How Many Mass Shootings (So Far) in 2023?
A popular January 2023 post to Reddit’s r/dankmemes purportedly placed the number of mass shootings in the US to date as 39.
gun memes
‘Japanese Police Shoot Paintballs at Fleeing Vehicles’ Meme
A popular meme claimed that police in Japan shoot paintballs at fleeing vehicles, an apparently simple solution to avoiding high-speed chases.
Did the FBI Say Knives are Used in Five Times More Murders than Rifles?
A number of posts led readers to believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime statistics implicated knives as far deadlier than rifles, but there are a few issues with that assessment.
Causes of Death Per Day and Rifles Meme
A social media meme purportedly lists causes of death per day in the United States, with rifles coming in lower than nearly any other manner of death.
Dear ‘Ban Gun’ Teenagers, 11 Teens Die a Day from Texting and Driving
A bad faith argument about texting and driving deaths aimed at “‘ban gun’ teenagers” has been shared more than a million times on social media.
‘There are 30,000 Gun Related Deaths Per Year by Firearms’
An authoritatively worded social media post about guns is a long-circulating mixture of decontextualized statistics and opinion.
Did Dick’s Sporting Goods Lose $150 Million After Reducing Gun Sales?
A text meme about the company’s purported revenue loss is a paraphrase of a paraphrase.
‘Last Year Guns Killed’ Protest Sign
A protest sign from 2018 claims that “last year,” guns killed more than 10,000 Americans and compared that statistic to gun deaths in other countries.
Have More Americans Died in Gun-Related Incidents Than Wars Since the Founding of the United States?
On December 7 2018, the Facebook page Change The Ref shared this meme (text below): FACT: MORE AMERICANS HAVE DIED OF GUN-RELATED INCIDENTS IN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS THAN HAVE DIED IN WAR SINCE THE COUNTRY’S FOUNDING. A caption with the image read: #FckThat Fact of the Day: Did you know that more Americans have died …
