4 ms·
>You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism... I know this is pedantic, but you got me curious so I went to check the nu
by bilbo0s 7y ago
>You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism...
I know this is pedantic, but you got me curious so I went to check the numbers.
Odds of death in mass shooting (US only): 1 in 11,125
Odds of death by lightning strike (US only): 1 in 161,831
So it seems that it's actually a lot more likely for an American to die in a mass shooting than it is for us to die in lightning strikes.
Edit:
Sorry. The source was the National Safety Council, National Center for Health Statistics, and the Cato Institute.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-shooting-gun-statistics-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-shooting-gun-statistics...
- tomp 7y agoFrom the same source: Odds of death by police: 1 in 7700 Odds of death by car ("any motor vehicle incident"): 1 in 315 I'd agree with basetop, I'd rather live in a world free of censorship and "full" of extremism.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoThese seem like very high odds. Odds of death by car ("any motor vehicle incident"): 1 in 315 Per the source, "any motor vehicle incident" is actually 1 in 108.
- tomp 7y agoThey're lifetime odds, not yearly. > 1 in 108 Oops you're right, I picked the wrong line :D
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- JudgeWapner 7y agoedit: I mixed up yearly statistics vs "lifetime likelihood". I'll leave what I wrote for posterity If the US population is 328,000,000, and each of us has a "1:11,125 odds" of dying in a mass shooting, that would seem to indicate that there are 328m/11,125 = 29,483 "mass shooting deaths" in any given year (I'm happy to accept corrections on my math here, maybe I'm completely missing something). That's patently false, and quite a spurious definition of "mass shooting". My definition of "mass shooting" is an unprovoked attack for terroristic reasons. i.e. NOT a { jealous spouse/drug dealers/gang bangers }. I don't keep an active tally, but I would estimate the number on an "average" year to be about 50, double that during the year we had the vegas shooting. 50/year puts the odds at rougly 1:6,560,000, or about 40x less likely than getting killed by a lightning strike.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoGang violence also falls under the same definition. Also from the business insider: "There is no broadly accepted definition of a mass shooting. The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are "shot and/or killed" at "the same general time and location."
- s1artibartfast 7y agoNot all mass shootings stem from extremism. Gang violence also falls under the same definition. Also from the business insider: "There is no broadly accepted definition of a mass shooting. The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are "shot and/or killed" at "the same general time and location." Another source suggests that death rate from "Islamic terrorism" in the US is somewhere around 1 in 3,500,000. If you presume other types of extremism are similar, there is still a significant difference from the mass shooting rate. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-mass-shootings-in-america-this-year-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-mass-shootings-in-a... https://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html https://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html
- tomp 7y ago> Another source suggests that death rate from "Islamic terrorism" in the US is somewhere around 1 in 3,500,000. Yeah, that can't be right. Or, it can be, if one only takes into account years after 2001, when at least 3000 people were killed, or 1 in 100 000 US residents.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoThe 1 in 3,500,000 rate is for years 1975 to 2015 and includes the 9/11 attack. Since 2001, the rate is about 6 deaths per year for a total of 100 over 17 years. This gives a post 2001 rate of less than one in 50 million. See page 4 of the previously referenced document.
- tomp 7y agoAh, so you're likely using the annual rate. Parent was using lifetime risk.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoVery good point, I missed that
- pathseeker 7y agogetting struck by lightning != death by lightning strike