Mass shootings overblown? Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests that's the case...

[True Dough]

What do you think about this?

Link to tweet

[jcgoldie]

1. Yeah well Sorry Neil

But none of those other things happen to a couple dozen innocent children on a normal school day.

[Polybius]

12. Sadly, lots of innocent children die everyday due to medical errors, the flu, and car accidents

With that being said, of course I support gun-control to bring the numbers of the shootings down.

[graeme_macquarrie]

32. Don't forget child abuse, human trafficking and child sexual abuse.. N/T

[Kablooie]

33. Those are accidents and the government has laws to minimize them.

These shootings are murders and the government does nothing to minimize them.

[VMA131Marine]

35. Medical errors are entirely preventable

They are not accidents

[Kablooie]

39. They are accidents in that the doctor did not intend to harm deliberately.

I'm sure most hope the error will go undetected without negative consequences.

Also there are laws and procedures designed to prevent medical errors.

[VMA131Marine]

147. I can't believe you wrote that thinking it would be a good answer

Imagine if there were 500 airline passenger deaths per day due to pilot mistakes. Nobody would ever get on an airplane!

The fact that there are so few airline passenger deaths every year is because there is an agency, the NTSB, dedicated to understanding what went wrong in a crash and proposing measures to prevent similar chains of events from occurring.

The medical profession could easily implement the same kind of thing. To say that the doctors hope the mistakes go unnoticed is completely unacceptable. That would be one big reason why there are 500 deaths per day due to medical errors. It's not enough, in the medical profession, to intend not to harm. Doctors and all medical staff need to be proactive about preventing mistakes or catching them early before any harm is done.

[StarfishSaver]

68. Medical errors are not intentional. Most are just mistakes

And unless and until people become infallible and eliminate human error from our existence, comparing medical errors with intentional, malicious mass murder is a non-starter.

[CharleyDog]

59. in fact, our "leaders" are on the side of the weapons factory, and actively lobby for/praise them as

"patriotic." Our government wants MORE GUNS. Laws are passed to make shootings "stand your ground" and no permits, no checks at all for a "guns everywhere" policy. More guns is always the answer.

And what do you know? The prime government leader, the man with all the power will do nothing, and nothing will be done, again, so we can all tune in to watch the body bags.

(When we don't enact laws to limit guns, the only answer will be for more militarization of American life: more hired guns to monitor our life at the grocery store, the mall, the schools... I predict that will be the NRA/Republican answer. The other answer will be war, more war, patriotic war, because that will really tie the Democrats hands.)

[emmaverybo]

77. Yes, that's a good way to make the distinction.

[tinrobot]

140. There is no organization that dontates to Republicans to promote car accidents.

We do have one that donates to Republicans to promote guns.

[Archae]

2. He's right, and our "If it bleeds, it leads" news media doesn't help one bit.

"Grab the ratings, get the headlines, we'll stick to the facts later..."

[uponit7771]

11. No he's not, Trump influenced terrorism on PoC is deplorable and not what we expect

... accidents and murder, etc among worlds 3rd largest populated country is horrible but not different.

[rockfordfile]

97. No. It sounds like he supports mass shootings. Trying to make it okay.

[JackInGreen]

113. My friend

Please, if thata your interpretation, do more consideration before speaking (offer me a 'but whatabout what he...' that's a nonstarter)

[eleny]

3. Intentional violence stands apart from the rest

[dalton99a]

4. Let's not forget heart disease and cancer

[rockfordfile]

98. What does that have to do with right-wing terrorist mass shootings?

[johnp3907]

5. Smart people often say and do stupid things.

[Cartoonist]

6. Except for the last one

We are doing what we can to reduce the others. We aren't doing anything to stop gun deaths.

Have you gotten your flu shot, Neil?

[uponit7771]

7. Niel, none of those were Trump influenced terrorist attacks. Come on man, context matters

[dalton99a]

10. Exactly.

[graeme_macquarrie]

37. Really?

The Dayton shooter killed his sister and her boyfriend outside that club. I don't think Drumpf whispered in his ear on that one. There may be other things in play on that one. We will need to see what facts surface.

