This installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast deals with two mass shootings this weekend, one of which was explicitly tied to white nationalist terrorism. On Saturday, a young white man targeted immigrants and killed at least 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in an attack being investigated […] Read more »
Democrats have been discussing the same ideas on guns for 25 years. It’s time to change that.
The Democratic debates crystallized how far Democrats have moved to the left on all sorts of issues over the past few years. Candidates for the presidency advocated for single-payer health care, a Green New Deal, free college, 70 percent taxes on the ultrawealthy, decriminalizing crossing the border without papers, and […] Read more »
What Drives People to Mass Shootings?
On Monday morning, President Trump made his first televised statement about the mass murders committed over the weekend in El Paso, Tex., and Dayton, Ohio. He called for action to “stop mass killings before they start,” citing what he said were a number contributing factors: the contagious nature of mass […] Read more »
El Paso shooter wasn’t a ‘lone wolf’ — and his so-called online ‘manifesto’ proves why
It’s mourning again in America. Many of us went to sleep on Saturday night grieving the news of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, motivated by racism. We woke up Sunday morning to another mass murder in Dayton, Ohio, this one with even less of a motive. Journalists are […] Read more »
Are video games or mental illness causing America’s mass shootings? No, research shows.
Every time a mass shooting occurs, the country talks about mental health. Many politicians are quick to point to the shooters’ disturbed minds. News reporters probe for “loner” tendencies or signs of instability. “Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger. Not the gun,” said President Trump on Monday, after two […] Read more »
What Both Sides Don’t Get About American Gun Culture
The two mass shootings this weekend have inflamed a gun-control debate that never seems to go away and never seems to get resolved. … The view of guns as neutral tools, a view shared by conservative defenders of gun rights as well as liberal advocates of gun regulation, misses a […] Read more »