Reblog It #14: Are there more mass shootings now than in the past?

That meme is making the rounds again.   You know the one that says, “When I was a dewey-eyed youth, I don’t remember any school shootings. I remember that we said the pledge of allegiance, prayed, and had the ten commandments on the wall; maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to take them away.”

I am sure they sat in neat, orderly rows, had the same wind-proof haircuts, wore creased trousers or pleated skirts, and never spoke unless spoken too.   The meadows sung of their conformity and obedience!

That’s right: summertime fresh, stinking, steaming pile of bullshit.   “Golden Days Goggles” at its most annoying.    The same pledge that was altered in the 50’s, and other rules implemented by the Everybody-is-a-Communist-frenzied McCarthy-nuts.

Sorry, I use a lot of dashes and commas when I’m virtually banging my head against the wall.     I am not well versed in statistics and having done things like standard deviations since 1992.     Instead, read the number crunching article from Zeeconomics, then go forth and shut down the memes with quotes that should quite down the rabble.

ZeeConomics

Older people often like to think back to the “good ol’ days” when everything was better. In many cases this is merely the feeling of nostalgia and seeing the past in a better light than it actually was. But of course, as with everything, sometimes this golden past did exist.

In this post I look at data to see whether there were more mass shootings in the past than today. The main question I’m after is are mass shootings becoming more common nowadays than they used to be in the past? The implications are huge: if they are becoming more common, then we must look at what changed over time. We will be closer to identifying the reasons for these terrible acts.

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