While the mainstream media obsesses over the possibility of gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, a new study puts such incidents, and the idea of anti-Second Amendment legislation, into stark context

Research stemming from FBI data, reveals that over a five year period ranging from 2006 to 2010, mass killings accounted for only a tiny fraction of homicides, less than 1% to be precise. The research found that during that time, there were 156 incidents in which four or more people were killed – the classification of a mass killing. The study notes that guns were not even involved in a third of those incidents. The data also reveals that where guns were involved in mass killings, handguns were the far more likely weapon of choice. Means of death in many of the incidents ranged from fire, to knives or blunt objects. In total, the attacks killed 774 people, including at least 161 young children. These numbers are still tragic, and while any deaths, particularly homicides, and particularly mass homicides, are abhorrent – the figures clearly do not represent an epidemic of violent killing using firearms. To put the figures into context, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records show that more people died from migraines, falling out of chairs and sunstroke than were murdered by mass killers during this time. Grant Duwe, director of research at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and an expert in mass murders, said that such incidents have also become less common since the mid-1990s.