From comments: "Interesting take on demographics of mass shooters…
As it turns out, Whites are underrepresented and Blacks and Asians overrepresented as percentages of the overall populations…
- Where the myth came from, and what it gets right and wrong about the demographics of mass killings.
"...In a narrow sense, these stories are correct: The plurality of mass killers are white.But the notion that white men of privilege are disproportionately represented among mass shooters—indeed, that they make up “nearly all” of them—is a myth.The myth began to spread in July 2012 after a 24-year-old white man, James Holmes, murdered 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. That summer, a team of researchers at Mother Jones put together a database of rampages in public settings. Among the 62 cases (and 64 total perpetrators) the team reviewed—instances dating back to 1982, in which at least four people had been killed in a public place—44 of the killers were white men and one was a white woman.....In this bigger data set, the proportion of white mass shooters drops down to 56 percent, by my count. Judging by those newer numbers, and the most current census estimate that 76.9 percent of Americans are white, the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme appears even less accurate. Read all!
"...In a narrow sense, these stories are correct: The plurality of mass killers are white.
But the notion that white men of privilege are disproportionately represented among mass shooters—indeed, that they make up “nearly all” of them—is a myth.
The myth began to spread in July 2012 after a 24-year-old white man, James Holmes, murdered 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater.
That summer, a team of researchers at Mother Jones put together a database of rampages in public settings.
Among the 62 cases (and 64 total perpetrators) the team reviewed—instances dating back to 1982, in which at least four people had been killed in a public place—44 of the killers were white men and one was a white woman..
...In this bigger data set, the proportion of white mass shooters drops down to 56 percent, by my count. Judging by those newer numbers, and the most current census estimate that 76.9 percent of Americans are white, the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme appears even less accurate. Read all!
No comments:
Post a Comment