Another Day, Another Mass Shooting

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/31/2019 at 19:32 • Filed to: None

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This one in Virginia Beach, near where I used to live. Eleven dead so far.

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Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 19:38

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He y look, I can see the “thoughts and prayers” train chugging into the station

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 19:47

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Goddammit.

AMC/Renauledge > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 19:53

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I hate this so much. When are we going to save people’s lives by fixing  what is wrong with our broken culture and broken laws?

BaconSandwich is tasty. > AMC/Renauledge 05/31/2019 at 20:02

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When the pain of the entire nation outweighs the pain of change.

ttyymmnn > AMC/Renauledge 05/31/2019 at 20:08

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An entire room full of schoolchildren was massacred and nothing changed. Guns are cheap and lives are cheaper. 

BeaterGT > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:08

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“ The incident is the deadliest mass shooting in the US since November.”

Not even a full year.  

LongbowMkII > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:13

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We’ve tried nothing! What else can we do!?!?

f86sabre > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 05/31/2019 at 20:14

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Followed by the too soon to talk about firearms and mental health care funding crowd, yes. 

TheJWT > AMC/Renauledge 05/31/2019 at 20:15

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Well if we wait long enough, we’ll all be dead from mass shootings and the problem will just work itself out

gettingoldercarguy > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:15

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Guns win again

ttyymmnn > f86sabre 05/31/2019 at 20:15

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Apparently it’s always too soon. 

Nick Has an Exocet > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:15

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Call me whatever you want, but I think to fix this problem, you need to seriously investigate what is putting people into the mental state where they do something like this. And don’t say it’s the president, because that’s as bad as blaming violent video games or reddit.

The Onion is funny and all but the actual data shows that Europe isn’t any better off. The trouble is that the countries themselves are too small to give a good comparison so you have to add europe together to compare it to the USA.

It’s significantly harder to get legally acquire guns in Europe but you’re slightly more likely to be killed in a public mass shooting according to this data from Snopes. Strangely enough, their article entirely ignores that and instead focuses on comparing tiny individual countries to the USA in an effort to make FOX News look like the stupid one. Sigh.

Svend > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:23

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That’s because mass shootings don ’t stop long enough for it to be sufficient time.

Svend > BeaterGT 05/31/2019 at 20:25

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Unfortunately with the education system in some of America, that is a year ago because November was in 2018 and it’s now June 2019. 

Victorinoo > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 20:39

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You can’t control people and their emotions. But  we can control the availability of the tools that they use to kill people.

Spanfeller is a twat > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 20:44

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I would struggle to take a spreadsheet that thinks Switzerland is in the EU seriously.

Also, how can you make a “deaths per million” claim over attacks across half a dozen years of data?

Spanfeller is a twat > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 20:46

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It’s a shame.

facw > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 20:49

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That chart is seriously misleading. For starters they’ve carved out a time range that includes the serious outlier in Norway, and several terrorist attacks that probably should be considered differently (and it seems like in those cases, its assigning credit to people killed or injured by weapons other than guns as well), but ends just before the Pulse shooting in the US. More importantly their US numbers are garbage. The graphic doesn’t describe what they mean by “mass public shootings” but wikipedia’s list for the US has the US number at 312, some 50% higher. Moreover by some definitions the problem is much worse. Mass Shooting Tracker lists 198 people killed in mass shootings thus far this year.

And of course the real fallacy is that mass shootings are the only ones that matter. The US has around 4.5 gun murders per 100k, while the in the worst county in the European Union (Greece) , it is 0.5 murders per 100k.

We are really fucking bad at this.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 21:13

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Jesus fucking tap dancing Christ.

That’s all I got.

Nick Has an Exocet > facw 05/31/2019 at 21:17

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It’s not really a carve out, just an old chart that hasn’t been updated.

I don’t use Wikipedia on anything that is a political issue for the same reason schools never allowed it as a source when I was in college: anyone can edit it. Perhaps shouldn’t use it as a source at all...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/30/18646538/north-face-wikipedia-google-search-apology-free-advertising-policy-violation

The entire argument is pretty bullshit since as you mentioned, how you define “mass shooting” or “mass murder” has a way of radically making someone else’s argument.

The way I look at it: The US has a problem. It’s NOT a gun problem. It’s a desperation problem. You don’t have to look any further than San Francisco or LA to see that there are basically zero support systems for desperate people. The homelessness crisis in CA is the direct result of us having no minimum standard of living. I would love to see data how many people who committed one of these crimes did so in a moment of desperation . That’s a really basic human instinct.

