Report: Pentagon Audit Says the Navy Gave Contractors Too Much Access to Its Facilities & A Guide to Mass Shootings in America 17&16SEP13

THE mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard in D.C. is a horrible tragedy. I can not imagine the terror the people at the Navy Yard must have experienced. I can not imagine the anguish and grief the families of those killed and the anguish, grief and shame of the family of the shooter. All deserve to be remembered in our prayers and thoughts. I can not begin to comprehend the state of mind someone has to be in to do something like this, though it is being reported the shooter was being treated for mental problems. And I do not understand how a national government is unable to pass and enforce sane, reasonable gun control laws that can help prevent tragedies like this. To everyone who supports the current extremist policies of the nra, and who votes for radical politicians who commit to defeating any form of gun control on the local, state and federal level I say 'Go wash your hands, you have blood on them, again'. 
Here is an article exposing how the Pentagon decided to save money by cutting back on base security (the report was completed before the mass shooting at the D.C. Navy Yard). Those who made these decisions should be forced to face every family member of those killed to explain why their loved ones are dead, and they should all be courts martialed for dereliction of duty. Following this article is a report on American Mass Shootings. Both from Mother Jones....

Jun Zhang/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com

The Department of Defense's inspector general released a new report on Tuesday afternoon showing that, in an effort to cut costs, the Navy bungled its efforts to control how government contractors gained access to naval facilities. The report lands a day after 34-year-old Aaron Alexis killed 12 people at a Navy Yard facility in southeast Washington, DC. It was the fifth mass shooting of 2013. Alexis worked as part of a government subcontract under Hewlett-Packard, and he entered the Navy Yard with a valid badge.

The report found that 52 convicted felons had received "routine, unauthorized installation access, placing military personnel, civilians, and installations at an increased security risk." The reason, the inspector general found, was because the Navy "attempted to reduce access control costs." You can read the full report below:

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• Navy Yard Gunman's Employer: Our Background Check Only Found a "Minor Traffic Violation"

• What Does the Navy Yard Tragedy Have To Do With Race?

  Nothing. And here's the data to prove it.

• What We Do and Don't Know About the Washington Navy Yard Mass Shooting

  Monday's attack left at least 13 people dead, the largest mass-casualty event in DC since a plane crash in 1982.

• This Year Is on Track to Set Another Grim Record in Mass Shootings

  Washington Navy Yard marked the fifth such tragedy since Newtown. Yet gun-rights advocates remain in denial.

• A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

  At least 13 people died in an attack at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday—the fifth mass shooting in the US 
  http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/navy-report-contractor-access-aaron-alexis-shooting?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Motherjones%2Fmojoblog+%28MotherJones.com+%7C+MoJoBlog%29

  A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

  There have been at least 67 in the last three decades—and most of the killers got their guns legally.

  —By Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan

  | Updated: Wed Feb. 27, 2013 7:45 AM PSTUpdate (9/16/13): At least 13 people were killed in a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, according to the Washington Post, including alleged gunman Aaron Alexis. The incident is the fifth mass shooting in the United States this year. Details of the additional cases from 2013 are included on the map below and in our our full data set; we will update with further details from the incident in Washington, DC, as they emerge. The below analysis covers mass shootings from 1982 to 2012.

  It is perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado last July, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August,another at a manufacturer in Minneapolis in September—and then the unthinkable nightmare at a Connecticut elementary school in December—are the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings* across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Twenty-five of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006, and seven of them took place in 2012. We've gathered detailed data on the cases and mapped them below, including information on the shooters' identities, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed.

  

  Tragedy in Newtown

  • The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys
  • More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence?
  • 151 Victims of Mass Shootings in 2012: Here Are Their Stories
  • Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No.
  • "A Killing Machine": Half of All Mass Shooters Used High-Capacity Magazines
  • Mass Shootings: Maybe We Need a Better Mental-Health Policy
  • Why Mass Shootings Deserve Deeper Investigation
  • DATA: Explore our mass shootings research

  See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

  Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza wielded a.223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.

  The killers: More than half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (12 and 20, respectively); the other 30 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, and religious and government buildings. Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill. Explore the map for further details—we do not consider it to be all-inclusive, but based on the criteria we used we believe that we've produced the most comprehensive rundown available on this particular type of violence. (Mass shootings represent only a sliver of America's overall gun violence.) For a timeline listing all the cases on the map, including photos of the killers,jump to page 2. For the stories of the 151 shooting rampage victims of 2012, click here, and for all of MoJo's year-long investigation into gun laws and mass shootings, click here.

  Hover over the dots or use the search tool in the top-left corner of the map to go to a specific location. (Zoom in to see the Aurora shooting, located close to other massacres in Colorado, and to see other proximate shootings in Milwaukee, Seattle, and elsewhere.)

  Sources: Research by Mother Jones. (With thanks to the Associated Press,  Canada.com, and Citizens Crime Commission of NYC.)

  We used the following criteria to identify mass shootings:

  • The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification reportidentifies an individual as a mass murderer—versus a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), typically in a single location.
  • The killings were carried out by a lone shooter. (Except in the case of the Columbine massacre and the Westside Middle School killings, both of which involved two shooters.)
  • The shootings occured in a public place. (Except in the case of a party in Crandon, Wisconsin, and another in Seattle.) Crimes primarily related to gang activity or armed robbery are not included.
  • If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded many cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the above FBI criterion.)
  • We included a handful of so-called "spree killings"—high-profile cases that fit closely with our above criteria for mass murder, but in which the killings occurred in more than one location over a short period of time.

  For more on how we determined the criteria, see our mass shootings explainer. Plus: more onthe crucial mental illness factor, and on the recent barrage of state laws rolling back gun restrictions across the US. And: Explore the full data set behind our investigation.

  Here are two charts detailing the killers' weapons:

  

  

  We've updated and expanded this story with additional research multiple times since initial publication on July 20, 2012, thanks in part to some valuable feedback from MoJo readers. (Thanks also to Professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.) Details about our updated analysis and data on the shooters' weapons are in this story. For more about the mass shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., click here, and for the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, click here. And for additional reporting and analysis from our in-depth investigation, read this companion story. (Return to intro.)

  Here is a timeline of 62 mass shootings in the United States, from 1982 through 2012. For further details and our interactive map locating all of these cases, click here.

  For further details and our interactive map locating all of these cases, click here.

  

  Senior Editor

  Mark Follman is a senior editor at Mother Jones. Read more of his stories, follow him on Twitter, or contact him with tips or feedback at mfollman (at) motherjones (dot) com. RSS | TWITTER

  

  Reporter

  Gavin Aronsen is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him onTwitter or send an email to garonsen [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | TWITTER

  • More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence?

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  • The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys

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  • 151 Victims of Mass Shootings in 2012: Here Are Their Stories

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    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=1