Hello.
Lifelong registered Democrat from a deeply Blue State here. Apologies for typos and any grammatical glitches. Let’s “aim small, miss small” (from one of my spouse’s favorite movies) on some “gun stuff”. Let’s start by focusing on two well-researched sets of information: 1) Legal firearm ownership in America numbers and demographics, including AR-15s, and 2) AR-15 lethality. Then we can touch upon “assault weapon” ban efficacy, Mass Public Shooting occurrences and causes, the utilization of AR-15 rifles in Mass Public Shootings, and the existing but gathering dust “We Can Intercept MPS’s Before They Happen” toolkit. Along the way we’ll look at some inconvenient truths and shatter some stereotypes, both of which proliferate and put up roadblocks when we should be building bridges leading to solutions which would benefit society. We can then bring it all home with a simple question: If we have known solutions which can mitigate criminal violence with guns, and specifically Mass Public Shootings, why are we focusing so much time, money and energy on disarming law-abiding firearm owners?
A critically important firearms survey was conducted by William English, PhD, Georgetown University, and published in May 2022. Why critically important? The exceedingly large survey sample size. Here’s a link to a briefer (with the link to the 48 page research paper appearing in the 5th paragraph down):
https://gisme.georgetown.edu/news/georg ... y-popular/
In summary: “about 31.9% of U.S. adults, or 81.4 million Americans, own over 415 million firearms, consisting of approximately 171 million handguns, 146 million rifles, and 98 million shotguns. About 24.6 million individuals have owned up to 44 million AR-15 and similarly styled rifles, and 39 million individuals have owned up to 542 million magazines that hold over 10 rounds. Approximately one-third of gun owners have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year. A majority of gun owners (56.2%) indicate that they carry a handgun for self-defense in at least some circumstances, and one-third of gun owners report carrying a handgun with some frequency”. First quick aside: Did you know law-abiding gun owners tend to be a touch more law-abiding than their fellow law-abiding non-gun owning neighbors? Food for thought.
Did you look at the general firearms and specific AR-15 ownership demographics charts in Professor English’s paper? Some posters here seem compelled to frame “everything gun” with NRA goggles on. The organization’s membership numbers suggest a different reality: 19 out of every 20 firearm owners in America are NOT members of the NRA. So echo chamber stereotyping with targeted enmity (rednecks, MAGA hats, pencil d*cks, overcompensating, incels) comes across as pedestrian, lazy, and childish. Nor do Mass Public Shooters fit this stereotype, as just over 50% of the perpetrators of the 200 Mass Public Shootings in America since 1966 (FBI/DOJ definition) have been white males. Put another way, 50% of Mass Public Shooters are NOT white males. Not exactly the narrative many of our esteemed politicians, mainstream media, and anti-gun lobbying organizations would have the general public believing, now is it?
Quick factoid: Blue State Democrat gun ownership is much higher than any survey would suggest. A research study conducted in Blue States found a phenomenon where likely gun owners were responding to surveys that they weren’t gun owners. A very interesting and clever methodology was utilized to tease out this likelihood. Why would a likely gun owner “lie”? 1) Because they didn’t want to provide that information to strangers doing surveys. 2) Because of the increasingly hostile public perception of gun ownership. All this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Your “gun owning neighbor next door” is part of a silent club that doesn’t care to publicly share their ownership of firearms. With politicians, academia, lobbyists, and the press now positing gun ownership implies some sort of fetishistic mental disorder, who feels like having to defend their honor from such BS? Engaging in a productive and civil discourse, where preconceived conclusions and prejudices are firmly and rabidly in place, is nearly impossible. On a microcosmic level, this thread lays bare broadly held and sadly increasing societal fear and prejudices against legal, law-abiding firearm ownership and owners.
Based on Professor English’s findings (which echo other reputable estimates of ownership numbers and firearm numbers), shouldn’t the headlines in this country (and worldwide) be along the lines of “Breaking News: With nearly one-third of law-abiding adults legally owning over 415 million firearms, America leads the world in responsible, peaceful, and non-criminal gun ownership and usage. Since its founding, America has a long tradition of civic minded individuals owning firearms, and that proud tradition of safety, responsibility, and custodianship persists strongly to this day as evidenced by the overwhelmingly peaceful, law-abiding, and conscientious ownership and utilization of firearms by its citizenry”. Yet here we are, coddling criminals while condemning, harassing, stereotyping, and marginalizing productive, peaceful, law-abiding citizens. For shame.
