Contunued.

 Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill. Explore the map for further details—we do not consider it to be all-inclusive, but based on the criteria we used we believe that we've produced the most comprehensive rundown available on this particular type of violence. (Mass shootings represent only a sliver of America's overall gun violence.) For a timeline listing all the cases on the map, including photos of the killers, jump to page 2. For the stories of the 151 shooting rampage victims of 2012, click here, and for all of MoJo's year-long investigation into gun laws and mass shootings, click here.

Sources: Research by Mother Jones. (With thanks to the Associated Press,  Canada.com, and Citizens Crime Commission of NYC.)

Our focus is on public mass shootings in which the motive appeared to be indiscriminate killing. We used the following criteria to identify cases:

• The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification report identifies an individual as a mass murderer—versus a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), typically in a single location.
• The killings were carried out by a lone shooter. (Except in the case of the Columbine massacre and the Westside Middle School killings, which involved two shooters.)

The shootings occurred in a public place. (Except in the case of a party on private property in Crandon, Wisconsin, and another in Seattle, where crowds of strangers had gathered.) Crimes primarily related to gang activity, armed robbery, or domestic violence in homes are not included.

• If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded many cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the above FBI criterion.)
• We included a handful of so-called "spree killings"—cases in which the killings occurred in more than one location over a short period of time, that fit the above criteria.

Please folks I am sorry that I was unable to complete the whole article. Becuz

this Lap top is doing weird things to me. But you folks are pretty smart and intelligent therefore you can google this article and get this info. Thanks a lot.

It is extremely painful to hear that Muslims are bad and what not, and I am a Muslim myself, and please believe me all Muslims are taught to respect all the religions and to respect each and everyone.  We are also taught to take care and properly feed the animals no matter it be dogs if they happen to be under our care. Not only that we are to even water the plants on a regular basis since they breathe. Anything that breathes we are supposed to take care of if they are under our care becuz then we are answerable to God. And we are supposed to give a certain amount of our incomes to charity to feed the hungry and to clothe and house the poor. One of the important reasons that we fast in the month of Ramadan is for us to know that how it is to go hungry like the poor people do, by being hungry we can then know how the poor people must be going hungry most of their lives. May God remove the poverty throughout the world and bring peace and prosperity to the world. Amen. I am sorry for being in the Political section. Thanks.

That was a good post Radha. There should be more people speaking out the way you are, it can make a difference.

Thanks a lot Bhai Cain.  I greatly appreciate it.

DEAR AMERICA: Here's Why Everyone Thinks You Have A Problem With Guns

• WALTER HICKEY
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• APR. 21, 2013, 8:00 AM
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AP

 

 

America is truly an exceptional nation. 

It's not because of our education system, our economy or our scientific establishment. 

No, America is really only exceptional when it comes to the number of guns, the frequency of gun murders, and the shockingly high number of annual gun deaths.

Other countries don't have the problems that the United States does. Other industrialized countries don't have tens of thousands of gun deaths per year, or regular mass shootings, or a population as armed as it is violent. 

Other countries don't have America's gun problem. 

Here, we take a look at the data that shows why America is so unlike the rest of the world when it comes to the popularity and the abuse of guns. We'll look at the role that policy-makers play in the gun control debate, and we'll look at what can be done. 

It isn't pretty, but it's important. Hundreds of thousands of American lives hang in the balance. 

When Americans kill one another, they usually use a gun. In fact, Americans use guns to murder each other twice as often as they use any other murder weapons. 

The Guardian

In 2015, it is projected that for the first time in decades more people will die by guns than by motor vehicles. 

Bloomberg government

At the current rate, 339,000 Americans will die by guns over the next 10 years. That is roughly equivalent to the current population of Tampa, Florida. 

CDC data, Walter Hickey/BI

As the national rate of gun ownership declines ...

Patrick Egan, The Monkey Cage

... so do both the violent crime and murder rate. Violence peaked when gun ownership peaked, in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

Patrick Egan, The Monkey Cage

Notice how the drop in gun ownership is driven largely by the drop in pistol and shotgun ownership.

Patrick Egan, The Monkey Cage

But after years on the decline, gun ownership is once again on the rise.

Gallup

Gun ownership in the U.S. is becoming increasingly consolidated to a minority of households. Household ownership is decreasing even faster than personal ownership.

Violence Policy Center

The South has the most gun owners by far, followed by the Midwest and West. The Northeast has the fewest guns per capita. 

Gallup

The South also has the highest rate of assault deaths by far, followed by the Midwest and West. The Northeast has the lowest rate of assault deaths. 

