Mass Shooting Victims: 250; Other Murders: 17,250

by Tom Kando

August 3-4. Two more mass shootings. This time, in one day. El Paso, 20 dead, Dayton, 10. 

So far, this year’s death count for mass shootings is 58 (Source: Mother Jones). Annualized, this comes to about 100. This is roughly the annual average over the past decade or so (except for a couple of years which experienced a very large event, such as the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, where 58 people died.
Using a different definition, Wikipedia’s number for 2019 so far is much higher: 246. (See Mass Shootings in the US ). For the full year, this would be over 400. However, the vast majority of the events on Wikipedia’s list resulted in only one death. So One could quibble about what constitutes mass shootings and what does not.

So here we go again, with the same old refrain: The media, the politicians, the main talking points:

1. Most obviously: “We need (more and better) gun control. Outlaw assault weapons, do background checks, etc.” Correct.

2. This is a uniquely American phenomenon. It doesn’t exist in other comparable (highly developed) societies. Correct.

3. The main obstacle to progress consists of power groups such as the NRA and their toadies, largely GOP leaders such as Mitch McConnell. Correct.

4. The problem is mental illness. The problem is that the mentally ill have access to guns. Hmm... Isn’t this subsumed under item #1, above? Do the Europeans, the Australians, the Canadians, the Japanese have less mental illness? I doubt it. So this argument is a diversionary tactic by the defenders of the status quo.


5. For the rest, it’s mostly eloquent speeches by presidential candidates such as Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, etc. But that’s okay. It’s better than saying nothing. Let’s not let go of our outrage. Let’s not normalize the situation.

Now for some less obvious and less repetitive points:

1. The vast majority of mass shootings are committed by white supremacists, white racists, fascists, young white men. True, and horrific. This has the beginnings of a political movement, an incipient civil war.

2. We now recognize, conceptually and legally, a relatively new category of criminals: domestic terrorists. These people murder more Americans than all foreign terrorists put together.

And now, let me say something even less obvious: In order to calculate the annual number of people killed by mass murderers, let’s average the two sources I gave at the outset of this article, and say that it’s about 250. At the same time, the total annual number of murders in the US is about 17,500.

So here is my question:

What about the other 17,250 victims of murder each year? Nearly 50 people are murdered every day in America. Mass shootings? Not even 1 person per day.

The only good thing about mass shootings is that they remind us, once every other week or so, that too many Americans are murdered, because Americans have too many (fancy) fire arms. The mass shootings energize us, the anti-gun people. That’s good. In time, we may accomplish what Australia, New Zealand and most other civilized countries have accomplished, namely a reasonable level of gun control and gun eradication.

Controlling, eliminating, reducing the number of firearms must absolutely remain our central goal, no doubt about it. And the reason for this is not primarily because it will reduce the number of mass shootings (although it is likely do that, to some extent), but because it will make a big dent in THE OTHER 17,250 annual murders!

The selective attention paid by the media and by the public to the fewer than 250 annual deaths at the hands of mass murderers is not really rational. I don’t mean to sound callous, but, tragic as mass shootings are, their number pales in comparison to the total number if violent deaths. We are very upset about fewer than 250 victims, but we don’t fret about the other 17,250.

I’ll repeat my mantra: It’s simple, folks: the more guns there are, the more people will die from guns.
© Tom Kando 2019;All Rights Reserved
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