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Why is it not a mass shooting if a gang is involved?

catiopatio 3y ago
Why is it? Do you think that gang violence and what we traditionally call “mass shootings” have the same underlying causes and represent a similar level of risk to the public?
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  Underlying causes could be: incredibly easy access to guns, and, a lack of a social services. Compared to peer countries for both causes the US is wildly on the edge. I live in Canada, which is about as close as you can get to the US in any number of ways, and I don’t know anyone who has been a victim of gun violence here. Not true for my American friends (at least two students died in shootings in the high school I went to in the US, one of them was a mentally challenged student shot by a cop). In all honesty, both types of shootings pose relatively small risks to the American public compared to, say, traffic violence, but that’s no reason to ignore a problem that has largely been solved in other developed countries.
- xienze 3y ago
  > Do you think that gang violence and what we traditionally call “mass shootings” Hold on a second here. The FBI definition of mass shooting has always been the same, and gang violence meeting that standard (four or more casualties) has always been considered a mass shooting. Years of media only ever using the term “mass shooting” when it involves a school ambush scenario has distorted, in your mind (and many other people, frankly) what the term actually represents. The problem with this is that people draw a false association when they hear statistics about how there’s “x00 mass shootings” every year —- your mind instantly thinks that there’s x00 Columbine-level assaults on schools every year when in fact it’s more like 10 school shootings and the rest of the several hundred are the kinds of shootings that happen in Chicago and other places every other week. > have the same underlying causes The popular opinion is that easy access to guns is the only reason, so yeah apparently. > and represent a similar level of risk to the public? Again, see the earlier point about how people hear “mass shooting” and can’t conceive of any way in which a “mass shooting” doesn’t involve someone randomly shooting up a school or workplace. There are indeed a lot of mass shootings every year, but the majority of them _don’t_ involve the sort of crazy lone-gunman-shooting-up-a-school scenario that people _think_ are the majority of mass shootings. The majority of them are in fact gang violence. As far as threat to the public? Depends how likely you are to be somewhere that gang violence might occur —- and those areas aren’t as isolated as people like to think.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    While your point is well made, it's worth using the actual numbers; >> when in fact it’s more like 10 school shootings This year, guns have been discharged in schools only 66 times. So on track for about 130 this year. Down from 177 last year. Not all discharges in deaths. Only 57 last year and 26 this year (so far). And yes, presumably some of those discharges are gang related. Still, in school though. Is this blood sacrifice of young children simply the price we pay for the 2nd ammendment? Is calling it a "blood sacrifice" excessively colorful language? Is 50 kids a year too many? [1] https://everytownresearch.org/maps/gunfire-on-school-grounds/ https://everytownresearch.org/maps/gunfire-on-school-grounds...
- epivosism 3y ago
  Please reconsider your use of the phrase "the public". A huge proportion of the victims of violent crime in the US (these victims are dramatically more likely to be black) are not in gangs, and mostly just live in poor neighborhoods and get caught up or accidentally shot. See the book "Ghettoside" for details in this. Actually for many years the idea that "murder victims in the inner city are just gang members" was used to deprioritize investigations there, which has led to the current high crime in those areas - i.e. very low clearance rate, people rationally feeling that the police won't protect them, so they have to protect themselves. Allowing lawlessness there (by not counting them as regular people and regular victims would be counted) has just resulted in a chaotic and unsafe environment for people there, which perpetuates the problem. Take a look at this list of recent killings in LA. https://homicide.latimes.com/ https://homicide.latimes.com/ by the author of Ghettoside. Far from a SJW/"Racism is the cause" it's a very reasonable, infrastructure-based understanding of why the problem exists and persists, from the left, with empathy.
kortilla 3y ago
It’s not a mass shooting when it’s 1 death and 3 injuries between groups of people actively hostile to each other. It’s like calling it a mass shooting when police shoot bank robbers brandishing firearms and kill just one of them. Hysterics designed to juice stats for a political cause.
ta8903 3y ago
Don't know why, but people just don't take gang violence seriously in America. I've been in lots of discussions about gun violence, but I've never seen someone argue for reducing gang crime, even though they cause a majority of the gun deaths.
- hyperhopper 3y ago
  Everybody wants to reduce gang crime, but that is a separate issue unrelated to what the conversation usually is. People often use gang violence in stats they use to argue for increasing gun control. Bringing gang violence into the conversation makes no sense, since gangs historically get guns no matter how many laws prohibit it. Doubly so since often gangs are in cities and urban areas: the places in America that already have the most strict gun laws. Acting like armed groups of criminals breaking the law to fight each other fall in the same category as a mentally unwell individual shooting innocent civilians are in the same category, and using the same term to refer to them both, helps nobody and just muddies the conversation.

