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Fewer than 2,000 people died in American mass shootings over the past 10 years. https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1160567450850734081 https://twitter.co

Fewer than 2,000 people died in American mass shootings over the past 10 years. https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1160567450850734081 https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/116056745085073408... The problem is that mass shootings are effective terrorism — people freak out about them. But they're not a significant cause of death by any means.

jlawson 7y ago
Even that sounds like a lot, so it's important to compare to other causes of death in the same time period. Just a random comparison: 200 per year for mass shootings. 3,536 per year for drowning not related to boats. 332 additional per year for drowning related to boats. 70,000+ per year from drugs (largely opioids). https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/w... A lot of people have real trouble contextualizing statistics and videos because they can't really conceive of how many people there are. This makes it really easy for motivated media activists to manipulate opinion by heavy reporting of particular incidents, while ignoring trends that are killing literally hundreds of times more people.