Post by somethingimpromptu on May 6, 2016 18:38:51 GMT
I just wanted to note something about the mall shooting:
Washington, DC has by far the highest rate of gun-murders per capita in the US, a rate of 16.5 gun-murders per 100,000 inhabitants as of 2010, more than twice the next-runner-up, Louisiana, at 7.7 gun-murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This is despite a registered firearm ownership rate of only 3.6% in DC, versus 44.1% in Louisiana.1 Why am I talking about gun-murder rates? Because DC is known for its being exorbitantly high. Today, three people were killed in the mall shooting in Bethesda, Maryland. I noticed that there was intensive media coverage of the mall shooting. This immediately raised a question for me. This is not on the scale of an Aurora, Colorado, or a Virginia Tech mass shooting; why is this making headlines when this kind of thing happens almost every other day in DC? I had my suspicions, and after looking into it, they seem to have been pretty accurate.
Bethesda CDP, Maryland, the suburb of DC where the mall shooting occurred, is an affluent area (with the 12th highest median income of any community in Maryland). As of statistics gathered in 2010 (the last census polling), Bethesda was also 83.2% white, 9.3% Asian, 6.4% Hispanic, and only 3.3% black.2 Specifically, “the Westfield Montgomery mall is a large and popular shopping destination for the residents of Montgomery County, one of the most educated and affluent counties in the United States.”3
Of course any murder is a tragedy. But in my opinion, this is a clear instance of the tendency of the mainstream news media to exploit as an opportunity any rare occasion upon which violent crime bleeds over into white, middle-and-upper-class society, in order to fear-monger among those populations, while (consciously or unconsciously) drawing no attention to the unending epidemic of gun-violence affecting poor and racial-minority communities on a daily basis. This shooting fits their ideal profile quite well-- a violent crime in an affluent, white community; committed by a minority (I'm sure a black or Hispanic suspect would've been preferable over Asian); in a public location that any suburbanite can empathize with (e.g. universities, high schools, movie theaters, or in this case, shopping malls).
Just thought I might as well put this out there, since I had already looked up the statistics. I hope everyone’s having a good Friday.
1. FBI. Online. Uniform Crime Reports, table 20.
2. US Census Bureau. Online. American FactFinder, Bethesda CDP, Maryland.
3. Russia Today. Online. Mall shooting in wealthy DC suburb results in three victims, linked to two homicides.
Washington, DC has by far the highest rate of gun-murders per capita in the US, a rate of 16.5 gun-murders per 100,000 inhabitants as of 2010, more than twice the next-runner-up, Louisiana, at 7.7 gun-murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This is despite a registered firearm ownership rate of only 3.6% in DC, versus 44.1% in Louisiana.1 Why am I talking about gun-murder rates? Because DC is known for its being exorbitantly high. Today, three people were killed in the mall shooting in Bethesda, Maryland. I noticed that there was intensive media coverage of the mall shooting. This immediately raised a question for me. This is not on the scale of an Aurora, Colorado, or a Virginia Tech mass shooting; why is this making headlines when this kind of thing happens almost every other day in DC? I had my suspicions, and after looking into it, they seem to have been pretty accurate.
Bethesda CDP, Maryland, the suburb of DC where the mall shooting occurred, is an affluent area (with the 12th highest median income of any community in Maryland). As of statistics gathered in 2010 (the last census polling), Bethesda was also 83.2% white, 9.3% Asian, 6.4% Hispanic, and only 3.3% black.2 Specifically, “the Westfield Montgomery mall is a large and popular shopping destination for the residents of Montgomery County, one of the most educated and affluent counties in the United States.”3
Of course any murder is a tragedy. But in my opinion, this is a clear instance of the tendency of the mainstream news media to exploit as an opportunity any rare occasion upon which violent crime bleeds over into white, middle-and-upper-class society, in order to fear-monger among those populations, while (consciously or unconsciously) drawing no attention to the unending epidemic of gun-violence affecting poor and racial-minority communities on a daily basis. This shooting fits their ideal profile quite well-- a violent crime in an affluent, white community; committed by a minority (I'm sure a black or Hispanic suspect would've been preferable over Asian); in a public location that any suburbanite can empathize with (e.g. universities, high schools, movie theaters, or in this case, shopping malls).
Just thought I might as well put this out there, since I had already looked up the statistics. I hope everyone’s having a good Friday.
1. FBI. Online. Uniform Crime Reports, table 20.
2. US Census Bureau. Online. American FactFinder, Bethesda CDP, Maryland.
3. Russia Today. Online. Mall shooting in wealthy DC suburb results in three victims, linked to two homicides.