In a word....NO....

Whether this report is accurate is of course speculation.

http://snip.ly/060er#http://2n...d-world-in-mass.html

quote:

... let's disprove the notion that mass shootings "only happen here". Pres. Obama famously said that "This doesn't happen anywhere else." There is only one problem with that statement. IT IS COMPLETELY FALSE.

80 to 90% of what he said is / was false. The rest was just misleading.

Good article, thanks for posting.

I did a cursory fact check on the dates and the official casualty numbers and it looks like an accurate list. Interesting when it is put in that perspective.

Thanks for sharing that one.

interesting.

Yes, we do.

It is how it is classified. A drive by shooting in the hood where several people are hit? Mass shooting. It is classified as such on purpose to push an agenda.

Do we have actual mass shooting where someone goes into a school or mall and randomly shoot the place up at a higher rate than other nations? No.

The truth is in the details. We have a much higher rate of juvenile gun violence than any other nation. Why? Because the statistical parameters for their record keeping classes a juvenile to be anyone less than 26 years of age. A 25 year old gang banger gets killed in a dope transaction. This is classified a child gun death.

Actually the definition of mass shooting commonly used is 4 or more dead, but specifically excluded are gang related shootings and shootings of multiple family members.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Yes, we do.

It is how it is classified. A drive by shooting in the hood where several people are hit? Mass shooting. It is classified as such on purpose to push an agenda.

Do we have actual mass shooting where someone goes into a school or mall and randomly shoot the place up at a higher rate than other nations? No.

The truth is in the details. We have a much higher rate of juvenile gun violence than any other nation. Why? Because the statistical parameters for their record keeping classes a juvenile to be anyone less than 26 years of age. A 25 year old gang banger gets killed in a dope transaction. This is classified a child gun death.

We've had just one school shooting here in UK - the Dunblane massacre in which the pedophile Thomas Hamilton slaughtered sixteen 1st grade kids and there teacher.

That cost everybody in England, Scotland and Wales their handguns.

Hamilton is said to have shot himself with another handgun that, it transpires, was never found......

tac

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Actually the definition of mass shooting commonly used is 4 or more dead, but specifically excluded are gang related shootings and shootings of multiple family members.

Out of curiosity who decided that was the standard? The term "mass shooting" seems arbitrary to me with no clear way to define it.

Hell two could be a mass shooting to some people; a dozen or more to others.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Actually the definition of mass shooting commonly used is 4 or more dead, but specifically excluded are gang related shootings and shootings of multiple family members.

Out of curiosity who decided that was the standard? The term "mass shooting" seems arbitrary to me with no clear way to define it. Not including gang killings such as drive by shootings, is a major issue. Why not include them? Because the motive is rational, like killing other gangs that compete for drug sales territory?

Hell two could be a mass shooting to some people; a dozen or more to others.

There is no legal standard, so the media and politicians bend the definition to meet whatever political objective they want to achieve:

"The characterization of an event as a mass shooting depends upon definition and definitions vary.[1][6] Under U.S. federal law the Attorney General may on a request from a state assist in investigating "mass killings", rather than mass shootings. The term was originally defined as the murder of four or more people with no cooling-off period[3][6] but redefined by Congress in 2013 as being murder of three or more people.[7] According to CNN, a mass shooting is defined as having four or more fatalities, not including gang killings or slayings that involve the death of multiple family members.[8] In "Behind the Bloodshed", a report by USAToday, a mass killing is defined as any incident in which four or more were killed and also includes family killings.[9] A crowdsourced data site cited by CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, the BBC, etc., Mass Shooting Tracker, defines a mass shooting as any incident in which four or more people are shot, whether injured or killed.[5][10] A noteworthy connection has been reported in the U.S. between mass shootings and domestic or family violence, with a current or former intimate partner or family member killed in 76 of 133 cases (57%), and a perpetrator having previously been charged with domestic violence in 21.[11][12] The lack of a single definition can lead to alarmism in the news media, with some reports conflating categories of crimes.[13]

In Australia, a 2006 paper defined a mass shooting as "one in which ⩾5 firearm‐related homicides are committed by one or two perpetrators in proximate events in a civilian setting, not counting any perpetrators".[14]

Crime violence research group Gun Violence Archive, whose research is used by all major American media outlets defines Mass Shooting as "FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location not including the shooter" differentiating between Mass Shooting and Mass Murder [Killing] and not counting shooters as victims.[15]

An act is typically defined as terrorist if it "appears to have been intended" to intimidate or to coerce people;[16] a mass shooting is not, in itself, an act of terrorism. A U.S. congressional research service report explicitly excluded from its definition of public mass shootings those in which the violence is a means to an end, for example where the gunmen "pursue criminal profit or kill in the name of terrorist ideologies".[2]"

I'd like to see a much longer time period used in the report. Why was only the dates between 2009 and 2015 used?