No doubt the El Paso shooter was a white Nationalist, just like many before him- from the KKK in the first half of last century to Timothy McVeigh. But the San Bernadino and Pulse shootings had nothing to do with White Nationalist/Supremacy movements.
The common factor most of these shootings have in common is radicalized males, that in my opinion are mentally ill and delusional.

[uponit7771]

41. 6 of the 9 people killed in Ohio were black Donald Trump is stoking racial animus against PoC ...

... both of those statements are facts not in dispute.

[graeme_macquarrie]

120. So an avowed leftist-

Some one that posted they would happily vote for Elizabeth Warren;
Posted "Vote Blue for God's Sake" on November 2, 2018;
Posted "this is bad" in response to the November 2016 presidential election results;
Posted "F*uck John McCain" on the day he died;
Posted that he wanted Socialism and wasn't "waiting around for it";
Posted "Kill Every Fascist" in response to an article on a rally on the Charlottesville anniversary;
The Green County Board of Elections lists his party affiliation as "Dem".
Those facts are not in dispute either.

I stated that while I believed the El Paso mass shooting was white Nationalist inspired, I was waiting on more facts on this guy. Something didn't smell right.
Sometimes numbers are just anomalies. You don't have information yet on those wounded by this maniac. It could bear out your contention or not.
In any case it does not appear he was radicalized by the Talking Yam.

https://heavy.com/news/2019/08/connor-betts-twitter-politics-social-media/

[uponit7771]

126. No one on the left has demonized people at clubs as invaders or people who infest so your false

... equivalence is noted.

[graeme_macquarrie]

143. That's funny..

I never said this individual was radicalized or incited by any one left or right. I said that the odds that he was mentally ill were very high, and it was unlikely, given his past statements, that he was committing a racial motivated hate crime incited by the comments of President Cheeto.

The false equivalence is yours my friend- equating the race of people murdered as proof that this was a racially motivated hate crime.

[uponit7771]

145. 6 of the 9 people killed in Ohio were black, it sure looks like it was racially motivated because ..

... people usually don't do that even if they're sick out of their heads unless its racially motivated.

OK, I'll wait ... but the way it looks on its face is racially motivated and its common place for he media and the government to hold out calling something a hate crime if a white shooter terrorist is involved.

[yardwork]

63. And weapons of mass murder. Dayton killed 9 people in 30 seconds.

No civilian needs that kind of weapon.

[rockfordfile]

99. Most right-wing mass shootings are influenced by other right-wing pos

It's mentally ill to be one of these un-American fascist republicans to begin with.

[hlthe2b]

8. Yet what is different with the others? They are both preventable and we TRY to do so

[UniteFightBack]

44. This

[targetpractice]

9. Love this response from Jaboukie Young-White...

... Daily Show correspondent...

Link to tweet

?s=20

[BBG]

13. Agree

And media circuses are aggravating and not entertaining in the least.

[Hav]

14. It's not helping

The thing is, when all the other things happen, for most we try to find the reason for it in order to fix it (medical errors, car accidents if there were mechanical errors). We don't just acknowledge deaths caused by the flu with thoughts and prayers, we try to do something to save lifes instead.
There are things that just happen, others are so unnecessary and could be addressed to at least diminish the consequences. Saying to look over there is a distraction that doesn't help to address the problem or make it better.

[Retrograde]

51. Very well put(nt)

[live love laugh]

15. I bet Republicans love him ❤️❤️❤️❤️

🙄

[BlueTsunami2018]

114. Yep, every Тяцмр humper on my Facebook feed is posting this.

They love him all of a sudden.

[lpbk2713]

16. I don't see how mass murder can be covered too strenuously.

Maybe he lives in an alternate universe.

[rustysgurl]

17. As a scientist, looking at raw numbers ...

... and attempting to compare apples to apples, sure, I get it.

But these aren't apples to apples. Some of your numbers, Neil, are accidents. Some are natural illness. Some are due to mental illness. Seriously? You're going to attempt to compare those to the innocents mowed down yesterday (and all the others killed in mass shootings)?

