A not too-distant cousin of mine got killed. I never met him, but it made me wonder how long before these things will hit closer.
Not at all.
Statistically death by mass shootings is too small to measure. A few hundred deaths out of an estimated population of 329,338,934. (Live number that constantly updates)
Waiting/hoping for the opportunity to kill someone.
I’m willing to let him respond before I go there. But getting there is real easy.
I’ve carried almost daily since about 1979; around our rural area before that. The spree/mass shooter thing was never a factor. Even now its as much from force of habit as it is the odds of getting caught in something like that. But what has changed is my sense of my fellow humans; their humanity. That something like this has become common enough for this to even be a question disturbs me. It isn’t effecting my life ---- but it does make me sad.
Spree shootings and terrorism have directly impacted my life 3 times. Upon reflection, it’s not a top level thought but I do always check for exits, and spend a few quick seconds thinking about a plan to get out or hide. I’m teaching my kids to do the same.
The one person I have known personally who died from influenza was borderline-elderly and had several chronic health conditions. Even though her death was really not a big surprise, I still miss her.
I was a student at the University of Iowa when this happened, and had taken physics the previous semester. Neither my professor nor my TA were directly involved (i.e. shot) but I did remember seeing the three professors walking around in the building.
The night after it happened, my roommate and I went to a Halloween party hosted by another friend of mine. Nobody had much fun, and we didn’t stay very long. Several years ago, I found out that the host’s daughter, who is now 24 and graduated from there, had never heard about it at all.
p.s. The host lost her best friend in a murder/suicide at their school, by a boy who had relentlessly stalked her for a couple of years. Every time her family went to the authorities, SHE was told that SHE had to stay away from him, and AFAIK nobody ever told him to knock it off and leave her alone except her father.
It has somewhat. It gets worse when Maga-hat Fucking Mooks try their intimidation techniques while reaching into a pocket, and you don’t know if they actually have a gun or are going for it for the Mook-Lulz.
It makes me wonder if I should pack, although that would probably end with some little shit crying on the ground, covered in his own blood and whining, “…but it was a prank! It was a prank…!”
That’s an unfair accusation make guys. Be cool.
I think it’s fair to say that yes, the one that happened 4 miles from my house has affected how I live and how I think.
Ditto.
I saw this thread a few days ago, but didn’t look at it right away. It seemed like the question merited some thought and I didn’t want to be influenced by what other have said. In fact I still haven’t read any of the replies and I am responding only to the question posed in the title.
On a day to mundane day level, no. Which is not to say that I have never given thought to them, but they don’t really factor into my daily inner monologue.
In a more subtle, far reaching sort of way, perhaps the answer is yes. I worry about the state of society and the type of culture my kids and grandkids are going to live in and deal with and this is just one more thing that may be an indicator of how I think things are going. Its sort of difficult to say with certainty though how much impact it has compared to other things in my long term thinking. Predicting the future with accuracy right?
The only time I could say it did was during the Beltway Sniper attacks in 2002.
Not that I changed anything, but living in DC during that month you saw - and had to adjust to - some manner of things like some gas stations putting up screens around the pumps and so forth.
Why no other way? Because I can fucking do math. Humans are notoriously bad at assessing and responding to risk. Overreacting personally - and not politically - to spree shooting is an example of that poor judgement.
Last night we were headed to Yellow Bridge Brewing when we came to a serious roadblock; three fire trucks blocked the highway just 1/4 mile from the brewery. No problem, I know a backroad that will take me behind the brewery, but that road was blocked by a police car. I tried another way to get there and that road was blocked as well.
Then I recieved a text from a friend who was freaking out. The roadblocks and the police whizzing around in every direction was in response to an “active shooter” (how long has that been in our vocabulary?) in the area.
I calmly switched plans and we detoured to Devout Brewing and that was that. In retrospect I’m surprised we were so blasé about the situation.
How I live my life? No. How I vote? Yep.
Life events over the past few years have moved me to the left. Not the least of which is the spate of mass shootings changing my views on gun control. I’m still not in favor of repealing the 2nd Amendment or anything like that, but I definitely support closing loopholes that allow the mentally ill to get guns, for example, and other “common sense” gun legislation.
It’s not a math problem though.
It is entirely a math problem, my friend. Just as so many things are when you look at them properly.
Death by mass shooting in the US: 1196 killed (2018 data)
So the incidence there becomes: 1196 divided by 327.2 million (2018 US population, US Census)
Incidence of death by mass shooting? 0.0036553%
Or three-one thousandth of a percent.
This will be a bit unbalance because the good data in 2017.
US Auto accidents in 2018 amounted to 2018. Yet people still drive.
Heart Disease kills about 650,000 per year. Yet people still eat fast food and smoke.
Speaking of smoking, Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease is the #4 killer.
You get the idea. Focus on what is actually going to kill people. Adjusting your behavior, unless it’s locking yourself in your home and never ever leaving, to prevent being a part of random violence is a fool’s errand. As mentioned above, it’s a part of humans being bad at assessing risk. If we were GOOD at assessing risk Las Vegas and the Lottery would go out of business in a week.
Still not a math problem. And the people with a bullet in the head didn’t fail some quiz.
No. They got unlucky.
But you’re viewing it through a conclusatory lens. By putting the result at the front of the equation you’re assuming those people would be killed. But that sort of thinking is a fallacy and exactly the sort of being poor at risk analysis I mentioned upthread.
Since the incidence of death by spree killing - whatever the motivation - is astonishingly low what would you expect could impact the outcome? Carrying a firearm doesn’t seem to impact it. Police presence doesn’t seem to impact it. In the recent Dayton shooting police responded within 30 seconds and still 9 people died and a few dozen were injured.
The scariest thing here is that it is random. Humans just don’t understand that because it is frightening. But anyone conversant with probability and statistics knows that random things happen all the time. But hating that is the same way we get cries for our leaders to ‘do something!’ when there’s really very little that can be done barring a huge change in American culture.
A few more fun stats.
In the US, the CDC reports that 500-600 people are struck by lightning every year. How should we react to that? Never go out or drive in storms? Place lightning rods every thousand yards (though I might argue cell towers are filling this role already!). The incidence of lightning strikes is about half the incidence of death by mass shooting. Should we devote time to preventing it?
The number of deaths in the United States by dog attacks is growing. It’s small - about 40-50 each year - the the number of serious injuries (requiring hospitalization) is between 6000-1300 per year - but growing in incidence. I’m not sure anyone knows why. So the incidence of death by dog attack is floating about 1/30 to 1/20 of mass shootings. What should people do? Avoid dogs altogether?
Answering that actual question, no. Seems a number of the other posts are answering a broader question, like whether mass shootings have changed or intensified their political views, given a more negative outlook on society, etc.
The actual experience of flying makes me unsettled. It’s probably to do with a flight I had a reservation for years ago which crashed, everyone killed, I’d had to cancel my reservation at the last minute and book a later flight. Since then I have not been able to help worrying about flying although I know the odds are extremely in my favor. But I do fly.
With mass shooting I have no such emotional baggage, am able to just look at it in terms of probabilities, so I don’t worry about being caught in one myself because it’s so unlikely. Which doesn’t mean I don’t think about the issue in broader sense of feeling badly about it or what can be done, but not in terms of personal safety.