The Gun Violence Archive ((2022) GVA) has data sources verified as of July 6, 2022 showing a total of 322 mass shootings. That was only 187 days into the year, an average of almost 2 mass shootings a day. What does it take to stop these mass shootings? Here, I will present what can be done to stop the next mass shooting, including looking at the AR-15 the weapon of choice for many mass shooters (Dickinson, 2019; Pelley, 2021). In addition, the costs of such programs will be reviewed.
There are more than 330 million people in the United States, with an estimated 100 million gun owners (Igielnik & Brown, 2017; U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Between 2010 and 2018 the range of those murdered in gun homicide ranged from around 8,000 to 11,000 yearly (FBI, 2015; FBI 2019). If we keep a one-to-one ratio of murder victim to murderer (which is impossible considering a mass shooting-murderer), that is still less than 0.01% of gun owners who are murderers. The AR-15 [style weapon] is a rifle which has become popular and increased in quantity up to 20 million in the US. Murders by all rifles account for around 200 to 400 per year between 2010 and 2018 (FBI, 2015; FBI 2019; Loh, 2022; Schuppe, 2018). Granting the same one-to-one ratio of all rifles as AR-15s, those guilty of committing murder are less than 0.002% of that AR-15-owning population. The AR-15 is just one of many rifles in that category, further decreasing the count whereby it was used to murder.
To stop the next mass shooting is at face to stop the 0.01% and the 0.002% of a population. However, that number becomes even smaller for two reasons; 1) anyone could purchase a gun so instead of the gun-owning population we need to look at the entire population, which changes the percentage from 0.01% to 0.003% and 0.002% to 0.0001%: 11,000 out of 330,000,000 and 400 out of 330,000,000; 2) mass murderers by definition (even vaguely held) are not one-to-one but involve multiple victims and depending upon the year can range from 4 to 10 victims per mass shooting: averaging 7 mass murder-shootings for an average of 54.3 victims of mass murder-shootings, for an average of 7.76 per mass shooting-murder per year (Bucholz & Richter, 2022). To stop the successful mass murderer on average is to try and stop seven people out of 330,000,000, by controlling that 330,000,000.
Aside from the US having more guns than people, the ability to create guns from parts that can be purchased at hardware stores, and that 3D printing exists, there are other practical (let alone moral) issues to consider.
1) defensive gun use has been estimated (dependent upon definition) from 1.67 million incidents a year (English, 2021) down to 59,000 incidents a year as the Violence Policy center ((2017) VPC: a gun control advocacy group) advanced to counter the high numbers such as found by English; Kleck (2018) reviewed the lower numbers and stated the VPC omitted various types of violent crime in their analyses, which necessitates raising the number of defensive gun use incidents. Either way, and at the lowest number by the VPC defensive use is more than five times higher than gun homicide. 2) in a comparison between shootings either stopped by police or by private citizens, shootings that were stopped by citizens averaged 2.33 murdered while waiting for police to arrive and act, the average was 14.29 murdered (Barker, 2012). 3) not all ‘gun free zones’ are the same (Police1 Staff, 2017). Dependent upon how terms are defined and used, we get a range showing “… not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns” (Follman, 2013), to Lott (2018) who found that 94% of mass public shootings occurred in gun-free zones. The importance of context and terms can be seen in the comparison between Follman and Lott: Follman claimed ‘not targeted because it banned guns’ leaving excluded waiting for a target to enter a gun-free zone, and Lott looked at ‘public’ mass shootings.
With the aforementioned, we can see the base of what it would take to systematically prevent the next mass shooting. And, we can see that control is an illusion as it takes the ability to defend oneself and others away from those who may be able to act quickly enough to stop a shooting from becoming a mass shooting. The ability to respond by meeting force with force would be legislated away, making people unarmed targets waiting to be saved by those who have no obligation [the police] to save them [the citizenry].
Extended:
How dangerous is it today? – how likely is a person to be murdered today versus earlier? The homicide rate got as high as 10 per 100,000 at points during the ‘30s and ‘70s (Klebba, 1975). A few times throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, the homicide rate neared the peaks of the ‘30s and ‘70s; a peak of 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980 (Fox & Zawitz, 2010). During all the time before the 2000s, the number of guns was lower. Throughout the 2000s, the overall homicide rate was around five per 100,000 (Macrotrends, 2022). The lowered homicide rate still happened with the lapsing assault weapons ban enacted by Clinton (making 19 types of guns legal once again) and an additional 100,000,000 more guns, of which included 16,000,000 more AR-15 style weapons since the early 2000’s; the homicide rate dropped to among the lowest it had been in a century (Fox & Zawitz, 2010; Klebba, 1975; Macrotrends, 2022; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1996; PBS, 2004; Small Arms Survey, 2018). Homicide is among the lowest it has been, even with the increase in the total number of guns including AR-15 style.
None of this matters to authoritarians who use fear and irrationality to justify taking away rights. That what they advance can lead to more victimization is at best disregarded. They are manipulative with the data they use, and are ready to prevaricate terms. Mother Jones to their credit still claims a mass shooting involves four or more killed, while the GVA has mass shootings including those without a single fatality but multiple shots (Gollman, Aronsen, & Pan, 2012; Gun Violence Archive, 2022). Fear-mongering politicians and media wanting to sell images and agenda latch onto the sensational, disregarding reality, such as advancing the GVA’s over-inflated numbers (Ahmed, 2022; Prignano & Huddle, 2022; Walsh, 2022). In order to keep the fear-mongering stoked for attention, the GVA figures will be advanced while the author(s) of the article gives a definition that contradicts the figures used (Ledur, Rabinowitz, & Galocha, 2022).
All of this fear-mongering, irrationality being pushed into systemic practice, and authoritarianism comes with great costs: the loss of rights, and as has been seen, the weakening of defensive capabilities making more people more vulnerable. The systematic answer leaves individuals more vulnerable. Leaving people to exercise their rights of property and self-defense is the practical and moral way to stop mass shootings.
References
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