How many people does the average American know? A couple of studies I found in my deep, comprehensive research on which I spent 30 seconds says somewhere around 600. Sounds high to me, but I guess it depends on what the definition of “know” is. Sometimes, I wonder if I know my own family.
But let’s take that 600 number as reasonable. If it is, then according to University of Colorado researchers, you probably know somewhere around 40 people who have witnessed a mass shooting.
That seems high. I don’t know one. Nobody I know knows one. David Hogg has made a career out of being at the site of one, although whether he “witnessed” it depends on your definition since he only heard but didn’t see the shooting.
Four seconds of critical thinking and math tell me it is not at all possible that 17.3 million adults in the U.S. have witnessed a mass shooting.
