mikeylikey wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:35 amWithin margins acceptable for the discussion, "random stranger active shooter" as a subset of gun violence writ large is rougly comparable to arson as a subset of house fires or submerged drownings as a subset of automobile accidents.
The making of this observation has been, in this thread and in the ongoing public discourse, characterized has hair-splitting, pedantry, "quibbling over taxonomy" etc. I disagree, and I claim that it actually matters what the overwhelming nature of "mass shootings" is to the discussion of how to curb "mass shootings."
There have been what, 300 people killed by guns in Chicago this year, and a lot of those in multiple-victim shootings. But 6 rich white people in Highland Park get more attention than the other 300 combined.
Just look at the Breyer dissent in the recent SCOTUS case. He states the total number of "mass shootings" as x hundred per year, and then lists about 6 examples, all of which were "random stranger active shooter" events. This is, to me, as disingenuous as reporting that 40k people die in cars each year and then listing 6 examples, all of which are submerged drownings, to advocate for automatic inflating rafts being fitted to all cars.
I have a hard time coming up with a charitable interpretation of the fact that 90% of the political capital which is expended by gun control advocates focuses on a failure mode which cause 2% of the casualties.
OTOH if you counter some of the overwrought claims about black people living in a state of terror due to racist white shooters with some stats about the staggeringly higher risk to black people of black shooters you get accused of racism.
It's politics, can't let reality get in the way of a good story.
