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Almost half of Americans apparently are worried about it. https://news.gallup.com/poll/266681/nearly-half-fear-victim-mass-shooting.aspx https://news.gallup.com

by mempko 1y ago

Almost half of Americans apparently are worried about it. https://news.gallup.com/poll/266681/nearly-half-fear-victim-mass-shooting.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/266681/nearly-half-fear-victim-...

kulahan 1y ago
I can’t help but think this is 99% due to the media. I would bet a million bucks, no matter who you are, that you personally will not get shot. That’s easy math. But I also know human brains are bad at statistics. Meh.
- selcuka 1y ago
  US is the 6th country in gun related deaths per capita [1]. I think human brains are very good at statistics. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...
  - trimethylpurine 1y ago
    Where is it in knife related deaths per capita? How does it compare in deaths per unit poverty per capita? Good statistics beg good questions.
    - xwolfi 1y ago
      I've been once threatened by an ex-gf with a knife, telling me she was gonna kill me. You know what I felt ? A mild worry, "come on, drop that, it's not worth it". She threw it across the kitchen and cried in my arms (difficult breakup, she has an history of family violence and alcohol abuse and comes from Myanmar, a tough place. We're both fine). She would have had, to actually endanger me: - to have enough strength to penetrate anything - the courage to see a lot of blood and cries to actually go through with a full murder - resist me fighting her back if it went to that, close range - not react to any rational argument I would beg her to listen to while she attacked me It was a bit traumatizing, but we laugh at it now... she failed at the first rational argument I presented "don't do it, don't ruin your life for a guy". Imagine if we were in a gun country, and she pressed the trigger accidentally... it's not the same, you must understand that, knife murders are really really hard, gun murders really really easy.
      - kyleee 1y ago
        Downplaying the dangers of knives, just tells us you don’t actually know much about knives…
        kulahan 1y ago
        I've never heard anyone say knives are particularly dangerous outside of people trained in how to fight with them. They tend to be pretty damn short to begin with, unless you're sneaking a machete around in your pants (or are you just happy to see me?)
        seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        There have been more than a few mass stabbings in China where lots of kids, from people who aren’t particularly trained in knifing people. There was the Wuxi vocational school stabbing in 2024 where 8 people were killed, there is a long list of school attacks, most of them are stabbings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_Chin... There was also the Kunming train station mass stabbing a decade or so ago, killing 31 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack Note that China does have a pretty low homicide rate, probably since guns are so hard to get ahold of (death penalty for even producing guns in backyard workshops).
        jbboehr 1y ago
        I bought a knife a while back and, unfortunately, found out that it is really sharp. It could probably cut through flesh like butter.
      - trimethylpurine 1y ago
        https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-crime-on-youth-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-c... Is this because they legalized knives? Obviously not. It's because murder typically rises with poverty and wealth disparity.
    - selcuka 1y ago
      Your questions are irrelevant in the context. If you live in a country with lots of gun related deaths, you'd be concerned about getting shot. Having an equally high number of knife related deaths does not change this fact.
      - trimethylpurine 1y ago
        The argument doesn't seek to change facts, it seeks to invite a broader view of the facts at hand, and the issue, which is murder. Reduction in murder is the goal. Recognizing that murder is very closely related to poverty, not gun ownership, is relevant if you're honest and objective about that goal. If you discover that reducing gun ownership increases knife related deaths, that would be very relevant to the goal. It would then be irrelevant to talk about guns. Right? Hypothetically speaking...
