According to Attorney General Eric Holder, intervention on the part of the FBI prevented nearly 150 shootings over the past year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI says it has helped to disrupt or prevent nearly 150 shootings and violent attacks this year, in part by steering potential gunmen toward mental health professionals. It’s an achievement that stands out during a year when President Barack Obama made curbing gun violence a priority, yet has had little success in getting new restrictions enacted. [...]
The “prevented” shootings and violent attacks from January through November of this year represent 148 cases that a division of that unit, the Behavioral Threat Assessment Center, has conferred on during 2013.
I suppose it’s comforting to know that things actually could be worse than they are, not that 150 necessarily makes a dent in the estimated 32,000 gun deaths in 2013.
Bloomberg projects that guns will kill more people than traffic accidents by 2015.