However, I’m not naive enough to look past the fact that we have this because we’ve made trade offs. Those trade-offs are often directly affecting GDP one way or another. “One is too many” is something we hear a lot, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. NASA has had it’s hands cuffed for decades because it’s not allowed to use a life in pursuit of science.

Svend > ttyymmnn 05/31/2019 at 21:18

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Shootings in America don’t even shock me any more.

It just makes me more annoyed when I hear the American government suggests it’s citizens not travel to Turkey or Egypt because of the elevated risk of terrorism o r against it’s citizens traveling to France of Belgium because of terror attacks.

Including tonight, there has been 2 86 gun related deaths in America since the 24th of May. That’s only one week in a country that isn’t called an ‘active war zone’.

The number of deaths in America, if it was declared an active war zone, would be classed as ‘war’ (1,000-9,999) . Higher than a minor war (100-999) , lower than a major war (10,000+).

The current total is 5,778 deaths in the U.S. this year , that’s one and a half times that of the deaths in Syria, Syria for goodness ruddy sakes.

fintail > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 21:33

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What’s the source where that data was taken from?

Switzerland in the EU now, weird.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 21:33

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Mark my words... welfare, minimum income, guaranteed standard of living... any form of collectivist giveaways that sound good on the surface, but fail every time they are tried.... will make desperation FAR worse, because it is antithetical to human nature.

Ask Venezuela how well the promise of socialism worked out for them, and their desperation.

It will create a whole country full of people who are completely dissatisfied with life, because LIFE is not a paycheck, and can’t simply be bought with other people’s money . Life is a purpose.

A paycheck without a purpose is only a few degrees different than poverty also without a purpose.

It will breed depression and abberant behavior to try and break the cycle.

Blaming violent outbursts on guns, is like blaming a claw hammer for being forced to do menial and repetitive, endless carpentry work against your will. Being paid not enough or barely enough doesn’t make much difference, if it isn’t what you want, and doesn’t serve much of a purpose.

facw > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 21:42

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The US has a gun problem! We have vastly more guns per capita than any other nations. And all these gun murders are happening where those guns are. Conservatives like to talk about Chicago as proof that gun control, but it’s gun homicides per capita is much lower than the vast majority of the “gun states”. This piece is a couple years old now (and some data is older), but Here are some telling graphs from Kristof’s comprehensive piece on gun violence for the NYT :

None of this is to say that we do not have a “desperation problem” in the US. We absolutely do, but San Francisco and LA aren’t where the gun the problem is (there are a lot of murders in big cities, but as with Chicago that’s because there are lots of people, not because they are particularly unsafe). Gun homicides happen much more frequently in gun country (so much an armed society being a polite society). Granted there is plenty of desperation there as well but I don’t think that’s the biggest driver. And even if it were, I certainly don’t see the pro-gun lobby advocating that we help these people to avoid gun crime, that’s normally the view held by the gun control side.

Oh and re:wikipedia, studies have shown it is generally more accurate than print sources. Obviously people can edit crap into it, but quality is generally high. For a research paper I’d of course check data from citations, but for the purposes of a random comment, numbers that seem close to what I’ve read elsewhere are good enough for me. In any event, I think certainly an annotated and cited list is more authoritative than an unsourced chart with no indication where it’s numbers (especially US numbers) come from.

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. 05/31/2019 at 21:50

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It sounds like some good old massive public works projects would help some of the issues. Good paying jobs for people that are also fixing things in our country that need fixing. Infrastructure and all that. Pumps a bunch of money into the economy as well into people’s hands that will actually spend it and generate more opportunities for others to provide services. At least then it wouldn’t be a hand out and the American people would see a result from it.

You’re stance that the minimum income idea would not help in the long run is very interesting and it does make sense.  People, by nature want to be productive, except for the minority that doesn’t, but in general we are made to do something with our lives.  Interesting take on that idea.  Makes sense.

LongbowMkII > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 21:56

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Financially desperate people don’t have bags of rifles and the ability to rent a Vegas hotel room.

DipodomysDeserti > Svend 05/31/2019 at 23:05

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The US has a population that’s 18x larger than Syria. We have cities with almost as many people as the entire nation.

The US has a gun problem, but it’s not comparable to a warzone. We have plenty of citizens who have visited warzones, we know the the difference.

Also keep in mind that the US is populated by the ancestors of people not content to live in Europe (or anywhere else in the world) . We are  a bit nuts. NYC has had a higher murder rate than London for 200 years or so.

