The Conversation: Six things to know about mass shootings in America

In other words, the U.S. had nearly double the number of mass shootings than all other 24 countries combined in the same 30-year period.

Another significant finding is that mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents. This association remains high even when the number of incidents from the United States is withdrawn from the analysis. [...]

A recent study published by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing over time. The researchers measured the increase by calculating the time between the occurrence of mass shootings. According to the research, the days separating mass shooting occurrence went from on average 200 days during the period of 1983 to 2011 to 64 days since 2011. [...]

The majority of active shooters are linked to mental health issues, bullying and disgruntled employees. Active shooters may be motivated by a variety of personal or political motivations, usually not aimed at weakening government legitimacy. Frequent motivations are revenge or a quest for power.

read the article

Politico: Emmanuel Macron’s long war

Macron’s solution, which even advisers admit is flawed, was to introduce a new anti-terrorism bill that reproduces most of the important features of the state of emergency. Passed into law on Tuesday, it has been the subject of some of the sharpest debate between MPs since Macron took power. It’s easy to understand why: The law expands police powers considerably, and permanently, ensuring the continuation of practices that both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have denounced as discriminatory against France’s Muslim population.

So now Macron faces another challenge, this one political in nature, but no less risky: He will become known as an authoritarian president who is willing to sacrifice the rights of some citizens in order to avoid being seen as weak. [...]

Stated in numerical terms, the threat is even plainer: Since January, France has suffered no fewer than 11 terrorist incidents related to radical Islam, including a shooting on the Champs Elysées in Paris three days before the presidential election. [...]

Under Macron’s laws, the quick-and-easy raids denounced by rights groups will be included in police forces’ regular toolkit. Officers will be able to “visit” — raid — and question individuals suspected of terrorist activity for up to four hours, without having to consult a judge beforehand. In such cases, no warrant is required, and the definition of what stands for “terrorist activity” is vague enough to cover just about anyone. [...]

But such an extension must be approved by all EU member countries as well as the European Parliament. The effect, critics say, is that France is destroying the spirit of Schengen, since a three-year exception is tantamount to a permanent one, and will only encourage other states more hostile to immigration, such as Hungary, to break European travel laws unilaterally, invoking terrorism.

read the article

Haaretz: Catalonia Crisis: What's Next for Spain if Catalan Leader Declares Independence as Promised

So far no country or international body has expressed any support for the Catalan government(asterisk)s independence drive, so any declaration of independence is likely to be rejected, at the beginning at least. The European Union is standing solidly behind Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and says Catalonia would be expelled from the bloc and the shared euro currency.

Economically it is impossible to predict if it could survive. Catalonia has an annual gross domestic product of about 215 billion euros ($257 billion) — the largest of the Spanish regions and greater than Greece’s — but many of its goods are supplied by the Spanish state. 

Besides the removal of Spanish flags from official buildings, it(asterisk)s hard to see what else Catalan authorities could do. The feeling is that the declaration would be a symbolic one. Catalonia does not have security forces sufficient to set up borders and key areas such as taxes, foreign affairs, defense, ports, airports and trains are in the hands of the Spanish government in Madrid. Spain also recently took virtually full control of Catalonia’s spending. [...]

The other, more extreme alternative would be to declare a state of siege, should Spain’s sovereignty be considered under attack — which a declaration of independence might constitute — and this could allow for the suspension of civil rights and imposition of martial law. It would need to be debated and approved by the lower house of parliament, a difficult matter as Rajoy lacks a majority there.

read the article

Vox: Don't fall for the antifa trap

The School of Life: The Origins of Suicide

One of the oddest facts about the tragedy of suicide is that it isn’t as common in every country, society and age. Rates of suicide appear to rise enormously the more a society becomes wealthy and industrialised. Why should this be? And how can we learn from this about how we might better prevent a terrible loss of life? 

The Conversation: As Spain represses Catalonia’s show of independence, the rest of Europe watches on nervously

In March 2017, former Catalan leader Artur Mas was banned from holding public office after being found guilty of disobeying the Constitutional Court by holding a symbolic referendum in 2014. Such aggressive responses by Spain to the idea of secession have driven increasing numbers of Catalonians toward the independence movement.  [...]

The referendum’s legality is certainly contentious, notably because it did not adhere to democratic conventions like the requirement for a minimum threshold of votes. Regardless, Puigdemont is looking to make a declaration of independence in the coming days. [...]

The UN has criticised Madrid for its disproportionate and violent response to a peaceful attempt at self-determination. Human Rights Watch has condemned the Spanish government for violating Catalans’ civil right to peaceful assembly and free expression.

In contrast, the European Union regards the vote as illegal but has called for unity and peaceful relations between Spain and Catalonia.

read the article

The Guardian: What if Trump is actually a master of empathy?

It has nothing to do with genuinely identifying with others or actually feeling their pain; that would be sympathy. Instead, empathy is really about having an accurate theory of mind of other people – and getting under their skin. [...]

Trump made a strong empathic connection with his supporters by acknowledging their pain and economic hardship and by promising to Make America (and by extension, them) Great Again. How? It hardly mattered once he made people feel he understood and liked them, something far more effective than policy details. [...]

After all, if you are angry about having lost your job, it is far more emotionally satisfying to blame an immigrant than the likely truth, which is that you lost your job to automation or a shift in the nature of the economy – an abstract explanation without a human target for your anger.

read the article

Vox: White American men are a bigger domestic terrorist threat than Muslim foreigners

Radical Islamic terrorists inspired or directed by groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda do pose a clear threat to the US. There is no question about that. Before last night’s deadly shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history occurred in June 2016 when an ISIS-inspired man opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53.

And ISIS-linked militants have killed or injured dozens of people in countries like England, France, and Canada so far this year, including two women killed in a stabbing attack in Marseille, France, and several people injured in a car-ramming attack in Edmonton, Canada, just this weekend. [...]

n fact, between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown right-wing extremists than by Islamist terrorists, according to a study by New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC. [...]

And as my colleague Zack Beauchamp has written, the average likelihood of an American being killed in a terrorist attack in which an immigrant participated in any given year is one in 3.6 million — even including the 9/11 deaths. The average American is more likely to die from their own clothing or a toddler with a gun than an immigrant terrorist. But we’re not banning guns and T-shirts from coming into the country.  

read the article

African Arguments: “We lose entire communities in the blink of an eye and people do not seem to look.”

As an activist in Maiduguri explains, the situation here is not like that in Syria or Afghanistan in its scope or international awareness. “It’s not been ten years with foreign fighters and a big war with just 50,000 dead,” he sighs. “Here, we lose entire communities in the blink of an eye and people do not seem to look.”  [...]

The sheer statistics of the crisis are shocking. At the time of writing, more than 2.3 million people have been displaced. 7.2 million are “food insecure” and are at risk of starvation and malnutrition. And over half a million children are considered to be “severely acutely malnourished”, meaning they are weeks away from death if they don’t receive urgent assistance. [...]

An array of factors limits the extent of the humanitarian intervention in the Lake Chad Basin, such as safety concerns, an overstretched budget, and the politics of intervention. However, Gubio gives undue credit to the will and capacity of the international humanitarian community in the first place. Among other things, its lack of engagement is also undeniably an exercise in privilege. The host communities absorbing those displaced by Boko Haram have no choice but to engage with this crisis. They do not have the option of turning a blind eye.

read the article