“Why just chose Chicago?”
Because that is what Fox News always likes to mention whenever gun safety comes up? 
It’s worth noting, as I did quite some time back, that the legal barrier to gun purchases for mental illness is quite a high bar. In most states it requires that you have been involuntarily committed to some facility. In Maryland you’re disqualified if you’ve spent more than 30 consecutive days in a medical institution for treatment of a mental disorder, so they pick up the voluntary situation as well, but I’m guessing that the vast majority of people treated are out before the thirty day threshold.
Given the protections written into the law for various reasons, I’m not sure how the public has the ability to verity any of this.
doschicos is right about that. Chicago does have many gun crimes and very restrictive gun laws, as Fox often points out.
Still waiting on roycroftmom (my post 24) that has the easy solution for effective and legal way to stop these criminal acts…
What Fox doesn’t point out is that the problems in Chicago stem from very different issues and therefore are very different from the context surrounding these now constant mass shootings. Trying to equate the two in an attempt to dismiss discussion around gun safety is disingenuous and a red herring. Too bad so many people fall for it instead of moving the discussion forward. And this is one reason why we are where we are…
Current Chicago stats (as of today):
August to Date
Shot & Killed: 48
Shot & Wounded: 275
Total Shot: 323
Total Homicides: 50
Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 326
Shot & Wounded: 1709
Total Shot: 2035
Total Homicides: 383
Current homicide clearance rate is about 15% (in 85% of homicides no suspect is charged). No snitchin’ culture alive and well!
Again looking at Chicago in a bubble is meaningless. Those numbers above are staggering but we still need to compare per capita numbers and not raw numbers.
Here is another list where Chicago is listed as Number 12 most violent.
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/02/21/americas-25-murder-capitals-3/amp/
Chicago gets a bad reputation because it’s easy to point at and say ‘see gun control doesn’t work … look at Chicago’, than it is to require gun control in neighboring states who are supplying the people of Chicago with the weapons.
Currently St Louis has reported 203 murders this year from a population of about 350,000.
Chicago murders are close to 320 out of a population of 2.6 million.
From the above article
I wonder why only one new site (often referred to by a derogatory name) is the only main outlet bringing this to the forefront. Do the other outlets not consider these Chicago lives to matter?
I also noticed the glaring absence of a thread on CC relating to the incredibly violent August in the above mentioned location. Again, do those lives not matter?
calling something gun safety if one means gun control is also disingenuous. Gun safety is knowing how to handle a firearm properly. Gun control is limiting who can get what, or how many. No political opinion there, just showing how I define the terms.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread has drifted off-topic. Please get back to the original subject.
Reports now in indicate the alleged shooter has had multiple interactions w/ mental health pros, with police, and the parents were concerned for his mental health.
Every state has laws, although varying slightly, around people with epilepsy and driving. Clearly that gets reported somehow. I can’t imagine we couldn’t have a similar system for firearm purchases…if you are prescribed or treated for specified mental illnesses no firearm for you and perhaps it should be no firearms in the living situation. If it’s not a HIPPA violation for states to monitor drivers and potential drivers with epilepsy, how can it be a violation of HIPPA to monitor specified mental illnesses and firearm purchases? While suicide is indeed sad, in my mind it is not the same as someone who purposefully goes to kill someone else - or ask that question of the parents of the two men killed by this guy if they feel the same about suicide as murder – bthat said the same mental illness prohibitions might also lower the suicide by firearm rate.
Just to add a few more stats to the discussion of just how big a problem mass killings are in the United States, the WaPo recently did a pretty good compilation of killings since 1966. It is not perfectly applicable here, because the paper included only incidents in which 4 or more people were killed by 1 or 2 shooters, so it would not pick up an incident like this in which only 2 were killed. Nevertheless, it is instructive for people who are not used to looking at numbers or thinking about things like recency bias or availability heuristics.
Over the last 52 years, 1966-present, 1182 people in total were killed in a mass killing in the United States. This is approximately 21 people per year. On a per capita basis (using a rough-weighted 270M population figure over the entire period), that is an annual rate of 0.008 killings per 100,000.
Just for comparison, the current annual per capita rate in probably the safest big city in the US, NYC, is approximately 3.397 killings per 100,000. In other words, being killed while walking on the streets of NYC is approximately 435 times more likely than being killed in a mass killing. Walking the streets of Chicago implies a figure of approximately 2720 times more likely.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
Anyone know the breakdown of stranger killings versus non-stranger killings? My guess is that being killed by someone unknown to the victim is less likely than being killed by a jilted lover, an ex or a former friend.
@TatinG - Check out the two links I provided in post #25 above and accompanying comments.
Let’s not look at the past 52 years but more recent history. These instances are becoming more common not less.
Also, those figures don’t apply to any person “walking the streets” of NYC or Chicago, do they? That’s a misrepresentation of the type of gun violence occurring in major cities in the USA.
If you are looking at mass shootings in history, this incident in Jax would not be included. To be a mass shooting, 4 or more people, not including the shooter, have to die.
We may feel this is a mass shooting because of the circumstances, but those numbers in post #52 would not included incidences such as this one. And I can think of 3-4 from my area in the last year where ‘only’ 3 people were shot and killed so those wouldn’t be included either.
I have no idea but have wondered, are there any stats as to if the number of mass shootings have gone up since say the 80’s or is it just that we now more about them because of the internet and 24 hour news cycle of today? Would the Jacksonville shooting have been much more than a filler article in the local paper in 1983?
I vividly remember 2 big shootings from the lte 80’sand early 90’s but that is only because I had a connection to both. The University of Iowa Gang Lu shootings (I knew the shooter and never saw it coming) and the Lori Dann daycare shooting in the Chicago suburbs (I later worked with the ex-husband). These were both in the early days of CNN an did get some news coverage (very odd to see a “friend’s” picture pop up once the identity is known) but not to the level they would get today and are mostly forgotten about by anyone not connected to them.
Not by much. Suicide is generally an impulsive action, more likely to be taken by those with untreated mental illness than those under treatment - and it is those under treatment who would be restricted from access. Prohibitions based on mental health treatment would not only cause some to avoid treatment, but would infringe on the rights of those who are a risk. It is not the mental illness that is the problem, it is the manifestation of specific symptoms. People with Epilepsy face driving restrictions based on how well their epilepsy is controlled - typically they need to be seizure free for 6 months. Someone with a mental illness that is under control, and has no history of violent episodes should face no more restrictions than an average person.
That said, I would like to see most guns removed from most homes. Not because of the incidents like this (as much as it might prevent such an incident), but because of the suicides and accidents due to poor training, and failure to secure weapons properly.
I think you look for the commonalities and plug the holes. Some of it is easy…no one needs an assault rifle. The rest of it more complex but none of it insurmountable.