Mass Shooting
Two weeks after the Islamist Terror shootings in Paris a madman struck at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. He killed three people. President Obama took the opportunity to proclaim mass shootings just don’t happen in other countries:
With respect to Planned Parenthood, obviously, my heart goes out to the families of those impacted. … I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn’t happen in other countries.
The Washington Post Fact Checker gave him two Pinocchios for that one.
Here’s a list showing mass shooting fatalities per 100,000 worldwide. The U.S. is high but not alone.
It would be disingenuous to use those statistics of Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass as a premise for gun control. Many attacks throughout the world are with bombs of various types. So when discussing what to do about “mass” attacks in the USA, the statistics for guns AND bombs should be combined for all countries. And, of course, the character and mentality of the attackers needs to be investigated for sympathy to verses like al-Fath (Victory) 29, (Koran 48:29).
From Skeptics Annotated Quran, 48:29 begins: “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.”
Compare that to a possible alternative: Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are NOT hard against the disbelievers but merciful to disbelievers AND among themselves.
However, I think more improvements could be made. For example, a useful, antiimperialist version could be developed in the spirit of making Muslims experience their own values the “hard” way. So, we could have…
Muhammad is the messenger of an ilah named Muhammad. And those against him are hard against his believers and and their [disbelieving] apologists but merciful among themselves.