Neil, stop and think for a moment. You are a smart man. Knowledge is power. Being smart also assumes you will use your knowledge intelligently. Big fail here, sir.

[delisen]

18. ..and we take action to reduce all those other deaths

we investigate, we educate, we draw conclusions, we regulate, we take reasonable actions to mitigate.

In each of the above we run up against people who don't want to do what is necessary to save lives----

but we don't for example stop developing flu vaccines because people die from other events.

[Snake Plissken]

19. How about this statistic

0 people would have been mass murdered in White Supremacist Right Wing domestic terrorist attacks yesterday if Trump didn't incite them

[Hoyt]

20. Tyson has written some excellent gun condemnation in the past. He's wrong here, though.

[triron]

21. Reminds me of Noam Chomsky. Intellectualization does nothing to address the

problem. If fact it can be unnecessarily distracting.

[NoMoreRepugs]

22. Tyson is providing perspective IMO. The suicide and

homicide numbers are primarily gun related.... and on a per day basis. We live in a gun crazed violent society, despite all our collective economic wealth.

[flotsam]

23. But there is a large difference

None of your other causes inhibit the enjoyment of the inherent right to enjoy your life in public places without fear. How do you build a working system of government when people are to afraid to exercise " the right of the people peaceably to assemble"? Shouldn't the 1st amendment trump(ahem) the 2nd?

[Srkdqltr]

24. But how does this change the horror of these shootings??

[aikoaiko]

25. Neil deGrasse Tyson is correct. We need to take gun violence seriously

and mass shootings are tragic, but they need to be addressed in context of all threats.

[LisaL]

29. How many suicides he lists were committed with guns?

[graeme_macquarrie]

34. Most likely about half, statistically speaking

[aikoaiko]

38. Probably a majority, but banning "assault weapons" or even...

...all semi-autos won’t change that.

[Lucid Dreamer]

92. TN study 2016-17 suicide distrubution

TN study 2016-17 suicide distribution

63.3% Firearms
18.5% Suffocation
13.1% Poison
5.1% Other

[USALiberal]

95. Lol, ok! Nt

[rockfordfile]

100. They are not the same. Of all course deaths are tragic.

[spanone]

26. The difference is that these mass shootings were incited by the Potus

[renate]

27. this is a thought he should have kept to himself longer than 24 hours after two mass murders n/t

What point is he trying to make? That these mass murders shouldn't be made into such big a deal?

[dalton99a]

36. +1. "Did you get shot by a MAGA terrorist? Calm down, let's look at the statistics..."

[50 Shades Of Blue]

28. Way to dilute.

[Vinca]

30. I totally disagree. The mass shootings, while horrible on their own, also

draw attention to 2 of the other things he noted: suicide and homicide via handgun. That said, the time for talking is over. Our "brave" politicians need to step up to the plate and do what is right.

[hunter]

31. Maybe guns should be regulated in the same aggressive way medicine and automobiles are.

We don't allow just anyone to practice medicine, we require prescriptions for certain medicines and don't allow some medicines to be prescribed at all, and we require new cars to meet certain safety standards. We enforce traffic laws and build roads and highways to minimize certain kinds of accidents

Regulations are imperfect, and not always appropriate or effective, but there's no reason guns should be exempt.

If someone was going around promoting suicide or the spread of flu germs or driving on the wrong side of the road they'd be rightfully regarded as dangerous.

[LudwigPastorius]

40. While his statistics may be accurate,...

nobody wants to hear that shit right now.

Fuck off, Neal. Sometimes it takes a little emotion (namely disgust, outrage, and most importantly, empathy) to overcome the bought-and-paid-for laws and policies that lead to crimes like this.

[smirkymonkey]

60. +1000

He's showing an extreme lack of compassion and situational awareness in this case.

You aren't helping, Neal. This is not the time.

[pintobean]

42. He's absolutely right.

The media and gun control advocates have a vested interest in making a spectacle of these tragedies.

[Blue_true]

69. His examples are bullshit.

Only in the case of handgun violence is a person targeted to be murdered. There is an enormous significance in that fact. There is no reason to have guns that shoot more than 6 bullets in society, in a battlefield, yes, but not in society. A person that can't take down a dangerous home invader or violent attacker with 6 or less rounds should get their asses to a gun range and practice.

