# Can someone explain to me the shootings in the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 13, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505 "2011-10-13T06:22:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/21 "2011-10-13T08:52:57Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The availability of guns is to civilians is not quite a pre-requisite for spree shootings, but obviously it’s a factor _cough_[Fort Hood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting)_cough_ ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/22 "2011-10-13T10:07:07Z")
[http://boston.com/community/blogs/crime\_punishment/2011/01/mass\_murder\_--\_unpredictable\_a.html](http://boston.com/community/blogs/crime_punishment/2011/01/mass_murder_--_unpredictable_a.html) According to that article 20 mass shootings a year has been the number for a long time. 307,006,550 million Americans makes that basically meaningless. But it does sell media. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/23 "2011-10-13T10:10:54Z")
I think it is a side effect of our national character. As has been noted, other countries have even high rates of gun ownership. What they don’t have is this paired with a frontier spirit and a highly individualist worldview. The European countries mentioned are more communitarian in attitude. This has good consequences, such as a high level of entrepreneurship. It also has bad consequences. America has always been a violent country and will probably be one with or without guns. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/24 "2011-10-13T10:55:58Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > This has good consequences, such as a high level of entrepreneurship Duh, and yet you dont even have your own word for it. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/25 "2011-10-13T11:10:00Z")
Of course, another factor is simple mathematics - the US has 5-6 times the population of most other Western countries, so (even if all other things were equal) you can expect 5-6 times as much of anything (from impromptu street dances to gun crime incidents). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/26 "2011-10-13T11:32:44Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > The people who don’t care about obeying the law won’t give them up, and only the law abiding people would be disarmed. This has already been demonstrated in a smaller scale in cities with very strict gun laws like Washington DC that are plagued with violent gun crime. Not really. That just demonstrates that there’s no way for a single community to do so. There’s no way for a single small region to get rid of guns when they are surrounded by a sea of them. > [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Keep in mind, also, that countries where strict gun control works - UK, Norway, Japan, etc - are far smaller and more ethnically homogenous than the US. America is an absolutely gigantic country composed of fifty states, all of completely different political and cultural character. Really, I’ve never bought that. I see no evidence that the various states of America are more different from each other than the different provinces of other countries are different from each other. I’ve always gotten the impression that foreigners generally see their own provinces as vastly different from each other, just as Americans generally see their states. And politically speaking America has a very narrow spectrum. There’s a far right and the relatively moderate right and not much else is tolerated. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/27 "2011-10-13T11:46:41Z")
And there was another one today, down in Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles. Spurned lover shot up his girlfriend’s workplace. From what I have heard in the early reports, everyone knew the guy wasn’t right in the head, so it wasn’t like they didn’t have a heads-up. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/28 "2011-10-13T11:47:01Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Wouldn’t things be a little easier if people stopped pretending a 230-year old document was handed down from Mount Olympus rather than something written by people to suit its specific time and circumstances: Grow the fuck up and behave like intelligent, responsible adults rather than a John Wayne metaphor. Whatever valid point you had to make was blunted by your unnecessary hostility. The United States has had a stable and continuous form of government that has lasted for 224 years. (Okay, there was a minor hiccup in the 1860s.) Read the Bill of Rights and tell me none of it is relevant today because it was written more than two centuries ago. In truth, the U.S. Constitution is a living document that is reinterpreted and amended on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/29 "2011-10-13T12:22:29Z")
SenorBeef has a point. Anyone who depends on the news for their views are going to have distorted view of reality. The news will cover the one plane that crashed rather than the million that arrived safely at their destination. News, by it’s nature covers the unusual, not the commonplace. Also their seems to be some obsession with the instruments of violence rather than the violence itself. A more valid view is to view homicide rates as a whole. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_homicide\_rate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate) The homicide rate in the U.S. is around 4.8/100000. For the Americas is general it is 15.5/100000. Now for Europe in general, the rate is 3.5/100000, which is quite a bit lower than the U.S., but the rate among Americans of European descent, is around 2.4/100000 which is lower still. In spite of access to firearms, people of European descent living in the U.S. don’t seem to be more homicidal than people still living in European. It seems to me that this indicates that the violence itself that is the problem rather than the tools people choose to use to act on their violent impulses. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/30 "2011-10-13T12:34:59Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > It’s nice everyone has enough guns for both hands. Not to mention enough knives for all of their pockets and cup holders. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/31 "2011-10-13T12:46:39Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > disagree. CIP: Dunblane UK, Norway, and that korean soldier who lost it. shootings happen where there are too many unarmed people trapped and not enough armed guards or armed citizens. > > can shootings like that happen in a neighborhood of gun owners? Dublane obviously being not a particularly good example as it was as a reaction to this (and Hungerford) that the UK brought in their very strict gun laws. And then there was a fourteen year gap between Dunblane and then next massacre in the UK. Which, compared to the rate of them in the likes of the US, could be used as an argument to say the gun control laws worked. > **[List of massacres in Great Britain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_Kingdom)** > > This is a list of massacres that have occurred in the purely geographical definition of the island of Great Britain and minor outlying islands and excludes Northern Ireland and massacres in Ireland before independence. > Bede describes Cadwallon's actions during the occupation, stating "though he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour, that he neither spared the female sex, nor the innocent age of children, but with savage cruelty put... > **[List of massacres in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States)** > > This is a partial list of massacres in the United States; death tolls may be approximate. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/32 "2011-10-13T12:51:27Z")
