CalGunLaw:Defining the Debate – Active Shooters and Mass Shootings

“Mass public shootings are on the rise!” “Mass public shootings are not rising!”
Oddly enough, both statements are correct, and misused by the gun control lobby to confuse and alarm the public. You need to know the difference, the truth and the oddly calming perspective.

Like the mythical “assault weapons”, everything depends on the definition. Across the nation there have been dozens of different “assault weapon” laws that sought to control anywhere from tens to thousands of different firearms. The definition changed from city to city, state to state and between the states and the federal government. Like in Alice in Wonderland: “It means what we say it means.”

Likewise with public shootings. The definitions are slippery, and depending on which one you choose you can prove or disprove nearly anything. So here are the two basic definitions that come from criminologists (and not propagandists):
Mass Public Shootings (MPS): “Slaughter of four or more victims by one or a few assailants within a single event, lasting but a few minutes or as long as several hours.”

Active Shooter Events (ASE): “One or more persons engaged in killing or attempting to kill multiple people in an area (or areas) occupied by multiple unrelated individuals. At least one of the victims must be unrelated to the shooter. The primary motive appears to be mass murder; that is the shooting is not a by-product of an attempt to commit another crime.”

Notice that MPSs require four or more dead people. ASEs require zero or more. MPSs have remained steady for decades, and in terms of per capita deaths, have fallen. ASEs have climbed moderately.

This is the critical difference, and an important distraction that gun control lobbyists avoid making. They promote the fact that ASEs are rising, while mentioning MPSs such as Sandy Hook to make it seem like MPSs are rising too. Let’s dig deeper into the numbers and make sense of all this, so you can talk sense into your representatives.

ASEs and the Slow Growth

Recently, the FBI released United States Active Shooter Events from 2000 to 2010, a report covering the decade since the Columbine massacre and every event in which a roving gunman took pot shots at people, regardless of the outcome. In their public summary, they listed the number of such events each year but not the number of victims (requests have been sent for more detail).
As noted above, the number of ASEs is indeed rising, though the number of such events and the likely damage from them is low. Indeed, if not for the two outlier years at the end of the study, the curve would be practically flat.

The report does give us the median number of people shot and killed (four and two respectively). So aside from the outlier years, the number of ASE deaths is between two and 12 people a year. Contrast this with the 11,078 firearm homicides in the latest reporting year. ASE deaths are 0.1% of all felonious gun homicides.

Conclusion: though we want to stop all homicides, those by disgruntled employees and random lunatics are the least of our worries.

Mass Public Shootings

MSPs are basically steady, and as a function of the population, are actually in decline.

James Alan Fox of Northeastern University has tallied MSPs from 1976 through 2011, or 35 years. His data is valuable, though incomplete in as much as it does not adjust for population growth, and hence the probability that you might be shot in a MPS. It also only lists deaths and not woundings, though we can safely assume woundings would not display a different trend.

There are a number of compelling aspects to this data. First, the number of incidents is rising slightly, but the number of deaths is declining in terms of our total population. But also the number of MPS deaths per 100,000 people is astoundingly low at less than 1% of all gun homicides.

Knowing Essential

The key points to remember are these.

1. In the more horrific type of event – mass public shootings – the per capita death rate is falling.
2. Even so, the deaths from either MPSs or ASEs is a fraction of one percent of gun homicides.

So as a public policy issue, should MPSs and ASEs be the least of our concerns? No, because we know that ASEs and MSPs occur in “gun free zones” created by spin-masters who manipulate statistics to serve their agenda. Your chances of dying in ASEs and MSPs are increased by civilian disarmament ideologues on the public payroll.

Tell them you want to help prevent ASEs and MSPs by being part of the mass murderer’s uncertainty principle, by being an armed citizen–and a constant violence deterrent.

Source CalGunLaw