World News Korner

Mother Jones updates their guide to mass shootings in America.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

America's latest mass shooting took place in Santa Barbara on Friday night. The New York Times reports: "A college student who posted videos that documented his rage against women for rejecting him killed six people and wounded 13 others during a spasm of terror, the police said. He stabbed three men to death in his apartment and shot the others as he methodically opened fire on bystanders on the crowded streets of this small town." According to the LA Times, the guns he used—two Sig Sauer p226 model handguns and a Glock 34—were legally purchased from federally licensed dealers and were registered to the killer, who after a shootout with police ended his own life with a bullet to the head.

It is perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado in July 2012, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that August, another at a manufacturer in Minneapolis that September—and then the unthinkable nightmare at a Connecticut elementary school that December—were some of the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 70 mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Thirty-three of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006. Seven of them took place in 2012, and another five occurred in 2013, including in Santa Monica, California, and at the Washington Navy Yard. The first five months of 2014 brought another bloodbath at Fort Hood, Texas, and mass killings in northern and southern California.

Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza wielded a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.

The killers: More than half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (12 and 20, respectively); the other 30 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, and religious and government buildings. Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill.

Mother Jones provides and interact map on their site, which provides information about each shooting going back three decades, when your mouse scrolls over each state.

The statistics are horrifying, and they should certainly make all of us ask the question posed by Mr. Martinez the other day. "When will enough people say, “Stop this madness!”"

Now gun advocates will point out that the most recent killer, Elliot Rodger, also killed three people with a knife before his shooting spree. And yes that is true, but the knife certainly did not allow him to drive down the street indiscriminately killing and wounding people from the safety of his car.

Knives have many uses, guns have only one.

And it is time we stopped treating them like fashion accessories and started treating them for what they are. Weapons of mass destruction.

Source