[GeorgeGist]

43. Buy better weed, Neil.

[Blecht]

45. Duh

How many of those 250 suicides are committed with a firearm?

What a stupid, tone-deaf thing for Tyson to say.

[ancianita]

47. They're not even in the same category, Mr Tyson. Your numbers are losses we're SUPPOSED to reconcile

ourselves to.

Mass murder is not.

[Captain Stern]

48. He's right.

Even as far as a percentage of murders committed with guns go, the shootings that happened yesterday are a small percentage.

These shootings touch us more than the shootings that happen every single day because they're dramatic. They're dramatic because a whole bunch of people get murdered at one time. We've come to accept the slow drip of murders that are committed with guns every single day.

Whenever one of these types of shootings is committed with an 'assualt' rifle, there are a lot of calls to ban 'assault' rifles.....but when one of them is committed by someone using a hand gun or shotgun..not so much. That's always puzzled me.

If the goal is to save lives, and if we're assuming we can do that by banning certain sorts of guns....why in the heck are we concentrating on 'assault' weapons, or any kind of rifle? Shouldn't we be trying to get rid of the actual kind of gun that kills the most people?

Handguns kill far more people than any kind of rifle. It's not even close.

[pbmus]

66. Better chance of banning Jesus

[ooky]

87. Hand guns don't belong in public either. We need laws for both if we ever want to start

addressing the root cause. Nobody needs an assault weapon for personal use. Hand guns are okay for protection at home, but not needed in public. It should be a felony to be caught with a hand gun in public, or to be caught with an assault weapon anywhere, if we want to start fixing the problem. We don't need society running around with all these guns. This country needs a paradigm shift and get tough policies on guns if we ever want to stop the killing.

[rockfordfile]

107. No these shootings are hopefully wake up call to the right-wing fascist that are a major threat

No these shootings are hopefully wake up call to the right-wing fascist that are a major threat to our country.
The Republicans hate America.

[Captain Stern]

125. I don't understand what you're saying here.

How would these shootings be a wake up call to the fascists?

Seems, if anything, they would be wake up calls to the rest of us.

However, I doubt they will really wake anyone up. The mass shootings that weren't committed by right-wingers haven't seemed to really cause us to get anything done, so I doubt the ones committed by right wing nuts will either.

[Jim__]

49. Often our emotions respond to the things we can change.

People are born, get sick, and die every day. I wish everyone could live forever, or at least to the point where they've had enough of life. That's not the way it is, and there's not a whole lot we can do about that in the short term.

We can do something about people with military-type weapons walking into public spaces and murdering innocent people.

Neil deGrasse Tyson needs to apply some context to his numbers.

[Oneironaut]

50. Imo, his point is not that mass shootings are overblown, but that the rest of these things don't get

enough coverage.

[skypilot]

91. He is a smart guy so...

...IF that is what he meant he should have been able to say it as succinctly as you did. But the fact is that all of those tragic things he listed DO get coverage if they happen in significant numbers over a relatively short period of time. Mass shootings do a lot of damage in a very short time.

Frankly, his reasoning here is just as shitty as that of those 2nd Amendment advocates who think that these shootings is just something we have to live with in order to enjoy our "freedom" under that amendment.

[rockfordfile]

104. I think this shows that he's a idiot. Maybe owes somebody something

[rockfordfile]

102. Which is not true. A lot of that gets attention as it should.

[Everyman Jackal]

52. 300 to the Flu

And how many of those 300 received a flu shot?

[Thekaspervote]

53. I really like him.. but he sure missed the boat on this one! All of the above mentioned save one

could be gone, or at least greatly diminished if we had decent gun laws!

[bronxiteforever]

55. +1

[AlexSFCA]

54. not all deaths are the same

[John Fante]

56. Now think about how many more deaths we'd have

without traffic laws, flu vaccines, suicide prevention hotlines, etc. Imagine if we took the "thoughts and prayers" route in every one of these areas?

