Well, by now you’ve heard about the shooting at the Presbyterian school at Nashville by a so far unnamed, but identified 28 year old woman who apparently was a former student.
I have no words to express my sadness at the death of the children and the staff of the school. I hope the lessons that will be learned will be taken to heart by other schools and be used to increase their security.
1% of Democrat Counties Make Up 42% of America’s Murders
Democrats desperately trying to spin high crime rates caused by their pro-crime policies began falsely claiming that crime was a Republican problem. The media began running articles with headlines like, “Red States Have Higher Murder Rates” and “Republicans Like to Talk Tough on Crime — But They’re the Ones with a Real Crime Problem”.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who once claimed that the internet would have no more of an impact than the fax machine, argued that high crime was really a Republican problem and decided to prove it by claiming that, “Oklahoma’s murder rate was almost 50 percent higher than California’s, almost double New York’s.”
Krugman, who somehow has a Nobel Prize, failed to note that most of the murders were coming out of Oklahoma City and Tulsa. In last year’s gubernatorial election, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt won most of the state while Oklahoma, Tulsa and Cleveland counties however went to leftist Democrat Joy Hofmeister. The ‘blue’ parts of Oklahoma are also red with blood.
“The fact is the rates of violent crime are higher in Oklahoma under your watch,” Hoffmeister had claimed in a viral gubernatorial debate attack. Oklahoma had 287 murders in 2020: 166 came out of Oklahoma County and Tulsa County, the two counties that supported Hoffmeister.
Oklahoma County and Tulsa are two of the 62 counties that were responsible for 56% of America’s murders in 2020. A groundbreaking study by John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center, revealed that “1% of counties have 21% of the population and 42% of the murders” and “2% of counties contain 31% of the population and 56% of the murders.”
The 1% of bloody red counties include such Democrat strongholds as Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Dallas, D.C., Miami-Dade, Milwaukee, San Diego, St. Louis, Chicago’s Cook County, Houston’s Harris County, Detroit’s Wayne County, Memphis’ Shelby County, Phoenix’s Maricopa County, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, and many others.
Biden won Cook County, the bloodiest county in the country, by 66%. He won Los Angeles County, the second bloodiest, by 71%, Harris County by 56%, Philadelphia by 81%, New York City by 76%, Wayne County by 68%, and Shelby County by 64%.
German gun laws make anything in the U.S. pale in comparison. This was the case even 30+ years ago when I was stationed there.
Thus we see that the gun grabbers will never be satisfied.
“Lax gun laws” blamed for Hamburg shooting
I recently took a look at gun control laws in Germany. It was because of the Hamburg shooting. I knew there would be a discussion of the gun laws on the books as well as calls for new ones and I wanted to be familiar with what’s already in place.
What they’ve got is pretty extensive, too. Mandatory storage laws, psychological evaluations before purchasing a gun, a licensing process that requires applicants to show a necessity for buying a gun, and age restrictions.
Frankly, they’ve got more rules in place than any state in the US could ever hope to get through.
Their gun laws are anything but lax.
Yet, in the wake of the Hamburg shooting, many are blaming lax gun laws.
Gun laws in Germany, where weapon ownership is among the highest in Europe, could be further tightened after last week’s mass shooting in which seven people, including an unborn child, were killed in a Jehovah’s Witness hall in Hamburg.
The attack has thrown up the perennial question of whether the various parts of the country’s federal system are working together, and strengthened the hand of those in the governing coalition who are seeking stronger gun controls…
But people are now asking why the specialist force is not deployed every day. And in a country whose fragmented political system is often a cause for complaint, a reckoning is coming over Hamburg’s weapons control authority’s response to an anonymous letter sent two months ago about [the gunman’s] mental health.
On 7 February, officers visited [the killer] at his flat in west Hamburg but gave him just a verbal warning after finding a loose bullet on top of the safe in which his gun and ammunition were supposed to be stored. The city’s health services seem to have had no involvement in the unannounced visit, despite the red flags of his book and the anonymous letter, which had suggested that [he] was suffering from a psychological disorder but refused to seek treatment.
A member of Hamburg’s Hanseatic Gun Club, [he] had held a weapons licence since December last year, and the awarding of this permit is a focus of attention as the people of Hamburg prepare to bury their dead.
So once again, we see a mass shooting in an area with extensive gun control laws already on the books.
