For anyone into rock, Ozzy Osbourne is one of those names you just know. From his role as frontman of Black Sabbath to his solo career, he’s made his mark on the music industry.
The British-born rocker has lived in the US for quite a while, like many in various forms of entertainment. The US is kind of the epicenter for music and movies anyway, so it makes sense.
However, Osbourne says he’s going back to merry old England. Why? Gun violence, he says. (Language warning)
In the past few years, many have expressed the desire to leave the United States over political turmoil, but how many actually have the means to do so? Ozzy Osbourne, a native Brit who is also rich, certainly does, and he’s lodging his complaints with his soon-to-be-former adopted country on the way out.
“Everything’s fucking ridiculous there. I’m fed up with people getting killed every day. God knows how many people have been shot in school shootings. And there was that mass shooting in Vegas at that concert… It’s fucking crazy,” he tells The Observer. “And I don’t want to die in America. I don’t want to be buried in fucking Forest Lawn,” a set of SoCal cemeteries. “I’m English. I want to be back. But saying that, if my wife said we’ve got to go and live in Timbuktu, I’ll go. … But, no, it’s just time for me to come home.”
Now, my personal reaction to Osbourne moving away is to say, “Well…bye.”
Seriously, while I’ve enjoyed his music over the years, if he wants to leave the US because we won’t give up our right to keep and bear arms, let him. I’m not obligated to give a damn one way or the other, much like I’m not obligated to give him a dime more of my money if I don’t want to.
However, Ozzy really needs to get his facts straight.
First, let’s look at this idea that kids are getting killed in school shootings every day.
Now, I’m going to assume he’s talking about mass shootings like Uvalde, since that’s generally what people to day mean when they talk about “school shootings.” So are they happening every day? Hardly, even by the Gun Violence Archive’s definition.
In fact, if you look at the averages, it still doesn’t work out this way.
Since 1982, the threshold of people killed in all mass shootings has never been higher than 117. That was in 2017 and is skewed higher than the rest because of Las Vegas.
Yet if that’s the highest total of people killed in all mass shootings, then you can’t reach an average of even one person per day killed in a mass shooting, much less kids being killed in school shootings.
But maybe Osbourne didn’t mean it that way. That is, after all, my interpretation of what he meant. Maybe he meant any school shootings at all.
Well, even then, he’s wrong.
In 2022, there have been 102 incidents of gunfire on school grounds. Today, August 30, 2022, is the 242 day of the year. Now, I’m not the best at math, but that doesn’t look like a school shooting per day to me. Not even if you dismiss weekends.
Oh, and that number? That’s from Everytown, which counts any kind of gunfire on school grounds, even if class isn’t in session and counts even those where no one is injured. At least one of these incidents was the result of a stray bullet that just happened to hit the building. They have no incentive to downplay the incidents in any way, shape, or form.
Quite the opposite, really.
So, as you can see, Osbourne doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so I have no problem seeing him leave. After all, he has the means to do so.
He doesn’t have the means to change reality, though. The reality is that he’s complaining about gun violence here, while the home secretary of the nation he’s going back to was just talking about gun violence being a major concern there.
Like they say, “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”