Quick aside: Did you know that the fastest growing demographic of first time gun buyers in the past 5 years has been women? And leading the way on concealed carry permit applications are women, especially women of color (Black and Hispanic). Even more surprising, many previously marginalized humans identifying as LGBTQIA+ are also well represented in gun purchase and permitting statistics. One is left to wonder why that would be. Could it be a desire to feel safe because of defunded police? Or the catch and release activism of some DA’s and Judges who let violent gun crime perpetrators back into society to mingle among us with increasing frequency? Exhibit A: CaliforNewYorkia. You can barely find mainstream media headlines when these violent criminal monsters inevitably reoffend. Or maybe it’s just that these people can’t afford to live in the safe leafy sheltered enclaves I presume most of us enjoy the privilege of residing in. Privilege has its privileges. For me, not thee.
Case in point: One of the arguably greatest Amicus Brief’s ever submitted to the Supreme Court (in 2019, posted on the court’s .gov site) is by Pink Pistols. The brief’s conclusion, verbatim: “Amicus Pink Pistols files this brief to dispel the misguided assumption that the right to bear arms is an atavistic constitutional curiosity, of interest only to gap-toothed, tobacco-chewing rednecks who have a firearms fetish or to camouflage-wearing survivalists and militia-wannabes who exhibit an adolescent fascination with firepower. The right to bear arms is not about “boys and their toys.” Those caricatures are not the face of the Second Amendment. Rather, the face of the right to bear arms is the bruised and battered visage of a transgender woman stalked by predators in the darkened streets and shadowed corners of public spaces. It is the anxious expressions of lesbians and gay men departing clubs and bars late in the evening, menaced by gay-bashers with cudgels in their hands, malice in their hearts, and sneering threats on their lips. These are the faces of the Second Amendment.” You can also find the link to the brief on Everytown and The White House sites. Just kidding. Weaponized narratives have consequences, the cost being the hamstringing of efforts to get at the root causes of criminal violence, oppression, and hate in America.
Quick aside: To those posters on here who seem to think it is their divine right to define the only valid “excuses” for law abiding citizens to own ANY particular firearm, I call out your biased, power and control hungry herd think. Your self-righteous indignation is clouding your understanding of what you, and a government by the people and for the people, can and cannot do. Fourth grade civics, gents. Perhaps directing the energy you expend obsessing about criminalizing the law-abiding should instead be spent on demanding that criminals, and the activist judicial and executive branch elected officials who are enabling them, both be held accountable. The former for behavior. The latter for dereliction of duty. We have 20,000 Federal, State, and Local gun laws already on the books. Why aren’t they sufficient? Why aren’t they working? Will just one more suddenly change that failure riddled narrative?
Quick aside: One of life’s great pleasures is witnessing someone who has never fired a gun do so safely and responsibly. This can be done at private properties, at a range, or my favorite on a slice of America the Beautiful’s 840 million acres of public lands, the vast majority of which allow recreational shooting (along with activities such as camping, biking, canoeing, riding, hiking, hunting, and nature watching). Yup, America is basically one giant outdoor range! Witnessing someone new to firearms shoot, and I’ve done so from 6 year olds to 86 year olds, is a sight to behold. Smiles for miles. Check out some YouTube videos.
Quick aside: For those proposing “reasonable and logical” quarantines for 25,000,000 AR-15 owners and their 44,000,000 AR-15 rifles at America’s ranges, I literally can’t even begin to enumerate the ways your suggestion both hard fails and soft fails. Maybe I’ll summon up the energy some morning before spin class to unpack that earnestly misguided “solution” with a post here. Please don’t infantilize your fellow law abiding citizens. Instead, vote for leaders who will incarcerate criminals engaging in criminal gun violence. To the mom in a post back a ways on this thread, I hope you will perhaps find a way to be less discouraged that your son has chosen to own an AR-15. Perhaps ask him to take you shooting sometime. I believe it could turn out to be a special moment of connection and growth for your relationship. Imho.
