Mother Jones Calls Out NY Times on Mass Shootings

RicInOR · Dec 5, 2015

WHEN YOUR BOGUS CLAIM ABOUT MASS SHOOTINGS IS DISPUTED BY A MOTHER JONES EDITOR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, IT'S REALLY BOGUS:How Many Mass Shootings Are There, Really?
-via Glenn Reynolds

"On Wednesday, a Washington Post article announced that "The San Bernardino shooting is the second mass shooting today and the 355th this year." Vox, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, this newspaper and others reported similar statistics. Grim details from the church in Charleston, a college classroom in Oregon and a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado are still fresh, but you could be forgiven for wondering how you missed more than 300 other such attacks in 2015."

Go Ahead Guess How Many Mother Jones Says There Were

At Mother Jones, where I work as an editor, we have compiled an in-depth, open-source database covering more than three decades of public mass shootings. By our measure, there have been four "mass shootings" this year, including the one in San Bernardino, and at least 73 such attacks since 1982.

etrain16 · Dec 5, 2015

So a liberal site calls out a liberal paper. Things must be getting rough in the media business.

I saw that original report by the Washington Post. I even followed their link. I knew it was bogus the moment I saw it. Good on Mother Jones for calling B.S. and pointing out exactly why it was B.S.

Perhaps now they could do the same to the President?

OLDNEWBIE · Dec 5, 2015

I guess some of the wiser Prog Editors and writers are realizing the Liberal Public is only so gullible.
Even they know the difference between a Terror Attack mass shooting, A crazy guy shooting up a school and a Gang shooting where 4 or more are shot at and hit, maybe killed. Extra anti-gun points if it's near a School!

That old Sesame Street song comes to mind. "One of these things just doesn't belong here".

Mother Jones knows it's starting to look stupid I'm guessing.

nammac · Dec 5, 2015

Not a Mother Jones fan but kudos for calling out the NY Times on this. The problem is there's enough liberals that only read the Times who now believe we're on our way to 400 mass shootings this year. The Times need to be publicly called out in their own pages to correct their misleading information.

Jamie6.5 · Dec 5, 2015

If you look around, it gets worse yet. This nonsense that we have a problem other countries don't is pure fallacy.
Especially when you consider how strict gun laws are in some of these places.

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/12/348197-paris-attack-claim-mass-shootings/

If You Look at This Chart of Top 10 Nations in the World for Mass Shootings – One Thing Jumps Out

http://static.ijreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screenshot-6_18_2015-9_43_12-PM.jpg

The Rampage Shooting Index. Taken from a now-defunct website, assembled data from around the world to construct a per capita mass shootings index that controls for population differences. [Update: Archived data based on OECD and other statistics can be found here.]

And since we're just talking about members of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), we can assume these 34 countries are sufficiently "advanced" to enter into the discussion.

The bottom line: The United States falls from number one due to its frequency of 38 mass shootings from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2013 (which would be number one without correcting for population) to number seven.

(bolds are mine)