I think most mass shootings wouldn’t happen if not for the extensive news coverage of them. Every malcontent young man knows that if he shoots a bunch of people, he will become famous. Everyone will hear his grievances, they will read his bad poetry, and his face will be on the cover of Time Magazine. I think it started with Columbine and since then, most of them have probably been copycat crimes to a certain degree. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/33 "2011-10-13T13:07:10Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Your emotional reaction to sensational occasional incidents overrides any sense of perspective on the cost and effectiveness of dramatic changes in social policy. Stop trying to apply objective cost-benefit analysis to policy questions. Can’t you see this is an _outrage_, and we must _do something_? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/34 "2011-10-13T13:11:37Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > ah, there you have me. yes, access to firearms is a factor, no denying it. but i’m convinced the real problem is security. having lots of guns and believing columbine couldn’t possibly happen in your local school is a bad combination. So you want armed guards on every street corner? ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/35 "2011-10-13T13:29:37Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > SenorBeef has a point. Anyone who depends on the news for their views are going to have distorted view of reality. The news will cover the one plane that crashed rather than the million that arrived safely at their destination. News, by it’s nature covers the unusual, not the commonplace. > > Also their seems to be some obsession with the instruments of violence rather than the violence itself. A more valid view is to view homicide rates as a whole. > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_homicide\_rate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate) > > The homicide rate in the U.S. is around 4.8/100000. For the Americas is general it is 15.5/100000. > > Now for Europe in general, the rate is 3.5/100000, which is quite a bit lower than the U.S., but the rate among Americans of European descent, is around 2.4/100000 which is lower still. In spite of access to firearms, people of European descent living in the U.S. don’t seem to be more homicidal than people still living in European. > > It seems to me that this indicates that the violence itself that is the problem rather than the tools people choose to use to act on their violent impulses. If you’re going to do that, what’s the rate amongst Europeans of European descent? ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/36 "2011-10-13T15:15:12Z")
> [@studmuffin](#): > > Although as Bowling For Columbine explains, Canada has the same relaxed gun laws as the US but only a fraction of the murder rate, but as Fatty Moore is guilty of massaging statistics to suit his view we’d better not set too much store in that factoid. Wow yeah Fatty Moore is way off on that. Canada’s gun laws are more restrictive than the US, heck we even have laws that restrict replica’s. Carry permits are almost unheard of and ownership is also more restricted than the US. I would also question the US gun numbers. 2007 numbers were: US - 89/100 people (high but not 200/100) Can - 31/100 people ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/37 "2011-10-13T15:19:55Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > To be honest I don’t think even the most pro-gun types would argue that it isn’t at this point. > > Pro-gun SDers, do you disagree ? > > I’m not saying there aren’t pro-gun arguments (e.g. “well if everyone had guns they wouldn’t get very far”), but it seems to me that really is the only reason why these things happen more often in the US than anywhere else. I think that most serial killers are American as well – possibly due to media fascination spreading the knowledge of it as a ‘thing which can be done’ – so you could argue that it’s at least partially due to the same factor. But I’m sure the guns help. Statistics show that there’s no correlation between gun ownership and ones likelihood to commit murder (though there is a correlation between gun ownership and percentage of murders committed using a gun). Either spree killers are so rare as to not affect the metrics or just the same as every other form of murder, the killer finds a different weapon – poison in the local water supply, a bomb, etc. – I couldn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/38 "2011-10-13T15:37:31Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > They do happen in other places (Though Norway actually has a very high rate of gun ownership). > > But they DO happen more often in the US than anywhere else. What’s the population of Norway vs the population of the United States? This website might help you find the answer: [www.wikipedia.org](http://www.wikipedia.org). ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/39 "2011-10-13T16:14:49Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > If you’re going to do that, what’s the rate amongst Europeans of European descent? An interesting question, but in Europe is apparently difficult to get crime statistics broken down by ethnic group. In France, it is illegal to collect even basic demographic data. Do you have any statistics that people of non-European descent in Europe are numerous and homicidal enough to decrease the homicide rate by over 1/3rd if they are excluded from the data? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505/40 "2011-10-13T16:16:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not really. That just demonstrates that there’s no way for a single community to do so. There’s no way for a single small region to get rid of guns when they are surrounded by a sea of them. Perhaps we could get drugs off the streets if they were prohibited, not just in this town and that county hither and you, but nationwide… oh, wait… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-to-me-the-shootings-in-the-us/599505.md?page=3)