Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: Sad Probabilities

Open Thread: Sad Probabilities

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nra high five

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

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Philip Bump, at the AtlanticWire:

The next mass shooting will take place on February 12, 2014, in Spokane, Washington. It will be committed by an emotionally disturbed, 38 year-old white man who will kill seven people and wound six more at a place he used to work using a semi-automatic handgun he purchased legally in the state.

That, at least, is what a look at the data on past such shootings might indicate. We’ll say at the outset: Every assertion in the first paragraph is a function of probability, not fact. The next mass shooting — which will happen somewhere, sometime — will almost certainly not be in that place at that time. But a look at the historic data on such killings, compiled and shared by Mother Jones magazine, makes each of those predictions defensible….

Our sincere hope is that every prediction we made is wrong because no mass killings should happen again. The probability of that happening is not statistically significant.

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    Yatsuno

    Spocompton is dirt ass poor and stupidly redneck. Nothing in that analysis surprises me except the shooting has a higher probability of being racially motivated.

  2. 2.

    MikeJ

    The chance of 75% of the audience watching Un Chien Andalou on TCM tonight saying “what the fuck?” are approximately 99%.

  5. 5.

    Hawes

    I was teaching my students about government capability vs autonomy and how the lack of governmental autonomy can impact capacity and used the gun control debate as a yard stick. I told them there would be another mass shooting before they graduated. Some of them looked aghast.

    We live 20 minutes from Newtown.

  7. 7.

    Tommy

    Yo go teacher!

    I live in a very rural area. No violence of any kind. I don’t even think of locking my front door. It pains me when I see a folk go mass kill folks for a lot ot reasons. At the top of the list is I wish somebody would have reached out to them.

  11. 11.

    Tommy

    @Hawes: The best class I never had, next to tying, was civics. Back in the 80s but the coolest class ever. I learned, was taught, now government was supposed to work.How a bill becomes law.

  15. 15.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here’s a fun one. Express Scripts, the largest mail-order pharmacy company, commissioned a survey which found that over half of Medicare recipients blamed Obamacare for increases in their medication costs. 20 percent thought they will be able to buy insurance on the exchanges. One-third believe that the ACA raises the Medicare eligibility age.

    Wonder where this misinformation comes from.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    My thoughtful and carefully-crafted post about this story seems to have vanished. FYWP. Or maybe it’s in moderation for some unknown reason and will appear later, not looking as carefully-crafted as it had looked at the time.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks! Breen took over in mid-1934, so it’s usually dated to June or July of that year. There’s some overlap because of production schedules, but the Breen censorship regime was all in place by January of 1935.

    My next post will cover some definitions/dates and should be up this weekend.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Cool, because TCM has been doing an number of 31-34 films that seemed a bit racy, e.g. This Modern Age in which Joan Crawford’s mother was a kept woman.

    ETA: A kept woman who ended up well.

  24. 24.

    billgerat

    On my Forum page, asylumnation.com, one of the board conservatives sarcastically said that the GOP must somehow be to blame for the Navy Yard shooting. I replied:

    Let’s see…

    Shooter – rage-fueled blackouts

    GOP – rage-fueled

    Shooter – has been hearing voices

    GOP – has been hearing voices telling it to shut down government if the ACA isn’t repealed

    Shooter – has had problems with the law

    GOP – has had problems with lots of laws

    Shooter – was a military contractor

    GOP – wants to hire a lot more military contractors

    Shooter – fascinated with guns

    GOP – fascinated with guns

    Shooter – traumatized by 9/11

    GOP – traumatized by 9/11

    Nope, I don’t see a connection there. I think the GOP is safe on this one.

    Yeah, I can see Spokane as the next one. Them Eastsiders are pretty crazy.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Extremely short version: prior to mid-1934, studios would make their films and the submit them to each state’s censor board. After mid-1934, all scripts had to be submitted to the Breen Office for pre-censoring before even a foot of film could be shot. So a LOT more stuff could be talked about onscreen before mid-1934.

  28. 28.

    Pogonip

    This is a test because FYWP ate my last remark.

    So many people have occasion to type FYWP that the I phone recognizes the phrase.

  31. 31.

    Pogonip

    @Hawes: As I was trying to say before I was attacked by FYWP, I predict that there will be another mass murder before Halloween. We could probably squeeze in at least 5 mass murders before graduation season rolls around again.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): I knew the general principle, but was too lazy too google the date. For some reason 1932 was stuck in my mind – probably because the the political things that happened.

  34. 34.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Is there a place where you can bet where the next mass shooting will occur? I suppose there is, in some dark corner of the internet. I wonder what city gets the highest odds?

    What I find interesting, although there’s not enough examples to form any sort of thesis, is that Newtown and Aurora aren’t particularly likely candidates if you’re going by violence, gun prevalence, economic desperation, a radicalized population, etc. as likely contributing factors. But all it takes is one fucked-up person.

  35. 35.

