Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Solution for the Problem of Mass Shootings
At the military junior college where I obtained my first degree, there is a memorial for the alumni who died in service during World War II. The number of names on the memorial is surprisingly large for a school with a student body of about 1500. What is more surprising is that about one in five died not in combat but in flight training. During the War, there was a medal just for flying 100 times, as a passenger. Flying was much more dangerous than it is now, and not just for the military. The fatal accident rate in 1946 (Per hours flown) was ten times what it was in 2010. Flying is now by far the safest means of travel.
Driving, for instance, is several dozen times more likely, per time travelled, to result in injury or death than commercial airline flights. Flying is so much safer that when you get out of your car after driving to the airport for a flight, you have completed the most dangerous part of your journey.
Even so, most people feel a lot more nervous about flying than about driving. There are three reasons for this: Familiarity, the illusion of control, and publicity. Flying is something most people do only occasionally. The process of checking in, the security, boarding, the Kabuki Theatre of the safety demonstrations, and the actual takeoff are guaranteed to increase your anxiety. On the other hand, most people have been driving since their teens and drive almost every day. Driving is so familiar that it is almost automatic. There have been times when I arrived at work and realized that I did not remember a single detail of the 16-mile journey I just completed. Let’s see the hands of everyone who has not had this experience. I thought so.
The illusion of control does not mean you have no control. You can control your own safety by paying attention, obeying traffic laws, keeping your vehicle properly maintained, and not driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or electronic devices. Unfortunately, you cannot do the same for the other drivers on the road with you. When you board a plane, you feel uneasy because you are giving complete control . . . to some of the smartest, most experienced and most highly trained professionals in the country. When you drive, you are entrusting your life to several hundred people who are not.
People do not really know how to judge risk. Part of the crisis intervention training I conduct at work includes a section on determining the risks of interventions. I begin by asking what animal is most likely to kill someone in the United States. Usually only about one out of ten students knows the answer. Before I tell you, I want to point out that animal attacks are very common. If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, bitten by a mosquito, clawed by a cat or chased by a dog, you have suffered an animal attack. Deaths, on the other hand, are very rare, usually less than 250 per year in the U.S.
So what is the worst killer animal? Sharks? Bears? Mountain lions? Alligators, Gila monsters or poisonous snakes? Scorpions, brown recluse or black widow spiders? Elephants or gorillas? Nope, none of these.
Deer.
Almost as many deaths are caused by deer as by all other animals put together. While a few people are trampled or gored, most die when they are driving. They either hit the deer or lose control trying to avoid it. Second on the list are bees and wasps, usually as the result of an allergic reaction to a sting. Our canine companions come in third. All of the nasty, vicious, dangerous animals listed above account for about 12 deaths per year in the U.S. I’ll still bet that people are a lot more afraid of rattlesnakes than deer.
Which brings us to our last reason: publicity. When was the last time you heard about someone dying in a crash caused by a deer? It happens all the time, more than a hundred people a year die in that manner. How about bee or wasp sting deaths? In both of these cases, there may be a passing mention in the local news, but nothing beyond that. Shark and bear attacks get a lot more attention; people even write books and make movies about them.
The same goes for transportation deaths. While most traffic fatalities get at least a passing mention in the local media, almost none get publicized nationally. Every commercial airliner crash is national news for days, weeks, or months; and most other aircraft crashes are at least mentioned in passing.
So what does have to do with mass shootings? Such events are the shark attacks and airplane crashes of homicides. We may never know why this goon did what he did, which is both scary and eerie. The events are completely out of your control, and they are publicized grossly out of proportion to the actual effects.
Here’s a question: How many firearm homicides have there been in the U.S. since Las Vegas? I don’t know, but there were over 8,000 such homicides last year. That means that 150 people, more or less, have been killed by someone using a gun since that event. It may be more, it may be fewer; I don’t know, and I’ll bet no one else does either. While the national media has been obsessing over every detail of the Las Vegas incident, probably three times as many people have been killed elsewhere in the U.S. without a single mention on the national news.