Fetus has given us the more valid definition. Then there are the gun control groups.

Newsweek writes:
"A mass shooting is defined by Gun Violence Archive as any incident in which "four or more [are] shot and/or killed in a single event, at the same general time and location not including the shooter."
http://www.newsweek.com/mass-s...-every-day-us-675334

Notice the way this is defined.

Our least favorite Congresscritter has a more vague definition
"Pelosi’s tally of 273 mass shootings relies on the broad definition of at least four or more people killed or injured. Some of these events, however, include gang shootings or home invasion robberies, stretching the definition even further."
http://www.politifact.com/cali...g-what-does-it-mean/

A "Mother Jones" writer, in a NYT op-ed
" By our measure, there have been four “mass shootings” this year, including the one in San Bernardino, and at least 73 such attacks since 1982."
"we used that criteria of four or more killed in public attacks, but excluded mass murders that stemmed from robbery, gang violence or domestic abuse in private homes. Our goal with this relatively narrow set of parameters was to better understand the seemingly indiscriminate attacks that have increased in recent years,"
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/1...re-there-really.html

President Obummer boosted the number of mass shootings when he ordered the FBI definition changed from 4 killed to just 3.
https://www.congress.gov/112/p.../PLAW-112publ265.pdf

Shooting tracker.com has the highest number claimed. (354) Their definition tries to look official:
Gun Violence Archive has always used the FBI derived definition:
FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location, not including the shooter."
The key word here is "derived." They don't use the FBI measure but claim that it comes from the FBI.

Overall, "Mother Jones" appears to have a fairly accurate measurement.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I'd like to see a much longer time period used in the report. Why was only the dates between 2009 and 2015 used?

If you follow the links to the source for most of the tables on that site, you get to crimeresearch.org who are a little more credible in their approach; they don't include massasacres from African countries with a full-blown civil war going on (which don't serve to refute Obama's claim that "this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries" anyway) to pad their list, or claim that Switzerland and the Czech Republic have "strict gun control", and also look at other mass killing events like bombings, and overall homicide rates. They state this:

quote:

The data below looks at the period of time from the beginning of the Obama administration in January 2009 until the end of 2015. Mass public shootings – defined as four or more people killed in a public place, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty. The focus on excluding shootings that do not involve other crimes (e.g., gang fights or robberies) has been used from the original research by Lott and Landes to more recently the FBI) from 2009 to the Charleston massacre (this matches the starting period for another recent study we did on US shootings and we chose that because that was the starting point that Bloomberg’s group had picked). The cases were complied doing a news search. The starting year was picked simply because it was the beginning of the Obama administration and it matched the time frame of a recent Bloomberg report (a report that we evaluated here).

They also point out another site refuting Obama's claim with events from 2000 to 2014, though they say that analysis is flawed:

quote:

Their analysis looks at data from 2000 to 2014, but it is clear that their analysis is flawed. They have a much broader definition of these attacks where they included cases where no one was killed. Still they are missing a large number of cases in foreign countries, even when one is looking cases where 4 or more people were killed.

For example for France, they claim that from 2000 to 2014 there is only one such shooting and eight people were killed in that case. They missed at least 16 deaths in just cases where four or more people have been killed. We have also added in a few cases prior to 2000. However, we do not believe that we have obtained more than a fraction of the mass public shootings in Europe prior to 2009.

However, looking at their list for Germany, their own research wasn't very diligent either:

quote:

Berlin, Germany, September 17, 1992: 4 killed, one wounded. Masked gunmen burst into a Berlin restaurant late on a Thursday night and killed four men, including a leading Kurdish politician from Iran.

Erfurt, Germany, April 26, 2002: A former student killed 17, one non-fatal injury at a secondary school.

