Apropos of recent tragic events in Charleston and the President’s comments, Obama
[quoted]
(Charleston church shooting: Suspected gunman arrested - BBC News) as saying “we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries”.
Here in the UK we’ve had a number of similar incidents involving a gunman going on a murderous rampage, most recently up in my neck of the woods where a madman went on a murder spree with a shotgun - legally owned.
But it does happen more frequently in the US, he’s right about that - there are even PSAs from Sheriff departments on what to do. Is it something you think of often?
On the poll by way of comparison I’ve used the metric of concern about being in a car accident as ‘5’, ‘10’ as maximum fear that it’s imminent and ‘0’ as absolutely no concern whatsoever. To be clear, I’m talking about being shot by some maniac for no reason while they are on a rampage, not being shot in a botched robbery or something.
I was just talking with some coworkers at lunch about why I hate the city. I don’t fear spree killers in particular so much as any situation where I could not flee. This started a couple years back, when I was in a high rise building and a fire alarm went off. I think we spent about 15 minutes waiting in the stairwell to get out of the building, and that was when I truly realized how dangerous tightly packed areas can be. I hate public transportation, particularly the subway, because if there was a bomb or something it would be so hard to escape. For a while, I worked in an office suite with only one exit, and I found it incredibly dangerous not only in case of an office shooting, but even in case of something like a kitchen or electrical fire.
Which I guess is my odd way of saying that I’m afraid of spree killers only in situations where I don’t think I would have a reliable escape route.
I was wavering between putting 2 and 3. I do really want gun control laws to be increased like they have been in other countries. I don’t need them to be banned, but I’d like more checks and restrictions.
But it’s not like facing a spree killer is an everyday fear I have when going about my day. I’m much more worried about car crashes, or infrastructure failing, or assault, or any number of other things. It’s more like my fear of getting struck by lightening, it’s something scary and I don’t want it to happen, but I know that statistically it’s unlikely to happen to me.
I’m the person that will have left the scene a half-hour before the event. Or arrive a half-hour later. Excitement, good or bad, just avoids me for whatever reason.
I voted 1 because it is a possibility, plus there was the whole Beltway Sniper fiasco of 2002 in this general area (altho I wasn’t living here at the time, I did visit during that period.) It’s not something I think about for the most part, but when something makes the news, it makes me realize that there are a lot of crazies out there and who knows how many I’m near on any given day?
Well lets see…
Using the data here we see the most recent data showing 1.11 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled per year. Between driving and riding, a high-ball estimate would say I drive 10 kMiles per year. That puts me at a .01% chance of dying in a car accident in any given year. So that’s a 5 on your scale.
I’m going to assume a 10 is a 100% certainty of death, 0 is 0% , and that your rating system is on an logarithmic scale. Regressing the three data points I have, I get an equation where 0_TO_10_FEAR_OF_DEATH = 0.3178ln(PROBABILITY_OF_DEATH_PER_YEAR) + 9.1359
A high number of people killed in US mass shootings per year would be 50. Since I don’t have any data showing how my lifestyle would raise/lower my probability of being killed in a mass shooting, I can only assume my odds of being killed in a mass shooting are 50/US_POP, or .0000157%.
Plugging that into my equation, I get 4.16. Since round numbers are nice, my answer will be 4.
Maybe a 1 or a little less. And more aware than fear. I haven’t changed my behavior because I could be the victim of a spree (avoided crowds and targets like church or political rallies) and I haven’t done anything to prepare if it would happen. It is like getting run over by a cement truck while sitting in my living room; so unlikely that it just barely occupies any attention at all.
One of my childhood friends was killed in Aurora. Despite that, my concern about encountering a similar situation is about a 1. If it happens near my car I do reserve the option to throw some lead back.
I could probably answer 0 if I limited the answer just to the legal definition of “spree” killers, which needs a certain number of kills in a certain period of time.
However, I went ahead and answered 2, based on a more general fear of being killed or injured by a crazy person for virtually no reason. That way, I include serial killers and spree attempted murderers (i.e. those who only injure a bunch of people).
That fear is small enough that I don’t take any precautions for it. (At least no precautions that aren’t dictated by bigger fears. I lock my doors more because of burglars than random killers, but it is a step to deter both of them.)
A spree killing is statistically almost impossible to happen while I’m there, it would be like winning a shitty lottery, so 0. However I have been involved in a road rage incident or two so I can accept that I could be shot by some crazy enraged motorist, However unlikely, the possibility does exist. I keep a gun in my car in a safe but accessible place but it’s there more in the event that I would have to protect my family in some random act of road rage or attempted carjacking or something.
I’m a 0. I feel like you with car crashes: these things happen, but so rarely and so spread apart that it’s not even on the radar. It’s a big country. Hardly anything of note happens near me
I said 1, mostly because I work for the US Government and we get annual training, along with a ‘guide’ on what to do in case of an active shooter in our building (for the record, first option is to get the hell out, if that is not possible, get behind a locked door, turn out the lights and hide, or if directly confronted by the shooter, either try to negotiate/fight).
Not something I give a lot of thought too on a daily basis, but I do know where the nearest 3 exits and my bolthole are.
My stats are similar with regard to driving or riding in a car; however as a pedestrian I regularly have close encounters in which I am almost hit by a car. If you factor in those incidents, and the enormous number of distracted drivers in this city, my fear of car accidents goes up considerably. It’s still much higher than my fear of spree killers, which only exists because I work in a highrise office building with a large number of disgruntled employees.
OTOH, I just got into a heated discussion with some women regarding a 15-year old flying alone on an airplane (with adults assisting at both ends of the flight). When I said that I had flown to Paris by myself when I was 15, they said that it’s much more dangerous now. Pointing out that crime was much higher in the 1970’s when I was 15 had absolutely no impact. People have very little ability to judge risk.
