Gardner is an epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa who blogs frequently at the Incidental Economist, an indispensable health policy website. He based his most recent post there on a roster of mass shootings produced by my colleagues here at The Times on Oct. 2, the day after the Las Vegas massacre, which took the lives of 58 spectators at a country music festival and injured more than 500 others. [...]
Gardner’s analysis of episodes since 1984 underscores that most mass shootings (which experts generally define as incidents with four or more casualties) involve five to 19 deaths. But there is also “a series of ultra casualty events,” he wrote in October, shortly after Las Vegas. “The death rate in these massacres has almost tripled since 2000.” [...]
“Either we’re going to have to start doing something to prevent this,” he told me, “or we’re going to have to turn our public spaces into high-defense camps. Are all public spaces going to have to be under surveillance? Are we going to do facial recognition of everyone going down every street? That seems like a real dystopian future.” [...]
Gardner’s data graphs suggest that at least one more mass killing by gunfire is due in the U.S. before the end of the year. The chances are low it will lead to more firearms regulation, when the previous wave has not.
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