Joe Doakes emails:

Well that’s going to put a damper on Heather Marten’s post-Aurora party plans.

Joe’s pointing to an article in Slate which points out the fact that “automatic” weapons (the media’s constant, consistent error; they’re “Semi-Automatic”), and indeed firearms, are not only not the most common weapons used in mass murders – they aren’t even the most deadly:

 

Guns aren’t even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, only 52 percent involved guns.

And aircraft.

The worst school mass murder in US history was…Columbine?

Not even close, as we discussed a few years ago; a deranged politician killed 45, including himself, blowing up a schoolhouse in Bath Michigan in the twenties.

Slate notes what is to lefties the unthinkable; the mass murder rate really has nothing to do with the availability of semi-automatic firearms:

The U.S. mass murder rate does not seem to rise or fall with the availability of automatic weapons. It reached its highest level in 1929, when fully automatic firearms were expensive and mostly limited to soldiers and organized criminals. The rate dipped in the mid-1930s, staying relatively low before surging again in the 1970s through 1990s. Some criminologists attribute the late-century spike to the potential for instant notoriety: Beginning with Charles Whitman’s 1966 shooting spree from atop a University of Texas tower, mass murderers became household names. Others point out that the mass murder rate fairly closely tracks the overall homicide rate. In the 2000s, for example, both the mass murder and the homicide rates dropped to their lowest levels since the 1960s.

There is  psychology involved:

A mass murderer’s weapon of choice depends somewhat on his victims. Attacks with guns, fire, knives, and bare hands are far more likely to be directed against family and acquaintances than total strangers, while mass murderers prefer to use explosives against people they don’t know. Also of note: Those who use firearms in a killing spree turn the gun on themselves 34 percent of the time, while only 9 percent of mass-murdering arsonists take their own lives.

At any rate – the “gun control’ “crisis”, like the “war on women” and Trayvon Martin, are all just attempts to change the conversation from the economy.  There is no other there there.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, July 30th, 2012 at 6:01 am and is filed under Victim Disarmament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.