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4:28 PM 11/7/2017 – The Root Causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S.: In my opinion: If you admit as the hypothetical explanatory option the  hostile special intelligence operation nature of the mass killings… then all the sociological and the statistical studies become irrelevant, just as the gun ownership explanatory theory, which is indeed false… This factor might be contributing but not the root cause, and not the main causal factor in modern-day U.S. culture. – Michael Novakhov


If you admit as the hypothetical explanatory option the  hostile special intelligence operation nature of the mass killings, and it is impossible not to consider this scenario as an, if not the (in majority of cases) explanation, then all the sociological and the statistical studies become irrelevant, just as the gun ownership explanatory theory, which is indeed false, in my opinion. This factor might be contributing but not the root cause, and not the main causal factor in modern-day U.S. culture. 

Michael Novakhov 

11.7.17

Lnks: 

Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S.

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What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer

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Worldwide, Mr. Lankford found, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be explained by some other factor particular to his home country. And it held when he controlled for homicide rates, suggesting that mass shootings were better explained by a society’s access to guns than by its baseline level of violence.

What Doesn’t: Crime, Race or Mental Health

If mental health made the difference, then data would show that Americans have more mental health problems than do people in other countries with fewer mass shootings. But the mental health care spending rate in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita and the rate of severe mental disorders are all in line with those of other wealthy countries.

A 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues. And Mr. Lankford, in an email, said countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings.

Whether a population plays more or fewer video games also appears to have no impact. Americans are no more likely to play video games than people in any other developed country.

Racial diversity or other factors associated with social cohesion also show little correlation with gun deaths. Among European countries, there is little association between immigration or other diversity metrics and the rates of gun murders or mass shootings.

A Violent Country

America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership.

Americans sometimes see this as an expression of deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley.

Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed, that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.

They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns.

More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries, among American states, among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries.

This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence.

Mass Shootings Happen Everywhere

Skeptics of gun control sometimes point to a 2016 study. From 2000 and 2014, it found, the United States death rate by mass shooting was 1.5 per one million people. The rate was 1.7 in Switzerland and 3.4 in Finland, suggesting American mass shootings were not actually so common.

But the same study found that the United States had 133 mass shootings. Finland had only two, which killed 18 people, and Switzerland had one, which killed 14. In short, isolated incidents. So while mass shootings can happen anywhere, they are only a matter of routine in the United States.

As with any crime, the underlying risk is impossible to fully erase. Any individual can snap or become entranced by a violent ideology. What is different is the likelihood that this will lead to mass murder.

In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012. Most used knives; none used a gun.

By contrast, in this same window, the United States experienced five of its deadliest mass shootings, which killed 78 people. Scaled by population, the American attacks were 12 times as deadly.

Beyond the Statistics

In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America’s population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths.

This means an American is about 300 times more likely to die by gun homicide or accident than a Japanese person. America’s gun ownership rate is 150 times as high as Japan’s. That gap between 150 and 300 shows that gun ownership statistics alone do not explain what makes America different.

The United States also has some of the world’s weakest controls over who may buy a gun and what sorts of guns may be owned.

Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United States. Its gun homicide rate in 2004 was 7.7 per million people — unusually high, in keeping with the relationship between gun ownership and murders, but still a fraction of the rate in the United States.

Swiss gun laws are more stringent, setting a higher bar for securing and keeping a license, for selling guns and for the types of guns that can be owned. Such laws reflect more than just tighter restrictions. They imply a different way of thinking about guns, as something that citizens must affirmatively earn the right to own.

The Difference Is Culture

The United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.

The main reason American regulation of gun ownership is so weak may be the fact that the trade-offs are simply given a different weight in the United States than they are anywhere else.

After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 incident. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.

That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart.

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

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Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. – Google Search

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Story image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from Pacific Standard

The Sad, Lonely Men Behind America’s Mass Shootings

Pacific Standard3 hours ago
The Sad, Lonely Men Behind America’s Mass Shootings … 59 people in Las Vegas in what was the worst mass shooting in modern American history, … Is toxic masculinity really the root cause of our mass shooting epidemic?
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Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from The Root

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Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from CatholicPhilly.com

CatholicPhilly.com

Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from Church Times

Church Times

Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from National Review

National Review

Media image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from Malaysian Christian News

Malaysian Christian News

Story image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from New York Times

No, Mr. President, It Is ‘a Guns Situation’

New York TimesNov 6, 2017
In little more than a month, we have had two cases of mass murder … The money could be raised by a modest tax on all guns owned in the United States. … Once more we are told that the root cause is a mentally ill person.

Story image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from The Independent (blog)

It’s not Muslims, Mexicans or immigrants making the US unsafe – it’s …

The Independent (blog)Nov 6, 2017
Not only are most adult mass shooters in the US men, but most school shooters are boys too. … But it’s also not the root of the cause. … So what makes some people commit mass shootings – what is the common factor that …

Story image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from Mic

Domestic violence is a link among most mass shooters — but …

MicNov 6, 2017
Many recent mass killings have been committed by men with histories of … Acts of domestic violence are at the root of a majority of mass shootings: Everytown … The shooter in the attack had a history of domestic violence. …. really addressing what the root causes are, whether that be studies, whether that …

Thoughts About Mass Murder

Power Line (blog)17 hours ago
Moreover, the root cause of murder isn’t firearms or cars. It is evil. Countries where there are vastly fewer firearms than in the U.S. still have …

Story image for Root causes of Mass Shootings in the U.S. from FiveThirtyEight

Why High-Profile Events Like Mass Shootings Often Don’t Lead To …

FiveThirtyEightOct 18, 2017
But in the U.S., gun control policy has often appeared impossible to pass at the … This idea describes the debate after mass shootings pretty well; … health problems or declining public morals, as the root cause of the problem.
Solving Our Gun Violence Problem at the Polls
<a href=”http://TAPinto.net” rel=”nofollow”>TAPinto.net</a>Oct 18, 2017

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Mass Shootings in the U.S. – Google Search

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What Explains US Mass Shootings? International Comparisons …

New York Times7 hours ago
From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, …
Columbine massacre no longer among 10 deadliest mass shootings …
<a href=”http://Chron.com” rel=”nofollow”>Chron.com</a>18 hours ago
Mass Shootings in America Are Spreading Like a Disease
In-DepthThe AtlanticNov 6, 2017