Why is it? Do you think that gang violence and what we traditionally call “mass shootings” have the same underlying causes and represent a similar level of risk to the public?

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Underlying causes could be: incredibly easy access to guns, and, a lack of a social services. Compared to peer countries for both causes the US is wildly on the edge. I live in Canada, which is about as close as you can get to the US in any number of ways, and I don’t know anyone who has been a victim of gun violence here. Not true for my American friends (at least two students died in shootings in the high school I went to in the US, one of them was a mentally challenged student shot by a cop). In all honesty, both types of shootings pose relatively small risks to the American public compared to, say, traffic violence, but that’s no reason to ignore a problem that has largely been solved in other developed countries.
xienze 3y ago
> Do you think that gang violence and what we traditionally call “mass shootings” Hold on a second here. The FBI definition of mass shooting has always been the same, and gang violence meeting that standard (four or more casualties) has always been considered a mass shooting. Years of media only ever using the term “mass shooting” when it involves a school ambush scenario has distorted, in your mind (and many other people, frankly) what the term actually represents. The problem with this is that people draw a false association when they hear statistics about how there’s “x00 mass shootings” every year —- your mind instantly thinks that there’s x00 Columbine-level assaults on schools every year when in fact it’s more like 10 school shootings and the rest of the several hundred are the kinds of shootings that happen in Chicago and other places every other week. > have the same underlying causes The popular opinion is that easy access to guns is the only reason, so yeah apparently. > and represent a similar level of risk to the public? Again, see the earlier point about how people hear “mass shooting” and can’t conceive of any way in which a “mass shooting” doesn’t involve someone randomly shooting up a school or workplace. There are indeed a lot of mass shootings every year, but the majority of them _don’t_ involve the sort of crazy lone-gunman-shooting-up-a-school scenario that people _think_ are the majority of mass shootings. The majority of them are in fact gang violence. As far as threat to the public? Depends how likely you are to be somewhere that gang violence might occur —- and those areas aren’t as isolated as people like to think.
- bruce511 3y ago
  While your point is well made, it's worth using the actual numbers; >> when in fact it’s more like 10 school shootings This year, guns have been discharged in schools only 66 times. So on track for about 130 this year. Down from 177 last year. Not all discharges in deaths. Only 57 last year and 26 this year (so far). And yes, presumably some of those discharges are gang related. Still, in school though. Is this blood sacrifice of young children simply the price we pay for the 2nd ammendment? Is calling it a "blood sacrifice" excessively colorful language? Is 50 kids a year too many? [1] https://everytownresearch.org/maps/gunfire-on-school-grounds/ https://everytownresearch.org/maps/gunfire-on-school-grounds...
epivosism 3y ago
Please reconsider your use of the phrase "the public". A huge proportion of the victims of violent crime in the US (these victims are dramatically more likely to be black) are not in gangs, and mostly just live in poor neighborhoods and get caught up or accidentally shot. See the book "Ghettoside" for details in this. Actually for many years the idea that "murder victims in the inner city are just gang members" was used to deprioritize investigations there, which has led to the current high crime in those areas - i.e. very low clearance rate, people rationally feeling that the police won't protect them, so they have to protect themselves. Allowing lawlessness there (by not counting them as regular people and regular victims would be counted) has just resulted in a chaotic and unsafe environment for people there, which perpetuates the problem. Take a look at this list of recent killings in LA. https://homicide.latimes.com/ https://homicide.latimes.com/ by the author of Ghettoside. Far from a SJW/"Racism is the cause" it's a very reasonable, infrastructure-based understanding of why the problem exists and persists, from the left, with empathy.

kortilla 3y ago

It’s not a mass shooting when it’s 1 death and 3 injuries between groups of people actively hostile to each other. It’s like calling it a mass shooting when police shoot bank robbers brandishing firearms and kill just one of them. Hysterics designed to juice stats for a political cause.

ta8903 3y ago

Don't know why, but people just don't take gang violence seriously in America. I've been in lots of discussions about gun violence, but I've never seen someone argue for reducing gang crime, even though they cause a majority of the gun deaths.

hyperhopper 3y ago
Everybody wants to reduce gang crime, but that is a separate issue unrelated to what the conversation usually is. People often use gang violence in stats they use to argue for increasing gun control. Bringing gang violence into the conversation makes no sense, since gangs historically get guns no matter how many laws prohibit it. Doubly so since often gangs are in cities and urban areas: the places in America that already have the most strict gun laws. Acting like armed groups of criminals breaking the law to fight each other fall in the same category as a mentally unwell individual shooting innocent civilians are in the same category, and using the same term to refer to them both, helps nobody and just muddies the conversation.