“There is no evidence that we are in the midst of an epidemic of mass shootings.”

At Reason: (podcast)

Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, the leading researcher on the topic for the past 35 years, tells Reason, “There is no evidence that we are in the midst of an epidemic of mass shootings.” The number of incidents and casualties are simply too small to make such claims and, he stresses, the media coverage of shootings often ends up creating a false sense that gun violence—which is at or near historic lows—is ubiquitous and growing.

26 Replies to ““There is no evidence that we are in the midst of an epidemic of mass shootings.””

  1. Well, of course it’s near historic lows. The young black thugs that commit most of the gun violence have spent decades either removing themselves from the gene pool or getting locked up before they can do so.

    That’s why the Deep State have to stage most of the mass shootings of white people that do occur.

    One day we’ll learn the names of the mercenaries who (surely) are making fortunes staging this globalist morality play across America, resting assured that nobody will ever take their own guns away.

  2. Why don’t we just give them what we want?

    They want gun free Toronto? Then they get gun free Toronto. No Toronto city police guns. No RCMP guns. No guns for the money men driving armoured cars. No guns for bank guards. NO GUNS FOR ANYONE. Justin wants to visit Toronto? His security detail has to surrender their firearms.

    Give them exactly what they want, GOOD AND HARD.

    Nancy Pelosi wants gun free? Then she can haz the unarmed security. She can haz, for her self, everything she demands of you. John Tory wants gun free? He gets a new gun free (_!_) hole ripped into him for free. Every police commissioner, every politician, they get to go first, and they do not get to walk anything back.

    They say fences are evil? They want no borders? They get their door locks removed, they get THEIR walls and THEIR gates taken down FIRST. AND NEVER ALLOWED TO HAVE THEM AGAIN.

    1. You didn’t get the memo. Gun laws and global warming do not apply to the ruling class. That is all.

      1. Charlie Kirk describes the ruling class and their convenient hypocrisy and immunity from cost of their virtue signalling:

        “Liberals hate walls yet live in gated communities.

        Liberals hate guns yet walk around with armed guards

        Liberals hate school choice yet they send their kids to private schools.”

    1. Or as they say where I came from…’If you don’t hear a rumour by 10 AM, then start one’

  3. Every statement or reason made by those who want to remove guns from the public is a lie.
    Homicides are down by half in the US since the 90’s. Gun crime by 25% while the numbers of guns has doubled. The number of guns legal owners have has zero correlation the murder rates.
    When gun grabbers talk about kids & guns, they mean “kids” up to age 26 because that’s the only way they can get the numbers to look bad. The Brady group in the US says 8 “kids” a day are killed in the US by firearms but dig deeper you find the age range is 0 up to and including 19 years olds.
    In 2004 there were 70,000 preventable adverse events in Canadian hospitals that resulted in the death of 24,000 people. That very same year there were 620 homicides of which 173 were shootings. And we have Doctors lobbying to ban guns. They should clean up their own backyard first.
    Assault rifles is another lie, there is no such gun in circulation in Canada. There are some in the US and they are older than 1984 and very expensive. You also need a security clearance equal to the Secret Service to buy one. The AR15’s the police use are called police carbines and the police say they are not assault rifles. Yet gun grabbers call them assault weapons and want to ban them.
    Notice that no one blames the gun when police shoot someone.
    How many licensed gun owners were/are involved with shootings in Toronto – 0%
    How to stop mass shootings? Allow people to shoot back. Get rid of gun free zones. Canada being one humongous gun free zone.
    In any mass shooting the law abiding public is violated twice, the dead, by the psycho who killed them; and then by politicians who blame all gun owners and want to ban them.

    Canadians have an inherent right to defend themselves that cannot be denied by any politician, judge or court.
    The police are not there for our protection, they are there to enforce the law. They carry guns for their own protection, not ours.
    A firearm can be used in this country if your life is threatened to defend yourself. You will be in a pile of legal trouble & should be till the facts show the truth. If it shows that you had no choice you will walk.
    We cannot allow the gun grabbers to win on lies.

    1. Notice that no one blames the gun when police shoot someone.

      I never really thought much about that before, but I think you’re right here, and this seems like a good counterattack vector to exploit. I’m not sure how, but it seems like there should be something. Police are just as human and fallible as the rest of us, yet they’re held to no true higher standard for having the legal right to homicide (crocodile tears and lip service when some people do some things). Every single officer-involved shooting should be subject to the same scrutiny in the media as any other shooting in the public sphere. Did the officer come from a broken home? Did s/he play excessive video games as a youth? Radicalised at university (if attended)? To which political party is s/he registered? And so on.