DipodomysDeserti > Nick Has an Exocet 05/31/2019 at 23:10

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Little heads up, guy who lives somewhere with really struct gun laws: Snopes isn’t any better of a source than a Wiki article, and Switzerland has never been apart of the EU.

Vítor > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. 05/31/2019 at 23:19

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 Ask Venezuela how well the promise of socialism worked out for them, and their desperation.

Ok, here goes nothing:

As someone who’s country share a border with Venezuela: Their problem isn’t socialism, they had a really good run between the 50’s and mid-80’s where the oil boom sustained a healthy economy, but descended into poverty and social alienation when the country entered a economic crisis 1983 that lasted until the late 00’s. Remember, Venezuela socialist government only began in 1999, by then taking a country suffering 16 years of unstopped recession.

Venezuela main woes has been enormous corruption ever since oil was discovered there in the mid 30’s, huge administrative   inefficiency from the government, a hostile stand to the West stand (which then inflicts sanctions) and especially this: the country, utter, complete lack of ability to   diversify its economy . 95% of the country’s economic is sustained on a single resource, oil. A resource whose price has   collapsed from over $110 a barrel in 2014 to less than $30 in 2016 (and is close to $58 now in 2019)

I always get annoyed at those “socialism is bad, look at Venezuela!” because Venezuela ain’t socialist, but a very populist, leftist country, and because I also share border with two successful social democratic nations that everyone conveniently forgets: Uruguay, the most stable country in the whole fucking Americas this side of Canada, and Bolivia (the most leftist country in the continent)   , a emergent economy which, as much as it pains me to compliment Morales, is also stable, surprisingly safe and quickly developing nation. Ecuador, another social democratic nation, is developing well too.

There are officially four socialist nations in the world: Laos, Vietnam, China and Cuba. Again, Venezuela ain’t one of them

But sure, let’s forget all that and “socialism is bad, look at Venezuela!”

 welfare, minimum income, guaranteed standard of living... any form of collectivist giveaways that sound good on the surface, but fail every time they are tried

Man, the nordics and most of Western Europe (very much welfare states) are such shit, anarchist and violent places to live

Nick Has an Exocet > DipodomysDeserti 06/01/2019 at 00:13

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Oh trust me, I know. I just love to use it when people bring up left leaning arguments since people who drown in NPR think it’s god.

Nick Has an Exocet > fintail 06/01/2019 at 00:15

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It’s Snopes, you expect them to list sources? Yet apparently Snopes is a perfectly valid citation if you’re NPR.

Nick Has an Exocet > LongbowMkII 06/01/2019 at 00:19

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You can buy a gun for under $100 and Vegas hotel room for free if you sit at a poker table long enough. 

fintail > Nick Has an Exocet 06/01/2019 at 00:23

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Link? Does snopes say where they get it?

Not sure if the rest of that is a red herring or whataboutism.

DipodomysDeserti > Nick Has an Exocet 06/01/2019 at 00:30

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Yeah, a rich kid who lives in the Bay Area thinking he has a clue about gun violence. To someone like me, you’re just as clueless as an NPR drone.

Trust me, you don’t have a fucking clue.

Nick Has an Exocet > facw 06/01/2019 at 00:42

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I was using local examples. 22k suicides using a gun is a statistic that underlines my point. We have a suicide problem. I would also argue that both suicide and gun deaths are heavily related to drug use.

A study published this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds the United States has more than double the overdose-related deaths of at least 12 comparable countries.

For most arguments, I think it’s fair exclude suicide by gun since suicide is quite different than homicide:

15,549 - number of people killed by gun excluding suicide by Gun Violence Archive (GVA)

For a baseline comparison a stat and a chart :

37,133 - number people killed by auto accidents in 2017

I prefer to look at this in a vacuum , rather than from a lens of what the gun lobby or anti-gun lobby would say. 

Fair point on Wikipedia but I would still advise avoiding any page that could serve a political purpose.

Nick Has an Exocet > DipodomysDeserti 06/01/2019 at 00:48

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Excuse me - I’m unemployed and by no means rich. I live in a city where the city council requested a declaration of a state of emergency due to the police not being able to curb the violence.

Take your attitude and your assumptions somewhere else, thanks. Might I suggest https://jezebel.com/

Nick Has an Exocet > fintail 06/01/2019 at 00:48

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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-lower-death-shootings/

DipodomysDeserti > Nick Has an Exocet 06/01/2019 at 01:44

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Being unemployed in this economy means you’re a piece of shit who’s un willing to bust his ass. There are people dying in the desert trying to get here to fill positions . I work three jobs, own a closet full of firearms, and a house ( because I have multiple jobs), so don’t come at me with that weak ass white boy Bay Area “ woe is me” shit.

