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There Will Be Another Mass Shooting? Well thats the buzz anyway.

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posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 04:49 PM
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What the? Ok let me explain what this is about and why I think it deserves to be looked at here.
It all started with this article from the "Atlantic Wire" Article can be found here
In the article they claim to have figured out that the next mass shooting will be in Washington State (Spokane specifically) and they even give a date (February 12, 2014).
From the article:

The next mass shooting will take place on February 12, 2014, in Spokane, Washington. It will be committed by an emotionally disturbed, 38 year-old white man who will kill seven people and wound six more at a place he used to work using a semi-automatic handgun he purchased legally in the state.
That's very specific information.

They give "Mother Jones" as their reference from the compiled data being used. This link lead to that data: Mother Jones Shooting Data

The article also states that there will be a few more mass shootings before Obama leaves office:
from the Atlantic Wire Article

If President Obama's second term has been beset by "unpredictable calamities" like the Navy Yard shooting, in the words of the Washington Post's David Nakamura, we thought we'd try and offer a little prediction. Especially since, if such incidents occur at the same pace for the rest of Obama's term as they have since 2009, there could be 14 more before he leaves office.


Now to the fun part (whatever), heres how they claim they came up with this prediction:

White man
Looking at the past 30-plus years of spree- and mass-shootings, this is the easiest trend to spot. Nearly two-thirds of the 67 incidents — 65.7 percent — were at the hands of a white person.
Interesting information, but very generalized. For example the Boston Bombings where technically done by white people.

Shooting at work
Most of the shootings in the database occurred at a place of business, either one where the shooter worked or a restaurant or other such facility.
Isn't most places a place of work for someone?

38 years old
By focusing on the workplace as the site of the incident, it allowed us to better refine the age of the shooter.
Did they just tailor the above data to fit this model?

Mental health
While mental health issues are often tricky to diagnose, it's clear that there exists a correlation between a pattern of mental illness and involvement in mass shootings.
Didn't we already have this conversion? ATS: Anti Depressants

Legally-purchased handgun purchased in-state
The vast majority of guns used in mass killings were obtained legally — 81.8 percent.
Again this seems misleading as it has been shown that while the firearms used in many cases where legally purchased, the individual that used them in the shootings had illegally obtained them. Odd to say the least.

February 2014
This was one of the more complex calculations. In order to calculate it, we first wanted to figure out how frequently shooting incidents happened. So we figured out how many days passed, on average, between them. Over the past 30 years, that figure is about 222 days — seven months or so.
This I find very creepy if true.

I'm leaving off location and toll predictions due to how it's predicted in the article. (Location doesn't seem very well made, and the injury/death toll was just simple math)

So here's the issue I have with this data. It gives a very exact date, perpetrator, and even gives an explanation for why the crime took place. It even goes so far as to make a prediction that even more mass shootings will take place in the next few years. Which if their model of every 222 days then there would only be 4-5 mass shootings before Obama leave office, and not 14. What's going on here? Is this just a justification for gun control, a scare tactic for a more robust police state, or some other nefarious agenda? (I'm not forgetting that if Scientists strongly believe that this data is correct, then they have a moral obligation to release this data to the public)

What do you think is going on, and can it be prevented?



posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 05:11 PM
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You can model almost anything.

The rubber meets the road when you test the model. Until the model is validated it's more or less useless.
Make sense? So I guess you should wait for Feb 2014 as a test.

For example: Due to the second law of thermodynamics, the world as we know it will end. We have a finite number of days before that happens. Evidence of entropy is increasing faster than entropy itself so the most likely end point is next Tuesday.

Check back on Wednesday for the test of this model.



posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 05:15 PM
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with all the millions of people getting dangerous, psycho drugs... it is very likely there will be even more mass killings, shootings that will take place



i'd venture to guess that 16 such mass shootings happened in the 5 years of 0bama--- there will be another 16 mass killings in the next 3 years of 0bama



posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 05:26 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


I can only say that the article is interesting. I like how they have calculated all the info and come up with that date in February... however, I think there will be another one before the year is out. This is just my own prediction.