Okay. Time to move on to the Lethality issue. This would be a nice one to clear up once and for all due to rampant confusion and gaslighting. Since our overreaching ATF Director (and many other appointed and elected officials in our the three branches of government) can’t even define what an assault weapon is, and since anyone with any military background recoils in horror at the thought of civilian model AR-15’s being handed out for military use, let’s see what we can learn about the true lethality of this common rifle platform which has been in widespread and legal recreational, hunting (small game) and self-defense use for nearly 60 years. This is especially prescient due to Sunday’s New York Times article introducing a new arrow in the quiver of gun control enthusiasts: calls for ammunition control via the myth-making creation of “ballistic unicorn assault bullets with scary stampings”. The article serves as a reminder of how widespread the Left’s gun grabbing agenda aimed at law-abiding civilian disarmament goes. Quick recap: I’m a center left-leaning Democrat registered voter. The Times headline could have just as easily read: “Breaking News: Ammo factory makes ammo!”.
The article has succeeded in creating a new avenue of fear, misunderstanding and emotion fueled “reasoning” in those with little to no understanding of firearms. Anyone familiar with firearms understands that for each caliber there is literally a plethora of options within that caliber for bullet weight, in some cases shape, grains of gunpowder, and the like. All which have different purposes (lower recoil, dangerous game penetration, flatter trajectories for target shooting, etc.). The article implies there is something unusual in the manufacturing volume and variety of cartridges utilized in hundreds of different types of firearms, including the AR-15. In doing so, the article maligns a common manufacturing practice in use since cartridges were invented, and jump starts a new “made up of whole cloth” narrative suggesting the availability of cartridge variety within a caliber is providing access, inspiration, and extra killing capabilities to mass public shooter’s in the commission of their horrific murderous criminal activities. As if the “most gentle” .223 cartridge wouldn’t have still been lethal enough to carry out mass public shooter’s madness at school, bowling alley or workplace. Same goes for pistol calibers, shotguns, and all other non-AR-15 rifles and calibers. First we blame the inanimate “scary black weapon of war”, and now we’ve introduced “scary cartridges with marks on their base”. That specific cartridge, fyi, is considered inexpensive lower grade “plinker” ammo. Of course a boat load of it has been sold and is thus in circulation. And water is wet. Lord help us. Granularly picking out a single inexpensive and ubiquitous cartridge’s presence at a mass public shootings, and thus a causal factor for said mass public shooting, is journalistic gaslighting at an Olympian level. Meanwhile, as journalistic integrity in America circles the drain, the Mass Public Shooter prevention toolkit gathers more dust. For shame.
As we segue into the lethality segment, let’s bear in mind that when utilizing the methodology developed by the FBI, DOJ, and Obama’s White House Mass Public Shooting commission, we know for a fact that in the 60 year history of AR-15 rifles, they have been utilized in 50 (thus 25%) of the 200 recorded mass public shootings since 1966. Just wanted to refresh our collective memories as we get started. Today’s assignment: Reading E. Gregory Wallace's 2020 research paper "Assault Weapon Lethality ". It is 68 pages long, and was published in the Fall 2020 University of Tennessee Law Review:
https://ir.law.utk.edu/tennesseelawreview/vol88/iss1/
Anyone familiar with firearms, ballistics, and the laws of physics, anatomy, science (and reality) will be thinking “Yeah…not a newsflash”. Even finding this article on search engines can be difficult. It’s buried many pages down in the search results, of course. Wondering why? We can do the whole Search Engine & Social Media Industrial Complex needing serious bi-partisan regulation on another day, in another thread. If you don't feel like reading Mr. Wallace’s paper cover to cover (which I encourage you to do as it is quite enlightening), here’s a Cliffs Notes of the conclusion page: “The facts do not support claims by gun-control advocates and federal courts that "assault weapons" like the AR-15 are exceptionally lethal, far beyond non-banned firearms. The AR-15's rate of fire is virtually identical to non-banned semiautomatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Its accuracy is better than some firearms but worse than others. Like ANY rifle, its bullets typically cause more serious wounds than handguns, but not as serious wounds as larger-caliber hunting and target rifles. Because "assault weapons" are not far more lethal than non-banned firearms and are equally useful for self-defense, courts must find other justifications for upholding laws that keep such firearms out of the hands of ordinary citizens. In answering the question whether "assault weapon" bans are an appropriate and effective response to the problem of mass shootings, relying on the perception that the problem is the weapon (and now the ammo!) instead of the shooter obscures the complexities surrounding the actual causes of mass public shootings and diverts policymakers from effective prevention strategies. Lacking evidence-based reasons for concluding that AR-15s are exceptionally lethal, legislative bans are an overreaction-driven by emotion or political agendas rather than facts - and courts upholding them have no good justification for overriding the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who own (or want to own) the popular AR-15 rifle. These bans deprive such citizens of the right to choose for themselves the firearm most appropriate for their self-defense needs and do little, if anything, to deter the tragic violence perpetrated by mass shooters.”
