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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder finds that 7% of U.S. adults have witnessed a mass shooting, and over 2% have been injured in one.
Researchers define mass shootings as incidents where four or more people are shot in public spaces. With nearly 5,000 such events since 2014, experts stress the need for public health strategies to address the psychological and physical impacts.
The study highlights how mass shootings are not isolated events but a widespread issue affecting millions of Americans.
That’s seems high. I know way more than 15 people and none of them have seen a mass shooting
Depressing counterpoint: some people know a whole schools worth of people who has seen a mass shooting.
Fair point
Awful. Headline number still seems high when there’s hundreds of millions in the USA.
considering theres an average of 1 school shooting per week and another couple hundred of mass shootings per year in america, it seems quite believable to me, especially since one shooting can have hundreds of witnesses.
I mean do those numbers add up? Even at one per week, that’s like 52 per year on average? Each of em would have to have 10s of millions to add up to 1/15 of US population.
well, lets assume we only count school shootings, the average school having 500+ students, each year there should around be +25.000 people who have witnessed a school shooting. the average age being 40 in america you can increase that number to lets say 1mil people who have witnessed a school shooting, as a gross estimate. yeah 1/15th is gonna be tough to reach even if you added all other mass shootings as i doubt they have 500+ witnesses each time. youre probably right
Hi, my name is sp3ctr4l, good to meet you!
A few years back, I was walking along a sidewalk, heading home from a bar, approaching within 100 feet of a group of people.
But, before I got too close, a car came screaming down the road from in front of me, and then slowed way down as it got parallel with the group.
… And then a krink (AK pistol) emerged from a window, magazine emptied, whole lot of blood curdling screaming and possibly some return fire (sounded like a different caliber) as I dove through some hedges for cover.
Thats a mass shooting, I could have been shot, perhaps now maybe you could say you know me.
“But that’s gang violence, it doesn’t count.”
- some people, for whatever reason
It almost certainly was some kind of gang or drug dealer territory kind of dispute… but yeah, it waa definitionally a mass shooting, but I guess mass shootings only happen if most of the victims are white and not poor, because uh…
Anyway, I did manage to scramble away, have a panic attack, then call 911, ambulances got there in 10 minutes, cops were seemingly already nearbh and blazed past before I even made the 911 call.
… another insane part was that as I was scrambling away, around a block and down a hill, having a panic and/or heart attack…
… there’s a very preppy looking guy walking a little yappy dog, up the hill, with ear buds in.
He pulls one out and asks ‘Was that a car backfiring?’
I respond, gasping for air: ‘NO. GUNSHOTS. DRIVEBY. Get InSIDE!’
… this guy then looks at me in disgust like I just called him a slur, puts his earbud back in, jauntily continues walking up the hill toward a bunch of screaming, injured people.
Sure, ok buddy, I’m the asshole, yep.
-.-
This all occured in an area where a very wealthy neighborhood and a pretty poor one meet.
Guess this asshat didn’t realize the lines separating his neighborhood from… the 'hood… had just been redrawn.
Jeez, I’m glad you weren’t hurt. That definitely counts.
Yeah… still got PTSD from loud bangs.
Though in fairness, a whole lot more of my life has also contributed to that.
Shit, I’m wrong.
Five years ago my step kids were riding in the car with their dad and some car side swiped him.
They pulled over and while their dad was calling the cops, the other car pulled up along side them and fired and gun at their car. No one was hurt, but they coulda been.
Not a MASS shooting i guess, but god damned closed enough.
Of course the cops were completely useless despite having the dashcam footage and the license plate number.
When I was in high school a kid brought a gun with the intent to shoot up the school, but he got caught with it and ran before he was able to use it. We were in lockdown for over an hour while they searched for this kid, so while it thankfully wasn’t a mass shooting it was still scary and it affected the whole school. Some kids were so rattled they didn’t show up the next day or two. If the shooting did happen that would add 2,000 people to the number who have experienced a mass shooting.
I’m glad no one was hurt! Sounds scary
That’s not really how statistics work.
For example, 1 in 10 dentists recommended a specific brand of toothpaste.
You could know 10 dentists in your town and not one of them recommends that specific toothpaste. But in another town 2 out of 10 might. This means between both towns you are left with a 1 out of 10 average.
1/10 is equal to 2/20 = 10%
So, if one town might have a really high shooting rate and 100% of the residents in that town were witnesses and the next town over had no shootings at all.
If we assume both towns have the same number of residents we would be left with a 50% of all residents in the area are witnesses to a shooting. This means if you lived in the town with no shooting and were told 50% of residents were witnesses you would not be able to find a single person to confirm the theory. Even if you knew everyone in your specific town.
Unfortunately, it’s a self-reported study. While there is a lot of math used in self-reporting to account for people who lie or misunderstand the question, the results likely aren’t reproducible.
Self-reported studies can be helpful in some ways but they have deep limitations on accuracy as opposed to “feels.”
Arguably, without mass surveillance and access to data from mass surveillance, there really isn’t another good way to find out who was in physical proximity to a mass shooting other than self-reporting.
The question seems open to interpretation (which is bad for surveys like this).
If I visit a location that was the site of a mass shooting a few years later, have I been “physically present on the scene of a mass shooting”?
I think you could reasonably answer yes: you’ve been to the physical place where it happened, even if not at the time it happened.
I’m sure somewhere in the questionnaire the definitions of mass shooting and physically present were presented to respondents, but once again, lying or misunderstanding the question is definitely a possibility.