Well, Look At THIS: Mass Shooting Casualties, by Religion of Perpetrator: Muslim vs. Non-Muslim

[kpete]

Donald Trump asserts we should be profiling Muslims because of the events in San Bernadino. Here are some statistics on casualties from mass shootings, disaggregated by religion of perpetrator (Muslim vs. non-Muslim):


Figure 1: 12 month moving average of mass shooting casualties; deaths inflicted by non-Muslims (dark red), wounded inflicted by non-Muslims (pink), deaths inflicted by Muslims (dark blue), wounded inflicted by Muslims (light blue). December observation for data through Dec. 2. Source: Mother Jones, news reports for November, December and author’s calculations. Tabulations of religion of perpetrator by author.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/12/mass-shooting-casualties-by-religion-of-perpetrator-muslim-vs-non-muslim

[Yo_Mama]

1. Muslims can't be more than 2% of the American population.

If you can see them on this graph, it shows that they are, as a group, a disproportionate danger.

It's not the right way to think of it, though. Because "Muslims" aren't an actual group that makes sense. The danger from the average individual Muslim is the same as the danger from the average individual non-Muslim.

It is only people who have violent ideologies, sometimes fueled by mental illness, who are going to shoot people.

I wish you would take this graph down. It is pushing the wrong way to think about it, and in fact it supports Trump's theories.

But again, that is NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO THINK ABOUT IT.

[SheilaT]

10. You can see them on the chart

because it's tallying up the mass shootings year by year, not as a percentage of the population.

If one nutso Buddhist, say, went out and shot up ten people, killing five of them (in a purely hypothetical example), that Buddhist would get a color assigned and would show up on the updated chart.

[forest444]

12. I once a knew a Hare Krishna who seemed quite capable of it.

He had a hair-trigger temper, and his wife usually had at least one or two inexplicable bruises.

What's this world coming to.

[JI7]

19. you think abuse of wives is something new ?

[forest444]

20. No, I never said that.

My apologies if that's the impression my comment created.

What I was referring to was the fact that appearances can, as you know, be very deceiving. Here we had a case of a Hare Krishna priest, director of a popular temple (which will remain unmentioned), who frankly was one of the least spiritual people I've ever met - and not simply on account of his bad temper (which was borderline violent in public, and, I suspect, violent outright in his private life).

The mention of the hypothetical Buddhist-gone-postal inevitably reminded me of this person, and of the simple truth that just because someone follows a "religion of peace" (and aren't they all) it can't necessarily compensate for deep-seeded violent tendencies if indeed that person suffers from them.

All the more reason for tough, effective gun control laws - at least against assault weapons that can cause mass casualties.

[JI7]

21. the hare Krishnas have always been creepy and cultish with history of sex abuse

In their organization.

[forest444]

22. I see. I really didn't know.

Obviously, anyone could see the creepy, cultish atmosphere in some of the temples. As I've only visited two in my life (one seemed much more mellow and well-run than the other), and mainly for the $3 prasadam feasts (best deal in town!), I wasn't that familiar with them or the sex abuse allegations however.

Now that you mention it though, it does makes sense because of the nearly dictatorial authority they themselves vest in each temple's director. If they director is, to paraphrase the Krishnas, on old soul, it usually works well for everyone; if, however, they're the egomaniacal, larcenous, and otherwise deeply flawed kind, then it can easily degenerate into a Jim Jones-like situation. No question about it.

[linuxman]

2. Damn as small a part of the poulation as they are, they did all that?

Damn. Really punching above their weight class. Especially for a religion of peace.

Wait, what was I supposed to take away from this again?

Am I doing it wrong?

[pocoloco]

11. Approx 14% of the US population is responsible for the 5173 murders in 2014.

From 2014 FBI report.

[rgbecker]

29. 14% of 350 million is about 49 million people!!?!?!!

They really gang up on those 5173 victims, I guess?

[reformist2]

3. I'm intrigued by the huge spikes in that graph. What was it about 2007-8 and then 2012-13??

And then an amazing lull in 2014-5, which sadly appears to have ended.

[Fawke Em]

7. Presidential election years. eom

[libdem4life]

4. There you go again ... pesky, unfortunate facts. Oh, Mother Jones. Well that accounts for it.

[B2G]

5. I don't even see religious persuation in their source data

Can you point to it because I don't see it.

[kpete]

6. color code

deaths inflicted bynon-Muslims (dark red), wounded inflicted by non-Muslims (pink), deaths inflicted by Muslims (dark blue), wounded inflicted by Muslims (light blue). December observation for data through Dec. 2. Source: Mother Jones, news reports for November, December and author’s calculations. Tabulations of religion of perpetrator by author.

[B2G]

8. In the source data

There is no religion listed.

I would assume they used the source data they listed to product the graph.

[hedgehog]

9. The graph is a poor way to display this information -

I think the moving average has the effect of smoothing out the more notorious events. On the other hand, it appears to exaggerate some events because of the width of the columns. For example, were two Americans shot by Muslims every day the last six months of 1983? I don't think so.

Some people have noted that Muslims represent only 2% of US population to suggest that the chart shows that Muslims are involved in more shootings than non-Moslems. However, a single event representing an attack by maybe what, 0.0001% of Muslims will show up on this chart.

I would further question the data source. I've seen reports suggesting that at least 4 Americans have been victims of mass shooting attacks every day this year.

http://www.shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015

I don't think this graph reflects that.

And of course, who is to define a Moslem? As a Christian, am I connected to every person who also claims to be a Christian as they shoot up a Planned Parenthood office?

[Dragonfli]

15. "And of course, who is to define a Moslem (sic)"?

