6,820 results in .16 seconds.

[MichaelHarris]

Wanted to see the number of shooting stories during the holiday season, this was the Google News search result. I don't know if the link will work but for those interested in gun crime during the holidays I suggest trying it. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=shootings&oq=shootings&aq=f&aqi=d1g2g-m4d-o1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=6665099l6667451l0l6667745l9l9l0l4l4l0l400l1400l0.1.2.1.1l5l0

Just go to Google News and type shooting as the search criteria. You may be surprised. Realize that the majority of the reported stories took place during a very short time span.

[Simo 1939_1940]

1. And your point is? NT

[MichaelHarris]

2. actually

just to see how much gun violence there was this holiday season and how fast someone in this forum "attacked" the post or poster. You were almost as fast as Google.

[Simo 1939_1940]

3. Your dishonesty in characterizing my question as an "attack" is

precisely why your side is losing this battle.

[MichaelHarris]

4. really?

it's a battle now? When did it stop being a discussion?

[Simo 1939_1940]

11. Ummm.........

............I thought it was quite obvious that I was referring to the gun restriction debate as a whole rather than this discussion.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. tubes have been cleared and are in good working order. news from round the world in a nanosecond.

derp.

[X_Digger]

6. And when did google become an authoritative source for crime trends?

If you go by google, the top crime story of 2011 was Casey Anthony.

http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en/top-lists/global/fastest-rising

[MichaelHarris]

7. well

is Google News not a source for news stories around America? Since your loosing this part of the discussion I'll make it easier. Change the Google News criteria to search stories in the last 48 hours. Look, I know you hate the results, they are real. You guys can't change that. This is what happened in just a few days. Attack the post, attack the poster, attack the method. Truth is these are real stories, you can't spin or change that. I know it bothers you but it is what it is.

[X_Digger]

8. *whizz* That was the point, flying right over your head..

The frequency of something coming up in google news has fuck-all to do with the actual frequency of an event.

Case in point: Casey Anthony

If you were in a statistics class, your professor would fall off his chair laughing.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. A search engine...

...focused on news will return hits on word usage in stories containing those words. In essence, you get one hit per story not one hit per incident. Anything big enough to make national news will most likely get hits from at least a few of the news sources in each MSA news source. Most areas have a TV station or two and a newspaper. With over 300 areas nationwide, one shooting could return dozens to hundreds of hits.

Are you new at this?

[rl6214]

10. Criminals doing criminal things

Does this surprise you? Dosen't surprise me, that's why I carry a gun everywhere I go.

[aikoaiko]

13. This "search" doesn't show what you say it shows.

Try again, but try harder.

[Union Scribe]

15. Can you tell us the number of incidents?

I assume that shootings often get reported in multiple papers/sites, and that many shootings wind up spawning multiple articles even in one source as the case progresses.

[SteveW]

16. Well, you're just "surprising" us a lot, Michael....

Statistics by the bucketful.

[S_B_Jackson]

17. Of that 6,820 results, how many were duplicates

Seriously. If 1000 media outlets all report on the same shooting incident, your search parameter would count all of those reports individually instead of counting just 1.

If you did have a legitimate point, Michael, it's lost in the fog of obfuscation.