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False claims about trans people circulated online after Tumbler Ridge shooting · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: James Densley is the deputy director at the Violence Prevention
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Project and a criminology professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota. James,
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  Speaker 1: very glad to have you on the program.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, good morning, thanks for having me.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Let's be blind. There are assertions, particularly online, that some
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  Speaker 1: transgender people are more likely to be involved in mass
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  Speaker 1: shootings you track this, Is there any truth to that?
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  Speaker 2: No, is the short answer. Even when you get a
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  Speaker 2: couple of cases, particularly in a short time span, it
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  Speaker 2: can create a perception of a pattern when there actually
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  Speaker 2: isn't one. Statistically, we call this a base rate problem.
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  Speaker 2: But if you look at the data, we have a
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  Speaker 2: database of mass shooters in the United States. There are
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  Speaker 2: two hundred and one individuals in that database. One hundred
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  Speaker 2: and ninety six of them are male, four our female,
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  Speaker 2: and one person is transgender. So that you that if
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  Speaker 2: you think about one percent of the population identifying as
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  Speaker 2: being transgender, that they're actually underrepresented in database, not overrepresented.
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  Speaker 2: So the fact just don't bear out.
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  Speaker 1: But let's talk about this because if you and I
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  Speaker 1: were to go online right now, there are claims coming
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  Speaker 1: largely from the United States, but also from some politicians
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  Speaker 1: in Canada that the identity of this purported shooter was
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  Speaker 1: part of the calculus here? What do you think the
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  Speaker 1: motivation is of those people who are posting that?
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  Speaker 2: In some ways, it seems politically convenient because it's a
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  Speaker 2: way of demonizing a certain group of people so that
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  Speaker 2: we don't have to have the bigger conversations about firearms
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  Speaker 2: or about public policy that may have also been part
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  Speaker 2: of this picture. So what you often find is we
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  Speaker 2: focus on the remarkable aspects of a crime simply because
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  Speaker 2: they are remarkable. But when a man perpetrates a mass shooting,
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  Speaker 2: we don't talk about gender then because it's just normal.
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  Speaker 2: So it's a way of diverting the conversation away from
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  Speaker 2: some of the other underlying factors here. And there's been
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  Speaker 2: an attack on transgender people, particularly from the right here
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  Speaker 2: where I live in the United States. You know about
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  Speaker 2: their access to bathrooms and to sports and to other
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  Speaker 2: things as well, And so I think this fits within
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  Speaker 2: this broader narrative of focusing on that group of individuals
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  Speaker 2: as deviant and as somehow outside of mainstream society.
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  Speaker 1: Who is when you look at the data, and I
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  Speaker 1: know you look specifically at mass shootings where more than
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  Speaker 1: four or more people are killed in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Who is responsible for most of those mass shootings.
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  Speaker 2: Well, as I mentioned, if you're talking about gender, it
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  Speaker 2: is men. It's ninety seven point five percent male. And
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  Speaker 2: then there are also some other risk factors there though,
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  Speaker 2: which are really important, which is to say that mass
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  Speaker 2: shooters tend to have a grievance and they tend to
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  Speaker 2: be in an existential crisis. The people who perpetrate mass
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  Speaker 2: shootings are not necessarily mentally ill, but they're certainly not
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  Speaker 2: mentally well, and they are often suicidal and looking to
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  Speaker 2: sort of air aggrievance with the world, which is why
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  Speaker 2: they perpetrate a crime like this, And so thinking about
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  Speaker 2: giving people a purpose and a reason to live is
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  Speaker 2: a really important step in thinking about prevention and getting
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  Speaker 2: upstream of these crimes. But again, when it comes to gender,
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  Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of men James.
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  Speaker 1: This doesn't happen on the regular in Canada, and so
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  Speaker 1: there are reverberations across this country. People are trying to
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  Speaker 1: understand it, trying to explain what's happened, trying to make
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  Speaker 1: their anger and sorrow make some kind of sense. You've
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  Speaker 1: looked at this from an academic perspective, what are the
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  Speaker 1: things we need to be mindful of right now?
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  Speaker 2: We often see a common pathway for individuals that perpetrate
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  Speaker 2: this type of crime. And one of the things that
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  Speaker 2: I'm very curious about is whether or not this particular
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  Speaker 2: shooter was at all radicalized online or at least was
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  Speaker 2: part of what is known as the true crime community,
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  Speaker 2: which is a place where previous mass shooters have been
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  Speaker 2: hero wised and celebrated and worshiped. And there's this sort
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  Speaker 2: of copycat phenomena with this crime that I think we
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  Speaker 2: do need to be mindful of and thinking about how
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  Speaker 2: do we protect our young people on the internet from
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  Speaker 2: those exposures that could be potentially harmful. So that's one
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  Speaker 2: area that I would be very interested looking at. And then,
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  Speaker 2: of course, there is the question around access to firearms.
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  Speaker 2: How did this person get access to firearms, particularly if
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  Speaker 2: they had a history of mental health challenges where there
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  Speaker 2: had been police involvement previously. So those are some of
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  Speaker 2: the areas I think over the next few days, as
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  Speaker 2: we learn more about this case, that I feel like
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  Speaker 2: could be important for prevention upstream.
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  Speaker 1: And James, I'll be clear, the investigation by the RCMP
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  Speaker 1: ongoing that we do not yet have any idea what
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  Speaker 1: motivated this, Whether there is a radicalization as you've described,
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  Speaker 1: certainly that I would think that would be something investigators
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  Speaker 1: would be looking at if there is any evidence of that,
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  Speaker 1: which we don't know at this point.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, James Densley, thanks very much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: James and I were speaking a lot about the misinformation
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  Speaker 1: spreading about transgender people in the wake of this shooting.
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  Speaker 1: We have an article about it on the CBC News website,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people reading it right now, and also
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  Speaker 1: check it out on the CBC News app.