Are Mass Shootings Increasing in Frequency

[EvoUK]

Ok, I have said this before, I grew up in those backward years of the 50s and 60s, when firearms were actually much easier to get. I owned many myself as a teenager (including military semi-auto rifles). And though you had the occasional mass shooting they were nothing compared to what we have seen in the last 25 years. So what is going on? What are your thoughts about the underlying cause(s) of these events?

Ok, naturally I’m not American, so the whole concept of this issue is slightly beyond me. However I was wondering if the above statement & following question was correct? Did it used to be easier to purchase a gun in the 50s & 60s? If so why have the number of shootings gone up do we think if it’s suposedly harder now?

Naturally their answer was the ‘breakup of the nuclear family & lack of discipline in schools’, however I’m actually interested in the proper answer- or at least an alternative take on it, rather than just some grumpy old men who miss the early 60’s.

 

[EvoUK]

My initial thought would be:

More guns per person
Was it really easier to get hold of a gun back then? I imagine he’s referring to recent gun laws, but it’s non-specific.

 

[Elixir]

My initial thought would be:

More guns per person
Was it really easier to get hold of a gun back then? I imagine he’s referring to recent gun laws, but it’s non-specific.

Assault weapons like AR15s were briefly banned. From Wiki:

"The ten-year ban was passed by the U.S. Congress on September 13, 1994, following a close 52–48 vote in the Senate, and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment, and it expired on September 13, 2004, in accordance with its sunset provision.
Several constitutional challenges were filed against provisions of the ban, but all were rejected by reviewing courts. There were multiple attempts to renew the ban, but none succeeded."

Active Shooter events have become more frequent, and in the last few years, MUCH more deadly, with 3 of the 5 most deadly incidents occurring in the last 5 months.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

 

[EvoUK]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

Oh I’m not starting a thread so you can all give me answers to respond back to them with, I am actually genuinely interested in an opposing viewpoint.

I do note that’s whenever something like this happens they say not to introduce new laws, as current ones aren’t being enforced- but then don’t seem to bothered about making sure they are enforced.


But these mass shootings do seem to be increasing in frequency, and so I’m thinking there’s must be some reason for that- the fascination with guns in the US isn’t new, nor is the deeply ingrained Wild West, one good guy with a gun against the world viewpoint in the culture either.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

You realize there weren't background checks back then? It was easier to get a gun then than now.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

You realize there weren't background checks back then? It was easier to get a gun then than now.

Fair point. The process back then was easier, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion given by the right wingers the OP was talking to that the incidence of mass shootings is unrelated to gun ownership because the per capita ownership of guns has increased significantly despite those regulations. It's really simple for any crazy person to get a gun (as can be seen from the constant stream of "surprised" reports about how something fell apart prior to the incident after each and every incident) and turn what would be a series of pissy tweets in a first world country into a stack of bodies in the US.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

Oh I’m not starting a thread so you can all give me answers to respond back to them with, I am actually genuinely interested in an opposing viewpoint.

I do note that’s whenever something like this happens they say not to introduce new laws, as current ones aren’t being enforced- but then don’t seem to bothered about making sure they are enforced.


But these mass shootings do seem to be increasing in frequency, and so I’m thinking there’s must be some reason for that- the fascination with guns in the US isn’t new, nor is the deeply ingrained Wild West, one good guy with a gun against the world viewpoint in the culture either.

I think a lot of it is due to the echo chamber that country has become. If somebody is sitting at home watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh, it's not the same experience as you would have getting information from the BBC and Sky. They are constantly fed a non-ending stream of how they are about to die and everything is terrible and they should be furious about it and they need to stay tuned after this word from our sponsors to hear more about how the liberals are smuggling terrorist pedophiles into their backyards.

It is profitable to constantly whip people into a frenzy and there's not any kind of trouble for the outliers who take that too far to be able to start firing into a crowd in response.

 

[TSwizzle]

But these mass shootings do seem to be increasing in frequency, and so I’m thinking there’s must be some reason for that-

I don't know for sure if they are increasing in frequency, but it's possible. There are probably quite a few contributing factors that makes a person carry out something like this. I would say the number one contributing factor in most of these shootings is mental health issues. Combine that with bullying and other stressful factors and the person becomes unstable and the rage manifests itself in a shooting rampage against perceived enemies. I also think social media is a contributing factor to this.

