In many respects it is. on many different levels . These types of incidents are clearly occurring at increasing frequency.
Or, just being reported with greater regularity.
Actually, no. Not if you look at the number of murders that take place compared to the total population.
I did a quick comparison using Excel and data I gleaned from the United States crime rates from 1960 to 2006. I would have liked to be able to go further back, but this is the best I could come up w/ short notice.
I took the number representing the # of murders in one year / total population for that year.
The year with the highest umber of murders as a % of the total population was 1980 coming in at 0.010224%
The year with the least amount was 1963 with 0.004584%
The last 10 years are as follows:
1997 - 0.006803%
1998 - 0.006258%
1999 - 0.005692%
2000 - 0.005538%
2001 - 0.005621%
2002 - 0.005636%
2003 - 0.005686%
2004 - 0.005499%
2005 - 0.005646%
2006 - 0.005689%
These percentages are much lower than 1970”s & 80”s
Not to be a pain in the butt, but 24 hour news has brought events that we would not have heard about 20 years ago on a 1 hour news program into our homes. Things aren’t getting worse, there’s just more airtime to fill.