Americans - What is your degree of separation from a shooting?

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Not the lightest of topics, but after seeing Joey's posts about the Michigan shooting, and Danoff's proximity to the Aurora shooting (I think it was Aurora...)...I am curious to know how many of our members have had some proximity to a shooting in their lifetime.

I am a 1A as I had a family member at school the day this happened. It was also in the classroom of a teacher I had.

 

[Blitz24]

Can you define vicinity? I was approximately 2 miles away from a shooting at a Kosher supermarket in 2019.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Can you define vicinity? I was approximately 2 miles away from a shooting at a Kosher supermarket in 2019.

Pretty subjective, but I would say if you thought at some point "whoa that was close" then it probably qualifies.

 

[Downhill Dino]

My neighborhood wasn't the best growing up, and even had a few shootings right before covid, the closest was a neighbor being shot and killed roughly 15 feet next to my house. I'm going with 0A, I was watching TV in a room on that side of the house.

 

[Joey D]

I have friends who live in Oxford and have kids who attend Oxford High School. Thankfully, all of their kids were safe during the 2021 shooting, but it hit pretty close to home. I grew up in Lake Orion, a village just south of Oxford. I knew several kids who went there, and they were one of the biggest rivals in sports. Plenty of people who I graduated with who stayed in the area moved to Oxford since it's cheaper and 10 years ago had places where you could actually buy a house with a little bit of property.

I was living in Utah when the shooting happened, but it still messed with me quite a bit. Up until then school shootings were just something that happened, but like any tragedy, when it affects a community you are apart of it suddenly becomes very real.

 

[Liquid]

Very interesting thread. As a non-American amazed by the US's violence problem and cult of gun ownership, I am intrigued by what people's experiences are.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I made this thread 50 minutes ago.

Since then, a friend of mine from high school who is now a high school math teacher herself told me that she found a bullet in her classroom today.

 

[Blitz24]

I probably would either be 0A (if being a few miles away from a shooting where if I was there I would be targeted) or a 4.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Not American so I've not voted, but I'd be a 1. A friend who now lives in Oklahoma was shot in the back in St. Louis when somebody opened fire in a bar. I'd also be a 1A since when another friend was in OKC visiting the aforementioned friend, on their way to a steakhouse the road was cordoned off by Police and shots were fired.

 

[Meythia]

Also not American and not America related, but gun violence also happens in other places:
There is a property about 120 meters distance of where I live where there were lethal shootings of immigrant workers in 2021 and 2023.
If it would happen in broad daylight it could have been covered by the regular hunting of rabbits that happens in the vincinity, I dont think I would have suspected a crime just because of gunfire.
The stranger thing to notice is the cars in front of the property are either almost broken and barely road legal, or expensive to such a degree you would instantly suspect gang-boss.

I didnt recognize it happening; I am a 4 by that, didnt vote, as not on topic.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

@MatskiMonk @Meythia

Added an option for non-Americans that doesn't clutter up the poll too much but also should offer some kind of comparison to Americans.

 

[Danoff]

Does someone accidentally shooting themselves count? I have an extended family member that died that way.

 

[cjsrt4]

I'm a 4. There was a murder in the apartment building on the other side of the road from my house a few years back that involved a shooting, but until I read about it, I never knew it happened.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Does someone accidentally shooting themselves count? I have an extended family member that died that way.

If thought about in the context of America having more gun related deaths per capita than almost any other large country on earth, and the fact that I think most Americans are just a few degrees separated from a gun related death, then yes I think that is a valid data point.

 

[Northstar]

Currently a 4, closest I've been is a fatal stabbing (domestic) that happened in the same apartment complex as my friend when I was sleeping over.

 

[MatskiMonk]

and the fact that I think most Americans are just a few degrees separated from a gun related death

I'm no statistician, but of 330,000,000 Americans, 50,000 are dying gun deaths each year, that's about 1 per 6,500 people. 2 degrees of separation at about 80 acquaintances per degree would cover it I'd imagine.

 

[Populuxe]

0A. About 15 years ago I was renting a small house in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in south Seattle. There was a gang-related shooting just a block away. Three of the four people shot died. The shooter ran through my yard to get away before the police arrived.