[smirkymonkey]

61. Exactly!

One of the best twitter responses on that thread below:
Rekalty
@Rekalty
·
Replying to
@neiltyson
We're working to prevent medical errors.
We're working to prevent the flu.
We're working to prevent suicide.
We're working to prevent car accident.
We're doing fuck all about mass shootings.

Spot the difference, Neil.

[yardwork]

65. Exactly. I'm old enough to remember what it took to pass seatbelt laws.

There are many fewer traffic fatalities now.

[treestar]

79. Exactly. Who gives disease

A second. Amendment right to exist with no attempt at a cure ? Who thinks nothing can
Prevent traffic accidents or make them less damaging ?

[grumpyduck]

57. Sorry, Neil,

that's total bullshit. Apples and oranges. Mass shootings are premeditated criminal or terrorist acts.

Yes they're played up (so to speak) by the MSM because that's what they do, but you don't diminish them because the numbers are lower.

[SlogginThroughIt]

58. Wow what a completely terrible take.

[yardwork]

62. Jeez. Logic fail, there.

Just because bad things happen doesn't mean we shouldn't try to prevent them.

[pwb]

64. Accidents and Murder are two different things Neil.

.

[Kid Berwyn]

67. Fuck you, Neil deGrasse Tyson!

Fuck you!

[rockfordfile]

108. If I lost my kid or loved one to these right-wing terrorist, then I would be pissed by his remark.

[Kid Berwyn]

109. Each life is infinitely precious.

All are irreplaceable.

How he could compare those lost to accident — or disease or malpractice — with those taken by mass murder is beyond my understanding.

He is an intelligent man. I hope he realizes he made a mistake. There is no rationalizing violence.

[Initech]

70. I have to say that I'm on team Smash Mouth here:

Link to tweet

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

71. He's right, of course.

But mass shootings are news the way a major airplane crash is news even though, as he posted, 200 people a day die from car accidents. People freak out about a plane crash (and the last one in this country with fatalities was in February, 2009) and pay no attention to the many who die in cars every day.

I don't want to minimize the horror of these mass murders, but statistically speaking, hardly anyone is likely to die this way. Far, far more likely to die from any of the other ways he listed.

That said, I'm in favor of outright gun confiscation.

[Kurt V.]

73. he is not right, of course. all things are connected and he more than most should know this.

[rockfordfile]

117. None of those are the same. The serious threat is from right-wing terrorist like the mass shooter

"I don't want to minimize the horror of these mass murders" But you did. None of those things you said have nothing to do with the mass shooting. By posting airplane crashes and other tragedies has no connection whatsoever.

It's a right-wing attempt to minimize. The terrorist right-winger is just like all the other un-American right-wingers.

[Joe941]

72. We need to work on all those things on his list.

[Crunchy Frog]

74. 911 was fairly minor too, in the grand scheme of things.

I guess that was blown all out of proportion too.

How do the latest mass shooting fatalities stack up against the number of measles fatalities in this country over the past 6 months? Does he think we're making too much of a fuss about unvaccinated kids too?

[jberryhill]

151. Well, screw all the other first responders injured in the line of duty

I still don’t understand why only 9/11 first responders get federal assistance, and the vast majority of first responders injured in the line of duty on any other day of the year in any other place can just drop dead as far as we’re concerned.

[treestar]

75. The rest are what we expect

As part of life. The mass shootings don’t seem that way.

[VOX]

76. I expect better from NdeGT. His tweet is devoid of empathy.

And it does not factor in the negative impact on each victim’s circle of family, friends, fellow students, work colleagues, and close acquaintances. Each death affects dozens, possibly even hundreds of other people.

As it’s worded, his tweet is ready-rolled cut-and-paste content for RWers.

[Takket]

78. here is exactly what i thought of it........... my reply......... i then unfollowed him.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Heartstrings]

80. Just lost a lot of respect for the "star man"....

Thoughts and prayers for your sexual assault victims!

[raccoon]

142. You and me both! nt

[Alpeduez21]

81. Were the last 24 hours'

Medical error fatalities due to the inflammation of racism by the president?

Were the cases of flu due to the negligence of repuke politicians to line their coffers with NRA/Russia money?