Sure, many are focusing on a single round sitting on top of the gun safe, but let’s be honest here. That’s not the issue. The issue was, in part, that German gun control didn’t stop the Hamburg shooting. Gun control doesn’t do that.
What it does is make it so literally none of the people in that building had the means to resist this maniac.
Additionally, for all the talk of mental health, let’s remember that the shooter had to undergo a mental health screening in order to get his license. He passed that.
Now, I’m not saying that people can’t develop mental health issues afterward. Not at all. What I’m saying is that this is one of those measures we’re told we need here in the US, yet this is why it’s ineffective. The truth is many people can pass such a screening despite probably not being mentally well.
Germany has pretty extensive gun laws, some of the most extensive on the planet short of outright bans on anything more powerful than a blowgun.
That wasn’t the problem.
We’ll never solve the issue of mass shootings so long as people keep pretending guns are the issue, rather than people.
Unpossible! Everyone knows Europe is a gun control utopia!
German gunman kills six, unborn child, at Jehovah’s Witness hall
HAMBURG, March 9 (Reuters) – A gunman in Germany shot dead six people before killing himself at a Jehovah’s Witness worship hall in Hamburg, authorities said on Friday, in an attack that is bound to renew calls for stricter gun controls.
Eight other people were wounded, including a seven-months pregnant woman who lost her unborn daughter, police and prosecutors said at a news conference.
Officials said they had been tipped off about the perpetrator but had not taken away his legally-owned gun before the shooting at an event on Thursday night.
The killer’s motive remained unknown but a political reason had been ruled out, the officials said.
Authorities identified the gunmman only as Philipp F. The 35-year-old, a German citizen and former Jehovah’s Witness, began shooting through a window at the hall, where dozens of people were gathered, before entering.
He shot himself on the first floor when police arrived minutes after the shooting started shortly after 9:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), the police said.
Germany has suffered a number of mass shootings in recent years as well as a plot by a heavily armed group that aimed to overthrow the government. Following the previous shootings, Germany introduced stricter gun ownership rules and the government has announced plans to tighten controls further.
The Hamburg shooter was known to police, who had visited his apartment prior to the attack in response to an anonymous tip raising concerns about his state of mind. But they did not have enough grounds to take away his weapon, a legally-held semi-automatic pistol made by German company Heckler & Koch, officials said.
The victims included four men and two women, and the unborn female child. The wounded included a Ugandan and a Ukrainian citizen, and four people suffered serious injuries.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are an international Christian denomination that was founded in the United States in around 1870. They are best known in many countries for their door-to-door evangelism.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses said in a statement the religious community was “deeply affected by the horrific attack on its members of the faith in a Kingdom Hall in Hamburg after a service”.
The officials said about 50 people were at an event held in the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall in the Alsterdorf district of the city when the shooting started.
[1/8] Police officers work at the scene of a deadly shooting at a building housing a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, in Hamburg, northern Germany, March 10, 2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
The building in a residential area has been used by the group as a place of worship for several years, resident Annelore Peemueller told Reuters.
Phone footage from another resident showed a person outside the building shooting in through a window.
“I heard loud gunshots,” said the person, who declined to give his name. “I saw a man shooting at a window with a firearm.”
On Friday, people laid flowers outside the hall in remembrance. Forensic workers loaded several bodies, one in a coffin, the others in bags, into a black van.
“There were 12 continuous shots,” another unidentified witness told reporters. “Then we saw how people were taken away in black bags.”
Germany has been shaken by a number of shootings in the last few years. In February 2020, a gunman with suspected far-right links shot dead nine people, including migrants from Turkey, in the western town of Hanau before killing himself and his mother.
In October 2019, a gunman killed two people when he opened fire outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
According to the federal office of administration, there are more than 940,000 registered private gun owners in Germany.
Germany’s strong hunting and gun sports tradition is a big part of gun culture in the country. The DSB marksmen’s association has around 1.35 million shooters among its members in 14,200 clubs across the country.
The mayor of Hamburg expressed shock.
“I extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the victims. The forces are working at full speed to pursue the perpetrators and clarify the background,” Peter Tschentscher said on Twitter.
Southern Poverty Law Center….do tell…..
The guy in the green shirt on the bottom left is an attorney that works for @splcenter. https://t.co/IC8l5rxraZ
— JenniferW (@JenWoodruff79) March 6, 2023
Antifa Thugs Firebomb Atlanta Public Training Facility Construction Site.