 

[Imari]

I'm no statistician, but of 330,000,000 Americans, 50,000 are dying gun deaths each year, that's about 1 per 6,500 people. 2 degrees of separation at about 80 acquaintances per degree would cover it I'd imagine.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was pretty highly correlated with class and wealth though.

 

[05XR8]

0A- unfortunately I’ve got plenty of stories.

Closest was directly across the street. In 2004 Me, my ex-wife and her family were watching tv. Could hear two men and a woman chatting in front of the building across the street. One of the men were showing his video camera. Some kid walked up, flashed a knife and told the man to give it to him. The man laughed told the kid to step.
The street is quiet. Nothing going on outside because it’s late. Yep, that next minute cliche. First shot, we all got down on the floor. After the seventh shot, me and my ex-brother-in-law go to the window. We see someone walking away and one of the male friends says, “Why did you do that?!” The other male has a bloody shirt and is slumped against the building and on the ground.
The kid didn’t even take the camera.

The victim was 27 leaving behind one child. Me and my ex moved out of the neighborhood the next week.

Edit: One of another sad and craziest memory was the Amado Diallo murder. I was working overtime 7am to 7pm with my telephone crew repairing a cut underground cable. Go home and wake up to a call from my brother who worked at the 43 precinct and then HWY 1, saying there are going to be people in trouble. Amadou Diallo was killed the next block over from where we were repairing the cable. My coworkers couldn’t believe what they heard through the night. Devastating.

 

[Keef]

I'm not close friends with anybody involved though I have met several people involved, and I frequent the spot where a mass shooting took place back in 2019 here in Dayton.

 

[Pupik]

I'm one of the lucky ones. Or unlucky, depending on your point of view. I put Level 0, but probably really in "0AA".

In 2011, I had a stray, one-off bullet pass about 10-12 feet above my head and strike the window and wall above my head in Daytona Beach. So it probably passed closest to me, give or take an individual or two nearby me at the time. I don't think nor feel it was directed at me, and it could have hit any one of about ten co-workers and about twenty employees at a car dealership. It was a single round, and although we heard what sounded like a gunshot, it wasn't until someone pointed out the hole in the window that wasn't there before. That's when it got weird; it's just our first day onsite for installation and setups, but we still figured they're playing a joke on us. The police literally showed up and performed some ballistics tests. The next day, I was told to go work at their shop annex a few blocks away and was very happy do to so. But I figured that's just my brush with live ammo and fortune smiled on me, I'm clear for the rest of my life.

In January 2017, the airport terminal Fort Lauderdale that I'd literally traveled through over 150 times had a mass shooting in the Terminal 2 baggage claim area. I really started to change my mind about guns at that point; if the so-called adults in charge couldn't muster up anything to take it away from someone who was admittedly not right in the head, I started to lose a bit of hope that anyone cared anymore. Yeah, that very well could have been me waiting for my bag on the carousel, a I'm a frequent flier with Delta and that's their terminal.

My high school had a mass shooting in 2018; tragic as it was, I had graduated over 25 years earlier. But it's still eerie; and people don't think of the environmentalist for whom the school was named for but the social schizophreniform and conversational breakdown which ensues when Marjory Stoneman Douglas is brought up. Change is hard, but sometimes we must take to it as one seeks a pond when their head is on fire. But because we have no way to cohesively direct anger towards a common goal, we worry about what we may lose in the process while others grieve with genuine catastrophic loss.

In both cases, I no longer live that area anymore; I live 800 miles away. I wasn't close to any of the victims, but there's friends and acquaintances of mine that sent their kids there whom I grew up with. But I'm down there at least once a year to visit family and friends, and in the area on business at maybe once or twice a year. And dang it, FLL is usually more convenient than both PBI and MIA.

I honestly just wonder in my darker moments if my number is just going to come up and just live it up as much as I can handle in my advancing age, in whatever small way.

 

[MIE1992]

Thankfully, I don't know anyone who's been affected, but I do live only a few hours from Sandy Hook.