Mass Shootings I
Mass Shootings in the United States Placed in Proper Perspective
Posted On 6:45 am August 13, 2019
Mass shooting are a heinous crime,
and for the victims and the rest of the population, a tragedy. That
should not detract from the fact that many, if not most of the culprits,
are deranged malcontents,
who in many ways are aberrant products of the times in which we live.
Nor should we abdicate our responsibility to report the facts
surrounding these tragedies. For example, despite what you have been led
to believe and contrary to sensationalized reporting, mass shootings
are not more frequent today, only more publicized and propagandized.
Northeastern University Criminal Justice Professor James Fox reported
that the highest casualty rate for mass murders in the past three
decades occurred in 1977! In that year, 38 criminals killed 141 victims.
Compare this to 1994, which had the lowest number of mass murders: 31
criminals murdered 74 people. In his latest article, Professor Fox
reiterated:
According to a careful analysis of
data on mass shootings (using the widely accepted definition of at least
four killed), the Congressional Research Service found that there are,
on average, just over 20 incidents annually. More important, the
increase in cases, if there was one at all, is negligible. Indeed, the
only genuine increase is in hype and hysteria.
From 2000 to 2013 the FBI, which tracks
mass shootings as “active shooter incidents,” has found even a lower
average of 11.4 incidents occurring per year. One problem is that the
definition of what constitutes a mass-shooting incident varies from one
publication or organization to the next. What is clearly evident is that
the incidents are not increasing, despite media hype and sensationalization.
Yet, obfuscating for political purposes
and obviously to increase their numbers, anti-gun activists have tried
to label any incident with two or more casualties as a mass shooting,
and public health officials have even attempted to lump murder-suicides
as mass shootings! A Washington Post report in a moment of clarity summarizes the problem as follows:
Similarly, Northeastern University
Professor of Criminologist James Alan Fox has said that the inclusion of
statistics from the FBI’s ‘active shooter’ report gives the false
impression that incidents are rising when they are not. ‘A majority of
active shooters are not mass shooters,’ Fox told Time. ‘A majority kills fewer than three.’ On Friday, Fox wrote in USA
Today that ‘media folks reminded us of the unforgettable, high profile
shootings that have taken place over the past few months, hinting of a
problem that has grown out of control… as if there is a pattern
emerging.’
Incidentally, mass killings are not
unique to the United States because of wide gun availability. France,
for example had more mass killings in one single year, 2015, than there
were mass shootings in the United States in all of Obama’s two terms
(eight years). And at home, California, one of the states with the
strictest gun control laws, including background checks, has the highest
number of mass-shooting incidents at 21 cases, counting from 1966 to
2017. We must keep in mind, though, that despite the tragic nature and
sensationalism accompanying these heinous crimes, mass shootings
represent a miniscule number, one percent or less of homicides, in the
U.S.
In the aftermath of the tragic 2018
Valentine’s Day high school shooting in Parkland, Florida—where 17
students were massacred by criminal gunman Nikolas Cruz—dramatic calls
for drastic gun control measures and exaggerated claims about the number
of mass shootings in the U.S. were made. For instance, Democrat Senator
Chris Murphy of Connecticut made the mendacious claim, “This happens
nowhere else other than the United States of America.” The colluding
American media did not take Senator Murphy to task, as they do with
President Trump’s every pronouncement.
In fact, America is not the worst country
for mass shootings and does not even make it to the top ten, despite
the record number of guns in the hands of Americans. France, Norway,
Belgium, Finland and the Czech Republic, for example, all have more
deaths from mass shootings than the U.S., and in fact, from 2009 to
2015, the European Union had 27 percent more casualties per mass
shooting incidents than the U.S.
Let’s stop sensationalizing violence,
turning deranged malcontents into celebrities, even in death, and using
the tragedies for pushing, time and again, for more gun control that
only disarms citizens and place them at the mercy of criminals,
including rampage shooters!
This article is edited and extracted from pages 162-164 of Dr. Faria’s upcoming book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019).
Miguel A. Faria, M.D., is Associate
Editor in Chief in socioeconomics, politics, medicine, and world affairs
of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He was appointed and served
at the behest of President George W. Bush as member of the Injury
Research Grant Review Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), 2002-2005. He is the author of Vandals at the Gates of
Medicine (1995); Medical Warrior: Fighting Corporate Socialized
Medicine (1997); and Cuba in Revolution: Escape From a Lost Paradise
(2002).
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