A few weeks after a shootout with police left an Antifa protester dead and a Georgia State Trooper injured, the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement of far-left goons has firebombed the construction site of a future public training facility for the city of Atlanta.
The domestic terrorist action came about as part of a “Week of Action” that the far-left group announced last month.
The “action” began as a series of protest marches in Atlanta on Saturday but culminated in the violent act of terrorism that took place on Sunday night.
You can see the throngs of “protesters” coming to do damage to the construction site in the second image here.
“Forest defenders have taken over the police surveillance outpost on the power line clearing near Intrenchment Creek,” reports the Unicorn Riot Twitter account. “Police retreated after crowd arrived at barbed wire fence and shot fireworks into the area.”
“People are smashing and destroying the outpost’s remains, sirens can be heard in the distance,” the tweet thread continues. “A security light post is on fire.”
These people are brazenly flaunting their handiwork. They don’t even care who knows anymore.
“There was a massive police presence along Key Road in southeast Atlanta early Sunday evening as FOX 5 was told protestors were actively clashing with officers,” reports Fox 5. “Officials said at least one construction vehicle was set on fire.”
The good news is that police have locked down the site and put out the flames, and SWAT crews are in place.
Because it’s Sunday night, we haven’t seen statements yet from the city of Atlanta, Mayor Andre Dickens, or Gov. Brian Kemp.
This is a developing story, and we’ll have more information as circumstances warrant.
Fact Check: Did Mass Shooting Deaths Drop 43% After Assault Weapons Ban?
Shootings at Michigan State University and an El Paso Walmart within days of each other have led to shock and mourning across the U.S.
The regularity of such tragedies, particularly in the wake of other mass shootings recorded this year, has catalyzed online debate over gun control.
According to one account shared on Twitter, a 10-year ban introduced on “assault weapons” in the U.S. in 1994 led to a substantial fall in the number of mass shooting deaths, only to rise significantly after it expired.
A tweet posted by activist Mohamad Safa on February 15, 2023, which has been viewed more than 128,000 times, said: “Do you know that in 1994 Bill Clinton banned assault weapons and mass shooting deaths dropped by 43%, in 2004 the ban expire [sic] and mass shooting deaths shot up by 239%.”
Comparisons between the U.S. and countries with stricter gun control laws are frequently used in the wake of events like the shooting at Michigan State.
Australia, as one example, claims to have seen a significant fall in the number of mass shootings after it experienced one such tragedy at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996.
Analysis by Newsweek found that the country experienced far fewer mass shootings since 1996—perhaps none at all, under some definitions.
Changes to U.S. law and restrictions on firearms have been incremental, but the country briefly saw a ban on what it called “assault weapons” between 1994 to 2004.
While the term “assault” has been more commonly associated with rifles such as the AR-15, the ban included weapons such as the handheld Tec-9 and the Israeli Military Industries UZI.
The bill’s effectiveness and scope were also questioned at the time. A 1999 National Institute of Justice paper on the impact of the ban noted that it still exempted prohibited weapons bought before, and how only small adjustments to a firearm, such as shortening its barrel by only a few millimeters, were “sufficient to transform a banned weapon into a legal substitute.”
The Post was also provided with analysis that suggested per capita incidence of gun deaths did dip during the period. However, this data did not assess assault weapons in particular and, as mentioned in the article, there are other issues with it too.
Looking only at statistics involving six or more victims would, in theory, narrow the number of incidents recorded.
There are further disagreements about what counts as a mass shooting. While four or more is used frequently, the Gun Violence Archive (which is widely quoted in the media) defines it as “being that they have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed.”
This type of analysis, again, could significantly alter the statistics quoted on Twitter if used.
Furthermore, the link between the dates and the number of deaths here is correlative. Qualitative and quantitative analysis would be needed to more confidently determine whether the assault weapon ban directly impacted the number of deaths in these circumstances.
As data by Statista shows, the number of mass shootings across the U.S. continued to increase after 2004, but we do not have sufficient evidence to attribute that increase to the lifting of the weapons ban alone.
Nonetheless, while the claim that there was a 43 percent drop and 239 percent rise in the 10 years before and after the ban is based on real expert analysis, that analysis used a less usual methodology, and inferences from it are not based on a thorough examination.
A recent Newsweek poll found a majority of Americans agree that there should be a maximum age for purchasing firearms, although respondents did not agree on the limit.
Among these, 20 percent of respondents thought the age limit should be set at 60, while 16 percent said that it should be set at 70.