        selcuka 1y ago
        > Hypothetically speaking... Exactly... > murder is very closely related to poverty US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list [1]. The previous 3 countries are Burundi, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, and the next 3 countries are Greenland, Zambia, Liechtenstein (Greenland and Liechtenstein are probably round-off errors with less than 5 deaths per year). Are you really suggesting that those countries should be the benchmark for the US? Now, according to the World Bank [2], the poverty rate in the US is 18%, which is very close to the UK (18.6%). The intentional homicide rates, though, are vastly different (5.763 vs 1.148). How does the poverty argument explain the 400% difference? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r...
        trimethylpurine 1y ago
        > US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list US is number one or two in immigration from 3rd world countries, and that's just by legal numbers, without considering illegal immigration, in which the US is also estimated to be number one. This fits right in with the observable data you've shared. You aren't actually claiming that the guns by themselves are making people murderous, right? That wouldn't be a scientifically sound hypothesis without some evidence to back. But I'll be interested to see if you can come up with something to tie those together. Let's take Utah (since it's the topic of the thread) as an example to try to apply your argument. It has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest murder rates in the world. How does your argument, or any other, explain that?
  - kulahan 1y ago
    Yeah, we have an insane number of gang shootings.
  - wallacewells 1y ago
    And 66th by murder rate. Scoping it to gun deaths is disingenuous, and exactly the kind of thing Charlie Kirk is being (rightly imo) accused of here. Please be better.
    - selcuka 1y ago
      Fair point, but not mentioning the socio-economic level of the top 100 countries in that list is also disingenuous. For a fairer comparison with similar countries; the per capita rate is 5.763 (!) for US, while it is 2.273 for Canada, 1.148 for UK, or 0.854 for Australia. Even if it was as low as Canada, for example, 11,989 of the 19,796 people who died last year might still be living today. If you think that those extra deaths are acceptable, and that guns have nothing to do with that, then I don't believe I can change your mind.
      - kulahan 1y ago
        I don't think anyone is arguing either of those things, but 12k excess deaths in a country of 330 million means this should logically be incredibly low on our priority list. What else with a 0.00006% (20k/330M) chance of happening are we walking around worried about every day? Edit: Note that the correct answer here is that these mass shooting deaths are primarily focused on school children, and has become their (first? second?) leading cause of death at certain age groups. IMO we solve this by raising the gun purchase age to 26, because this is mostly school-age children shooting younger school-age children, then we can ignore the problem pretty much indefinitely.
        selcuka 1y ago
        > this should logically be incredibly low on our priority list. 0.00006% every year... Why should there be a priority list? Why can't we improve multiple things simultaneously? > we solve this by raising the gun purchase age to 26, because this is mostly school-age children shooting younger school-age children This won't solve the problem. A Secret Service study of school attackers (2008–2017) [1] found that "Many of the attackers were able to access firearms from the home of their parents or another close relative." [1] https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Pr...
- pixl97 1y ago
  I mean it does sound like you are bad at statistics. You don't need to get shot to be a victim of gun violence. I've honked at a car that was driving aggressively and that driver pointed a gun at me. This is a common enough story in Texas to be meme-ifyed.
  - kulahan 1y ago
    I suppose that's one way to define it

