Forty million plus and still counting.
Posted on 12/24/2012 5:45:24 PM PST by umgud
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2011, there were 12.664 total homicides. 8,583 of those murders were committed with firearms, a number that has been trending down for years. In 2011 there were 3 mass shootings that produced 19 deaths and many more injured. The FBI defines mass murder as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders. We have had 61 mass murders in the last 30 years (since 1982). In 2012, we have had a banner year with 6 mass murder events totaling 63 deaths.
Our latest mass shooting at Sandy Hook has the nation calling for action to deal with mass murders in particular and gun crime in general. I’d like to use the above statistics to put our challenge in perspective as we wrestle with how to best deal with it.
First, I’d like to separate mass murderers from all other murderers. They specifically distinguish themselves by killing 4 or more people in a single event. In 2012, out of a population of some 313 million, 6 people chose to become mass murderers. Statistically, that is the proverbial spec on the end of the needle in a really huge hay stack.
I can’t conceive of a way to profile and predict who the next 6 shooters might be, but to this end, it gets harder. Many, if not most of these mass shooters, while both mentally defective and evil, have never been adjudicated mentally defective or have criminal histories that would prohibit them from owning firearms. This includes Adam Lanza (our latest shooter), James Holmes, the CO movie theater shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan (Ft Hood shooter), Jared Loughner (shot Gabby Giffords) and Seung-Hui Choi who killed 32 at Virginia Tech.
Regarding mass shooters, I am hard pressed to think of any meaningful or reasonable way to stop them or mitigate their actions. As horrific as their acts are, I’m not comfortable passing laws or applying actions against 313 million people in the false hope of affecting 6 madmen bent on mayhem. There are however, two constants associated with most or all these mass shootings; Gun-free zones and hi-cap magazines. Not all mass murders are at school, but these tug on our hearts the most. James Holmes chose a movie theater that banned guns too. Regarding schools, I believe that more people should have the ability to carry weapons. I won’t here, debate who that should be, but I will say a single security guard probably isn’t sufficient.
Hi-cap mags? It would make many people happy to see them banned, but reality says there are already millions in circulation and it would be decades, if ever that such a ban would have any effect. BTW, hi-cap mags can be made by almost any person with a little bit of metal working skills.
Now let’s move on to the other 8,500+ firearm homicides. I’ll be brief. We can easily drive this number down because it’s a criminal management problem and criminal management solutions are the remedy that will work here. BTW, let me say something here about hi-cap mags and so-called assault weapons. These 8,500 murders produced less than 4 deaths per shooting, probably most being one per shooting. I don’t know how many of these shooters used so-called assault weapons or hi-cap mags, but they offered no advantage here as only 3 or less people were killed per event, so a total ban on these wouldn’t change the 8,500 number one bit. We could go back to 6 shot revolvers and kill this many people. Yeah, I know some will say they are lousy shots and have to spray lots of ammo to kill just 3.
Let me sum up my positions here. BTW, my main goal isn’t to go over possible solutions. It is to put the big picture in perspective.
I hate to be a killjoy (I know, a poor choice of words), but I’m not sure we can put into place actions to stop mass murderers that will work.
As to garden variety gun crime, I’m of the opinion that most gun laws are directed at law abiding citizens as criminals don’t obey those laws anyway. Drive down any Martin Luther King Blvd and you can bet a large percentage of the people you see are carrying concealed weapons........ without permits. Gun control is kinda like trying to solve drunk driving by making it harder for sober people to own cars.
I get so angry that no one stops this. What's wrong with America.
Our moral fiber has been politicized away.
“I hate to be a killjoy (I know, a poor choice of words), but I’m not sure we can put into place actions to stop mass murderers that will work.”
That is because there isn’t one. And turning our nation into a totalitarian state in an effort to create a perfectly safe society is only asking for even greater mass murders still.
I don't think we can stop them. Tragedies; e.g., hurricanes, car accidents happen in life.
Maybe we can mitigate it some by allowing teachers to carry arms.
No.
The fact is that mass shootings in schools are a tiny fraction of a percentage. Other shootings in schools is also a pretty low number and usually confined to inner city schools.
Some Detroit schools have armed security and metal detectors and they still have a few gang shootings per year. Rather than cut down on the shootings they’ve mostly just moved to places like bus stops.
The only effective deterrent is to remove the gun free zones altogether and leave the potential threats guessing. However, nuts will always be nuts and some will always get through.
