Monday, July 30, 2018

The Number of Mass Murders in American History is Overwhelming

Especially starting in the 20th century, murders with three or more dead (not including suicide by murderer, or acts of war, or other government sanctioned acts) are so common that any sort of comprehensive collection is more research time than I would have guessed.  Just the ones that appear in newspapers in the Library of Congress collection, which is certainly an incomplete list of published newspapers,  takes my breath away: 3 in 1905; 1 in 1906; 5 in 1909; 3 in 1910; 12 in 1911; 9 in 1912; 3 in 1913; 4 in 1914; 3 in 1915; 3 in 1916; 2 in 1917 (one of which was not government sanctioned but made possible by government disarmament of the 38 dead); 1 in 1918; 1 in 1919; 9 in 1920.

I am beginning to wonder if sampling every year ending in 0 might be just as effective for measuring the problem.

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