Check this out from USA Today, a “news” outlet that is to journalism what the Gorilla Glue girl is to beauty standards.
Mass shootings jumped nearly 50% in 2020, due in large part to a pandemic year rife with crippling unemployment, violent protests and idle youth.
With COVID-19 cases falling and vaccines rolling out, some criminologists hope a rebounding economy and reopened schools will drive down those numbers in 2021.
Early results are promising, says Mark Bryant, founder of the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun incident trends. In the first seven weeks of this year, there have been 63 mass shootings — defined as four or more people injured or killed in one incident —which if continued would show a drop from 2020, he said.
Kudos for at least noticing what happened last year but the big difference between last year versus this year is that it was reasonably mild in the first two months of 2020 while 2021 has had bitterly cold weather and heavy snowfall. The brothers usually set aside their thirst for vengeance when there is inclement weather but it is getting nicer out this weekend and we will likely see a significant uptick in shootings. The article even mentions the Unspeakable Truth about mass shootings:
The most dramatic increases in mass shootings last year were found in states with cities that boast large Black and Latino populations, groups that traditionally are disproportionately impacted by crime and gun violence as well as, more recently, COVID-19 cases and deaths, along with high unemployment rates driven by the pandemic.
While the whole nation was impacted by the Chinese coronavirus bioweapon, the mass shootings were really limited to black and mestizo areas, apparently even more than usual. Maybe the root cause isn’t the virus?
The driving force behind the increase in mass shootings in 2020 seems to have more to do with certain populations being emboldened by a pull back in policing and not with any issues having to do with the coronavirus.
As I keep saying, refusing to point out the source of a problem and instead shifting blame is a sure recipe to get more of the same. If the coronavirus disappeared tomorrow, the problem of mass shootings and general gun violence in our urban areas wouldn’t change a bit.
The 'Rona vaccine…is there anything it can't do?.
Make it so we don't have to wear masks apparently….