About the Confederate Flag....

[Steely Glint]

The mass shooting that got England on the list happened just down the road from me. Always weird to see it as part of some dudes statistical analysis.

I question the usefulness of using such small numbers in their analysis - if they'd have happened to pick the previous 15 years for the UK, will it so happened we had two mass shootings in that period so the rate would have doubled. Maybe in the next fifteen years it would have halved. What they should have done is compared the EU to the US, they are of comparable size and population.

[Loki]

Double would still be 2. Does it really matter if we're comparing 2 vs. 133 or 1 vs. 133?

[wiggin]

The mass shooting that got England on the list happened just down the road from me. Always weird to see it as part of some dudes statistical analysis.

I question the usefulness of using such small numbers in their analysis - if they'd have happened to pick the previous 15 years for the UK, will it so happened we had two mass shootings in that period so the rate would have doubled. Maybe in the next fifteen years it would have halved. What they should have done is compared the EU to the US, they are of comparable size and population.

I agree that the data are highly granular - mass shootings being fairly rare events (though subject to some disagreement over definitions), it's unlikely you're going to be able to extract much useful information from a quantitative analysis. This is particularly true because it's hard to lump mass shootings together in any meaningful way. The perpetrators of such shootings tend to have wildly varying motivations, levels of sophistication, goals, and methodology. It makes it hard to meaningfully compare even within a country let alone between them.

Would we expect that a policy proposal intended to, say, reduce the chances of a Columbine happening would in any way resemble one aimed at preventing a Breivik massacre? Is a useful response to Charlie Hebdo in any way similar to one to Charleston, let alone Newtown? In other words, raw numbers for such rare and unique events are not particularly meaningful. Certainly some broad policy proposals that have little to nothing to do with the event in question are generally what gets bandied about politically. That makes sense - it's not very comforting for people to be told that these rare events are hard to guard against, and that even a complex solution involving the best designed policies aren't likely to prevent every mass shooting. It's much easier to point a finger at one's political opponents and say that it's their flag or gun control or immigration policy or foreign policy that needs to change.

A white supremacist shot up my neighborhood while I was growing up. In that case, he was a member of a known white supremacist group who had obtained firearms illegally before going on his rampage. Certainly the FBI stepped up its scrutiny of his organization (and eventually ended up putting their leader in jail for a very long time) and continues to keep tabs on other white supremacist groups across the country. They also threw the book at the illegal weapons dealer. Yet even in a roughly similar motivation to the Charleston shootings (and likely similar profiles of the killers), there are enough differences that any additional FBI vigilance in the intervening years would have been useless. As I understand it, most of the Charleston shooter's indoctrination came from the internet, not in-person meetings, and he obtained his firearms legally. It's hard to imagine that any single set of policy prescriptions will have any real impact on mass shootings.

[Loki]

Specific motivations aside, there's actually a lot in common between the shootings. I read an analysis of school shooters, and the following was true of most of them: personal grievance, general grievance, unfreezing (some event that removes their inhibitions, usually a death in the family or being dumped by a girlfriend), and prior experience with weapons. That's not counting the obvious traits of these people being loners, white, male, and late teens/early twenties. Note the white part. This is partly a cultural phenomenon unique to the (generally) suburban European-American culture. Certain kind of individuals in the US engage in these actions because they think these actions are justifiable, kind of how young Muslims of a certain persuasion go and join ISIS.

[Flixy]

A white supremacist shot up my neighborhood while I was growing up. In that case, he was a member of a known white supremacist group who had obtained firearms illegally before going on his rampage. Certainly the FBI stepped up its scrutiny of his organization (and eventually ended up putting their leader in jail for a very long time) and continues to keep tabs on other white supremacist groups across the country. They also threw the book at the illegal weapons dealer. Yet even in a roughly similar motivation to the Charleston shootings (and likely similar profiles of the killers), there are enough differences that any additional FBI vigilance in the intervening years would have been useless. As I understand it, most of the Charleston shooter's indoctrination came from the internet, not in-person meetings, and he obtained his firearms legally. It's hard to imagine that any single set of policy prescriptions will have any real impact on mass shootings.

I don't know exactly how old you are, but that anecdote is a bit useless considering Internet was probably a lot less big in those days, and without knowing whether hun laws changed in the meantime. But isn't radicalization on the internet more and more replacing doing that person to person?

