White men have much to discuss about mass shootings
Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room. Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed.
Unlike other groups, white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved.
When white men try to divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues, many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and they think that is what produces mass shootings.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/white-men-have-much-to-discuss-about-mass-shootings/2013/03/29/7b001d02-97f3-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html
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FBI are done by whites. I guess that's overwhelming, but it is also a fact that the US has more than 60% white population. I'm just trying to get to actual facts, such as numbers rather than words of characterization. If the percentage of events by race is about the same as the percentage of population by race, then is there any point made at all?
The thing all the gun killers have in common is that they live in the United States and almost all are men.
Princeton's definition is vague about the time frame"
Mass murder (in military contexts, sometimes interchangeable with "mass destruction"
is the act of murdering a large number of people (four or more), typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Mass_murder.html
What exactly comprises 'relatively short' period of time is up for discussion. 13 victims in 10 days with as many as 4 victims in one place is what the DC snipers did. No robbery, no gang activity, multiple victims in a short time. I'd count them as mass murders myself.
Which is the criteria the FBI uses: occurring at one location, in one incident, without a cooling-off period. So, the question is: are non-Black male mass shooters just lazier than others?
Note how many of the "winning" cities have lax gun law (Chicago's city rate is 11.6.).
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/12/geography-gun-violence-cities-versus-metros/4044/
You merely parroted an inaccurate position -- accidentally deflecting the conversation from white privilege to the perhaps more comfortable realm of "all those gang people killing each other."
I'm more than happy to help. 
It is a mistake to separate the killings by race. This is as bad a meme as drawing conclusions about African Americans and their homicide rates.
Screaming "Chicago!" and "Gangs!" doesn't get you around that, doesn't buy you out of it. Indeed, it shows the ploy up as the anxiety-ridden diversion that it is, since we're perfectly willing to index gang violence to racially inflected cultures, so why aren't you? Why are white males so fucking angry?
Love it.
ETA: The only change I'd make to your awesome post is "why are white males so fucking SPECIAL?" If we can talk about what ails everyone else, then why the hell do white guys get so PRICKLY when someone tries to do it to them?
The bar has been lowered to include white males, regardless of gun ownership. Have a nice day
I'm guilty either way...
I do realize painters get paint on themselves
Again, have a nice day
... we get a disproportionate share of the blame from democrats and a disproportionate share of the pandering from republicans.
49% (males) * 78% (whites) * 76% (adults) = 29%.
There's no other group at whom this kind of profiling would be considered acceptable by progressives. That is absolute truth. ("but it's different because you deserve it!!"
I don't think I have much to discuss about the behavior of Warren Jeffs, for instance, because my skin is the same color, or I am the same gender, or I live in the same half of the country or my last first name shares some letters in common with his last.
Nothing about the article above attempts to make a serious discussion about the issue of gun violence, it simply gives 71% of the population a reason dump collective guilt on someone else.
Jenna and Tracy are having an episode long debate about who has it harder in society: women or black men. At the end of the episode this exchange takes place:
Jack: I'll tell you who has it the hardest in society: white males. We make the unpopular decisions that make everyone's lives miserable.
Kenneth: Well I'm a white male and I respectfully disagree.
Jack: No Kenneth you are not technically a white male. Politically, socially, and economically speaking your personality traits paint you more as an inner city Latina female.
...that race is a causal or even a significant correlative factor for mass shootings - the case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho amply demonstrates that this is a presumption fraught with peril. I would not disagree that gender is a correlative factor; gun ownership in America is predominantly a male activity and gun violence similarly is heavily carried out by males. The argument that could be made from the data that white men are more likely to own guns than African-American or Hispanic-Americans reflects the urban-suburban-rural divide; white men in urban areas are also less likely to own guns. Rural areas are much more heavily white and someone who lives in a rural area is much more likely to own a gun, and so that skews the issue demographically in this regard. Men overall are three times more likely to own a gun than women.
http://www.people-press.org/2013/03/12/section-3-gun-ownership-trends-and-demographics/
I think that all this distracts from the real issue of easy access to weapons designed to do little more than kill human beings; the weapon of choice today is not and has not been recently single-shot hunting rifles. Sociology and logic in general conclude clearly that when a gun is present it is more likely to be used in a violent act that is deadlier than say if the chosen weapon was a knife or baseball bat. In this vein, I think the clearest and best statement of fact in regard to mass shootings in America is that they do not happen in America when American men do not own or have access to guns.
Race alone generally does not exclude one from participating in the American gun culture nor does it preclude someone from gun ownership, what it does generally do is demonstrate which part of the gun culture one is likely to participate in - most African-Americans who own guns are likely not NRA members. I would be very interested to see some demographic polling on assault weapon ownership and on type and quantity of firearm ownership in general. I think I'm going to have persuade Pew to poll for those things because they would be of great use to social scientists in assessing these issues.