Were the 250 suicides caused by the lies that Sandy Hook was a hoax?

Did 200 car accidents happen b/c the second amendment guarantees hot headed white males get to use cars?

40 to handguns? kind of proves the point of the emotional response doesn't it?

Often our snarkiness responds more to deluded smugness than to purposeful murder.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

82. Data shows that

when some get accused of sexual harassment tend to take a right wing turn. Like Louis CK...

[skypilot]

94. IKR.

If he's douchey enough to post something like this (and this soon after the event) maybe I should take a closer look at this guy.

I used to love Louis CK too but now not so much.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

83. WTF NdGT? nt

[BootinUp]

84. Neil can be a little disconnected at times. Nt

[DFW]

85. With all due respect

Hospital errors, the flu, and car accidents are not intentional, suicides are intentional, but not directed at random victims, and nor are most hand gun killings.

Just about all deaths and injuries in these mass shootings are people whose lives are suddenly destroyed at random at the whim and mercy of a nut case they had never met, with whom they had no quarrel.

If THAT doesn’t set these victims apart, well who am I to argue with statistics?

[femmedem]

86. 4,084 African-Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950 in the South

Last edited Mon Aug 5, 2019, 07:28 AM - Edit history (1)

according to the Equal Justice Initiative. Should we not get emotional about that? Even though far more people died of the flu during those same years? Or because more people are dying per year now in mass shootings?

The difference between these white supremacist shootings and flu, suicide, and even homicides is that they are terrorism, designed to instill fear and terror extending far beyond the direct victims. Surely Neil deGrasse Tyson understands that the growing threat of lethal white supremacist hatred is more horrifying than mistakes, accidents or the flu?

[ElementaryPenguin]

88. So Neil, feel free to if jump off a building and throw your life away...

It will only be 1 lost person.

[melman]

89. This is a really bad take

[Talitha]

90. Neil, the victims were intentionally murdered.

Pull your head out of your ass and grow a heart, ffs!

[Cosmocat]

93. We actually try to address those other problems

Our cars are safety featured like crazy.
We give flu shots.
We have a LOT of suicide prevention programs.

[skypilot]

96. What do I think?

I think that this kind of fixation on trying to have impeccable logic, math, and statistics is turning people into cold, heartless assholes.

[rockfordfile]

103. Anybody agrees with him is a republican. That has been their attempt right after the mass shooting

The Nazi-Republicans are trying to okay the deaths of these people. I encountered the Sandy hook deniers at the same time. These people are a pos.

[MarcA]

105. False Equivalencies.

How many people have the flu each day compared to how many die.
How may auto accidents result in injury and death compared to the number of such accidents?
How many die due to medical accidents compared to the number of such accidents?
How many suicidal people attempt suicide each day compared to the number successful?
Then how many are murdered and injured by How Many assault weapon attacks?

[Goodheart]

106. WHAT THE FUCK is this SPURIOUS BULLSHIT?

[customerserviceguy]

110. His point is well taken

We lose a lot of people to all kinds of things, but because they happen one at a time, we lower the emphasis we put on them. We did that with the deaths on 9/11, also.

However, others make good points about what we are trying to prevent, versus what we do not try to prevent. Of course, that assumes that new laws will be effective in preventing what we attempt to prevent.

Removing some guns from our society (you cannot possibly get rid of them all) simply makes the remaining guns more expensive, and thus, more valuable.

[58Sunliner]

111. Apples and oranges. The trauma surrounding a mass shooting and murder differ IMO.

The rest are sad facts of life that while possibly traumatic, are known risks of living. I have PTSD from a car wreck, but I've also coped with PTSD from a violent, life threatening assault and it was 20 times worse and it was not easy to climb out of that black hole. The wreckage took years to recover from. I saw a segment of 60 minutes and the two parents who lost a daughter to the guy who shot up the movie theater talked about the trajectory of their experience. Their surviving son still gets threats. Just look at the Sandy Hook parents and what they have been through. Sorry Neal-way off base.

[JackInGreen]

112. Scientist states compelling indication

The peerblindness of spectacle we have.


