The US of A Shooting Mega-Thread

[Darell_n]

Last I read, suicide by gun in the US was steady at around 20,000/ year. That would definitely mess up their rosey statistics. Vietnam losses self inflicted every 2 years. Imagine the entire town of Cochrane or Okotoks killing themselves by gun, every year. Do you think that would make the headlines?

[Buster]

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Last I read, suicide by gun in the US was steady at around 20,000/ year. That would definitely mess up their rosey statistics. Vietnam losses self inflicted every 2 years. Imagine the entire town of Cochrane or Okotoks killing themselves by gun, every year. Do you think that would make the headlines?

With those commutes, it would be hard to blame them.

[95EagleAWD]

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With those commutes, it would be hard to blame them.

Send em out here for a week and they’d come back with commuting PTSD lol

[Misterman]

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Yeah they (literally everyone, the media, LE, general population) really need to use the FBI term of "active shooter incidents" because it is far more specific: "...exclude(s) drug or gang violence and “accidental discharges of a gun.” It says an “active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.”"

But then sensationalist news outlets like CNN couldn't pad their numbers to make it appear like mass shootings is a major issue if they used real stats.

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Came across this Vox article this morning discussing mental illness and gun violence; one prof's estimation:



It's a good read in its entirety though.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...1T5OHvRnUDoepA

That quoted part really should be a bit of an eye opener. Mass shootings account for such a small fraction of the crime and murder numbers, it's no wonder there hasn't been a large dedication of resources to fix the problem. It's an unfortunate problem still, however it is spun to be something more than it is. More innocent people die in car accidents every year, and nobody is frothing at the mouth on the news about that.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Last I read, suicide by gun in the US was steady at around 20,000/ year. That would definitely mess up their rosey statistics. Vietnam losses self inflicted every 2 years. Imagine the entire town of Cochrane or Okotoks killing themselves by gun, every year. Do you think that would make the headlines?

An entire town killing themselves off entirely every year is a heck of a lot different than 20,000 people in a pool of ~330M spread across 50 states, or 0.006%. And that's with more guns than people.

Looking at Canada, 80% of suicides are still via firearm according to the govt. data, despite having a fraction of the firearms available in the USA. According to Wikipedia's stats there is 1.52 firearm related suicides per 100,000 people which is about 0.002% of the population. Really not that much different. The numbers just seem high in an absolute sense because there is a much larger population in the USA.

There will ALWAYS be tiny percentages of horrible things that happen, in every population, and as a society we accept way higher rates of death for other things without introducing bans or similar.

Are vehicle suicides counted in car accident statistics?

[revelations]

In America,

- car crashes kill 40,000 people annually (rough average)

- cigarette smoking kills about 450,000 people annually

- guns killed 40,000 people annually (2017, CDC numbers, suicides too)-> (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

- obesity related deaths, around 300,000 people annually (https://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm)


Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

[cycosis]

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In America,

- car crashes kill 40,000 people annually (rough average)

- cigarette smoking kills about 450,000 people annually

- guns killed 40,000 people annually (2017, CDC numbers, suicides too)-> (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

- obesity related deaths, around 300,000 people annually (https://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm)


Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

Because youre unlikely to die due to Ted's cheeseburger addiction or Susan's cigarette habits now that smoking has been banned in most public places. Their actions affect themselves more or less, not the general population around them (ignoring the healthcare spending debate).

[Tik-Tok]

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Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

Because those are "slow deaths", and also don't randomly murder the people around the smoking fatass.

[A790]

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In America,

- car crashes kill 40,000 people annually (rough average)

- cigarette smoking kills about 450,000 people annually

- guns killed 40,000 people annually (2017, CDC numbers, suicides too)-> (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

- obesity related deaths, around 300,000 people annually (https://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm)


Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

Okay:

1) False equivalence and an obvious logical fallacy.

2) They are addressing smoking/obeisity, with education campaigns, sin taxes, etc. Its no secret that these efforts have directly contributed to the declining percentage of smokers.

Per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preval...#United_States

According to the CDC, as of 2015, a total of 15.1% of U.S. adults (16.7% of men and 13.6% of women) smoke, which is down from 20.9% a decade earlier.

I'm not anti-gun but I am anti-stupid arguments.

[vengie]

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Because those are "slow deaths", and also don't randomly murder the people around the smoking fatass.

Unless he has a gun

[revelations]

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Because youre unlikely to die due to Ted's cheeseburger addiction or Susan's cigarette habits now that smoking has been banned in most public places. Their actions affect themselves more or less, not the general population around them (ignoring the healthcare spending debate).

So they should, perhaps be treated like a slower form of suicide?

[Mitsu3000gt]

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In America,

- car crashes kill 40,000 people annually (rough average)
- cigarette smoking kills about 450,000 people annually
- guns killed 40,000 people annually (2017, CDC numbers, suicides too)-> (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

If it's convenient or if people like it (cigarettes (450K), drugs (17K), alcohol (88K), obesity (112K), etc.), people don't care that it kills more than firearms. Safety magically stops being a concern for the anti-gun crowd as soon as the tables are turned and something they enjoy the use of is at risk of being restricted or banned. Second hand smoke causes ~41K deaths annually in the USA (same as guns), but people like to smoke so who cares about who else might be affected by it, right? It's a slower death that sucks billions from the healthcare system but who cares because it isn't instant, right? Most of the anti-gun arguments are extremely hypocritical and do not address the obvious root causes (mental illness, education, background checks, etc.)

