Fantastic day for Jeb? Bush
Pew finds him polling at 4%
Jeb:( Bush responds to question about Oregon mass killing with “Stuff happens”.
Hell, that’s understating it, and Obama took him apart.
Jeb: “Look stuff happens, there’s always a crisis and the impulse is always to do something and it’s not always the right thing to do."
Obama: “I don’t even think I have to react to that one. I think the American people should hear that and make their own judgments based on the fact that every couple of months we have a mass shooting. And they can decide whether they consider that stuff happening.”
Yeah, Jeb totally deserved that. Thank you, Mr. President.
According to a careful analysis of data on mass shootings (using the widely accepted definition of at least four killed), the Congressional Research Service found that there are, on average, just over 20 incidents annually. More important, the increase in cases, if there was one at all, is negligible. Indeed, the only genuine increase is in hype and hysteria.
This is only true when you lump in gang shootings, domestic shootings, and the like. When one looks only at mass-complete-stranger shootings, as Harvard did, such shootings are significantly more frequent now than in the past, even while total shootings has gone down.
… because you are much less dead when you’re killed by not-a-complete-stranger or by a gang member.
The point is that there is something driving this increase in mass-complete-stranger shootings. I think it’s cultural, but there could be other causes.
This is happening – there are a lot more of this certain type of shootings now. I think it’s probably happening due to a cause, and not random chance. So maybe it’s not “hype and hysteria” – maybe something is happening that is causing more of this specific cause of shootings, and maybe we can find this cause and do something about it.
Since the overall number is staying the same that means there is a corresponding reduction in the mass-gang-shootings and mass-domestic-shootings. Is that cultural as well?
Since the “other” kinds of mass shootings are down, that kind of undermines the “gun control” argument, since if it applied, it would apply to all kinds of mass shootings.
Possibly. I think the no-lead-in-gasoline argument could be part of the explanation as well.
I’m not much of a fan of the gun control argument – I think traditional gun control measures (which I don’t oppose but don’t particularly support either) would be unlikely to have much of an effect at all on these sorts of mass shootings.
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t or can’t do something about these sorts of shootings. Something caused them to increase in frequency – presumably, something could bring them down.
Do you think it’s all hype and hysteria, or do you think it’s possible there’s a chance that we Americans might be able to do something about it?
It’s not that you are less dead, it’s:
“Gang shootings are up, but that doesn’t impact me, I’m not a gangster.”
“Family homicides are up, but that doesn’t impact me, my family’s not crazy.”*
“Mall shootings are up…wait what?! I go to the fucking mall ALL the time!”
Let’s ignore the fact that this probably demonstrably untrue for a significant fraction of the country. It’s about perception, not reality.*
**Which is the basic point that Terr is missing.
Okay, so when people claim there’s a “War on police”, because some police have been targeted, that’s a LIE because overall police shootings are down, not up.
But you can claim there’s a mass shooting epidemic even though overall shootings are down.
This is what I mean when I say that liberals like to define the truth on their terms and then call all disagreements with it “nonfactual”.
What’s driving both trends is the media. Simple as that.
When did I say there’s an epidemic? According to the statistics, this type of shooting has increased in frequency.
This is nonsensical and a straw man. Just lazy knee-jerk stuff.
Maybe the media has something to do with increased mass-stranger-shootings. Whatever is causing it, it really has increased, and maybe it’s possible to do something about it. I’m unaware of a statistical increase in police being shot.
There is no increase in police shootings. But there is an increase in police being targeted for execution. Just like there is an increase in mass shootings but not in overall shootings. Which would suggest that it’s the “fad” aspect of both that’s the problem. Just like that guy who wanted to kill people over Chik-fil-A. You’ve got a certain number of people, thankfully small, who react violently to what they read in the news.
My complaint wasn’t directed at you it was actually directed at Vox, a normally good site but one that is too confident that facts in every case will go liberals’ way. So when they were fact checking police targeting, they found that police getting killed was down, so therefore there’s obviously no increase in targeting of police.
Do you have a study that shows an increase in targeting police? If not then the issues are not comparable.
I suggest you start another thread to discuss that, and let’s stick to Jeb! here.
I saw an ad on CNN last night that reinforces the idea that Jeb is already done for. This was an ad asking people to call and press a number from one through five to indicate which Republican candidate you support. The 5 choices were Cruz, Trump, Carson, Fiorina, and Rubio. The voice on the ad indicated that these 5 are the highest polling Republicans at this time. I didn’t quite catch which super PAC was running the ad. Just the fact that such an ad is running makes me think that Jeb is already done for.
Seems his current strategy is to keep tortoising while the crazies implode, one at a time, leaving himself as the sane one supported by the always-trustworthy Money - IOW the *electable *one. That might get him the nomination if he were also the *smart *one, but that is not what the evidence shows so far. He doesn’t even have the sense to ask George to get back off the stage and go hide out back on the ranch until it’s over.
But it’s all he can do now, and it’s actually as good a strategy as anyone else in the field has. So there’s that.
The problem for Jeb with this strategy is that this time the crazies aren’t imploding. The other problem is that even if the crazies do implode he still has several other sane challengers to contend with, such as Rubio, Kasich, and Cruz. Ok, maybe not Cruz. I’m not sure if he qualifies as one of the same ones :p.
I’ve been reading stories that Jeb’s campaign is having some cash-flow issues, or are at least doing some belt-tightening to appease nervous donors. The campaign has also been doing a bit of a news dump the last day or two, trying for a classic “look over there” media strategy to try and hide his poor fundraising numbers ahead of their release. His coffers are drying up.
It’s still early. He’s got far more money than Perry, which means he can wait much longer for the crazies (well, other crazies in Perry’s case) to drop off.