So why has there been such an up-tick of shootings, particularly mass shootings under Obama?
After every shooting we have heard rhetoric from the media and the President why we should ban guns with all sorts of wild statements like "the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns." NYT, Dec 2012 - Well now, that quote has morphed over the years where they use to say "civilized" countries its changed to "wealthy" countries AND where it was "gun" murders its now "overall" murder - interesting - they are always trying to spin it any way they can. While our murder rate as of 2011 was 4.7 per 100,000 people, a rate that is high, no where are we even close to being "15 times" that of other "wealthy" and "civilized" countries - most had rates between 0.7 and 2.5 per 100,000.
We also hear statements like, "Gun control has worked very successfully in Britain, in Australia, in Japan. Japan has the toughest gun control in the world. They have two or three murders a year. You have 11,000 to 12,000." Piers Morgan, Dec 2012 - Again, interesting. There are a myriad reasons for why there is crime and murder in a society and the availability of guns is just a small part of that. In Piers' home of London, England they have a history of very little crime - in 1904 when London had 7 million people and was the envy of the world they reported just two gun murders and five armed robberies - cultures are different. However, for countries that abruptly changed their rules regarding gun ownership or gun carrying, there was significant changes that happened right after the changes took place. What changes? In every single place that all guns or handguns were banned, murder rates went up. Even in England there was an increase of violent crime and murder after they took all the guns. Fed up with the increases they expanded their police force and unsurprisingly, the crime rate went down - more police less crime, go figure - however, the crime rate remained higher than before their Firearms Act.
We hear that, "40 percent of gun sales now take place privately, including most guns that are later used in crimes." NYT, Jan 14, 2013 - Chuck Schumer (D-NY) goes further saying its "48 percent of gun sales." The truth however is that both of these statistics are way off as the real number is less than 10%. Much of the data used for these high numbers was from a phone survey done over 20 years ago and of those interviewed only 10 percent even answered the question of where they obtained the gun so there are many red flags as to the validity of the statistics. The President oft times sites these same statistics pertaining to "all transfers of firearms", not just purchases, so it includes inheritance and one family member giving a gun to another family member - not exactly what they are trying to insinuate now is it.
But, what is happening now under Obama?
The following was compiled using the database over at Mother Jones on mass shootings in the U.S. from 1982—2015, up to and including the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on October 1st, 2015. It also includes the Wikipedia lists for mass shootings in the United States by year and postal killings in the U.S.
The following analysis considers the FBI’s definition of a mass murder, which is defined as “a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders”.
When all incidents where four or more people were shot in a single event are broken out by president going back to Reagan (considering the database only stretches back to 1982), there just so happens to have been a startling increase in mass shootings since Obama, the most pro-gun control president America has had in modern history, took office.
Mass Shootings under the Last Five Presidents
Ronald Reagan: 1981-1989 (8 years) 11 mass shootings
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 5
George H. W. Bush: 1989-1993 (4 years) 12 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 3
Bill Clinton: 1993-2001 (8 years) 23 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 4
George W. Bush: 2001-2009 (8 years) 20 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 5
Barrack H. Obama: 2009-2015 (in 7th year) 162 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 18
Look at the difference between all other presidents and Barack Obama. This is what the above looks like on a chart:
Notice anything here? We’re talking about a more than six-fold increase from the number of mass shootings in the eight years Bush Jr. was president compared to the last seven years under Obama, and his 2nd term isn’t even up yet!
Not only that, but the number of mass shootings where the shooter killed eight or more people has also increased rather significantly:
What is going on here?
Obviously this isn’t so easily simplified as more guns in the hands of more crazy people, the way the media likes to spin it. We have more gun laws now than ever before. Less types of guns are legally available to the average citizen than ever before. We also have more “gun-free zones,” zones where, just by the way, most of these shootings happen (because mass shooters do not follow laws or care about zones, obviously). So that’s not it.
We have debated whether or not antidepressant medications are playing a role in these events. Even a cursory glance at the SSRI stories school shootings database would suggest there is some substantial evidence behind this theory. We know that many of these mass shooters were either on psychotropic medications at the time of the shooting, or withdrawing from them.
However, Prozac was approved for use in the United States back in 1987. Antidepressant medications have been around and in widespread use in America for decades now. That factor alone cannot entirely explain all these mass shootings recently.
Not to mention that five out of the 12 deadliest mass shootings in American history have happened not just since Barack Obama became president, but just under his first term as president alone. That’s nearly half.
Something else is going on here.
So… what is it?
Perhaps one false flag just isn’t enough in a country that has been built upon a Constitution with a Bill of Rights and a 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Perhaps it can only be killed death-by-a-thousand-cuts style.
Now Obama says gun control will be his #1 top issue of focus for the last year of his final term as president.
He says his biggest frustration has been his inability to pass more gun control legislation.
He condemns these “routine” events and calls for more gun control each time another one happens. After the recent Planned Parenthood shooting, he said, “we can’t let this become the new normal… enough is enough.”
But when did it become the new normal? While the 2nd Amendment continues to be attacked each and every time another mass shooting occurs, just realize something: these events were never this “routine” until Obama became president.
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