In his address to the nation after the Planned Parenthood attack, Obama claimed: “I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn’t happen in other countries.”
Senator Harry Reid made a similar statement on June 23rd: “The United States is the only advanced country where this type of mass violence occurs. Let’s do something. We can expand, for example, background checks. … We should support not giving guns to people who are mentally ill and felons.”
We prefer not to make purely cross-sectional comparisons, but this claim is simply not true. The data below looks at the period of time from the beginning of the Obama administration in January 2009 until the end of 2015.
“I've got a phone that allows me to convene Americans from every walk of life, nonprofits, businesses, the private sector, universities to try to bring more and more Americans together around what I think is a unifying theme..." - Obama
In his address to the nation after the Planned Parenthood attack, Obama claimed: “I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn’t happen in other countries.”
Senator Harry Reid made a similar statement on June 23rd: “The United States is the only advanced country where this type of mass violence occurs. Let’s do something. We can expand, for example, background checks. … We should support not giving guns to people who are mentally ill and felons.”
We prefer not to make purely cross-sectional comparisons, but this claim is simply not true. The data below looks at the period of time from the beginning of the Obama administration in January 2009 until the end of 2015.
How do mass shootings in the U.S. compare with other countries?
Mass shootings do happen in other countries. But they do not happen with the same frequency as in the United States.
Two researchers -- Jaclyn Schildkraut of the State University of New York in Oswego and H. Jaymi Elsass of Texas State University -- analyzed mass shootings in 11 countries, covering the period from 2000-14. Aside from the United States, they looked at Australia, Canada, China, England, Finland, France, Germany, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland.
The United States has more mass shootings -- and more people cumulatively killed or injured -- than the other 10 nations combined, according to their research. While part of this is because the United States has a much bigger population than all but China, the difference can’t be explained by skewed population numbers alone.
When adjusted for population, the United States ranks in the upper half of their list of 11 countries, ranking higher than Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Germany and Mexico. The United States did rank lower than three countries -- Norway, Finland and Switzerland -- but they have populations so small that one or two mass-casualty events can produce a relatively high per capita rate.
Deep down tho, I still thirst to kill you and eat you. Ultra Chimp can't help it.. - Smitty
Apparently, the local PD was called over there constantly. The guy literally introduced himself as "a school shooter". Yet nobody could have prevented this.
Cruz wrote several disturbing social media posts, including one where he said he wanted to be a school shooter. That post was reported to the FBI, which said it wasn’t able to identify Cruz - despite his name being attached to the post.
"I wanna shoot people with my AR-15" and "Im going to be a professional school shooter"
"Hi, I'm Nick," he would say, according to an acquaintance. "I'm a school shooter."
Cruz posed with guns and knives in photos posted on Instagram and made a disturbing online comment about a mass shooting carried out in New York this summer.
Can anyone tell me what a background check consists of and how this guy passed one?
Did he buy his guns privately or at a gun show?
For legal reasons, we are not threatening to destroy U.S. government property with our glorious medieval siege engine. But if we wanted to, we could. But we won’t. But we could.
Montegriffo wrote:Can anyone tell me what a background check consists of and how this guy passed one?
Did he buy his guns privately or at a gun show?
It appears that the 'background check' is to scan for felonies, and not much else. I'm sure somebody has a strong opinion on this, but it's obviously not working.
Montegriffo wrote:Can anyone tell me what a background check consists of and how this guy passed one?
Did he buy his guns privately or at a gun show?
It's a combination of your criminal history and if you admit to things such as drug addiction. The FBI processes the check and is supposed to flag the dealer if your criminal history has issues. There have been cases of people passing the check that shouldn't have for whatever bureaucratic reason. In theory the FBI can flag a dealer for whatever reason they want, like if someone is under investigation but there have been cases of people actually being under investigation and clearing the check anyway.
