1 rate for the most urban counties, according to the CDC. The trend is accelerating. While the suicide rate in the most urban counties increased by 16% from 1999 to 2017, it grew by a whopping 53% in the most rural counties.
.
Loneliness, isolation and access to lethal weapons can be a potent combination that leads to suicide, said Jerry Reed, who directs the suicide, violence and injury prevention efforts at the Education Development Center. The center runs the federally funded Suicide Prevention Resource Center, among other suicide prevention projects.
.
People in rural areas may live many miles from the nearest mental health facility, therapist or even their own neighbors.
.
“If your spouse passes away or you come down with a chronic condition and no one is checking on you and you have access to firearms,” Reed said, “life may not seem like worth living.”

I was behind a car with a NRA sticker from another state. I was wondering if that would be enough for probable cause for a police officer to look for weapons?

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
muraii wrote:

That doesn't fix anything. A claim was made that homicide was majority black, which I'll take at face value for this discussion, but when the reality is--per the data links provided--that white shooters have been responsible for more mass shootings from 1982 to this month than all other racial categories combined, and that isn't also highlighted, it seems curious at least. And when the response to the call-out on a potential race category error focuses on a different part of the claim than was clearly at issue, it seems evasive. There is nothing in the admission that mass shootings "aren't emotionally or culturally insignificant" that addresses this, so adding the rest of the quote is insufficient.

I don't see why it's a different part of the claim, and while half-quotes can sometimes be useful for clarity, they can also be lies of omission.

I also think if you're going to make a call-out on a potential race category error, actually make the call-out explicit instead of hiding it behind snark.

thrawn82 made an explicit reference to aetius’ claim that homicide is overwhelmingly black while avoiding making a comment about the high likelihood that a mass shooter would be white.

aetius responded without answering that explicit question.

SpacePPoliceman quoted the thesis of that response, very likely to make sure the point of his reference was clear, and commented that aetius’ response ignored the explicit question about race.

You added the rest aetius’ paragraph but the additional material bears not at all on the race question raised. That’s why I said it doesn’t FTFAnyone.

muraii wrote:

thrawn82 made an explicit reference to aetius’ claim that homicide is overwhelmingly black while avoiding making a comment about the high likelihood that a mass shooter would be white.

aetius responded without answering that explicit question.

SpacePPoliceman quoted the thesis of that response, very likely to make sure the point of his reference was clear, and commented that aetius’ response ignored the explicit question about race.

You added the rest aetius’ paragraph but the additional material bears not at all on the race question raised. That’s why I said it doesn’t FTFAnyone.

No, it does bear on the race question. The number of victims of mass shooters can be culturally significant because the shooters are overwhelmingly white while being statistically insignificant.

I mean, the whole reason we're talking about white shooters is because we're talking about something cultural like white shooters committing hate crimes, right? That even if it's statistically insignificant in terms of your danger when walking out your door, those crimes can terrorize a community or a nation beyond raw numbers?

The number of victims of mass shootings and the level of their statistical significance is orthogonal to the race distribution of the shooters.

What does that have to do with cultural significance not bearing on the race question raised?