https://nypost.com/2018/08/30/america-doesnt-actually-lead-the-world-in-mass-shootings/

This article claims Switzerland has at least a 45% higher rate of mass public shootings than USA… how is this correct??? iv been in Switzerland just under 10 years now and i cant even remember hearing about one. and its nearly a daily/weekly occurrence in america.

of course the nutcases at /r/conservative are using this article and Switzerland to show “usa gun crime isnt so bad”

EDIT: personally id define a public mass shooting thats not targeted, the shooter and victim dont know each other. Iv heard about several “shootings” here but its always husband shoots wife, drug dealers shoot each other, that kinda thing..never a “go out and shoot as many people i dont know as i can” or “shoot a random person i dont know”

33 comments

  6. Swiss New Yorker here. That publication is fucking trash and I try not to give them them the support of my clicks. Their primary activity seems to be trying to make NYers fear their own compatriots and city and denegrate anything remotely to do with the left.

  7. As far as I am informed, there are two different definitions of “mass shooting” in the US. They are either

    defintion one: at least two victims

    defintion two: three or more victims

    or

    definition one: at least three victims

    defintion two: ~~three~~ (edit: four) or more victims

    ​

    I hope it’s clear what I mean. If you take these definitions of “anything with more than one or two victims is a mass shooting” then there surely is a smaller difference between the prevalence of US mass shootings and Swiss mass shootings.

    If you define a mass shooting as an event where a whole lot of people are shot … Well, then the case is clear. The US has way more mass shootings.

  8. >Iv heard about several “shootings” here but its always husband shoots wife

    And the children too. If we count since 1970 and shootings with 4 or more dead, than unfortunately this will contribute a lot. On the other hand this has been seen as a real problem and measures have been taken, such as the Swiss military no longer hands out ammunition to be stored at home.

    Further, looking back to 1970 skews a lot of things. While things might have been bad here in the past they got fortunately better, while the USA becomes an even more crazy absurd problem with each year that passes.

    However, interestingly [the cited data](https://crimeresearch.org/2018/08/new-cprc-research-how-a-botched-study-fooled-the-world-about-the-u-s-share-of-mass-public-shootings-u-s-rate-is-lower-than-global-average/) lists only one incident: Zug 2001, and only looks at the time period of 1998 to 2012. The claim “45% higher rate of mass public shootings” hold only “true” (The list for the USA is not the same as [the one of Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States)) when we look a causalities per capita.

    ~~Now, if we do the same for the last 20 years, things look quite differently. The USA has infinitely % more mass shootings and causalities than Switzerland,.~~

    Edit: Apparently there were shootings in Switzerland with 4 or more dead victims in 2004, 2013, and 2015.

  9. It’s the New York Post, a right-wing fake news tabloid. They make up stuff on a regular basis at the beheast of their corporate overlords.

  10. The statistician behind that claim is know nutbar John Lott who is famous for bad and misleading gun statistics. By the FBI stats, we have had ONE in the period of time Lott mentions. I only recall one ever in my lifetime. The US has had more this week.

  12. Most gun violence in Switzerland is either suicide or directed towards the family carrier, so, if the NRA wants to take us as an example, I’ll allow that as a nice contribution to Darwinism.

  13. Have a look who wrote that. John Lott is a well known gun lobbyist. His “studies” are all debunked. His definitions are purposefully vague and he pretty much makes up data.

  15. This is with a 100% certainty NOT correct. Just the last two years i remember more shootings in the u.s than i recall EVER from Switzerland.

  16. The NY post is owned by Murdoch, who is known globally to spew right wing propaganda with narratives that are usually false, like this one. Don’t even waste your time reading this garbage

  19. I don’t actually know how the numbers are but you have to keep in mind if it is a statistics based on some metric like “deaths per 100’000 persons” you can get skewed data really fast. I saw a statistics that had Norway as number one for some deaths related to mass shootings but this doesn’t show the whole truth. Afaik there was one big mass shooting and since Norway is a relatively small country you get a lot of deaths per 100’000. The statistics still say something but with (luckily) such a small sample it’s not really helpful.

  20. It’s funny that Switzerland having so many guns/population has very little of this “mass public shootings” versus United States. It shows very clear that the issue is not on the possession of guns.

  22. Switzerland has the highest amount of gun violence in Europe I believe, but no where near America and certainly not mass shootings. The New York Post is a known Murdoch rag.

    The last one I remember was 2016, a young man trying to kill Muslims in an Islamic center without apparent motive. 4 shot 2 killed (including shooter).

  24. I personally don’t recall about mass shootings but gun related accidents. In some cases ending with somebody dying but sometimes not.

    Last year in Tessin a man killed his ex wife and committed suicide in a bar in plain day. Also last year a guy tried to murder his former girlfriend but just injured her.

    You may see a pattern, and i think this is a main issue in our country.

  25. I’ve been living in Switzerland for 35 years and I only remember one shooting… While there one per year in the US… I’ve never felt insecure in Switzerland, even a 3am…

    Wouldn’t go out at 3am in the US.

  26. That newspaper is pretty much a tabloid.

    It must be that the statistic doesn’t take a lot of factors into account, such as population. But i can’t help thinking that it’s just made up.

    According to wiki, we have a grand total of 7 mass shooting in our history. From 1912 to today, so in like 110 years of history. And one of them wasn’t really a “mass shooting” in the common sense since it was our own army shooting into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters.

    Moreover, in all cases (bar the geneva fusillade i spoke of above) there wasn’t a component of gross police incompetence like in the us. The average number of victims is far lower too.

    My mother remembers the one by Erminio Crescione. And so do most of my relatives who were alive back then. This is a personal note, but i would also add that compared to the US we took the few mass shooting we had MUCH more seriously than they do.

  27. In terms of coming into a building and killing at lot of people?

    I can only remember two: one in the Zug city hall, one in the Zurich city administration. Both of them were quite a while ago and IIRC both cases were people with grievances against the respective cities.

  28. The definition of a “mass shooting” is when 4 people get shot in a single incident, irrespective of the fact if they are only injured or killed. There have only been a handful of mass shootings in Switzerland that meet this criteria in the past 100 years that meet this definition. The US has had 214 so far this year alone and the year isn’t even half over yet.

    The NY Post is a freaking tabloid who also regularly print about “alien abductions”.

  29. Mass is defined as anymore than 4…if five drug dealers get into a fight and one shoots the other four, he is a now a mass murderer. Being able to shift the wording around to fit the definition sure has expanded the use of the word “mass”. We do have mass shootings almost daily…in all the major democratically controlled cities around the US, the media doesn’t cover the truth only the most sensational or the one that best fits the narrative.

  30. I lived in California for 6 months and experienced 2 active shooter events in my immediate area where I lived and worked. This does not compare with Zurich, Switzerland where I live usually at all.

  31. Us Swiss must decrease weapons. Although the numbers, we have the most deaths caused by weapons in Europe

  32. Fucking Idiots. What a lie. A literal 13 yo can buy a gun in America just like that, but here you need a special permit and to be 18. Plus, this article is by The NY Times. Usually their „Analytics“ are not very true at all. While one could make the point that you get to keep your gun after military recruitment school, you still need a permit to buy ammo.

  33. In 2018 a guy tried to shot up a school (Commercio di Bellinzona, in Ticino) but was stopped before he could do any damage, I believe that was the latest incident

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