“turning our nation into a totalitarian state in an effort to create a perfectly safe society is only asking for even greater mass murders still.”
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, but certainly figures in to the 0 administration’s thinking on this, is how many folks will turn violent when the 2nd Amendment is violated as many are scheming...?
I believe it won’t be pretty...and it just may lead to Civil War II.
Yes we can, we just have to imprison everyone, a prison planet police state is a safe state.....
With a congress that refuses to enforce the laws we already have on the books and a all but open borders that invite smuggling...sure, you bet we can stop mass shootings. All we need is more laws.
Forty million plus and still counting.
Didn’t stop Jim Jones, Lizzie Borden or the deaths of 800,000 Rowandans by machette.
I could list more but why....
If we would stop electing Democrat presidents, eliminate all gun free zones, and overturn all laws that restrict concealed carry, I suspect there would be far less attempted mass shootings.
No, but we can enact policies that will mitigate the damage.
And then pit those exploding necklaces on each prisoner and pair them with another prisoner.
If one tries to escape and moves to far from the other well, it’ll be a bloody mess.
I'd like to hear some of those. I have some ideas too.
From the same FBI stats: Approximately 6,000 of these murders were with pistols. No Assault Weapons (whatever that means) ban would impact this.
More importantly, Nidal Malik Hasan (Ft Hood shooter), should not be on this list. The Fort Hood shootings were an act of war, not a criminal act.
My dad was from the WWII era and taught me early gun safety. When he was growing up during the depression, he was the one bringing home the meat for the family when he was so small, he could barely hold his fathers Browning 12 ga shotgun up to his shoulder. He was only allowed 2 shells cause the cost too much. If he missed, his father chewed him out to be more careful. I heard the story many times of my uncle shooting ducks with a .22 because the shells were cheaper.
We prayed in school and read Bible verses even if you didn't believe. We convicted our criminals and even rape was a death sentence in Texas at the time. I never knew of or ever saw any pictures of anyone burning an American flag. I rode my bicycle down to the Sears store to buy my first rifle, a 7.62 Russian mouser. I was about 11 and rode my bike with the rifle slung over my shoulder down the main street of town and nobody thought anything about it. My father taught me to shoot safely with a .22, then a shotgun( the same one he used as a child and the same his father used). and then his 6.5mm Swedish Mouser. He took me hunting and showed me how to skin and butcher meat. We also fished and had a shrimp net and he taught me boating safety and how to work on engines. I rebuilt my first Briggs and Stratton at about age 9. My first car was a '57 nash with no battery and about 3 spare tires at .50 cents each. The battery was so dead, I had to park on a incline to start it later. I was 16. Before that I had a Chushman scooter to deliver my papers and ride to school. I drove at 14.
The point is,......we have changed, and changed for the worse. Kids today are scary. They don't think like I did or any other American children did back then. When I have shown my weapons to my nephews, The first thing they do is point the weapons somewhere and pull the trigger. We end up in a fight and they don't like uncle chuckles anymore. No one has taught them ANYTHING. They are worse than idiots, it is borderline mental illness, if you ask me. They have no grasp of anything important. It's like they are 4 years old in a 15 year old body. They make fun of any car that is over 5 years old. They destroy perfectly usable items for the "fun" of it. I would have been beaten by my father if I acted as they do. The guns were over the TV and in plain sight, but I dare not even touch one without my father's say so until I was 13 or so. Today, They snoop till they find something, then act like 2 year old's till someone gets hurt.
America has lost something very dear, but it's difficult to put you finger right on it. It's the whole culture. I'm sure you can't pass one law that will fix any of it. Decades of abortion, homosexuality, and teaching that God is a myth, can't be turned around in a year.
>> Forty million plus and still counting.
50+
>> America has lost something very dear,
The Left is choking the Country. Not sure we lost it.
No exceptions for any reason.
There was a fellow interviewed on the radio soon after the shooting.
He was a guy who had basically studied these incidents for years. AFAIK, he was NOT a classical “psychologist”, just a writer/investigator.
He said that ALMOST TO A MAN, he had seen evidence (either writings the perp had done, or conversations the perp had had with others) that one of the main factors in the act was that the media would eat it up and report it night and day, endlessly.
So it was a way for these people to get their fifteen minutes of fame. An “in yur face” kind of act towards society, and they utilized the media to get their point across.
It wasn’t about killing lots of people, it was a way to get famous.
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