The Commercial Appeal
Active shooters are defined by the FBI as gunmen who arrive on the scene with the specific intent to commit mass murder. Unlike other mass killings or mass shootings, this sub-set does not include incidents such as bank robberies or drug deals that may turn lethal.
According to the FBI, there is a disturbing rise in the number of “active shooter” incidents across America, like the Greenville attack. The FBI is basing its conclusion on data collected by a Texas State University researcher that was exclusively obtained by Scripps News. The data shows the number of active shooter events in the U.S. has tripled in recent years. “There is a higher number of people being shot and a higher number of people being killed,” said special agent Katherine Schweit, head of the FBI’s active shooter team which formed after last year’s rampage in Newtown.
The Scripps review of the active shooter data found a total of 14 attacks this year, with gunmen shooting 73 people and killing 39. Four of those incidents resulted in shootings but no fatalities. “The characteristics that bind them together unfortunately is (the) shooter’s desire to kill” said Special Agent Schweit, and to kill “as many people and kill them as fast and freely as he may be able to ” she said in an exclusive interview with Scripps.
The FBI’s new team does not yet keep its own statistics on active shootings but has turned to information collected by outside researchers, most notably those at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Dr. Peter Blair is an associate professor of criminal justice at Texas State and has been evaluating active shooter data which show an average of 5 incidents per year from 2000 to 2008. But from 2009 to the present the number rose to an average of 15 per year. Blair attributes much of the rise to events that might escape attention from other researchers.
You conveniently left out the counterclaim by Dr. James Alan Fox who served on a panel regarding this subject for President Clinton. Fox's statement is that the number of these incidents over the last thirty-five years has remained flat--that means the same over time.
ReplyDeletePlease post a link to Dr. Fox's research findings.
DeleteDid you read the article that Mikeb quoted from? It's in that very article.
DeleteI know he claimed that but there have been numerous reports that prove the opposite. You've seen them here on this very blog. I guess that means you're the one who's conveniently leaving something out - again.
DeleteMikeb, you make a lot of unsubstantiated claims, but that doesn't change the facts. Here we see that the notion of an increase in the number of mass shootings is in question. It's hardly something that's definitive.
DeleteThis is an FBI report, not an unsubstantiated claim. And in their report, there's not a "notion of an increase," there's proof that active shooter events TRIPLED.
DeleteIt's not a FBI report, it's a Texas State University report.
DeleteThe above is a statement of fact, and does not mean I am challenging or accepting the TSU report.
Oh, so when they say "according to the FBI," and when they say "as defined by the FBI," it means nothing since it's not an FBI report.
DeleteThat's weak.
Did Dr. Fox do a count himself?
ReplyDelete“If you look at all the shootings, in all the years, in all the locations, they’ve never taken time to kick down or shoot through a locked door,” Nicoletti said. Blair urges reforms in the manner in which schools are constructed."
ReplyDeleteExcept for Newtown where the shooter shot through the glass next to the locked door.
"Today, he teaches police not to wait. Blair says even the lone officer on the scene needs to intervene in an attack, emphasizing that body counts can rise in an active shooting event with every passing second.
“The shooter knows that he’s on the clock,” said Blair “He knows people are coming for me, they’re going to stop me, and I have to do as much damage as I can as quickly as I can.”
This sort of sounds like what the NRA was saying about a good guy with a gun.
Gun loons think Zimmerman, is a good guy with a gun.
ReplyDelete