One in 15 Americans has witnessed a mass shooting

[Pinball1970]

When I left I was told that the area was recently prone to fires in the buildings and the main reason was the landlords setting fire to their own properties so as to make the insurance claim.

Yes because fire mainly and attack secondly. Fire can happen as part of a terrorist attack as well.
Best part of working in those places was being able to just stick a note in one of the hotel workers or drivers hands when you are leaving.
They live that life every day and go home to their family.
Off topic and I have chastised another poster for that so I'll stop now.

 

[TheVat]

The University of Colorado researchers defined “physically present” as “in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting occurred at the time it occurred, such that bullets were fired in your direction, you could see the shooter, or you could hear the gunfire”.

What's key here is that the study is a survey whose data is based on self-report. Self-report data tends to get shredded during peer review. A classic example of this is surveys on food intolerances. Studies often find 20-30% of the population in developed countries will self report having a food intolerance. Clinical studies set that number at 1-2%.

 

[Sarkus]

Maybe the poll, or at least the conclusion, should be that "one-in-15 Americans believe they have witnessed a mass shooting"?

 

[parmalee]

Maybe the poll, or at least the conclusion, should be that "one-in-15 Americans believe they have witnessed a mass shooting"?

This is one of the funniest comments I've come across in a while.

 

[ольга]

Worse than that, the prevalence of firearms can enable unofficial MAGA groups to intimidate unhelpful judges, journalists or even politicians - modern day brownshirts, guided by internet hints rather than overt control.

Практика показывает другое: неугодных запугивают не вооружённые неофициальные группы, а вполне себе "официальные" представители власти. При этом не стесняются никаких методов: несговорчивых могут объявить,например, педофилом, или ещё что-нибудь подобное. Вы про такое никогда не слышали?

 

[parmalee]

I'm envisioning a future in which we have to outlaw fiction because everyone gets all confused by it.

 

[ольга]

I'm envisioning a future in which we have to outlaw fiction because everyone gets all confused by it.

Для вас это возможное ужасное будущее, а для нас недавнее прошлое, которое не хочет уходить.

 

[parmalee]

For you, this is a possible terrible future, and for us, it is the recent past that does not want to go away.

But you guys had less say in the matter--in the US, we are actually choosing this, for reasons beyond my comprehension.

 

[parmalee]

What's key here is that the study is a survey whose data is based on self-report. Self-report data tends to get shredded during peer review. A classic example of this is surveys on food intolerances. Studies often find 20-30% of the population in developed countries will self report having a food intolerance. Clinical studies set that number at 1-2%.

Yeah. My favorite examples with respect to this concern anthropometric data. I get people maybe not knowing how long their arms are, but how do people not even know their own height?

Not discounting willful misrepresentation, of course. Did you see those images of Trump next to Gavin Newsom, who is 6'3"? Trump is clearly a good 4 or 5 inches shorter than Newsom, and he (Trump) also wears lifts. Hardly the 6'3" and 239 pounds (hilarious) he claims.

 

[Sarkus]

There's a Daily Mail piece that looked into his supposed height, by comparing him in photos against others of known height. I'll try and track it down...
But he was standing next to Prince William (6'3" and Trump looked shorter), next to Musk (6'2" and Trump looked very much shorter), and barely taller than French president Macron (5'7"). I guess it depends on whether he's wearing his lifts/fillers etc. There may be something about perspective, but I'm not sure it can make up for the lack of height he's showing in the photos.

Ah - found it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...p-height-Prince-William-Paris-notre-dame.html

 

[gmilam]

It wouldn't surprise me if 1 in 15 have witnessed a shooting... excluding the "mass" qualifier. But I have no actual data to support that.

 

[ольга]

But you guys had less say in the matter--in the US, we are actually choosing this, for reasons beyond my comprehension.

Это связано с общим падением культуры, мне кажется. Моцартов и Байронов не заметно в современной культуре не потому, что их нет, а потому что они мало кому нужны, увы. И здесь так же - подобное тянется к подобному. Вот только потом, когда "спадёт пелена с глаз", выкорчевать это уже укоренившееся зло будет не так то легко, если вообще возможно.

 

[parmalee]

It seems to me that this is connected with the general decline of culture. Mozarts and Byrons are not noticeable in modern culture not because they do not exist, but because few people need them, alas. And here it is the same - like attracts like. Only later, when "the scales fall from the eyes", it will not be so easy to uproot this already ingrained evil, if at all possible.

Yeah, I've long maintained that ignorance of culture, history and civics are largely responsible for the mess we are in. In the US, we've gradually eroded our educational institutions to the point where a motivated person might be better served pursuing independent study because the curricula of our schools have become pathetically inadequate. Younger people--again, roughly, those born after about 1990--typically know very little about how our government functions and their own history; they know virtually nothing of literature, art, philosophy--again, by design; and they don't even possess the skills necessary to do adequate research into these matters.

And as far as rooting out the rot and decay goes, even if possible it will take a considerable amount of time and determination. I don't have a whole lot of confidence here when we're depending upon people who don't even know how to orient themselves without using GPS.

 

[parmalee]

It wouldn't surprise me if 1 in 15 have witnessed a shooting... excluding the "mass" qualifier. But I have no actual data to support that.

Even more seems plausible given that we see as many as 50 thousand shooting deaths in some years.