 

[bilby]

But these mass shootings do seem to be increasing in frequency, and so I’m thinking there’s must be some reason for that-

I don't know for sure if they are increasing in frequency, but it's possible. There are probably quite a few contributing factors that makes a person carry out something like this. I would say the number one contributing factor in most of these shootings is mental health issues. Combine that with bullying and other stressful factors and the person becomes unstable and the rage manifests itself in a shooting rampage against perceived enemies. I also think social media is a contributing factor to this.

Except that mental health statistics are not correlated with shooting statistics. Whether you take a county by county, state by state, or an international perspective, the one factor that consistently correlates with numbers of shootings, is number of guns per capita.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.amp.html

 

[RavenSky]

For his 2016 book “Rampage Nation,” Klarevas collected data on every gun massacre — which he defines as six or more people shot and killed — for the 50 years before 2016. His aim was to see whether there was any change in the number of gun massacres while the 10-year federal ban on assault weapons was in place.

Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-violence-experts-say/?utm_term=.c7b99db74b9f

 

[Tigers!]

According to a quick wiki search, there are now more than twice as many guns per capita in the US than there were in 1968, which would indicate that it's significantly easier to get one now than it was then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

It may be that there are more regulations now than there used to be, but if that's offset by price drops, round about ways to avoid the regulations and aggressive marketing about how all the colored folk and turrists are going to break into your mobile home and steal your food stamps, combined with a large number of those regulations just being completely ignored, then that increase in regulations doesn't do the things that the right wingers are claiming they do.

That's a common occurrence, seeing as how right wing viewpoints tend to be relatively divorced from reality. I'd say respond to them with facts, but I fail to see the use of such a strategy.

Thay list does throw up some surprising results
102 Afghanistan 4.6 Really expect me to accept that Afghanistan has only 4.6 guns/100 residents?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's the numbers from first world countries where the lists would have a measure of accuracy which are important.

 

[Hermit]

Yes, mass shootings have been increasing in frequency.

In the 50 years before the Texas tower shooting, there were just 25 public mass shootings in which four or more people were killed, according to author and criminologist Grant Duwe.

The Texas tower shooting took place in 1966. Between then and now there were another 150 shootings in which four or more people were killed by a lone shooter (two shooters in a few cases). (Link)

Finding a valid correlation between the number of privately owned guns and mass shootings is not straightforward. While the number of privately owned guns has grown over the past several decades to the point where it has reached parity with the number of people who live in the US, the percentage of households with guns has actually dropped. This would indicate that on a pro rata basis fewer people own guns now than in the 1960s, but those people would own more of them each now than then.


(Link)

Either way, the argument that making it more difficult to legally obtain a gun causes more murder and mayhem holds no water, especially in light of the following figures: Of the 292 guns used in the 150 mass shootings since the Texas tower incident at least 167 (57.2%) of mass shooters’ weapons were obtained legally and 49 (16.8%) were obtained illegally. It’s unclear how 76 (26%) weapons were acquired. (Link)

 

[SimpleDon]

Ok, I have said this before, I grew up in those backward years of the 50s and 60s, when firearms were actually much easier to get. I owned many myself as a teenager (including military semi-auto rifles). And though you had the occasional mass shooting they were nothing compared to what we have seen in the last 25 years. So what is going on? What are your thoughts about the underlying cause(s) of these events?

Ok, naturally I’m not American, so the whole concept of this issue is slightly beyond me. However I was wondering if the above statement & following question was correct? Did it used to be easier to purchase a gun in the 50s & 60s? If so why have the number of shootings gone up do we think if it’s suposedly harder now?

Naturally their answer was the ‘breakup of the nuclear family & lack of discipline in schools’, however I’m actually interested in the proper answer- or at least an alternative take on it, rather than just some grumpy old men who miss the early 60’s.

Yes, it was easier to buy guns in the 50's and 60's. You could order a rifle out of the Sears catalog, as Lee Harvey Oswald did to assassinate John Kennedy. (He ordered it from Montgomery Wards but they have been out of business for so long that I didn't think that anyone here would know what I was talking about.)

The first attempts to control guns were in a reaction to the Kennedy assassination. And the first reactionary response to gun control was to these early attempts and the conversion of the NRA into a protector of the rights of the gun manufacturers to sell as many guns as possible to anyone who had enough money to buy them.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The radio news mentioned a vigil being held for victims of the school shooting. I realize that they identified the shooting to mean 'the recent one' not to be confused with some anniversary memorial service of some sort. But what the woman said was 'this week's shooting.'

