Mass shootings have killed more in U.S. than terrorist attacks

[MADem]

http://mashable.com/2015/10/02/shooting-deaths-v-terrorist-attacks/#PdSweJyS5Oqq

As President Barack Obama angrily addressed the nation about the Umpqua Community College tragedy—the 11th time he's spoken about a mass shooting — he made a pointed statement about the need to politicize the event to affect change and the limited power of prayer.

"I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough," he said tensely. "It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple of months from now."

Obama also called on reporters to show how many more people have died from gun violence than from terrorist attacks. Thousands more have died from gun violence. Even the high death toll from 9/11 does not break this trend.

Posted in GD because of this caveat to the normal NO GUNS rule:

<sup>GUNS
News stories (and related content) from reputable mainstream sources about efforts to strengthen or weaken gun control legislation in any jurisdiction in the United States, national news stories (and related content) from reputable mainstream sources about high-profile gun crimes, and viral political content from social media or blogs that would likely be of interest to a large majority of DU members are permitted under normal circumstances.

Local stories about gun crime and "gun porn" threads showing pictures of guns or discussing the merits of various firearms are not permitted under normal circumstances and should be posted in the Gun Control and RKBA Group.

Open discussion of guns is permitted during very high-profile news events which are heavily covered across all newsmedia.</sup>

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. This cannot be repeated often enough.

[MADem]

2. I agree--it's past time we did something about this. nt

[Midnight Writer]

6. This is a lie and should not be repeated at all

Look at the damn charts. It excludes 9/11 and OKC.

Would it be OK for the conservatives to exclude any mass shooting of over five people to prove their point.

This kind of BS just damages the credibility of the liberal argument, and I wonder if that is why it was posted. As a tool to see how many DU'ers buy into it.

[MADem]

12. No it doesn't. Why don't YOU look at the "damn charts!"

SEE what they are trying to illustrate. LOOK at the trend.


See that light pink TOWER with 3K with O1 underneath it? That's Nahn Wun Wun. See that huge rectangle of light pink over 95? That's Oklahoma.

Sheesh. Just because the chart notes what the numbers would look like "IF" those two massive one-offs were eliminated them from the mix does not mean they eliminated them from the mix in the illustration. They are depicted in the charts, and the trend is still apparent. If they wanted to "hide" them from you they wouldn't have come right out and made note of those figures and given you a reference point had they eliminated that which happened on two days out of twenty years.

The chart gives you a snapshot over time. Compare the light to the dark--that's the point.

Then try reading the text, too....

[Midnight Writer]

14. That's like saying Obama would not be President if you threw out the votes of CA, NY and IL

You cannot just "throw out" damnable data and make a valid point.

You cannot say that because most smokers DON'T get cancer that smoking is not a causal agent of cancer. It is a lie.

[MADem]

15. No, it's not--the data is NOT excluded from the illustration.

They make VERY clear the conditional nature of the comment about OK and 911. You are the one trying to "pretend" that they aren't including those two freakish events.

Look at the chart--and look at the TREND.

Or don't. Be obtuse.

[Midnight Writer]

16. "Mass shootings have killed more in US than terrorist attacks"

That is the exact heading. It is not true and that is clearly illustrated from the chart and numbers.

[MADem]

17. The people who prepared the charts didn't write the headline, and the term "more" is unclear.

More people? More times?

And in the body of the piece, there's this:

Obama also called on reporters to show how many more people have died from gun violence than from terrorist attacks. Thousands more have died from gun violence. Even the high death toll from 9/11 does not break this trend.

They would have done well to include a graph of "ordinary" shootings to go along with these, then the numbers would be OFF the charts.

The material is fairly clear. Don't act like they're showing you a circle and claiming it is a square.

[Midnight Writer]

24. OK. Thank you for posting the informative charts

It is the headline that gives me a head ache. As you pointed out, the trends shown are illuminating.

I monitor conservative media on a fairly regular basis, and it is a major bugaboo of mine that they list facts and claim it shows something that it does not. I hate when "my side" does something similar.

Fox News is notorious for misleading charts, and I just saw Congressman Jason Chaffetz try to ambush Cecille Richards of Planned Parenthood the other day with a chart that clearly ignored the data to skew the facts. Likewise, Bill O'Reilly dismissed gun control arguments by showing statistics of Chicago shootings, and there is Jim Imhoffe throwing a snowball out to prove that because there is snow in December that climate change is a hoax.

Facts are a powerful tool, but too often an erroneous conclusion is reached if they are not carefully scrutinized.