More people will be killed by domestic violence this year than all the deaths from all the terrorist and “lone-wolf” attacks in the U.S. after 9/11/2001. There will be more homicides in Chicago this year than in all such attacks over the last sixteen years.
There are ways to protect yourself from being a homicide victim. Don’t use illegal drugs or engage in other illegal activity. Don’t use alcohol to excess. Don’t hang out with people who do any of those things. Don’t get in a relationship with anyone who is violent, controlling, impulsive, stupid or drug-addicted. Get a concealed handgun license. You still may be a victim, but it’s a lot less likely.
You can also protect yourself from mass casualty events. Don’t go to concerts. Or sporting events. Or nightclubs. Or church. Or school. Or work. Stay home and check out of life. Then you’ll be safe. Hey, here’s an idea! Go rob a bank, turn yourself in, plead guilty, and go to prison. Then you’ll be really safe.
What I’m going to say next will sound harsh and uncaring, but here goes. Like all of you, I felt shock and horror about the news from Las Vegas. (If you didn’t, you’re a sociopath, get off Ricochet and go back to 4chan.) I was saddened for the victims and their families. I was heartened by the courage of the police, security guards, and ordinary people who risked their lives to protect others. I felt admiration for the EMT’s and medical personnel who had to deal with so many injured and dying people. But this incident had absolutely no effect on my life.
I am not going to be killed by one of these monsters. I’ll bet my life on it. I’m going to work tomorrow. I’m going to take my wife to restaurants. I’m going to concerts or ballgames with my kids. And guess what? Statistically, none of you are going to be killed in a mass shooting either, any more than you are going to be killed in a plane crash or eaten by bears.
So live! Go to work, go to school, to church, to baseball games, to nightclubs or concerts. Ignore all the hoopla about the latest horrifying event. The most danger you face will be on your drive there.
Just watch out for deer.
Published in Culture
Nothing will stop Americans from living free except themselves.
I always watch for deer. Hit one. Missed dozens.
I thought the most deadly animals were Democrats. New Zealand had a serious problem with overpopulation of deer. The Kiwi’s cured the deer problem in one hunting season. They allowed venison to be sold.
Great essay. You cannot stop someone from planning, or doing something stupid and evil. ER’s are filled with people, especially on Friday and Saturday nights that have consumed copious amounts of alcohol, or some other intoxicant and then gone on to to do something spectacular. What you need to do is modify your own behavior to avoid these individuals to the best of your ability. Lessen the risk, but you should always remember fate is the hunter. Not tempting fate helps, but there are no guarantees in life.
I thought Mosquitoes were the deadliest animal. According to the World Health Organization, they kill over 1 million people a year.
Your point is still valid, don’t worry about being shot by a mass murderer. Something else will get you first.
I never really understood this argument. Because for this to be true statistically then for someone the statistics have to be a 100% certainty. Someone is not .ooo3% dead. Making an actuary table argument doesn’t persuade people.
That’s why both sides of a public policy issue embrace “the moral authority game.” This person lost a loved one due to (fill in the blank) so you must listen to the them and do what they say.
I prefer to argue the Second Amendment from an originalist point of view. If a politician wants to argue with me that an AR-15 was only designed to kill people, I will agree them. “Yes, Senator, the Founders assured me the God-given right to bear arms against you should you decide to deprive me and my fellow citizens of any of our other God-given rights. It’s there because the country was born in revolution. And don’t you ever forget it.”
In addition, there are ways to increase security for large crowds. When was the last time a major political figure was assassinated? It’s not for lack of desire. Security had improved tremendously.
Probably true world-wide but not in the US, which is what the OP seems to be about. Mosquito abatement has been fairly successful, at least in my neck of the woods. In sub-Saharan Africa, not so much. Thank Rachel Carson for that, but that’s a topic for another thread.
