Criminology scholars debunk 11 myths about mass murder

MassShootings2013.jpg


Criminology scholars debunk myths about mass murder. Some highlights:

1. Mass shootings are not on the rise – the average number of shootings per year has been 20 for decades (there were 16 in 2013).
2. An assault weapons ban would have no effect – the typical weapon used is a pistol, not an “assault weapon.”
3. Enhanced background checks would have no effect – of 93 mass shootings from 2009 through September 2013, none of the assailants was prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms because of mental illness.
4. Violent video games & movies are not causally linked to mass murder – sorry, much as we’d like to we can’t blame Hollywood.

J.P. Travis: Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976 graduate of University of Michigan, father, grandfather, husband, founder and CEO of Travelyn Publishing (http://www.travelynpublishing.com/), and passionate anti-government believer in individual liberty.

View Comments (52)

  • Look at the map provided. Why is Colorado not marked? Didn't they have TWO shooting incidents there recently?

  • The majority of mass shooters are liberal, Libturds will NEVER acknowledge that... You could paste this map on a democrats forehead and they still wouldn't understand..In Liberal-land make believe is much better that realism...And there is a lot of idiots who freely give their money to anti-gun causes, look at Giffords and her ass-tronaught husband, I read they raised over 11 million dollars for "their Cause"...and the left will consider them hero's...

  • But are all "mass shootings" done for the same motivation? What used to be a mass shooting was a gang turf war, which has calmed down a bit. As that declined we got the advent of the crazy-ass lunatic shooters. Not so long ago, there was no such phrase as "school shooter." Now it's "a thing to be"; sort of a profession, if you will, with a protocol and clichéd mannerisms.

    Please don't tell me that "it's more reported now." There was NEVER a time when a guy walked into a school he had no connection to and opened fire on total strangers... and the newspaper editors said, "That's not a story; don't run it."

    Understand, I'm not out to ban guns.

    I'm out to ban psychotropic drugs... and even ban psychiatrists if I can.

    • "What used to be a mass shooting was a gang turf war, which has calmed down a bit."

      Huh? Seriously, you think gang wars have calmed down?

      • The sort of mass shooting violence has calmed down. The major wars. Here in Tacoma during the '70s and '80s (and even part of the '90s) it was a nightmare. The gangs are still here; the wars are over. They seem to have their turf. The only mass shooting we've had in recent years in Tacoma was - yep - a nut. Not a gang-related thing at all. Just a lunatic who walked into a coffee shop and executed 4 cops as they ate their breakfast. (As usual, we're not allowed to know what miracle drug he was taking to make him a better citizen.)

        We're talking MASS shootings. MASS. That has to be several people at one time. Individual shootings (gang or otherwise) are not part of this conversation.

        Thing is: as I pointed out, there were NO school shootings until recently. Plenty of guns. Plenty of loner kids. Plenty of teen angst and rage. No school shootings. Now it's a "thing." Therefore, either the statistics showing no rise in mass shootings are BS (quite possible, as most crime stats are) or mass shootings have gone down in some other category as the random loony events rise.

          • He climbed up in the Towe on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin. He was a vet, had been an Eagle Scout and he was crazy. NO ONE saw it coming. Can't remember what his reasoning was but they closed the tower access for years after that.

          • yeah? well so was I. AND I was living in Tx. At the time, (so what if i was only 15mos.)
            Aug. 2. Dr. C. was the autopsyologizer. Regardless, Quincy woulda been a better than anybody conally could've "picked."
            Dr. Chenar discovered a tumor which he labeled as an Astrocytoma, which he noted as being approximately the size of a pecan. Further in his report, he describes the tumor as having a small amount of necrosis, and concluded that the tumor had no effect upon Whitman's actions the previous day.

          • lol,,i was only 10 yrs old myself but, when my drill Sgt in basic told us he was psycho nutcase,,i tend to believe the Army E-6 over some fruitcake doctors who can't agree on anything unless the money's right!

          • UT
            Charles Whitman
            Familicide murders

            Margaret Whitman, 43. Mother of Charles Whitman. Killed by bludgeoning and stab wounds.
            Kathy Whitman, 23. Wife of Charles Whitman. Killed by stab wounds to the chest.

            Killed inside Tower

            Edna Townsley, 51. Bludgeoned and shot by Whitman in the Tower reception.
            Marguerite Lamport, 56. Killed by a shotgun wound to the chest.
            Mark Gabour, 16. Killed by a shotgun wound to the head.

