Mass Shootings Are Contagious

Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Charleston. Not only are mass shootings tragedies in their own rights, but they also appear to be contagious. Mass shootings spawn subsequent mass shootings, new research finds. The researchers discovered statistical "clusters" of shootings in which four or more people die, the standard definition of a mass shooting. School shootings also cluster, said study researcher Sherry Towers, a professor of mathematical and computational modeling at Arizona State University.


http://www.livescience.com/51429-mass-shootings-are-contagious.html

could we not just say the USA is a cluster for gun violence

A number of these studies seem to do everything possible to not mentions the obvious....
GUN CONTROL...
Lets stop pandering to idiots, Gun control You want to stop people being shot in the huge numbers they do in the USA have some sort of Gun control like the UK or Australia have.

The problem is, to do anything really drastic about it we'd have to amend our constitution, which is a pretty tough thing to do.

Meanwhile, check out my post on how American suckyism is really the fault of the South. An excerpt from that article:

According to the FBI in 2012, the South as a region, containing only a quarter of the population, accounted for 40.9 percent of U.S. violent crime.

Compared to other Americans, Southerners disproportionately support sanctioned violence in all of its forms, from military intervention abroad to capital punishment to corporal punishment of children. According to Gallup, Southern households have a far higher rate of gun ownership (38 percent) than households in the East (21 percent), Midwest (29 percent) or West (27 percent).

veya_victaous wrote:could we not just say the USA is a cluster for gun violence  

A number of these studies seem to do everything possible to not mentions the obvious....
GUN CONTROL...
Lets stop pandering to idiots, Gun control You want to stop people being shot in the huge numbers they do in the USA have some sort of Gun control like the UK or Australia have.

Oh, oh oh! And may I add, Breivik proved it can happen anywhere and that the real problem is fundamentalist/extremist thinking.

Cuchulain wrote:Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Charleston. Not only are mass shootings tragedies in their own rights, but they also appear to be contagious. Mass shootings spawn subsequent mass shootings, new research finds. The researchers discovered statistical "clusters" of shootings in which four or more people die, the standard definition of a mass shooting. School shootings also cluster, said study researcher Sherry Towers, a professor of mathematical and computational modeling at Arizona State University.


http://www.livescience.com/51429-mass-shootings-are-contagious.html

That study is based upon statistical association, not causation. Associations abound in a universe infinite possibilities. "Spawn" is an ambiguous word, intended to imply causation. The research is intellectual dishonest.

Original Quill wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Charleston. Not only are mass shootings tragedies in their own rights, but they also appear to be contagious. Mass shootings spawn subsequent mass shootings, new research finds. The researchers discovered statistical "clusters" of shootings in which four or more people die, the standard definition of a mass shooting. School shootings also cluster, said study researcher Sherry Towers, a professor of mathematical and computational modeling at Arizona State University.


http://www.livescience.com/51429-mass-shootings-are-contagious.html

That study is based upon statistical association, not causation.  Associations abound in a universe infinite possibilities.  "Spawn" is an ambiguous word, intended to imply causation.  The research is intellectual dishonest.

Incorrect, it has been worked on probabilities and actual knowledge of mass shootings.
Try bloody reading the study before actually posting
This is what I was saying on another thread how people post a reply without even reading the artickle

Cuchulain wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

That study is based upon statistical association, not causation.  Associations abound in a universe infinite possibilities.  "Spawn" is an ambiguous word, intended to imply causation.  The research is intellectual dishonest.

Incorrect, it has been worked on probabilities and actual knowledge of mass shootings.
Try bloody reading the study before actually posting
This is what I was saying on another thread how people post a reply without even reading the artickle

All of statistics is based on probabilities  The issue is, what is counted as incidents.  What is the data?

This study is based upon the occurrence of one thing with another, or what is called association: they appear together, they are associated.  Until you understand more of the internal workings of the subject, all you have are associations.  It's like observing two pool balls, but not knowing the motion of either.

Original Quill wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:



Incorrect, it has been worked on probabilities and actual knowledge of mass shootings.
Try bloody reading the study before actually posting
This is what I was saying on another thread how people post a reply without even reading the artickle

All of statistics is based on probabilities  The issue is, what is counted as incidents.  What is the data?

This study is based upon the occurance of one thing with another, or what is called association: they appear together, they are associated.  Until you understand more of the internal workings of the subject, all you have are associations.  It's like observing two pool balls, but not knowing the motion of either.

Beggars belief.
What do you think they have been doing studying all the events around these shootings? I knew you had not read through, but at least you have read some, but clearly not all though.
To the back of the class please if you will.

