MASS SHOOTING THREAD - Society has reached somekind of inflection point

[mbasic]

And for a more selfish reason, the gun violence happening in these impoverished communities, while tragic and needing to be addressed, has a much lower likelihood of affecting me than somebody shooting up my grocery store.

Closely related to the phenomenon that plane crashes get more attention than car crashes. Car crashes kill way more people but we all tend to think "yeah but I'm a Good Driver" - whereas the factors that cause a plane crash are entirely out of your control.

I don't live in an "impoverished community" at all... but maybe in a 30 mile radius there is quite a bit of that.

I think its much more likely (like, "a million times") that myself, wife, and/or kids or more likely to be shot up/at from common criminals, gangs, road rage, someone's angry drunk boyfriend (wrong place wrong time), police interactions with those situations, etc .... than to be involved/near a "typical" lone wolf mass shooting scenario (school shooting, disgruntled post-office worker, person shooting up a synagogue, e.g. guy with an 'agenda', etc)

[mikeylikey]

I think its much more likely (like, "a million times")

I mean, it's objectively not a million times more likely. It's on the order of 30 times. The statistics in this thread seem to be pretty well accepted.

that myself, wife, and/or kids or more likely to be shot up/at from common criminals, gangs, road rage, someone's angry drunk boyfriend (wrong place wrong time), police interactions with those situations, etc .... than to be involved/near a "typical" lone wolf mass shooting scenario (school shooting, disgruntled post-office worker, person shooting up a synagogue, e.g. guy with an 'agenda', etc)

Your own choices are a substantial if not the overwhelming contributor to the likelihood you will be shot at by a gang or road raging driver. You can personally behave in ways that will dramatically limit your exposure to these kinds of risks.

Getting shot by a psychopath at the movies is basically pure random chance. The individual probably cannot mitigate this kind of risk by making good choices.

Everything in life has risks. It is not automatically irrational for societal/public policy type discussions to weight the latter type of risk more heavily than the former, even if the latter has a lower absolute occurrence rate.

Which is to say that to a certain point, it is reasonable to give school/mall/etc shootings a degree of attention that is disproportionately greater than their percentage of overall murders.

In my estimation our society and media have gone well past that reasonable point, to say nothing of the efficacy of the commonly proposed 'solutions' like banning certain colors of guns. But my point stands that statistics are not everything.

[dw]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

[SSJBartSimpson]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Not claiming that someone who is a victim of gang violence is at fault. I'm saying that I live in an affluent community and thus I'm highly unlikely to be one of those victims.

[dw]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Not claiming that someone who is a victim of gang violence is at fault. I'm saying that I live in an affluent community and thus and highly unlikely to be one of those victims.

I was actually referring to mikelikey's post above mine. I think it's perfectly normal and frankly healthy not to care as much about things that are remote from you.

[SSJBartSimpson]

Ah yeah I gotcha.
I think a lot of us probably agree that both issues deserve attention, and I don't think I'm a drooling moron for not ranking the issues the right way.

[Philbert]

The fact that it was a school of that narrow age group kind of leans one's thinking towards the idea that this former student of that school may have suffered some form of abuse there - I would be unsurprised to find it that there was sexual abuse. I have nothing to back that up, just my gut telling me that, and I hope that I am wrong either way.

It is a reasonable possibility. The other possibility is that the shooter carried a profound hatred for religious people, especially in that school, due to having found himself a serious misfit there while having minimal outside social interaction as a child. Some adults from this type of background feel that they were deprived of their childhood, and feel they would have been better off dead. I do think this underscores the importance of better mental health care for transgendered individuals in particular, rather than assuming living as their felt gender will make everything better.

[Philbert]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Statistics for Baltimore homicides for 2019 show 82% with a criminal record, with an average of 11 prior arrests. I expect the shot but not killed group includes a larger number of innocent bystanders. It was surprisingly hard to find these numbers. Obviously the majority of those arrests are not for major crimes against persons, and some of them are undoubtedly false arrests. 18% of a very large number is still a large number.

[5hout]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Statistics for Baltimore homicides for 2019 show 82% with a criminal record, with an average of 11 prior arrests. I expect the shot but not killed group includes a larger number of innocent bystanders. It was surprisingly hard to find these numbers. Obviously the majority of those arrests are not for major crimes against persons, and some of them are undoubtedly false arrests. 18% of a very large number is still a large number.

https://heyjackass.com/

Detailed shot/shot+killed/location data for shootings in Chi-Town. EDIT: That is the name of the site, it's not a comment on anyone in this discussion.

