Recently I've heard a lot of crap about "not raising the age on firearms from 18 to 21" because "it leaves single women unable to protect themselves, living on their own". So I just began to wonder how many women actually own guns for protection. And why out of the last 100 mass shootings since 1982 only 2 women have done so.
Why are more white males likely to grab a AR 15 and start killing large groups of people than any other race or sex. Why mass killings are primarily done by one sex and race over all others. The others are so rare, they are not even studied.
Between 1982 and February 2018, 2 mass shootings were initiated by female shooters, 94 by male shooters. Female school shooters are less common than male, as in all violent crime. They also tend to be adults or college age and attack schools where they are not students, so might not be as widely labeled as school shooters as the arc type high school student shooting their own school.
Female mass killers are "so rare that it just hasn't been studied," said James Garbarino, a psychologist at Loyola University Chicago who has researched human development and violence. "There aren't enough cases." [The History of Human Aggression]
There have been two mass shootings attributed to females.
On Jan. 30, 2006, former postal worker Jennifer San Marco, 44, fatally shot a former neighbor in Goleta, California, then drove to the mail processing plant where she used to work. She opened fire inside, killing six employees before killing herself. The U.S. Postal Service said that San Marco worked for the Postal Service for six years, but was given early retirement in June 2003 because of psychological problems.
On Feb. 20, 2014, Cherie Lash Rhoades, 44, former chairwoman of the Cedarville Rancheria tribe, opened fire at the Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office and Community Center in Alturas, California. Among those killed were her brother, her niece, and her nephew. When she ran out of ammunition, she grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed another person. All told, she killed four people and wounded two. Authorities said the meeting at tribal headquarters was about evicting Rhoades and her son from tribal land.
School shootings have only one female listed. On Jan. 29, 1979, Brenda Spencer, 16, fired 36 shots from a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle on a San Diego elementary school. Two adults were killed and eight children were wounded.Brenda Ann Spencer, a chronically abused and molested mentally unstable 16y/o girl on a cocktail of intoxicants, is actually considered by many to be the first modern school shooter. On Jan 29, 1979, she took the 22 shotgun her father (the abuser and molester,) had given her a month before for Christmas, (immediately after a school psychiatrist recommended she be institutionalized as a danger to herself and others,) and opened fire on the morning crowds outside the elementary school across the street from her home. The principal and a janitor were killed while helping children and eight children were wounded. In statements afterward, Brenda said she had wanted to commit suicide by cop because she'd been unable to kill herself and the famous line about it doing it because she “hates Mondays”.
There have been some
rampage female killers too. But they too, are few and far between. Though also a technical "school shooting" Brenda Spencer is still classified as a spree killer.
On Jan. 29, 1979, Brenda Spencer, 16, fired 36 shots from a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle on a San Diego elementary school. Two adults were killed and eight children were wounded.
On Oct. 31, 1985, Sylvia Seegrist opened fire on a suburban Philadelphia mall, killing two people and wounding eight others.
On May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann, a 30-year-old with a history of mental illness, delivered arsenic-laced desserts and juice boxes to families for whom she had babysat. Later in the day, she drove to an elementary school in Winnetka, Illinois, with three guns and killed one student and injured five others.
On Feb. 12, 2010, Amy Bishop, a biology professor, shot up a University of Alabama-Huntsville faculty meeting, killing three colleagues and wounding three others.
Linking gun ownership to the identity of being an American has been a successful sales tactic that is more myth than reality. The numbers show that a small, unrepresentative, but disproportionately vocal portion of the American population, aided by self-serving politicians and a powerful lobby organization, has enacted its agenda over the majority of Americans, who do not own guns and would rather see much stronger gun safety regulations. So we have 3% of Americans owning about 20% of the world’s stockpile of firearms.
A 2016 study by Harvard and Northeastern University put the total number of privately-owned firearms in the U.S. at 265 million, with more than half of that - 133 million - being concentrated in the hands of just 3% of Americans, called "super owners," who have an average of 17 guns each.
A 2017 poll by the Pew Research Center found that the amount of Americans who actually own a gun themselves is at about 30% of the country's citizens. Maybe this should be obvious math but here it goes anyway - about 70% of the people in the U.S. do not own a gun. Among households, 42% of Americans live in a home where someone keeps a gun. That leaves about 58% of Americans who live in a gun-free house.
Across a number of national polls, gun ownership has fallen by 10 to 20% from the 1970s, reported the Washington Post.
United States of America Population as of 2017, is estimated at 325.7 million. The NRA itself claims only to have 5 million members worldwide, but estimates have gone as high as 14 million, though the NRA say many claim membership who are not members. They represent less than 1 in every 650 people in the US only. Yet we want to rely on their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment; why? The NRA doesn't represent the Bulk of the American population, yet they tell the Congress what they see as "restrictions" against the Second Amendment.
Banning "Assault Style Weapons" isn't against the Second Amendment. Reagan did it. Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, and extreme Constitutionalist and ultra-Conservative Judge agreed with him.
Bush 2 let it expire. But, It can and was done legally before. The Supreme Court upheld it. They said it does not violate the Second Amendment to ban military-style weapons from public ownership. Reagan, a Republican legend, and Scalia an ultra-conservative legend BOTH deemed it legal to ban this style weapon. So NRA arguments don't hold water and are only for the benefit of weapons manufacturers wants and needs.
So I hope the kids follow through. That they register and VOTE. That they continue to fight and March and speak out. I pray "the March for Our Lives" rallies is just the beginning. That the NRA becomes deemed a terrorist group like the Klan and ISIS. That their stranglehold on our Government is released and never allowed again like Eugenics was. That their extremist views are put in the realms of fantasy and fiction, where they belong.
That's it for today. Remember to stock up before the price increases hit from the tariffs. Sell your WalMart stocks while they are still worth a little and invest in some Gold, cause, well, you just never know. Watch Stormy Daniels this Sunday and register and vote in November so we get these Morons out of office and start taking our Country back from this ignoramus running it so badly. Have a great weekend and let er rip!