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Science & Technology
Belmont Club: Mass Killings vs. Mass Shootings
2019-08-12
Key bits. Interesting graphs at the link.
[PJMedia] What the current debate really seems to be about is whether rapid-fire guns increase the frequency of a special kind of crime called mass shootings. However, this is a somewhat artificial category. Mass shootings are a subset of the larger phenomenon of mass killings, sometimes referred to as rampage killings. "A rampage involves the (attempted) killing of multiple persons at least partly in public space by a single physically present perpetrator using (potentially) deadly weapons in a single event without any cooling-off period."

It is one killer, one place, one time, many victims in a setting outside of war. The data collected on this type of even notes the type of weapon used, which is not always a firearm. It is mass killings that one would want to reduce, not just mass shootings.

What differentiates rampage killings from regular homicide is they were (and still are) by comparison extremely rare. Wikipedia lists only 1,850 incidents worldwide in recorded history, which is very small compared to the number of ordinary homicides. While the record probably leaves out many incidents it should be by order of magnitude correct at least from the 1800s. (I converted the incidents into a queryable database, excluding familicides, home intruders and the "other" category to obtain the following charts in a process to be described next post).

Rampage killings really start taking off after the mid-1960s. Perhaps the most surprising thing is how much of that spike comes from religious-ethnic and school shootings (which are counted separately from geographical divisions).

If general rampage killings are purely a function of weapons availability they should be reflected across the jurisdiction of those geographical areas. The fact that they spike in certain categories (religious-ethnic and schools) suggests it is higher than average in certain places due in part to the killer's efforts to act out some pathological or political message related to these settings.

Because rampage killers are rare, they may be quite different from the ordinary murderer. If the mass killer decides to commit mayhem, first the weapon selection is driven by the plan. Availability is one, but only one of the factors. The rampage data reflect the choice. While bladed weapons are less deadly than firearms, the really devastating attacks are carried out using vehicles or arson. Wikipedia has a category for these called other.
Posted by:trailing wife

#5  As James Hodgkinson disappears from history... make that "is airbrushed quickly from history..."
Posted by: magpie   2019-08-12 11:43  

#4  The police and the media both need to be held accountable - the one for sins of omission, the other for sins of commission.
Posted by: Lex   2019-08-12 09:38  

#3  Also it might pay to look into the increase in the use of the stronger "pot" that started to become available in the 1960's . The stronger the pot is made. the more increases in correlation to brain damage , lung cancer, and other health problems. While correlation is not equal to causation there should be enough information to "prove" it one way or another.
Posted by: Snavimble Bucket1794   2019-08-12 09:12  

#2  Rampage killers are most comparable to what are called 'lone wolves', self-radicalized extremists with a delusion of leaving a legacy. They are terribly sick people, and can be tagged at an early age and if not cured then... adjusted. At least observed closely.

In any case, the manifestation is never sudden, like in "Falling Down". There are always markers of psychopathy or deep misanthropy. It may be later glossed over by investigators and agencies, but the truth is, there's always a list of misdemeanors or red flags in their trajectory somewhere. They may remain an inevitable by-product of our socio-political evolution as long as we don't find a legal way to surgically alter their behavior*.

But the immediate carers/guardians. The police. The prosecutors, judges, DAs. Why do they slip up, pass-by, remain apathetic to these markers ? In every case we've seen, either the police gave the perp 'a once-over' at some time, or he/they had a record of other infractions. In the El-Paso case the mother herself reported her son before he did it. There should be an accounting for this incompetence.


*
It has been seen that by regulating the amount of AVP (plasma arginine vasopressin) reaching the amygdala, violent impulses and the tendency to fly into them can be decreased (or increased for some perverse, ungodly reason) and the brain itself trained on a neurochemical level to counter the extra AVP with receptor antagonists or inhibitors. Although this has been tried only with primates and maybe exclusive residents of the Xinjiang country club, the research is promising.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-08-12 08:47  

#1  Because Wretchard is looking at this in a non-emotional fashion the analysis is utterly irrelevant to the leftist gun-banners' exclusively emotional approach to the subject.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-08-12 07:55  

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