Even before a 64-year-old real estate investor shot and killed 58 people in Las Vegas on Sunday, resulting in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, researchers had been slow to acknowledge a disturbing pattern among a once-taboo demographic: middle-aged Whites.
The latest CDC statistics show Whites 35 and older—America’s wealthiest and most politically powerful demographic—make up 37 percent of the population but 47 percent of the nation’s gun deaths and 55 percent of deaths from illicit drugs. White men 35 and older, just 18 percent of Americans, now account for 40 percent of all gun fatalities, and 31 percent of illicit-drug deaths.
These numbers are worsening by the year. Yet, this is a population more likely to have resources, is hardly targeted by police, and has access to higher levels of legal, medical, and psychological care compared to that of younger and non-White Americans.
[For more on this story by Mike Males, go to http://www.yesmagazine.org/pea...his-country-20171005]
Photo: Las Vegas police are seen near the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and E. Reno Ave. on Tuesday October 03, 2017. The Washington Post/Contributor/Getty Images.
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