[Steely Glint]

Double would still be 2. Does it really matter if we're comparing 2 vs. 133 or 1 vs. 133?

It is highly distorting when you're doing statistical stuff which scales with population, like shootings per million people, fatalities per 100,000 of population and all the other tricks your article used to make it seem like mass shootings in the US are no big D.

[Flixy]

The gun control debate in this country is absolutely ridiculously out of touch with reality. After every mass shooting we get people wringing their hands talking about tougher (and universally required) background checks, limits of concealed-carry laws, and banning of assault rifles. Yet few of these measures are likely to limit mass shootings, and none of them are likely to substantially affect the scourge of gun violence in this country. The vast majority of homicides in our country happen with handguns, and they are frequently legally purchased by people without records or substantial mental illness (though a large proportion of said murders are carried out by people who are not their legal owners, and would be disqualified from a gun purchase). Absent wholesale banning of handguns (along with other weapons) coupled with a mandatory buyback policy and a comprehensive shift in culture, it's wildly unlikely that any gun control measures are going to have a substantial impact on our gun-related violence. Furthermore, it's even less likely that mass shootings that galvanize such public outcries will be in any way affected - do we honestly think that Aurora, or Newtown, or Charleston would have been prevented if the perpetrator was determined enough? Breivik certainly didn't have much trouble; neither did the Charlie Hebdo shooters. Mass shootings by nutjobs are never going to be eliminated, and they can only be mitigated by good social support systems, sophisticated police work, etc. Gun control isn't all that likely a solution.

Good points, but I'd like to point out that Breivik, for example, didn't manage to buy an illegal gun. He tried to buy an ak 47 but failed and had to go for a hunting rifle instead. So that means on one hand that banning weapons does mean that it's harder to get them and hampers criminals.. but also that if you want to do something like that they will find a way. But making it harder also gives you more chance to stop them. But even then.. we had a mass shooting here a while back, with a legal gun. He should never have been issued that permit, and red flags should have been raised (as in, suicidal past, been refused a weapons permit before, etc), but the system failed.

[Loki]

It is highly distorting when you're doing statistical stuff which scales with population, like shootings per million people, fatalities per 100,000 of population and all the other tricks your article used to make it seem like mass shootings in the US are no big D.

This is why fatalities are a bad measure in this case; it's prone to be affected by outliers when the sample is so small.

[wiggin]

Specific motivations aside, there's actually a lot in common between the shootings. I read an analysis of school shooters, and the following was true of most of them: personal grievance, general grievance, unfreezing (some event that removes their inhibitions, usually a death in the family or being dumped by a girlfriend), and prior experience with weapons. That's not counting the obvious traits of these people being loners, white, male, and late teens/early twenties. Note the white part. This is partly a cultural phenomenon unique to the (generally) suburban European-American culture. Certain kind of individuals in the US engage in these actions because they think these actions are justifiable, kind of how young Muslims of a certain persuasion go and join ISIS.

You're obviously correct that the broad strokes of how people go from ostensibly normal to being mass murderers share a lot of similarities, but that doesn't have a whole lot of utility when designing policy to counteract such behavior. I've read into the very extensive research/thinking going on right now about radicalization in the context of terrorism (i.e. political mass murder rather than the run of the mill sort). They share a lot of the profile you mention above, though there are some differences. But I don't know if that profile is particularly useful for crafting policies to prevent such atrocities in the future... nor are the policies always discussed after these shootings likely to be effective, either.

I don't know exactly how old you are, but that anecdote is a bit useless considering Internet was probably a lot less big in those days, and without knowing whether hun laws changed in the meantime. But isn't radicalization on the internet more and more replacing doing that person to person?

It was the late 90s, but you're right that radicalization and indoctrination have obviously shifted more and more onto the Internet. That's kind of my point. The methods and motivations shift over time, and it's very challenging to shut down such a rare and difficult to predict event. On the one hand, it's awful that 100-odd mass shootings have happened in the US in 15 years. On the other hand, it means that law enforcement and social services would have had to sift out literally one out of two million Americans to identify and prevent such a shooting. Obviously you can argue that those 100-some people are part of a larger population, but it's still marginal. My point is that there is no policy panacea that will work - just a lot of common sense, slow to implement, incremental policies on a broad front that can help reduce the frequency of such events over a long period.