 

[DaveC426913]

"Bullets were fired in your direction"??? How is one to interpret that?

I don't see a problem here.

I'd say "within earshot of a mass shooting incident" pretty much covers anyone who had bullets fired in their direction. So I don't see that as inaccurate - more like redundant. If you can hear gunshots from an incident, you can consider yourself (at least, roughly) in danger of potential collateral damage.

Put another way, "bullets fired in your direction" is a subset of "within earshot". In fact, all the other criteria are subsets of "within earshot".

 

[parmalee]

I don't see a problem here.

I'd say "within earshot of a mass shooting incident" pretty much covers anyone who had bullets fired in their direction. So I don't see that as inaccurate - more like redundant. If you can hear gunshots from an incident, you can consider yourself (at least, roughly) in danger of potential collateral damage.

Put another way, "bullets fired in your direction" is a subset of "within earshot". In fact, all the other criteria are subsets of "within earshot".

Though it is possible to not hear the gunshots within a very large crowd and with a lot of background sound or noise.

I happened to be living in San Cristobal de las Casas on 1 January 1994. (I have unusual "luck" in this regard, having both witnessed and experienced an unusual amount of violence in my lifetime, whilst not seeking it out. This is partly why I'm somewhat amused and perplexed by people falsely claiming to have witnessed a mass shooting, but rather annoyed by a bunch of idiots falsely claiming to have been injured in a mass shooting. I mean, fuck them.). I was staying just over a mile from the zocalo, and I most definitely heard the gunfire on that night. Quite a bit--it was a slaughter. Conversely, I've been in environments that didn't really seem all that loud or noisy, but were sufficiently so to mask the sound of gunshots. It's not all that uncommon to be even just a short distance from gunfire and to not hear any of it.

 

[billvon]

Let's do a little math.

There are about 500 mass shootings in the US per year. The average age of Americans is 40 years old. So 35 years where an average American might remember a shooting.

Next you have to define "witness." If it's "hear a gunshot" (which the article implied) then each incident is going to expose a few hundred to a few thousand people to the noise. Call it 800 on average.

So 500*35*800 = 9 million people, or about 4%, or 1 in 36. So not quite right but the right order of magnitude

 

[parmalee]

Let's do a little math.

There are about 500 mass shootings in the US per year. The average age of Americans is 40 years old. So 35 years where an average American might remember a shooting.

Next you have to define "witness." If it's "hear a gunshot" (which the article implied) then each incident is going to expose a few hundred to a few thousand people to the noise. Call it 800 on average.

So 500*35*800 = 9 million people, or about 4%, or 1 in 36. So not quite right but the right order of magnitude

However, between 1966 and 2012 there were only 90 mass shootings in the US. Then some 5000 (slightly less) over the next 12 years. So we're working from just about 5000 mass shootings, not 17,500.

 

[ольга]

Yeah, I've long maintained that ignorance of culture, history and civics are largely responsible for the mess we are in. In the US, we've gradually eroded our educational institutions to the point where a motivated person might be better served pursuing independent study because the curricula of our schools have become pathetically inadequate. Younger people--again, roughly, those born after about 1990--typically know very little about how our government functions and their own history; they know virtually nothing of literature, art, philosophy--again, by design; and they don't even possess the skills necessary to do adequate research into these matters.

And as far as rooting out the rot and decay goes, even if possible it will take a considerable amount of time and determination. I don't have a whole lot of confidence here when we're depending upon people who don't even know how to orient themselves without using GPS.

Это сейчас происходит почти повсеместно. Я об этом и говорила: исчезли смыслы, направления движения общества, которые задают религия или идеология. Нравственность их заменить не может, она сама формируется обществом и находится под его влиянием. Т.е. что мы имеем? Вы можете "кормить" народ чем то низкопробным и незатейливым, какие-нибудь простенькие безвкусные песенки, например, в сочетании с силиконом и ботоксом в нужных местах, и это будет пользоваться спросом у основной массы населения. И вы на этом хорошо заработаете. А можете исполнять что-нибудь сложное, какую то симфонию, которую тоже с удовольствием послушает уже другая, меньшая часть общества. И вы заработаете на этом намного меньше, а потратите труда намного больше, потому что написать симфонию намного затратней и сложнее, чем что-нибудь типа:"я упала с сеновала, тормозила головой...".
И всё это происходит потому, что на месте смысла стоит диктуемое современной нравственностью: "заработай больше денег - это твой смысл жизни". Вместо религиозного христианского:"принеси больше пользы". Вот так бывает: если выкорчевать хороший лес, и не посадить на его месте другой - на этом месте вырастут сорняки. Выкорчевали христианскую культуру, и не предложили ничего другого - на этом месте выросло то, что мы сейчас и наблюдаем.

 

[billvon]

However, between 1966 and 2012 there were only 90 mass shootings in the US. Then some 5000 (slightly less) over the next 12 years. So we're working from just about 5000 mass shootings, not 17,500.

That's less than 2 a year from 1966-2012. I looked at the gun violence data and that doesn't really make sense; the number of shootings total has gone up but nowhere near that magnitude (i.e. averaging 34,000 annually from 1990-2000 vs 45,000 annually in the last 5 years.)

Where did that data come from? Is that an artifact of how they defined mass shootings, or an artifact of the media/police not using that term for multiple shootings 50 years ago?