Freising, Germany, Feb. 19, 2002: Four people are dead

Sittensen, Germany, February 4, 2007: Six people killed

Winnenden, Germany, March 11, 2009: 15 deaths, 9 wounded

Munich, Germany, July 22, 2009: 9 deaths, 16 wounded by Iranian who yelled “Allahu Akbar” when he did the attack

On the last, they somehow completely messed up the date of the event which happened only in 2016, and the claim about the guy shouting "Allah-u akbar" is false (there's always somebody who claims to have heard this in a mass killing event); in fact he had it in for Turks and Arabs who had bullied him in school, legally changed his first name from "Ali" to "David" shortly after his 18th birthday prior to the shooting spree, and may have converted to Christianity according to his parents. They also missed some events matching their criteria:

Bremen, June 20, 1913: 30-year-old unemployed teacher entered a school armed with a total of six to ten handguns depending upon source, firing each one empty in succession for a total of about 80 rounds, killing four girls (plus one who broke her neck when she fell down a stairway trying to escape) and wounding 18 more kids, two teachers, the school's janitor and doorman as well as a thatcher. He was attacked by school staff, subdued by passersby and admitted to a mental institution where he died in 1932. From letters he wrote before the act it seems he was driven by a deranged hate for the Jesuits.

Mühlhausen an der Enz, September 4, 1913: 39-year-old teacher bludgeoned his wife and four kids to death in his home near Stuttgart to "spare them the effects of his planned act", then took the train to Mühlhausen where he had worked in 1901/02. In the night he set fire to four houses and fired at the people escaping the flames, killing nine and wounding eleven. He had further planned to kill his sister and her family, set fire to Ludwigsburg Castle and burn himself in the duchess' bed, but was subdued and admitted to a mental institution; this was the first trial abated due to legal insanity in the state of Württemberg. After his arrest he stated he was a homosexual and that the men of Mühlhausen had mocked him for alleged acts of sodomy, regretting only that he had also killed three girls and wounded a woman in the course of his spree; however, nobody knew of those past events, and he had been considered a honorable citizen. While in custody he wrote a 300-page autobiography, several dramas he offered to various theaters without success, and various manifests to "the people" in which he declared that there were too many of them, and half of them should be beaten to death as worthless. He died of tubercolosis in 1938.

Karlsruhe, August 29, 1982: 32-year-old unemployed lathe operator planned to rob a bank with a re-activated deact revolver, but found his target closed. He stole a car at a gas station, killing a customer and wounding two in the course, then randomly killed three on the drive, and another one plus wounding two in an attempted hostage taking as police took up the chase. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a mental institution.

Euskirchen, March 9, 1994: After having his objection against a fine for battery rejected, a 39-year-old man opened fire in a courtroom with a pistol and set off a bomb, killing seven including himself, the judge, and two attorneys; eight were wounded.

Dillingen, May 16, 1999: 36-year-old unemployed concrete worker with a previous record for indecent exposure, peeping and rape, after being thrown out of a discotheque for being unable to pay returned after borrowing a magnum revolver and pump action shotgun from a friend who was a sports shooter. Killed the discotheque's bouncer and manager, then fired into the crowd, wounding eight. Afterwards killed a French-British couple from his neighborhood and wounded their eleven-year-old daughter; the husband had testified against him in a trial for theft and fraud earlier that year in which he had however been acquitted. Afterwards he went over the French border where he killed a 39-year-old man while trying to steal his car, wounded two others in subsequent carjackings, and finally killed himself in a Luxemburg hotel room when police closed in.

Bad Reichenhall, November 1, 1999: A 16-year-old killed his 18-year-old sister with a Colt Python when she came for lunch from work at the hospital next door, then opened fire at passersby from the windows with the revolver and a Mini-14, killing three and wounding five; police found him in the bathtub where he had killed himself with a shotgun. The guns belonged to his father, a former army NCO and sports shooter who owned twelve long and five handguns legally, and another two illegally.

The above is excluding numerous events not fitting the criteria, like the first school shooting in German history back in 1871 (!) in which a Saarbrücken student wounded two by shooting them in the head with a legally acquired pocket revolver; the 1964 Cologne spree in which a 42-year-old early pensioner who had battled authorities for years over recognition of his lung disease as the result of his time as a WW II POW attacked a school with a flamethrower constructed from a plant sprayer (!) and a homemade lance, killing eight students and two teachers, and wounding twenty and two respectively before poisoning himself with an insecticide; the 1972 Essen family drama in which a 29-year-old insurance salesman killed his estranged wife, their two kids and his parents-in-law with a mail-order handgun (except for his five-year-old-daughter he shot after being surrounded by police when he tried to escape, this didn't happen in public); and the 2010 Lörrach events in which a 41-year-old lawyer (uncharacteristically a woman) shot her husband with a Walther GSP she legally owned as a sports shooter, suffocated her five-year-old son, set fire to her apartment, went over to the hospital across the street with the pistol and a knife and randomly shot and stabbed passersby, hospital staff and patients, killing a male nurse and wounding 18, including a police officer before being killed by a headshot.