[Hardartery]

The fact that it was a school of that narrow age group kind of leans one's thinking towards the idea that this former student of that school may have suffered some form of abuse there - I would be unsurprised to find it that there was sexual abuse. I have nothing to back that up, just my gut telling me that, and I hope that I am wrong either way.

It is a reasonable possibility. The other possibility is that the shooter carried a profound hatred for religious people, especially in that school, due to having found himself a serious misfit there while having minimal outside social interaction as a child. Some adults from this type of background feel that they were deprived of their childhood, and feel they would have been better off dead. I do think this underscores the importance of better mental health care for transgendered individuals in particular, rather than assuming living as their felt gender will make everything better.

I think that Western society as a whole is a little too anxious to embrace transitioning to the detriment of the people trying to transition. Some people are just confused or messed up by life events and really need some counselling and mental help first, rather than just as a support to the transitioning. Some of them change their mind because they were trying the wrong solution for their problem. It's a big decision to get wrong or rush into.

[mikeylikey]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

A) This affirms the consequent. Don't do that. That is not what I said, and,
B) I try not to draw conclusions about reality by extrapolating what I see on TV shows.

[dw]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

A) This affirms the consequent. Don't do that. That is not what I said, and,
B) I try not to draw conclusions about reality by extrapolating what I see on TV shows.

A) I was a bit loose with my wording but it seems to me the general inference I drew from your statement was correct: "your own choices are a substantial if not the overwhelming contributor to the likelihood you will be shot at by a gang or road raging driver".

Where did I go wrong? I didn't follow the preceding context if that matters.

B) Why not? Does your position extend to books as well?


ETA - I guess wrt A) your point is that people with a high likelihood of getting shot in general have put themselves in that situation. This seems true and probably relevant to the thread but as written doesn't account for the very large numbers of people with a small but not vanishingly small chance of getting shot for other reasons.

[mikeylikey]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

A) This affirms the consequent. Don't do that. That is not what I said, and,
B) I try not to draw conclusions about reality by extrapolating what I see on TV shows.

A) I was a bit loose with my wording but it seems to me the general inference I drew from your statement was correct: "your own choices are a substantial if not the overwhelming contributor to the likelihood you will be shot at by a gang or road raging driver".

Where did I go wrong? I didn't follow the preceding context if that matters.

Context is probably part of it; i was paraphrasing mbasic who listed a larger cateogry of crimes including road rage, gangs, police interactions, jealous boyfriends etc.

I stand by the notion that most of the time most people have choices available that pretty well minimize the risk of getting shot in the above category of circumstances. And context again, this was expressed specifically in contrast to the randomness of being shot by a crazy madman who just hates cans. It's not all or nothing. But like, if you wake up in the morning and think "I think I'd like to definitely not be killed in a road rage incident today" the algorithm that pretty much guarantees that outcome is not particularly mysterious.

I believe my sentiment above can peacefully coexist with the fact that some non-trivial fraction of victims of gang violence and violence in general are innocent bystanders or otherwise trapped in a bad situation with no good options.

B) Why not? Does your position extend to books as well?

It is my experience that True Crime TV features lots of sympathetic victims because this is more compelling TV and will sell more ads. Which is fine. If a TV show claimed to present a true representative sample of the victims of gang violence, and demonstrated some kind of rigor in getting there, that would be one thing. Most shows make no such claim nor are they obligated to demonstrate that level of rigor. This is fine and I don't begrudge and entertainment medium for being entertaining first and informative second, later, maybe.

WRT books it would depend on the book obviously. But, same question - what's the claim, how is it backed up?

[aurelius]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Regarding 'gang' or criminal organizations. It is highly unlikely for the general population to be victims of violence from these groups unless:

--one lives in or near the geographic location of the organized criminal activity.
--one is involved in the criminal activity (example: producing, transporting, selling, and/or buying of illegal drugs)

I believe the map someone showed of Chicago is a classic example of how inner city violence is concentrated. The map shows the violence contained to essentially two districts. Despite Chicago being the murder capital of the US, it is still a destination spot and desirable area to live. Outside of those two districts it is safe place.

One can quibble if it is a 'choice' to live in these areas given the issue of poverty. It is certainly a choice to be involved in the criminal activity.

