The Gun Facts Project
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A tidy review of my new book from @Reason.
Many thanks to @jacobsullum for giving the book a gander and summarizing it so well.
reason.com/2020/10/16/guns-a…
A chart that landed in our laps led us to look at gang homicides and clearance rates in Los Angeles County.
Interestingly the amount of economic damage done by gang violence in LA is much larger than the police budget there.
gunfacts.info/blog/la-exampl…
"That order created "a bizarre constitutional catch-22 where Jews can carry firearms inside the synagogue, but they cannot cross the street to bring them there."
reason.com/2026/11/12/a-mary…
Mass public shooting ... Poland.
The perp aimed at random people as he drove by the city’s Main Square. So it's both a mass public shooting and a drive-by.
Details are still sketchy this early on but some law enforcement have mentioned that the primary firearm was both a "military-style long gun" and also fully automatic. Some reports claim it was an AR platform but that's not enough detail to know for certain.
The suspect was reportedly dressed in military-style clothing and numerous other firearms and ammunition from the vehicle. One report also indicates that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.o…
Updates 24 hours later indicate that the perp was not and never had been a member of the Polish military.
The perp's father, mother, and sister were found dead at their residence, and all in their beds. It appears he may have murdered them while they were sleeping. This should quickly defuse any politically motivated claims others may make and lean more towards a mental health underpinning.
Police are investigating the mental health issue but meanwhile a former classmate of the perpetrator noted that:
* He drew pictures depicting school attacks, including himself as the gunman.
* He reportedly told classmates he wanted to become a terrorist or attacker.
* He was socially withdrawn and rarely spoke with classmates.
* During one online class, he appeared wearing an old military gas mask.
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An interesting new twist on this case.
Polish domestic security investigators found the letters “GGER” on perpetrator's workplace locker. They interpret this as a possible reference to “Good Game Elliot Rodger.”
Elliot Rodger was the 2014 Isla Vista spree killer. Roger started by killing roommates and then went on a shooting spree through the town.
Investigators see potentially relevant similarities between the two attacks, including an initial set of killings at a residence followed by a vehicle-based public attack.
Here's an interesting episode because the suspect had already been arrested and was pending trial in two different counties and the charges in both counties involved firearms.
"... involving a concealed weapon and marijuana possession charges from an arrest in March ... indicted in October on charges of felony conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery with a dangerous weapon."
Foremost it appears that we have a bad actor that the authorities in two different jurisdictions considered unthreatening enough to let roam in the wild. That is partly because North Carolina code says that for defendants not charged with a qualifying violent offense, the law generally directs judicial officials to __use an unsecured appearance bond or supervised custodial release__, unless they determine that such release would be inadequate because of flight risk, danger to others, or interference with the proceedings.
But then comes the following paragraph, which has the sing-along part that everyone should already be familiar with:
"The shooting stemmed from an altercation between two groups ..."
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sho…
The phrase "going postal" arose in the 1980s when there was a spate of U.S. postal employees who shot up their workplaces.
Here's an instance from this week of that happening again.
A caustic friend of the Gun Facts project likes to say that this is reason enough to eliminate the federal prohibition of concealed carry at post offices because citizens might have to protect themselves from postal workers.
kcrg.com/2026/11/06/des-moin…
Elections have consequences. One possible consequence of this week's election is that discussions concerning guns and violence will become ideologically polluted at an increasing rate.
If you have not already, donate to the Gun Facts project. We may be the last bastion of non-ideological and non-aligned research when it comes to gun violence.
We encourage you also to join the sustaining donor program and make a tiny monthly contribution (we have one donor who dutifully sends us $1 every month). The sustaining donor program is the most helpful to us as it makes our budgeting very predictable.
gunfacts.info/donate/
Another instance where fast response is key to preventing carnage.