Based on the information presented in Mr. Wallace’s paper - founded on research and methodologies professors at your Ivy covered institutions of higher learning would likely hate but be compelled to grudgingly approve of - we have to ask some hard questions about the obsessive focus on AR-15’s as the problem (and thus banning them as the solution) to America’s Mass Public Shooting scourge. Let’s do some simple math: of the 44 million AR-15 rifles extant in America - owned legally, responsibly and non-criminally by about 25 million law-abiding Americans - less than 0.000001% (50 rifles total) have been utilized throughout the entire history of Mass Public Shootings. Of the top 10 Mass Public Shootings by murder total, AR-15 rifles were used exclusively 4 times. Pistols were used exclusively in the 3rd and 6th most deadly top 10 Mass Public Shootings. In general, as you all know, pistols are the only firearm utilized in 80% of Mass Public Shootings. Source: FBI & DOJ using their methodology for Mass Public Shootings. Sincere apologies to those parroting the Gun Violence Archive’s bloated and obfuscatory numbers which Everytown, the majority of the mainstream media, major news desks, many politicians, anti-gun lobbying groups, and social media echo chambers recirculate as gospel. If you are basing your criminal gun violence research on these sources, I’d suggest looking under the hood instead of just kicking the tires, and being dazzled by a shiny paint job, when the wormy faced, greasy comb over used car salesman conspiratorially whispers to you “It’s a steal!”.
In the last few years, especially during the aftermath of Mass Public Shooting events, we’ve heard more and more politicians crowing about how well the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban “worked”. This seems like wishful thinking at best, or wholly irresponsible to claim based on the results of well respected studies. When “outright false and half-truth facts” are circulated and recirculated with zealous fervor in the aftermath of horrific Mass Public Shooting incidents - which is exactly what happened in the aftermath of the recent Maine incident - the focus on known and effective mitigation strategies becomes lost in the rhetorical vortex of spin. That’s how massaged and misleading “facts” become “truths”. Research studies do exist regarding the efficacy of the previous assault weapons ban. And they have been what can best be collectively termed “profoundly inconclusive”. Need some highly respected, platinum grade and vetted researchers? How about the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, or the principal fellow of George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (and the co-author of the Department of Justice’s OWN similarly inconclusive review of the 1994 assault weapons ban). Both authored papers which echoed previous findings that the AWB’s effectiveness was statistically inconclusive (minimal/negligible). RAND Corp conducted an exhaustive assessment titled the “Assault & Magazine Bans Effects which was updated January 10, 2023. That highly respected institution’s summary findings? “Evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings is inconclusive. Evidence that high-capacity magazine bans may decrease mass shootings is limited”. And yet, despite all of this, we continue to see the gun control debate energized. polarized, and framed around 50 rifles (out of 44 million) which over the past 60 years have been used by criminal mass murderers. And all this to the sad, frustrating, maddening, and unconscionable detriment of our elected leaders and the public joining together to demand implementation of known effective strategies and policies which can, have, and will reduce the occurrence of Mass Public Shootings. For shame.
If we can set aside the collective emotional enmity for AR-15 rifles for just a few minutes, here’s what we CAN do. After Sandy Hook in 2012, President Obama put together a task force headed by then Vice-president Joe Biden. Representatives included the Attorney General/DOJ, Education Secretary/DOE, Health & Human Services Secretary, and the included the additional presence of FBI and other community leaders. In 2013, when their findings were published by the FBI, the key takeaway was a logical definition regarding how a mass shooting/active shooter incidents should be defined, which is as follows: “an incident in which four or more victims are fatally shot in a public location within a 24-hour period in the absence of other criminal activity, such as robberies, drug deals, and gang conflict.” This has been updated to exclude family annihilations. There have been 200 such Mass Public Shooting incidents since 1966. In addition, the development of a nascent deterrence playbook - which incorporated strategies previously identified (some going back decades) with a commitment to new research studies - was set in motion. The goal? Find ways to offramp potential mass shooters in the making BEFORE they are able to enact their horrific mass murders.