by mempko 1y ago

kulahan 1y ago

I can’t help but think this is 99% due to the media. I would bet a million bucks, no matter who you are, that you personally will not get shot. That’s easy math. But I also know human brains are bad at statistics. Meh.

selcuka 1y ago
US is the 6th country in gun related deaths per capita [1]. I think human brains are very good at statistics. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  Where is it in knife related deaths per capita? How does it compare in deaths per unit poverty per capita? Good statistics beg good questions.
  - xwolfi 1y ago
    I've been once threatened by an ex-gf with a knife, telling me she was gonna kill me. You know what I felt ? A mild worry, "come on, drop that, it's not worth it". She threw it across the kitchen and cried in my arms (difficult breakup, she has an history of family violence and alcohol abuse and comes from Myanmar, a tough place. We're both fine). She would have had, to actually endanger me: - to have enough strength to penetrate anything - the courage to see a lot of blood and cries to actually go through with a full murder - resist me fighting her back if it went to that, close range - not react to any rational argument I would beg her to listen to while she attacked me It was a bit traumatizing, but we laugh at it now... she failed at the first rational argument I presented "don't do it, don't ruin your life for a guy". Imagine if we were in a gun country, and she pressed the trigger accidentally... it's not the same, you must understand that, knife murders are really really hard, gun murders really really easy.
    - kyleee 1y ago
      Downplaying the dangers of knives, just tells us you don’t actually know much about knives…
      - kulahan 1y ago
        I've never heard anyone say knives are particularly dangerous outside of people trained in how to fight with them. They tend to be pretty damn short to begin with, unless you're sneaking a machete around in your pants (or are you just happy to see me?)
        seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        There have been more than a few mass stabbings in China where lots of kids, from people who aren’t particularly trained in knifing people. There was the Wuxi vocational school stabbing in 2024 where 8 people were killed, there is a long list of school attacks, most of them are stabbings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_attacks_in_Chin... There was also the Kunming train station mass stabbing a decade or so ago, killing 31 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack Note that China does have a pretty low homicide rate, probably since guns are so hard to get ahold of (death penalty for even producing guns in backyard workshops).
        jbboehr 1y ago
        I bought a knife a while back and, unfortunately, found out that it is really sharp. It could probably cut through flesh like butter.
    - trimethylpurine 1y ago
      https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-crime-on-youth-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.humanium.org/en/the-horrifying-impact-of-knife-c... Is this because they legalized knives? Obviously not. It's because murder typically rises with poverty and wealth disparity.
  - selcuka 1y ago
    Your questions are irrelevant in the context. If you live in a country with lots of gun related deaths, you'd be concerned about getting shot. Having an equally high number of knife related deaths does not change this fact.
    - trimethylpurine 1y ago
      The argument doesn't seek to change facts, it seeks to invite a broader view of the facts at hand, and the issue, which is murder. Reduction in murder is the goal. Recognizing that murder is very closely related to poverty, not gun ownership, is relevant if you're honest and objective about that goal. If you discover that reducing gun ownership increases knife related deaths, that would be very relevant to the goal. It would then be irrelevant to talk about guns. Right? Hypothetically speaking...
      - selcuka 1y ago
        > Hypothetically speaking... Exactly... > murder is very closely related to poverty US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list [1]. The previous 3 countries are Burundi, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, and the next 3 countries are Greenland, Zambia, Liechtenstein (Greenland and Liechtenstein are probably round-off errors with less than 5 deaths per year). Are you really suggesting that those countries should be the benchmark for the US? Now, according to the World Bank [2], the poverty rate in the US is 18%, which is very close to the UK (18.6%). The intentional homicide rates, though, are vastly different (5.763 vs 1.148). How does the poverty argument explain the 400% difference? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r...
        trimethylpurine 1y ago
        > US is the only first world country, together with Russia, in the top 100 intentional homicide list US is number one or two in immigration from 3rd world countries, and that's just by legal numbers, without considering illegal immigration, in which the US is also estimated to be number one. This fits right in with the observable data you've shared. You aren't actually claiming that the guns by themselves are making people murderous, right? That wouldn't be a scientifically sound hypothesis without some evidence to back. But I'll be interested to see if you can come up with something to tie those together. Let's take Utah (since it's the topic of the thread) as an example to try to apply your argument. It has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest murder rates in the world. How does your argument, or any other, explain that?
- kulahan 1y ago
  Yeah, we have an insane number of gang shootings.
- wallacewells 1y ago
  And 66th by murder rate. Scoping it to gun deaths is disingenuous, and exactly the kind of thing Charlie Kirk is being (rightly imo) accused of here. Please be better.
  - selcuka 1y ago
    Fair point, but not mentioning the socio-economic level of the top 100 countries in that list is also disingenuous. For a fairer comparison with similar countries; the per capita rate is 5.763 (!) for US, while it is 2.273 for Canada, 1.148 for UK, or 0.854 for Australia. Even if it was as low as Canada, for example, 11,989 of the 19,796 people who died last year might still be living today. If you think that those extra deaths are acceptable, and that guns have nothing to do with that, then I don't believe I can change your mind.
    - kulahan 1y ago
      I don't think anyone is arguing either of those things, but 12k excess deaths in a country of 330 million means this should logically be incredibly low on our priority list. What else with a 0.00006% (20k/330M) chance of happening are we walking around worried about every day? Edit: Note that the correct answer here is that these mass shooting deaths are primarily focused on school children, and has become their (first? second?) leading cause of death at certain age groups. IMO we solve this by raising the gun purchase age to 26, because this is mostly school-age children shooting younger school-age children, then we can ignore the problem pretty much indefinitely.
      - selcuka 1y ago
        > this should logically be incredibly low on our priority list. 0.00006% every year... Why should there be a priority list? Why can't we improve multiple things simultaneously? > we solve this by raising the gun purchase age to 26, because this is mostly school-age children shooting younger school-age children This won't solve the problem. A Secret Service study of school attackers (2008–2017) [1] found that "Many of the attackers were able to access firearms from the home of their parents or another close relative." [1] https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Pr...
pixl97 1y ago
I mean it does sound like you are bad at statistics. You don't need to get shot to be a victim of gun violence. I've honked at a car that was driving aggressively and that driver pointed a gun at me. This is a common enough story in Texas to be meme-ifyed.
- kulahan 1y ago
  I suppose that's one way to define it