Cheers for the links.

i wouldn't worry too much about the 14 while Obama is in office as I think they mean shootings have gone up since 2009 so the calculations would mean something in that region of 14.



posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 06:15 PM
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Think about how many millions of people are on anti-depressants that don't go out and shoot people.

Sure, we can draw a connection -- but it's like saying "All fish live in water, therefore all water must have fish living in it".

I know many, many people on these drugs that don't claim to feel violent or have "crazy" thoughts. One person I know was on Prozac since it first came out.

Onto predicting these things...

I wonder if someday with powerful quantum computers we might be able to model and predict anything in the future. At that point, "Minority Report" might actually come to pass. Someone could be arrested due to complex calculations computing their "crime potential index".

I think though, that there is always an element of uncertainty that can never be accounted for.
edit on 18-9-2013 by MystikMushroom because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 18 2013 @ 10:25 PM
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MystikMushroom
Think about how many millions of people are on anti-depressants that don't go out and shoot people.

Sure, we can draw a connection -- but it's like saying "All fish live in water, therefore all water must have fish living in it".

I know many, many people on these drugs that don't claim to feel violent or have "crazy" thoughts. One person I know was on Prozac since it first came out.

Onto predicting these things...

I wonder if someday with powerful quantum computers we might be able to model and predict anything in the future. At that point, "Minority Report" might actually come to pass. Someone could be arrested due to complex calculations computing their "crime potential index".

I think though, that there is always an element of uncertainty that can never be accounted for.
edit on 18-9-2013 by MystikMushroom because: (no reason given)
I think the bolded point is what gets me here. The information is very precise up onto the date and perpetrator. One would think that "IF" this whole thing is just a "Guess-ta-ment" then why the specifics? To me it feels like a setup.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 11:02 AM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


lol, the one thing that I always say is that most people and things are predictable. Their data used, however, is a wee bit skewed. Why did they use only shootings whose perpetrator was 18 years or older? Maybe the window for the MJ data isn't loading right for me but I see a whole lot of mass shootings being conspicuously absent from the MJ data. That, in and of itself, would skew the data to predict any future "mass shooting" in terms of age of the perpetrator.

Another issue with this kind of prediction is that it does not address thwarted or less effective attempts at mass shootings. Just because someone was not able to kill as many people does not mean that the intent was not there. A case in point would be the Clackamas Town Center shooting last December. The guy went to a Christmas season congested mall but was inexperienced with the weapon. Using the number of fatalities and omission of a certain subset of mass shooters decreases the frequency and would give a longer period of time before the next attempt.

I'd say that there is a 90% chance of another mass shooting by the end of the year. Areas where it would be least likely to happen would be areas where a mass shooting has either already occurred or has been thwarted as there is a very minute population of potential mass shooters in any given area.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 03:22 PM
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reply to post by WhiteAlice
 
This is where I was going with this. Their data seems slanted to match their outcome. It's almost as if they have something planned and just threw together a bunch of data to show that they "predicted" it.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 03:33 PM
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Well, just google Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation...they know a lot. They know how we will react to almost any senario. As for predicting exactly, well, there's always the human variable...but if you factor in the potential for mind control...well, you see where I'm going with that.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 03:37 PM
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5 months until the next mass shooting? I think that's a little optimistic. I wish that was a joke.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 04:02 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


Yep. Pretty much. Effective predictive modeling doesn't work by throwing a bunch of variables together. Some of those variables, such as date, may have no relation to the prior shootings. But I could say, James Holmes did his a couple weeks after the fourth of July. Aaron Alexis did his within a week of 9/11. Jacob Roberts did his a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. So, it could look like the association with some sort of holiday or anniversary is possibly related. Well, that'd bump the AW date to being more likely to occur within a couple weeks after Valentine's Day.