One member serving on the Obama commission was now retired FBI Special Agent Katherine Schweit. Quick aside: She’s a female Blue State Democrat voter. As an attorney and special agent she spent nearly five years as the executive responsible the FBI’s active/mass shooter efforts. Since retirement, she has tirelessly researched Mass Public Shootings (utilizing facts, incident reports, and empirical data), lectured, consulted, and authored a book I'd like to recommend titled "Stop the Killing" (now in its second edition). The book unpacks the root causes of Mass Public Shootings, and outlines actionable and effective solutions which have been proven to help reduce these horrific crimes NOT by disarming law abiding citizens of AR-15s, but rather by teaching strategies for OFF RAMPING those on the path toward resorting to such actions.1) See something, say something. 2) taking to task our politicians and media and THEIR ROLE in creating a COPYCAT CONTAGION which inspires potential mass killers (and in many cases AR-15 usage in mass killings). 3) EDUCATING our political, school, and community leaders, and the public at large, to recognize the warning signs (aka LEAKAGE) given off by an overwhelming majority of mass public killers. 4) Addressing the role of mental illness and PHARMACEUTICALS present in a high percentage of mass killers. 5) creating a THREAT ASSESSMENT TEAM infrastructure in America which focuses on prevention and intervention. 6) Implement HARDENING strategies for public places such as churches, schools, and workplaces. These include personnel, training, and physical elements. We know where and why Mass Public Shooter are choosing their venues, which are overwhelmingly gun free zones. The recent Maine shooter chose his venues with care: bars and bowling alleys are by law “gun free zones” in a state with a large percentage of the population carrying concealed. His mentally ill, twisted mind knew all too well exactly where he wouldn’t meet a good guy or gal with a gun (more on that topic coming below). Yet “sensible hardening strategies” meet with a great deal of pushback. There is a growing body of “intercepted incidents” (170 and counting according to the National Institute of Justice and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services database) which attests to the EFFECTIVENESS of these strategies, including an averted event just one week before the most recent Maine incident (which SHOULD have been another MPS averted success story!), and a disturbing credible threat (made by a Cornell engineering student) just last week.
The single most important action we can take to stop Mass Public Shootings is SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. Yet this “off-ramping superpower” is not a part of the public consciousness. How could it be when we’re so busy vilifying inanimate objects? In interview after interview of persons who knew a mass public shooter and sensed something was “off”, they mention the fact that by “saying something” they felt like they would betray the person in crisis. Sadly, this mindset has prevented these “early warning radar detection opportunities” from initiating an off-ramping sequence. Estimates suggest up to 90% of Mass Public Shootings could be averted, which speaks volumes about how far sideways the public mass public shooting discourse has gone. Why aren’t our political leaders, academics, lobbying groups, and the public demanding policies which focus on the creation of a public awareness campaigns which encourage better understanding and safe reporting avenues which would jump start broad utilization of this powerful intervention tool? For shame.
Quick aside: Please note there are important core differences between “see something, say something” and Red Flag Laws. The former can be deployed without violating an individual’s rights, the latter are currently stuck in a controversy quagmire due to, no surprise here, a lack of “sensible red flag law” checks and balances. As most are currently being written, the opportunity for weaponization and abuses in “throwing the flag” are all too real. Research suggests in one-third of instances they have been invoked when they shouldn’t have. Our press trumpets headlines about micro aggressions and a need for punishments for “mispronouning” (accidental or otherwise) someone, yet there’s nary a peep when someone is denied due process for their rights guaranteed in the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments. More disturbing are the most vocal anti-gun zealots openly stating that any falsely accused gun owner found to be “inconvenienced” in a Red Flag Law failure still deserves all the monetary, time, and emotional pain they suffered by being wrongly accused. Just curious, are people here okay with that? If so, you might want to learn the difference between a right and a privilege.