            Shot from observation deck

            Claire Wilson, 18. Lost the baby she was carrying after being shot through the abdomen.
            Thomas Eckman, 18. Shoulder wound. Kneeling over Claire Wilson when he was shot
            Dr. Robert Boyer, 33. A physics professor killed by a single shot to the lower back.
            Thomas Ashton, 22. A Peace Corps trainee killed by a gunshot to the upper left chest
            Karen Griffith, 17. Gunshot wound through the lung.[76] Died August 8.
            Thomas Karr, 24. University senior. Killed by a single shot through the spine.
            Billy Speed, 22. Police officer. Killed by a shot to his shoulder which traveled into his chest.
            Harry Walchuk, 38. Doctoral student. Killed by a single shot to the chest.
            Paul Sonntag, 18. Shot through the mouth while hiding behind construction barriers.
            Claudia Rutt, 18. Fiancé of Sonntag. Killed by a gunshot to the chest.
            Roy Schmidt, 29. An electrician killed by a single shot to the stomach.

            Died later of injuries
            David Gunby, 58. Gunshot wound of lower back.[77] Died in 2001. Death ruled a homicide.[52]

            Wounded
            Allen, John Scott Bedford, Billy Ehlke, Roland Evgenides, Ellen Esparza, Avelino Foster, F. L. Frede, Robert Gabour, Mary Frances Gabour, Michael
            Garcia, Irma Harvey, Nancy Gunby, David[78] Heard, Robert Hernandez Jr., Aleck Hohmann, Morris Huffman, Devereau Kelly, Homer J. Khashab, Abdul
            Littlefield, Brenda Gail Littlefield, Adrian Martinez, Dello Martinez, Marina Mattson, David Ortega, Delores Paulos, Janet Phillips, Lana Rovela, Oscar
            Snowden, Billy Stewart, C. A. Wilson, Claire Wilson, Sandra Wheeler, Carla Sue

            Also: It wasn't until the Connoly commision that that idea that the tiny little tumor MAY have affected him. And Connally was a Dem. You know him, he was riding with that cathie boy down in dallas.

          • Yep, totally aware of that clock tower shooting. (Harry Chapin turned it into an epic ballad called "Sniper.") The guy had a brain tumor.

            List or no list, crazy attacks like that were an incredible rarity, and now they are so common they have an outline for how they're performed.

          • And yet the whole point of this study was that 2013 was actually below average for number of mass murders. Are they deciding to go for schools instead of malls or bus stations because they tend to be copycats and Columbine got them thinking? I don't know. What I know is that, like DHF says, the population is constantly increasing but the number for 2013 was below average. Sounds to me like mass murders are a decreasing phenomenon.

          • You would think that with NRA membership increasing, mass murders would skyrocket as well. At least, if you listen to a leftist libby.

          • Twice the populace today. Sensationalized media coverage orders of magnitude greater today. Inspirational movies and video games that make gore seem almost passé. The promotion of victimhood for violent offenders of the right ilk. Parental guidance waned while generations became self-absorbed to the point that medicating children for various maladies of dubious import became the norm, resulting in psychopaths waiting to happen. And then there's islam.

  • Like it or not, life is not safe. Violence has always played some roll in human interactions - from the rape & pillage brought by the neighboring tribes to the massive wars happening today.

    Setting around and asking why, why, why is nothing more than an exercise in futility. The 'why' is because we're dealing with humanity. Slip everyone drugs via the water system, and competition will only arise in another form. Just recognize it's going to happen, like ingrown hairs and pimples happen, and move on. Punish the violent, reward the peaceful and get on with our lives. It's a big mistake to keep rewarding the violent though - it only sends a signal that their transgressions aren't really that bad. Telling rapists to take a 10 year vacation at the local prison, and if he's a good boy, you'll let him free to rape or molest again....BIG mistake.

    People proven to have committed violent crimes against their fellow citizens need to be forever removed from society. Forever is a terminal word, without second chances. If any country wants to have a peaceful society, they need to uphold the laws they have and reward the law keepers -- not the law breakers. Just restricting someones movements for a span of time is not punishment, and of little advantage for society. Where society should be growing and prospering, immense resources are held hostage to the care and comfort of maintaining a prison population. Close the prisons, do away with the prisoners, and outlaw violent crime. Doing this, after awhile, everyone could own and open carry a handgun 24/7 and it wouldn't make any difference, since the criminals would have met extinction on the most basic level and handguns would not be such a big issue.

    • http://www.gunrightsmedia.com/showthread.php?414309-Death-Toll-in-the-Old-West-from-firearms-vs-the-unarmed-East
      November 25th, 2009, 02:47 PM #7
      csmkersh
      "In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these astonishing facts:

      In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides. This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.

      In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.