"The suspect exits the vehicle with a rifle, approaches the female, and she is shot ... security guard engaged the suspect in the building's cafeteria, where the two exchanged gunfire. The suspect was shot by the security guard."
abcnews.com/US/citibank-flor…
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Investigators say the suspect entered the store, spotted a customer believed to be his intended target, drew a firearm, and fired multiple rounds.
This is becoming very common among people who have adopted street gang culture. Innocent bystanders are irrelevant to them even if they are targeting just one person. They are immune to the suffering of everyone else, which in this case includes at least six people who caught bullets and one who remains in critical condition.
And this is nothing new.
In the early part of the century, we noted in one year in Oakland, California, that two different 8-year-old boys died in separate drive-by shootings that were targeting established gang members who were standing near the children.
This indifference to bystanders is, in many people's opinion, worse than the intentional slaughter by mass public shooters, though we declined to take a position on that. But with mass public shooters and so many of them having either severe mental health issues or very specific grievances, the carnage is at least explainable. With indifference to innocent bystanders, it is not.
"The teen had previously been arrested in connection with a 2025 shooting in the parking lot of a local high school. He was charged in that case and spent several months in juvenile hall before his release."
ktvu.com/news/fairfield-hall…
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Meanwhile in Alabama, a dispute between "two parties", though we cannot yet determine whether it was individuals or groups, led to what on the surface looks like an exchange of gunfire, including an echo event.
Additional gunfire erupted while emergency personnel were treating victims. Birmingham Fire and Rescue crews reportedly had to take shelter. This suggests at least two episodes of gunfire.
This may or may not be related to the initial event.
Multiple firearms recovered at the scene, but police have not established publicly how many were fired. No details on how they were recovered but if they were left at the scene, that's a common MO of people who have attempted or succeeded in murder and don't want the weapon used to be found on them later.
abcnews.com/US/1-dead-8-inju…
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"It’s believed there was a fight in the crowd immediately before the shooting ... Cops also found shell casings of various calibers on the sidewalk near the scene — suggesting multiple guns were fired."
What is unclear is if this was:
1. A dispute between two individuals.
2. A dispute between two groups of people.
3. A dispute between individuals that escalated into a dispute between groups.
BTW, this is the third reported shooting on Kirkwood Avenue in 2026 the other two being ...
April 26: Five people were injured by bullets or fragments, with four others injured fleeing the scene. Police believed two people fired guns.
September 6: A 19-year-old man was shot in the neck during what investigators described as a drug-related dispute.
nypost.com/2026/11/01/us-new…
If we can ever find reliable data, we may do a study someday about home invasions and robberies, with a particular view towards the international perspective. But at this point we seriously doubt that there would be enough quality data to do a good review.
But at least this news story allows us to pick on canadian criminals.
The comical aspect of this is that, despite conducting a home invasion with a firearm, it appears that one of the other perpetrator accidentally shot his partner.
That aside, the perps did shoot residents of the household.
What makes this sadly comical is a passage in this report that reads "Canada's criminal code gives people the right to protect their home in a dangerous situation, but that police do not recommend using force yourself if possible."
Four people in the house got attacked with a hammer. Three got shot but the police recommend not using force to defend yourself.
This might explain why Toronto police report 119 home invasions so far in 2026, approximately 32% more than during the corresponding period last year.
cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/b…
Violent crime in America is falling quite steeply since the pandemic.
The question is why?
We did some digging and some compensating for the messy FBI data, Birian. After pouring through about 13 different confounding variables, most of the decline is because large cities with significant budgets started reinvesting in street violence prevention, which is largely street gang crime prevention.
Surprise [sarcasm].
gunfacts.info/blog/divining-…
We held off commenting on this story yesterday because the details were too thin but today some details are emerging, which are, interestingly, depressing.
A 15-tear-old is facing 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a delinquent.
That alone is a bit to unravel. A 15-year-old with a delinquent history is pretty bad. A 15-year-old delinquent with a gun is really bad. A 15-year-old delinquent opening indiscriminate fire in a crowded area is more than troubling. Yet all of this dovetails too neatly into the common street gang open-field violence scenario.