    Suzanne

    If they had said Seattle instead of Spokane, I could identify the shooter right now.

    A former coworker who lamented the company policy prohibiting bringing weapons into the office? Yes. Really.

  36. 36.

    mai naem(mobile)

    I was watching CNBC yesterday. They had former Virginia gov Jim Gilmore. Maria bartiromo asked him about background checks on contractors and if anything could have prevented the shooting. Gilmore babbled on about freedumb and free society blah blah blah. Anyhow, I looked up Gilmore and he’s on the board of the NRA something that was not disclosed in the interview. Why the hell not?

  38. 38.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @billgerat:

    This cartoon is the best take on that I can remember seeing: http://deep-hurting.deviantart.com/art/Gangbangers-194775635

    No, the Tea Party did not “pull the trigger” as they say. And mental problems that lead to violence have been around longer than they have. But, having all these right-wing politicians and newspeople go on TV and the internet rave about the collapse of the country and Obama’s secret plans to exterminate white people and enforce communism and the gun-grabbers and the FEMA camps and the blah-blah, well, it’s not a good environment.

  39. 39.

    Yatsuno

    @mai naem(mobile): How cute. You expect “journalists” to actually o journalism. Maria’s job is to relay approved point handed to her by her paymasters. Actual research of facts is what she has unpaid interns for. As long as they’re approved by her corporate masters.

  40. 40.

    mai naem(mobile)

    @Spaghetti Lee: Texas. Floriduhh. California. My top three guesses. I’m basing it a little on population, on mental healthcare,military facilities and the economy.

  41. 41.

    Fuzzy

    I wish the news media would give a fraction of the coverage to 12 soldiers and what caused their death….congress and the pentagon and guess what? All the warning signs were there and we could have stopped it. The media has blown it for the last 25 years not just this time.

  42. 42.

    YellowJournalism

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s because Karloff’s monster has a gentle vulnerability that is not desirable for a generic Halloween mask or poster.

    And your blog is going to get me in trouble. Too much to read. I feel like Charlie in the candy store scene in the first act of “Willy Wonka…”

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @YellowJournalism:

    Don’t even think of going to Self-Styled Siren’s blog — she’s been doing classic Hollywood (including Pre-Code) for several years, so you could be there for days. Weeks!

    She referenced a couple more books in the post I linked to above that I want to add to my reading list since I hadn’t heard of them.

  47. 47.

    John O

    TDS was quite good tonight.

    I watched the CNN coverage of our latest “event” and Stewart and Co. got it just right. You could watch it muted and it was fine. Better, really.

  48. 48.

    Redshift

    @Fuzzy: TV news is useless, but both the WaPo and NYTimes have profiles of the victims. None of them were soldiers; it wasn’t that kind of base. One was ex-Army, and two were retired Navy, if I read correctly.

  52. 52.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Wonder where this misinformation comes from.

    Hard to gauge sarcasm on the internets, but I wish I could find the blog devoted to scans of wingnut junk mail that either the blogger or their grandparent received. And of course, it’s all part of a longer con.

  58. 58.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Why am I thinking it was someone else? It was later, I think, than you were around. Did you drop Van Halen and Aerosmith in there?

  66. 66.

    SpaceSquid

    Not wanting to bypass the horrible revelations this analysis has thrown up, or anything, but I don’t know what it means to say a probability isn’t (or is) statistically significant. I assume they mean the probability of no more mass shootings is so small as to be negligible, but that’s something very different.

    /stats pedantry.

  69. 69.

    cvstoner

    I think the time has come to reduce the reporting for mass shootings to the level of automobile fatalities: note sad news tidbit, shrug your shoulders, move on.

    The real tragedy is the national kabuki of tears, when we all know nothing is going to change. If the mass murder of over 20 children won’t do it, nothing will.

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    Aha. Starbucks seeks to keep guns out of its coffee shops.

    Tired of being thrust onto the front lines of the nation’s debate over guns, Starbucks is asking customers to leave firearms behind when they are in its stores and its outdoor seating areas.

    … Under its previous policy … Starbucks has been unwillingly co-opted by proponents of “open carry” policies and vilified by those seeking stricter laws on gun ownership. …

    “Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called ‘Starbucks Appreciation Days’ that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of open carry,” Mr. Schultz wrote in an open letter to be published in ads in major newspapers.

    Last month, Starbucks closed a store in Newtown early after gun rights supporters wearing camouflage and Connecticut Citizens Defense League T-shirts held one of the events there.

  74. 74.

    Ab_Normal

    @Yatsuno: Hey! As a resident of the Spokane area I… can’t really argue with that analysis. :S What can I say, my family & my job are here, and we were able to buy a house / raise a kid / send her to UW on a single income, so yay? (Note on the UW thing: she’s only a junior and I’m ontologically certain she’s never coming back to this town, and I can’t blame her at all.)

    Yannywhoo, as to the OP: we had the doofus try to bomb the MLK Jr parade a couple of years back, doesn’t that get us off the hook? No? Darn.

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