Self identification, much like who is to define a Democrat. There are many Democrats that believe wholeheartedly in the values of Republicans and who despise the left as much as Rush, yet they self proclaim and register and are often elected as Democrats.

Another factor to consider is what branch of teachings Muslims subscribe to, as an example Wahhabism is a Sunni branch of extreme fundamentalists that believe that other Religions and even more vehemently other, peaceful and tolerant sects of Muslim groups are not to be tolerated and even executed. Many Shia sects however are the peaceful tolerant types of believers typified by the followers of Al-Sistani, who believe in coexistence and peaceful solutions as taught by Ali (a prophet denied by the Sunni for his "radical" peaceful views). There are also moderate Sunni that do not subscribe to violence so things are quite complex.


I know some Iraqi Americans (Shia) that follow the teachings of Ali and they are quite sincere in beliefs such as helping those in need and feeding those less fortunate, as an aside, Al-Sistani, the Shia leader in Iraq Opened up their most holy mosques to Christians fleeing Daesh in Najif and Karballa and his followers have followed suit and opened their homes to Christian refugees.

To classify Muslims as a monolithic force would be like doing the same with Christians, including Fundies that believe the poor are poor because God hates them and the rich are rich because God blessed them, while also lumping Karesh followers, The Mormons, Baptists, and Catholics. It makes little sense to do so.

[hedgehog]

17. I learned something today - "Moslem" is what Babyboomers were taught to use:

"When Baby Boomers were children it was Moslem. The American Heritage Dictionary (1992) noted,"Moslem is the form predominantly preferred in journalism and popular usage. Muslim is preferred by scholars and by English-speaking adherents of Islam." No more. Now, almost everybody uses Muslim.

According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies,"Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means"one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means"one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z."

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/524

I can still recall older publications using the term "Mohammedan" which is offensive to followers of Islam.

[Igel]

24. Yes.

But we play this "we have to call them what they call themselves in 'their' language' game selectively.

If you are or claim to be oppressed, then you dictate what you're called. Muslim vs Moslem, for example. Roma. Etc. We are even to switch phonologies for Latino names--lose the strong stress, modify vowels, pronounce the /r/ correctly, etc. Otherwise we can be condemned. You have to be among those of the right SES or politics for them to suddenly care about imposing non-English phonology or even morphology on monolingual English speakers.

If you're not oppressed or simply don't care to wield that cudgel, or nobody cares about your claim because empathy stretches only so far, there's no pressure to do this. Nobody calls Russia Rossiya, lots of people who are otherwise left of center will still say "Czechoslovakian" and when pronouncing the PRC's leader's name nobody cares to even try to get the phonology right. Navratilova and other Czechs (or Slovaks) have their names mangled routinely, no concern about palatal stops or vowel length. Never heard a Russian insist on palatalizing consonants in their names or even worrying about the expression of gender. Meh.

But we get bent out of shape over "Pakistan" with a fronted /a/, ignoring the phonemic length that English speakers are fully capable of.

As for "Muslim," I've known more than one who got bent out of shape because that /s/ after a stressed syllable is sometimes pronounced voiced, regardless of orthography. As though we're all taught that one specific Arabic lexeme. (Note that in colloquial varieties of Arabic, short u and short i are often lowered to o and e.) And in Texas and other places in the US where the i ~ e distinction before nasals is neutralized it's an especially humorous thing to insist on.

[hedgehog]

26. No skin off my nose, it's just a matter of courtesy.

[azureblue]

13. the majority of American terrorists

are Baptist or a branch of. Fundies are Baptist sects. America should be monitoring the movements of Baptists, if it wants to reduce terrorism on American soil

[George II]

14. A few points:

1. This only covers mass shootings, not all mass murders. Timothy McVeigh was a native born Irish Catholic and he killed 165 people.

2. People forget that Syed Farook was born in the United States - does Donald Trump know this? His ban wouldn't have affected Farook.

The bottom line is that even though there are mass murders more frequently than we'd like, there really isn't enough statistical data to assign any trend to these murders.

[B2G]

16. 911 is completely left out

And AGAIN, there is no regligous allifliation listed in their data source.

Did they just assume thing based on the name?

[George II]

18. Good points. This discussion is skirting around the edges of being Islamophobic.

[Igel]

25. The distinction between

"ending Muslims" in the US and "ending Muslim" immigration to the US was rather lost by the infamously bad quoting early on. Nobody could find a distinction between the two, it seems, not one that mattered.

Barring entry to new arrivals and rounding up all those currently in the country were viewed as the same thing. Either is a horrible idea, but the mere fact that nobody saw (or wanted to see) a distinction is even more worrisome.

[George II]

28. Right, and meanwhile Trump is chasing all over the country using those TWO (not one) people....

.....as justification for not allowing Muslims to come into the country, even though one of them was native-born.

I didn't hear any hue and cry to close the borders to Catholic (religion) or Irish (ancestry) immigrants after Timothy McVeigh perpetrated the worst terrorist mass murder in our country at the time.

[FLPanhandle]

23. Break down the shootings that had religion as the primary motivating factor in the shooting.

I would count the Planned Parenthood shooting as a Christian shooting but not a Sandy Hook where religion was not a causal factor.

9/11, San Bernardino would be Islam caused shooting.

Basically, the graph is meaningless beyond showing the higher than expected Muslim killings. It doesn't matter what the religion of the shooter is. What matters is "IS RELIGION THE BASIS FOR THE KILLINGS".

[valerief]

27. Re that graph--are they mass shootings globally or just in the U.S.?

I couldn't tell at the link.

[deathrind]

30. Watch out...

Apparently talk about guns in "General Discussion" is frowned upon.