Just after Vegas I was discussing the event with someone who specializes in event security for a major metropolitan police department and basically he said this was the realization of the fears he and his colleagues have had for decades. High rises and a fenced in crowd? An inevitability. The only way to secure that is to hold such events indoors. But there was still the Bataclan.
Ask Steve Scalise and Gabby Giffords. It ain’t for lack of trying. George W. Bush almost bought it in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2005 when someone threw a Soviet made RGD-5 hand grenade at him during a speech. Luckily (for everyone but the would-be assassin) it was a dud.
I’ll never believe I’m safer on a plane than in my car. Those statistics are only meaningful if you are an average driver, which I’m not. I’m far, far, above average judging by my driving record. I’m downright OCD in my car. In any event, there’s always the additional question: If you had to get killed in a car crash or plane crash, which would you choose?
I on the other hand was hit by a deer. He literally leaped into the left front fender on my car after the 3 does who had been standing in the middle of a highway had fled. Stupid deer did $3000 damage but I was able to drive on home. I doubt if he made it home though.
I also had a deer jump up from a lawn by our local bank, landed on the hood of my car, leaped off, then ran up a hill on opposite side of the road. Consider myself a true Montanan since I have a dent in my car made by a deer. Not much damage and never bothered having it repaired.
Not in the U.S. You may be interested in this. North America actually has the lowest rate of deaths from animals of any of the continents listed. (They leave out South America for some reason.)
You are not going to die in one of those events. I guarantee it. I’ll even put money on it.
That is the whole point of my argument. People don’t understand risk, worry about things that have no effect on their lives, and ignore what can really harm them.
Not to mention Hillary Clinton dodging sniper bullets on that tarmac…
I was thinking that too. Mosquitoes are hard to eradicate, and they carry many deadly diseases. As do ticks.
Concur, EJ. But the fact that apparently LEO/A’s don’t deploy Sniper/Observer teams for events like this is deeply disappointing and, maybe negligent. Not some cop panting hard, trying to find the shooter with the red-dot sight on his AR-15, while screaming people stream by him and maybe jostle him a little bit.
I mean a for-real sniper, paired with a highly skilled spotter (also, usually, a sniper), whose gun has the calibre and optics to reach out and touch anyone that can reach out and touch the venue. Probably off-set from the venue (like Paddock was), isolated and in a comfortable, stable firing platform.
I’m gobsmacked that this isn’t SOP at events like a country music festival in Vegas.
I’m not. Police departments do not provide officers for private events for free. The organizers have to pay each officer their overtime rate, which I’m told can be anywhere between $80 and $100 per hour.
Hold a protest, though, and the taxpayers will foot the bill.
There would have to be at least two. A sniper on the 20th floor of the hotel wouldn’t have been able to take Paddock out.
I was thinking 4-6 S/O teams. METT-T.
Would a city typically have that many? Or are we talking military?
That’s a good question. I know Miami has a couple of good SWAT teams. The biggest difference between LE and military snipers is the average engagement ranges. Most LE engagements are at ranges where one doesn’t even have to do wind calcs. If, as commented above, security for large private events is privately funded, then that’s problematic.
Pretty sure the concert producers didn’t get charged for the SWAT team that stormed the shooter’s room (even though the craven animal capped himself). The city can compare the human and dollar cost of not having snipes up as a prudent, proactive option.
Maybe not allow fenced-in open-air events. Many of the people in the audience reported being trapped by the fences that had been put up to keep nonpaying people from hearing the concert.
Security is always interesting to me. We tend to discount the events that haven’t actually ever happened simply because we are budgeting security efforts and money.
Terrorists take advantage of this. The Boston bombers put those bombs just beyond the security line. The bombers knew exactly where the security barriers would be.
So we need to add to our present thinking the question, Where is someone else seeing a hole in our security system?