Have a good evening

Cuchulain wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

All of statistics is based on probabilities  The issue is, what is counted as incidents.  What is the data?

This study is based upon the occurance of one thing with another, or what is called association: they appear together, they are associated.  Until you understand more of the internal workings of the subject, all you have are associations.  It's like observing two pool balls, but not knowing the motion of either.

Beggars belief.
What do you think they have been doing studying all the events around these shootings? I knew you had not read through, but at least you have read some, but clearly not all though.
To the back of the class please if you will.

Have a good evening

Don't waffle with the old song and dance of: try reading it.  I have read it; after all, it is simplistic in the extreme and takes all of about 30-seconds.  I have also studied and taught quantitative methods in universities and you obviously have not.  Hence: your diversionary tactics.

Did you just vaguely say: "all the events around these shootings???"  You cant even identify them? You obviously don't know what you are talking about.  Statistics are binomial comparisons.  You don't even know what the variables are, fcs.  "All the events..."  Indeed.

You are clever, didge.  But not quick.  As I have often told my students, even if you don't have the instinct work hard, read and re-read and you will get there.  In your case, you are in way over your head.  You haven't even found the book.  Here:  Research Methods in Social Relations, by Claire Selltiz, Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Stuart W. Cook.

Hilarious Quill, that is replies with out actually reading he study and how the link was found.


Like I say you have not got a clue about physchology Quill, which is my baby





The idea that violence might be contagious is not new. Suicides often cluster, in a phenomenon known as suicide contagion, in which vulnerable people are inspired to take their own lives after reading about the details of previous suicides. In an attempt to stop the contagion, many media outlets abide by voluntary reporting standards to not sensationalize suicides.
Likewise, many experts in mass shootings have suspected the notoriety of previous killers inspires new shooters. Newspaper reports can give unstable people something to emulate, Tony Farrenkopf, a forensic psychologist in Portland, Oregon, who has created psychological profiles of mass shooters, told Live Science in 2012 after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
"We're the first to quantify what has long been suspected," Towers said.
Regular shootings
There is no national government database of mass shootings, so Towers and her colleagues turned to USA Today, which had compiled an online database of mass killings committed by all means from 2006 to 2013. There were 232 events in that database, 176 of which involved firearms. 
The researchers also gathered data from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which keeps statistics on school shootings (188 between 1998 and 2013) and mass shootings in which at least three people are shot, but not necessarily killed (477 events between 2005 and 2013). To prevent overlap between the USA Today and Brady Campaign shooting data, the researchers included shootings from the Brady data in which at least three people were injured and three or fewer were killed, a total of 376 incidents.




The data revealed a stark reality: Mass shootings in America are not uncommon at all. On average, a mass shooting that leaves four or more people dead occurs every 12.5 days in the United States. School shootings occur every 31.6 days, on average.
The researchers compared shootings by state with state prevalence of serious mental illness and gun ownership. This analysis showed that the higher the level of gun ownership in a state, the more mass shootings that state experienced. After gun access was taken into account, mental illness rates did not significantly predict mass shootings.
Contagious violence
The researchers found that both mass shootings and school shootingswere contagious, with a spike in additional incidents lasting about 13 days after an initial shooting.
Shootings in which fewer than three people died were not contagious. Towers and her colleagues said they can't prove why with their research, but they suspect media coverage may explain why some shootings spur copycats and others don't. The vast majority of shootings with three or fewer victims were only reported in the local news and did not reach a national audience, Towers said. In contrast, mass shootings and school shootings typically went national.
"The contagion that appears to be apparent in the mass killings and school shootings may have something to do with the media coverage," Towers said.


http://www.livescience.com/51429-mass-shootings-are-contagious.html

Try actually understanding what the link is.
There is a repetitive link found within the number of mass shootings.
That cannot be just coincidence by again probability, with a repeated pattern occuring, hence why you have no clue what you are talking about Quill.

DOH


Byeee

The link is a journalistic accounting of a study, done by a math major at ASU. The variables are omitted. We are not told how the hypothesis is operationalized. We are not given the statistical technique used. Even its author does not attempt to identify the design of the study.

I’ve asked you to identify the statistical variables. You can’t even do that. You give me:

1. [M]ass shootings have suspected the notoriety of previous killers inspires new shooters

2. Regular shootings

3. Contagious violence.

4. The researchers found that both mass shootings and school shootings were contagious, with a spike in additional incidents lasting about 13 days after an initial shooting.

Only no. 4 even hints at a hypothesis. What does it give us: a “spike” within 14-days.

Let’s get specific, didge: What is a “spike”? It’s a metaphor, referring to a line graph. If you had read the books and taken the course you would know, it’s a concurrence of incidents: a mere association.