The Ruling
Needs Context.
The figures cited on Twitter come from an analysis by one expert, quoted by The Washington Post, who looked at the number of mass shootings where six or more people died during 1994-2004 compared to the ten years before and after those dates.
Accounting for shootings where less than six people died could also alter these results. The definition of mass shootings remains contentious with some analysts counting both injuries and deaths of four or more people.
Salient point: He was walking around the area for an hour, and as soon as he was ‘confronted’ ( if you can call it that) he committed suicide. The only way you can have a chance of stopping this kind of mental case is to be armed and take him out when he starts. And again, ‘gun free zones’ aren’t
Michigan State University gunman had two handguns and multiple loaded magazines
Michigan State University gunman Anthony McRae had two handguns and multiple loaded magazines when he was located by police dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday evening, Fox 2 Detroit reports.
McRae, 43, opened fire inside an academic hall on MSU’s campus around 8:18 p.m. then walked to the student union and fired more shots, leaving three undergraduates dead and five others wounded.
Police released surveillance images of McRae during the hours-long manhunt and a tip from the community led authorities to his location about four miles off-campus.
Officers spotted McRae and called out to him, at which point he shot and killed himself, Fox 2 Detroit reported on Wednesday, citing law enforcement sources. He was carrying one handgun, and had a second handgun and multiple loaded magazine in a backpack.
Prosecutor Releases Criminal History on MSU Shooter
INGHAM COUNTY, Mich. (WILX) – Ingham County Prosecutor John J. Dewane released a statement regarding the criminal history of the alleged Michigan State University shooter.
By now, we’ve heard this. Attested by people who have relatives who attend MSU, all the buildings are ‘gun free zones’, even for those with carry permits.
As always, that sure seems to work, doesn’t it?
Michigan State Shooter Found Dead.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A shooting at Michigan State University gripped the news cycle on Monday evening. Reports of two separate shootings on campus broke (one at a residence hall and another in a gym), apparently carried out by the same person. Currently, at least one person is dead while five have been hospitalized.
Hours after the shootings, police held a press conference and officially released a description of the suspect. Shortly after that, the MSU Police Department released pictures as well.
Unfortunately, some used the immediate aftermath of the tragedy as a way to spread false information in an attempt to paint the shooter as some kind of right-wing white supremacist. I won’t link those posts, which went viral within an hour of the first shots fired, so as to not further defame the guy who is being targeted by them. Pictures of three men walking down the street were also being spread to suggest there were three shooters. That was also false.
The shooter, who is described as a short, black male with red tennis shoes, is still at large and is assumed to be armed and dangerous. RedState will provide further information as it comes in.
UPDATE:
The death toll has now risen to three.
Concentrate Where the Murders Are Concentrated
One of the principles of good public policy is to focus efforts on understanding social problems and searching for effective responses where those problems are serious, not where they are minor or missing. Local problems justify locally focused and decided policies, problems that have effects that are more widely spread justify geographically broader policies, and the broadest problems justify national policies, as illustrated by the federalism of the US Constitution, particularly the Tenth Amendment.
That such a principle is well established is illustrated by t Edgar K. Browning and Jacquelene M. Browning’s textbook, Public Finance and the Price System, which I used when teaching my first such class over four decades ago and which said, “The key issue here is the geographic area over which persons necessarily benefit [or are harmed],” which requires that “care is needed in determining what types of policies are more suitable for local governments.”
However, that principle is often honored in the breach today, as politicians at higher-level governments are always trying to regulate and legislate issues that are more local in character. Why? It lets politicians in areas where the problems are greatest pretend they are a national problem rather than ones tied to their jurisdictions and policies. Further, the power to vote on national-level plans gives politicians representing other areas the leverage to “rent” their support for such programs in exchange for more of what they want through the legislative pork barrel.
Just think how many times a single event in one place starts trending, then immediately gives rise to proposals for new state or national policies as “the solution,” as is so common with issues of crime. The Monterey Park mass shooting is a good illustration. The same day it was reported in the Los Angeles Times, they ran an editorial about mass murder shootings becoming “a sickeningly frequent occurrence in America” arguing that mass shootings “have one thing in common: They have guns” and asserting that we must limit the Second Amendment in the US Constitution—not only federal law, but the highest law of the land—because “national suicide is not the compulsory price of freedom.”