Garbage in, garbage out. I always say that most people are predictable but once severe mental illness gets thrown into the mix, you might as well throw everything out the window. Predicting where and when--not possible.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 04:07 PM
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There are 2 different types of shootings. There are those in anger and there are those that are trying to beat the last one. The Navy Shipyard was not for notoriety or to claim the top spot. We will never know the reason as the media had (1) put it of the radar already and (2) the victims were all older. Not enough to warrant more coverage.

Lanza was trying to top Cho and the VT shooting. A school shooting has the highest count in 8 of the 12 highest body counts. That will be the next large scale shooting. Another school. They have done nothing to secure schools and they are very very soft targets.

Also, the weapons selection in the top 12 show a pattern. 2 semi-autos and rifle in 10 of 12 of them. Again, prepared for carnage. Holmes was quickly followed by Lanza because he did not 'kill' as many as he was trying to.

I have researched it quite a bit and there is a 7chan connection to those who do the largest. I hate to say it but I think it is a game that this sick bastards play. I am also of the notion that many of these are not done alone. If you look closer you will see more and more connections between the shooters and even those overseas. That is what this link does not include. This is not just about the US, you need to include foreign incidents where these folks talked online.




edit on 09pm30pmf0000002013-09-19T16:07:45-05:000445 by matafuchs because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 04:09 PM
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Technically a mass shooting is where 4 or more people are killed. If I remember correctly, we've had around 67 this year alone.

Odds are that one will happen before their feb. 2014 date.



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 04:18 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


Guns don't cause mass shootings, Crazy people do. I think a ban on Crazy people would have a far better effect on society than any more Gun laws.

We walk by and live by people everyday who could snap and be the next headline. But we all "look the other way".



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 04:54 PM
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reply to post by WhiteAlice
 
One of the models I've been hearing about is the LAMP method LAMP Portal
In which

LAMP assumes the future is nothing more than the sum total of all interactions of "free will," both on an individual and international scale. While not an infallible method for predicting the future, LAMP gives the analyst a more powerful method for organizing all available information based on the perceptions of the national actors and uses it to make relevant predictions as to which alternate future is most likely to occur at a given moment in time. This part of the LAMP Portal provides a brief discussion of the 12 steps of LAMP and showcases the technique's use in predictive analysis.
So at best this February date is a guess, and at worst is a heads up of something coming down the wire.

In the end this has me wondering about the reports about the Navy Yard shooting that came out before the event even happened. Was that predicted too, or was it preplanned? Is this all one thing, or two unrelated events?

(At this point in time it looks like the MSM did in fact know about the shooting before it happened, and is currently under investigation, but that's just what I'm hearing)

Just a follow up on this (and I'm sorry I didn't post this at the time)
Atlantic Wire follow up

Our goal in Tuesday's article was to make the nebulous prospect of a the next "random" attack seem real. We did, so much so that people pushed to demand that the government assure them that it wasn't. Unfortunately, the way such events occur, any assurance that a mass killing won't happen in a particular place is only slightly more statistically trustworthy.
So this whole thing WAS to push some kind of agenda, but now the public is left with more questions. What if some one does a shooting on that date, in that town, at that time? Who's responsible for creating the event? Is it the Atlantic Wire for posting the idea in the first place? What if this is still part of some conspiracy to undermine the government (or worse the public trust and safety)?

They even go so far as to make the following points:
Directly quoted from the following days up-date in the Atlantic Wire:

1. A number of people suggested over email and in the comments that by suggesting an attack on February 12 in Spokane, we made it more likely, that some unstable person might read the piece and decide to make it a reality. We'd offer that if Spokane has someone emotionally disturbed enough to go on a killing spree over a blog post, that's a broader issue of concern. But it also reinforces how we consider these attacks: utterly incomprehensible bolts of lightning with little forewarning. That is not the case.


2. One commenter made an argument that came up multiple times: "The author should have noted that Spokane already had a mass-shooting at Fairchild AFB in 1994, where 5 people were killed and 22 were injured. Statistically, a repeat of such an event is less likely and should have affected the calculations." Actually, statistically that doesn't matter at all, as another commenter replied. "A common fallacy. If you've flipped 10 heads in a row, the probability of heads on the next throw is still 1/2. The probability of Spokane having a mass shooting next year is the same as if nothing had happened in 1994." If every municipality had a quota of one mass killing and that was it, that would be both helpful to law enforcement and an assurance to Spokane. But that's not how probability works.


