Posted on 04/01/2013 9:42:05 AM PDT by neverdem
Over at the Washington Post, two “researchers and consultants on social and political issues” argue that American mass shooters are overwhelmingly white males, and that therefore the opinions of white males on what to do about mass shootings should be discounted.
They are correct that the demographics of mass shooters are interesting — certainly, mass shooters differ from other murderers (and from the general population) in various ways. But mass shooters are not as overwhelmingly white as the authors imply, and the conclusions they draw are utterly bizarre.
Frankly, the authors don’t seem to have a very good grasp of the situation. They list Fort Hood — the massacre committed by a pale-skinned man of Palestinian descent named Nidal Hasan, who yelled “Allahu Akbar” — as a white-male rampage. They say that “immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in malls and movie theaters,” which might be true, but only because Korean immigrant Seung-Hui Cho targeted a school and Laotian immigrant Chai Vang killed six hunters in the woods.
Nowhere do the authors give the only two numbers that matter: the percentage of mass shootings committed by white males, and the percentage of mass shootings we might normally expect to be committed by white males.
According to liberal journalist David Sirota, “70 percent of mass shooters have been white men in a country where only 30 percent of the population is white men.” Of course, anyone who isn’t a liberal journalist realizes that this has a lot more to do with maleness than with whiteness — a better way to put it is that 70 percent of mass shooters are white males in a country where about 60 percent of potential mass shooters (i.e., males) are white. That’s not exactly a huge discrepancy.
And regardless of the exact degree of the disparity, what does it mean? Here’s what the authors think we’d do if the shooters were black, and they see this as a model for how we should treat white men:
Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
Yes, the idea here is that when it comes to race and crime, Americans frankly assess the numbers and demand racial accountability — except when the criminals are white. I’m not sure this even deserves a response, but take a look at the numbers for murder in general. Blacks are dramatically overrepresented. Has anyone demanded that blacks as a group, not just the individual murderers, be “held accountable”? Has anyone said that black organizations that suggest ways of reducing violence should be scrutinized more heavily than non-black groups that similarly offer solutions? Of course not.
And that’s a good thing — we shouldn’t ignore racial disparities, but we shouldn’t shun entire groups based on statistical trends, either.
Colin Ferguson (mass murderer)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Colin Ferguson
Born (1958-01-14) January 14, 1958 (age 55)
Kingston, Jamaica
Penalty 315 years and eight months to life
Parents Von Herman Ferguson
May Ferguson
Spouse(s) Audrey Warren (1986–1988)
Killings
Date December 7, 1993
Location(s) Merillon Avenue, Garden City, Long Island, New York
Target(s) Commuters
Killed 6
Injured 19
Weapon(s) Ruger P-89 9mm pistol
Motive “Black rage”
Colin Ferguson (born January 14, 1958) is a mass murderer who was convicted of murdering six people and injuring nineteen others on the Long Island Rail Road in Garden City, New York.
On December 7, 1993, as the train pulled into the Merillon Avenue Station, Ferguson pulled out his gun and started firing at passengers. He killed six and wounded nineteen before being stopped by three of the passengers: Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee and Mike O’Connor.
I can easily count to 160 using two hands.
I remember the DC shootings as the media in absolute meltdown, yammering on about tarot cards and "white box trucks." Then, the day they caught those two and the country learned the shootings were done by two black Muslim men, the media was all, "Ooohhhhhh.... Look, it's Britney!"
I read somewhere that the per capita incidence of Gono for BM’s is 17x that of WM’s:
17 x 100 = 1,700% higher...!
Women be warned.
Ferguson, the Long Island train shooter:
He was a poor, black Jamaican, right?
NOPE..!
He was from a really rich Jamaican family, which immigrated. Problem was he REALLY hated working, and he got cut off from his family —bad news.
He tried to pull some disability scam to sponge off NY taxpayers, and he lost his case —still gots ta work. He got REALLY mad.
THAT is why he shot up the train.
Poor...? NOPE.
Just mad and lazy.
anyone remember Lee Boyd Malvo ?
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