It should be noted that the investigation is still ongoing and others will likely be arrested.
The preliminary investigation indicates that a fight broke out before the shooting. This is a recurring theme in spontaneous multi-party public shootings.
Police believe the participants knew each other. However, they have not publicly identified the people involved, their relationship, or what the dispute concerned.
That said, it appears that everyone who caught a bullet was not a targeted person. There's a chance here that we may have 100% innocent bystander victimization.
cbsnews.com/news/tallahassee…
Public shooting ... France.
Interestingly it was a drive-by shooting.
Police claim that the perpetrators "fired in bursts". It's unclear what that means but it might indicate fully automatic because, sadly, a 12-year-old girl was shot eight times.
The investigation is just beginning but this hasn't stopped local politicians from claiming many different things, which may or may not be close to the truth. With such vents it's never smart to get ahead of the facts.
cbsnews.com/news/gunman-terr…
The alleged perpetrator fired a STEN WW2 type submachine gun.
That's a wrinkle that's going to haunt a lot of people.
He also supposedly got out of his car and fired at two men cleaning a school before continuing his drive-by attacks.
Early police statements indicate that the perpetrator is a native-born Frenchman who was previously known to police for theft, drug-related offenses, and driving under the influence.
rtl.fr/actu/justice-faits-di…
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Updated reporting discusses evidence of a psychiatric disorder in the suspect, compounded by confirmed drug exposure.
He reportedly told investigators that he has schizophrenia and receives treatment. Investigative sources separately confirmed the diagnosis.
Rewind to the moments after the event, when local politicians were stating with false assurance that the shooting was done for purely racist motives. This exposes two truths: the first being that you should never guess as to the circumstances of a mass shooting, and second, that politicians are fools.
To make his mental condition a little bit more exasperating, an initial toxicology report indicates that he had recently consumed both cocaine and marijuana.
He has since been sent to a psychiatric institution for 48 hours of observation.
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An observation from Bend, Oregon:
An armed civilian saw the perpetrator entering the school with a shotgun, followed him in, and neutralized him. Sadly the perpetrator killed four people before he was taken out.
Contrast this with Parkland High School and Uvalde Elementary, where police officers hesitated and even declined to enter the schools despite knowing a shooting event was occurring.
In those two events, 17 and 21 people were killed.
Mass public shootings are a little like cancer: quick intervention is your best hope.
This report confirms that the perpetrator went immediately to the special needs classroom.
Keep in mind that he had been a special needs student at that elementary school earlier in his life.
Unconfirmed is the motive. In many, perhaps most, school shootings, grievances are the primary motivator and for school shootings it often involves bullying. We suspect that this will be core to the perps' motivation matrix.
katu.com/news/nation-world/1…
Scraping together updates from various news sources:
* Perp was a socially alienated teen heavily involved in online activity.
** He may have been involved in a decentralized network associated with glorification of violence, coercion, self-harm and mass killers.
Social isolation is pretty common with school shooters and even other spree killers. The textbook case is the Elavista spree shooter, who, through an ever-deepening addiction to video games, became withdrawn and socially isolated. This process of self-induced social isolation then neuters the person's ability to cope with common vicissitudes of life, which causes them to withdraw even more.
* Both parents had histories of violence, including the mother, who bought the shotgun as a gift for the perpetrator.
** The mother was accused in two separate assault incidents during 2023.
** The father has a felony conviction for assaulting a police officer, additional criminal charges, and a reported history of addiction and mental-health difficulties.
** Court records document domestic violence involving the shooter's mother and a former partner who helped care for her children.
Let's do a little addition: We know that he was a special needs student. We know that he came from a dysfunctional household. Other reports indicate that the father was also homeless and living in, of all places, Estoria, Oregon. Combine this with his social isolation and you have a thick gumbo of potential violent outburst behavior underpinnings.
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