The result of such broad, national responses is also poor “target efficiency,” because too little attention focuses on the more local reasons for where the problems are worse.
An excellent example of this is provided by recent research on the US murder rate by the Crime Prevention Research Center, and its president, John R. Lott Jr., whom I have known since we overlapped many years ago in the UCLA Economics PhD program. I would note that John’s work is often controversial, which also makes him a frequent subject of ad hominem attacks, because the empirical data he develops can strongly contradict what others are “selling” as the truth in some area, particularly with regard to crime. However, I have never seen him abuse logic and statistics to get a particular answer he set out to find (or was paid to, as many “researchers” are). His focus, which strongly reminds me of the work of Harold Demsetz, who taught both of us, is on designing empirical tests to differentiate among alternative explanations, then following where the evidence leads, rather than torturing evidence to create the “right” wrong answer.
Increases in homicide rates tend to be treated by state and federal politicians as if they are broadly distributed national problems to scare Americans into supporting overly broad-brush “solutions.” But Lott’s research shows instead that “homicide rates have spiked, but most of America has remained untouched.” Or as David Strom summarized the results, “There are vast swathes of the country where violent crime is very, very rare, and small areas of the country where it is common.” If that is true, we should focus our attention on those small areas, not on national policies poorly focused on where the actual problems are most severe.
Lott’s research, which used 2020 homicide data, examined the concentration of homicides in particular areas to see whether America’s increasing homicide problem is national or local. He let that data tell its story.
First, he focused on county-level data rather than national data. Some of the dramatic results he found:
Continuing his investigation, Lott looked at even finer-scale zip code data for Los Angeles County. He found that the worst 10 percent of zip codes in the county accounted for 41 percent of the homicides, and the worst 20 percent accounted for a total of 67 percent of the homicides.
From such data, Lott concluded that: “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem.” Instead, “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders.”
Despite the constant political and media drumbeat to portray homicides as a national problem that threatens everyone everywhere, and thus demands national solutions in line with what the political Left wants, the evidence points us in a far more local direction.
That may well explain the political reason for the volume and persistence of that drumbeat. It provides camouflage for those whose policies (and those who support them) would come under far greater scrutiny if people recognized just how concentrated homicides are and then asked what is different in those places, rather than the “blame America first” bromides they are routinely misdirected toward today.
But that means if we really cared about those most harmed by the murder rate, rather than imposing broader-than-necessary restrictions on Americans, it is important to follow the evidence so many would prefer to keep hidden.
California all over the major news media, but Chicago’s usual weekends?
Chicago shootings: 30 shot, 7 fatally in weekend gun violence across city, police say
CHICAGO — At least 30 people have been shot, seven fatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said.
Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act introduced
We’re dealing with a revolving door justice system in the United States. Progressive jurisdictions just bounce perpetrators and predators back and forth from the back of police cars, to holding cells, and all too often back onto the street. A bill just introduced in the House of Representatives aims to require prosecutors to prosecute certain crimes. Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis introduced H.R.27 – Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act on January 9, 2023.
This bill requires certain state and local prosecutors to report data on criminal referrals and outcomes of cases involving murder or non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, or any offense involving the illegal use or possession of a firearm.
The reporting requirement applies to state and local prosecutors in a jurisdiction with 380,000 or more persons that receives funding under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program. The report must contain data on
- cases referred for prosecution,
- cases declined for prosecution,
- cases resulting in a plea agreement with the defendant,
- cases initiated against defendants with previous arrests or convictions, and
- defendants charged who were released or eligible for bail.
This measure might not solve all our problems in the criminal justice system, however it will help combat the practice of supporting prosecutors who vow to outside entities they’ll allow chaos to ensue in their jurisdictions. Accountability might be achieved.
The text of the bill indicates an extensive list of original cosponsors, and at this time there are 23 total.
Ms. Malliotakis (for herself, Mr. Reschenthaler, Ms. Stefanik, Ms. Van Duyne, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Johnson of Louisiana, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Crenshaw, Mr. Issa, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Lesko, Mr. Joyce of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Spartz, Mr. Webster of Florida, Mrs. Cammack, Mr. McClintock, Mrs. Greene of Georgia, and Mr. Moylan) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
One of the features built into the bill is that once all the prosecutors and district attorneys report to the Attorney General, the Attorney General is required to create a report that’ll be publically available.
(3) SUBMISSION TO JUDICIARY COMMITTEES.—The Attorney General shall submit the information received under this subsection to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and shall publish such information on a publicly viewable website.