Kieran Healy

The states with the loosest regulation of firearms — congregated in the south and southwest — also have the highest number of annual deaths by gun. 

via The Washington Post

When Americans try to maim or kill, they prefer guns. It makes sense that states with the most guns have abnormally high assault rates.

Kieran Healy

While this may already look bad, the U.S. looks even worse when compared to the rest of the world. 

AP

America has far more assault deaths per capita than other industrialized nations.

Kieran Healy

It doesn't help that the U.S. has more guns per capita than any other nation. 

Data from Small Arms Survey, Walter Hickey/BI

U.S. civilians control a vast plurality of the world's supply of civilian firearms. There are a shocking 270 million guns in civilian hands in the United States.

Small Arms Survey

Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is an extreme outlier. This chart shows that the more guns a country has, the more gun deaths a country has. The U.S. takes this relationship to the extreme.

Mark Reid

This chart of industrialized nations shows that the U.S. and Mexico — a nation currently engulfed in a widespread, anarchic drug cartel war — stand alone when it comes to gun ownership and gun homicide. 

Mark Reid

Here's a look by the Small Arms Survey at the relationship between a country's homicide rate and that country's gun homicide rate. You'll notice that for the most part, the non-firearm homicide rate remains roughly even regardless of the total homicide rate. The main driver of the high homicide rate in certain nations is due to gun homicides.

Small Arms Survey

The U.S. has pretty unique gun laws. U.S. federal law says almost anyone can buy a gun, provided they are of age, the gun is not an assault rifle or machine gun, and they are not a felon, fugitive, or non-citizen.

AP

In the U.K., handguns are illegal and a person needs to get a certificate — and prove they have a good reason — to own a rifle or shotgun. Anyone convicted of a crime cannot touch a gun for 5 years. There are 0.07 gun homicides per every 100,000 people.

AP

In Canada, a person must wait 60 days to buy a gun. A person applying for a mandatory license must take a training course, notify next-of-kin, have several references and pass a rigorous background check. There are 0.5 gun homicides per every 100,000 people.

AP

In Japan, touching a gun without a license can result in 10 years in prison. To obtain a rifle or shotgun, a citizen must undergo an exhaustive application process involving several exams, health tests, police authorization, background checks, and the installation of a safe. There are 122 million people in Japan. In 2008, there were 11 gun homicides. In 2006 there were 2. 

AP

Australia is an interesting case. Following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, which left 35 people dead, the Conservative-led government banned all automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and mandated licensing involving background checks and waiting periods. The government also instituted a gun buyback program, where 650,000 weapons were voluntarily handed in for $360 million. 

AP

Scene from the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996

The result? A major drop in gun deaths, suicides, and homicides. Australia had 30 gun homicides in 2010, 0.13 gun deaths for each 100,000 people.

Small Arms Survey

In contrast, the U.S. has a gun homicide rate of 3 per 100,000 — six times as large as Canada, 23 times as large as Australia, 43 times as large as the U.K., and more than 300 times as large as Japan. 

Walter Hickey / BI

How did it get to this point?

AP Photo/Jessica Hill

When it comes down to it, the gun debate is a one-sided argument in Washington. There isn't even a token opposition to the juggernaut gun lobby. 

Data from Center for Responsive Politics, Chart: Walter Hickey/BI

The gun lobby — led by the NRA — has spent $15 on elections for every $1 spent by the gun control lobby. 

Data from Center for Responsive Politics, Chart: Walter Hickey

The NRA claims more than 3 million members. Although that's roughly 1 percent of the country, the active membership claims a lot of electoral influence. 

AP

The NRA also gets a significant amount of money from the gun industry in the form of donations, contributions and fundraising assistance.

AP

Source

The NRA also used its influence to gut the ability of the CDC from doing any sort of research on the impact of firearms on human injury and death, deliberately making it harder to conduct scientific research.

Ed O'Keefe/Washington Post

(H/t) Ed O'Keefe, Other Data

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre has claimed that gun-free school zones make children sitting targets, thus teachers should be armed. 

AP

But children are already pretty safe in schools as is. A very small number of the 30,000 annual gun deaths take place in schools. 

BJS

In fact, children are safest within gun-free school zones. 

BJS

So are we really sure its guns that are causing America's violence epidemic? Could it be violent video games?

First of all, it's pretty clear that there's no correlation between video game sales and the youth crime rate, despite what many will say. 

ESA

Here's a chart showing what a hypothetical correlation between video game consumption and gun murders should look like.

Max Fisher / Washington Post

By the Washington Post's Max Fisher.

