I wrote a post on Monday, A Historical Perspective on Violence and Murder in the United States, that included this graph:
(Source: Opinion:
The Rise and Decline of Mass Shootings – Grant Duwe)
A mass shooting is four or more people murdered in 24 hours. A mass public shooting occurs in a public place like a business or a school, but excludes events like domestic killings, gang violence, and robbery attempts. Brad Plummer at The Washington Post has a chart today that shows the instances of all mass shootings (Graph of the day: Perhaps mass shootings aren’t becoming more common.)
Consistent with the thesis of my post, this graph does not show a society spiraling out of control with violence. It shows a remarkably stable pattern, altough a pattern that is well above the rates for other OECD nations.