(Gun laws, btw, would have allowed Roof to get a gun legally back in the 90s, and would have disallowed Smith. So no substantive change there.)

It is highly distorting when you're doing statistical stuff which scales with population, like shootings per million people, fatalities per 100,000 of population and all the other tricks your article used to make it seem like mass shootings in the US are no big D.

I don't think that was the message of Loki's link at all (and I think Loki is actually pretty clear in this thread that he's well aware of the worrying scale of mass shootings in the US). The link was addressing specific comments by the President that implied mass shootings just aren't really a problem in other advanced countries. They may be more of a problem in the US - at least by some measures - but we're hardly exceptional. What is exceptional is our murder rate.

Good points, but I'd like to point out that Breivik, for example, didn't manage to buy an illegal gun. He tried to buy an ak 47 but failed and had to go for a hunting rifle instead. So that means on one hand that banning weapons does mean that it's harder to get them and hampers criminals.. but also that if you want to do something like that they will find a way. But making it harder also gives you more chance to stop them. But even then.. we had a mass shooting here a while back, with a legal gun. He should never have been issued that permit, and red flags should have been raised (as in, suicidal past, been refused a weapons permit before, etc), but the system failed.

Someone who is sufficiently determined will be able to get their hands on weapons. It's easier in the US, but that hasn't stopped all sorts of nutsos in other countries with stricter laws from getting access to them. Breivik killed an astonishing number of people with 'only' a hunting rifle (and handgun?). Assault rifles are a nice boogeyman, but they don't account for most murders, not even most mass shootings.

What gun control will help is limiting a large chunk of the other murders and suicides in the US, which are greatly exacerbated by the wide availability of firearms. I just don't think it will do all that much here.

[Wraith]

Reportedly, Apple, Amazon, and Google are removing all merchandise with the confederate flag from sale. This seems like a big overreaction, and I feel like I'm missing something here.

[Steely Glint]

I don't think that was the message of Loki's link at all (and I think Loki is actually pretty clear in this thread that he's well aware of the worrying scale of mass shootings in the US). The link was addressing specific comments by the President that implied mass shootings just aren't really a problem in other advanced countries. They may be more of a problem in the US - at least by some measures - but we're hardly exceptional. What is exceptional is our murder rate.

I know it wasn't what Loki was trying to say, he was just after the raw numbers, but I think it's pretty clear the article was itself was out to downplay the disparity between mass shooting events in the US and other first world nations in order to """"debunk""" a bizarrely literal interpretation of the presidents words (pretty sure he didn't mean mass shootings literally never ever happen in other countries, guys), but using a number of dubious statistical slight of hands which amounted to "and if you look at per capita fatality rate in mass shootings on that one island Breivik shot up and then compare it with the entire continental US then you can see the US doesn't really have a problem at all!"

The fact is, you really are exceptional in this regard. Based on those figures, if you scaled up England to the size of the US (~*6) we'd have had... 6 mass shootings in the period where you had 133. If you scaled up Germany, a people whose aggressive and warlike nature (Khen will explain about this) led them to have the most mass shootings of all the Europeans, by those numbers, they'd have had 24 . To your 133.

And also, while I am very strongly in agreement with Loki's premise that the most important issue here is access to mental health care and that the people who want to make it all about gun control are more interesting in fighting culture wars than finding solutions, I think it's a bit self-deluding to try and claim that gun control is just nothing to do with it at all.

[RandBlade]

On the topic of the Confederate Flag, I view that flag in the same context as the Swastika and associate it with the same sort of people nowadays, white supremacist racists. I can't understand anyone wanting to fly a flag associated with treason and slavery any more than someone wanting to fly the Swastika now. Not attempting to pull a Godwin, the two are literally in the same bracket - flags for white supremacists.

What I can't comprehend is the notion that the battle flag of a failed rebellion in a failed attempt to keep slavery is a flag for "Southern Pride". There is plenty I'm sure for the South to proud of, just as I'm sure the Germans have a lot to be proud of too - but the CSA, like the Third Reich - is a dark moment of shame, not pride.

