After a school shooting like the one in Uvalde, Texas, a lot of people go overboard and suggest that school shootings happen every day. They’re traumatic events, and they stick in our memories. And then you have the people who think pro-Second Amendment Republicans are doing their best to make sure there are more school shootings because they’ve been bought off by the “gun lobby.”
Historian Kevin M. Kruse, author of “Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections” and “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America” among many others, has run the numbers and says that now it’s just a matter of when you’ll personally be affected by a mass shooting.
At this point in America, it's no longer a question of *if* you'll be impacted by a mass shooting.
It's just a question of exactly *when* and *how* you'll be impacted by a mass shooting.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 24, 2022
Will it be your son's elementary school or your daughter's high school? Your parents' grocery store or your sister's local Wal-Mart?
Will it be your wife's office, or your own? A neighbor's church, or synagogue, or mosque? A friend at a gay nightclub or a country concert?
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 24, 2022
Americans watch mass shootings happen day after day, over and over again, and we pretend like nothing can be done.
We just belly up to the roulette wheel, wondering if this is going to be the day it happens to us directly.
And if not, no worries. Another chance will come soon.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 24, 2022
Supposedly a historian, not a mathematician. https://t.co/UEjItBlcVu
— Blame Big Government (@BlameBigGovt) May 25, 2022
As of Kevin's tweet, 1,029,701 Americans have died of Covid and I have never met a single one of them, nor do I know anyone who has met a single one of them.
Comparatively, 169 people have died in school shootings.
Kevin is bad at math. https://t.co/m8EI7ja2Lx
— Upstate Federalist (@upstatefederlst) May 25, 2022
One of the best examples of innumeracy you will ever see on this site. https://t.co/Ulz0HDQX4i
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) May 25, 2022
In 2020, 513 Americans died in mass shooting events.
American citizens had a 0.0002% chance of dying in a mass shooting event in 2020.
Kevin is spreading misinformation.https://t.co/APl71u4zdy https://t.co/KgGAQcFGJT
— Anthony Abides (@AnthonyAbides) May 25, 2022
I don't enjoy responding to tweets like this because it sounds calloused, but since I'm seeing people I respect like this: this is an absurd statement.
Mass shootings are extremely rare, horrifying events, and it is very unlikely you will ever be even indirectly impacted by one. https://t.co/5ubixZUShK
— Charles G. Koch🏴 (@worst_account) May 25, 2022
https://twitter.com/PMDawnStan/status/1529198451652796418
Ignorance, hysterics, rhetorical laziness… this must be a college professor. https://t.co/jPwJjLyiZM
— Yali Elkin (@yalielkin) May 25, 2022
This is some really sick fear mongering. https://t.co/GbbiPELkB6
— Kirk McKee (@kirkmckee13) May 25, 2022
There certainly are a lot of people in the replies who “feel” like they’re about to be the victim of a mass shooting somewhere — it reminds us of the people who happily locked down fearing that going outside meant certain death from COVID-19.
And if we are at this point guaranteed to be affected by a mass shooting, isn’t that an argument for constitutional carry? If a mass shooting breaks out, we want to be packing.
Related:
AOC shames pro-lifers for ‘supporting laws that let children be shot in their schools’ but is unable to name any such laws https://t.co/XpiwilzwFn
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 25, 2022