For anyone suggesting most Mass Public Shooters were model citizens among us, therefore how could we have intervened, the factual research paints a crystal clear picture: 65% have been found to have criminal records. 70% have been diagnosed mental illness. 80% exhibit clear signs of crisis leading up to their criminal mass murder. Couple that with the prevalence of leakage, and other early warning signs which point strongly indicate intervention is warranted, and we seem literally incapable of intercepting telegraphed passes. The radar screens of law enforcement, the military, mental health professionals, educators, neighbors, families, and coworkers are literally filled with early warning data which we can’t seem to turn into effective preventative action. Think of the most horrific mass public shooting you can: Parkland? Vegas? Buffalo? Columbine? Maine? Nashville? Each and every one of these - and point of fact nearly all others - are hallmarked by the presence of abundant early warnings which were either missed, ignored, or both. For shame.
When Schweit’s book finally mentions firearms, it comes near the end. Her mention of AR-15s is done in a way that will seem lost on most everyone here. She explains why the rifle is PURPOSELY being chosen by those planning mass shootings. The reason is NOT because they are more lethal, because research has clearly shown they are not. The reason is because damaged humans perceive they will get more infamy - via sensationalist press coverage, politician posturing, and public outrage and fear - IF THEY USE a "scary black rifle" as a de facto twisted “cosplay” type prop. Schweit terms this phenomenon "contagion", and points out the role of the press/media, our political leaders, and the public (especially via social media), as notable influences and inspirations for our FUTURE mass shooters, who we SHOULD be off ramping. This phenomenon is not just conjecture, but is borne out via manifestos and social media posts of living/deceased mass public shooters, who Schweit refuses to refer to by name, and through interviewing mass public shooters who survived and are now in prison. When TIME magazine irresponsibly and ghoulishly chose to put that horrific “Exclusive” image of the Columbine killers on its cover, the floodgates of Contagion Nation were blown wide open. For shame.
Ms. Schweit has been at the forefront of the creation - within our schools, workplaces and communities - of Risk Assessment Teams. She lectures and provides training on this topic (her website is excellent). IMHO, it would be an overdue and welcome application of public resources to create a broad based national foundational framework within which such teams at the local level could proliferate. In addition to helping all of us identify future mass killer “tells”, a clear avenue for reporting concerns to these highly trained risk assessment teams could be established. These teams could then assess the potential threat, and work with law enforcement, therapists, and the judges to take appropriate next steps. Averted incident interventions are real. Why aren’t we codifying and widely implementing these known effective strategies? Well, our leaders, the press, and the Bloomberg weaponized anti-gun public are certainly busy spending an inordinate amount of time, energy and resources on finding ways to take away the gun ownership rights of law-abiding citizens, to the detriment of enabling known viable and proven solutions. For shame.
It was discouraging to see the Maine Governor and flip flopping Democratic Congressman come out with their predictable political posturing and pandering “Do Something” statements focusing renewed calls for “Assault Weapon” bans, when what was needed was bi-partisan leadership. Calling for widespread implementation of effective policies would have been the right thing to do. It would have been nice to have them make a statement such as my fictional one here:
“We’d like to point out that despite having some of the least restrictive gun laws in America, Maine has historically had the 4th lowest rates of crime and murder in the nation for decades. The horrific event which took place in Maine points to a failure in our nation’s approach to identifying and stopping Mass Public Shootings before they occur. There are clear strategies which have been developed by leading experts and policy makers which have been designed and proven effective in working toward achieve this goal. Yet once again, this event points out the shortcomings in our focus and approach to keeping innocent people from being victimized through the criminal utilization of firearms by mass murderers. We are calling for the nation to immediately implement widespread training, formation, and deployment of risk assessment teams, engage and educate the public with “see something/say something” awareness campaigns, reduce political, social media, and press induced copycat contagion, create tenable red flag laws with severe penalties for misuse, and an immediate review of the wisdom and logic - such as we passed into law here in Maine which is a constitutional carry state - to having “gun free zones”. The majority of mass public shooting perpetrators indicate they selection the venues to carry out their violent criminal behavior based on “soft target status”. We also call for the repeal of HIPPA protections for surviving and deceased Mass Public Shooters so the public and policymakers can learn what role the pharmaceutical industry (and the mental health professionals prescribing their powerful drugs), as well as both legal and illegal recreational drugs (including alcohol), are playing as catalysts in Mass Public Shootings. Together, we CAN make a difference and curtail these horrific, albeit extremely rare, events”.