[Loki]

There's also the fact that the flag in question is one promoted by the KKK; it was never the official flag of the Confederacy. Many of the states that adopted some version of it did so for white supremacist reasons at the turn of the 20th century or as a symbol of their opposition to desegregation in the 1950s.

[Wraith]

We're not just talking about actual flags, but things that contain them like strategy board games that take place in the Civil War. Yes, this is like the German ban on Nazi emblems, but I'd like to remind you that that is also something I am opposed to.

I really didn't care about this whole mess when people were just talking about removing the battle flag and stars & bars from state flags. It's probably a good idea, though I do wish they wouldn't do it in response to a crazy with a gun - wait a year, see if everyone still wants it then. But we've moved past that now and are looking at effective bans on a much wider scale. I don't see the history of the confederate battle flag as having as much relevance there, you don't actually get a vote in what it means to other people.

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate America on imbuing Dylann Roof with enough power to effect societal changes across the nation. Good job, everyone.

[Loki]

I get the sense that the Republicans were embarrassed by their party's position on the flag, but didn't want to risk primary challenges from the psycho-right if they came out against it. This provided them with the perfect cover to change their stance.

[Khendraja'aro]

[...] If you scaled up Germany, a people whose aggressive and warlike nature (Khen will explain about this) led them to have the most mass shootings of all the Europeans, by those numbers, they'd have had 24 .[...]

Hey now!

[Steely Glint]

Don't kill me!

[GGT]

This is why the flag is an easy target, those who claim its a sign of heritage are morons. The flag was never adopted by the Confederate Congress, never flew over any state capitols during the Confederacy, and was never officially used by Confederate veterans' groups. It would have been a space filler in museums if not for the KKK.

The flag very simply represents hate, not heritage. I couldn't care less how small your dick is by the size of the flag painted on the back of your mudding truck, but the design has no place on anything government related.

There's also the fact that the flag in question is one promoted by the KKK; it was never the official flag of the Confederacy. Many of the states that adopted some version of it did so for white supremacist reasons at the turn of the 20th century or as a symbol of their opposition to desegregation in the 1950s.

Exactly. Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, etc. It was used to symbolize opposition to Civil Rights legislation. And it's been an issue for a long time -- it used to fly on the SC capitol building until a legislature "compromise" moved it to a monument on the grounds -- but the church shootings gave their (R) governor a political opening to get it off government grounds altogether.

I heard the National Parks system (including Gettysburg) will stop selling the confederate flag (stars and bars) as or on merchandise, but will keep it as historical context in the museums. That makes sense since they're governmental agencies, just like state-issued license plates.

[Loki]

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8851177...te-statue-ISIS

[GGT]

Loki, do us a favor and stop posting links we have to click on in order to read.

[Loki]

Stop saying mean things, like ISIS.

[Flixy]

Loki, do us a favor and stop posting links we have to click on in order to read.

Well that is pretty much the point of a link

[Hazir]

Well that is pretty much the point of a link

Actually, in most fora I know link-dumping is prohibited. I personally think it's lazy to just post a link and not give a short description or your own opinion on the page.

[Flixy]

Actually, in most fora I know link-dumping is prohibited. I personally think it's lazy to just post a link and not give a short description or your own opinion on the page.

Yeah but still the point of a link is to click it to read the (full) article

[Ominous Gamer]

few days old, but fitting. wait for it

[Loki]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33330864 This is hilarious. Just goes to show how severe the overreaction to the Confederate flag ban has been.

[RandBlade]

No it just shows that ignorant people doing a minimum wage job can be tricked. So he didn't realise it was an ISIS flag, that doesn't by itself make a decision he did know about right or wrong.

[Ominous Gamer]

Just like the media throwing a fit over the ISIS flag in the gay pride parade, which was actually a flag of buttplugs and dildos

[Loki]

No it just shows that ignorant people doing a minimum wage job can be tricked. So he didn't realise it was an ISIS flag, that doesn't by itself make a decision he did know about right or wrong.

This means that there's an active effort to get rid of all things confederate, with no such effort for anything else.

[RandBlade]

This means that there's an active effort to get rid of all things confederate, with no such effort for anything else.

AKA Walmart's publicly announced policy.

If you're going to allow customer designs then you will find that there are ignorant people who don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything. I don't think Walmart have been selling a ton of ISIS materials.