Weapons and mass shootings

The Washington Post has an article on the firearms used in mass shootings from 1984 to today. Included is a graphic showing an artsy representation of them all. There are some interesting conclusions to draw:

• 22 shotguns, 23 revolvers, 29 rifles and 77 semiauto pistols have been used by mass murderers. That’s 151 guns over a span of about 30 years… in a nation with something like 300 *million* firearms. That’s one gun out of about 2 million firearms are misused in this fashion.
• A whole lot of the killers were nuts (hardly a surprise there)
• The annual death toll from mass shootings varies massively from year to year, with 2012 being the worst in recent years… but it’s still a statistically miniscule count (about 70 dead in 2012)
• “Almost 65 percent of the killers were white, which is comparable to their share of the population. More than 16 percent of the killers were black, slightly higher than their 12 percent share of the popualation.” This plays hell with the popular media story that mass shootings are a white thing, especially when spouted by ideologically driven yammering blowhards