As the post-incident assessment of the Maine mass murderer’s “leakage/tells” unfolds, it’s painfully clear he literally checked every “wow, we should have seen this coming” box. He actually checked numerous boxes MULTIPLE times. He will go down as one of the top “shoulda, coulda, woulda mass public shooting missed intervention opportunity failures” of all time. An aversion success story should have been written in Maine, instead of an all too predictable lost opportunity tragedy. For shame.
And for those of you keen observers waiting to pounce on the “gun free zone / good guy with a gun” reference I snuck into my fictional statement above, I commend you. Let’s look at the factual data. It can be hard to find, but it does exist. The dig has to be deep because the prevailing narrative dislikes factual reality. Just one example: Everytown has what we could paraphrase as a “Division of Hollywood Engagement” which “suggests” (provides curated prompts) for writers and developers of TV and Movie content in order to negatively portray defensive gun use. “Show good guy with a gun at home quaking and unable to fire due to fear during a home robbery”. “Show good guy with gun in public injuring innocent bystanders trying to be a hero”. “Show good guy with a gun’s child at home accidentally finding and using it to harm themselves or others”. Cold War era Russian propaganda ministry officials would be proud! The most recent FBI/DOJ Active Shooter Incident report (2022) indicates 16% of active shooter incidents (which include Mass Public Shootings) in 2022 featured “citizen intervention and/or confrontation of the shooter resulting in the end of the incident”. That’s a report prepared by Joe’s FBI and Justice Department, and those turn out to be massaged lowball numbers. ANY reports of defensive gun use or “good armed citizen interventions” are wholesale ignored by the mainstream media, including this report. Have no fear, journalists, politicians, and government agencies, independent researchers and concerned law-abiding citizens have come to the rescue, armed with factual reality. The FBI’s Active Shooting Reports, which includes Mass Public Shootings, from 2014-2022 were put under deep research scrutiny. And when light shone into the darkness, by compiling verifiable eye witness counts, local press coverage, law enforcement public records, and court filings, the corrected numbers are as follows: Approximately one-third of active shooter incidents are ended by citizen engagement (good guy or gal with a gun). In 2022, that number reached 40% Wait! The FBI/DOJ published 16%. When excluding gun-free zones, citizen engagement deterrence jumps to two-thirds for 2014-2022. Narrative fiction, meet statistical fact. Statistical fact to narrative fiction: “Hold my beer”.
What will it take to derail and redirect toxic anti-gun and rabid calls for disarmament of law abiding gun owners narratives? A willingness to actually compartmentalize the categories of criminal gun usage and violence, and in turn address each of these vessels individually with targeted and proven mitigation strategies. They do exist. And there are many smart, conscientious, caring, and hard working leaders in both the public and private sectors who are ready, willing, and able to help build new narratives. The gang and mostly inner city vessel. The drug trafficking vessel. The robbery vessel. Then assault and rape vessel. The organized crime vessel. The family annihilation vessel. And the incredibly rare, yet profoundly demoralizing, Mass public shooting vessel. This would require a collective looking into the mirror to face some hard truths regarding America’s societal cancers. I’m hopeful some day soon we can get serious and substantive dialogues in play and on target. “Barbecue sauce”.
I began researching criminal violence committed with guns in America many years ago. This was as the result of being the victim of a criminal gun violence incident. My parents and I (all unarmed) narrowly escaped an armed robbery attempt by a violent repeat offender with, no surprise here, an illegally possessed handgun. Shots were fired, and we survived unscathed, literally, due to a fluke of fate. The helplessness I felt that night is something I vowed to never feel again. I know what law-abiding firearm ownership is, and I’ve experienced first-hand what criminal violence with a gun can look like. I wish our nation would focus on eradicating the latter, instead of relentlessly attacking the former. In doing so, I believe we would all become safer, and the rift which is tearing our collective soul apart could begin to close. For hope.
We can have a full blown 2A discussion on another day. Warning: snarky utilization of the word militia will get one sentenced to extra grocery shopping and lawn mowing duties without parole. Have a nice day, gentlemen.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. John Stuart Mill On Liberty 1859
. Be well.