Re:The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment
by ElliotM on Saturday March 15, 2025 @11:48AM
(#43373258)
These numbers don't remotely pass a smell test. The same study claims 2% of Americans have been injured in a mass shooting, and cites 500 mass shootings a year.
2% of 340mm = 6.8mm injured in a mass shooting
Conservatively assuming that's equally spread across all ages, and assuming a lifetime of 80 years, implies 6.8mm/80 = 85,000 people injured a year
85,000/500 mass shootings a year = 170 people injured per shooting
This is absurdly high - the Pulse nightclub shooting for instance injured 60 people.
It's obviously harder to analyze the number of people that 'witness' a shooting, but it also seems implausible that an average of ~595 people are witnessing each of these 500 shootings.
The problem here is that self-reported studies like this are incredibly unreliable. Interestingly, the same effect appeared in a pro-gun study, which cited an insane 2+ million defensive gun uses a year.
2% of 340mm = 6.8mm injured in a mass shooting Conservatively assuming that's equally spread across all ages, and assuming a lifetime of 80 years, implies 6.8mm/80 = 85,000 people injured a year 85,000/500 mass shootings a year = 170 people injured per shooting
This is absurdly high - the Pulse nightclub shooting for instance injured 60 people.
It's obviously harder to analyze the number of people that 'witness' a shooting, but it also seems implausible that an average of ~595 people are witnessing each of these 500 shootings.
The problem here is that self-reported studies like this are incredibly unreliable. Interestingly, the same effect appeared in a pro-gun study, which cited an insane 2+ million defensive gun uses a year.