Was the paper Hoaxing us or covering their collective "seats". Why the explanation of "what ifs" after the report was published? The first article was pretty exact with it's date, location, and perpetrator. Now they seem to have turned a 180 and go off to say that "It could happen that way, but it might not" (I paraphrased them of course).

We know that crime can be somewhat predictive, but not to the point of the original article. Now they're saying something else. What's going on?



posted on Sep, 19 2013 @ 06:14 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


lol, it's clever actually. I'm relieved. When I read the first one, i was so disappointed in the Atlantic Wire. I thought they'd lost their minds. Overall, I think their second piece is probably exactly as they are presenting it. People do have a tendency to look at these things individually and get blindsided. give a time in advance for one basically says "what can we do to prevent it?" but not just for Spokane...every city. It's a good dialogue opener even if it was definitely a manipulation, lol.



posted on Sep, 21 2013 @ 01:02 AM
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reply to post by WhiteAlice
 
Well given the resent Chicago event I would say that the math didn't work out so well, and the attempt to try and curb the next shooting event didn't work out. I'm still left wondering why a new source would be this irresponsible with posting a story about predicting a mass shooting, then turning around the next day and saying that it was basically made up.



posted on Sep, 21 2013 @ 01:14 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


I found their rationale to be quite simple to discern. If we know something is going to happen again, we do all that we can to try to stop it. However, a good majority of people have been reacting to an event, going back to normal and then, reacting to the net. It's been largely a short-lived reactive response; they were trying to get people to be proactive.



posted on Sep, 21 2013 @ 01:22 PM
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reply to post by WhiteAlice
 
Are they? They didn't really give any idea's as to how to stop or prevent another mass shooting. All they did do was create a situation in which it alarmed people, and them waited a day to post a retraction.

Getting people to think about a situation is fine, and I think that's great, but to present a fake as real them exclaim that it was to make us think doesn't sound like a responsible news source does it?

It's sad that since this article was published there has been two "mass" shootings that doesn't fit the logic presented in the first article. So while I can see where you are coming from, I will disagree based on current evidence that the first article was to "get us to think".



posted on Sep, 21 2013 @ 02:24 PM
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reply to post by Guyfriday
 


They didn't offer suggestions because that would be "leading" thinking and would've basically had the article risk being dismissed on being "fear mongering" to suit a specific political ideology. What they wanted to induce would be what would be considered 'brainstorming". Aside from that, they really never declared the date as being anything but a prediction based on certain factors. In that sense, it wasn't misleading at all. The rationale for the time frame would be putting it enough into the future to give people a sense of probable success in any attempt to stop such a thing whereas if they had done it with a date of next week, people would feel like it was an unstoppable event.

From the original article, second paragraph:



That, at least, is what a look at the data on past such shootings might indicate. We'll say at the outset: Every assertion in the first paragraph is a function of probability, not fact. The next mass shooting — which will happen somewhere, sometime — will almost certainly not be in that place at that time.


Did they present it as a true statement of fact? Absolutely not. They clearly stated that it was not fact and went so far as to state that the statements in the first paragraph were most likely not going to be the place or time for the next shooting.

We seem to have a really dreadful problem with reading comprehension in this country. You stated:



Getting people to think about a situation is fine, and I think that's great, but to present a fake as real them exclaim that it was to make us think doesn't sound like a responsible news source does it?


If they stated at the outset that what they were presenting was not fact, then is it their fault for misleading you or is it yours for not reading the article fully and in its entirety? Please don't feel like I'm picking on you. I see this error an awful lot and it's a huge problem, I think so you'd be in good company. Just don't get mad at the Atlantic Wire. Take it as a learning lesson and a reminder to read something fully before reacting.







 
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