Mass shootings are contagious: US study

[bemildred]

Mass killings and school shootings appear to be contagious, according to a new US study which found that such tragedies could inspire similar events in the near future.

Sherry Towers, an Arizona State University research professor, and colleagues were prompted in January 2014 to study whether mass shootings inspire each other.

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They determined that mass killings - events with four or more deaths - and school shootings create a period of contagion that lasts an average of 13 days.

Roughly 20 to 30 per cent of such tragedies appear to arise from contagion, researchers said.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/mass-shootings-are-contagious-us-study-115070300621_1.html

[GreatGazoo]

1. Contagious huh? So everyone except white males in their early 20s are immune?

[bemildred]

2. Whut? nt

[GreatGazoo]

3. by calling these mass murders "contagious" they make it sound like anyone could "catch"

whatever it is that makes a person commit mass murder. This metaphor muddies the water.

Mass murders/shooters in the US are almost exclusively carried out by caucasian males in their late teems to early 20s:

Dylan Klebold
Eric Harris
Jared Loughner
James Eagan Holmes
Charles Whitman
Eliot Rodger
Jacob Tyler Roberts
Adam Peter Lanza
Charles Manson
Jeff Weise
Cory Baadsgaard
Kip Kinkel
Luke Woodham
Michael Carneal

97% of school shooters are male.
http://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/06/19/mass-shooters-have-a-gender-and-a-race/#sthash.KlhgSDlR.dpbs

[bemildred]

5. So you think it's basically young white males we need to worry about?

They are the susceptible ones?

[HooptieWagon]

6. I haven't seen any 65 year old black grandmothers committ a mass shooting.

[bemildred]

7. So what's the problem, you think it's genetic? nt

[flamin lib]

4. It could be.

Or perhaps they are carriers?