Struck me how we used to know the names of the schools, like we used to easily keep track of the names of the destructive hurricanes, they're coming, and going to come, just so frequently that we'll have a better chance of organizing them by date. This week's shooting, that month's shootings, the shootings of later 2018, early 2019...

Fuck...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But these mass shootings do seem to be increasing in frequency, and so I’m thinking there’s must be some reason for that-

I don't know for sure if they are increasing in frequency, but it's possible. There are probably quite a few contributing factors that makes a person carry out something like this. I would say the number one contributing factor in most of these shootings is mental health issues. Combine that with bullying and other stressful factors and the person becomes unstable and the rage manifests itself in a shooting rampage against perceived enemies. I also think social media is a contributing factor to this.

Except that mental health statistics are not correlated with shooting statistics. Whether you take a county by county, state by state, or an international perspective, the one factor that consistently correlates with numbers of shootings, is number of guns per capita.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.amp.html

Break it down more. In the US shootings are inversely associated with the number of guns per capita.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, mass shootings have been increasing in frequency.

In the 50 years before the Texas tower shooting, there were just 25 public mass shootings in which four or more people were killed, according to author and criminologist Grant Duwe.

The Texas tower shooting took place in 1966. Between then and now there were another 150 shootings in which four or more people were killed by a lone shooter (two shooters in a few cases). (Link)

Finding a valid correlation between the number of privately owned guns and mass shootings is not straightforward. While the number of privately owned guns has grown over the past several decades to the point where it has reached parity with the number of people who live in the US, the percentage of households with guns has actually dropped. This would indicate that on a pro rata basis fewer people own guns now than in the 1960s, but those people would own more of them each now than then.

View attachment 14570
(Link)

Either way, the argument that making it more difficult to legally obtain a gun causes more murder and mayhem holds no water, especially in light of the following figures: Of the 292 guns used in the 150 mass shootings since the Texas tower incident at least 167 (57.2%) of mass shooters’ weapons were obtained legally and 49 (16.8%) were obtained illegally. It’s unclear how 76 (26%) weapons were acquired. (Link)

And note that I would expect the odds of a gun in the home to have declined--household sizes have declined. Shooter married to a non-shooter, both will report a gun in the home. Single shooter, single non-shooter, only 50% of homes report a gun.

 

[RavenSky]

Here is a decent timeline of gun control laws in the United States. It shows how (purposely) misleading is the claim that pre-1994 we didn't have gun control OR mass shootings.

In fact, one of the earliest gun control laws was enacted BECAUSE of mass shootings:

The [National Firearms Act] was originally enacted in 1934... While the NFA was enacted by Congress as an exercise of its authority to tax, the NFA had an underlying purpose unrelated to revenue collection. As the legislative history of the law discloses, its underlying purpose was to curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in NFA firearms. Congress found these firearms to pose a significant crime problem because of their frequent use in crime, particularly the gangland crimes of that era such as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Other gun control laws have been enacted because of racism:

1865 - In a reaction to emancipation, several southern states adopt "black codes" which, among other things, forbid black persons from possessing firearms.

Many point to laws passed in the turbulent 1960s, when Black nationalist groups took up arms to defend their communities, as examples of racist implementation.

The leftist Black Panther Party (BPP), whose members carried weapons to guard against police brutality, "invaded" the California capitol building in Sacramento in 1967.

California's then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act shortly after that, prohibiting open carry of weapons in public places.

The following year would see the passing of the Gun Control Act of 1968, signed by then-President Richard Nixon. That law banned "Saturday Night Specials", cheaply-made handguns associated with crime in minority communities, as well as barring felons, the mentally ill and others from owning firearms.

Both of these laws were passed by Republicans and supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the most powerful anti-regulation gun lobby group in the US.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/10/gun-control-racist-present-171006135904199.html

Then the NRA changed tactics during the 1970's. Now they are all guns (for white men) all the time.

I am 100% certain that if the majority of these mass murderers were black instead of white, the NRA and the Republicans would be the groups screaming the loudest for gun control... just like they were pre-1970's.

I think this graph tells the story quite well. NRA changes tactics in the mid-1970's and look what happens to mass shooting rates in the workplace, schools and religious killings.

 

[Hermit]

In the US shootings are inversely associated with the number of guns per capita.

Source?