      Zooming forward over a century to 2007, a quick look at Uniform Crime Report statistics as shown in Table 6, shows the following regarding the aforementioned gun control “paradise” cities of the east and our home town:

      DC – 183 Murders (31 per 100,000 residents)
      New York – 496 Murders (6 per 100,000 residents)
      Baltimore – 282 Murders (45 per 100,000 residents)
      Newark – 104 Murders (37 per 100,000 residents)
      San Antonio - 122 Murders (9.3 per 100,000 residents)

      It doesn’t take an advanced degree in statistics to see that a return to “wild west” levels of violent crime would be a huge improvement for the residents of these cities."

      just something i found.

      • I wouldn't put too much faith in those stats. People in Abilene and Dodge City in the 19th century were not bureaucrats and bean counters like modern Americans. Who knows what they considered a homicide? Who knows what percentage of homicides they bothered to document? I'm currently "translating" for publication a diary from a Missouri cavalryman in the 1840s and I cannot begin to explain all the various ways that this English-speaking American's world was different from mine. Those differences make it difficult for me to interpret what he's saying about even mundane things. For God's sake I was 1/4 into the project before I even realized he was in Kansas, not Missouri, because at that time Missouri was a territory that encompassed the area which later became the state of Kansas.

        I'm not saying people were being shot every day in Dodge City, but I'm guessing if two rival cattle drives shot it out in the street over something, and the wounded then retired to their respective camps to die in private, the Dodge City marshal wouldn't bother with it - not his problem.

      • i would bet, that if legal,upstanding citizens were allowed to carry firearms without reprisals from the law/stigma,,those stat's would decrease dramatically.

  • soro's,along with o'bummer and his minion's, are going to do everything they can to screw the 2nd adm this year,,,2014 is gonna be a bitch in heat i'm afraid!

  • No mention, as usual, of how many people protected themselves from a violent crime with a legally held firearm. If a loony wants to kill a bunch of people, banning the means for someone to protect themselves from the loony isn't going to help. Look at Japan, they're mass murders use poisonous gas.

  • There was a guy in FL (I think) that wanted to feel what was like being in Grand Theft Auto and he went on a rampage. There were Death Note type issues in Japan. So... in some cases entertainment based products can have some effect on the behavior of SOME people who are ALREADY damaged to begin withThat is to say on a perfectly normal person, an entertainment product wouldn't necessarily change them into mass murderers or anything like that. If anything one can make the case that a person that has serious mental problems or have serious evil intentions would actively SEEK out the type of entertainment products that would FEED into their issues and/or evil tendencies. Does it mean that artists should then stop making these products? No. After all people seek it out and it is not their prerogative to stop just because SOME may use it for evil purposes.

    Now with that said... what we need to do is seriously look into people that have RECORDED mental history AND those people who have close family members (Parents and grandparents) with RECORDED mental history in order to perhaps prevent and lessen the numbers of these occurrences around the country. The reason I emphasize recorded is because it has to be more than a teacher or a neighbor saying "This kid/person is crazy". There has to be Doctors involved as well as parental or guardian or spouse or even adult children recorded history of the person's behavior. I don't know what is the goal here... three separate incidences perhaps? and then prevent the person from having weapons...? Don't know...

    Preventing good citizens though all in all and by and large from getting weaponry is just foolish.

    • They're doing that right now, with military personnel. Go to see a counselor once, and then show up to confiscate your weapons. The problem is that it's government people doing the "diagnosis." Obama's government people.

      • Well it should be about the behaviors and the mental processes that are obviously dangerous or criminally intended. Seeing a therapist in order to be well from PTSD shouldn't be an issue. However of course if the veteran is all like: "Yeah I want to kill me some random people" then yeah the weapons should be taking away from him or her. This does have to be case by case and it has to be more than just the Doctor that is involved in this process as I mention before and it is better if the government involvement is minimal or just a part. The problem is of course when government gets overly involved it is always a problem.

        • Kimmy, they are saturating the airwaves with advertisements telling vets that it’s OK to go to the VA for help when you feel lonely or down. That is just trying to advertise for you to hand over your guns and rights!
          To top it off, they are prescribing anti-depressants for conditions unrelated to mental issues, that they AREN’T APPROVED FOR USE FOR! Then they have a record of you “needing” anti-depressants, and you are again no longer allowed to own a gun!
          It’s all a move toward disarming the vets first, and the general populace next, and imposing a dictatorship.

  • My guess is that the political swine who are pushing for the gun bans know this but don't care. They have the media in their back pocket and if they can convince enough voters that weapons bans and more restrictive gun laws in general will result in fewer murders then their will get their way.

    It's not at all about facts- it's about fooling enough people into believing that the gun violence fallacy is fact. Poli-tricks as usual.

    • They're using whatever they can to try and ban guns completely, that way there is nothing to stop them from taking over and setting up a dictatorship.

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