June 12, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - America’s horrendous gun violence can be attributed to many factors, but there is one factor that is hardly talked about or explored in public discourse – the apparent link between mass shootings and the rampant culture of US militarism.

Mass shootings in the US – involving four or more persons – occur on an almost daily basis. The most recent major atrocity was in Virginia Beach last month in which 12 people were killed. The shooter was reportedly a military veteran.

Turns out that US military veterans are disproportionately responsible for violent gun deaths among American civilians. Investigative journalist David Swanson has recently found that some 35 per cent of mass shootings in the US have involved an ex-serviceman. Swanson studied a database sample of 97 recent deadly incidents, and found that, from publicly available information, more than a third of the perpetrators were listed at some time in the past as having served in the military. The journalist cautions that the actual proportion could be much higher due to lack of publicly available information on the other shooters.

Swanson emphasizes an obvious point that the vast majority of US military veterans are not mass shooters. Nevertheless, the factor of having served in the armed forces and the frequency of mass shootings does appear to be a highly significant correlation. What’s more, he says that it is strangely conspicuous how US corporate news media have not delved into what seems to be an urgent issue concerning gun violence in American society.