Until mental health issues are better addressed/identified and proper background checks are used (grandmas have been better at preventing shootings than the FBI lately), things like this are still going to happen and a minuscule fraction of the population will continue to be victims - you'll never get rid of it 100%. I listened to a podcast on gun control with an FBI agent who was explaining how there are 50 different systems in the USA making proper background checks extremely difficult - fixing that would be a good place to start. Your chances of being a victim to a random 'mass' shooting in the USA are so unbelievably small, that almost everything else you do in your daily life is much more dangerous. Much higher risk levels are accepted by society as a whole for many other things every day.

Personally I'd like to see proper background checks (somehow unifying all 50 states), better education, more mental health resources and awareness campaigns, and a mandatory waiting period introduced in every state. That would be a good start at going after the root causes IMHO.

[Buster]

Beyond: "mass shootings are a menace, the best solution is to take peoples' rights!"

Also Beyond: "breathalyzers? sure DUIs are a problem, but don't take away mah rights"

[revelations]

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If it's convenient or if people like it (cigarettes (450K), drugs (17K), alcohol (88K), obesity (112K), etc.), people don't care that it kills more than firearms. Safety magically stops being a concern for the anti-gun crowd as soon as the tables are turned and something they enjoy the use of is at risk of being restricted or banned. Second hand smoke causes ~41K deaths annually in the USA (same as guns), but people like to smoke so who cares about who else might be affected by it, right? It's a slower death that sucks billions from the healthcare system but who cares because it isn't instant, right? Most of the anti-gun arguments are extremely hypocritical and do not address the obvious root causes (mental illness, education, background checks, etc.)

Until mental health issues are better addressed/identified and proper background checks are used (grandmas have been better at preventing shootings than the FBI lately), things like this are still going to happen and a minuscule fraction of the population will continue to be victims - you'll never get rid of it 100%. I listened to a podcast on gun control with an FBI agent who was explaining how there are 50 different systems in the USA making proper background checks extremely difficult - fixing that would be a good place to start. Your chances of being a victim to a random 'mass' shooting in the USA are so unbelievably small, that almost everything else you do in your daily life is much more dangerous. Much higher risk levels are accepted by society as a whole for many other things every day.

Personally I'd like to see proper background checks (somehow unifying all 50 states), better education, more mental health resources and awareness campaigns, and a mandatory waiting period introduced in every state. That would be a good start at going after the root causes IMHO.

Agree 100%.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but combined with the suicides and gang shooting/crime/drug deals gone bad, events, my understanding is that most of the gun deaths are NOT innocent people?

Thats probably why mass shooting events get such a strong response - these people had nothing to do with any of the above.

[tirebob]

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In America,

- car crashes kill 40,000 people annually (rough average)

- cigarette smoking kills about 450,000 people annually

- guns killed 40,000 people annually (2017, CDC numbers, suicides too)-> (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm)

- obesity related deaths, around 300,000 people annually (https://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm)


Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

Because it isn't scary, and a scared population is easy to manipulate...

[ZenOps]

My guess as to why the USA is so "Hawkish" is that there has been little to no retaliation for aggressive behavior.



Without doubt, adopting a hawkish lifestyle in other countries simply means that both parties go home with zero. But in the USA, they tend to reward hawks (even after losing badly, with a "1/4 instead of 0" reward) I mean, it almost seems you reward people in the USA with a 3/4 on "fail". The USA is rife with rewarding failure, from bankruptcies to being captured in actual war. I will say though: Rewarding failure on two hawks butting heads is technically "what makes America great", although from a long term perspective - it is probably what is causing China to win.

From a simple logic perspective of course.

[msommers]

Mental health is not a driver or even a statistically significant factor in the equation. Experts quote the contribution these to events on average across various studies at 4%.

Again, the FBI terminology is what I think everyone is talking about, or meaning to, but it definitely is what I'm basing things off of.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Agree 100%.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but combined with the suicides and gang shooting/crime/drug deals gone bad, events, my understanding is that most of the gun deaths are NOT innocent people?

Thats probably why mass shooting events get such a strong response - these people had nothing to do with any of the above.

If you take out gang violence (most of the "mass" shooting stats are gang related, often using illegally obtained firearms that they would have regardless of tighter gun control) and suicides, you are left with almost nothing in terms of random mass shooting gun deaths (the only thing that seems to make the headlines and what this thread is about) in a population of 330M. I think for most people, if they saw a headline that said 4 gang members shot each other (by definition a 'mass' shooting), that's not even a blip on the radar for the anti-gun folks and likely would be buried 10 pages down in the news. People tend to value the lives of randoms more than they do gang members and the like, so it makes the news.

Looking at 2016 (just because I easily found the data), of 38,658 gun deaths, 22,938 were suicides, 14,415 were homicides, and 76 were 'mass' shootings. While tragic, in a population of 330M it is simply not an issue relative to the laundry list of much more dangerous things we do every day, or allow people to do for no other reason than they feel like it or it's convenient. No matter what, there will always be a minuscule percentage of the population affected by random tragedies.

[95EagleAWD]

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Why is the American media ignoring the smoking and obesity epidemic?

They aren’t. Car crashes used to kill a lot more people in the USA. They made cars safer, and deaths went down.

Sin taxes, and education are all in effect right now to combat rising obesity. Michelle Obama was CRUCIFIED for trying to introduce healthier lunches into schools.

Smoking rate has gone down, probably because of education and taxes.

They aren’t even trying anything with guns.

[msommers]

Well said.

Seems Congress doesn't have their heads entirely up their asses with talks of this 'Red Flag' Gun Control bill though. I mean it's Congress, the fact they're doing anything is a positive move!