I am not trying to insult your efforts, and I have no problem with the charts themselves, it is the headline and the to me inexplicable exclusion of relevant data that lit me up.

My apologies. I hope that we have both been able to make our points clear.

[MADem]

26. I think we're rowing for the same basic crew...we're good!

That Planned Parenthood chart was hilarious! X marks the spot!

[petronius]

3. That's a pretty low bar - if we exclude 9/11 and OKC, pretty much everything that kills

people has killed more people than terrorism in the US over the past two decades. Bees, lightning, and dogs have each probably killed more Americans in that time frame than either mass shootings or terrorism (with the two exclusions).

Humans are really bad at the statistics of risk...

[Midnight Writer]

5. Right. Exclude 9/11 and OKC? What the hell?

This is the kind of obvious bullshit that degrades the conversation. It just gives the conservatives a chance to point out that the liberal side is lying and hysterical, which this post is.

Like the apocryphal interview with Mary Lincoln: "Other than that, how was the play?"

[MADem]

13. They aren't excluded from the illustration, though.

They are in there--read the trend.

They note what the numbers would look like if two freakishly large events that happened on two days out of twenty years were removed--but they don't remove them from the illustrations.

The trend is heading in the wrong direction--all you have to do is look at the last ten years to see that.

[petronius]

18. Perhaps my point would be clearer if I ask this: is death by terrorism

something that we should be particularly frightened of?

What I'm saying is that it's a somewhat goofy comparison. We have collectively shit ourselves over terrorism, when in fact the individual risk is vanishingly small. The authors you cite want to illustrate the severity of mass shootings, and they choose to do so by comparing it to terrorism. But to make the numbers work, they omit the one terrorist event that most people think of when they think of terrorism; the one we (the collective American we) are really scared of. And they ignore the fact that most all other causes of death dwarf terrorism and mass shootings - but none of us walk around in fear of lightning for example (or, as Recursion points out, the much more relevant amount of garden variety violence).

The point I was making? We're really bad at statistics, and it affects our decision making and risk assessment...

[MADem]

20. I think that we should be sick and tired of, as one DUer called it,

more than three Nine One Ones a year--and that is how many people are getting gunned down (on top of the illustrated violence) in the land of the free.

[pipoman]

4. What hasn't killed more people in the United States than terrorist attacks?

[Recursion]

7. And both are absolutely dwarfed by "ordinary" shootings (nt)

[MADem]

9. It's complete lunacy. I'm sick of it. nt

[Midnight Writer]

10. Absolutely. 30,000 a year killed by guns vs. 3,000 killed on 9/11

That is a valid and shocking point that reveals the true situation.

It is true that many of the mass shootings would not be prevented by stronger gun laws, such as universal background checks, since many mass shooters have no official record of crime or mental illness. But many of the "ordinary" shootings could be.

Despite common belief as revealed in various polls, we do not have universal background checks. There are person to person transfers, and the gun show loophole which account for about 40 % of gun transfers. And 88% of folks agree that there should be universal background checks.

[Recursion]

11. Even sticking just with homicides it's 10K a year

That's a 9/11 every four months.

[MADem]

21. Pity more people didn't see it that way--maybe they'd get a clue. nt

[Recursion]

23. Americans are really really bad at assessing risks

Several thousand families said after 9/11 they were afraid of terrorism... and so drove for their vacations.

[MADem]

27. Ahhh....but you mistake what they were fearing! They were RIGHT to drive!!!

They didn't want their luggage tossed, their personal items trashed, or to be groped, irradiated, and negative-nekkid-photographed by those grabby pervs at TSA!!!

[Recursion]

29. Ha! Fair enough

Though remember they're talking about adding TSA screenings to weigh stations now

[oasis]

19. K and r. Many thanks for this.

[MADem]

22. Anytime--we need a national conversation on this subject.

I hate to say it, but some GOP bigwig's kid will probably have to find themselves in a shootout before those bums will do anything save pooh-pooh the issue of gun violence.

[Nye Bevan]

25. "When excluding 9/11 and Oklahoma City".......

You know, Hitler wasn't such a bad guy if you exclude the Holocaust and World War 2.

[MADem]

28. The charts don't exclude them. The purpose of that sentence was to provide the context

of what the statistics would reflect if we removed those two DAYS from the last 20 years.

The fact that the sentence was conditional makes it clear that they were not 'excluded.'

The numbers that constitute those two days ARE included in both charts.

Further, neither the Holocaust nor WW2 were one day out of twenty YEARS.