Grow a pair.

Get off you your soft ass and get a job, and don’t pretend like you’re hard. You’re a soft alt right bro who lives in a liberal city with a nice severance package from when you got fired from your soft office job.

Sounds like your soft, white ass fits in more with the Jezebel crowd than mine.

dtg11 - is probably on an adventure with Clifford > ttyymmnn 06/01/2019 at 02:28

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Dan Hodges said it best, “In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 06/01/2019 at 06:23

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over here when people get fired usually the worst that might happen is that the bossmans car has suddenly mysteriously aquired four flat tires.....

LongbowMkII > Nick Has an Exocet 06/01/2019 at 08:16

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they don’t give you a literal bag of high quality rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo for $100. Nor are you going to chance being put on the opposite side of the building hoping for a comp room. 

fintail > Nick Has an Exocet 06/01/2019 at 13:09

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So it is based on cherry-picked misleading data presented by boomtoy fetishist John Lott and shared by the worst news source on the planet, FOX . Got it.

From that link:

“ However, those figures are actually highly misleading, and use a particular type of statistical average to create the false impression that mass shootings are less frequent and less deadly in the United States than in European countries.

In reality, mass shootings are rare outside the United States — even in the sixteen countries listed by Lott where there was a mass shooting between 2009 and 2015, and even after accounting for population size. But on the rare occasions when mass shootings do take place in European countries, they give rise to a relatively high annual mass shooting death rate in those years because of the comparatively small populations of those countries.

Between 2009 and 2015, the United States was the only country on that list where someone died every year in a mass shooting. Every other country had at least five out seven years without a death from a mass shooting.

Finally, the death rate from mass shootings has significantly increased in the United States since Lott published his research in 2015. We applied the CPRC criteria to the frequently updated database of mass shootings maintained by Mother Jones , and found that in 2016, there were 65 deaths in incidents that would be designated mass shootings under CPRC criteria, and in 2017 there were 94. Over the two years, that is an average annual death rate of 0.24 per million people, which is almost three times higher than the United States death rate between 2009 and 2015.

In other words, things have become dramatically worse in the United States since the CPRC research was first published.”

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Vítor 06/01/2019 at 17:08

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I am not the first to say that “socialist” western Europe, is not very socialist. Mostly Capitalist, with a big social safety net, but not really government control over the illusion of private-ownership of the means of production and economic activity.

Socialism, just a few degrees off of full communism (without the illusion of private ownership) are leftist elitist controls over collectivist policies as an ideology . The few in control over the “equalized” many.

There is very little more demoralizing than being under the thumb of elitists or tyrants.

Blaming “ the tools” of violence like knives, guns, or bombs , rather than the perpetrators of that violence as true villians , in order to outlaw weapons even for defense, is an age old methodology of elitists and tyrants to gain power over defenseless people. Banning guns makes people easier to control. P ro secuting real criminals and criminal ideologies, doesn’t gain that result, and is more individualized.

Lip service of twisting vocabulary and calling things socialist that aren’t truly ... or calling things that are socialist something other than that... means relatively little, and makes terms like socialism obfuscated buzz-words that some cling to, and others instantly reject.

The diminishing or outright oppression of some people under the will of other people is the result throughout history under many names, and many failures.

Nick Has an Exocet > fintail 06/01/2019 at 23:27

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Everyone has their agenda. Wasn’t presenting it otherwise. Hate FOX News, hate Snopes, hate most of the media outlets. 

fintail > Nick Has an Exocet 06/02/2019 at 19:35

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I don’t think Snopes had an agenda here. IIRC they stated that wingnut Lott’s arithmetic was correct, but his context was misleading at the very least, if not deceptive and intellectually dishonest - trademarks among the modern so-called right. Whatever happened to the party of Eisenhower...

I can’t think of a US media outlet I’d follow.  

Nick Has an Exocet > fintail 06/02/2019 at 20:00

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They completely ignored that in order to have a reasonable conversation about US vs [anything], you have to take Europe en masse as opposed to split out by country. It’s also written by someone with no literary skill whatsoever. 

fintail > Nick Has an Exocet 06/02/2019 at 20:13

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Or at least the EU or western Europe. Europe is even more diverse than the US - while we may have glaring differences like Washington and Mississippi , they have even greater differences like say Germany and Albania.

John Lott is not a credible unbiased source for such data.