But here's what that correlation actually looks like. There isn't a link between gun murders and video games. 

Max Fisher/Washington Post

Could it be violence in the media?

Gladiator 

Actually, probably not. There's just no evidence to support that. A 2008 paper by American University professors Joanne Savage and Christina Yancey found "A review of both aggregate studies and experimental evidence does not provide support for the supposition that exposure to media violence causes criminally violent behavior"

Miramax, IMDB

The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A Meta-Analysis 

"The study of most consequence for violent crime policy," they wrote, "actually found that exposure to media violence was significantly negatively related to violent crime rates at the aggregate level "

Facebook The Dark Knight Rises

The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A Meta-Analysis 

"Most studies on which reviewers have been relying for their conclusions are decades old and they do not employ modern statistical methods to estimate effects," they wrote. "Programs such as Batman and Bonanza were used as the high-violence shows."

IMDB

The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A Meta-Analysis    

A landmark 1986 paper by Steven Messner — which originally set out to prove violent media was linked to real-world violence — found that exposure to television was actually consistently was linked to reduced real-world violence across the board. 

Gene Page/AMC

Television Violence and Violent Crime: An aggregate analysis

Revisiting this chart, it's abundantly clear. Countries with high murder rates have them because of a high gun murder rate. It's the guns. 

Small Arms Survey

So what can we do to fix this gun violence epidemic?

AP

Many people advocated for the reinstatement of the assault weapon ban, as assault weapons are frequently used in many of the worst mass shootings.

9 News Denver

Source

Generally, when Americans kill they usually use a handgun. 

Small Arms Survey

But a survey of mass shooting incidents found that more than twice as many people shot and significantly more people killed when an assault weapon was used. However, the proposed assault weapon ban was dropped from the reform package after it became clear it wouldn't pass the Senate.

Walter Hickey/BI, data from Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Other proposals included a ban on high capacity magazines, like the one used at the mass shooting that left former Rep. Gabby Giffords wounded. This too was dropped from the reform package. 

AP

Source

A 1999 study of recent ATF investigations found that rampant abuse of the "gun show loophole" — in which a person who cannot buy a gun does so at a gun show, where background checks aren't necessary.

ATF

You'd think it would be reasonable to ensure that everyone buying a gun is subject to the same rules, but the motion to require background checks on gun show purchases failed in the Senate, 6 votes shy of hitting the mandatory 60 votes.

AP

Source

So what's going to happen? 

AP Photo/Newton Bee/Shannon Hicks

Police lead children away from Sandy Hook Elementary

Probably nothing. If the most rudimentary possible reforms are shut down immediately because there are not 60 votes for gun control, then there's really no hope for federal reforms. 

AP

Now here's why it all failed ...

AP

Why Congress Was Too Wimpy To Pass A Gun Control Bill That Almost Everyone In America Wants >

Read more:  http://www.businessinsider.com...4?op=1#ixzz3I6n0s9T4

BLAME THE REPUBLICANS AND THE NRA

100 Percent Correct.

Maybe they were converts?  Did you know ISIS is recruiting the young?

Maybe the NRA supports ISIS? More gun sales?

Now folks this topic was about, "A Guide to mass shootings in America", so do you folks know what that means?? Now why do you bring about ISIS in this area/topic? I guess all you folks want to talk about is ISIS ISIS ISIS ONLY. I get it. I understand that there were two topics already posted for ISIS, 1. Death to ISIS by our Moderator, Mr.RiffRaff. 2. Canada Launches first strikes on ISIS by Yuji22. Looks like you folks want ISIS to appear everywhere therefore I see no point in my posting about any more topics. Seems like some of you gets excited about ISIS and forget where to post it.

My thanks goes to Ti and Skeldon_man, good job. But let me ask you one question?  Are you folks gonna do something about ISIS or do you have a plan or something? Believe me simply yakking off is getting us no where? Is it??  BTW thanks TI we did not know that all the Muslims in this world are all CONVERTS?? and that includes me too.

Radha...you sound upset at the criticism of ISIS

 For the life of me, I cannot grasp the connection to the mass killings in the US with ISIS or criticisms of Muslim terrorists. The common thread to the American mass shootings is often mental health, and the presence of guns. Most of these people were not driven to kill  by ideology or religion but a disease pathology

Not really. The second amendment need some amending to and that is the responsibility of all. As it is a person can own a surface to air missile and it would still be legal. The rights to bear arms is not a right to possess a weapon of mass destruction. I hope some fool does not decide his right to arms include possession of a biological agent.