Is roasted for his trouble

[rockfordfile]

119. He's trying to minimize the right-wing terrorism in our country.

None of those things he said has anything to do with what happen.

[JackInGreen]

135. But they do about how we perceive tragedy

And hes obviously correct. Thank you for being a prime example.

[dlk]

115. Another Example that Book Smart Doesn't Always Translate into Life Smart

[Recursion]

116. I mean, it's why you shouldn't be paralyzed in fear about being shot at a mall

You're in greater danger objectively of being crushed by a vending machine. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix the problem.

Personally I find it really strange that every category of crime is at historic lows except shooting a shitload of strangers in a public space.

[True Dough]

118. Good points! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

121. Any time a distinguished person of color makes a statement regarding a national situation, you know

by now, if you have been watching a long time, some one is going to gallop out from under his rock to try to drag that statement to a forum to try to use to attrack other racists to attack the distinguished (uppity, in some eyes, apparently) person.

It ALWAYS happens, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has been attacked relentlessly by people posing as Democrats over the years. There are always fellow "great minds" desperate to launch, in their finest imitations of thoughtful commentary, their reasons that some man/woman of color is not nearly as "smart" as he/she thinks, and how much he or she sucks.

This tactic doesn't fool anyone, everyone sees it for what it is.

Nel deGrasse has every right in the world to make statements to whomever is interviewing him, or reading his comments. He continues to be incredibly intelligent, awakened, well-intentioned, and amazingly socially aware. I appreciate his comment "Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data," and I have no doubt at all he does NOT support every vicious clown in the country having his/her own armory at home.

Think twice, post once.

[True Dough]

133. As the OP who shared NDT's tweet with this forum

I'm going to make it crystal clear, after reading your post, that I most certainly am not "galloping out from under my rock" or attempting to "attract other racists" (I'm not a racist myself).

Just in case the insinuation in your post is directed at me, you'll notice that I pass no judgement in this thread. I simply asked other DUers to chime in with their thoughts on NDT's tweet. The reason I did that is because I have long admired Neil's intellect. However, when I read his tweet, it created some cognitive dissonance for me. Here's this individual whom I respect stating something that comes across as flawed and rather callous.

I would have shared the tweet on this forum if it came from Jon Stewart or Elizabeth Warren, prominent WHITE people whom I also admire.

It seems to me that your closing advice, "Think twice, post once," is something NDT should have followed before sharing this particular tweet with the public.

[madville]

122. There were 978 shootings in Chicago from Jan 1st to June 30th 2019

Mostly affecting people of color. Barely gets a mention in the national media. Just about every weekend in Chicago is at the mass shooting numbers level and yet most don't talk about it.

[sir pball]

138. Majority with handguns, also.

While mass shooters with black rifles get by far the most attention, the daily handgun carnage on our city streets is the true problem we should be addressing first.

[misanthrope]

123. Here's what he means

All of Sunday night, CNN has preempted its scheduled programming and run all-capital "headlines" of "BREAKING NEWS" across its screen for a pair of stories that are 24 hours old.

[Rainbow Droid]

124. Don't throw him under the bus for being right.

And don't twist his words and infer something that isn't there. Not a good look.

[YOHABLO]

129. You could also say that statistically those who died in 9/11 was rather 'irrelevant'.

It's the evil nature of the act that is so disturbing. It's the terror that's involved. Statistically mass shootings are rare, but their impact is way larger.

[YOHABLO]

127. Well then I guess it's okay to get a AR and mow down a shopping mall full of children.

[Recursion]

128. If I could snap my fingers and get rid of either assault weapons or handguns, I'd pick handguns

Also I think a lot of people live in fear of being mowed down in the mall or a movie theater when it's much more dangerous to drive to them. If we're living in fear then terrorism is working.

[logosoco]

130. For everything on that list...

we are doing or have done many things to prevent them. We can't do it 100% but we can work on it with reason, logic, information and research.

Medical errors occur because, well, people are people. But look how far we have come from the days when surgeons did not even know to wash their hands.

The flu used to kill many more people and vaccines are developed for many strains of flu.