Having such information reported on will arm the population, as well as those who wish to truthfully report on such statistics, with information on potential bad actors. While some of these positions are elected and others appointed, having the data for all to see can affect both categories of persons. If the bill had provisions in it that would have a little teeth, that would be nice, but we’ll just have to deal with scrutiny via public opinion as a punitive measure.
This is the first bill of 2023 that I’m reporting on. There’s already a big pile that are worthy of bringing up. We’re dealing with a rather lame duck session. The House Speaker can mutter all he wants about promises kept, but we’d be fooling ourselves if we purported that any of these pro-liberty bills or pro commonsense ones will pass both chambers, and find their way to the Resolute Desk. Are we in a better position than we were a few weeks ago? Absolutely. But as far as legislation goes, we’re going to be best situated to hold the line. Given the make-up, we’ll have to be ready for further executive overreach.
If you’ll remember, the ‘joke’ name for Chicago for years has been ‘Chiraq’.
Plus I’m shocked that this unpolitically correct statistic is in the article:
“Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting…”
Seem Bill Whittle was right: “Maybe it’s the people holding the guns.”
Risk of death by gun violence is higher for men in some U.S. areas than in wartime.
In some parts of the United States, young men face a higher risk of dying from gun violence than if they’d gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new study reports.
Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open.
Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.
In all ZIP codes studied, young men from minority groups overwhelmingly bear the risk of firearm-related death, the findings showed.
“These results are an urgent wake-up call for understanding, appreciating and responding to the risks and attendant traumas faced by this demographic of young men,” said study leader Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, R.I.
His team examined shooting data from 2020 and 2021 in four large U.S. cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.
The investigators zeroed in on shootings involving nearly 130,000 men between 18 and 29 years of age. They grouped them by ZIP code so U.S. Census data could be used to examine demographics in those neighborhoods.
The researchers also compared the cities’ gun violence data with combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — from 2001 to 2014 for Afghanistan and 2003 to 2009 in Iraq.
While young men in Chicago and Philadelphia had a much greater risk of firearm death, those in the most violent parts of Los Angeles and New York had a 70% to 91% lower risk than U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the researchers said.
“We often hear opposing claims about gun violence that fall along partisan lines: One is that big cities are war zones that require a severe crackdown on crime, and the other is that our fears about homicides are greatly exaggerated and don’t require drastic action,” del Pozo said in a university news release.
“We wanted to use data to explore these claims — and it turns out both are wrong,” he continued. “While most city residents are relatively safe from gun violence, the risks are more severe than war for some demographics.”
Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting, according to the report.
The study authors noted that exposure to combat has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and higher rates of homelessness, alcohol use, mental illness and substance use.
“Our findings — which show that young men in some of the communities we studied were subject to annual firearm homicide and violent injury rates in excess of 3.0% and as high as 5.8% — lend support to the hypothesis that beyond the deaths and injuries of firearm violence, ongoing exposure to these violent events and their risks are a significant contributor to other health problems and risk behaviors in many U.S. communities,” the research team concluded.
The health risks are likely even higher for city dwellers because they have a lifetime “tour of duty,” as opposed to a typical year-long posting to a war zone, del Pozo added.
“The findings suggest that urban health strategies should prioritize violence reduction and take a trauma-informed approach to addressing the health needs of these communities,” he said.
Canada had a mass shooting even with tyrannical gun control laws designed to prevent mass shootings and or overthrowing said tyrannical government
3 Central Florida men plead guilty in drug trafficking conspiracy
The gang had grenades, suppressors, short barreled rifles; all kinds of ‘restricted’ weaponry. Gun control laws will never affect criminals.
Walmart murderer's "manifesto." I am unsure that I would call this a “manifesto,” more like a suicide note. pic.twitter.com/mmdhQHJJlj
— John R Lott Jr. (@JohnRLottJr) November 25, 2022
It had been posited last night that the shooter in Virginia was a Walmart employee.
Well, he was a manager at that and it appear that the dead and wounded were also employees.
One last point;
Since he was of the wrong demographic, and he only used a handgun, no anti-gun narrative will fit, so expect this to be memory holed just like the football team murderer of two weeks ago.
Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart gunman who fired on coworkers identified as Andre Bing
Andre Bing, 31, of Chesapeake, was armed with ‘one handgun and had multiple magazines,’ city says
The city of Chesapeake, Virginia has identified Andre Bing as the alleged Walmart employee who opened fire last night at one of the company’s stores there, killing six people before police say he turned his pistol on himself.