      1. Another point that is frequently missed is that Cop shootings, that are always found to he lawful are included in the overall annual homicide stats as firearms deaths.

  4. I am in favour of red flag laws when the execution is fair and non political. How does a person that writes threats of murder and rape like one of the latest get to buy a gun? They are not yet 18 when it is written so the authorities give them a licence to buy a gun and a gun free zone to use it. So who is deranged?

      1. When the cops show up at your door about 70 times like in Florida it should be beyond politics even though schools aren’t to report it due to diversion brain farts.

    1. RFL’s are by their very nature not fair. They are an abrogation of due process ex woman claims ex threatened her; ex now has his 2A rights taken away. This also introduces perverse incentives = relationship drama intensifies

      Charging people who make threats can and should lead to weapons confiscation however, as part of the due process of law.

  5. Brain-Dead Liberals always blame the Gun Lobby and Gun Stores for mass shootings because liberals dont realy think they just pick up their remote turn on CNN and watch the usial amount of BS they call News

  6. The illegal guns and such.
    The media cartel would be the last to know.
    The politicians and media confab is running interference to make sure nobody knows.

    Its interesting to note that there is zero, as in none, mention about the lack of legal guns in the shooting in Calgary.
    In case you wonder, it excites the media cartel silly and they make good cash on the hysteria.

    Not that the illegal guns should be made legal.
    As is often not reported, though known to those that are interested in the affairs of men, the criminals have guns.
    One would venture to say that the ratio of criminals and guns is 100% in the illegal territory.

    1. Shooting(s). Three in one weekend. Which is a bit nuts, but I think the gang wars are restarting here after several years of quiesence. They got rid of the FOBs and FOB-killers back prior to 2010 (it’s amazing what one deportation can do), but now we’ve got the Ethiopians and the Somalis, I think.

      1. I lived and worked in Toronto and area in the late 1960s through to 1980. I do not recall a level of violence even close to that which we are seeing on a daily basis with all the vibrant imports. Import criminals and get more criminal activity.

        1. Funny, that.

          It’s not colour, it’s culture. It always has been. You normalise something, and it becomes, unsurprisingly, normal.

  7. I was attempting to argue with anti-gun folk on the Facebook–Americans, as it happens–and I was digging into the latest CDC numbers for the US before realising that I would be trying to teach a pig to sing. Some of the numbers that I found for 2017 (last full year) revealed that the average person was about 39% more likely to commit suicide by firearm than to be murdered by one (total population, not broken down into ownership numbers). Unless you are a white, older male, in which case the likelihood of suicide over murder dramatically increases. Other stats: considerably more than 2x as many people die in auto accidents than are homicide victims of firearms.

    The argument was raised that “accidents happen”, the implication being that this should be factored into firearms ownership, which is what got me looking into this. A ludicrous statement, as only 486 out of 39,779 fatalities (a bit more than 1%) were determined to be accidental (14,542 actual homicides, 23,854 suicides). Police action killed 553. So you are more likely to be shot by police than to kill yourself while cleaning your loaded gun, regardless of whether or not you actually own a gun. Comparatively, you are also more likely to die from accidental poisoning (65,000-ish) or a fall from height (36,000-ish accidentally).

    And, as a side note, there are several cases of knife-wielding mass killers that are more effective than some of these so-called mass shooters. Or bombers. Have they outlawed suicide vests in the Middle East yet?

  8. Leftists have all the “evidence” they need – their bigotry and power lusting belief.
    Lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink. Tucker Carlson hits the bullseye.
    We’ve been seeing the smug sneer a lot lately from fact free, policy reversing Dems.
    They assign themselves the higher moral ground, where truth and facts and malleable, all the while proving they’re amoral.
    What’s more dangerous than immoral, where they don’t care if they’re being fair or right, or just or anything else?
    Amoral is far more dangerous, a malevolence where morality and justice or anything else isn’t even considered, let alone rejected.
    If fits in great with winning at all costs, ignoring or sliming dissident citizens in the process.
    Plus the next evolution of firing squads and gulags.
    We are closer than we think. One more election of corrupt statists out to do it.

  9. It’s simple. Antifa and like minded Democrats are mass shooting people to advance the agenda of gun control.

    It’s like beating someone up to extort protection money.

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