Suicide is probably the hardest to prevent, but there are medications that can help some people and there are many groups out there opening up to say "we are here" for those who find themselves at a low point.

The cars we have today seem majorly better as far as surviving accidents and we have mandated seat belt use and have engineered amazing child restraint seats.

The last one...well, our society has far to go in this area. I would like to see a time when we have evolved past killer instincts and "desires". Most of us seem to be there, but many don't seem to go along.

I think the issue of regulating guns seems to fit well with this list. We can see where changes have happened with each of these examples. With gun use, we have almost done nothing since the days when the 2nd amendment was written.

[Bengus81]

131. 200 car accidents--how many did that used to be in 48 hrs Neil???

Look at what has been made LAW for cars over the decades,look at how cars are now able to crumple in a wreck instead of being built like a tank which didn't work.

Now just WHAT has Gov done to prevent these WHITE GUY mass MURDERS?? NOTHING................

[Ilsa]

132. And in the grand scheme of things, rounding up a few dozen Jews

for extermination was no big deal either?

Context matters.

[Kilgore]

134. Thank You Neil

For stating what should be obvious to most people.....

"Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data"

But usually is not.

[BlueStater]

136. "Car accidents" is a bullshit right-wing argument.

Cars are machines created with the purpose of making it easier for people to get from one place to another. They were not created with the point of killing things. On the other hand, that's the only purpose as to the existence of guns.

[sir pball]

137. Tasteless and tone-deaf but that last stat is very telling.

Every month or so, more people are murdered with handguns than are shot with rifles over the course of a full year.

AWBs are emotionally appealing, but the cold numbers say we should be focusing 100% on handguns first.

[Generic Other]

139. There's a big difference between intentional and unintentional deaths

Tyson needs to stick to what he knows.

[elocs]

141. He is right, it was insensitive to post that so soon after the shootings.

He destroyed the message he was trying to make.

[milestogo]

144. Maybe he's so smart and successful that he's not black anymore.

[True Dough]

146. NDT has apologized for his tweet on mass shootings

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212352339

[DeminPennswoods]

148. Facts are facts, but

why point it out? I suppose it's like citing statistics on how safe airline travel is right after a crash with few or no survivors.

[aidbo]

149. Why did Neil use 48 hours as the time frame to talk about, though?

The shootings were less than 13 hours apart.

He’s talking about averages of course
So using his numbers in 13 hours you get:
135 deaths due to medical errors.
81 to the flu.
68 to suicide.
54 to car accidents.
11 to homicide via handgun.

And 34 in these two terroristic mass shootings. To me they don’t seem so insignificant now.

[aidbo]

150. Also some of his numbers seem suspect.

The medical error deaths number seems really high. I found this article about them.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-medical-errors-really-the-third-most-common-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s-2019-edition/

...specifically a rather poor study out of The Johns Hopkins that estimated that 250,000 to 400,000 deaths per year are due to medical errors, I pointed out how these figures are vastly inflated and don’t even make any sense on the surface. For one thing, there are only 2.7 million total deaths per year in the US, which would mean that these estimates, if accurate, would translate into 9% to 15% of all deaths being due to medical errors. Those numbers just don’t make sense. It’s even worse than that, though. This particular study looked at hospital-based deaths, of which there are around 715,000 per year, which would imply that these estimates, if accurate, would mean that medical errors cause between 35% and 56% of all in-hospital deaths, numbers that are highly implausible...

So let’s say that this study’s estimates of how many people die from AEMTs and, in particular, from medical misadventure, are better estimates than the “third leading cause of death” studies. (I happen to think that it is, even if it might have somewhat underestimated AEMTs.) Does that mean there’s no problem? Of course not, one death from medical error is too many. Roughly 5,200 deaths a year from AEMT and 108,000 deaths in which an AEMT was contributory are too many.

And as for flu deaths, according to this article, (https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/) 80000 people died from the flu in 2017, but:

“That’s huge,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert. The tally was nearly twice as much as what health officials previously considered a bad year, he said.
In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to — in the worst year — 56,000, according to the CDC.

(56000 deaths annually would be about 300 in 48 hours)