OT: Highland Park 4th of July Parade Mass Shooting

[moorhosj]

We don't really have serial killers anymore. I guess in the day of Tik-toc, Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram...killing people one by one in secret won't make you infamous. Gotta due it all at once.

Sure we do. Maybe the media gets better ratings on the mass shooting stuff so they ignore the serial killer stories we got in the 80s/90s? There weren’t as many mass shootings to cover back then, either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

[Almost Retired]

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/good-guy-gun-stops-mass-shooting-indiana-mall

[ATRAIN53]

anyone visit the memorial yet?

Took a ride over there the other day with my kid. It's pretty surreal to think 2 weeks ago I was at the Taste of HP and there was a good 1000+ people outside enjoying some music. Walked over to the DQ and got some ice cream - and a week later 7 people got slaughtered in the same spot.

There was a fundraiser last Thursday in NBK for HP at a local day camp. Went over there and hung for a bit, but I felt uneasy in that crowd. Like not sure I was expecting some nutbag to go off and shoot 20 more people. But the thought did cross my mind and I really hate living like that now.....

[panthermark]

We don't really have serial killers anymore. I guess in the day of Tik-toc, Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram...killing people one by one in secret won't make you infamous. Gotta due it all at once.

Sure we do. Maybe the media gets better ratings on the mass shooting stuff so they ignore the serial killer stories we got in the 80s/90s? There weren’t as many mass shootings to cover back then, either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

[dougthonus]

We don't really have serial killers anymore. I guess in the day of Tik-toc, Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram...killing people one by one in secret won't make you infamous. Gotta due it all at once.

Sure we do. Maybe the media gets better ratings on the mass shooting stuff so they ignore the serial killer stories we got in the 80s/90s? There weren’t as many mass shootings to cover back then, either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Without thinking about it too deeply, I suspect it's much harder for a serial killer to get away with it in this day and age. Your best bet would be to be unidentified, because once someone starts looking, modern forensics and modern technology probably make it extremely difficult to go too long without being caught.

Looking at the wiki link, you're right that in the last 10 years, numbers are way down, also worth noting in the last 10 years there aren't a lot of people with high body counts either compared to previously. That said, it may also be the case that it takes a long time to find people like this, so the 2010-2020 numbers may climb considerably in 10 years after cases close.

[Jvaughn]

We don't really have serial killers anymore. I guess in the day of Tik-toc, Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram...killing people one by one in secret won't make you infamous. Gotta due it all at once.

Sure we do. Maybe the media gets better ratings on the mass shooting stuff so they ignore the serial killer stories we got in the 80s/90s? There weren’t as many mass shootings to cover back then, either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Just last year FBI stated that they thought there were multiple serial killers active in Illinois. Chicago Strangler is thought to still be active. They're still around, but they're more sophisticated, and don't get caught as easily.

[moorhosj]

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Things that taper off still exist. The fact is that there are still serial killers out there, as many as 100 according to the FBI.

As you mention, they start to taper off at the beginning of the 21st century, right around the time mass shootings became more common. Also happening around this time? The assault weapons ban ended.

Perhaps serial killers simply switched over to the easier method of inflicting mass casualties?

[panthermark]

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Things that taper off still exist. The fact is that there are still serial killers out there, as many as 100 according to the FBI.

As you mention, they start to taper off at the beginning of the 21st century, right around the time mass shootings became more common. Also happening around this time? The assault weapons ban ended.

Perhaps serial killers simply switched over to the easier method of inflicting mass casualties?

I agree, but that is basically what I had said.
I guess in the day of Tik-toc, Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram...killing people one by one in secret won't make you infamous. Gotta due it all at once.

I just don't know what is wrong with people these days. Or maybe it really isn't "these days". I guess we've always had broken people, we just hear about this stuff more often these with instant access to the 24 hour new cycle and live steaming of everything.

[TheStig]

Sure we do. Maybe the media gets better ratings on the mass shooting stuff so they ignore the serial killer stories we got in the 80s/90s? There weren’t as many mass shootings to cover back then, either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Just last year FBI stated that they thought there were multiple serial killers active in Illinois. Chicago Strangler is thought to still be active. They're still around, but they're more sophisticated, and don't get caught as easily.

How do they get away with that with all the cameras everywhere?

[TheStig]

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/good-guy-gun-stops-mass-shooting-indiana-mall

Funny, in this great state, he'd be charged with murder.

[Jvaughn]

Not really.
If you go through the dates by decade in the link you provided, you will see that they really start to taper off when you hit the 2000's. Plenty in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but by the time you hit 2010, they are quite rare.

There are really only a handful in the 2010-2019 time frame. A bit more in the 2000-2009 time frame.

Just last year FBI stated that they thought there were multiple serial killers active in Illinois. Chicago Strangler is thought to still be active. They're still around, but they're more sophisticated, and don't get caught as easily.

How do they get away with that with all the cameras everywhere?

Sadly enough, serial killers take advantage of a lot of homeless people, and runaways. There was a string of missing women in 2020 and 2021 that went under the radar, but a lot of them weren't reported as missing, because no one was looking for them.

[Stratmaster]

Violent crime in the US is down from a peak of around 750 per 100,000 in 1991 to around 400 per 100,000 in 2020. Statistics per the FBI: https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend

But those are facts. And we Americans don't believe facts. We believe what makes us feel we are right in our choice of political persuasions.

[jnrjr79]

Violent crime in the US is down from a peak of around 750 per 100,000 in 1991 to around 400 per 100,000 in 2020. Statistics per the FBI: https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend

But those are facts. And we Americans don't believe facts. We believe what makes us feel we are right in our choice of political persuasions.

Ehh, I mean, yes, violent crime and murder specifically are down markedly from their 1990s peaks. They are also up significantly from a few years ago. Murder was up 30% in 2020 compared to 2019 and appears to have risen further in 2021:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/upshot/murder-rise-2020.html

The United States in 2020 experienced the biggest rise in murder since the start of national record-keeping in 1960, according to data gathered by the F.B.I. for its annual report on crime.

The Uniform Crime Report will stand as the official word on an unusually grim year, detailing a rise in murder of around 29 percent. The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968. The national rate — murders per 100,000 — still remains about one-third below the rate in the early 1990s.

As someone who has lived in the City of Chicago for more than 20 years, I think it would be pretty crazy to think things in the past couple years aren't more chaotic than at other times. And I think people are naturally going to be more focused on recent trends than long-term historical ones.