Bing, the company said in a statement to Fox News Digital, was an “overnight team lead and he’s been employed with us since 2010.” The 31-year-old from Chesapeake was “armed with one handgun and had multiple magazines,” according to the city.
“While details of the tragic incident in our Chesapeake, Virginia store are still emerging, authorities have confirmed multiple fatalities. We are focused on doing everything we can to support our associates and their families at this time,” Walmart said in a statement. “The alleged shooter has been identified as Andre Bing. We can confirm that he was a Walmart associate.”
The development comes as employees at the Walmart Supercenter location in Chesapeake are now speaking out about the violence that erupted in the break room of the store late Tuesday night.
Employee Briana Tyler said the overnight stocking team of about 15 or 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning plan. She said the meeting was about to start, and her team leader said: “All right guys, we have a light night ahead of us,” when her manager turned around and opened fire on the staff.
“It is by the grace of God that a bullet missed me,” Tyler said. “I saw the smoke leaving the gun, and I literally watched bodies drop. It was crazy.”
At first, Tyler didn’t think the shooting was real. “It was all happening so fast. I thought it was like a test type of thing. Like, if you do have an active shooter, this is how you respond.”
Tyler, who worked with the manager just the night before, said the assailant did not aim at anyone specific.
“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at anybody in any specific type of way.”
Employee Jessie Wilczewski told Norfolk television station WAVY that she hid under the table, and the shooter looked at her with his gun pointed at her. He told her to go home, and she left.
“It didn’t even look real until you could feel the… ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski said. “I couldn’t hear it at first because I guess it was so loud, I could feel it.”
A witness also told WAVY that she heard the suspect laughing at one point and that she believes the shooting was planned.
The city of Chesapeake said Wednesday that “Three individuals, including the shooter, were located deceased in the break room of the store.
“One victim was located deceased toward the front of the store. Three other victims were transported to local hospitals for further treatment, but succumbed to their injuries,” the city tweeted.
“At least six additional victims were transported to local hospitals for further medical treatment. One of these individuals is currently in critical condition,” the city added.
The chaos ended after police say the shooter, who was armed with a pistol, turned the weapon on himself. He is believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Yee, this hits close. I’ve been treated myself at that hospital.
Not for being shot though.
Virginia police: Multiple people killed in Walmart shooting
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A shooting at a Walmart in Virginia on Tuesday night left several people dead and wounded, though the exact numbers were not immediately known, police said. The shooter was among the dead, officials said.
In this image taken from video Virginia police respond to the scene of a fatal shooting at a Walmart on Tuesday night, Nov. 22, 2022, in Chesapeake, Va. (WAVY-TV 10 via AP)© Provided by The Associated Press
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle around 10:15 p.m. and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake Officer Leo Kosinski said in a briefing.
Over 35 to 40 minutes, officers found multiple dead people and injured people in the store and put rescue and tactical teams together to go inside to tend to victims, he said.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, he said. They believe that the shooting had stopped when police arrived, Kosinski said. He did not have a number of dead, but said it was “less than 10, right now.”
Kosinski said he doesn’t believe police fired shots, but he could not say whether the shooter was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.
“We are shocked at this tragic event at our Chesapeake, Virginia store,” Walmart tweeted early Wednesday. “We’re praying for those impacted, the community and our associates. We’re working closely with law enforcement, and we are focused on supporting our associates,” the tweet said.
Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said in a text message that five patients from the Walmart are being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions weren’t immediately available.
The Virginia shooting comes three days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. That shooter, who is nonbinary, was arrested after patrons at the club tackled and beat them. The shootings come in a year when the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s shooting also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people. Walmart didn’t have a security guard on duty that day.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner tweeted that he is “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.” State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment tweeting that she was “absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district.”
Chesapeake police tweeted that a family reunification site has been set up at the Chesapeake Conference Center. This site is only for immediate family members or the emergency contact of those who may have been in the building, the tweet said.
Chesapeake is about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Norfolk.
We’re only a few hours into the response, so we don’t have all the answers yet. Chesapeake Police continue their investigation into the active shooter event at Walmart on Sam’s Circle. We do know there are multiple fatalities plus injuries and the shooter is confirmed dead.
— City of Chesapeake (@AboutChesapeake) November 23, 2022
