Interesting "mass murder" study

[Ron3]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...0/#!po=2.14286

What I came away with from this study is that incidents of four or more people being murdered at a time are statistically too rare to predict their occurrence using gun, poverty, geographic or mental health data.

There was definitely a correlation with media coverage and internet search activity and shorter intervals between such firearm murders.

Duh, right?

[markm]

The media coverage has fired up the next 20 potential shootem up nut cases. They're plotting right now.

[PatrioticDisorder]

Speaking of, did you see the mass stabbing that occurred in Orange County, CA yesterday? Time to ban steak knives! I guess we should just accept that too, cause AOC says steak (meat) needs to be banned anyway, only Neanderthals eat meat anyway!

[scooter22]

The media coverage has fired up the next 20 potential shootem up nut cases. They're plotting right now.

THIS.

I truly believe this is a HUGE component.

[Arik]

Speaking of, did you see the mass stabbing that occurred in Orange County, CA yesterday? Time to ban steak knives! I guess we should just accept that too, cause AOC says steak (meat) needs to be banned anyway, only Neanderthals eat meat anyway!

Just saw this an hour ago. Guy stabbed 6 people 4 dead. When he walked out of the 711 he was holding the knife and the security guard's gun

[grnamin]

THIS.

I truly believe this is a HUGE component.

I also believe it is done on purpose.

[The_War_Wagon]

Speaking of, did you see the mass stabbing that occurred in Orange County, CA yesterday? Time to ban steak knives! I guess we should just accept that too, cause AOC says steak (meat) needs to be banned anyway, only Neanderthals eat meat anyway!

As someone who looks like a jackass, with the IQ of a cow, that's a pretty self-serving position for HER to take...

[Wildcat]

From the study:"The data related to the state-level gun ownership rate were estimated from the proportion of firearm-related suicides in all suicides acquired from the WISQARS database associated with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) ......The gun ownership was then calculated as the average number of firearm-related suicides divided by the average number of all suicides during this period of time."

Seems a peculiar way to determine the portion of a state's populace that are/were gun owners but I guess they needed to come up with a number somehow.
So with simple numbers, suppose 10:100,000 commit suicide and 4 in the 10 use a firearm. From this they get 40% of the populace is gun owning.
The study finding: "gun ownership was not statistically associated with the mass shooting rate"
While this is a result I find favorable, the methods are somewhat suspect.

For mental illness, they use the population of 'serious mental illness'. Again the methodology seems crude and they seem to acknowledge that it is.

Another wrinkle is that they do not know how to connect the media coverage to the succeeding incidents to establish causality. I've read elsewhere to expect a copycat within 14 days. This sort of fits with this study but they do not draw any conclusions so its hard to tell. Some shooters were motivated by earlier mass shootings that were years before their attack and its also seems unlikely that the several shootings that were elaborately planned had been initiated by the spree that immediately preceded it. Some perhaps were.

This study should be useful to provide support (short term) against the gun-banning group. After all, they like to envision themselves as the party with science on their side and the study says mass shootings do not correlate to the gun-ownership rate.

--

The main complication is that there doesn't seem to be just one type of person that commits these murder sprees. If there were, I expect a trend would be easier to establish. They don't all share the same motivation. Rage, vengeance, politics, religion, fame.....some other motives are less comprehensible. They are usually committed to the act to the point of their own death. (usable trend?)
We know that there are many people who give all kinds of red-flag level 'warning signs' but they never act on them. This creates a lot of noise to wade through to try to identify the real threats.
Conspiracy theories aside, they tend to act alone so there is very little communications traffic to monitor.

I had been thinking that the 'capable-but-not-motivated' are not really the prime threat, but we are beginning to wonder if the media blitz that follows one event may be motivating some from this group to act. Changing the media coverage may reduce the the attraction of this group. It sounds silly but emphasizing that these murderers will forever be known as 'total losers' may actually help reduce their motivation. These may be the ones likely act soon after the preceding spree.

The 'motivated-but-incapable' represent a substantial threat also. The goal should be to find a way de-motivate these individuals. The gun banning crowd doesn't look at it that way, they only want to keep them incapable; keep them from getting a gun. One problem is that guns are not the only weapons that are available to commit mass murder. With increased motivation, they may seek other weapons.

The prime threat is the 'motivated-and-capable' looking for an opportunity. The present hope with the red-flag action is that the presumative killers will presage their intent (and enough in advance) that it could be acted upon (made incapable) before they decide 'today's the day'.

So expect a number of people will be red-flagged. Some of them will be in the first two groups. Some of them (probably more) are not in any of these three groups and just spout stupid stuff. Some will be due to politics. Fortunately there are not that many in the third group. They will probably adapt to the red-flag law by broadcasting less often and more cryptically. It would be better if they broadcast more often and more explicitly. Seems like it won't ultimately help much.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Speaking of, did you see the mass stabbing that occurred in Orange County, CA yesterday? Time to ban steak knives! I guess we should just accept that too, cause AOC says steak (meat) needs to be banned anyway, only Neanderthals eat meat anyway!

I always see about London and Knife crimes and the memes that come out of that and I assumed it was exagerated- but when I went to London for my vacation there really were commercials and TV reports about how to reduce knife crime. Even saw some signs about not carrying steak knives.

The data that we have a violence problem is out there for all to see. I think the only way win the middle on this is show that you can't control behavior by outlawing things- like plastic boxes that hold rounds. That is like controlling drug crime by making sandwich baggies smaller.

Crazy has to fit into mass shooters because that isn't a rational act. It is literally the base word 'crazy'. Carve that up with medical-eze all you want. Maybe it isn't predictive, but it is part of it.

The issue I have with most gun research is that it is done at the state level- which is where the differences in laws are most stark. But that is the wrong sample size. It should be done at zip code or county level, no bigger. Using state level data is what makes Illinois look good because of FOID cards, when Chicago (south and west) are a complete mess. There, not even the county level tells the true story of gun violence. 10-25,000 person subsets of population is what is needed to understand what is going on.

I like to try to throw the blood back on them. Everytime they pass meaningless and useless legislation, it was an opportunity to actual do the 'right' thing instead of 'something'. CO passed the mag limit and UBCs and we just had another school shooting. opps. The Blood is on their hands as the limbo lower on mag limits and ignore the real problems.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Wrong place.