And why 14-days? Why not 2-days…or 6-months? The best that they can do is suggest that these are modalities. Again, association, innit? But, that’s the unsubstantiated part. Even the author doesn’t get into that.

It’s totally arbitrary, suggesting that this study is amateurish indeed.

Absolute nonsense.

PMSL  again Quill.
You have gone from out right dismissing the study to now asking me what is the common link. Well that part was obvious Quill, which you now offer no argument that their findings are wrong but you only suggest a hypothesis.

WTF

You now question the methodology based on a suggestion, meaning you yourself are unsure?

The problem you have is starting with the maths.
Look again at what details they actually took. This is the first part you ignored.
Second, look again why it is that over a set amount of days a spike continues to happen and then you have to dismiss the probability of chance. Repeated patterns within a very small time frame, of which 13 days is, leaves little room for chance on other mass shootings occurring within that time frame. Look again at what they look at on the types of shootings and yet a repeated occurrence happened within a very short time frame. You are ignoring how improbable 13 days is for chance to occur and not contagionism to the repeated pattern occurring.


You have failed to rule out the probabilities Quill and badly so.
If you want the data of which you will need to actually even attempt to dismiss this, then I suggest you get on with that.
Dismissing the data based off a suggestion is all that you have given me, is nothing more than your opinion. I think you realised your error and are now back tracking.

You want to dismiss their research, you best look up the data and find probable other reasons for the patterns.

Good luck, but do not insult me about what you think I do not know about methodology.

So you really don’t know how to defend this piece? Ok, let’s look at your questions.

Didge wrote:Second, look again why it is that over a set amount of days a spike continues to happen and then you have to dismiss the probability of chance.

Yes, I have mentioned that the study shows associations. It doesn’t show any levels of confidence, so who knows if the associations are real? But assuming they are, associations do not show causation.

Didge wrote:Repeated patterns within a very small time frame, of which 13 days is, leaves little room for chance on other mass shootings occurring within that time frame.

You say “small time frame”, but can you prove it is small? No. Relative to what? And neither does the study offer any proof beyond its ‘associations’. Which, incidentally, is where I started.

Didge wrote:Look again at what they look at on the types of shootings and yet a repeated occurrence happened within a very short time frame. You are ignoring how improbable 13 days is for chance to occur and not contagionism to the repeated pattern occurring.

How improbable is it, didge? You are asking us to take only your word for it. You have no proof. Associations are suggestive only. What you are really giving us is someone's normative theory.

Nice try, but move on. There's nothing there.

You are still offering nothing but suggestions to the data you have seen and thus are unable to judge.

I am embarrassed for you Quill at your poor reasoning that you think you can dismiss something without researching the data.

The links are there, you now need to show they are not down to any contagious situation.

Yes lets move on because all you are giving me is a load of hot air, when you realised your argument had sunk

You want to disprove the data, then I suggest you start doing so, as making questions is relevant but you have to do so by studying the data.

Now off you go and stop wasting my time with inane drivel

Cuchulain wrote:You are still offering nothing but suggestions to the data you have seen and thus are unable to judge.

I am embarrassed for you Quill at your poor reasoning that you think you can dismiss something without researching the data.

The links are there, you now need to show they are not down to any contagious situation.

Yes lets move on because all you are giving me is a load of hot air, when you realised your argument had sunk

You want to disprove the data, then I suggest you start doing so, as making questions is relevant but you have to do so by studying the data.

Now off you go and stop wasting my time with inane drivel

Still nothing in your lunch pail, didge. Off to work you go. Have a good one.

We'll cross swords when you have something else.

Original Quill wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:You are still offering nothing but suggestions to the data you have seen and thus are unable to judge.

I am embarrassed for you Quill at your poor reasoning that you think you can dismiss something without researching the data.

The links are there, you now need to show they are not down to any contagious situation.

Yes lets move on because all you are giving me is a load of hot air, when you realised your argument had sunk

You want to disprove the data, then I suggest you start doing so, as making questions is relevant but you have to do so by studying the data.

Now off you go and stop wasting my time with inane drivel

Still nothing in your lunch pail, didge.  Off to work you go.  Have a good one.

We'll cross swords when you have something else.

I know you have nothing but suggstions Quill.

Look at the data and then come baack to me with your findings.

Good Luck

This is a really informative and easy-to-glance at site:

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/GDContent/mass-killings/index.html#weapons

Meh...won't load eds.

Original Quill wrote:Meh...won't load eds.

Tried it earlier and you were right, but the site was playing up.
Seems to have settled now and I just clicked it and it loaded perfectly.
Try it again Quill.