Ask The Trace: What We Get Wrong About Mass Shootings in America
Mass shootings have left many Americans with the feeling that random, indiscriminate gunfire can happen anywhere, without warning.?
In recent years, gunmen have killed moviegoers at a theater; people at a gay nightclub and a country-western bar; young children in elementary schools; and worshippers at churches, mosques, and synagogues. Just this week, a man killed at least 18 people, wounding more than a dozen others, in a series of attacks across Lewiston, Maine — days ahead of the five-year anniversary of the country’s deadliest antisemitic shooting in Pittsburgh.
But the shootings that dominate national attention for days or weeks are only a fraction of the high-fatality shootings occurring nearly every day in America. This can lead to misperceptions about how these tragic events fit into America’s larger gun violence crisis, and how people and political leaders respond. Read more at the link below.
How do attacks like this week's in Lewiston, Maine, fit into America’s larger gun violence crisis? Our team corrects some common misperceptions.
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