[dw]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Regarding 'gang' or criminal organizations. It is highly unlikely for the general population to be victims of violence from these groups unless:

--one lives in or near the geographic location of the organized criminal activity.
--one is involved in the criminal activity (example: producing, transporting, selling, and/or buying of illegal drugs)

I believe the map someone showed of Chicago is a classic example of how inner city violence is concentrated. The map shows the violence contained to essentially two districts. Despite Chicago being the murder capital of the US, it is still a destination spot and desirable area to live. Outside of those two districts it is safe place.

One can quibble if it is a 'choice' to live in these areas given the issue of poverty. It is certainly a choice to be involved in the criminal activity.

Yes obviously. This does not refute anything I said or implied. Why do progressives treat concern with violent crime as if it is some kind of fear mongering? You can care about excessively large numbers of your fellow citizens being murdered without fearing you will be one of them.

And of course it's not a choice in any meaningful sense to live in these areas, particularly since we're mostly talking about broke teenagers and young men, but even if we weren't it's perfectly normal to continue to live in the place you grew up in.

To @mikeylikey I don't think this is an accurate depiction of how the First 48 works. They embed a cameraman and just work with what they get. Reality TV is not profitable enough for them to have multiple crews covering more stories than they use. (Though of course there are editorial decisions).

Consistent with this the vast majority of the cases are black and Hispanic people in poor neighborhoods or homeless, very often gang members or somehow affiliated. I think the show is a quite representative of the homicide demographics in the neighborhoods it covers.

[Philbert]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Statistics for Baltimore homicides for 2019 show 82% with a criminal record, with an average of 11 prior arrests. I expect the shot but not killed group includes a larger number of innocent bystanders. It was surprisingly hard to find these numbers. Obviously the majority of those arrests are not for major crimes against persons, and some of them are undoubtedly false arrests. 18% of a very large number is still a large number.

https://heyjackass.com/

Detailed shot/shot+killed/location data for shootings in Chi-Town. EDIT: That is the name of the site, it's not a comment on anyone in this discussion.

No statistics on criminal background of victims that I could see there.

[5hout]

You should watch The First 48 if you think victims of gang violence are generally responsible for their fates. I couldn't put a number to it but a lot of them are unintended bystanders or intended victims that happen to be related to someone who has enemies.

Statistics for Baltimore homicides for 2019 show 82% with a criminal record, with an average of 11 prior arrests. I expect the shot but not killed group includes a larger number of innocent bystanders. It was surprisingly hard to find these numbers. Obviously the majority of those arrests are not for major crimes against persons, and some of them are undoubtedly false arrests. 18% of a very large number is still a large number.

https://heyjackass.com/

Detailed shot/shot+killed/location data for shootings in Chi-Town. EDIT: That is the name of the site, it's not a comment on anyone in this discussion.

No statistics on criminal background of victims that I could see there.

https://heyjackass.com/source-data/

Sometimes it comes up for specific crimes, but if you want it mass scale you'll need a grad student and time (i.e. someone's going to have to manually go to the source data, pull victim/offender and hit the public records.).

This would be a really interesting use of a grad student, but would probably lead to instant cancellation.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

The reason for shootings in the US is simply because guns are available. That's all.

People blame a thousand things:
- poverty
- mental health issues
- violent video games
- shock rock
- violent history
- bullying in school
- organized crime
- lack of employment
- etc.
Most countries in Europe have all of those things, but no shootings. It's really not that complicated.

Now what to do about it ? Probably nothing, because the people who own America (not the politicians, who are just here for show, the big business interests who fund all the campaigns and make all the important decisions) have decided that the people should be armed because it makes them rich. That's pretty much it.

[BostonRugger]

The reason for shootings in the US is simply because guns are available. That's all.

People blame a thousand things:
- poverty
- mental health issues
- violent video games
- shock rock
- violent history
- bullying in school
- organized crime
- lack of employment
- etc.
Most countries in Europe have all of those things, but no shootings. It's really not that complicated.

Now what to do about it ? Probably nothing, because the people who own America (not the politicians, who are just here for show, the big business interests who fund all the campaigns and make all the important decisions) have decided that the people should be armed because it makes them rich. That's pretty much it.

Could you draw this out a little bit? Who is it that you think is being enriched, and how?

ETA: I ask because firearms is a $~25B market in the US. Ammo is another 25.

[mikeylikey]

The reason for shootings in the US is simply because guns are available. That's all.

In the sense that the 'reason' for car wrecks is cars and the 'reason' for obesity is food, then sure.